God be merciful to me...

Regular readers know I love singing harmony — which usually means straightforward voice leading and harmonies, sung several times a year. Today our communion hymn (H40: #60) was one of my favorite Lenten hymns, “With broken heart and contrite sigh”:

With broken heart and contrite sigh
A trembling sinner, Lord, I cry:
Thy pardoning grace is rich and free
O God, be merciful to me.

I smite upon my troubled breast,
With deep and conscience guilt oppressed;
Christ and His cross my only plea:
O God, be merciful to me.

Far off I stand with tearful eyes,
Nor dare uplift them to the skies;
But Thou dost all my anguish see:
O God, be merciful to me.

Nor alms, nor deeds that I have done,
Can for a single sin atone;
To Calvary alone I flee:
O God, be merciful to me.

And when, redeemed from sin and hell,
With all the ransomed throng I dwell,
My raptured song shall ever be,
God has been merciful to me.

There were four surprises in singing it today.

Liturgical Year

My favorite hymnal recommends it for Ash Wednesday (HC), Lent I (MP and HC) and Lent V (EP). Not surprisingly, Hymnal 1940 and other hymnals list it as a Lenten or penitential hymn.

However — contrary to our hymnal guidelines — today we used it to support the gospel reading. The hymn is about the tax collector (publican) from this parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, which is Luke 18:9-14 and Trinity 11 in the historic one-year lectionary.

The usage was perfect. Today’s sermon was about the (familiar) lesson that Jesus teaches about confession of sin, penitence and humility, and the hymn allowed all of us to cement this message in our hearts by singing it.

It turns out this usage is exactly how it is scheduled in the 1996 Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, the hymnal of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the Norwegian Lutherans who didn’t join the ELC in 1917 (which later became the ELCA).

Origin of the Text

I didn’t recognize the name of the author, Cornelius Elven. So when I got home, I looked up the origins of the text and author. Julian’s Dictionary of Hymnology (via Hymnary) says

Elven, Cornelius, pastor for fifty years of the Baptist Church at Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, was born in 1797, and died in 1873. His hymn, "With broken heart and contrite sigh” (Lent), is found in several collections in Great Britain and America. It was written in Jan., 1852 (Miller’s Singers & Songs, p. 449) for use at special services by his own congregation, and was included in the Baptist Psalms & Hymns, 1858.

The Hymnal 1940 Companion helpfully adds

This digression on the Parable of the Publican was written by Cornelius Eleven … It is based on St. Luke 18:13. It was first published in Baptist Psalms & Hymns, 1858, and in the [PECUSA] Hymnal of 1874.

So the intended use is actually for the parable and not the penitential season.

Recent Unpopularity

Hymnary is biased against older hymnals: by default, it only shows hymnals listing from 1979 onwards. Only 5 hymnals since 1979 list this hymn — but 202 before that date. Among the five, three are US denominational hymnals:

• Christian Worship: #303, the 1993 hymnal of Wisconsin Synod Lutherans
• Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary: #455
• Baptist Hymnal [2012]: #286, from the American Baptist Churches (a smaller, and more liberal denomination than the Southern Baptists). Google Books suggests that indicates that this is a slightly updated edition of the 1920 American Baptist hymnal, albeit one from the official American Baptist publisher located a few blocks from the denominational HQ.

Not surprisingly, seven other Baptist hymnals list the text, including the 1871, 1883, and 1904 Baptist hymnals. 

However, I was shocked to discover that this Baptist stalwart has not appeared in a Southern Baptist hymnal of the 20th or 21st century. I manually verified with my bookcase that this text (or anything by Elven) does not appear in the 1940 The Broadman Hymnal or the 1956, 1975, 1991 or 2008 editions of The Baptist Hymnal — nor does it appear in the 2010 Celebrating Grace, an unofficial (and slightly less conservative) Southern Baptist hymnal.

Seeing such omission makes it less surprising that it was dumped by contemporary Episcopalians in Hymnal 1982. Also not surprising is that it passed unchanged from Hymnal 1940 as hymn #97 in Magnify the Lord (aka Book of Common Praise 2017), the 2017 Reformed Episcopal Church hymnal.

Melodic Divergence

In looking at US hymnals, these are the tunes I found

• Migdol: [PECUSA] Hymnal 1896 (87)
• Eisenach: [PECUSA] Hymnal 1916 (133)
• Nuremberg: [PECUSA] Hymnal 1872 (71, 2nd tune) in the Goodrich & Gilbert edition† of Hymnal 1872.
• St. Cross: the 1930 American Lutheran Hymnal and the 1958 Service Book and Hymnal
• St. Luke: Evangelical Lutheran Worship and Christian Worship

† In 1872, PECUSA standardized the text but not the music, so each edition had its own tune choices.

Babylon’s Streams is the tune I sang this morning. It is the tune Episcopalians (Reformed or not) published 2017, 1940 and the Goodrich & Gilbert edition of Hymnal 1872 (71, 1st tune), and has a very penitential feel. Also using this tune is the 1970 American Baptist Hymnbook for Christian Worship (#50), which lists three verses under “Forgiveness” rather than repentance.

Other than these three hymnals (BCP 2017 is not in Hymnary), the other 23 uses of the tune are given for other texts. The tune is also the subject of an organ chorale by English composer William Henry Harris (1883-1873), who served as the court organist of Windsor Castle. The “Fantasy on the Tune Babylon’s Streams” was performed as early as 1923.

The tune by composer and poet Thomas Campian (1567-1620) was the most lasting contribution of what would be an important transitional collection of tunes for the Church of England. As Valnetine (1951:254) summarized:

Thomas Campion's First Book of Ayres, published in 1613, shows the influence of the madrigal in the loosening of the rigid form imposed in the Church Tunes. Thomas Campion wrote the words and composed the music for such hymns as "The Weather-beaten Sail" (S.P. 567) and "The Song of Joy" (S.P. 639). The best-known tune from this important book is "Babylon's Streams" (S.P. 124, E.R. 487, A.M.R. 228). These tunes, it is to be observed, were composed for hymns and not for Metrical Psalms. This is an advance in the history of the hymn tune.

How this pairing was created in 1872 is not explained by the Hymnal 1940 Companion, and my search of Google Scholar produced no answers. Because it is not used in any other major hymnal (with a published hymnal companion), this story may be lost to history.

References

Valentine, Cyril H. "The Hymn Tune in the English Church." Theology 54, no. 373 (1951): 250-257.

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.