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.