After a short blog break I can't resist cheating for my next Great Hymn One-Liner.
It is not a hymn! So it really is a cheat.
And it's not great! So it's a total cheat.
But it is worth a blog for more than one reason. So what is it? It's a line from the Anthem sung at the fundamental moment in the Coronation of the Monarch in Westminster Abbey. The words are
Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet anointed Solomon King . . .
It references Solomon's coronation, recorded in 1 Kings Chapter 1. It references it, but it takes plenty of liberties because it ignores Benaiah and a whole bunch of others - the Cherethites and the Pelethites.
Its use in English coronations goes back into antiquity, but the setting now used for hundreds of years is the setting by Handel. What makes this a great one liner in my opinion (though not just mine) is that Handel has taken just about the most boring line imaginable and somehow elevated it to the position of highest drama.
By a clever and long introduction that seems repetitious but changes in all kinds of subtle ways the composer prepares us for a dramatic line. A pause and the choirs come in at full volume. What they are singing is lost in the fact that they are singing and the setting they are singing in.
It is the triumph of music over meaning and is therefore perhaps as great a lesson in musical worship as any of the great one liners we have looked at.
(To see the whole series click on the hymnline tag)
