No doubt: Everyone's favorite St. Thomas hymn

The first Sunday after Easter is often called “low Sunday,” or sometimes as “Doubting Thomas Sunday.” Since the first English prayer book in 1549, the gospel reading has been from John 20:19-23, where Jesus greets the 11 and establishes auricular confession. More recently, that’s been extended toby adding verses 24-31, with the entire story of “Doubting” Thomas, appointed for all three years of the RCL and ACNA lectionaries. That was what we heard this morning at our 1928 BCP parish.

As I wrote in 2012, there is one hymn suitable for this date: “O sons and daughters let us sing!” set to the tune O Filii et Filiae. Here are excerpts from the Hymnal 1940 Companion (p. 73-74):

[The Latin original] was written by Jean Tisserand, a Franciscan monk, who died at Paris in 1949. It is first found in a small booklet without title printed between 1518 and 1536, probably at Paris.…The translation by John Mason Neale has been frequently altered since it was first published in his Mediævel Hymns and Sequences, 1851. 

The tune, O filli et filiae, is probably the original contemporary melody since none other has been used with the text. The earliest known form is a four-part setting … [from] 1623.

This hymn is #99 in my favorite hymnal (H40), with nine verses. The author notes that H40 drops three of the verses from Neale’s original, but it appears that the 1986 New English Hymnal adds a 10th verse after a very different adaptation of the same nine Neale verses.

All verses can be sung on Easter, but verses 1,5,6,7,8 are normally sung on low Sunday. The same hymn is #142 in Book of Common Praise 2017 (aka Magnify the Lord), the first hymnal published for ACNA usage, mainly as an update for H40 for traditional-language parishes.

As I noted earlier, Hymnal 1982 split this hymn into two separate hymns with the same tune: #203 with five Easter verses and #206 with six Doubting Thomas verses.

This month, I have been researching the second of my two-part review of Sing Unto the Lord, a 2023 hymnal published as a replacement for H82 for more contemporary language ACNA parishes. SUL replicates the H82 pattern (as it does in many other areas), with #170 with five Easter verses and #169 with six Doubting Thomas verses.

Since Covid, I've been monitoring the online bulletins for six Episcopal and ACNA parishes. Three sang the translated Tisserand text today: two H82 parishes sang #206, and one H40 parish sang #99, as we did at our Continuing parish.

Sadly, the Savannah, Georgia ACNA parish that is the home of Sing Unto the Lord did read John 20:19-31, but did not schedule hymn #169 from its hymnal. Instead, it had two regular Easter hymns (part of the overflow from Easter Sunday that often happens throughout early Eastertide).

Still, I think the message is clear: for those who focus on the Doubting Thomas story for low Sunday, there is one clear choice of a hymn — Neale’s opening verse, his five verses about John 20:19-31, plus (in some cases) three other verses from Neale’s longer original hymn — all set to the earliest known (if not only) tune used for this text.

Caravaggio, Incredulità di San Tommaso

A most appropriate communion hymn

Today we sang one of my favorite communion hymns “Humbly I adore thee” — a timeless hymn (#204) from my favorite hymnal:

Humbly I adore thee, Verity unseen,
Who thy glory hidest 'neath these shadows mean;
Lo, to thee surrendered, my whole heart is bowed,
Tranced as it beholds thee, shrined within the cloud.

Taste, and touch, and vision, to discern thee fail;
Faith, that comes by hearing, pierces through the veil.
I believe whate'er the Son of God hath told;
What the Truth hath spoken, that for truth I hold.

O memorial wondrous of the Lord's own death;
Living Bread, that givest all thy creatures breath,
Grant my spirit ever by thy life may live,
To my taste thy sweetness never failing give.

Jesus, whom now veiled, I by faith descry,
What my soul doth thirst for, do not, Lord, deny,
That thy face unveiled, I at last may see,
With the blissful vision blest, my God, of thee. Amen.

Anglican Versions of Adoro Devote

As I summarized back in 2007, the words in Hymnal 1940 were translated from the 13th century Latin text is attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas (“Adoro devote, latens veritas”). It uses a tune that first appeared in Hymns Ancient & Modern in 1869; however, A&M had its own translation by Bishop J.R. Woodford — a translation (“Thee we adore”) later used in The English Hymnal (1906) and New English Hymnal† (1986).

All the American hymnas keep the A&M tune, termed Adoro Devote in the U.S. hymnals — even if (as noted earlier) there are differences in the rhythms. Here is the H40 version:

US Anglicans — Hymnal 1940, Hymnal 1982 and Magnify the Lord† — all use the ”1939” translation of Hymnal 1940. Among Lutherans, Lutheran Book of Worship (1978)†, Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006)† and the Lutheran Service Book (2006)† all use versions of the A&M translation, while Lutheran Worship (1982) uses its own translation. All use the same tune.

† These are newer observations since the 2007 posting.

The Hymnal 1940 Companion actually credits its translation to an earlier source

The translation is that of the Monastic Diurnal, 1932, save for the first line which there read “Deity unseen,” following the Latin text commonly used prior to the research of Dom Wilmart [Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale, I (1929)], ”Deity” missed the full subtlety of St. Thomas’ thought which uses “Verity” much as St. Ambroses earlier used “O God of truth.” … The Diurnal translation is but another stage in over a century of versions, all duly traced by [John] Julian [in his Dictionary of Hymnology].

Not surprisingly, Magnify the Lord (aka Book of Common Praise 2017) follows The Hymnal 1940, while Hymnal 1982 modifies verse 4.

One of the earlier translations mentioned by Julian is Hymnal Noted. Although originally by John Mason Neale (1818-1866), the only edition I found with this hymn is the posthumous 10th edition of 1889. Still, the passages comparable to the 1940 text look very familiar:

PROSTRATE I adore Thee, Deity unseen,
Who Thy Glory hidest, 'neath these shadows mean;
Lo, to Thee surrendered, my whole heart is bowed,
Tranced as it beholds Thee, shrined within the cloud.

Taste, and touch, and vision in Thee are deceived,
But the hearing only, well may be believed,
I believe what e’er the Son of God hath told,
What the Truth hath spoken, that for truth I hold.

Oh, Memorial wondrous of the Lord's Own Death,
Living Bread, that givest all His creatures breath;
Grant my spirit ever by Thy Life may live,
To my taste Thy sweetness never-failing give.

Jesu, Whom now veiled, I by faith, descry,
What my soul doth thirst for, do not, Lord, deny;
That Thy Face unveiled, I at last may see,
With the blissful vision blest, my God, of Thee. Amen.

Today's Significance

This text was particularly moving under today’s circumstances. It was our family’s first Sunday back at church since our last visit together on March 15. On March 13 we got a confident message that “St. X is staying open” — but eight days later were told “Until further notice, St. X will be closed for Sunday services.” A week ago, the church resumed — though none of us could make it — and today continued under extreme social distancing regulations imposed by the state of California.

For more than two months, our family sang together in our TV room: on Palm Sunday, Easter and throughout Eastertide. Today was the first time we were singing together at church, and could hear the others of our church (and the choir) singing as well.

There is also the fact that I like plainsong, I like hymns that predate the fracturing of the Western church, this hymn is strongly associated with Hymnal 1940, and one I know well.

But finally, there was the connection to Aquinas. While our hymnal (and 21st century Anglicans) have a few hymns by Ambrose and Fortnatus, the reality is that Aquinas is one of the oldest hymnwriters of the undivided Western church. I always appreciate the continuity and certainty of singing the same timeless hymn that’s been sung for centuries by other Christians. This Sunday, with all the discontinuity and uncertainty in the world this year, it was particularly appreciated.

Hymns of our ancestors

This morning at church, our family sang the opening hymn, #483 from Hymnal 1940:

Come, ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish;
Come to the mercy-seat, fervently kneel:
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;
Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.

Joy of the desolate, light of the straying,
Hope of the penitent, fadeless and pure,
Here speaks the Comforter, tenderly saying,
"Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot cure."

Here see the Bread of Life; see waters flowing
Forth from the throne of God, pure from above;
Come to the feast of love; come, ever knowing
Earth has no sorrow but heaven can remove.

It is not a hymn I know well, but it is one that we’ve sung before. As my daughter sang soprano and I sight-read the (straightforward) bass part, I had a picture of my ancestors (or other American churchgoers) singing it back in the mid-19th century. (It is not in Hymnal 1982, but is in Magnify the Lord/Book of Common Praise 2017: #541).

The same words were in Hymnal 1916 (#388), the hymnal my mother and uncle would have used as teenagers growing up in a tiny Northern California farming town. My grandparents died when I was a kid, so I don’t know the religious practices of my family before then. It is also in Hymnal 1892 (#637), but does not appear to be in any PECUSA hymnals before that. It is not in the main CoE hymnals of 1861-present, including the New English Hymnal (1986).

Ecumenical Impact

Hymnary.org reports it is in 1960 hymnals, with a higher proportion of those of the late 19th century.

Beyond PECUSA, what is the pattern for other denominations?

• Presbyterian. The hymn is in The Hymnbook (1955) and The Hymnal (1933), so my dad might have sung it as a young man or when we attended Presbyterian churches in the 60s. It is also in US Presbyterian hymnals from 1843-1917, but not after 1955.
• Lutheran. The ELCA and its predecessors include the hymn in its latest hymnal, Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), Service Book & Worship (1958),  American Lutheran Hymnal (1930), and hymnals in 1923 and 1918. The LCMS includes it in The Lutheran Hymnal (1941) and earlier 1918, 1912 and 1892 English-language hymnals.
• Methodist. The Methodist church seems to include it in most hymnals from 1843 to its latest United Methodist Hymnal (1989).

Authorship

Thomas Moore (1779-1852) a Dublin-born Catholic poet; as John Julian says in his Dictionary of Hymnology — echoed by the Hymnal 1940 Companion — “His connection with hymnody is confined to his Sacred Songs,” and that these songs were republished in hymnbooks “mainly in America”.

This text from Sacred Songs (1816) was modified by Spiritual Songs for Social Worship (1831) Thomas Hastings and Lowell Mason. Mason (1792-1872).was a famous American church musicologist who was president of Boston’s Handle and Haydn Society and founder of the Boston Academy of Music.

The tune Consolation by English composer Samuel Webbe (1740-1816), as published in 1792. The tune was arranged by Hastings and Mason for this text in their Spiritual Songs for Social Worship, and is the only tune I found used with this text. Given the dates, this is pre-Victorian 19th century English hymnody (text, arrangement and pairing).

Mason is the author of tunes or arrangements for 7 hymns in Hymnal 1940,, including those for “Nearer My God to Thee” and “My Faith Looks Up to Thee.” As with Consolation, I find his harmonies quite singable: perhaps they were written for an earlier time when accompaniment was more rare, or at least congregational singers had less formal music training than in the latter half of the century. Or perhaps it was before the Romantic era dissonances of the late 19th century classical composers.

No matter what the reason, it seems like the harmonizations from the 18th century to mid-19th century — the era Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Mendelssohn — are more approachable for sight-reading by amateur singers like myself.

Singing to angels and arcangels

The Feast of Michaelmas

The feast of St. Michael is celebrated on Sept. 29 by the liturgical Western churches. The celebration of St. Michael dates to 5th century Rome on Sept 30, and on Sept. 29 from the 7th century onward. In England, Michaelmas was once one of the major English quarterly holidays (along with Christmas, Lady Day and Midsummer), and was traditionally celebrated by a feast with a fatted goose.

The Catholic church today remembers the three archangels named in scripture: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael. In the Anglican church, the feast is for St. Michael and All Angels. This is also the observance of the Lutheran church, which kept it despite dropping so many other Roman holidays; as an LCMS writer explains:

At the time of the Reformation, the Lutherans revised the celebration of former holidays and saint days in order to give greater prominence to the work of Jesus. St. Michael and All Angels was retained in the Lutheran liturgical calendar because it was seen as a principal feast about Christ. In fact, Philip Melanchthon, a colleague of Dr. Martin Luther, even wrote a hymn about St. Michael and All Angels (LSB 522, “Lord God, To Thee We Give All Praise”).

At first, this might strike us as strange. How is a feast named after an archangel about Jesus? But as with all commemorations within the Lutheran Church, the focus is not on the person but held in grateful thanksgiving to our Lord for using this person (or His holy angels) to give glory to His name and to bring about salvation for His people. The event celebrated on the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels is thus important both in regard to our salvation and to the comfort it brings the Christian conscience.

The website Text This Week helpfully lists readings for Roman Catholic, Episcopal and Lutheran congregations. All agree on the appointed reading for today: Revelation 12:7-12, telling how St. Michael leads the victorious battle in heaven. (I would probably still be chanting this Epistle today — as I did 25 years ago — if we hadn’t changed churches).

Anglican Hymns

I had trouble finding familiar hymns with texts that fit today. The LiturgyTools website has a list of hymn (most of which I don’t know), but perhaps the most obvious hymn (for “All Angels” if not St. Michael) is a Victorian hymn:

Ye holy angels bright,
who wait at God's right hand,
or through the realms of light
fly at your Lord's command,
assist our song,
for else the theme
too high doth seem
for mortal tongue.

I remember it from childhood because it is the last hymn of the first edition of Hymnal 1940 (600), it is also the last hymn of Book of Common Praise 2017 (#639); it is also found in The English Hymnal (#517); the New English Hymnal (#475) and Hymnal 1982 (#625). The tune is Darwall’s 148th, published by John Darwall in 1770, with a wonderful four part harmony. Hymnary.org says it’s found in 95 hymnals — basically Anglican hymnals worldwide — but not in Catholic or Lutheran ones, and only the earliest (1933) US Methodist hymnal. It has a descant by Sydney Nicholson, published both in Hymnal 1982 and the Oxford Book of Descants.

This hymn is recommended for this day in Hymnal 1940, as is “Ye watchers and the holy ones” (H40: 599, H82: 618; BCP17: 637). While this connection to the feast day seems less direct, this hymn is also found in Catholic, Lutheran, and Methodist hymnals (for those that still use hymnals). The tune is Lasst uns enfreuen, from a 17th century German Catholic hymnal and harmonized by Ralph Vaughan Williams. There is a descant by Christopher Gower in the Oxford Book of Descants, while my own music director (J. Davis Simmons) has written his own magnificent descant.

Hymnal 1940 lists four hymns for the feast day:

120. “Around the throne of God,” written by John M. Neale, and set to the (quite singable) 1873 tune Abends.
121. “Stars of the morning, so gloriously bright,” a 9th century Greek text translated by Neale in Hymns of the Eastern Church, set to Trisagion, a tune composed for this purpose and published in the 1868 edition of Hymns Ancient & Modern.
122. “Angels and ministers, spirits of grace,” by Percy Dearmer in his 1933 Songs of Praise, Enlarged Edition (one of the few hymns from this hymnal that made it into H40). It is set to the Irish tune Slane; two different descants are in the Oxford Book of Descants. 
123. “Christ the fair glory of the holy angels,” the official office hymn for this date — a 9th century Latin text translated by The English Hymnal and updated by H40. It has a choice of two tunes: Christ Sanctorum (a Sarum plainsong) and the 17th century Coelites Plaudant.

The New English Hymnal has only one text — the latter — with Iste Confessor (also a plainsong) and Coelites Plaudant. Book of Common Praise 2017 also retains only this one text, but with the tune Supplication by W.H. Monk (music editor of Hymns A&M).

For once, Hymnal 1982 does not have the widest selection of hymns for saints’ days. For the office hymn, it retains Coelites Plaudant (#282) and adds a second plainsong (#283), Caelitum Joseph (adapted in 1983 by Schola Antiqua). The other text it has is “O ye immortal throng of angels” (#284), a text by Philip Doddridge) set to Croft’s 136th.

Lutheran Hymns

With DuckDuckGo, I also found a Lutheran website with hymn suggestions for this date: the Free Lutheran Chorale-Book. It writes

The most well-known is Paul Eber’s “Lord God, to Thee We All Give Praise” (“Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir“), 1554. It appears in The Lutheran Hymnal, 1941, as No. 254, “Lord God, We All to Thee Give Praise,” and in the Lutheran Service Book, 2006, as No. 522, “Lord God, to Thee We Give All Praise.” Eber’s German hymn is a paraphrase of a Latin composition by Philipp Melanchthon, “Dicimus gratias tibi” (“We give thank to Thee”), 1543. The tune, which in the Lutheran chorale tradition is known as “Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir,” is well known among English speakers as “Old Hundredth” due to its association with the metrical setting of Psalm 100 in the Geneva Psalter. 

Hymnary lists 22 (18th and 19th century) hymnals with the German text, and 18 (Lutheran) hymnals with the English text, including the current LCMS and WELS (but not ELCA) hymnals. However, the text is more generically about angels than specific to St. Michael.

It mentions a second hymn, the 17th century “Aus Lieb läßt Gott den Christenheit,” but that was only published in the U.S. in an 18th century German Lutheran hymnal by C.F.W. Walther.

I pulled out my copy of the 1941 The Lutheran Hymnal, and it offers its own assortment of hymns that overlaps H40:

254. “Lord God, we all to thee give praise,” set to Old Hundredth.
255. “Stars of the morning, so gloriously bright,” set to O Quanta Qualis, a 17th century plainsong tune.
256. “Around the throne of God,” set to Winchester New (a descant is available in the Oxford Book of Descants).
257. “Jesus, brightness of the Father,” a 9th century text translated by Edward Caswall, set to Neander (a descant is available in the Oxford Book of Descants).

The latter two familiar tunes seem a great way to get Anglicans to sing these lesser known Anglican texts.

Singing Mendelssohn for Rogation Sunday

Today is the Sunday traditionally called Rogation Sunday, the last Sunday of Easter. The concept was dropped in the 1979 prayer book/Hymnal 1982 — but more on that later.

Hymnal 1940 lists three hymns for Rogation Sunday:

• #101, “O Jesus, crowned with all renown” to the tune Rhinegold arranged by R. Vaughan Williams for The English Hymnal. In Hymnal 1940 it’s the only hymn in the Rogation section; in Hymnal 1982 it’s #202, while in Book of Common Praise 2017 it’s #148 and also in the Rogation section.
• #138, “We plow the fields,” a Thanksgiving/harvest hymn to the tune Claudius; also H82: 291 and BCP17: 204.
• #497, “O God of Bethel, by whose hand,” to Dundee (more often used for “Let saints on earth in concert sing”, #397). It continues in H82: 709 (gender neutered) and BCP17: 147 (the other hymn listed in the Rogation section).

We sang the first two today; the harmony for #138 was particularly fun to sing.

Mendelssohn’s Rogation Hymn

Despite these two hymns, my favorite today was the third one we sang: “We come unto our fathers’ God” (H40: 303; BCP17: 339; dropped from Hymnal 1982). The text by written by T.H. Gill in 1868 based on Psalm 90, and the hymn was also found in Hymnal 1916 (#424), where it is a Thanksgiving hymn.

Quoting from John Julian’s 1907 Dictionary of Hymnology, Hymnary.org says he wrote nearly 200 hymns, but “They are almost exclusively used by Nonconformists,” including Baptist and Congregationalist hymnals.

Both the 1916 and 1940 PECUSA hymnals call the tune To God on High, but BCP17 uses the more accurate name Allein Gott in der Höh.

The Hymnal 1940 Companion (p. 197) explains the origin of the name and arrangement:

In the Deutsch Evangelisch Messe, … “Gloria in excelsis” in Latin was set to its customary Easter plainsong. But for the Geistliche Lieder, 1539, Nicolaus Decius converted both words and tune into a German hymn, “Allein Gott in der Höh”. … The harmonization is that of the second chorus in Mendelssohn’s oratorio St. Paul…

Hymnary, quoting the 1988 Psalter Hymnal Handbook, says the original tune was a 10th century Easter chant.

It might be the biases of my classical music training that I prefer a name-brand musical setting, whether Bach or the Sanctus from Schubert’s Deutsche Messe (H82: S130). However, the reality is that with this training (and singing bass rather than soprano), when I’m sight-reading a hymn, it’s a lot more enjoyable when the arranger follows the voice leading and harmonic progression rules that prevailed from roughly Bach to Brahms.

In this case, other than a couple of octave leaps, Mendelssohn’s voice leading was very natural, and I easily mastered it in the first two verses.

Rogation Sunday

The “Rogation” days are named after rogare, Latin verb “to ask”. The 1912 New Advent Encyclopedia explains:

Days of prayer, and formerly also of fasting, instituted by the Church to appease God's anger at man's transgressions, to ask protection in calamities, and to obtain a good and bountiful harvest, known in England as "Gang Days" and "Cross Week", and in Germany as Bittage, Bittwoche, Kreuzwoche. The Rogation Days were highly esteemed in England and King Alfred's laws considered a theft committed on these days equal to one committed on Sunday or a higher Church Holy Day. Their celebration continued even to the thirteenth year of Elizabeth, 1571, when one of the ministers of the Established Church inveighed against the Rogation processions, or Gang Days, of Cross Week.

Shepherd’s definitive Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary (p. 54) explains its history:

for St. Basil in Cappadocia and St. Chrysostom at Antioch tell us of the custom of singing litanies in public processions, often in rivalry with similar processions sponsored by the Arian heretics. In the Western Church these processional litanies were introduced to take the place of older pagan processions of a supplicatory character, usually made about the fields in springtime for the safety of the crops. They consisted not only of petitions but of miscellaneous anthems, and were known as ‘Rogations.’ During the sixth century the Roman Church instituted such a procession on April 25th to take the place of an old pagan festival, the Robigalia, in honor of the god Robigo who was believed to be a protector of the crops from mildew (see p. 237). Earlier than this, about the year 470, a Gallican bishop, Mamertus of Vienne, had inaugurated processional litanies on the three days preceding Ascension Day, at a time of special terror in the locality because of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. The ‘Rogation Days’ thus instituted (see p. 261) were soon adopted by other churches in Gaul, then by a church council in England in 747, and finally by the Roman Church it- self in the time of Pope Leo III (795-816).

Readings for Rogation Sunday

Later on, Shepherd (p. 176) explains the readings published in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer:

This Sunday is called Rogation Sunday because of the three Rogation Days which follow it.…But the propers of the day are older than the adoption of the Rogation Days at Rome, and the aptness of them to the Rogation theme is coincidental.

In the historic lectionary, the Epistle (James 1:22-27) and Gospel (John 16:23-33) continue the readings from the 4th Sunday after Easter (James 1:17-21; John 16:5-15). Shepherd notes that these readings for both weeks are found in the Roman and Sarum Missals, although they omit John 16:31-33. These identical readings are found in Cranmer’s original 1549 Book of Common Prayer, as well as the global standard for three centuries, the 1662 BCP.

In the three year lectionary of the 1979 prayer book, neither of these latter readings (for the “Sixth Sunday of Easter”) are retained, nor is the term “Rogation Sunday.” Depending on the year, the 1979 uses readings from 1 Peter, 1 John, Acts or Revelation (multiple alternatives are available) for the epistle, and John 14 or 15 for the gospel. The Revised Common Lectionary retains these readings, as does the 2019 ACNA liturgy. While Book of Common Praise 2017 continues Rogation hymns, Hymnal 1982 (like the 1979 prayer book) has dropped the observance.

The historic 1549/1662/1928 gospel reading includes this famous promise:

And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. (John 16:23-24)

The earlier passages of John 14 and 15 convey the sense of obedience and union with God, but not the well-known promise “ask, and ye shall receive.” The ACNA liturgy restores the name “Rogation Sunday,” but not the command to ask our heavenly Father.

References

Massey Hamilton Shepherd, Jr., The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary (London: Oxford University Press, 1950).

Joint Commission, The Hymnal 1940 Companion, 3rd ed. (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1951).

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.

Little-known ancient Advent hymn: Come thou, redeemer of the earth

With Advent starting Sunday, Neale's hymn “Come, thou Redeemer of the earth” seems perfectly suited to the season. It is well known to English congregations, but not here in the U.S.

From Ambrose to the 20th Century via John Mason Neale

Neale’s translation of “Veni, Redemptor gentium” appears in Hymnal Noted. Then as now, the original Latin text is attributed to St. Ambrose (340-397). My copy of the (1909) hymnal companion to the New Edition (1904) of Hymns Ancient & Modern says that Augustine himself attests to the authorship by Ambrose, and the text has been used in the Mozarbic (Iberian), Ambrosian and Latin rites. It is based on Matthew 1:23 in the Christmas birth narrative.

The hymnal companion lists the first verse as

Veni, redemptor gentium;
ostende partum virginis;
miretur omne saeculum,
talis decet partus Deo.

The hymn was picked up in various English hymnals. Here is the version in 1906's The English Hymnal (hymn #14)

Come, thou Redeemer of the earth,
and manifest thy virgin-birth:
let every age adoring fall;
such birth befits the God of all.

Begotten of no human will,
But of the Spirit, thou art still
The Word of God, in flesh arrayed,
The promise fruit to man displayed,

The virgin womb that burden gained
With virgin honour all unstained;
The banners there of virtue glow;
God in his temple dwells below

From God the Father he proceeds,
to God the Father back he speeds,
His course he runs to death and hell,
Returning on God's throne to dwell.

O equal to thy Father, thou!
Gird on thy fleshly mantle now,
The weakness of our mortal state
With deathless might invigorate.

Thy cradle here shall glitter bright,
and darkness breathe a newer light,
Where endless faith shall shine serene,
And twilight never intervene.

All laud to God the Father be,
All praise, eternal Son, to thee:
All glory, as is ever meet,
To God the Holy Paraclete. Amen.

The 1986 New English Hymnal (#19) changes verse 2 to

Begotten of no human will,
but of the Spirit, thou art still
the Word of God, in flesh arrayed,
the Saviour, now to us displayed.

It also changes verse 7, as well as verse 8:

O Jesu, virgin-born, to thee
eternal praise and glory be,
whom with the Father we adore
and Holy Spirit, evermore. Amen.

Hymns A&M hews closer to Neale’s original, starting with “O come, Redeemer of the earth”.

I learned of the hymn while working on my next hymn research project. One of the people I met recommended Cantate Domino, a hymnal supplement (hymns #800-962) for traditional Episcopal parishes using Hymnal 1940. When I checked it out, #804 contains the Neale hymn.

Tune by Michael Praetorius

The two English hymnals list two tunes. One is the original tune from Hymnal Noted — listed as from the Salisbury Hymnal – which the A&M companion says is the tune used with the Sarum, York and Hereford hymns to this text. (As with all of Hymnal Noted, the tune was presumably adapted by its music editor, Thomas Helmore).

However, TEH and NEH list as an alternative Puer Nobis, the Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) tune that we already sing for Epiphany (“What star is this with beams so bright”) and Easter (“That Easter day with joy is bright”). 

All three hymnals use the 1901 harmonization by George Woodward (1848-1934); in Hymnal 1940, the harmony is listed (#47, #98) for accompaniment but the hymns are marked “unison” — i.e., few congregations have sung the parts. Hymnal 1940 lists a different harmonization (more like Praetorius’) for Hymn #158 (“O splendour of God’s glory bright”) while Hymnal 1982 (#124) lists a third harmonization attributed to Hymns Ancient & Modern, Revised Edition.

This Praetorius tune is found in the King’s College Cambridge recording on YouTube. The text skips verses 2 and 3, but follows the 1906 version except for the final verse (which is closer to but not exactly the same as the 1986 version). Unlike the Epiphany hymn, the tempo is almost dirge-like.

Inclusion in the Anglican Hymnal Supplement

My bishop doubts there will be demand for a 21st century Continuing Anglican hymnal, given the decline of books, traditional worship, and of course the 2017 publication of the REC hymnal. So instead he's encouraged me to think about what would go into a supplement to Hymnal 1940. (If H40 goes out of print, we might first have to assemble a public domain H40 based on Hymnal 1916 and other texts no longer in copyright).

Cantate Domino lists this for Advent, while the English list it for the 12 days of Christmas. An argument can be made for either one; for example, it was included in the 2016 Advent carols service by King’s College Cambridge. I would list it for Advent for two reasons. First, we need more good Advent hymns and don’t have enough time to sing all the Christmas hymns we have. Second, we already have a slightly different version of the tune (H40: 34) at Christmas, which would create even greater confusion.

For the text, I’m inclined to use the TEH text — improved through use over the 50 years after Neale’s original (but still out of copyright). With eight verses, at least some would need to be optional. Nowadays, there's an advantage to matching the recorded version, so I’d try to find the KCC text (and its copyright status).

The tune choice is much easier. In my research, I am realizing that beauty at the cost of complexity is still possible for choirs at medium or large sized Anglican (TEC, Continuing, ACNA…) churches. However, for hymns, a certain amount of realism is needed. I'm not sure that Helmore’s arrangement is worth the extra effort for the average choir or congregation, particularly when compared to this beautiful (and familiar) Praetorius tune.

Finally, I don't find the Woodward harmony particularly singable, and few Americans would know it already. So I would look at one of the other harmonizations, or even see about the original Praetorius version.

References

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

William H. Frere, ed., Hymns Ancient and Modern: Historical Edition, London: Wm. Clowes and Sons Ltd. 1909.

J. M. Neale and Thomas Helmore, Hymnal Noted: Parts I & II (London: Novello, 1851, 1856), available at https://books.google.com/books?id=2E3Dya5ON5oC

The English Hymnal, London: A. R. Mowbray, 1906. URL:  https://archive.org/details/theenglishhymnal00milfuoft

Singing to end all wars

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the end of the War to End All Wars, what we now call World War I. With nearly 1 million dead from England and the rest of the United Kingdom, this date has been observed as Remembrance Day for the past century: the Church of England and other churches in the U.K. will be solemnly marking this occasion. Anyone who’s read biographies of Lewis, Tolkien and others of that generation know how much a mark the war made on the British people.

In the U.S., today is unlikely to be a big deal. The deaths were a factor of 10 smaller in absolute terms and 20x smaller in proportion of the overall population. The president (as any president would) is in Europe, not the U.S., to mark the occasion.

There isn’t really anything in the U.S. lectionary for Veteran’s (née Armistice) Day, and today’s readings don’t really lend themselves a sermon on the subject. However, I did find it was possible to gently remember the occasion through a choice of hymns.

The obvious hymn for the occasion is “Joyful, joyful, we adore thee”, which is missing from my favorite hymnal but #376 in Hymnal 1982 and #375 in Book of Common Praise 2017. This hymn was a pleasant surprise when, in our wanderings earlier this century to find a suitable Episcopal church, we found it was a quite popular recession hymn. I was struck how clever the adaptation was: the tune from the final movement of Beethoven’s 9th (“Ode to Joy”), with words that are roughly a paraphrase of Schiller’s 18th century text that was used in Beethoven’s German original.

The fit is that the melody is the EU national anthem, something hard to miss if you watch an EU gathering on TV. (Officially there are no words, but I recall seeing Europeans singing Beethoven’s words on TV). Of course, the EU is an institution created to prevent a repeat of World War II, but given that the 1918 Armistice did such a terrible job of preventing a repeat of World War I, in reality the Marshall Plan, Common Market and European Union were a do-over of what should have been done to provide peace 100 years ago.

Still, this was vaguely unsatisfying. Looking through the various topical indices, none of the first lines had an obvious fit to a more general desire for peace. But then a (sung) phrase kept rattling around in my brain: “Give to us peace in our time, O Lord.”

It turns out this is the end of verses 1-3 of the 19th century hymn, “God the Omnipotent! King, who ordainest.” The verses were fairly stable until the late 1970s, the first two in 1842 by Henry F. Chorley (a London music critic and opera librettist) and the last two in 1870 by Rev. John Ellerton, a graduate of Trinity College Cambridge and a contributor to Hymns Ancient & Modern.

The words I have sung from Hymnal 1940 (#523) since my childhood are:

God, the omnipotent! King who ordainest
Thunder thy clarion, the lightning thy sword;
Show forth thy pity on high where Thou reignest,
Give to us peace in our time, O Lord.

God the all merciful! Earth hath forsaken
Thy ways all holy, and slighted Thy Word;
Bid not thy wrath in its terrors awaken;
Give to us peace in our time, O Lord.

God the all righteous One! Man hath defied Thee;
Yet to eternity standeth thy Word,
Falsehood and wrong shall not tarry beside Thee;
Give to us peace in our time, O Lord.

God the all provident! Earth by thy chastening,
Yet shall to freedom and truth be restored;
Through the thick darkness Thy kingdom is hast’ning;
Thou wilt give peace in thy time, O Lord.

The same words are in BCP2017 (#613). Despite the strong imagery, H82 (#569) only gently updates it, replacing “Man” with “Earth” in verse 3. In all cases, we are singing either to petition God for peace in our time, or to acknowledge our trust that he will do so at the time of his choosing.

What I remember most about the hymn, however, is the march that makes it both memorable in imminently singable. The real irony, however, is that the tune was the Tsar’s national anthem — at least until the Romanov family was executed by the Bolsheviks in July 1918. So singing the tune also marks a link to an earlier era of Europe that (for better or for worse) came to a violent end in 1917-1918.

Websites for Anglican hymnody

Oremus was an invaluable resource for comparing Anglican hymnals around the world, but last year they gave up because they were being hassled to death over supposed copyright concerns. (I have considerable knowledge of copyright and fair use, and they seemed to be very much on the side of being legal).

Over the last decade, Hymnary has gotten much much better, with good funding, a college and paid staff behind it. (It didn’t hurt that the federal government gave them a big grant to scan 2,000 hymnals from a college library.) It lists the hymn titles and tunes for all the American hymnals, as well as key Church of England hymnals of the past 150 years.

It has various layers of complexity: the searching by hymn, by hymnal, by tune and the ability to download CSV files of some of the data. I can't claim to be an expert on it yet, but would like to post a tutorial once I understand it better. However, I have consistently felt that (as in Oremus) when I pull up a hymn text, I have no assurance that the text I'm seeing matches the specific pew hymnal (in terms of verses and wording changes) in front of me.

During my field research for my next church music paper, I heard about some other resources that seem very useful.

The Episcopal Church’s Church Publishing Inc. has a website RiteSeries, which includes RiteBrain for liturgy and RiteSong for hymns.  In many ways, CPH is emulating what Concordia Publishing House (CPH.org) does for the larger (Missouri synod) Lutheran denomination. However, RiteSeries only includes the most recent full hymnal (Hymnal 1982) and its supplements (Wonder Love & Praise), as well as the 1979 prayer book (and supplements such as Lesser Feasts and Fasts), and omits mention of liturgies that have been officially deprecated for the past 35 years. This is unlike CPH, which emphasizes its 2006 worship book (hymnal+prayer book) but still sells its 1982 and 1941 books, and even offers some resources for the older books.

Still, in this era of putting all the music (or at least lyrics) in the service booklet, both Hymnal 1940 and Book of Common Praise 2017 need resources like this. Hymnary has page images for much of Hymnal 1940, so that's a start.

Finally, my research interview yesterday with a long time choir member in Houston — who grew up with the 1928 prayer book and 1940 hymnal and never left — she pointed out SmallChurchMusic.com. It has MP3 files for Hymnal 1940, Hymnal 1982 and The English Hymnal. It also lists the 2006 LCMS hymnal and the 1990 Presbyterian hymnal, and several Methodist hymnals. For each tune, there are multiple MP3 files that list how many verses and what keys they are in. It also provides its own PDF of a score, its own standard lyrics (not specific to a hymnal), and links to pages on TheCyberHymnal and Hymnary for the hymn.

Like so many out there, I appreciate the work these individuals (or not-for-profits) are doing to make these resources available for those of us who still value hymns and hymn-singing in America.

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.

Hymns for Trinity 9

As part of my Sacred Music class at Cranmer the class was required to select hymns (and explain the selection) for a Sunday communion service, weekday morning and evening prayer, and for a special service (in my case, ordination of a priest).

My assigned Sunday was Trinity 9 (next Sunday). Since it seems germane to the theme of this blog, below is my assignment and what I submitted. Ground rules for the assignment:

1. All hymns should be taken from Hymnal 1940;
2. For this hymn only one “obscure or unfamiliar” hymn was allowed. Since the seminary is headquartered at the Church of the Holy Communion in Dallas, the hymns regularly used at CHC were used by the class to define “familiar” hymns.

9th Sunday after Trinity (Holy Communion)

Readings:

• 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, which emphasizes the unity of believers while calling out human sins of the Old Testament that displeased God
• Luke 15:11-32, The Prodigal Son

There are not obvious hymns about the Prodigal Son in Hymnal 1940, and so all the hymns chosen for this week are tied to the Epistle.

These hymns touch on three aspects of the first lesson: Conformity to God’s Will, Church Unity and Brotherhood. Each of these is a topic listed in the Topical Index of The Hymnal of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America 1940 (hereafter Hymnal 1940). The first topic relates to our union with God — sometimes called vertical communion — while the latter two both relate to our union with other Christians, otherwise known as horizontal communion. All of the hymns selected for this Sunday fit one of these two themes.

Processional: 535, “Rise up, O men of God” [1]

In the Hymnal 1940 Topical Index, the topic “Brotherhood” (page 800) lists 17 hymns. One of these is “Rise up, O men of God”, written in 1911 by William Person Merrill, an American Presbyterian minister, for the Presbyterian brotherhood movement.[2]

This brief hymn — four verses of Short Metre (6.6.8.6) — touches on both types of communion and unity. On the one hand, a part of each verse emphasizes unity with fellow Christians, as with verse 2 (“Bring in the day of brotherhood”) and verse 4 (“As brothers of the Son of man, Rise up, O men of God.”) At the same time, the brief hymn emphasizes obedience to God, as in verse 1 (“Give heart, and soul, and mind, and strength to serve the King of kings”), in contrast to the disobedience and sin that Paul laments in 1 Cor. 10:6-10.

It is relatively singable: except for the first phrase, the melody has simple voice leading, and the first four notes are in unison. It also has simple meter, with 20 of the 26 syllables on a quarter note (the remainder split between paired eighth notes and dotted half notes). According to Hymnary.org, it appears in more than 200 hymnals — known to multiple denominations, but not among the most popular. It did appear in all three Episcopalian hymnals of the 20th century: Hymnal 1916, Hymnal 1940 and (in inclusive language form) Hymnal 1982, and is familiar at the Church of the Holy Communion (hereafter CHC) in Dallas.

Gradual: 465, “Nearer, my God to thee”

In the Topical Index, nine hymns are listed under “Conformity to God.” The most familiar would appear to be “Nearer, my God to thee” (#465). According to Hymnary.org, the hymn has been published in more than 2,000 hymnals. The hymn was originally written in 1840, based on the Old Testament dream of Jacob, in which God renews his covenant with the children of Abraham and Jacob vows to tithe all that he has to God.

All five verses emphasize how Jacob will get nearer to God through obedience and worship to God. In other words, Jacob is the model of Old Testament obedience to the Law sought by Paul, rather than the disobedience that he specifically chastises.

Sermon: 536, “Turn back O man”

In the rare week when the focus of the sermon is known before the bulletin is printed, I would choose a hymn that ties directly to that focus. Otherwise, my preference for something that is reflective, to help each parishioner think about his or her role as a Christian and prepare his/her heart to hear the message being preached.

Among the 17 hymns listed in the “Brotherhood” Topical Index in the Hymnal 1940, the most familiar to me is “Turn back O man” (#536). The hymn begins on a reflective note, opening with a call for us to think about and repudiate our “foolish ways”. It builds up to a call for church unity with its final verse:

Earth shall be fair, and all her people one:
Nor till that hour shall God’s whole will be done.
Now, even now, once more from earth to sky
Peals forth in joy man’s old, undaunted cry.
Earth shall be fair, and all her people one.

The voice leading of the melody is simple. It is a relatively recent text, written in 1916 for a tune and arrangement by Gustav Holst (based on an earlier tune from the 16th century Genevan Psalter). It appears in two Church of England hymnals edited by Ralph Vaughan Williams — Songs of Praise (1925) and Songs of Praise Enlarged Edition (1931). However, according to Hymnary.org, it appears in only 56 hymnals — a relatively small number — and so I would have to assume that it would be unfamiliar to Americans not raised on Hymnal 1940.

Recessional: 396, “The Church’s one foundation”

A key theme of the first lesson is Paul exhorting the faithful in Corinth to be united in their love of and obedience to Christ. In the Topical Index on page 801, Hymnal 1940 lists six hymns for “Church Unity.” Hymn 396, “The Church’s one foundation”, discusses both the horizontal communion between the members of the Church, and the vertical communion of the Bride of Christ (i.e. the Church) to Christ. This latter role of the Church is emphasized throughout the hymn through the use of the female pronoun to refer to the Church, as in the second verse:

Elect from every nation, Yet one o’er all the earth,
Her charter of salvation, One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses, Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses, With every grace endued.

The third phase of this verse recalls 1 Cor. 10:3 in the first lesson: “all ate the same spiritual food” (ESV, New KJV) or “did all eat the same spiritual meat” (KJV).

The hymn is both familiar and has a singable tune with simple voice leading and straightforward harmony. It should also be known to most English-speaking Protestants and Catholics, appearing on a list of 150 ecumenical hymns compiled by the Consultation on Ecumenical Hymnody.[3] According to Hymnary.org, it appears in more than 700 hymnals, and it is a familiar hymn at the CHC.

Footnotes

1. Normally I would consider this as a recessional hymn, but that could be risky in some parishes where the Hymnal 1940 text would be considered sexist and have people leave church with an un-Christian attitude. If I had a newer text, e.g. “Rise up ye saints of God” (#551) in Hymnal 1982, then I would probably use it at the end. Otherwise, I am counting on people to forget any imagined slight over the next hour of the service.
2. Except as noted, all historical and biographical details about hymns and hymnwriters is taken from The Hymnal 1940 Companion, 3rd rev. ed., New York: The Church Pension Fund, 1956.
3. This list of 150 ecumenical hymns is reported by Gary D. Penkala, “Core Hymnody,” CanticaNOVA Publications, URL: http://www.canticanova.com/articles/hymns/art241.htm

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.

Lord God Almighty

Our small group is reading A Lifetime Road to God (1977) by Donald J. Parsons (1922-2016). The Anglo-Catholic credentials of Abp. Parson are impeccable: president and dean of Nashotah House (1963-1973), and then bishop of Quincy (1973-1987) when it was one of the four doctrinally orthodox Episcopal Synod of America dioceses in ECUSA.

In Chapter 5 (“Prayer and Christian Growth”), he lists five types of personal prayer. The final item provides the best explanation I’ve ever seen for prayers of adoration:

[A]doration is praising God for being what He is, worshipping Him not because of what He has done or may yet do, but just because He is God. Adoration is the highest and most unselfish type of prayer. Excellent examples are the Sanctus in the Communion Service, the first part of the Te Deum, and several of the prayers. To adore God is to become more truly and completely what we are intended to be, since the creature finds fulfillment in singing the praise of the Creator.

With that definition, I looked for matching hymns in my Hymnal 1940. From Abp. Parsons’ taxonomy, we would start with the Sanctus, in the original (or Sanctus+Benedictus) versions:

• #704 (#796) the original 1550 Sanctus by John Merbecke from his Booke of Common Praier Noted, which provided service music for the Cranmer original but was forgotten until the 19th century Oxford Movement.
• #711 (#797) from the Healey Willan Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena
• #721 (#798) the 14th century plainsong, adapted by Winfred Douglas in the 1915 Missa Marialis

These three are in the original, more accurate Cranmer text (“Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts”) as opposed to the 20th century bowdlerization (“Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might”).

Under the topical index, “The Praise of God” (#278-315) seems to come closest to this topic, although the “Majesty of God” seems even better. Some possible favorites:

• #53 Songs of thankfulness and praise
• #266 Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty — the ultimate Trinity Sunday hymn
• #279 Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
• #282 Praise my soul, the King of heaven
• #285 The God of Abraham praise
• #289 O God our help in ages past
• #325 O for a thousand tongues to sing
• #523 God the Omnipotent!
• #551 A mighty fortress

Of course, if I were a CCM friendly liturgist, I’d add “How great is our God.” But I’m not, so I won’t.

Two forgotten gems of Hymnal 1940

A week ago (Trinity III in the traditional lectionary) we visited a Continuing parish, which (like most 28 Prayer Book) parishes, uses my favorite hymnal.

Sometimes I fall into the conceit that the hymns I know are the only ones worth playing. The music director (unintentionally) taught me a lesson both about Anglican hymnody and Hymnal 1940. Two hymns were new (or at least unfamiliar), and certainly ones that deserve further attention.

Give praise and glory unto God

The processional was Hymn 287, “Give praise and glory unto God,” on a the 1675 text by Johann Jacob Schütz.  The Lutheran Hymnal Companion (p.19) makes clear there were nine stanzas in the Schütz original and because of its text  it “was taken up into almost all German hymnals”. Alas, there is significant variation in the text and tunes among the English-language hymnals in my library.

In Hymnal 1940, three verses of the text were translated by Arthur Farlander and Winifred Douglas (1867-1944). Douglas was music editor of Hymnal 1916 and Hymnal 1940, who (according his biography in the Hymnal 1940 Companion) died a few hours after editing the proofs to H40. The hymn was one of 12 H40 translations solely or jointly authored by Douglas. The text was set to Peter Sohren’s 1668 tune, labelled Elbing in H40 and Du Lebensbrot, Herr Jesu Christ in H82 (#375). In the PC H82, “and mortal men” (v2) becomes “and mortals then.”

However, the Douglas translation is idiosyncratic to H40 (H82) and not followed elsewhere. Other hymnals use the 1864 Frances Elizabeth Cox (1812-1897) translation of Schütz, “Sing praise to God who reigns above.” In the CoE, this includes Hymns Ancient & Modern (#294), The English Hymnal (#478) and New English Hymnal (#447); the 1906 uses a Luther melody Nun Freut Euch while the 1986 institutes a new tune, Palace Green, by Michael Fleming (1928-2006). (The earlier A&M seems to use the same tune as TEH except in a different key).

Given its popularity among Germans, the hymn is not surprisingly a staple of the Missouri Lutherans. The Lutheran Hymnal (#19) uses six verses translated by Catherine Winkworth (“All praise to God, who reigns above”) and a tune ihr Lobet den Herrn by Melchior Pulpous (c. 1570-1615). The recent Lutheran Service Book (#819) uses 3 verses of Cox and 1 verse of Winkworth to the same tune (which it labels Ihr Lobt Gott den Herren.)

I could find no record of the text in 1 Baptist or  3 Presbyterian hymnals in my collection, but I don’t claim that collection is comprehensive. Neither the Cox nor Winkworth translation appear in the earlier PECUSA hymnals, Hymnal 1892 or Hymnal 1916.

Lead us, O Father, in the paths of peace


The recessional was Hymn 433, “Lead us, O Father, in the paths of peace,” a 1868 text by William H. Burleigh. The text (not found in 20th century CoE hymnals) began with Hymnal 1892 (#422, Tune: Cassidy). Hymnal 1916 (#248) has the 1862 tune Langran, which is the 2nd tune in 1940.

Out of H40, we sang the 1st tune, Song 22, a tune by the great 17th century organist and composer, Orlando Gibbons originally published in the 1623 The Hymnes and Songs of the Church (and reprinted in 1856). The Gibbons tune is the one retained in Hymnal 1982 (#703); however, as H82 is wont to do, it is cut down to three verses (dropping the 2nd, “Lead us, O Father, in the paths of truth”).

Conclusion

So were I on the committee editing the New Anglican Hymnal, I would propose keeping #433 with Gibbons but suggest using either the Cox or Winkworth translation for “Sing praise to God.” Of course, at an H40 parish, I’d use them both as printed 70 years ago.