The Story of the Hymns and Tunes, page 49 by Theron Brown
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spargens sonum Per sepulcra regionum, Coget omnes ante thronum!
O the dread, the contrite kneeling When the Lord, in Judgment dealing, Comes each hidden thing revealing!
When the trumpet's awful tone Through the realms sepulchral blown, Summons all before the Throne!
The solemn strength and vibration of these tremendous trilineals suffers no general injury by the variant readings--and there are a good many. As a sample, the first stanza was changed by some canonical redactor to get rid of the heathen word Sybilla, and the second line was made the third:
Dies Irae, dies illa Crucis expandens vexilla, Solvet saeclum in favilla.
Day of wrath! that day foretold, With the cross-flag wide unrolled, Shall the world in fire enfold!
In some readings the original "in favilla" is changed to "cum favilla," "with ashes" instead of "in ashes"; and "Teste Petro" is substituted for "Teste David."
THE TUNE.
The varieties of music set to the "Hymn of Judgment" in the different sections and languages of Christendom during seven hundred years are probably as numerous as the pictures of the Holy Family in Christian art. It is enough to say that one of the best at hand, or, at least, accessible, is the solemn minor melody of Dr. Dykes in William Henry Monk's Hymns Ancient and Modern. It was composed about the middle of the last century. Both the Evangelical and Methodist Hymnals have Dean Stanley's translation of the hymn, the former with thirteen stanzas (six-line) to a D minor of John Stainer, and the latter to a C major of Timothy Matthews. The Plymouth Hymnal has seventeen of the trilineal stanzas, by an unknown translator, to Ferdinand Hiller's tune in F minor, besides one verse to another F minor--hymn and tune both nameless.
All the composers above named are musicians of fame. John Stainer, organist of St. Paul's Cathedral, was a Doctor of Music and Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and celebrated for h