The opening hymn at this week’s service of Holy Communion will be Peter Abelard‘s (1079-1142) hymn ‘O what their joy and their glory must be’, translated by John Mason Neale (1818-1866). The Latin text, O quanta qualia sunt illa sabbata was written by Abelard for the hymnal used by the convent of the Paraclete near Paris founded by Heloise, Hymnarus Paraclitensis. See Analecta Hymnica 48: 163. Neale’s translation was made for the Hymnal Noted Part II (1854) and was included, with alterations, in the Appendix (1868) to the first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern published in 1861. The modern tune O QUANTA QUALIA is an adaptation of the original tune.
The Communion hymn is ‘Bread of heaven on thee we feed’. Written by Josiah Conder (1789-1855), it was first published in Conder’s The Star in the East; with Other Poems (1824), entitled ‘For the Eucharist’, with quotations from John 6: 51-4 and John 15:1 (‘I am the true vine…’). It was included in The Congregational Hymn Book (1836), edited by Conder. The original text used the first person (‘Bread of heaven, on thee I feed’) but it was changed to ‘we’ in Josiah Pratt’s Psalms and Hymns (1829), which printed it in three four-line verses rather than two six-line ones. William Cooke and William Denton, in the Church Hymnal(1853), used the two verse form, with further alterations, which were taken over by the first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern. Conder was a prominent non-conformist and abolitionist. In 1839 he became a founding committee member of the British and Foreign Anti-slavery Society for the Abolition of Slavery and the Slave-trade Throughout the World, and he also who took an active part in seeking to repeal the British anti-Jewish laws. The tune BREAD OF HEAVEN was composed by William Dalrymple Maclagan (1826-1910), sometime archbishop of York.

George IV, Attwood had been sent at the prince’s expense to study in Naples, and Vienna, where he become a favoured pupil of Mozart (1756-1791). Upon returning to Britain in 1787, he had been appointed as a chamber musician to the Prince Regent. In 1796 he was chosen as organist at St. Paul’s and appointed composer to His Majesty’s Chapel Royal.
