Classic Hymns and Their Stories
Puzzle 22 · The Wesleys and Methodist Song · Page 38 in print
Love Divine
“Love divine, all loves excelling” echoes Dryden’s “Fairest isle, all isles excelling” from Purcell’s King Arthur.
Jump to a word
The words
Beecher
The tune by John Zundel. Tune printed with Wesley’s Love Divine in 1870.
Blaenwern
Welsh hymn tune by W. P. Rowlands.
Fairest Isle
Song from King Arthur that Wesley’s opening line parodies.
Henry Purcell
Composer of ‘Fairest isle’, whose melody John Wesley adapted as the tune WESTMINSTER. Composer behind the first tune paired with the hymn.
Hyfrydol
Welsh tune by Rowland H. Prichard (1831), often sung to the hymn.
John Dryden
Author of the words of ‘Fairest isle’.
John Stainer
Composer of the tune LOVE DIVINE (1889).
John Zundel
Composer of the tune BEECHER (1870).
King Arthur
Dryden–Purcell semi-opera containing ‘Fairest isle’, which Wesley’s first line echoes. Opera that the hymn’s opening parodies.
Love Divine
Charles Wesley’s 1747 hymn on the Second Coming.
Parody
Recasting a secular song as a sacred text.
Prichard
Rowland H. Prichard, composer of HYFRYDOL.
Rowlands
William Penfro Rowlands, composer of BLAENWERN. Composer of a tune for the hymn.
Toplady
Augustus Toplady, who altered the text in 1776. An eighteenth-century editor of the hymn.
Welsh revival
The Welsh religious revival of 1904–05.
Sources
- Love Divine, All Loves ExcellingHymnology Archive
- Love divine all loves excellingHymnology Archive
- Hymnary.org (Psalter Hymnal Handbook)Hymnary.org