Hark, a thrilling voice is sounding  

The Latin hymn Vox clara ecce intonat, written down in the 10th century, but possibly in use from the 5th, is the ultimate source of this hymn.  The Latin hymn was appointed in the monastic tradition for the office of Lauds every day in Advent.  It is based on the Epistle for Advent Sunday (Romans 13:11-12), and on the collect for that day.  The Vox clara is John the Baptist, who says Ego vox clamantis in deserto (John 1:23).  A somewhat altered version from the 1632 revision of the Roman breviary is the original of the translation by Edward Caswall (1814-1878).  The 1632 version added the doxology.  (There are also translations by John Mason Neale and St John Henry Newman.)   Some of Caswall’s wording was altered in the first edition of A&M with music (1861) and the altered form has continued in modern hymnals.  Caswall’s first line read “Hark, an awful voice,” which in some versions is changed to "Hark, a herald voice.”

 

The son of a C of E priest, Caswall was educated at the Chigwell School in Essex and Marlborough Grammar School in Wiltshire and then at Brasenose College, Oxford (B.A. 1836).  While an undergraduate Caswall wrote two highly popular satires, “The Art of Pluck,” about Oxford undergraduates, and “Sketches of Young Ladies.”  He was ordained to the priesthood in 1839 and became Perpetual Curate of the small village of Stratford-sub-Castle, now part of Salisbury, until 1847.  Partly influenced by the Tractarians, especially Newman, and partly affected by a continental tour taken with his wife in 1846 and a later visit with her in Ireland, Caswall resigned his position and he and his wife were received into the Roman Catholic Church; when his wife died of cholera in 1849, he joined Newman’s Oratory of St Philip Neri in Birmingham, where he assisted in founding the Oratory school in 1859.  He remained at the Oratory for the rest of his life.  In 1849 Caswall published this hymn in  Lyra Catholica: containing all the hymns of the Roman Breviary and Missal with others from various sources.  Other hymns translated by Caswall include “Now my tongue the mystery telling,” and “Earth hath many a noble city”; he is the author of “See, amid the winter snow,” published in his Masque of Mary, and Other Poems (1858), where it is entitled “Hymn for Christmas.”

 

The tune usually associated with Caswall’s translation is W.H. Monk’s  “Merton,” first published in his musical journal, The Parish Choir, in 1850.  Monk, who was the organist of St Matthias’ church in Stoke Newington, as well as of King’s College, London, was appointed music editor of Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1857.  (It was Monk who suggested the name of the hymnal.) He paired his tune with the altered words of Caswall’s hymn, possibly aided by Charles Steggall (1826-1905).  The title of the tune is usually said to honour Merton College, Oxford, or its 13th-century founder, Walter de Merton, later Bishop of Rochester; the origin of this tradition is unknown, and Monk had no known connections to the College.