LUMEN HILARE

This famous hymn tune comes from a serene section of the symphonic tone poem Finlandia, written in 1899 and 1900 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius . It was later re-worked by the composer into a stand-alone piece as a hymn. It has been set as a hymn to various sets of words. This arrangement uses words from two of those settings.

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The first of these, Be Still My Soul, originally written in German (Stille meine Wille, dein Jesus hilft siegen) in 1752 by Katharina Amalia Dorothea von Schlegel (1697–1768) was translated into English in 1855 by Jane Laurie Borthwick (1813–1897).

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The second, We Rest on Thee, written by Edith G. Cherry around 1895, is well known because it was the last hymn sung by five missionaries to Ecuador before their deaths and a line from the hymn's final verse provided the title for the book about that incident, Through Gates of Splendor.

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The arranger merges into this arrangement the hymn Salve, Mater misericordiae, an ancient chant of the Carmelite order, whose text was written in the 11th century. The melody is said variously to be Anonymous from the 13th century or a Solesmes plainsong attributed to Dom Joseph Pothier, OSB (1835-1923) and found in the Cantus marialis,1903.