Transcript
The sound of the organ, which is immense, but I will really try not to use that part, comes out of there, and when there's a congregation at that end of the chapel it sounds quite distant and it's quite useless, but when you're up here it might be some use to you. It seemed easiest when we should just sort of huddle together in this place and make it a small and informal room, as it were, so that
we wouldn't feel that we got to anything particularly well. Well, now, what I thought I would do is to – well, I was going to say demonstrate to you, but allow you to demonstrate to me some of the hymnody that – no, it's all right, I thought it was a controversy, I thought it was going to be more interesting what I was going to do – demonstrate to you some of the hymnody that would have been
in use by 1776, and I think the best way to do this was just to take one or two important sources of hymns, you see, and show you what sort of thing was in them. This means going quite a long way there for the Pilgrim Fathers and tracing our way right up to Lowell Mason. Now, the bunches of paper that you've got is the material which, if you wish, you can join in singing. You haven't got
to, any more than any other congregation has got to, but if you think it's entertaining, well, by all means do. So I'll ask you to look without any more ado at the first one, the eighteenth psalm in Ainsworth Salter. Now, Ainsworth Salter in 1612 was the one that the Pilgrim Fathers brought over, and I suppose some of their copies in the Mayflower must have gone a bit wet, but nonetheless some of them evidently were salvaged, and
that was the first book of psalms used by the Pilgrim Fathers and their people and their descendants. They're right here, as you know, in 1620, and they reckon that this was the best salter to bring. Now, you will know, of course, that in those days, whether you were Anglican or whether you were Protestant in England, you never sang hymns, you only sang psalms. Had to be psalms. It was illegal, really, to sing anything else. There were
about two New Testament hymns you were allowed to sing. So there's no question which hymnal should they bring, but which salter. Now, the genesis of the Metrical Salters goes back to Calvin's Geneva and in a parallel line to the Royal Court of England, and to cut a very long story short, in the year 1562, by a coincidence, in both places, in French in Geneva and in English in London, the first complete Metrical Salters were issued, the
whole 150 psalms done in a metre, but they were very different. The French one had 110 different metres for 150 psalms, lots and lots of different tunes for people to learn, tunes of great length and great grace. The English people were either much less obedient or much less musical, a bit of both, I should If you were in Calvin's Geneva, you did what you were told. There's no question about it. If not, if you got a
parking ticket in 16th century Geneva, or if you committed a religious heresy, you came up before the same people. The magistrates and the church courts were the same, so there was no getting out of it. They wanted you to sing that tune, you sang it. But the English people never were like this, and nearly all their psalms were translated into the same metre, which was known as the common metre, and they soon found that they wanted
very short tunes, because they couldn't remember anything longer. One of the big Geneva tunes that you will know best is one that goes like this. That, of course, is a very fine tune indeed, and it is quite well known. But it is very long, it has 50 syllables. And the ordinary Englishmen said, you are not to ask me to sing more than 28. The metre of our God I hope it may disperse, or while
shepherds watch their flocks by night. Now, by 1600, quite a number of the English psalters had gone in for that kind of tune. And indeed, so had the Scottish ones. But really the best edition of a psalter with short tunes in it, common tunes, was 1621, and that was just too late for the Pilgrim Fathers. Alisworth's psalter was using still a lot of the old Geneva tunes, the very big ones, the long tunes. And I suppose
that people who were prepared to be seasick for heaven knows how many weeks coming across the Atlantic didn't make too much of learning quite a long hymn to you. Now then, here is then number one, and I'll play it to you, and you'll see what I mean. Here we go. Now, of course, you may well have noticed that bits of that tune reminded you of something else. Yes, Our Holy Jesus. Well, it's a tune that was
equally well known in Geneva and in Germany. It got whittled down a little bit to the other meter, but it started as the 23rd psalm. This was the 23rd psalm, indeed, in the Geneva solo. It was set to psalm 18 in Ainsler, and you can see that it's a rather long and athletic business. Now, suppose we try singing it, but all you've got to do at the moment is to sort of hum it. Don't bother about
the words, because the words are very peculiar and they're not going to help you at all. Just sort of lower your palm or sing it to a nonsense syllable or something. All right, here we go then. One and two. That's it, that's it. Now, of course, the words of the saltos were very good. That is to say, everybody was sure they must be because they were out of the Bible, but very often they were rather crudely
versitized. Ainsworth's salto was actually one of the worst in this regard. I love thee, dear Jehovah, my firmness. Jehovah is my rock and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God is he, my rock in whom I sheltered hope to be, my shield and hall of my salvation, my fenced high fortification. Well, if you start singing that, you will get into the way of feeling what it was like to be a pilgrim father. And I suppose that
won't hurt you. All right, let us take that first stanza. Here we go. One, two. I love thee, dear Jehovah, my firmness. Jehovah is my rock and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God is he, my rock in whom I sheltered hope to be, my shield and hall of my salvation, my fenced high fortification. Good. Go on. Go on. I love thee, dear Jehovah, my firmness. Jehovah is my rock and my fortress. I love thee, dear
Jehovah, my firmness. Jehovah is my rock and my fortress. Jehovah is my rock and my fortress. Jehovah is my rock and my fortress. Well, I suppose that mood, that very dark, severe kind of music, would have gone very well with an Atlantic crossing. But there were not many places where Ainsworth gave his people a rest from this rather athletic kind of singing. But the 54th psalm, which is number two, is one such example. Now, this tune,
which is so primitive as hardly to be a tune, it's a kind of embryo, you know, it isn't fully formed, was actually one of the most widely used and popular tunes in the English psalm tune period. It was one of the first, and as I say, one of the most popular of the short ones. And you will see that although it sounds mighty peculiar to us, at least it's not particularly difficult to learn. Now, there are
many better tunes than that from the same period, but this happens to be one of the two or three short ones that are in Ainsworth's psalter, though it had appeared 20, 30 years before in other English ones. Funny syncopated rhythm. Well, maybe you'd like just to try that. Just be able to write home and say you've done it. Here we go then. One, two. Funny syncopated rhythm. Good luck. Funny syncopated rhythm. Yes, what about that, eh?
The strangers are against me risen, and daunting tyrants they do seek my soul. They have not, God, before them, said Silah. Well, you're all frightfully clever. I mean, I see one of the members of the seminary here about to know that Silah is not an exegesis or a sort of hooray. It's a direction for a musical interlude. But never mind, if Silah's in the Bible, you've got to sing it. I knew there was a setting of
the Lamentations of Jeremiah by Thales, I believe. And you'll know how in the old Hebrew Bibles, the Lamentations of Jeremiah, each verse begins with a successive letter of the alphabet, aleph, base, gimel, and so forth. And so the choir has to sing before it sings each verse, aleph, base, gimel, aleph being seen. That's what it is to be sort of faithful and not to ask any questions. Lovely, lovely life it was. Now, when you turn to
five, please, I just put these things in the wrong order. For some reason I can't now remember. But if you turn to five, then you will find on that page two tunes that came from the first Psalter produced in the States, the Bay Song, book of 1638. Now, the Bay Song book was put together by people who, like all American publishers since, had done their homework. And they saw that it was going to be much easier
to sell their book if they put pretty simple tunes in it. But I've got here two of the most interesting and unusual old tunes, two of the old song tunes of the greatest character. These were not composed in the States. We haven't got to that stage yet. But they were English tunes, tunes from the English Psalters that got into the Bay Song book. They thought that these would run. You won't know either of them, I suspect.
But they are, I think, just worth making the acquaintance of. The first one, since day one, number five, is, of all things, a wealthy song tune. Now, there are very few of those on record, and none of them are very well known, but you'll know, perhaps, how marvellously lyrical Welsh hymns you wills of the 19th century are. I mean, you know, splendid tune like Ebenezer or Hubbardow. We won't talk too much about Coombe Tronza, and fortunately
Coombe Tronza is 20th century, not 19th century, so we don't have to say all the kind things about it that we do say about the great Welsh tunes. But the Welsh song tunes sound nothing like the Welsh hymn tunes at all. This was in Ravenscroft's Salter of 1621, which was English, and also in Price's Salter of the same year, which was Welsh. A very remarkable tune, for, O come, let us sing to the Lord. I would rather find you, but...
[music]
Now, the first time it appeared, and indeed as it appeared in the Bay Salter, and in the early English books, it used the notes that are written in the melody part as small notes in brackets. One of them has very nearly disappeared, but if you can imagine it, now you can imagine it as a small note in brackets. Now, you imagine seeing this. Sorry. Do that again. That is, I think, quite remarkably
awkward and gawky, and you'll see that it takes people right down to a very low note as well as up to quite a high one. So, this got altered. Of course, in those days, it wasn't altered by editors, it was altered by congregations. People said, we're just darn well not going to sing that low note. And they sang... Which, of course, is much more... much more euphonious. Well, the Bay Psalm book says the 95th Psalm, O
come let us sing to the Lord, shout loud with singing voice to the rock of our saving health. Let us make joyful noise. Before his presence, let us then approach with thanksgiving, or so let us triumphantly with psalms unto him sing. Excuse the bad spelling of my typewriter. O come and let us worship, give, and bowing him a door, he that our Maker is the Lord, O let us kneel before. Rather fun, this one. This, you
would have been singing if you had opened the very first book that was ever published in the U.S.A... of any kind, which was a sound book. Here we go, then. One, two. Shout loud with singing voice to the rock of our saving health. Let us make joyful noise. Before his presence, let us then approach with thanksgiving, or so let us triumphantly with psalms unto him sing. O come and let us worship, give, and bowing him a
door, he that our Maker is the Lord, O let us kneel before. Well, even that which is perhaps the most dramatic of all the old psalm tunes wouldn't have given people very much difficulty. The other one, which I thought putting in, because in England it's a very well-known tune still, but I don't see it in American books, is the English tune York, which perversely first appears in the Scottish Psalter of 615. York, as you know,
is not in Scotland, but that doesn't matter. I'm sure plenty of Scotsmen would claim it was. It's a tune that they used to love to play when they had church bells that played tunes. Oh, yes, we have had carolins in England. We don't have many of them now. We use change ringing instead of that. But whenever they had church bells in Scotland playing tunes, they always loved to play this, and you'll see why if you look
at the lyre of the melody. Extraordinary tune. It is rather bell-like, you see. It had a nickname. It often used to be called by Scotsmen the stilt tune because it suggested a slightly awkward crab-like motion, you know, da-da-da-dee-da-da. But it was harmonised by John Milton, who was the father of the John Milton who wrote all that poetry that you had to learn at school. And it's very often sung to
Psalm 122 as it is set here. Well, you won't find any difficulty with this. Take it a little faster than the Pilgrim Fathers would have done. One, two.
[music]
Right. Well, now let us move on a whole century or itinerary, 99 years, to the most important hymnal that came after the bass also. And this was the hymnal that John Wesley edited at Charlestown in 1737. Now, you know a great deal about John Wesley,
and you know about him being converted and all that sort of thing. You know, 24th of May, 1738, that's about the quarter of the night, the quarter before nine o'clock, I felt my heart strangely warm, 1738. In 1735, he was being a missionary to America. Long before that, he was a tremendously devout Christian. You must always remember that the conversion of John Wesley was not a conversion from heathenism to Christianity. It wasn't the consequence of
evangelism of any kind whatever. It was the consequence of the most unlikely thing, listening to the choir of St Paul's Cathedral in London. Well, I'm very glad to know that the choir of St Paul's Cathedral in London has some use in this world. We heard them since some 130, and then he went along to this meeting, and he found his heart strangely warm, and he thought that he'd done it. Well, no, no, no, he was put
onto a new and successful line of Christian action where, let's face it, his first effort at mission had been a quite remarkable failure. In all sorts of ways, this is a thing over which it's wiser to draw a veil. He, in his own letters and in his own diaries, tells us either too little or too much, so he leaves us being a little curious about all the other things he didn't tell us about. But no, no,
this was an honest attempt, but an entirely misguided attempt. To want to make Christians and Americans evident, you've got to take some different line from what he took. But he did, of course, a hymnal. Now, this is quite extraordinary, you see, as early as this, because John Wesley's famous hymnal was 1779. That was the first Methodist hymnal, the first definitive collection of his own and his brother's works, with works by Isaac Watts also. But he and
his brother had not started writing yet. Well, it scarcely started. He had probably done a little translating, but his brother hadn't got going. So this was the end of the age before the Wesley hymns, and the hymns in this little book, quite short book, were of course by Isaac Watts and various other 17th and early 18th century writers. Well, of course, one of them is before Jehovah's lawful throne, and here it is, and it's written out
here just as it was in the Charleston book. Charleston book doesn't have any music, but we know very well that it was this tune that he caused it to be sung to. And so there you are. Now, as you see it being so very well known, you ought to imagine yourselves being in those almost pre-Civilized days in the southern states and getting hold of this new book that this tiny man Wesley, we've heard that the
police are after him for something and we're not sure what. But anyway, the curious man Wesley had put together, and the first time you heard it, it was like this. Try and make it sound as though it was. Why don't you stand up and stretch your legs?
[music]
Yes, good. That sounded just about as crude as it would have sounded in 1799. Now, be seated and we will look at the other one on the same page. Now, the other one has the rather special interest of having been written by John Wesley's father, Samuel Wesley, who wrote just a few hymns, nothing like as many as Charles, but then nobody ever wrote as many as Charles, and I suppose it's just as well they did. But Samuel wrote Behold the Savior of Mankind, rather in a naive and crude way, rather moving hymn of the passion.
And this one too got into the first Charlestown hymn book of 1737. It's still in Methodist hymns. I'm not sure, but I think it is still indeed in the American Methodist hymnal, 66, but it isn't very well known apart from there. This, of course, like Before Jehovah's Awful Throw, is appropriately sung to a psalm tune. We're still with the psalm tunes. They still, in 1737, didn't really know anything else. At any rate, they didn't know it
over here. And so they had to have psalm tunes that everybody knew and hymns written in their meters. This Windsor is almost, you might say, a development of number two, but it's very much better. It has a wonderful shape to this and pays off about it, especially when you see it in the rhythm in which it first appeared. The syncopated note in the second and fourth lines, it just happens in the very first verse to
come on the wrong syllable, but in all the other verses you will see how appropriate to do. It's a pity about nail two, but when you get at earth's strong pillars, receive myself to bleed and die the solid marble of red. It's brilliant, I think, rather splendid. Well, you can remain seated, but I think perhaps you would like to sing this. Right. One, two. Beyond the sailor of land wide, Ever our sinful dream, How fast
our love and yearning fight, To be here and lie for thee. Ah, how he roams round interchanges, Where earth's strong pillars build, Where all day for spirit's solemn praise, The sun in miles day. He is the one by which I spread some tea, His name I slowly find, Where he roams his sacred way, Where he roams his heavenly night. Ah, how he roams round interchanges, Where earth's strong pillars build, Where all day for spirit's solemn praise,
The sun in miles day. . Yes, I think that's rather splendidly done. Oh, land of God was ever payed, was ever loved like that. These old Puritans, and remember them, of course, John Wesley's father was not a Methodist. He was a Puritan Episcopal. They could never sing about the Atonement without singing about the Resurrection somewhere. And they did it very movingly. Now, number seven is very special, and I can't think why people don't know. This is
written by the President of New Jersey Presbyterian College, Samuel Davies. Of course, everyone knows about him. In fact, you probably know a great deal more about him than I do. He only lived to be 36 years old, as you'll see, but he was President of that which, of course, is the linear ancestor of this place where you are now. And he wrote this astonishing hymn, this cosmic hymn about God's forgiveness. I'm always looking in the hymn
books for good hymns about God's forgiveness, and I don't find them. And, you know, you've come down to some awful thing like dear Lord and Father of mankind, you know. But here, great God of wonders, all thy ways are naturalist, godlike and divine, but countless acts of pardon and grace beyond thine other wonders shine. Who is a pardon in God like thee, or who has grace so rich and free? In wonder lost with trembling joy, we
take the pardon of our God. Pardon for crimes of deepest dye, we have pardon brought with Jesus' blood. Oh, may this strange, this matchless grace, this godlike miracle of love, fill the wide earth with grateful praise as now it fills the powers above. It's ecstatic. You may say it's a little overstated. You know, we like to sing about many different sort of things now, and we are no better for that. This, just occasionally, really does, I
do take all the tricks on the table. It would have been sung in those days, it would have been sung with the tune you've got here, which was a tune that was always associated with mythical versions of the Lord's Prayer, one of the very few New Testament pieces that were allowed to be sung. It's a German tune, and it goes to the German Lord's Prayer, versified, and it is the one German tune that was taken straight
over, as it was, into the English Psalters. And so that was well known here when Samuel Davis wrote this incandescent tune about God's forgiveness. I think that you'll probably know the tune. . It was always sung with those long notes in those days, and it probably breaks it up a little bit. It has to go with enormous dignity, but it does never go quite so slowly if you use the long gathering notes. So we will. Right,
one, two...
[music]
Right, now, not before it was time, you will say, we come to something that really was composed in America. If you take the two sheets that are called eight, one 8A and the other 18, you will see two tunes to all hail the power of Jesus' name. And I'm going to suggest that we sing them both, that we sing them indeed one after
the other, that we celebrate our thinking about 1776 by singing two verses of the English tune and then at once, flipping across the Atlantic and singing two more verses of the other one. Now, both these tunes are highly characteristic of their phases of origin. The English tune was written by a boy of 19 years old who was a young organist – well, actually he played some dastardly primitive instrument, they didn't have too many organs in those
days – in Canterbury, England. And the words were written by the minister of the same church. And this is the archetypal tune, it is, let's face it, the earliest tune to all hail the power of Jesus' name. Ralph Vaughan Williams, our very distinguished English composer who did so much for the improvement of English church music in the first half of this century, once said that he knew no greater hymn tune than this. And it's not very
like his style, heaven knows, but it really is splendid, it's irresistible, it's got such tremendous birth, and of course, you must really try, if you possibly can, to sing the last note of the first full phrase as written. Oh, bother you, what's happened to you? Why are you playing about like that? Right. Now, I don't think we can sing it chorally like this, there aren't enough arms, you see, but that was how it was supposed to
go. Crown him, crown him, and we became, as everybody would all the crown him Lord of all. Never mind, it is a splendid, glorious tune, but of course, I don't think it's any better than the other one. You'll have to sing this in harmony, I really can't expect the men to get up to that top note, but that is the original key, the oldest manuscript of it does indeed have it in four flats, so they fit,
and they fit beautifully. Right, let us sing the whole of this, the first two verses to the first tune, and the second tune to the other tune. You'll want to stand up for this, you won't be able to help it. Right.
[music]
Will you forget that? Now, here then we honour Lowell Mason Lowell Mason, whom I was talking about this morning and perhaps you thought I was talking a little discouragingly because
it was impossible to rate him among the greatest of composers But Mason really wanted to improve musical taste in what had become the United States and in the 1830s he founded this Boston Haydn and Handel Society and he edited a series of hymns and songbooks and caused people to get choral societies running in all the big cities he knew of so that all the people would get interested in music and the kind of music he was
most interested in was old music Now, I've written out here when I surveyed the Wondrous Cross in what you may think a rather odd fashion in order to show you exactly how he got it from one of the oldest pieces of music in existence He says he got it from a Gregorian tone and he did indeed Gregorian tones were the very simple music that was sung to the psalms Well, actually it comes almost to rate from
the music of the synagogue itself but it was always organised by Pope Gregory I in about 680 into a system of chants Now, the very first chant you come to in the Gregorian system is what you've got here which makes this sort of sound He hath showeth strength with his arm He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts There is a perfectly possible slight variation on it for a verse of the Magnificat When
they sang it to a psalm they sang it with even fewer variations of notes It would be The Lord is my shepherd Therefore can I lack nothing But when they were singing the canticle, the New Testament canticle they sometimes put in little extra notes So you might well guess He hath showeth strength with his arm He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts And the very next one you come to in the Gregorian
system starts the same and finishes slightly differently As it were He hath put down the mighty from their seat And hath exalted the humble and meek Now, those are exactly the notes of the Gregorian chant If you set that to the regular meter of when I surveyed the wondrous cross you would get When I surveyed the wondrous cross On which the Prince of Glory died My richest gain I count but loss And poor contempt on all
my pride And that would reflect exactly the way a plain song tune was set to words If ever there was a little extra note in the music it almost always came on an unaccented word You would expect it to be Survey the wondrous cross But it was survey the wondrous cross This is pure plain song Now, it never was like this It never was like this in Lowell Mason's mind But in order to purge your minds
of the sentimental association of Lowell Mason's tune sing it like that to the middle section of the music there when I surveyed the wondrous cross just like plain song When I surveyed the wondrous cross On which the Prince of Glory died My richest gain I count but loss And poor contempt on all my pride Yes, you want to make it sound monkey shooting and remote and cool as plain song always was Do it again, just a
shape faster so it sounds really, really like the monkey When I surveyed the wondrous cross On which the Prince of Glory died My richest gain I count but loss And poor contempt on all my pride Now, that was at least as well in the back of Lowell Mason's mind He never heard it like that But he said, I would like to reintroduce people to that kind of music Now, what he did, of course and where he
went fatally astray was to put in bar lines to make it go yum, ta, ta, yum, ta, ta, yum and to put in harmony none of which, of course, has anything to do with plain song style But you can still sing When I surveyed the wondrous cross without the maudlin sentimentality that so often goes away if you have the plain song in mind And I suggest that you try singing When I surveyed the wondrous cross in
unison, without any of that harmony and about like this about that speed quite lightly and not, of course, not with levity but so that the words really come right through the music and converse All right, let's go When I surveyed the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory died by which his king I crowned the prince and work at death on all my part For he thought that I should boast saved in the cross of
Christ my love All the eight things I covered most I sacrificed them to his word He hung his head with his hand to his feet Sorrow and love flowed deep around He exulted and sorrow reared And was conquered soon with a crown Then the whole land was made to cry And for a pleasant heart to soar Once a page in so deep a land He had my soul and my body and my heart Now, I don't
know what people would have been singing that tune if they hadn't been singing it to that The tune that we know in England the tune we're very fond of Now, that wasn't ever said to those words before, about 1833 and that was after this tune had first appeared People might have been singing it to anything they might have been singing it to the old hundred or they might have been singing it to some jaunty, jiggly kind
of stupid tune and Lowell Mason really was trying to get them to sing it at least with a touch of devotional reticence I think it is a great shame when it is sung ponderously with a lot of spiritual pride and enormous amounts of tone in the last verse and I think that should just be the way not to sing when I survey the Wondrous Cross it needs to be absolutely awestruck and light, not waiting, not pompous
Now, we come to the end we come to the very last one I want you to do which is the finest tune I know by Lowell Mason It got into the Worship Book The Worship Book is this, they are fair, you know High Church Presbyterian tune It's very nice in all sorts of ways very difficult to play from very highbrow, very eccentric but my word, it has its great moments and this is one of them because
it found a hymn by Isaac Watts murdered it by leaving three stanzas out, never mind resurrected it again by setting it to a really fine tune by Lowell Mason and this is 1854, it's much later and he obviously learned a great deal by then It's got all that you want a fine tune to have a good climax and a good movement and plenty of sort of textural variety I've never heard this tune in my life nobody
chose it in chapel not during the semester I was here so I thought we might give it a run 136th Psalm by Isaac Watts Give to our God immortal praise Wonders of grace to God belong and so on His mercy endure it forever that comes at the end of every verse in Psalm 136 but this rather splendid tune I think will make a good finish and I don't think I shall have much more to trouble you
with when we've sung it Good stuff, up you get, come on let's go One and two Give to our God immortal praise Wonders of grace to God belong and so on His mercy endure it forever that comes at the end of every verse in Psalm 136 but this rather splendid tune I think will make a good finish and I don't think I shall have much more to trouble you with when we've sung it Good stuff, up
you get, come on let's go One and two Give to our God immortal praise Wonders of grace to God belong and so on His mercy endure it forever that comes at the end of every verse in Psalm 136 but this rather splendid tune Wonders of grace to God belong Wonders of grace to God belong His mercy endure it forever that comes at the end of every verse in Psalm 136 Well, do be seated That is the
end of this titling celebration of the early American hymnody It will give me the greatest pleasure now to celebrate the hymnody of the later days of America and I'm never tired of telling people that in the 19th century easily the finest literary texts were being written by Americans Their theology might be a little shaky now and again but I forgive a great deal of that for the superb and exquisite literature that these fellows will write so
much better than what's happening in England and nowadays of course many exciting and creative things are happening in the hymnody in the U.S.A. especially I think amongst the Lutherans but everybody's having a go So there you are, that's where you started and you may well be proud of it Thank you very much for coming along.