Hymn tune

“ 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. ”

“ He became a master of tone and choral harmony, and did much to reform and elevate congregational psalmody in England. He was perhaps the first to demonstrate that hymn-tune making can be reduced to a science without impairing its spiritual purpose. ”

“ The same strain in the same metre is continued in the hymn of Rev. Wm. Hunter, D.D., (1842) printed in his Minstrel of Zion (1845) . J.W. Dadmun's Melodian (1860) copied it, retaining, apparently, 319 / 273 the original music, with an added refrain of invitation, “Will you go? will you go?”
We are bound for the land of the pure and the holy,
The home of the happy, the kingdom of love;
Ye wand'rers from God on the broad road of folly,
O say, will you go to the Eden above?
The old hymn-tune has a brisk out-door delivery, and is full of revival fervor and the ozone of the pines. ”

“ In Ch.Ch. there is first of all a melody harmonised note against note, much as a modern hymn tune, except that in the second of the three verses of the hymn the melody is assigned not to the treble but to the alto. ”

“ It is desirable to have in church something different from what goes on outside, and (as I say in the text) a hymn-tune need not appeal to the lowest understanding on first hearing. The simple free rhythms, too, are perfectly natural ”

“ His “Ode to Disappointment,” and the miscellaneous flowers and fragments of his genius, make up a touching volume. The fire of a pure, strong spirit burning through a consumptive frame is in them all.
THE TUNE. “When, marshalled on the mighty plain” has a choral set to it in the Methodist Hymnal—credited to Thos. Harris, and entitled “Crimea”—which divides the three stanzas into six, and 421 / 367 breaks the continuity of the hymn. Better sing it in its original form—long metre double—to the dear old melody of “Bonny Doon.” The voices of Scotland, England and America are blended in it. ”

“ Such angry passions rise;
Your little hands were never made
To tear each other’s eyes.
Let grown-ups in our day grasp the idea in this simple poem!
MUSIC. The tune, LASST UNS ERFREUEN, one of the most famous in any hymn book, was published in Geistliche Kirchengesäng, Cologne, 1623. It was set to an Easter hymn beginning, “Lasst uns erfreuen herzlich sehr,” from whence it derives its name. The tune is unusual for its simplicity of structure and its invariable repetition of phrases throughout. Usually the alleluias in lines 3 and 6 are sung in harmony, the rest of the song in unison. ”

“ The singing of an efficient hymn is often the solution of the problem when there is a leader of presence of mind (preferably the minister) who will promptly start it. It must be a hymn that everybody knows; it must not be a tender, experiential hymn, but one with a stirring spirit to a stimulating tune that everybody can sing, such as “Onward, Christian soldiers.” [2]
Such occasions sometimes suggest fitting hymns that turn what might have been disaster into a spiritual victory. In such a case there must be a peculiar fitness to the difficulty, an adaptation to the form it takes. ”

“ The truth is, the tune has become the habit of the hymn, and to the thousands who have it by heart, as they do in every village where there is a singing school, “Antioch” is “Joy to the World,” and “Joy to the World” is “Antioch.” ”

“ The hymn, the tune, the style, are each too closely associated with to be easily separated from herself, and when sung in one of her most animated moods, in the open air, with the utmost strength of her most powerful voice, must have been truly thrilling. ”

“ The people are not in a state of mind to sing them sincerely and earnestly. It would lead to the all too common hypocrisy of indifference.
Moreover, the tunes to these hymns are not of the organizing or stimulating type, fine as they are. They are tunes of expression 250 of existing feeling, not of exhilaration or inspiration.
For such a miscellaneous crowd as has been described, a much less emotional hymn with a somewhat livelier tune is called for, such as “Blow ye the trumpet, blow,” “Come, we that love the Lord,” or “Onward, Christian soldiers.” ”

“ Once obtained on Calvary.
Let the Gospel
Loud resound from pole to pole.
This song of anticipation has dropped out of the modern hymnals, but the last stanza lingers in many memories.
Fly abroad, thou mighty Gospel!
Win and conquer, never cease;
May thy lasting wide dominion
Multiply and still increase.
Sway Thy scepter,
Saviour, all the world around! THE TUNE.
Oftener than any other the music of “Zion” has been the expression of William Williams' 204 / 168 Missionary Hymn. It was composed by Thomas Hastings, in Washington, Ct., 1830. ”

“ Neale's Translation. THE TUNE.
The metre and six-line stanza, being uniform with those of “Rock of Ages,” have tempted some to borrow “Toplady” for this ancient hymn, but Hastings' tune would refuse to sing other words; and, besides, the alternate rhymes would mar the euphony. Not unsuitable in spirit are several existing tunes of the right measure—like “Nassau” or “St. Athanasius”—but in truth the “Veni, Sancte Spiritus” in English waits for its perfect setting. Dr. Ray Palmer's paraphrase of it in sixes-and-fours, to fit “Olivet,”—
Come, Holy Ghost in love, etc. ”

“ The admirable hymn of Dr. Doddridge may be noted in this division with its equally admirable 560 / 496 tune of “Melancthon,” one of the old Lutheran chorals of Germany.
Great God, we sing that mighty hand
By which supported still we stand.
The opening year Thy mercy shows;
Thy mercy crown it till its close!
By day, by night, at home, abroad,
Still we are guarded by our God.
As this last couplet stood—and ought now to stand—pious parents teaching the hymn to their children heard them repeat—
By day, by night, at home, abroad,
We are surrounded still with God. ”

“ He died in the year 1888, but his Christian ballad secured him a lasting place in every devout memory.
THE TUNE.
The author wrote out his hymn in 1874 and sent it to his friend, the musician, Mr. Horatio R. Palmer,* and the latter learned it by heart, and carried it with him in his musings “till it floated out in the melody you know,” (to use his own words.) ”

“ It is the popular hymn tunes that speed a reformation. So say history and experience. Once in two hundred years a great revival movement may produce a Charles Wesley, but the humbler singers carry the divine fire that quickens religious life in the years between. ”

“ From this publication they were taken for extensive use in British hymn books.
1. Abide not in the realm of dreams, (The Harvest Call)
Included in Putnam, Singers and Songs, etc., is a poem of 10 stanzas from which a cento consisting of the first two lines of stanza 1 combined with the second two lines of stanza 2, followed by stanzas 3, 6, 7 and 10 are taken to form a hymn in the New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.
2. Fades from the west the farewell light (Night)
This poem, entitled “A Psalm of Night,” is given in his Poems, New York, 1871. ”

“ Meet ne'er to sever?” —to a tune in B flat minor, excessively plaintive, and likely to sadden an emotional singer or hearer to tears. The full harmony is found in the American Vocalist, and the air is reprinted in the Revivalist (1868) . The fact that minor music is the natural 313 / 267 Indian tone in song makes it probable that the melody is as ancient as the hymn—though no date is given for either. ”

“ An eminent Episcopal divine, (says the Christian Register,) one Trinity Sunday, at the close of his sermon, read three hymns by Unitarian authors: one to God the Father, by Samuel Longfellow, one to Jesus, by Theodore Parker, and one to the Holy Spirit, by N.L. Frothingham. “There,” he said, “you have the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”
It is natural to speak of hymns as “poems,” indiscriminately, for they have the same structure. But a hymn is not necessarily a poem, while a poem that can be sung as a hymn is something more than a poem. Imagination makes poems; devotion makes hymns. ”

“ It is an extensive revision of the New Hymn and Tune Book (45) of 1914, with special emphasis on “the social gospel” and on hymns dealing with “man in the universe.” Its most notable advance over its predecessors is in its music, edited by E. P. Daniels and Robert L. Sanders. It contains 533 hymns, 42 chants, etc., 366 tunes.
37 Alphabetical List of Unitarian Hymn Writers In the Following Catalogue Adams, John Quincy Alcott, Louisa May Alger, Wm. R. Ames, Chas. ”

“ A hymn is the rhythmic aspiration of the race. No one can look through a good hymnal—through Hymns Ancient and Modern, for instance, or the Church Hymnary—without feeling that therein is bound up the devotional life of the world. The spiritual outlook is cosmic. Our every mood of penitence, praise, and aspiration resounds in melodious and time-defying strains.
In art, the religious spirit broods over the great work of the world. In Angelo, Francesca, Veronese, Botticelli, Titian, Raphael, Tintoretto, and Correggio, the brush of the painter has set forth the adoration of the Church of God. ”

“ We find here, too, hymns for the Sabbath day and other festivals, hymns in commemoration of the older saints, national prayers and anthems, which confess the sin of the people or record the mighty works of God, setting the nation’s history to music. Indeed, it is difficult to discover in modern hymn-books any hymn which has not its prototype in the Psalter, though the Incarnation and its manifold revelation brought into Christian life and thought 41 a light that far outshines the brightest stars of the earlier dispensation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Charles Wesley, a Christ Church student, came to add sweetness to this sudden and startling light. He was the ‘sweet singer’ of the movement. His hymns expressed the fiery conviction of its converts in lines so chaste and beautiful, that its more extravagant features disappeared. The wild throes of hysteric enthusiasm passed into a passion for hymn-singing, and a new musical impulse was aroused in the people which gradually changed the face of public devotion throughout England. ”

“ Faintly as tolls the evening chime,
Our voices keep tune, and our oars keep time,
Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
We'll sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn.
Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the day-light's past. ”

“ Their imaginations need to be stimulated. Their response to the charm of musical phrases, to the clearness and lucidity of the thought expressed, to the fitness of the unexpected and pleasing metaphors used, to the nice selection of the words employed to weave a garb of beauty for the message the hymn is intended to convey, can be and must be developed, if not only the proper appreciation of the hymns but also their highest efficiency as preachers are to be secured. ”

“ We can set our deeds to the music of a grateful heart, and seek to round our lives into a hymn—the melody of which will be recognized by all who come in contact with us, and the power of which shall not be evanescent, like the voice of the singer, but perenninal, like the music of the spheres. ”

“ 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 ”

“ I. "Encore un hymne, O ma lyre Un hymn pour le Seigneur, Un hymne dans mon delire, Un hymne dans mon bonheur." One hymn more, O my lyre! Praise to the God above, Of joy and life and love, Sweeping its strings of fire! ”

“ It is cleft in two by bereavement, and out of the rift comes forth, as by resurrection, the form and voice that shall never die out of the world. Angels sat at the grave's mouth; and so hymns are the angels that rise up out of our griefs and darkness and dismay.
"Thus born, a hymn is one of those silent ministers which God sends to those who are to be heirs of salvation. It enters into the tender imagination of childhood, and casts down upon the chambers of its thought a holy radiance which shall never quite depart. ”

“ The Apostle Paul and other writers of the New Testament, who quote freely from a variety of sources, have used fragments of hymns to reinforce their teachings or with a devotional purpose. One gains from such citations a text only, or a fragment of text. Singing is not implied. The apocalyptic vision of the Book of Revelation, however, contains several magnificent hymns of praise which testify not alone to the form and content of the early hymn but also to the practice of worship in song. The praises of the heavenly host are mirrored in the praises of the congregation upon earth. ”

“ I shall quote but little; for, although there is a sweet calm and a great justice of reflection and feeling, there is hardly anything of that warming glow, that rousing force, that impressive weight in his verse, which is the chief virtue of the lofty rhyme.
The best in a volume of ninety Hymns and Songs of the Church, is, I think, The Author's Hymn at the close, of which I give three stanzas. They manifest the simplicity and truth of the man, reflecting in their very tone his faithful, contented, trustful nature. ”