“For All the Saints” was written as a processional hymn for liturgical saints’ days by Anglican bishop William Walsham How (1823-1897) and published in Hymns for Saints’ Days, and Other Hymns, in 1864. Inspired in part by the “great…cloud of witnesses” described in Hebrews 12:1, the original text contained eleven stanzas of three lines. How made several revisions to the text, of which the 1871 version is considered authoritative.
The 1864 publication associated no music to How’s text. Initially, it was sung to Joseph Barnby’s tune, SARUM, as well as Anglican chant. Charles Villiers Stanford provided a new tune, ENGELBERG, for Hymns Ancient & Modern (1904); but it was Ralph Vaughan Williams’ tune SINE NOMINE, written for The English Hymnal (1906) that quickly and widely gained popularity and is most closely associated with the text.
This arrangement for unison (congregational) voices, brass quintet, and organ includes an introduction by brass, an organ accompaniment beginning in Verse 1 that may be repeated multiple times depending on the number of verses used, a brass-only accompaniment for the ante-penultimate verse, organ accompaniment for the penultimate verse, interlude and modulation up one step (from F major to G major), brass and organ accompaniment for the final verse, and a short coda.
Full score, parts for organ, Bb tpt. 1, Bb tpt. 2, F horn, tbn, tuba (8.5×11″ PDF) — $25