Cathedral vs. family Anglican worship

At most U.S. Anglican churches, today was the observance of All Saints Day. Upon reflection, it seems as though the two obvious hymns — “For all the saints” and “I sing a song of the saints of God” — represent conflicting worship goals.

I didn’t realize it when I woke up this morning, but this was also the conclusion of a 1994 article on “Episcopalians Celebrate All Saints” by Ruth Myers:

Distinct in style and content, these hymns express different theological aspects of the feast of All Saints. “For all the saints” celebrates the great communion of saints by acknowledging their earthly struggles and rejoicing in their eschatological triumph. In contrast, “I sing a song of the saints of God” was written for children “to impress the fact that sainthood is a living possibility today.”

However, I was focusing on a slightly different dichotomy: between high-church (cathedral-style) worship and reaching out to children.

Cathedral Hymnody

Although part of the American Hymnal 1892, what we know today as “For all the saints” is the version from The English Hymnal (1906), with a new tune by (TEH music editor) Ralph Vaughan Williams and eight of the 11 verses by Bishop How.

It has a bit of an ecumenical flavor. The (Missouri Synod) Lutheran talk show Issues Etc. last week ran a 54-minute interview with a Lutheran seminary professor, talking about the history of the hymn. It’s featured in the Presbyterian and Baptist hymnals, and last week my daughter sang it during the official freshman chapel at her Baptist university. In my (recently acquired) 1975 U.S. Catholic Hymnal, Worship II, it’s listed as Hymn #80 (although alas without four-part harmony on the middle verses).

As the clergy processed in this morning, I could tell who the cradle Anglicans (or Episcopalians) and long-time parishioners were, as they belted it out with great enthusiasm. Apparently I’m not the only one who looks forward to this day every year — for the words, for the music, and for the memories it evokes of my days as a choirboy at San Diego’s proto-cathedral. This is a hymn that cries out for the majesty of dozens (if not hundreds) of voices, a strong choir and a blaring organ.

Still, it’s not for everyone. After church, I went up to one of our newer parishioners, who (as it turns out) has a Pentecostal background but has been seeking a deeper liturgical experience. I asked him how he liked the hymn, and he said it was unfamiliar.

At the same time, except for the syncopated entry, it seems like a pretty straightforward hymn to sing. Yes, I’m not the most objective judge, having sung it in church 25+ times in my life. But objectively, it’s certainly a lot easier than Vaughan Williams’ second most famous hymn, the Easter/Ascension/Pentecost favorite “Hall thee, festival day?”

Children’s Hymnody

The other All Saints’ hymn seems at the other extreme: “I sing a song of the saints of God”. The text was published as a children’s hymn in the 1920s, while the version we sing was introduced to the world by Hymnal 1940 (#243) with a new tune written expressly for this purpose. It appears in Hymnal 1982 and some Presbyterian and Methodist hymnals. However — despite the British text (“at tea”) — the combined hymn has not crossed the pond to any Church of England hymnal. According to Hymnary.org, appears in only 22 hymnals (vs. 473 for the more famous Vaughan Williams cathedral hymn.)

Both my wife and I remember it vividly from our childhood in the proto-cathedral. Our sermon today called it out today as well, as the clergyman had similar memories. Afterwards, we told him it was one of three we scheduled for our daughter’s baptism. (In fact, she heard it today by the children’s choir at her parish, but at our church the children’s choir was on hiatus and so it wasn’t scheduled). Similar recollections were voiced at a Virginia Theological Seminary blog.

Children’s vs. Cathedral Music

While these two styles are very divergent, I see them as more orthogonal than contradictory. Many of us learned “For all the saints” as children, and have loved it ever since (as my teenager daughter does). At the same time, there are many of us in the second half of life who eagerly await hearing the Lesbia Scott every November.

So the former hymn provides an opportunity to model enthusiastic festal worship for parishioners young and old, while the latter reminds us the importance of teaching the faithful the meaning of these feast days.

References

Meyers, Ruth A. (1994). "Episcopalians Celebrate All Saints." In Journal of the Liturgical Conference, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 9-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0458063X.1994.10392275

Favorite recording of the all-time favorite All Saints hymn

Of course, it wouldn’t be All Saints’ Day without Ralph Vaughan Williams' greatest hit, “For All the Saints.”

Unlike my daughter, my work schedule did not allow me to attend services and hear this hymn live this week. So on the way to work I decided to look for what recordings I had on my laptop among the 426 hymns.

I found four distinct performances. All were from English choirs using (as far as I could tell) boys for the trebles. Here the the performances, ordered from most basic to most ornate:

1. Worcester Cathedral Choir, from the “Vaughan Williams: Hymns and Choral Music” (3 verses, 2:12). Other than only three verses, a model of what I would want a small church choir or medium-sized congregation to do
2. Trinity College Choir, Cambridge, from “A Vaughan Williams Hymnal” (8 verses, 5:32) has several variations, including men only and an a capella verse. This is the straight-up version that I would hold as the aspirational goal for all but the most experienced church choir.
3. Wells Cathedral Choir, from “Christ Triumphant: The English Hymn 1” (6 verses, 4:23) is similar, but a more pronounced retard at the end.
4. Wells Cathedral Choir, from “Favourite Hymns from Wells Cathedral” (6 verses, 5:03) is all out, with trumpet flourishes before the beginning, between the 5th and 6th verses, and with trumpets and organ blasting over the choir in the final verse.

The first three have an almost identical tempo of 0:40 per verse, while the last one is noticeably slower (10% by my copy of iTunes).

Overall, I think I like #2 the best, in between #1 and #3. While #4 would probably be the one I’d prefer to experience live in a cathedral — or perhaps blaring on my high-end stereo in the music room — it’s just not the same with headphones on my laptop or iPod, and the drama actually gets a little tedious after a while.

Update: If you listen closely to these English choirs, you’ll notice a difference from The English Hymnal (#641) original and American practice. The choirs match this text in verse 1 of TEH:

For all the Saints who from their labours rest,
Who thee by faith before the world the confest,
Thy name, O Jesu, be forever blest,
Allieluya, Alleiluya!

So while there are obvious spelling differences, when listening it is noticeable that the English sing “O Jesu” rather than the “O Jesus” used with this text and RVW’s Sine Nomine in Hymnal 1940 (#126.1) or Hymnal 1982 (#287).

It turns out Hymnal 1916 was first American hymnal to use “O Jesus,” but still used the older 1868 tune (Sarum) which was retained in H40 (#126.2). When I went back to Hymnal 1892, not surprisingly it has Sarum — it couldn’t know about the tune that Vaughan Williams composed in 1906 for TEH — but it used the British “Jesu” (while keeping the other American spellings).

Saints and heroes of the Reformation

For Lutherans, this is a particularly poignant day in the church calendar. Today is Reformation Day — the 499th anniversary of Martin Luther posting (or at least circulating) his 95 Theses.

At the same time, tomorrow is the feast of All Saints — a celebration we inherited from the undivided Western (i.e. Roman Catholic) church. Non-liturgical Christians — often referred to as those who worship in the “Evangelical”† style — generally have a strong suspicion of anything Catholic.

I have argued that traditional Lutherans and Anglicans are the most moderate of the Protestant denominations, because we harken back to the undivided Church, and didn’t re-acquire the sin of iconoclasm. Unlike extreme Calvinists and other Radical Reformers, we did not throw out the baby with the bathwater over our differences with Rome.

Thus our daughter Katy (a cradle Anglo-Catholic) and my niece Erin (a cradle Roman Catholic) have had mixed feelings attending Christian universities with an decidedly Evangelical† bent. From a social-cultural standpoint, they enjoy being surrounded by (at least nominal) Christians. But when it comes to the required chapel service, what they attend only vaguely resembles the historic liturgy that they grew up with.

Thus my daughter was ecstatic this morning when her mandatory college chapel acknowledged these two key dates on the liturgical calendar:

I was so excited when I heard the organ playing when I walked in and then we sang 2 hymns …For all the Saints and Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing  …And then there was a postlude without singing - A Mighty Fortress is Our God. … It was just great. It was even slightly liturgical. §

If the Evangelical† worship can teach us to be sensitive to new members and non-believers, perhaps we liturgical Christians can bear witness to the historic liturgy, liturgical calendar and liturgical music.

† Note: here I use “Evangelical” in a cultural/liturgical sense, rather than to refer to those (Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant) Christians who seek to spread the Good News of our Risen Lord.

§ While unexpected, these three hymns are officially sanctioned at her Baptist university, as all are included in the 1975 Baptist Hymnal

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.

10 "best" hymns

In “I'm fed up with bad church music” — a Facebook group that I belong to — someone posted this morning a link to a blog posting provocatively entitled “The 10 Greatest Hymns of All-Time.” The author is a Toronto non-denominational pastor, so the list was surprisingly traditional:

1. And Can It Be? by Charles Wesley
2. A Mighty Fortress by Martin Luther
3. All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name by Edward Perronet.
4. Oh, For a Thousand Tongues by Charles Wesley.
5. When I Survey the Wondrous Cross by Isaac Watts.
6. How Firm a Foundation by an unknown author.
7. Holy, Holy, Holy by Reginald Heber.
8. It Is Well With My Soul by Horatio Spafford.
9. Abide With Me by Henry Francis Lyte.
10. Amazing Grace by John Newton.

It’s actually a pretty good list, with many non-controversial choices. But if we are judging the entirety of a hymn (as he states he is) and not just the lyrics, then IMHO Wesley’s “Love Divine” (to the stately tune Hyfrydol) would displace his first-choice of Wesley hymns (to the forgettable tune Sagina).

It was actually his list of runners-up that was a little more controversial:

There are so many more that could easily have been on this list: “Crown Him with Many Crowns,” “For All the Saints,” “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah,” “Rock of Ages,” “Christ the Lord is Risen Today”, “Take My Life and Let It Be,” “In Christ Alone,” and on and on.

It seems to me that any such list has to exclude Christmas and Easter, because it would be easy to make a list of 10 greatest Christmas or Easter hymns. “Crown Him with many crowns” seems like it belongs in this list.

But “In Christ Alone”? Is this a hymn that has survived (let alone will survive) the test of time? Even if I were going to pick a 21st century praise hymn, this doesn't belong on a list of hymns that are “universal and timeless”. Every performance I’ve heard (including one at a consecration) it came across as a sappy pop song rather than a hymn of praise. From the CCLI list — and excluding hybrid remakes (like “Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)”) — I would similarly exclude “How Great is Our God” (which is the exemplar of a 7-11 song). Perhaps “10,000 Reasons” or “Blessed Be Your Name,” but I would leave the final choice to the CCM fan on the top 10 committee.

So in the end, any list like this is a subjective one. The only objective way to measure “best” would be to look at a large population of selection over time — such as those hymns that were published in the broadest range of hymnals, either over many decades or among recent compilations.

I have been building a database of Anglican hymns (in Anglican hymnals); certainly Oremus has this list for the lyrics, but confirming which tunes are published where takes a little more work.