Hail thee, Festival Day (Ascension version)

Representative text cannot be shown for this hymn due to copyright.
See page scan previews below.

Author: Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus

Venantius Honorius Clematianus Fortunatus (b. Cenada, near Treviso, Italy, c. 530; d. Poitiers, France, 609) was educated at Ravenna and Milan and was converted to the Christian faith at an early age. Legend has it that while a student at Ravenna he contracted a disease of the eye and became nearly blind. But he was miraculously healed after anointing his eyes with oil from a lamp burning before the altar of St. Martin of Tours. In gratitude Fortunatus made a pilgrimage to that saint's shrine in Tours and spent the rest of his life in Gaul (France), at first traveling and composing love songs. He developed a platonic affection for Queen Rhadegonda, joined her Abbey of St. Croix in Poitiers, and became its bishop in 599. His Hymns far all th… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: Lo, the fair beauty of earth (New English Hymnal)
Title: Hail thee, Festival Day (Ascension version)
Author: Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus
Meter: Irregular and Refrain
Source: The editors of "The New English Hymnal" based on the Latin of Fortunatus
Language: English
Refrain First Line: Hail thee, Festival Day
Publication Date: 2000
Copyright: © Hymns Ancient & Modern

Tune

SALVE FESTA DIES (Vaughan Williams)

Ralph Vaughan Williams (PHH 316) composed SALVE FESTA DIES as a setting for Venantius H. Fortunatus's (PHH 400) famous text "Hail Thee, Festival Day." The tune, whose title comes from the opening words of that text, was published in The English Hymnal of 1906. Like SINE NOMINE (505), this tune is vi…

Go to tune page >


SALVE FESTA DIES (Plainsong)


Timeline

Instances

Instances (1 - 4 of 4)

Complete Anglican Hymns Old and New #256

Complete Anglican Hymns Old and New #257

Page Scan

The New English Hymnal #109a

The New English Hymnal #109b

Suggestions or corrections? Contact us