Come Quickly, LORD, to Rescue Me

Performance Notes:

• For performance notes on this song, see page 1083 of Psalms for All Seasons: A Complete Psalter for Worship.
• The following article is from the Psalter Hymnal Handbook.

Tune Information:

PUER NOBIS is a melody from a fifteenth-century manuscript from Trier. However, the tune probably dates from an earlier time and may even have folk roots. PVER NOBIS was altered in Spangenberg's Christliches GesangbUchlein (1568), in Petri's famous Piae Cantiones (1582), and again in Praetorius's Musae Sioniae (Part VI, 1609), which is the basis for the triple-meter version used in the 1987 Psalter Hymnal. Another form of the tune in duple meter is usually called PUER NOBIS NASCITUR. The tune name is taken from the incipit of the original Latin Christmas text, which was translated into German by the mid-sixteenth century as "Uns ist geborn ein Kindelein," and later in English as "Unto Us a Boy Is Born." The harmonization is from the 1902 edition of George R. Woodward's Cowley Carol Book.

PUER NOBIS is a splendid tune in arch form that lifts and then propels itself along to its final note.

Other Resources:

• Visit hymnary.org for more information on this song and additional resources.
• The following are alternative accompaniments for this tune, PUER NOBIS

Alternative Harmonization for Organ and Descant Resources:

• Wyton, Alec. New Shoots from Old Roots. SMP KK 279 [1983]