The miniature gem “Gaelic Blessing” written by John Rutter in 1978 has an interesting connection with the choral music scene in the US. How did that happen with an English composer and a Scottish text? It all started with one of those inexplicable human connections that can never be completely teased out.
John Rutter started his long relationship with America in 1974 when he was contacted by a church choir director, Mel Olson, in Omaha Nebraska, and asked to write a 20-minute piece for Olson’s Chancel Choir. How did someone from Omaha even know about John Rutter, then in the very early stages of his composing career? I don’t know for sure, but it seems possible that Olson had gotten hold of Rutter’s early Christmas music and liked it. Whatever the reason, Rutter was very pleased to get the commission and ended up writing his magnificent Gloria. As he said in answer to my inquiry when I wrote about that piece, “Other commissions from the USA just seemed to follow, to the point where I was able to look upon America as my second home.” And one of those commissions was for “Gaelic Blessing” in 1978, but this time it was the Chancel Choir that reached out for a piece they could dedicate to Olson. I haven’t been able to find a detailed description of Olson’s career, but I’m wondering if this was a farewell gift to him from that choir because he was leaving Omaha. He ended up at in California, where in 1985 he was involved in the initial performances of Rutter’s Requiem.
Back to “Gaelic Blessing” (irreverently nicknamed “Garlic Dressing”). While Rutter originally said that he’d gotten the words from “an old Gaelic rune,” later editions of the sheet music give credit where credit is due, to a Scottish writer named William Sharp, who published the novel Dominion of Dreams: Under the Dark Star in 1895. I wonder if someone originally told Rutter about the supposed runes and he went with that; when the real source was recognized he changed the sheet music to reflect it. Obviously the novel is now well out of copyright and so crediting Sharp wasn’t a financial issue. Wikipedia simply says, “The original, English-language piece that the central lines of Rutter’s piece are directly excerpted from” is Sharp’s novel.
I’ve been able to find two other settings of this text. One is by Z. Randall Stroope from 2006 and has as the textual source “Irish traditional,” adding some Gaelic words to the standard English text; its alternate title is “Tonn Leat” (which roughly translates as “Good news with/to you”). The other, very popular one from 2021 is by Elaine Hagenberg, which takes its title from the repeated words at the beginning of almost every line: “Deep Peace.” It simply says “A Gaelic Blessing” as the source for the text. So poor old William Sharp isn’t getting his proper credit in these more modern pieces; perhaps I can contact Stroope and Hagenberg to get them on board with correcting future printings. In the meantime, I’ll try to make it up to Sharpe for now by including the full text of his poem farther down in this post, but don’t please expect me to summarize the plot of the novel! I scrolled through some of it on the Google books site and found it to be . . . a bit hard to follow.
However he found them, Rutter used only a few lines from the original poem and added the reference to Christ as the Light of the World; Sharp included clear references to God and the saints but did not use Christ’s name. Here’s the basic text that all three composers used:
Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the gentle night to you.
Moon and stars pour their healing light on you.
Deep peace of Christ, the light of the world to you.
The term “Gaelic” could also be rendered as “Celtic,” referring to the pre-Roman people groups that inhabited the British Isles. Honestly, we don’t know all that much about them, and a lot that we think we know was actually made up during the Victorian Age. “Blessing” is a little more straightforward, having the sense of pronouncing good upon someone or something. It can be something quite formal, as in an official blessing from a church dignitary, or a spontaneous exclamation: “Bless you!” It can be seen as coming from God himself. (We won’t get into the rather backhanded version from the American South: “Bless his/her heart,” as in, “Well, bless her heart, her mother must not have told her that color looks terrible on her.” But I said that we wouldn’t get into it!)
Let’s get to the music. I’ll start with Rutter’s setting, performed by the stellar Libera boys’ choir:
Here’s Hagenberg’s version, which includes the optional string ensemble:
And the only YT video I could find of Stroope’s piece–the video quality isn’t great, but the piece is worth your putting up with the shakiness:
Here’s the complete poem from Sharp’s novel:
Deep peace I breathe into you,
O weariness here:
O ache here!
Deep peace a soft white dove to you:
Deep peace a quiet rain to you;
Deep peace an ebbing wave to you!
Deep peace red wind of the east from you;
Deep peace grey wind of the west to you;
Deep peace dark wind of the north from you;
Deep peace blue wind of the south to you!
Deep peace pure red of the flame to you;
Deep peace pure white of the moon to you;
Deep peace pure green of the grass to you;
Deep peace pure brown of the earth to you;
Deep peace pure grey of the dew to you,
Deep peace pure blue of the sky to you!
Deep peace of the running wave to you,
Deep peace of the flowing air to you,
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you,
Deep peace of the sleeping stones to you!
Deep peace of the Yellow Shepherd to you,
Deep peace of the Wandering Shepherdess to you,
Deep peace of the Flock of Stars to you,
Deep peace from the Son of Peace to you,
Deep peace from the heart of Mary to you,
And from Briget of the Mantle
Deep peace, deep peace!
And with the kindness too of the Haughty Father
Peace!
In the name of the Three who are One,
Peace!
And by the will of the King of the Elements,
Peace! Peace!
And did you wonder about the “bonus” mentioned in the title? Well, here it is: “Gaelic Blessing” by a composer I’d never heard of, Daniel Gawthrop, who in addition to writing lovely music has a very funny and informative blog, The Music and Writing of American composer Daniel E. Gawthrop–be sure to read his posts on how choral composers find texts. I’m not going to comment at all on the text of this one–you’ll have to listen carefully to get the joke:
© Debi Simons
