"A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing / Ride On, Ride On in Majesty (Agincourt)"

This quirky medieval tune called The Agincourt Song (pronounced with with a soft g) was a fun one to work out on guitar. It also seems to me a better setting for the Palm Sunday text, "Ride On, Ride On in Majesty," than Winchester New (Crasselius), the one I have encountered most often. Agincourt aptly depicts the "lowly majesty" of the Lord riding on a plodding donkey, the rhythm almost tracing the hoofbeats themselves, and in this recording, the organ's attempt to urge the beast forward does not quite succeed, as v. 3 remains a step or two behind the organ.

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What else is different or new here? Two verses: the first one borrowed from Bede's ancient Ascension hymn, which seems to fit Palm Sunday just as well, and the last one which is my own. Bede's verse speaks of Jesus' destination and enthronement on high, but the use of that verse here only reminds us that the way upward leads first to and through the final showdown with the arch-enemy, and downward into suffering, dereliction, death, and burial. 

With so many verses — all verses of "Ride On, Ride On" are present and accounted for and surrounded by two others — some sort of break strain seemed in order, so that too is my own. If the blatting lower brass compounds the clumsy, somewhat comical quality of the tune itself and the awkwardness of the donkey ride, the same instrumentation will return with (I think) greater grace and uplift in Track 11, "From Death to Life" (re: which, see previous post).

Here is an excerpt from the liner notes regarding that final verse:

Thinking then of [Jesus'] mission as the fulfillment of the oldest prophecy in the Bible, that of the showdown between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent (Gen 3:15) and with Johann Georg Hamann’s Biblical Reflections of a Christian in mind, along with Chapter 4 of the Scots Confession, I added this verse:

Now Death’s appointment with death has come.

The Lord of life, with true aplomb,

By mortal heel, immortal trust,

The serpent’s head will turn to dust.