Crown Him with Many Crowns
For SATB Choir and Organ. A BIG festival anthem, great for Easter, Christ the King Sunday, or anytime the hymn text might be appropriate. This setting is very much in the manner of a British late 19th century coronation anthem (think Parry, Stanford, and Balfour-Gardiner). Quite accessible for a competent choir, tuneful, and fun to sing. It quotes fragments of the hymn tune Diademata here and there but it isn’t based on that tune. Almost 7 minutes in length.
From the composer:
The coronation music of C. H. H. Parry, Charles Villiers Stanford, and their contemporaries is justly famous for its sense of occasion, grandeur, and splendor. In approaching the text Crown Him with Many Crowns, a coronation hymn of sorts, not for an earthly king but for Jesus, the King of kings, the music of those early 20th century composers seemed a promising vehicle. The music of this anthem, therefore, is unapologetically cast very much in that mold, and could be considered a study in that style, with unmistakable echoes of the music of Stanford, Henry Balfour-Gardiner, and George Elvey, whose hymn tune Diademata is the standard setting for these words.
The work is dedicated to the memory of my grandparents, William and Mabel Robinson, who were born in Dalton-in-Furness, England, in 1898 and 1906 respectively, very much during the golden age of Parry and Stanford. William Robinson was not only a gentle and loving grandfather, but also for me the living epitome of the term 'churchman,' and a great part of the reason I pursued a vocation of music in the Anglican communion.
Text by Matthew Bridges (1800-1894) and Godfrey Thring (1823-1903)
Crown Him with many crowns,
The Lamb upon His throne;
Hark! How the heav’nly anthem drowns
All music but its own!
Awake, my soul and sing
Of Him Who died for thee,
And hail Him as thy matchless King
Through all eternity.
Crown Him the Son of God,
before all worlds began,
and ye who tread where he hath trod,
crown him the Son of Man;
who every grief hath known
that wrings the human breast,
and takes and bears it for his own
that all in him may rest.
Crown Him the Lord of love!
Behold His hands and side—
Rich wounds, yet visible above,
In beauty glorified.
No angel in the sky
Can fully bear that sight,
But downward bends his burning eye
At mysteries so bright.
Crown Him the Lord of life!
Who triumphed o’er the grave,
Who rose victorious in the strife
For those He came to save.
All hail, Redeemer, hail,
for thou hast died for me;
thy praise shall never, never fail
through all eternity. Amen.