The British get hymns

Saturday’s online edition of the The Times of London had a wonderful article by Bp. Geoffrey Rowell celebrating the art of hymn-making and hymn-singing.

After noting (and lamenting) how the church once celebrated the saint’s day for John the Baptist, he segues into a discussion of the role of song in worship — whether by John’s father Zechariah, the Psalms, or in Jewish tradition.

It really is a wondeful essay. The most germane paragraph is this one:

The Reformation brought about a great renewal of Christian music and hymnody. In England, apart from anthems for choirs, it was late coming, for the only popularly sung resources which went with the Prayer Book service were metrical versions of the psalms. It was the Methodist revival of the 18th century, and the genius of John Wesley, and in particular of his brother, Charles, together with Isaac Watts, which began the great tradition of English hymnody.

There are further discussions of the role played by Wesley and another hymn-writer 100 years later in spreading the faith:

[Christopher Wordsworth] said said, “the first duty of a hymn-writer to teach sound doctrine, and thus to save souls”.

Although 750 words isn’t much room to teach about 2,000 years of Christian hymnody (or even 500 years of Protestant hymnody), I commend the article for further reading.

We’d never see this article in a mainstream American newspaper: the article works in a mainstream British newspaper because of a common cultural and religious heritage. Sadly, in 50 years that faith and shared heritage will be gone from England, through a combination of indifference and immigration by other faiths. In the US, we may (or may not) still have Christianity, but either way the trend is towards even less commonality in liturgical tradition. Even medium-sized denominations that once had a common canon are shifting towards local option and thus, it seems, no two parishes worshipping alike.

Hat tip: Original cite by Kendall Harmon in Titus 1:9.

Sampling Anglican Worship

While this is a blog about Anglican liturgical music, there is no such music without liturgy and worship. So during my visit to London I tried to visit as many parishes as possible: four in four days (evensong at Westminster Abbey, weekday mass at St. Mary’s Bourne Street, a concert at St. Michael’s Croydon, and the early Sunday mass at St. Bart’s the Greater).

Alas, there was only one congregation hymn in the lot, Friday night at St. Mary’s. But there was organ music and a choir at all my visits except Sunday morning, when I attended a spoken mass because I had to leave too early to catch any choral mass.

At Westminster, I sat on top of the earthly remains of former PM Sir William Gladstone. Of course, this was a performance for tourists, t-shirts and all. I’m not sure if practicing Christians were even among the majority, with only about 40% reciting the Apostle’s creed (although some could be from non-liturgical parishes or of other languages). Those seated late at the abbey outnumbered the entire congregation at St. Mary’s or St. Bart’s.

I learned a little about church music and about differences in worship between American and English Anglicans.

The Westminster service reminded me of something I learned when singing and studying music in college. There is cathedral music, and other music. Not surprisingly, the Tallis Magnificat and Nunc Dumittis sounded stunning when sung by the choir school boy trebles (aka sopranos) and their professional male counterparts. One of the 20th century pieces was OK (if you like that sort of stuff), but the other was just a bowl of mud in the long reverb sanctuary.

The second thing I learned was that — graduation music notwithstanding — I didn’t care for Sir Edward Elgar, and I still don’t. He may be a national hero to some, but to my ear he doesn’t hold a candle to the better stuff by Rutter and Britten, let alone Tallis, Handel, or Ralph Vaughan Williams. It wasn’t the choir’s fault — at times, they sounded like a good symphony orchestra choir rather than a church choir (although they had nearly as many sopranos as the other three parts combined).

On worship, I learned two things overall that caught me by surprise. Instead of pews (benches) and kneelers (pull-down kneeling stands), all but one of the churches had chairs, and all had kneeling cushions. I don’t know if the pew thing never caught on, or if the chairs were acquired to allow more flexible space utilization (wedding receptions? birthday parties?)

But the most relevant insights (for this blog) came gradually at bookstores and directly in the congregations. At the three parishes (tourist stop Westminster didn’t count), the standard pew hymnal is “words only,” with one offering “melody” upon request and all reserving “full tunes” for the choir.

As far as I know, none of the major denominations have even printed a words-only hymnal in the US. I’ve been in a few parishes that had melody-only hymnals (particularly in a chapel), and the 1982 Hymnal has unilaterally dropped the harmony from some hymns. But after visiting lots of parishes in the last five years, I’d still say full harmony is the norm in the pews.

After we sang the one hymn at St. Mary’s, I asked how they sang without the music. One said “I’ve been singing it for 30 years” while the other admitted “you have to learn it from the organ.” At St. Michael’s, they admitted that a few parishioners preferred music, so it appeared that about 20% of their hymnals (handed out upon entry) were the melody variety.

Picture: Sanctuary of St. Michael’s, Croydon.

English Hymnbook Shopping

Inspired by Catherine Osborne’s blog (and with some advice from Dr. Osborne herself) during this week’s visit to London I set aside time for hymnbook shopping. Using her tips, as well as the Internet (notably UKCBD and Tentmaker), I narrowed my search down to four stores, which I visited (in between other business) over three days. Below are the stores (in order visited)

	Chapter Two	SPCK	Cornerstone	Pendleburys
Transit Stop	Rail: Woolwich Arsenal	Tube: Westminster	Tube: West Finchley	Rail: Stoke Newington Bus: Dunsmore
Hymns Ancient & Modern	used	?§	new§
The English Hymnal	used	new†	new
Songs of Praise. Enlarged edition	used			used
The New English Hymnal		new	new

† They only had the limited printing (500 copies) of the Centenary Edition

§ New copies are
New Standard Edition

Overall, I was pretty successful in my shopping this weekend:

• Hymns Ancient and Modern. This was the first standardized British hymnal. I bought three at Chapter Two: 1st Edition with Appendix (1869); 2nd Edition with 2nd Supplement (1906); Standard Edition (1916). Because there were so many editions, I need to compare these and do some research to see if I need any more.
• The English Hymnal (1906). This is the book Dr. O praises without ceasing, and features Ralph Vaughan Williams as music editor (and composer of several new tunes) and Pearcy Dearmer as editor of the texts.
• Songs of Praised, Enlarged Edition (1931). The original 1925 edition appears to have quickly gone out of print, but used copies of the 1931 are readily available.

I didn’t buy these in-print hymnals, available new at several stores and at Amazon UK:

• Hymns Ancient & Modern, New Standard Version (1983). Probably has a nostalgia value for hymn singers, but no historical significance for my interests in tracing the impact of English hymnals upon those in the US.
• The English Hymnal, Revised Edition (1933). Also edited by Vaughan Williams and Dearmer. This is the hymnal used by two generations in the Church of England, and has significant changes from the earlier edition. This is to Dr. Osborne what the 1940 Hymnal is to me. Obviously I’ll have to get it, but I decided not to pay £37 for a new copy at this time.
• The New English Hymnal (1986). No influence (yet) on American hymnals, but I might someday get it to contrast the parallels between Hymnal 1940->Hymnal 1982 and TEH->NEH.

As it turns out, my greatest successes were at the two used bookshops, Chapter Two (East of The City) and Pendleburys (behind the Stamford Hill library). Both had 1½ racks of used hymnals, although Pendleburys' was temporarily out of most of the COE books. Overall, the Chapter Two books were older and cheaper, with almost nothing at Pendleburys printed before WW II. Fittingly, Pendleburys is in the annex to a church (Stamford Hill United Reformed Church) — as Chapter Two once was, until their landlord church needed the space back and they had to move.

Both also had an assortment of other Protestant English hymnals (Baptist, Congregational, Methodist, Presbyterian). However, I hadn’t researched those before I came, and so didn’t have a shopping list. To analyze the parallel development of Hymns Ancient & Modern and The English Hymnal, I will be getting The Church Hymnary (Church of Scotland and allied Presbyterian churches), both in the original (1898) and revised (1927) editions, but probably not the third (1973).

I plan on going back to both stores on a future trip. SPCK had only a token used collection, but because of its location (just south of Westminster Abbey) is more convenient than any of the others. Cornerstone was very friendly, but not a place for researching liturgical music; it was almost identical to a standard U.S. “Christian” bookstore, so that it had any hymnals at all suggests the dominant role that Anglican worship plays (or once played) in England, compared to the centuries-old religious pluralism of the US .

The hymnals I saw more often than any other were The Celebration Hymnal (must be the current bestseller), Complete Mission Praise and the Redemption Hymnal (1951, but now back in print). Both are outside the scope of my current interest.

I also acquired some interesting books on hymns, which will be another posting. Only Pendleburys had any sort of assortment of books here, with three shelves (half of a rack) on hymnody, so that’s how they got my money.

What about those Germans?

Music columnist B.L. Scherer wrote a delightful article (subscription required) in today’s Wall Street Journal about annual Bethlehem Bach Festival, hosted by the local Bach Choir (www.bach.org — love that URL). Both the festival and the review were almost (not quite) enough to make me wish I lived on the EastCoast.

[T]he Bach Choir represents a musical culture that was once a vital part of American life.

Post-Civil War America shared with Victorian England a love of choral music, and, oddly enough, choral societies and major choral festivals often sprang up in industrial areas like Leeds, Huddersfield and Birmingham in England's sooty midlands, American mill towns like Worcester, Mass., and places with large German-immigrant populations, like Cincinnati and Milwaukee.

Why this link between choral music and heavy industry? At that time, most industrial towns offered few pastimes for their working-class populace beside taverns and blood sports. Hence the founding of amateur choruses, with their regularly scheduled rehearsals, offered men and women an opportunity for respectable social interaction, combined with the positive aspect of learning and performing music.

I can’t verify the claimed link to heavy industry; after all, choirs today often tend to be filled with adults that have a love of classical music, which now is a decidedly elite orientation. However, from years of thumbing through my hymnal, I certainly recognize the links between the late 19th century choral renaissance in England and the US.

With my focus on “Anglican” (née Episcopal) hymnody, Scherer reminds me of the profound influence that Germans had upon both British and American hymnals (notwithstanding some ill-will between the two groups from 1914-1945). No one can dispute that J.S. Bach is the father of the four-part chorale, and some (including me) would argue its most sublime composer. While I haven’t whipped out my Piston to analyze those great 19th century hymns, from singing most seem to owe more to Bach than 19th century composers like Berlioz or Bruckner.

The direct German contributions to Anglican hymnals are easy to measure. The composer index of the 1940 Hymnal lists 16 hymns by J.S. Bach — tied with R. Vaughan Williams and ahead of the entire Wesley family (mainly S.S. Wesley). It also lists 16 tunes under the category of “German Melody” (which have a publisher) or “German Traditional Melody” (which don’t), as well as 5 by Mendelssohn, 2 by Handel (a German in England), 1 by J.C. Bach, and various hymns from local Gesangbücher.

There is also the influence of Martin Luther — both upon the Anglican church and its music. Anglican churches perform a large body of Lutheran church music — beginning with Luther but also Johann Crüger (10 hymns) of the Berlin Nikolaikirche and then Bach with his chorales and sacred cantatas. Of course, 19th German immigrants to the U.S. created the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod (now Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod), the 2nd largest Lutheran group in the U.S. (but still larger than TEC).

I have yet to trace the flows of hymns between Anglican and Lutheran hymnals. In some cases, there are obvious direct linkages, as when Sine Nomine written for the 1906 The English Hymnal became hymn #463 in the (US) 1941 The Lutheran Hymnal. In other cases, there are common antecedents, as with so many Christmas hymns and probably most of the Bach.

Still, Anglican worship borrows a lot in both theology and liturgical music from the the Germans, something Americans (focused on our debt to England) tend to forget.

Credit: painting of J.S. Bach by Elias Gottlob Haussmann, as archived by Wikipedia.

Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Easter contribution

For decades, Easter for me has been associated with one particularly majestic tune by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958). Of course, I’m talking about Salve Festa Dies. Or as (every Holy Week) my wife asks about our plans for Easter services: “Will they be playing ‘Hail thee, festival day’?”

The title of the Vaughan Williams tune comes from the first phrase of the Latin poem by Saint Venantius Honorius Fortunatus (ca. 530-600). Four centuries later, part of the poem had been adapted as a liturgical hymn with a refrain and 13 verses that begin:

R. Salve, festa dies, toto venerabilis aevo,
Qua Deus infernum vicit et astra tenet.
1. Ecce, renascentis testatur gratia mundi
Omnia cum Domino dona redisse suo.
2. Namque triumphanti post tristia tartara Christo
Undique fronde nemus, gramina flore favent.
3. Legibus inferni oppressis super astra meantem
Laudant rite Deum lux, polus, arva, fretum.
4. Qui crucifixus erat, Deus, ecce, per omnia regnat,
Dantque creatori cuncta creata precem.
5. Nobilitatis anni, mensum decus, arma dierum,
Horarum splendor, scripula puncta fovent.
6. Christe, salus rerum, bone conditor atque redemptor,
Unica progenies ex deitate patris, …

When I was a choirboy, I didn’t know who Vaughan Williams was, other than I saw his name as the composer of various hymns in my hymnal. A quick survey of the 1940 Hymnal shows his name listed next to 16 hymns — nine as the arranger or harmonizer, and seven as the composer. Three of those seven are Salve Festa Dies, one each for Easter, Ascension and Whitsunday. These three survive into the 1982 Hymnal (although Whitsunday is now “Pentecost”), as do 3/4 of the other RVW hymns.

I also didn’t know that RVW spent two years of his life, 1904-1906, editing the most durable and influential English-language hymnal of the 20th century. The English Hymnal of 1906 remained the Church of England hymnal for 80 years, until it was replaced by The New English Hymnal. In his preface, Vaughan Williams emphasized the diversity of musical sources for The English Hymnal, including “Tunes by 19th and 20th century composers.” Among the latter category were his own compositions, including Salve Festa Dies, composed in 1906. Interestingly, the 1906 hymnal lists 11 verses, versus nine in the 1940 (US) Hymnal, and six in the 1986 NEH. Some claim it is hard to sing due to the translation of the Latin couplets or perhaps the three different meter and melodies; whatever the reason, it seems that much more satisfying to sing once mastered.

Salve Festa Dies didn’t make it into the American New Hymnal of 1916, but instead makes its first appearance on this side of the pond in the 1940 Hymnal. The latter also includes six traditional English melodies arranged by RVW for the EH from the hundreds he compiled during the period 1903-1915.

Father Kelley of St. Mary of the Angels points out there is a significant error in the 1940 Hymnal. The phrase “Qui crucifixus erat, Deus, ecce, per omnia regnat” is rendered in the 1940 (and 1982) Hymnal as “He who was nailed to the cross is Lord and the ruler of all men.” I don’t have the 1906 EH (or 1931 Songs of Praise) at hand, but even I know that “Deus” is translated ”God” and not “Lord.”

When a few years ago I considered starting a (Anglican) sacred music Internet radio station, I accumulated a Godly collection of choral CDs, including two of Vaughan Williams music. My clear favorite was “A Vaughan Williams Hymnal,” where the Trinity College choir sings all the stirring hymns, including Salve Festa Dies. However, I only recognized two hymns from the Winchester Cathedral CD, “Vaughan Williams: Hymns and Choral Music,” which (without checking the actual composition dates) sounds like it’s mostly his mid-20th century music.

Both CD compilations know a hit when they hear one: both have the most famous (and I daresay most popular) Vaughan Williams hymn, Sine Nomine, also introduced with the 1906 hymnal.