Robert Bridges

“ In the matter of hymn-melodies an unbarred rhythm has very decided advantages over a barred rhythm. In the former the melody has its own way, and dances at liberty with the voice and sense; in barred time it has its accents squared out beforehand, and makes steadily for its predetermined beat, plumping down, as one may say, on the first note of every bar whether it will or no. ”

“ Good melody is never out of fashion; and as it is by all confession the seal of high musical genius, so it is that form of music which is universally intelligible and in the best sense popular; and we have a rich legacy of it. What we want is that our hymn-books should contain a collection of the best ecclesiastical and sacred hymn-melodies, and nothing but these, instead of having but a modicum of these, for the most part mauled and illset, among a crowd of contributions of an altogether inferior kind ”

“ Rhythm is infinite. These regular times are no doubt the most important fundamental entities of it, and may even lie undiscoverably at the root of all varieties of rhythm whatsoever, and further they may be the only possible or permissible rhythms for a modern composer to use, but yet the absolute dominion which they now enjoy over all music lies rather in their practical necessity and convenience (since it is only by attending to them that the elaboration of [25] modern harmonic music is possible) , than in the undesirability (in itself) or unmusical character of melody which ignores them. ”

“ Augustin lived before what we reckon the very beginnings of modern music, with nothing to entice and delight his ears in the choir but the simplest ecclesiastical chant and hymn-tune sung in unison. We are accustomed to an almost over-elaborated art, which, having won powers of expression in all directions, has so squandered them that they are of little value: and we may confidently say that the emotional power of our church music is not so great as that described by him 1,500 years ago. ”

“ It is suitable both for simple and elaborate settings, for hymns of praise or of the more intimate ideal emotions, and in a resonant building a choir of six voices can produce complete effects with it. The broad, sonorous swell of its harmonious intervals floods the air with peaceful power, very unlike the broken sea of Bach's chromatics, which, to produce anything like an equal effect of sound, needs to be powerfully excited. ”

“ When one turns the pages of that most depressing of all books ever compiled by the groaning creature, Julian's hymn-dictionary, and sees the thousands of carefully tabulated English hymns, by far the greater number of them not only pitiable as efforts of human intelligence, but absolutely worthless as vocal material for melodic treatment, one wishes that all this effort had been directed to supply a real want. ”

“ To the next question, Whose emotion is this congregational music to excite or heighten? the answer is plain: It is the average man, or one rather below the average, the uneducated, as St. Augustin says the weaker, mind and that in England is, at least artistically, a narrow mind and a vulgar being. And it may of course be alleged that the music in our hymn-books which is intolerable to the more sensitive minds was not put there for them, but would justify itself in its supposed fitness for the lower classes. ”

“ A hymn-tune, which they hastily assume to be the commonest and lowest form of music, actually possesses liberties coveted by other music [13] . It is a short melody, committed to memory, and frequently repeated: there is no reason why it should submit to any of the time-conveniences of orchestral music: there is no reason why its rhythm should not be completely free; nor is there any a priori necessity why [27] any one tune should be exactly like another in rhythm. ”

“ Music being the universal expression of the mysterious and supernatural, the best that man has ever attained to, is capable of uniting in common [43] devotion minds that are only separated by creeds, and it comforts our hope with a brighter promise of unity than any logic offers. And if we consider and ask ourselves what sort of music we should wish to hear on entering a church, we should surely, in describing our ideal, say first of all that it must be something different from what is heard elsewhere ”

“ Turning now to the subject of ecclesiastical music, and comparing thus Palestrina with Beethoven or Mozart, is it not at once apparent that Palestrina has this distinct advantage, namely, that he seems not to interfere at all with, or add anything to, the sacred words? His early musical art is impersonal, what the musicians call 'pure music'; and if he is setting the phrases of the Liturgy or Holy Scriptures, we are not aware of any adjunct; it seems rather as if the sacred words had suddenly become musical. Not so with Mozart or Beethoven ”

“ If anything is true of rhythm it is this, that the common mind likes common rhythms, such as the march or waltz, whereas elaboration of rhythm appeals to a trained mind or artistic faculty. I should say that the popularity of common rhythms is due to the shortness of human life, and that if men were to live to be 300 years old they would weary of the sort of music which Robert Browning describes so well--
'There 's no keeping one's haunches still,
There 's no such pleasure in life.'
But hymn-melodies must not be put on that level. ”

“ They are of great artistic merit and beauty; and instead of considering them a priori as uncongenial on the ground of antiquity, we should rather be thinking of them that they were invented at a time when unison singing was cultivated in the highest perfection, so much so that a large number of these tunes are, on account of their elaborate and advanced rhythm, not only far above the most intelligent taste of the minds with which we have to deal, but are also so difficult of execution that there are few trained choirs in the country that could render them well. ”

“ And we must also remember that the art of the time, whether it be bad or good, has a much more living relation to the generation which is producing it, and exerts a more powerful [16] influence upon it, than the art of any time that is past and gone. It is the same in all aspects of life: it is the book of the day, the hero or statesman of the hour, the newest hope, the latest flash of scientific light, which attracts the people. ”

“ One of the first duties therefore which we owe to hymn-melodies is the restoration of their free and original rhythms, keeping them as varied as possible: the Plain-song melodies must be left unbarred and be taught as free rhythms, and all other fine tunes which are worth using should be preserved in their original rhythm; because free rhythm is better, and its variety is good, and because the attraction of a hymn-melody lies in its individual character and expression, and not at all in its time-likeness to other tunes. ”

“ And the words owe a courtesy to the music; for if a balance be struck between the words and music of hymns, it will be found to be heavily in favour of the musicians, whose fine work has been unscrupulously altered and reduced to dullness by english compilers, with the object of conforming it in rhythm to words that are unworthy of any music whatever. The chief offenders here are the protestant reformers, whose metrical psalms, which the melodies were tortured to fit, exhibit greater futility than one would look for even in men who could thus wantonly spoil fine music [25] . ”

“ Besides, the main fault of these books, from which we should have to quote, is the association of the music, and this is really an accident, the question before us being the character of the music; so that we should require musical illustration, for though the common distinction between sacred and secular music is in the main just, yet the line cannot be drawn at the original intention, or historical origin of the music: the true differentiation lies in the character of the music, the associated sentiment being liable to change. ”

“ In the Universities, too, it should be impossible for an undergraduate not to gain acquaintance with good ecclesiastical music, and this is not ensured by an occasional rare performance of half a dozen old masterpieces which are preserved in heartless compliment to antiquity. It is to such bodies that we must first look for help and guidance to give our church music artistic importance: for let no one think that the church can put the artistic question on one side. There is no escape from art ”

“ Sing to any one a Plain-song melody, Ad coenam Agni for instance, once or twice, and then Croft's 148th Psalm [12] . Croft will be undeniably fine and impressive, but he provokes a smile: his tune is like a diagram beside a flower.
Now in this matter of rhythm our hymn-book compilers, since the seventeenth century, have done us a vast injury. They have reduced all hymns to the common times. ”

“ It seems perhaps a pity that nature should have arranged that where the people are musical (as Augustin appears to have been) they would rather listen, and where they are unmusical they would all rather sing.
Speaking therefore of congregational hymn-singing, and conceding, as I think we must, that the essential use of such music is to heighten emotion, then, this emotional quality being the sine qua non (the music [8] being of no use without it) , it follows that it is the primary consideration. If we are to have music at all, it must be such as will raise or heighten emotion ”

“ Thirdly, that the excuse which some musicians have offered for the sentimentality of their modern tunes, namely, that the words are so sentimental, is not without point as a criticism of modern hymn-words, [40] but is of no value whatever as a defence of their practice. The interpretative power of music is exceedingly great, and can force almost any words (as far as their sentiment is concerned) into a good channel.
And if music be introduced at all into public worship it must be most jealously and scrupulously guarded. ”

“ To refuse the best for the sake of something inferior of the same kind can never be a policy; it is rather an uncorrected bad habit, that can only be excused by ignorance; and ignorance on the question of music is every day becoming less excusable ”

“ These settings offer no difficulty of execution all; that is necessary is that the under voices should know the melody: and though this is not generally thought requisite in a modern hymn, it is asking nothing extra of a choir that would sing the plain-song tunes; for even if they are sung in unison, they must first be known by heart (otherwise their rhythmical freedom, which defies notation, and is indispensable to their beauty, cannot be approached) , and when once a choir has got thus far, the under parts, being phrased with the melody, will easily follow it. ”

“ Good melody is never out of fashion; ”

“ And it must be, on the face of it, true that any artist who becomes widely popular must have hit off, 'I know not by what secret familiarity,' the exact fashion or caprice of the current taste of his own generation. ”

“ Bach's settings, when not too elaborate or of impossible compass in the parts, may be well used where the choir is numerically strong. He has made these chorales peculiarly his own, and, in accepting his interpretation of them, we are only acquiescing in a universal judgement, while we make an exception in favour of genius; for as a general rule (which will of course apply to those chorales which we do not use in Bach's version) , all the music of this Reformation period must be harmonized strictly in the vocal counterpoint which prevailed at the end of the sixteenth century ”

“ But it seems to me ridiculous to suppose that genius cannot use all good means with reserve and dignity; and if the modern church music will not stand comparison in respect [38] of dignity and solemnity with the old, the fault must rather lie in the manner in which the new means are used, than in the means themselves; nor would I myself concede that there is no place in church for music which is tinged with a human personality ”

“ A modern musician, if he attempts to go back beyond Palestrina, must draw on his imagination, and while his aim must be to produce something artistically and technically less perfect than Palestrina's system, his work, when it is done, will carry neither authority nor conviction.
If then we take Palestrina's harmonic interpretation of the modes, it seems to me that there can be no objection to giving vocal parts to the simpler hymns. If it is preferred to sing them in unison, the modal settings will be a guide to the accompanist. ”

“ The time-beat goes either by twos or some multiple of two, or by threes or some multiple of three, and the accent recurs at regular intervals of time, and is marked by dividing off the music into bars of equal length. Nothing is more important for a beginner to learn, and yet from the point of view of rhythm nothing could be more inadequate. ”

“ It cannot escape the attention of any one that the modern church music has for one chief differentiation the profuse employment of pathetic chords, the effect of which is often disastrous to the feelings. ”

“ With the exhaustion of the means in the attainment of perfection a new stage is reached, in which individual expression is prominent, and seems to take the place of the scientific impersonal interest which aimed at nothing but beauty: so that the chief distinction between early and late art is that the former is impersonal, the latter personal. ”

“ An explanation of the notation of these settings is given in the note to Hymn 29. Congregational singing of hymns is much to be desired; but, though difficult to obtain, it is not permissible to provoke it by undignified music. Its only sound musical basis is good melody: good melodies should therefore be offered to the people, such as it has been the object of this book to bring together; and they should have as much freedom and variety of rhythm as possible. ”

“ A choir that cannot sing unaccompanied cannot sing at all; and this is not an uncommon condition in our churches, where choirs with varying success accompany the organ. A proper manner of sustained singing, and the true artistic pleasure that should govern it, will never be obtained until these conditions are reversed.
There is one novelty which I am responsible for introducing, namely the four-part vocal settings of certain early plain-song melodies. The later plain-song tunes, such as No. 44, are, I suppose [27] , as fit for this treatment as any other tunes of the same date ”