An anthem, for Thanksgiving (update)

In my last essay, I wrote about William Billings’s An Anthem for Thanksgiving.

But I made a serious oversight, which was pointed out to me by both Max Bradicich and Hugh Thomas. I claimed that Billings likely used the King James Version of Psalm 148 for the basis of the text of his anthem.

But it’s almost certainly the case that he used the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer’s psalter version instead. Here is the 1669 version of Psalm 148 in Coverdale’s translation, with words highlighted that appear in Billings’s anthem.

O PRAISE the Lord of heaven : praise him in the height. 2. Praise him, all ye angels of his : praise him, all his host. 3. Praise him, sun and moon : praise him, all ye stars and light. 4. Praise him, all ye heavens : and ye waters that are above the heavens. 5. Let them praise the Name of the Lord : for he spake the word, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created. 6. He hath made them fast for ever and ever : he hath given them a law which shall not be broken. 7. Praise the Lord upon earth : ye dragons, and all deeps; 8. Fire and hail, snow and vapours : wind and storm, fulfilling his word; 9. Mountains and all hills : fruitful trees and all cedars; 10. Beasts and all cattle : worms and feathered fowls; 11. Kings of the earth and all people : princes and all judges of the world; 12. Young men and maidens, old men and children, praise the Name of the Lord : for his Name only is excellent, and his praise above heaven and earth. 13. He shall exalt the horn of his people; all his saints shall praise him : even the children of Israel, even the people that serveth him.

The three sets of major changes that Billings makes in the text remain the same: an expansion of the section on dragons, the contrastive doublets (with additional doublets drawn from Galatians), and and an additional final section not in the original text (“Join creation, preservation, etc.”).

Second, Thanks to Barry Johnson, we have a version of Billings’s An Anthem for Thanksgiving set in four shapes. His reduction can be found at CDPL’s Choral Wiki, “O praise the Lord of heaven”. Thank you, Barry!

Max, Hugh, Barry: Thank you again.