Manz Harmonizations for Lent & Easter
As I was filing away some of the Lenten and Easter music, I realized Paul Manz’s Varied Hymn Accompaniments for Lent and Easter got a lot of use this year. I particularly appreciate that these collections are accessible for organist and congregation alike. The tunes are clearly brought out with interesting harmonies and rhythms that don’t tonally stray too far from what is expected while still providing the necessary support for congregational singing. One of my favorite harmonizations is Manz’s adaptation of his prelude on Jesus Christ is Risen Today for hymn singing with initial accents on the 2nd and 4th beats.
Morningstar Music is offering these at bargain prices of $8.00 and $7.50 respectively. They are valuable resources that can add some variety to your hymn playing while not provoking your congregation to cast stones at you. Yes, metaphorical stones can be cast if the harmonization ceases to support the singing.
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[...] As I was filing away some of the Lenten and Easter music, I realized Paul Manz’s Varied Hymn Accompaniments for Lent and Easter got a lot of use this year. I particularly appreciate that these collections are accessible for organist and … View full post on lutheran – Google Blog Search [...]
Thanks for posting these. I thought I had everything Manz had published, but apparently not. It’s always good to have more hymn harmonizations, especially if they’re from Paul Manz. So I’m going to order them today. Thanks for that!
I’m sure you’ll enjoy them. Some of the harmonizations I have in my library I’d hesitate to use without a choir since they are a little adventurous. But the Manz variations seem to stand on their own.
I just put mine away as well today. The Easter/Lent collections have been a favorite of mine for at least 10 years now.
They are a bit ‘simplistic’ but sometimes that for the better. My favorite Lent one to use is Gethsemane. Has anyone else used that one in the past?
Also…. There’s another collection from Augsburg as well. I’ve put a Lent/Easter binder together with all of these collections. The other one besides Paul Manz is Edmund Shay. There is a link below. I still prefer the Manz collection, but seeing as both Church seasons – Lent/Easter are so long, some hymns get repeated and it’s nice to have another resource.
http://www.morningstarmusic.com/viewitem.cfm/item_id/10-314
Is there an Advent/Christmas/Epiphany collection from Paul Manz too? I’ve never run into one out there…..
Correction: The Edmund Shay Hymn Harmonizations Set 3 is from Morning Star – Not Augsburg.
Steve — I used Manz’s settings of Gethsemane a number of times this past Lenten season. Unfortunately, I’m not aware of any published Advent/Christmas/Epiphany collection that’s currently in print or was published.
Thanks for the recommendation on Edmund Shay’s collection — I don’t have any of his in the file.
Another collection I use frequently is Augsburg’s Hymn Preludes and Free Accompaniments which I think were published from the late 1970′s to mid 1990′s and are now out of print to the best of my knowledge. Each volume was from a different composer. I was given two 2″ binders full of these settings.
Thanks Chris…..
I have searched and searched for more on the Manz collection. After leaving us with such great Lent/Easter settings, it leaves us wanting more! Perhaps this is job for some of our ‘newer’ talented composer’s?? Anyone out here that can follow the Manz feel on those and adapt that to the Advent/Christmas season???
As for the Augsburg Hymn Preludes/Free Accmp’s….Those are a staple in my collection as well. I have mine divided into 4 binders as I believe there are 20 composers all together. I’ve too have noticed you can’t purchase them any longer. There is rarely a service that goes by that I don’t use at the minimum one of those.
Since we’re going on about hymn harmonizations, I also enjoy using Jeffrey Blersch’s 5 volume set from CPH, the 5 volume Sonus Novus set from CPH, and John Ferguson’s 5 volume set from GIA. Not sure why the number 5 keeps popping up — perhaps it’s a marketing thing for publishers.
I agree that the Manz settings are enticing and leave us wanting more. I’ve often wondered why the Morningstar edition of Manz’s Improvisations for the Easter Season has a subtitle of “Set 1″. Did Manz have plans at one time to publish another set?
I agree. The Jeffrey Blersch collections 1-5 are wonderful! I have to admit, I start searching there first now. Mainly because they are fairly new and I haven’t used them 62,000 times before. But they certainly stand out and speak for themselves. If this was Facebook I could just hit the “LIKE” button. Maybe we can get one around here! I’ll have to check out the Ferguson series as well. Thanks!