Name that tune! Advent edition

One source of confusion or anxiety among parishioners is when they hear a familiar hymn text with an unfamiliar tune — or a tune that’s familiar for some other purpose. Hence I’m starting an irregular series of blog postings on this topic that I’ll call “Name that tune!” With only a few hours left in Advent, I’ll look at how this impacts the beginning of the church year.

Back in 2009, based on The English Hymnal, Hymnal 1940 and Hymnal 1982, I listed 11 hymns as forming the canon of Advent:

1. “Christ whose glory fills the skies”
2. “Come, thou long-expected Jesus”
3. “Creator of the stars of night”
4. “Hark, a thrilling voice is sounding”
5. “Hark the glad sound! the Savior comes”
6. “Lo, he comes with clouds descending”
7. “O come, O come Emmanuel”
8. “On Jordan's bank the Baptist's cry”
9. “The King shall come when morning dawns”
10. “Thy kingdom come! On bended knee”
11. “Wake, awake, for night is flying”

Here I’ll look at those hymns that list multiple tunes — in these 20th century hymnals, as well as the final CoE hymnal of the 20th century, the 1986 New English Hymnal. To this I’ll add the two most traditional 21st century Protestant hymnals: Lutheran Service Book (LCMS, 2006) and Book of Common Praise (REC, 2017).

Lo, he comes with clouds descending (H40: 5)

This 1758 text by Charles Wesley has two tunes. By far the most common is Helmsley, which dates to at least 1769 if not 1765. It is found in three editions of Hymns Ancient & Modern: 1861 (#31), the Standard Edition (#51), and 1904 edition (#52). It is also in The English Hymnal (#7) and New English Hymnal (#9). This is beautiful tune – the one on all the recordings — but as I wrote in 2010, a hard one for congregations to sing without a practiced choir.

However, the Americans like St. Thomas — the tune I grew up with, which is much easier to sing. (It also listed as an optional alternate tune as a footnote in TEH). It is the only tune listed in the U.S. Hymnal 1916 (#57). Thus, Hymnal 1940, Hymnal 1982 and Book of Common Praise 2017 have both: 5.2/5.1, 57/58, 4/5 respectively. Unfortunately, while TEH has a harmony, H40 dropped it — a mistake repeated by H82. Fortunately, BCP17 restores the TEH harmony.

Come, thou long expected Jesus (H40: 1)

This Charles Wesley hymn is the first in Hymnal 1940. In the Church of England, it appears in only the Standard Edition of A&M (#640) and then not again until the New English Hymnal (#3), which has two tunes: Halton Holgate and Cross of Jesus (neither familiar to me).

Instead, Hymnal 1916 introduces the hymn (#55) with the tune Stuttgart, which is the only tune listed by Hymnal 1940 (#1), Hymnal 1982 (#66) and Book of Common Praise 2017 (#57).

However, my daughter complained that her ACNA church, there are so many former Southern Baptists that they have to sing the Baptist version. The 1975 Baptist Hymnal lists Hyfrydol (“Love divine”) as hymn #79, honoring Methodist practice which has same tune in the 1939 The Methodist Hymnal (#84), the 1966 The Methodist Hymnal (#360), and the 1989 United Methodist Hymnal (#196). The 1966 hymnal lists Stuttgart as the alternative.

Meanwhile, the LSB (#338) lists Jefferson from Southern Harmony.

On Jordan’s bank, the baptist’s cry (H40: 10)

For this favorite, the English and US Anglicans are all in agreement: Winchester New from 1906 through 2017. Somehow the 1940 (The Lutheran Hymnal) and 2016 (LSB) LCMS hymnals instead use Puer Nobis. Similarly, “The King shall come when morning dawns” (H40: 11) is sung with the tune St. Stephen in H40, H82 and BCP17, while the LSB uses Consolation.

Hark the glad sound! the Savior comes (H40: 7)

In the 20th century, there was clear agreement: Bristol is the tune used by The English Hymnal, Songs of Praise (Enlarged Edition) and New English Hymnal in the COE, as well as Hymnal 1940 and Hymnal 1982 in ECUSA. However, the REC’s 2017 Book of Common Praise chooses Richmond; the text was also in the 1915 and 1940 edition of the REC hymnal, but Hymnary.org doesn’t list the tunes.

Kings College Cambridge: 100th Annual Lessons & Carols

On Christmas Eve, King’s College Cambridge will conduct its Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols service. First started in 1918, this will mark the 100th service.

The service starts at 3pm GMT, 10am EST, 7am PST, and will be broadcast live by BBC 4, over FM in the U.K. and over the Internet. By my calculation, it will be the 90th broadcast on the BBC.

The program includes a detailed history of the service. It helpfully notes that since 1919, each service has begun with “Once in royal David’s city.”

The readings from the Authorized Version will overlap with those used over the past 20 years, but with slight variations. For example, as in 1997-2007, the first reading is Genesis 3:8-19 with the omission of Genesis 3:16, which was included last year:

And unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Consistent with the best practice that KCC itself established, the congregation will have its own chance to join in the singing. This year, the congregation hymns are:

1. Once in royal David’s city (verses 3-6)
2. O little town of Bethlehem (Vaughan Williams’ Forest Green, not the American St. Louis)
3. God rest you merry, gentlemen
4. O come, all ye faithful
5. Hark! the herald angels sing

Except for “God rest” replacing “While watched their flocks”, the hymns are the same as last year.

The descants are slightly different; I am beginning to realize that while big church music directors keep familiar tunes to satisfy their (paying) congregation members, they feel no constraint to keep familiar descants (which only impact 25% of their choir). KCC music director Stephen Cleobury made the following choices

1. Same as last user: used his own descant
2. Substituted his own descant, to replace Thomas Armstrong’s from the printed New English Hymnal
3. No descant
4. Kept the arrangement and descant by David Willcocks (choir director 1957-1973), as published in Willcocks & Rutter (1987: 226-227)
5. Substituted his own descant (also used in 2013 and 2014) instead of the descant by Philip Ledger (choir director 1974-1982) used in 2016 and 2012 — or the Willcocks descant (also from Willcocks & Rutter) used in 2015, 2011, 2010 and 2009

Our family is looking forward to beginning our Sunday with King’s College and their beautiful service, before we drive to our own Advent 4 service (and later on, I drive back to sing Midnight Mass).

References

David Willcocks & John RUtter, eds., 100 Carols for Choirs, Oxford University Press, 1987.

A Cause for Caroling: BBC Reprises Xmas Radio Series

Back in December 2013, the BBC 4 radio ran a 10-part series entitled “A Cause for Caroling.” Hosted by Oxford choir director (and former choirboy) Jeremy Summerly, it traces the history of Christmas carols. It was really interesting, and — allowing for the strong point of view – I learned a lot.

Under the BBC business model, it was only available for a 30 days on BBC.co.uk and then blocked in favor of selling a two hour CD on Amazon’s UK or US website. However, it came back in December 2015 — and starting on Dec 11, the BBC began making the episodes available for 30 days each.

Below I provide the official abstracts of the series and the ten 15-minute episodes. The BBC also originally released two one-hour “omnibus” episodes — which separately summarize week 1 and week 2 — but these have not been available since 2013.

Below are the abstracts for the 10 episodes

1. A Carol’s a Carol, to Begin With

The first programme in a ten part series in which choral conductor and scholar Jeremy Summerly tells the story of the Christmas Carol in Britain. He begins by trying to capture something of the caroling traditions of today and then heads back into the misty caroling past discovering what he believes is the first carol in the English language.

2. Spreading the Medieval Word Made Flesh

The second programme in Jeremy Summerly's ten part series tracing the history of the Christmas Carol in Britain. Today he discovers the impact of the Franciscans in using the carol to make the birth of Jesus a focus for the church and harnessing the energy of popular music to that end.

3. From Coventry to Agincourt

In the third programme in the series Jeremy finds a developing professionalism in carol singing and writing in the details of a manuscript held by Cambridge University, and he reveals the background of the Coventry carol's mystery play setting. The combination of energetic drama and more refined singing men makes this period a caroling golden age but with clouds on the horizon.

4. Carol Crisis? What Crisis?

In the fourth programme in the series Jeremy describes the impact of the Reformation and later Puritan attitudes to music in general and carols in particular. The development of the Medieval carol may have been arrested but there was never a serious threat to folk caroling and it wasn't long after the Commonwealth that carols, or rather one particular carol, was back in church.

5. The Ghosts of the West Gallery

In the fifth programme of his series telling the story of the Christmas Carol Jeremy Summerly visits Dorchester where Thomas Hardy captured the caroling tradition that had matured through the 17th and 18th century but which faced extinction in the 19th. The West Gallery tradition of musicians and singers in parish churches was an integral part of community life in Hardy's Wessex as elsewhere. Jeremy explains the origins of that tradition and the fuguing carols so beloved at the time and why it was that their days were numbered.

Along with folk musician Tim Laycock he gets to see the carol manuscripts from which Hardy's great grandfather played and sang on Christmas night in 1800.

6. A Second Golden Age

In the sixth part of his story of the Christmas Carol Jeremy Summerly reaches the 19th century and publications of old folk carols from what was thought to be a dying tradition. However, by mid-century, with the Tracterean movement in the Church of England at its height the carol and the singing of carols was once again hugely popular. It was the publication of a 'Christmas Carols New and Old by Henry Ramsden Bramley and John Stainer in 1867, that marked the height of another caroling golden age. However, it was now big business and there were reputations at stake when folk carol collectors saw their work hoovered up by the might of Bramley and Stainer. Jeremy also tells the story of the little 16th century Finnish manual 'Piae Cantiones' that provided a series of memorable re-workings of fifteenth century words and melodies, including In Dulce Jubilo and Good King Wenceslas.

7. Folk Carol Survival and Revival

In the seventh programme in his series describing the gathering history of the Christmas Carol in Great Britain Jeremy Summerly returns to the Gallery tradition that was squeezed out of 19th century Church worship but steadfastly refused to die. It's now in rude health in several parts of the country but nowhere is it more energetically sustained than in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire. With the guidance of Dr Ian Russell who holds folk carol festivals and the enthusiasm of pub carolers who sustain the tradition Jeremy shares a pint and a clutch of fuguing carols which flower happily in the 21st century while having roots in the 18th and 19th.


He also finds out about an American offshoot of the gallery style that's been preserved in the icy blasts of Pennsylvannia USA since it was first seeded there in the middle of the 19th century.

8. The Birth of Nine Lessons with Carols

In the eighth programme of his series charting the development of the Christmas Carol in Britain Jeremy Summerly reaches the critical moment at which the 19th century enthusiasm for carols sung in church resulted in a vehicle in which they could take a leading role. It was developed by Bishop Benson of Truro who, in 1880 found himself holding services in a huge wooden shed while a new cathedral was being built next door. To celebrate the new diocese and capture the enthusiasm he recognise in the nonconformist tradition of carol singing in Cornwall, Benson developed a narrative service running from Adam's original sin to the birth of Christ and the impact of the word made flesh.

Jeremy visits Truro and then follows Benson's service to the moment in 1918 when a war-wearied Dean of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, Erich Milner-White decided to use the service as part of his college's Christmas celebrations. The changes he made survive to this day.

9. Import and Export

The penultimate programme in Jeremy Summerly's series tracing the history of the Christmas Carol in Britain. Jeremy picks up the story in the first half of the 20th century with carols from all over the world becoming more popular in this country much to the irritation of Ralph Vaughan Williams who continued to champion the folk tradition, albeit in a refined choral form. This was a time when the grandeur of Victorian caroling gave way to a leaner aesthetic with the Oxford Book of Carols being published in 1928, the same year in which the BBC broadcast the King's College, Cambridge Nine Lessons and Carols for the very first time. As it became an established favourite the carols used, gathered in many cases over centuries, become known both nationally and indeed internationally.

10. Ring in the New

Jeremy Summerly concludes his history of the carol in Britain pondering the success of new carols over the last century. While King's College, Cambridge organist Stephen Cleobury insures a supply of newly commissioned carols for his massive international audience Jeremy wonders whether the popular songs from Berlin's 'White Christmas' to Slade's 'Merry Christmas' don't help sustain a more genuine caroling tradition.

He also recalls his own first experience of carols at Lichfield cathedral where John Rutter's 'Shepherd's Pipe Carol' was an astonishing discovery for the eager young chorister.

And Jeremy also ponders the continued appeal of the carol and why, while it's been in decline throughout its history, it continues to thrive.

Traditional and Modern Advent Celebration

The church year began today with the first Sunday of Advent. Dec. 3 is the latest possible day for Advent 1 — producing Advent 4 as the morning before Christmas Day. (The earliest possible Advent 1 is Nov. 27).

Advent Lectionary: the First Four Centuries

As with other aspects of his two prayer books, Thomas Cranmer adapted his lectionary from the Sarum Missal (the Salisbury variant of the Roman Catholic rite). The standard summary of the 1979 US prayer book notes:

Cranmer retained the Sarum lectionary, for the most part, though he made some substitutions, lengthened some lessons and abbreviated a few. (Hatcher, 1995: 325).

Those changes did not included the Advent season. From the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549, today’s communion service for Advent 1 uses the same collect and readings. Using the 1662 spelling of the collects:

ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Since 1662, the BCP has stated that the Advent 1 collect “is to be repeated every day, with the other Collects in Advent, until Christmas-Eve.”

Meanwhile, the Advent 1 lessons from 1549 to 1662 remained unchanged with Romans 13:8 and Matthew 21:1-13. Those were the lessons we used this morning out of the 1928 U.S. Book of Common Prayer, when from the NKJV we heard about the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, followed by his driving the moneychangers out of the temple:

Gospel lesson today
at St. Matthew’s Church, Newport

1 Now when they drew near Jerusalem, and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to Me. 3 And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them.”

4 All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying:

5 “Tell the daughter of Zion,
‘Behold, your King is coming to you,
Lowly, and sitting on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey.’”

6 So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set Him on them. 8 And a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road; others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying:

“Hosanna to the Son of David!
‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’
Hosanna in the highest!”

10 And when He had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, “Who is this?”

11 So the multitudes said, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.”

12 Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 13 And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’”

In his most famous book, Charles Wheatly — an English clergyman and onetime fellow at St. John’s College — wrote:

The Collects for the first and second Sundays in Advent were made new in 1549 being first inserted in the first Book of King Edward VI. That for the third Sunday was added at the Restoration, in the Room of a very short one not so suitable to the time. The Collect for the fourth Sunday is the same with what were meet with in most ancient Office, except that in some of them it is appointed for the first Sunday. (Wheatley, 1770: 209)

The Epistles and Gospels appointed on these Days, are all very ancient and very proper to the Time: They assure us of the Truth of Christ's first Coming; and as a proper means to bring our Lives to a Conformity with the End and Design of it, they recommended to us the Considerations of his second Coming, when he will execute Vengeance on those that obey not his Gospel(s). (Wheatly, 1770: 209; spelling modernized).

The Three Year Lectionary

After Vatican II, the Roman Catholic Church developed a new three-year lectionary for the Sunday readings. This proved the basis of a series of three-year lectionaries over the past 50 years, including two from the ecumenical Consultation on Common Texts: the Common Lectionary (1983) and the Revised Common Lectionary (1992).  The three years are customarily termed Year A (emphasizing readings from Matthew), Year B (emphasizing Mark) and Year C (emphasizing Luke).

For the Episcopal Church, a three year lectionary was used in the 1979 US prayer book, while in 2006 it officially adopted the RCL. Meanwhile, for its new liturgy (beginning in 2013), the ACNA in 2016 adopted its own lectionary based on the 1983 CL rather than the 1992 RCL.

The Matthew 21 reading of 1549 (and 1928) is nowhere to be found in the CL/TEC/RCL/ACNA lectionaries for the Advent Sundays. Instead, they present variations on Christ’s eschatological warnings from the synoptic Gospels. Those using the ACNA lectionary today heard the Advent 1 lesson for Year B, which is Mark 13:24-37. From the ESV:

24 “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, 25 and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. 26 And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

28 “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. 29 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. 30 Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

32 “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. 34 It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. 35 Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning— 36 lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. 37 And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.”

This is the same lesson heard on Advent 1 by ECUSA or others using the RCL (except that the former tend to use the NRSV). Last year, the ACNA used Matthew 24:29-44 (RCL, verses 36-44) in Year A, with Luke 21:25-33 (25-36 for the RCL) next year in Year C. The ACNA’s reading from Luke exactly matches the 1549 (and 1928) Gospel reading for Advent 2.

The Roman Catholic church and most of the liturgical Protestants have stuck with the three year lectionary, which makes that the popular ecumenical option. The exception is the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, which provides the option of both the three year lectionary (with Mark 13:24-37) or the one year lectionary (Matthew 21:1-9).

However — as with all other liturgical reform — the creation of liturgy committees means that “progress” is an ongoing process without end. Meanwhile, the Continuing Anglican churches (and the Reformed Episcopal Church) retain continuity with more than four centuries of Anglican worship dating back to the 16th century.

References

Hatcher, Marion J. 1995.  Commentary on the American Prayer Book, New York: HarperOne.

Wheatley, Charles. 1770. A Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, According to the Use of the Church of England, London: Bettesworth & Rivington. Available at Google books: https://books.google.com/books?id=XIUxAQAAMAAJ