Veni Emmanuel out of sync thanks to Hymnal 1982

Differences between hymnals — either in updates or between dominations — usually cause confusion due to the change in words. Differences in harmony are also widespread, but only impact those who sing parts (in my experience, less than 10% of those in the pews in most churches).

Earlier this week I witnessed a train wreck that I’d never seen before — due to a difference in the melody that everyone sings. Specifically, the congregation at an Anglican church was confused due to a unique change in the meter made by Hymnal 1982 to the oldest — if not the greatest† — Advent hymn of all time: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

To cut to the chase, today there are four different meters used for the tune Veni Emmanuel:

1. There is the original version by John Mason Neale and Thomas Helmore in Hymnal Noted, published from 1851-1854.
2. There is the way used by Hymns Ancient & Modern, The English Hymnal, the New English Hymnal, and any CD or YouTube video of English choristers that you might listen to. This also appears to be the way that most American Protestant hymnals do it: I’ve looked at Baptist, Lutheran and Methodist hymnals, and they all match this.
3. There is the version of Hymnal 1940 and its recent update, the REC’s Book of Common Praise 2017.
4. There is the unique version of Hymnal 1982.

At Sunday’s service, the organ and instruments were doing #4, while the choir and most of the congregation (largely ex-Baptist and Methodist) were doing #2 (perhaps some doing #3). After two verses, everyone gave in to the organ, but the confusion was clearly something that any parish would want to avoid.

1. Hymnal Noted

Earlier this year I published an academic article in The Hymn on the impact of Hymnal Noted upon 20th century American hymnody. “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” was the second most popular hymn in the American hymnals, with Neale’s translation credited in 16 of 24 hymnals; four hymnals included the hymn, but used a updated translation (based on Neale’s) that did not credit Neale.†† Here is how I summarized the origins of the text:

Neale translated “Veni Emmanuel” by selecting five daily Advent antiphons that date to the eighth century, compiled in the twelfth century and later published in a 1710 Cologne Latin psalter.  Neale re-ordered the final (Dec. 22) antiphon to be the first verse…

All versions of the hymn used a version of the tune arranged by Helmore. Here is how I summarized the tune:

All of these hymnals use the tune Veni Emmanuel from Volume 2 of HN (Figure 1). It was adapted by Helmore from a French missal discovered by Neale in Portugal, a manuscript that others have been unable to locate. In the 1960s, a parallel fifteenth-century processional from a French nunnery was rediscovered in the National Library in Paris and subsequent discoveries suggest that the tune may have originally been a Franciscan funeral chant.¶ However, the characteristic refrain that begins “Rejoice! Rejoice!” was of Helmore’s own creation.

Here is the first phrase. Note that each phrase of the chant ends with a two-beat note:

2. English Hymnals

The hymn was quickly picked up by Hymns Ancient & Modern, the most influential (and commercially successful) of all Victorian English hymnals. The text was slightly modified, most notably by changing Neale’s “Draw nigh, draw nigh, Emmanuel” to the now-familiar “O come, O come, Emmanuel.”

It was hymn #36 in the original A&M, while the much revised 2nd edition of 1875 lists it as #49. (The same numbering was retained in the 1889, 1916 and 1924 editions). Below is how the first phrase appears in the 1889 edition:

Note that each phrase ends on a three-beat note. Later on, in the refrain Helmore’s original “Rejoice, Rejoice” had 1,1,1,2 beats, while A&M uses 1,3,1,3.

In The English Hymnal (1906), the phrases of hymn #8 are counted as in A&M. The rejoice is counted the same, but the “joice” is listed as a two beat note with a one beat rest. Musically this is different, but for the purposes of congregation singing it would count the same.

Update: I found my copy of New English Hymnal, and Hymn #11 is almost like HN: one beat at the end of the first phrase, and two beats for the final note of 2nd, 3rd, 4th phrases — with the “Rejoice” matching TEH. (1 beat, 2 beat, 1 beat rest). I have recording of this hymn by three English cathedral choirs (King’s College Cambridge, Salisbury, Wells) that usually sing hymns as written in the NEH. In the KCC and Wells, they are clearly singing the NEH words but not rushing through the first phrase as NEH implies.

For this blog posting, I didn’t have a chance to look at all 24 hymnal. However, in the Baptist Hymnal 1991, Baptist Hymnal 2008, The Lutheran Hymnal (1940) and the United Methodist Hymnal (1989), all seem to follow the A&M pattern.

3. Hymnal 1940

In Hymnal 1940, hymn #2 goes back to Helmore’s two beat phrase endings rather than the three beat of the English (and subsequent American Protestant) hymnals:

The two beat pattern is also used on each Rejoice.

I won’t argue it’s morally superior to the English/Methodist/Lutheran approach — it’s just the way we’ve done it. In fact, it doesn’t feel all that different. If were singing from H40 (or BCP17) with an ecumenical audience, I might be inclined to add a breath (lift) after each phrase, to give the visitors a chance to keep up.

The one non-standard change, however. In the Helmore, A&M, TEH, Baptist and other versions of this hymn, the first syllable of “exile” is two beats. H40 changes it to one beat:

I believe that’s why the H40/BCP17 version was not used Sunday, and thus indirectly caused the train wreck.

4. Hymnal 1982

Hymnal 1982 made the most dramatic changes to the hymn of any hymns I’ve seen. Here I’ll respond to the effects of the changes in text and music — the cause of Sunday’s problems — and not to the reasons they chose to do so. 

In updating H40, H82 changed the words here and there (as they loved to do). They also repeat verse 1 as verse 8. In this case, with the words printed in the program, they were not the source of confusion.

For the music, they use a non-standard chant notation — neither modern Western nor the medieval neumes. However, anyone who’s opened H82 has seen it, and it’s easy enough to get used to — certainly easier than Helmore’s notation from Hymnal Noted. (Fortunately, the accompaniment uses conventional notation).

The even number phrases and the Rejoice match Hymnal 1940 by ending on a two-beat note. The extra beat of “exile” is restored from the English originals.

However, the odd number phrases (#1, #3) do not have any extra beat:

Whenever I sang from H82, this always rattled me — if for no other reason than I needed a breath. This certainly is what caused Sunday’s problem — the musicians went on without the choir and the congregation until eventually people figured out what was going on.

Since the very first time I sang it, this part of H82 seemed to be what IT people would call a needless incompatibility. I’m sure the editors had their reasons; to be fair, I would need to consult the Hymnal 1982 Companion, but I don’t have the $600 for this four volume set. And perhaps it makes sense if you’re going to get every ECUSA church in the country to buy your new hymnal (as most denominations try to do to make money). But for our current era of weakened denominational loyalty, today it appears to have been a mistake. For congregations that use H82, it would be more welcoming to add a breath or lift after the odd (or all) phrases to make the hymn more visitor-friendly.

Summary

To avoid problems like this in the future, here’s a summary of the different meters:

• Breaks at the end of the phrase: 2 beats in Hymnal Noted, Hymnal 1940; 3 beats in Hymns A&M, The English Hymnal and (apparently) most modern Protestant U.S. hymnals. Hymnal 1982 does 1 beat for odd phrases, 2 beats for even phrases
• The first syllable of “exile” has an extra beat in every hymnal except Hymnal 1940 (and the similar REC’s Book of Common Praise 2017)
• The refrain “Rejoice, rejoice” has two beats for “joice” in H40/H82/BCP17, while the others have three beats. The original HN only lengthened the second “Rejoice”

References

• J. M. Neale and Thomas Helmore, Hymnal Noted: Parts I & II (London: Novello, 1851, 1856), available at https://books.google.com/books?id=2E3Dya5ON5oC
• J. West, “Neale’s Hymnal Noted and its Impact on Twentieth-Century American Hymnody,” The Hymn, 69, 3 (Summer 2018): 14-24.

Footnotes

† Yes I know the Lutherans would say “Wake, awake, for night is falling” by Philip Nicolai. And obviously many Protestants are partial (as am I) to “Come, thou long expected Jesus”, justifiably the first hymn in my favorite hymnal.

†† The most popular hymn was the Palm Sunday processional “All glory, laud and honour,” found in 22/24 hymnals — excluding only the Southern Baptist The Broadman Hymnal (1940) and The Lutheran Hymnary (1913)
¶ See Mother Thomas More, “O Come O Come, Emmanuel,” The Musical Times 107, no. 1483 (Sept. 1966): 772; C. E. Pocknee, “Veni, veni, Emmanuel,” Bulletin of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland 118 (Spring 1970): 65-69; Chris Fenner, “VENI EMMANUEL and its Manuscript Sources,” THE HYMN 65, no. 1 (2014): 21-26.