Talk:Be Thou My Vision

My computer doesn't have speakers, so I can't tell if the "piano version" mp3 has sung text, or just the tune. If just the tune, the link to the mp3 should be at the article on Slane rather than Be Thou My Vision, even if the mp3 title indicates otherwise. IMHO. --Haruo 01:17, 6 June 2007 (MDT)

Good point. It is just the tune. It should be noted, though (and I do still agree with you), that the tune slightly differs with Be Thou My Vision and Take Time to Be Holy (and so does the meter). I generally prefer the tune used with Take Time to Be Holy, but I think the lyrics to Be Thou My Vision are more aesthetically appealing. Are there other hymns that use this tune? Veramet 18:36, 27 July 2007 (MDT)

Leafing through the hymnals that surround me at the moment, I find that

• the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, 1996 uses Slane for a text beginning Lord of All Hopefulness by one J. Struther, which they say is © Oxford University Press and taken from Enlarged Songs of Praise, 1931(?). Lutheran Book of Worship, 1978 has the same hymn and says Struther's first name was Jan. The Episcopal Hymnal 1982 has the same hymn. So has the Christian Reformed Psalter Hymnal, 1987. The Episcopalians also have Be Thou My Vision; both brands of Lutherans, and the CRC, omit it. The Catholic (Benedictine) Collegeville Hymnal, 1990, like Hymnal 1982, has both texts.
• The Catholic (Dominican) Summit Choirbook, 1983, gives Slane as the second tune for a J. M. Neale (alt.) text, for the feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael—no wonder we poor Baptists and Mormons don't know this one! ;-) —beginning Stars of the Morning, So Gloriously Bright; Neale translated the text from a 9th-century original (in Greek?) by St. Joseph the Hymnographer. The text is not under copyright (Neale died comfortably long in the past), though the arrangement of Slane by Martin Shaw (d. 1958) is still protected, probably by Oxford. They do not have "Be Thou My Vision".
• A New Hymnal for Colleges and Schools, 1992, published by the Yale University Press, sets three texts to Slane: "Lord of All Hopefulness", "Be Thou My Vision" and a text beginning Christ Be My Leader by Anglican hymnist (Bishop) Timothy Dudley-Smith, © 1964 by Hope Publishing Company.

--Haruo 19:22, 27 July 2007 (MDT)