Once to every man and nation, to the tune Kitnock’s Hill, now published

A few days ago we were contacted by someone interested in whether Peter Tranchell’s setting of the hymn Once to every man and nation, which uses verses from The Present Crisis by James Russell Lowell accommodates Lowell’s original stanza form of five fifteen-syllable lines, rather than the familiar shortened 8.7.8.7.D adaptation. We were able to send him photos of the Tranchell score Cambridge University Library MS.Tranchell.1.99 (a 1987 arrangement for SATB of the original 1963 setting for men’s voices), confirming that it does.

Inspired by this interest, we’ve typeset and published the original and the 1987 arrangement here. 

My personal preference is for the original simpler version, as I think the SATB version would be pretty challenging for the ATB parts at the indicated tempo.