prayer – Notes from the Chancel

Rene Clausen (b. 1963), the American composer with a French name, burst onto the choral music scene in the 1990s with A New Creation, with perfectly stunning settings of familiar verses including Psalm 150, Luke 2:29-32, Romans 8:26-27, 1 Peter 1:24-25, along with 2 Corinthians 5:17. The a cappella setting of Song of Solomon 8:6-7 (Set Me as a Seal Upon Your Heart) shortly became a part of the popular choral cannon. Claussen has been a prolific composer of choral works as well as instrumental and solo voice compositions. He is an active conductor and clinician.

Claussen’s compositions frequently make use of close dissonant yet agreeable harmonies, as well as moving stepwise parallel intervals, typically upward. Both features are evident in The Lord’s Prayer (1994) [listen], along with a flexible approach to beats per measure. The climactic “forever” employs the same intervals, albeit in a different chord structure, as the well-known Malotte version of the The Lord’s Prayer (1936) heard at countless weddings. A nod to the earlier work?

Like many of Clausen’s other adagios, the music and text together in The Lord’s Prayer evoke a thoughtful tranquility.

Make Me a Channel of Your Peace [listen] was written by Sebastian Temple (1928-1997) in 1967. Temple was born in South Africa, moved to London, then to the United States where he ultimately converted to Catholicism in a Franciscan Order. A man of diverse interests, he dedicated his later years to composing music for worship.

Temple’s Make Me a Channel of Your Peace employs a light melodious folk melody suitable for guitar accompaniment onto which a stylized version of the traditional Peace Prayer is applied (see comparison below). By contrast, another version of the Prayer in the ESUMC library is David Stanley York’s Lord, Make Me an Instrument of Thy Peace, which applies the traditional text rigorously on undoubtedly beautiful but not necessarily melodious music.

Temple:

Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring your love.
Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord,
And where there’s doubt, true faith in you.

Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there’s despair in life, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness, only light,
And where there’s sadness, ever joy.

Oh, Master, grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console.
To be understood as to understand.
To be loved as to love with all my soul.

Make me a channel of your peace.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
in giving of ourselves that we receive,
and in dying that we’re born to eternal life.

Traditional:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Make Me a Channel of Your Peace is reportedly very popular in England, and was selected for use in the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997 as shown on the sheet music. Martin Neary was the Organist and Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey from 1988 to 1998, and arranged a fuller accompaniment and descant for Temple’s work.

Temple died the same year as Princess Diana, but was able to see his work gain world attention.

Musicians, who see themselves as instruments in the first place, are drawn to the idea a contributing to the larger purpose. Consequently there are dozens of “Make Me an Instrument” compositions (Rutter! Clausen!) and even more song/artist combinations (Sinead O’Connor! Olivia Newton John!).

St. Francis (1181? – 1226) was born into wealth and lived lavishly as a young man prior to a number of life changes that led him to religious asceticism. The Peace Prayer is not in fact found among St. Francis’s writings, but came to be associated with him as his likeness appeared on the back of a popular printing. The prayer dates from the 20th century.

Sources:

with Filippa Duke

The Lord’s Prayer – Clausen

Make Me A Channel of Your Peace – Temple/Neary