| Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken | |
|---|---|
 John Newton | |
| Genre | Hymn |
| Written | 1779 |
| Text | John Newton |
| Language | en |
| Based on | Psalm 87:3 |
| Meter | 8.7.8.7 D |
| Melody | "Austrian Hymn" by Franz Josef Haydn |
"Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken", also called "Zion, or the City of God",[1] is an 18th-century English hymn written by John Newton, who also wrote the hymn "Amazing Grace". Shape note composer Alexander Johnson set it to his tune "Jefferson" in 1818,[2] and as such it has remained in shape note collections such as the Sacred Harp ever since.[3] However, the hymn is most often set to the tune of Joseph Haydn's "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser" (referred to in hymnals as "Austria").[i][4] In recent decades it has been sometimes replaced by "Abbot's Leigh". This was written for this text by Cyril Vincent Taylor in 1942 while he was a producer of Religious Broadcasting at the BBC and stationed at the village of Abbots Leigh. Multiple other tunes have also been used with the hymn.[5]
- ^ Marshall, Madeleine Forell (1995). Common Hymnsense. GIA Publications. pp. 89–93. ISBN 0-94105069-6.
- ^ "Johnson's Tennessee Harmony (Alexander Johnson)". Choral Public Domain Library. ChoralWiki. 22 October 2019. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
- ^ The Sacred Harp, 1991 Revision. Bremen, GA: Sacred Harp Publishing Co., Inc. 1991. p. 148.
- ^ Osbeck, Kenneth W. (1985). 101 More Hymn Stories. Vol. 2. Kregel Publications. pp. 94–95. ISBN 0-82549328-5.
- ^ "Search Results | Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken". hymnary.org. Retrieved 24 April 2020.
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