Musical Notes

Hymn of the Day: ELW #343, "My Song Is Love Unknown"
Tune: LOVE UNKNOWN, John Ireland (1879-1962)
Text: Samuel Crossman (1624-1683)

John Ireland composed LOVE UNKNOWN in 1918 for the text "My song is love unknown"; the tune was first published in The Public School Hymn Book of 1919. A letter in the London Daily Telegraph of April 5, 1950, claims that Ireland wrote LOVE UNKNOWN within fifteen minutes on a scrap of paper upon receiving the request to compose it from Geoffrey Shaw, one of the editors of that 1919 hymnal. LOVE UNKNOWN has since appeared in many hymnals as a setting for a number of different texts.
Trained at the Royal College of Music, Ireland served as organist at St. Luke's, Chelsea (1904-1926), and taught at the Royal College of Music from 1923 to 1939. He became known as one of the best composers and teachers of his era, but his personal life was often troubled. Although his piano works, chamber music, and smaller orchestral works remain popular, Ireland is mainly remembered for his song cycles of poetry by Shakespeare, Blake, Hardy, and other English poets. His songs often have carefully wrought accompaniments–as is certainly the case for LOVE UNKNOWN.

Musical Meditation: Miles Lane. Paul Leddington Wright

Paul Leddington Wright has been conducting orchestras and choirs since he was 15, at which age he held his first position as Organist and Choirmaster of the Maidenhead Methodist Church. His first organ recital tour abroad took place at the age of 17 where he played in New York, Boston, Hartford USA, as well as Montreal, Canada, and Jamaica. He was organ scholar at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge where he studied music with David Willcocks, Peter Hurford and Peter Le Huray. In order to pursue a busy free-lance career, working for the BBC and abroad, since 1995 he has held the part-time position of Associate Director of Music at Coventry Cathedral where he currently is the regular organist. He has been conductor of the cathedral’s choral society, Saint Michael’s Singers, since 1984. He is a busy arranger and composer, and his music is published in the UK and USA. He has received recent commissions for organ and choral music for Oxford University Press.

MILES LANE is one of three tunes that are closely associated with this well-known and beloved text, “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name.” It was published anonymously with the first stanza in the November 1779 issue of the Gospel Magazine. The tune appeared in three parts with the melody in the middle part. Each "Crown him" was meant to be sung by a different part, first by the bass, then by the treble, and finally by the tenor. Thus MILES LANE was a fuguing tune. Stephen Addington identified William Perronet as the composer in his Collection of Psalm Tunes (1780). The tune's title comes from the traditional English corruption of St. Michael's Lane, the London street where the Miles' Lane Meeting House was located.