Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0017773, Sat, 28 Feb 2009 21:54:52 +0000

Subject
Re: new in Zembla (correction)]
Date
Body
Jerry: mea culpa! Here¹s how I became confused. The album notes for the CD
Hymns of the Forefathers II (ABC 476 1610-0) listed track 10 as

O God, Our Help in Ages Past 5¹ 34 [mins:seconds ‹ skb]

Walter Greatorex 1877-1949
Melody: Woodlands
Text: Timothy Dudley-Smith b.1926

Now Greatorex was known to me as the composer of Abide With Me, which is
probably the best known hymn to all Brit Soccer fans (sung in honour of
George V at FA Cup Finals); so without pausing to ponder, I copy/pasted what
I considered Œgospel!¹
Reading your attribution to the Œgreater than Greatorex¹ Isaac Watts, my
first thought was that there must be two settings to Psalm 90 (not unusual
in hymnody where texts and tunes are freely interchanged). But, dashing back
to my source, I see I was fooled by the layout, which annoyingly put
composers ahead of their compositions:

From Carrell & Clayton¹s Virginia Harmony, 1831
Text: John Newton 1725-1807

9 Amazing Grace 5¹22

Attributed to William Croft 1678-1727
Melody: St Anne
Text: Isaac Watts 1674-1748

10 O God, Our Help in Ages Past 5¹34

Walter Greatorex 1877-1949
Melody: Woodlands
Text: Timothy Dudley-Smith b.1926

11 Tell Out, My Soul 4¹27

A very brief footnote: hymns are not a good source for the strict Anglican
Creed. The latter is more optimistic than Psalm 90 (and indeed many parts of
the Hebrew Testament) regarding the afterlife: believers have a guarantee
through Christ¹s redeeming blood, compared with ³Time bearing all its sons
away ... Forgotten as a dream dies at the opening* day.²
(* I misquoted this as Œending¹ in a prev. post)

PS: Carolyn, in Anti-Terra there¹s an Anti-Nabokov chat list that you might
enjoy ;=)

Stan Kelly-Bootle

On 26/02/2009 11:18, "Nabokv-L" <nabokv-l@UTK.EDU> wrote:

>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] new in Zembla (correction)
> Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:41:10 -0800 (PST)
> From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman@yahoo.com>
> <mailto:jerry_friedman@yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: jerry_friedman@yahoo.com
> To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> <mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
>
> If I may go off on a tangent--"O God, Our Help" is by
> Isaac Watts, according to everything I can find, and
> the imagery is from Psalm 90 (89 in the Vulgate). The
> image of time like a river is from verse 5, and I
> imagine Derzhavin got it from the same source. Much
> as I hate to remove Greatorex from this discussion.
>
> Jerry Friedman


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