Dear Lord, we give thanks for Hubert Parry

In doing my research this past year on Anglican parish hymn singing, I made up a list of litmus questions to ask music directors, all of which got at a tension in the American interpretation of English hymn-singing. One was “Hail thee, Festival Day!” — which is both the great Vaughan Williams tune from The English Hymnal and a difficult hymn to sing.

Another was using Repton for Whittier’s text “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.” When it was mentioned this month on our favorite Facebook group, my daughter had never realized that it was missing from the hymnal she grew up on (her dad’s favorite hymnal) but was instead a later addition.

Two years ago I blogged on this combination — one of five tunes used for this text by Anglican hymnals — because the music director at my current church loves Repton. It was only in the past month that I realized how rare — and recent — the pairing is. Hymnary lists the hymn text as appearing in 434 hymnals, with tune names for 134. Of these 134, only 23 list Repton.

Songs of Praise

The first example of this pairing was in Songs of Praise (1925), where it was the first tune of Hymn #481 in both SOP and Songs of Praise, Extended Edition (1933).

SOP had Martin Shaw and Ralph Vaughan Williams as music editor, and Percy Dearmer as text editor. This hymnal is little known among Americans, but it was the key English hymnal between The English Hymnal (1906) and the New English Hymnal (1986). If you look at writing about 20th century British hymnody, the only other seminal hymn book during this period is the 1928 Oxford Book of Carols — with the same three editors.

Vaughan Williams and Dearmer had played the same roles in The English Hymnal, the most influential English hymn book of the 20th century. This is ironic, since (according to Wikipedia quoting a Dearmer biography) SOP was created by the two men (plus Shaw) because TEH was too “high church”. I don’t have direct knowledge of early 20th century COE politics, but clearly TEH was less high church than Hymns Ancient & Modern, which is undeniably among the most high church English-language hymnals of all time.

We could just take the editors at their word. Here is how the newer preface in SOPEE (1933) begins

When Songs of Praise was first published in 1925, the object to make, so far as then possible, a collection of hymns that should be national in character; and a hope was expressed in the Preface that the book might be of use to those who bear the responsibility of our national education.

The preface then elaborates on how the original SOP was adopted in British schools, and how the editors of SOPEE sought to incorporate their feedback in the revision.

Parry’s Tune Repton

This is what the hymnal companion to SOP (Songs of Praise Discussed, 1933) says about the tune

repton, by Sir Hubert Parry, is from his oratorio Judith (1888), where in Scene ii, a dialogue between Meshollemeth and a Child, it is sung by the former to the words beginning ‘Long since in Egypt’s plenteous land’. The tune is typical of the composer in its broad melody, and especially in the elliptical rhythm of the last three lines. In its present form it makes a fine, strong unison tune.

Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848-1918) was the English composer who was an Oxford music professor from 1900-1908, succeeding John Stainer.  Unlike the other tunes, the lilting pastoral melody drives to a conclusion. Note that with Repton, the last phrase (“In deeper reverence praise”) is repeated but not with the other tunes (Rest, Nicolaus, Hammersmith).

The Parry-Whittier Combination

As elsewhere in SOP, the new tune for words previously in TEH retained the TEH text — in this case, the same five verses as TEH #383, beginning with

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
forgive our foolish ways;
reclothe us in our rightful mind,
in purer lives thy service find,
in deeper reverence, praise.

The original text also continued in later hymnals through the 1980s.

The use of Repton in SOP was ignored by Hymnal 1940 (#435). The Hymnal 1940 Companion (pp. 270-271) says Whittier’s text was written in 1872, first published as a hymn in 1884, and first published in an ECUSA hymnal in Hymnal 1916. The H40C notes the second tune (Rest) was written for this specific text in the Congregational Hymnal (1887).

Cantate Domino, #922

However, the next three American hymnals did include Repton:

• Cantate Domino (#922), the 1979 Anglo-Catholic supplement to Hymnal 1940 (sequentially numbered from H40) that was prepared by the ESCUA diocese of Chicago. It has a simplified version of the SOP harmonization.
• Hymnal 1982 (#653), simplified to unison — with the accompaniment printed only in the organist accompaniment edition.
• Book of Common Praise 2017 (#602), with a slightly more complex version than the 1979 hymnal. This is the only edition not marked “unison”, with the implication the harmonization can be sung — but (as with much of BCP17) not all that singable by a congregation or unrehearsed choir.

The first three staves of the arrangement
in the New English Hymnal.

In the second half of the century, Repton was the preferred tune of most Anglican hymnals:

• Hymn Book of the Anglican Church of Canada and the United Church of Canada
(1971), #249
• Australian Hymn Book with Catholic Supplement (1977), #519 (2nd tune)
• New English Hymnal (1986), #353, with the same harmonization as SOPEE
• Common Praise (2000), #411, with a simplified harmonization

Despite the longstanding respect for Whittier’s text, later hymnals rewrote the text to serve their sociopolitical goals. The aggressive inclusivity in 1995 of The New Century Hymnal by the United Church of Christ bowdlerizes Whittier’s opening phrase as “Dear God, embracing humankind.”

Meanwhile, the 1998 English Common Praise twists it to become “Dear God, compassionate and kind.” The harmonization is the same as the subsequent 2000 edition of Common Praise with the original words.

Conclusions

This is a clear case where the original (arguably most authentic) tune has become obsolete — the revised pairing 40 years later (by Vaughan Williams and/or Shaw) has become the new standard. Sometimes the adoption of a new tune is (arguably) an inferior choice, but — according to the consensus of music directors that I interviewed for my study — this is clearly a better choice.

References

Percy Dearmer, Songs of Praise Discussed, London: Oxford, 1933.

Percy Dearmer, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Martin Shaw, eds., Songs of Praise, London: Oxford, 1925.

Percy Dearmer, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Martin Shaw, eds., Songs of Praise, Enlarged Edition, London: Oxford, 1933.

Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, Cantate Domino: Hymnal Supplement G-2264, Chicago: GIA, 1979.

New English Hymnal, London: Canterbury Press, 1986.

The Hymnal 1940 Companion, 3rd rev. ed., New York: Church Pension Fund, 1951.

Extra-canonical Palm Sunday melody

As I've noted before, there are two obligatory Palm Sunday hymns in an Episcopal (or American Anglican) church: “All glory, laud and honor” and “Ride on, ride on in Majesty.”  Apparently they are obligatory for Lutheran congregations too, and in 2015 the LCMS talk show Issues Etc. did an 54-minute podcast episodes on the latter. Today at church we did both, along with the Bach-harmonized “O sacred head, sore wounded”; this is a pretty standard American Anglican combination.

I’ve written repeatedly about “Glory and laud and honor,” as John Mason Neale originally began his most ecumenically successful hymn translation. In my 2018 journal article on Hymnal Noted, it was found in 22 of 24 major American hymnals from the 20th century.

Three Riding Tunes

However, for the closing processional, “Ride on” had an unfamiliar tune, so I thought I’d research the various options. To recap, the text was written in the 1820s by an Oxford poetry professor.

In my list of top Lenten hymns, I noted there are two commonly used tunes. I checked a broader range of hymnals, and Hymnal 1940 was the only one to have three tunes:

1. The King’s Majesty: Hymnal 1940, Hymnal 1982, Book of Common Praise 2017.
2. Winchester New: The English Hymnal, New English Hymnal, Hymnal 1916, Hymnal 1940, Book of Common Praise 2017.
3. St. Drostane: Hymnal 1916, Hymnal 1940. This appears to have been the preferred 19th century American tune but has fallen away.

King’s Majesty is the one I sang as a kid. It appears to have become the American standard, as it is the only tune in two 2006 Lutheran hymnals: the ELCA’s Evangelical Lutheran Worship and the LCMS’ Lutheran Service Book. It was so popular that it was the only one retained by Hymnal 1982.

About the tune, The Hymnal 1940 Companion writes:

The King’s Majesty was composed by Graham George for this text in the Hymnal 1940. It is a splendid example of the modern unison tune, with a rhythmic freedom which helps convey to the listener the grandeur of its subject.

Alas, for those not familiar with it, that rhythmic freedom helps make it difficult to sing.

Winchester New — a 17th century Lutheran tune — has both a straightforward metre and is familiar from other usages (it appears three times in Hymnal 1940 and Book of Common Praise 2017. It is the only tune I’ve seen for this text in English hymnals.

Hubert Parry

However, today our music director threw me for a loop by using a fourth tune, Jerusalem, by the great English choral composer Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848-1918). Hymnary says that this 1916 (double long metre) tune is most often used for “O day of peace that dimly shines” and “And did those feet in ancient time.”

The latter is how it appears in New English Hymnal, with the text by poet William Blake that some have called England’s alternative national anthem. Apparently this was the text for which Parry wrote the tune, and how it was premiered by his former student Walford Davies. It was one of his final works, as he died in 1918 in the great influenza epidemic.

Still, I was unable to find anyone outside our parish who uses this idiosyncratic pairing. My childhood choir director had his own idiosyncratic combination — “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing” to Land of Rest — so obviously it’s easy to do for anyone who knows how to look up an alternate tune with the same meter.

Come, let us sing!

Today is the first day of Forward in Faith North America’s annual conference. The 2017 Assembly is being held 13 miles from DFW in the Texas Metroplex, in the Diocese of Ft. Worth.

We kicked off the Assembly with a sung evensong, with a 17-voice choir formed by the local music director and volunteers from St. Vincent’s Cathedral and St. Mark’s Anglican in Arlington. Their obvious talent aside, it was great to hear a medium-sized choir, which sounds so much more full and than the 4- to 10-voice choirs I’ve mainly heard the last 15 years. (One small gripe: like most volunteer choirs, there weren’t enough men’s voices with only 5 of the 17).

The service was a 1928 BCP Evening Prayer, although the text was obviously unfamiliar to many of those present. (One tip-off: saying “Holy Spirit” instead of “Holy Ghost.”) The music was picked with taste from the English repertoire, included chants and anthems by John Stainer, John Goss, Alec Rowley, and C.H.H. Parry.

However, as a member of the congregation (rather than in the choir or an organizer), I (re)learned a valuable lesson. There was literally no music to sing — unless you count the monotone chant of the creed and the Lord’s Prayer. As you might expect for a conference of Anglo-Catholic clergy (including five bishops and one bishop-elect), there was a lot of music talent in the pews — and some of us sang along anyway (particularly on the psalm, where it was practical enough to learn as we went.)

So there were at least two key lessons:

• For most churches and most occasions, more music should be sung by the congregation than by the choir alone. That often means two really great and elaborate anthems, and then three hymns plus service music where the congregation can sing along.
• If the congregation is asked (or expects) to sing along, don’t trick them. For example, if we sing “Amen” after the officiant for three prayers, either make the Amens all the same or write out the music.

And this points to a final lesson. Over the past few years, I learned a lot about take-for-grantedness by visiting a wide range of churches before choosing my current church, and I’ve also tried to visit unfamiliar churches while traveling. The clergy, music director and choir need to get out more so they have empathy for how those in the pews experience the liturgy.

Picking a tune for Whittier’s greatest hit

This morning’s bulletin included a copy of “Dear Lord and Father of mankind,” which meant it wasn’t in the hymnal — but it was. So this warranted further investigation.

When I got home, I checked my six 20th century Anglican hymnals — it’s in all of them, but with different tunes. All seem to use the same five verses — dropping the 4th verse of Whittier’s original 6 — and it appears to have escaped bowdlerization in the later hymnals (perhaps because the only offensive word, “mankind”, appears in the first phrase). However, there are five different tunes.

In chronological order:

• The English Hymnal (1906): #383, Hammersmith
• Hymnal 1916: #120, 1) Newcastle; and 2) Rest
• Songs of Praise, Enlarged Edition (1931): #481, 1) Repton; 2) Nicolaus (Lobt Gott)
• Hymnal 1940: #435, 1) Hermann (same as Nicolaus); 2) Rest
• Hymnal 1982: #652, Rest; #653, Repton
• New English Hymnal (1986): #353, Repton

Text

The 1872 text is by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), the American poet whose work I had heard of as a kid but (it appears) I never read any of it. His name is more familiar because it was attached to a street near my elementary school (and high school), a town (where Richard Nixon grew up) and a college. The Cyber Hymnal reports that this abolitionist was known as “America’s ‘Quaker Poet’,” that he authored nearly 100 hymns and perhaps 20 are still found in hymnals. Of these texts, “Dear Lord” is the only one I recognize.

Here are the five verses, in the form that (according to Hymnal 1940 Companion) it was first adapted in 1905:

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
forgive our foolish ways;
reclothe us in our rightful mind,
in purer lives thy service find,
in deeper reverence, praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard
beside the Syrian sea
the gracious calling of the Lord,
let us, like them, without a word
rise up and follow thee.

O Sabbath rest by Galilee,
O calm of hills above,
where Jesus knelt to share with thee
the silence of eternity,
interpreted by love!

Drop thy still dews of quietness,
till all our strivings cease;
take from our souls the strain and stress,
and let our ordered lives confess
the beauty of thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire
thy coolness and thy balm;
let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm!

Usage

The hymn is listed as a general hymn except in 1916, when it’s called out for Septuagesima. The Liturgical Index of Hymnal 1940 lists it for morning prayer at Trinity VII MP, and evening prayer on Lent III and St. Matthias. In the Lectionary hymn choices by Rev. Richard R. Losch on DrShirley.org, it is recommended for

• Epiphany 3A/St. Andrew: Matthew 4:12-23
• Epiphany 3B: Mark 1:14-20
• Epiphany 5C: Luke 5:1-11
• Last Epiphany B/Proper 8C: I Kings 19: 9-21
• Proper 7B: Mark 4:35-5:20
• Proper 14C: Hebrew 11:1-16

Tunes

These are the five tunes across the six hymnals:

• Hammersmith, by William Henry Gladstone, M.P. (1840-1891), eldest son of the famous British prime minister.
• Newcastle, written in 1875, it is the only surviving hymn of English organist Henry L. Morley (c. 1834).
• Nicholaus, written in 1554 by Nicholaus Hermann (c.1500-1561), the early Lutheran hymnwriter; the tune was arranged and harmonized by J.S.  Bach (apparently for his BWV 151 cantata).
• Hermann, the same tune, but harmonized by Winifred Douglas for his Hymnal 1940.
• Repton, written in 1888 by Sir C. Hubert H. Parry (1848-1918), second director of the Royal College of Music who is buried in the Chapel of the OBE at St. Paul’s Cathedral. The New English Hymnal says it was “from a song in his oratorio Judith.”
• Rest, by English organist Federick Maker (1844-1927), written in 1887 specifically for this text.

All except the Parry have four part harmonies. If the hymnal choices reflect broader congregational popularity, today the choice seems to be between Rest and Ripton.

Rest is the one we sang as a kid, is familiar to an Episcopalian of the past century, and has four part harmonies; however, cradle Episcopalians are no longer the core audience for Anglican churches. Ripton has only a melody — the Parry harmonization is for organ and not voices — but is the one that’s on all the recordings (by English choirs, naturally).

Because the range is better for lower voices, I vote for Rest. Our music director (an Anglophile) votes for Ripton because, well, it’s Parry; my teenage daughter also votes for it, because it’s the one she’s learned on YouTube.

I get the argument about Parry, but musically I don’t give Parry, Stainer, Stanford or even Elgar the same deference as Purcell or Tallis. (I would put Holst and Vaughan Williams in the latter category). So here it seems like a matter of taste or congregation familiarity. But in the long run, if Americans don’t record their tunes they’ll be forgotten by future generations.