Worship Content

Text

The text of Lift High the Cross is the work of two Anglican clergy separated by nearly half a century. George William Kitchin (1827–1912), Dean of Winchester and later Dean of Durham, composed the original refrain and several stanzas for a festival of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel held at Winchester in 1887. The text was subsequently revised and expanded by Michael Robert Newbolt (1874–1956), Canon of Chester, whose 1916 revisions established the version that entered the canonical hymnal repertoire. The resulting text bears the marks of its committee-like evolution: the refrain, attributed principally to Kitchin, is rhetorically direct and “processionally" inclined; the stanzas, more reflective in character, accumulate doctrinal content verse by verse while returning repeatedly to the same refrain. The hymn was intended from the outset as a processional, and both its text and its eventual musical setting reflect that liturgical function.

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Tune: CRUCIFER

The tune CRUCIFER was composed by Sydney Hugo Nicholson (1875–1947), organist, choirmaster, and founder of the Royal School of Church Music. Nicholson composed the tune specifically for Kitchin and Newbolt’s text, and it was published in Hymns Ancient and Modern (1916 supplement). CRUCIFER rapidly achieved canonical status in Anglican hymnody and, through subsequent inclusion in ecumenical hymnals including The Hymnal 1982 (Episcopal) and Glory to God (Presbyterian, 2013), became one of the most widely used processional hymns in English-language Protestant worship. Nicholson’s setting is notable for several features: its duple meter (2/2), which imparts a march-like forward momentum suited to physical procession; its characteristic fanfare-like refrain opening; and its structurally significant tonal contrast between the refrain and stanza sections (D major/F# minor).