My parents weren’t regular churchgoers when I was growing up. Or rather, I suppose they were regular, in that they went at Christmas, Easter and Harvest Festival, and hardly ever in between. As my Dad said, that’s when they have the best hymns (I don’t know about other C of E congregations, but in our parish church my Dad was unusual in that he belted out the hymns loudly and with great enthusiasm). Going with them at these times of year, obviously I got to learn a very specific selection of hymns. But Songs of Praise was pretty much essential viewing in our house, and we sang hymns in school assembly twice a week, so I got to be familiar with plenty more. While I agree with A.L. Lloyd when he complains about the wealth of vernacular carol and hymn tunes that have been lost through “the tyranny of [Hymns] Ancient & Modern” I have to confess that I have a soft spot for many of the Victorian and Edwardian hymns that supplanted them. Indeed, there are plenty of hymn tunes which are lodged deep in the recesses of my brain – I know the tunes, and have an idea of their harmonic structure, almost without realising it. That was certainly the case with ‘The Day Thou Gavest Lord Is Ended’. I was reminded of it last week when it was sung at the Queen’s funeral service in Westminster Abbey, and a few days later it surfaced in my head once more, and I thought it might go nicely on the Crabb F/C anglo I’d found myself rather unexpectedly buying at the Whitby Folk Festival in August.

The standard hymn book setting has the hymn in A major. I play it in F, mostly because I wanted to try out my new purchase; but F is also a far more accessible key for this hymn for most singers.

Actually the words, by 19th century Church of England clergyman John Ellerton, don’t do much for me. But the tune, ‘St Clement’, is rather lovely. Wikipedia tells us that

The tune is generally credited to the Rev. Clement Cotteril Scholefield (1839–1904). It first appeared in Sir Arthur Sullivan’s Church Hymns with Tunes (1874)

but then goes on to suggest that actually Scholefield’s friend Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame) may well have had a hand in its composition.

Of course we’ve only just come out of the period of official mourning for the late Queen, and in the period between her death and the funeral the media was full of little else. But most people on the folk scene have been grieving rather more, I suspect, for the tragic and completely unexpected death two weeks ago of singer, composer, arranger, fiddle and oboe-player Paul Sartin. Paul emerged on the Oxford folk scene in the 1990s. Having a young family, a 9-5 job, and an aversion to smoky rooms, I never really frequented the session pubs of East Oxford, and consequently didn’t really get to know Paul at that time. I think the first occasion on which I spent any prolonged time in Paul’s company was in 2003, when Magpie Lane were booked to play at the Fylde folk festival. Mat Green managed to get hold of a minibus for the weekend and Paul, who was performing there with Belshazzar’s Feast, hitched a lift. Needless to say, Paul was a thoroughly engaging travel companion, and his ready wit ensured that the long slog up the M6 didn’t seem as tedious as otherwise it might have.

Then in 2011 Paul asked Ian Giles and me to take part – alongside local dance teams, a community choir, and an ensemble including Jackie Oates, Paul Hutchinson, Pete Flood and Sam Sweeney – in a musical performance specially commissioned by Broadstairs Folk Week. Paul didn’t sing or play a note in this production, but it highlighted his skills as choir-leader, musical director, composer and arranger. One of the pieces he gave me to sing was a poem by Siegfried Sassoon which he’d set to an eighteenth century dance tune, slowed down and set to a string quartet-style arrangement; it was an absolute joy to sing. And of course it was, as ever, a pleasure to spend time in his company.

There’s a big Paul-shaped hole in the folk scene, and in many people’s lives, right now. The world is better for his having been in it, and the poorer for his tragically early departure from it.

You’ll find an obituary for Paul, written by Derek Schofield, in today’s Guardian. And he was included in the most recent edition of Last Word on Radio 4.

That programme featured a contribution from Paul’s friend Jon Wilks, who has written a lovely tribute to Paul on the Tradfolk website.

And if you’ve not heard it already, do check out this programme from the Thank Goodness It’s Folk radio show / podcast, presented by Sam Hindley and James Fagan, with guest John Spiers.

 

As a chorister, I’m sure Paul must have sung this hymn countless times. I have absolutely no idea if he loved it, hated it, or was completely indifferent to it. Although I see that Ralph Vaughan Williams, of whom Paul was a massive fan, wasn’t at all keen on it, regarding hymn tunes like these as “sentimental and enervating”. Oh well.

The Day Thou Gavest Lord Is Ended

Played on

Crabb F/C anglo-concertina (solo 1st verse)

C. Jeffries C/G anglo-concertina

Jones Bb/F baritone anglo-concertina (with very clacketty buttons, as you can hear)