Hark the Glad Sound!

Lyrics

Hark the glad sound! The saviour comes,
the saviour promised long;
let every heart prepare a throne,
and every voice a song.

He comes, the prisoners to release
in Satan's bondage held;
the gates of brass before him burst,
the iron fetters yield.

He comes, the broken heart to bind,
the bleeding soul to cure,
and with the treasures of his grace
to enrich the humble poor.

Our glad hosannas, prince of peace,
thy welcome shall proclaim;
and heaven's eternal arches ring
with thy belovèd name.

History

"Hark the glad sound! The saviour comes" was written by Philip Doddridge (1702-1751), a dissenting (Nonconformist) minister who served as pastor at Northampton from 1729 and ran an academy there training ministers. Born in London, he wrote some 400 hymns, many of them composed to accompany his Sunday sermons. This one carries the heading "Christ's message, from Luke IV.18.19" in the British Library manuscript, and it is a paraphrase of the passage in which Jesus reads from the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 61:1-2) in the synagogue at Nazareth. One source states that Doddridge wrote it for a sermon preached at his Northampton chapel on 28 December 1735 and that it was sung straight after the sermon, as was his custom; another source notes that the only copy bearing that date is a manuscript now lost, so the date of writing is not entirely settled.

The text was first printed in Translations and Paraphrases of Several Passages of Sacred Scripture (Edinburgh, 1745), in seven four-line stanzas. It reached English readers through Job Orton's 1755 edition of Doddridge's hymns, published after the author's death. The form most familiar in Scotland derives from a revised version of 1781; the version sung here has four stanzas. Roundell Palmer praised it as a "sweet, vigorous, and perfect composition", and the hymnologist J. R. Watson has remarked on its skilful use of the common-metre stanza.

The hymn is in Common Metre (8.6.8.6) and has been set to several melodies. BRISTOL, an English melody harmonised by Thomas Ravenscroft in his Whole Booke of Psalmes (1621), was first paired with the hymn in Hymns Ancient & Modern (1861). Other tunes in use include ST SAVIOUR, by Frederick George Baker (1840-1919), RICHMOND (also known as CHESTERFIELD) by Thomas Haweis, and ST MAGNUS. It is associated with Advent in many hymnals, as its subject is the coming of a promised saviour.

Performance

This recording is performed by the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields, runs about 1 minute 47 seconds and sings four verses.

Sources: hymnologyarchive.com · praise.org.uk · hymnary.org · Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields recording and Words book