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Sound, Sound Your Instruments of Joy

The Watersons sang this hymn as the title track of their 1977 album Sound, Sound Your Instruments of Joy. It was also included in the 1990 CD reissue of Frost and Fire and in 2004 on the Watersons’ 4CD anthology Mighty River of Song. A live version from a Christmas radio programme recorded in December 1980 at Crathorne Hall, Crathorne, North Yorkshire, was published in 2005 on the CD A Yorkshire Christmas.

A.L. Lloyd commented in the original album’s sleeve notes:

Another splendid piece that has dropped out of our hymnbooks. This anthem, presumably of eighteenth century composition, survived among a few country choirs, chiefly in Devon and Cornwall. The Watersons learnt their version from an old (1934) BBC recording of the Mabe Male Voice Choir, from the Penryn district of Cornwall. The vicar of Mabe reported: “The choir sings as their ancestors did. Such music as they have is in manuscript. They stand in a circle, the leader gives out the first line, and off they go, full tilt. They more or less make up their own harmonies.”

This 1934 BBC recording of the Mabe Choir singing Sound, Sound Your Instruments of Joy can be heard on the Free Reed anthology Midwinter: A Celebration of the Folk Music & Tradition of Christmas & the Turning of the Year.

Lyrics

The Watersons sing Sound, Sound Your Instruments of Joy

Sound, sound your instruments of joy
Sound, sound your instruments of joy
Sound your instruments of joy
Sound your instruments of joy
To triumph shake each string
To triumph shake each string
Let shouts of universal joy
Universal joy, universal joy
Welcome, welcome
Welcome the new born King

See, see the gladdening dawn appears
See, see the gladdening dawn appears
See the gladdening dawn appears
See the gladdening dawn appears
Bright angels deck the morn
Bright angels deck the morn
Behold the great I Am is here
Great I Am is here
Great I Am is here
The King, the King
The King of glory’s born

Surprising scenes, stupendous love
Surprising scenes, stupendous love
Surprising scenes, stupendous love
Surprising scenes, stupendous love
The Lord of life descends
The Lord of life descends
He left his glorious clouds on high
Glorious clouds on high
Glorious clouds on high
To be, to be
To be the sinner’s friend

Let Heaven and Earth and Sea proclaim
Let Heaven and Earth and Sea proclaim
Let Heaven and Earth and Sea proclaim
Let Heaven and Earth and Sea proclaim
The wondrous love of God
The wondrous love of God
And all the universal frame
Universal frame, universal frame
Sing praise, sing praise
Sing praises to our God

repeat first verse

Acknowledgements

Transcribed from the singing of the Watersons by Garry Gillard.