Bred Dina Vida Vingar is a hymn lyric penned by "the Swedish Fanny Crosby," Lina Sandell. The translation printed below is by Ernest Ryden. The tune is an old Swedish folk melody.
I returned to this hymn tune nine years after setting it for SATB choir simply because it is so appealing. It is so typically Swedish, with its lilt and rhythm, so simple, and so beautiful.
But arranging it is not necessarily so easy. Only the third line of the tune runs less than an octave from top to bottom, so the harmony parts have to do some gymnastic feats to stay out of the way.
In this arrangement, for the first pass through the melody is carried by the trombone, with the other four parts in a flowing harmony. The second time the tune is a minor third higher and played by the horn, accompanied by trombone and tuba. Finally, the tune comes around again, a fourth higher, with the melody in the first trumpet.
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Thy holy wings, dear Savior, spread gently over me,
And through the long night watches I'll rest secure in Thee.
Whatever may betide me, be Thou my hiding place,
And let me live and labor each day Lord, by Thy grace.
Thy pardon, Savior, grant me, and cleanse me in Thy blood;
Give me a willing spirit, a heart both clean and good.
O take into thy keeping Thy children great and small,
And while we sweetly slumber, enfold us, one and all.
THY HOLY WINGS, Swedish hymn tune arranged by Tom Kirkland for brass quintet consisting of two trumpets, F horn, trombone, and tuba, comes in a pdf file of 645K, with a four-page score, two one-page parts, three two-page parts, and a license page, thirteen pages in all. Performance time is approximately three minutes.