FROM THE LIBRARY OF REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON, D. D. BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO THE LIBRARY OF PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY ®W GJHH$fl KY^0DY : AN ESS^Y -A-ILTID REVIEW, BY >/y JOHN HEYWOOD, EDITOR OF THE ANGLICAN P.SALTER NOTED, ORGANIZING CHOIRMASTER TO THE CHORAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ARCHDEACONRY OF COVENTRY, AND ORGANIST AND CHOIRMASTER OF S. PAUL'S CHURCH, BALSALL HEATH. PRICE ONE SHILLING. London : Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. ; Metzler & Co. Birmingham : Midland Educational Co., Limited, New Street ; Rogers & Priestley, Colmore Row ; or, post free, from the Author, Hanbury House, Camp Hill. i . 4 % 0UI^ CJffl^CJI PMN@Dt; AN IBS SAY AND REYIBW, BY JOHN HEYWOOD, EDITOR OF THE ANGLICAN PSALTER NOTED, ORGANIZING CHOIRMASTER TO THE CHORAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ARCHDEACONRY OF COVENTRY, AND ORGANIST AND CHOIRMASTER OF S. PAUL'S CHURCH, BALSALL HEATH. London : Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. ; Metzler & Co. Birmingham : Midland Educational Co., Limited, New Street ; Rogers & Priestley, Colmore Row ; or, post free, from the Author, Hanbury House, Camp Hill. BIRMINGHAM : PRINTED BY W. E. HARRIS, OLD COURT HOUSE, HIGH STREET. To Charles Steggall, Esq., Mus. Doc, Cantab. My -dear Dr. Steggall, Any profits that may accrue, from the salt <>r this essay will be devoted to a fund for the improvement and completion of the Organ at S. Paul's, Balsall ILnth : a work which it is intended to undertake without imposing any additional burden upon the Congregation <>t the Church. Each reader is, therefore, asked to aid, as far as possible, in promoting the sale. Camp Hill, Birmingham, January, 1881. To Chables Steggall, Esq., Mus. Doc, Cantab. My -dear Dr. Steggall, As you were pleased to speak in terms of approval of this little essay on the appearance of its earlier portions in the columns of a musical journal, I feel sure that you will pardon my presumption in prefixing your name, without permission, by way of dedication to this re-issue. To no one could it be so fitly inscribed as to yourself, from whose sound teaching has been derived nearly all that may prove of value in the views herein advanced on the subject of Church music. Yours, very faithfully, JOHN HEYWOOD. Haribury House, Camp Hill, Birmingham, January, 1881. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/hymnodyOOheyw PREFACE The following Essay and Review, with minor alterations and some additional matter, has been reprinted, by permission, from The Choir, at the request of a few clerical and lay readers, in the hope that it may suggest some reasonable considerations to the Composer of hymn tunes, and that some hints may be derived from it by the Clergy as to the best way to encourage, by the Choirmaster as to the best way to attain, and by the Congregation as to their rights, wrongs, and duties in connection with a more satisfactory rendering of Our Church Hymnody. Since the first appearance of this Essay in The Choir, the writer has received, unsolicited, from a gentleman personally unknown to him — the Rev. Canon Seymour, one of the editors of the Irish Church Hymnal — a most encouraging letter as to the tone of the review of that work contained in these pages. Canon Seymour writes as follows : — " Your review is most carefully written, and is, in my opinion, admirable. Indeed, I have scarcely ever read anything of the kind with which, from first to last, 1 more fully agreed ; and I don't think there is a single point in your criticism ■with which I do not fully go with you, both on matters relating to the hymns as well as the tunes. In your praise and censure you evince great impartiality, and your review will, I think, prove of service to the cause of good music over here, by strengthening the hands of those who are striving for its advancement." The writer has endeavoured to be impartial throughout. Should any readers consider some of his strictures too severe, he would urge that in none of them is there malicious intent ; he has only endeavoured to expose some anomalies, shams, and abuses connected with the subject in such plain terms that no one shall be able to ignore their existence, or have excuse for maintaining them. ' Good onset bodes good end." OUR CHURCH HYMNODY. All Churchmen that appreciate sound Ecclesiastical music, and who, with much regret, and almost with despair, note the gradual declension in purity of style as exemplified in the popular hymn tune, owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. G. B. Arnold, the worthy organist of Winchester Cathedral, for his outspoken protest at the Church Congress, l and for his subsequent and equally seasonable letter on the same subject in the columns of The Choir. 2 The Doctor might, perhaps, have gone further, and handed a crumb of comfort to his despairing brethren by prophesying a speedy improvement in our hymnody, for an old and true proverb asserts that when things are at their worst they will mend, and many musicians will be found to endorse the statement that we have nearly reached a very bathos of degradation. Now as knowledge of the cause and progress of disease will frequently guide the physician to the treat- ment necessary to ensure restoration to health and vigour, so a brief sketch of our progress in this branch of church music during the present century may, perhaps, conduce to a similar result. For some time previous to the great Evangelical revival, our hymnody, or rather psalmody, had been in a deplorable state. Those uninspired and uninspiring authors, Tate and Brady, reigned supreme, and the tunes in vogue (principally 18th century productions, overloaded with orna- ments, and almost all in triple time) in point of heaviness well matched the words with which they were associated. 3 One dead level of dulness everywhere prevailed. The Evangelical school, whatever may be said for it on other grounds, cannot certainly be congratulated on its musical proclivities. Many of its members took no interest whatever in church music, and those who did showed it in a very unfortunate manner. A still worse form of devotional music than that which passed current in the Church existed — the Methodist hymn tune. The one was simply unbearably dull and stupid ; the other was outrageously boisterous and vulgar, and this class of tune, under Evangelical auspices, soon found its way into the Church. Hymn tunes differing from those in use were undoubtedly wanted in the Church, and who shall blame the revivalists for endeavouring to supply a want they felt so keenly ? We can only regret that instead of taking " Praise God with the best" for their motto, and acting upon it, they were induced, probably through lack of musical culture among themselves, to choose and introduce tunes that, perhaps, for want of better, were "popular" among the Methodists and other Dissenters of the day. Many of these tunes were purely secular, while 8 others were written specially for devotional purposes, but generally by half-educated musicians, or, at any rate, by men of inferior endowments. * Some of the later productions of this school had little solos, duets, and passages of imitation which caused them to be highly favoured in the " singing gallery." Another peculiarity of these ditties was the occasional repetition of lines and parts of lines to which they were subject, to the utter disregard of all sense in the accompanying words. 5 All that can be said in their favour is that they were probably " hearty," — i.e., they tickled the ears of those who used them, and so encouraged them to sing louder ; and noise then, as now, was doubtless considered, by those who ought to have known better, to be identical with earnestness in devotion. But the Oxford movement, the Church revival proper as it may be termed, was destined to work a great change. ^Esthetics came to the front, and men whose minds had been led to admire all that was true and beautiful in ecclesiastical architecture craved something to admire in ecclesiastical music. The sleepy Georgian psalm tunes and the revivalist hymn ditties satisfied their ears and their sense of propriety less than the Grecian temples, with their pepper-box and mustard-pot towers placed on pediments, 'yclept churches, and the hybrid conventicles of contemporary dissent did their eyes, and a new era forthwith commenced. " Drink to me only with thine eyes," and Batti, Batti (suggesting to the musical hearer the highly moral Don Giovanni) having been caught in Church masquerading under the titles of "Prospect" and "Verona," were, in company with many other tunes of equally questionable origin, unceremoniously bundled out of doors. Some few of the Amalekites, however, were spared ; for example, the tune " Helmsley," which many clergymen, whose orthodoxy on other points is unimpeachable, still employ to the hymn, " Lo, he comes, with clouds descending," and, it is to be feared, enjoy, is only a version of a hornpipe called " Miss Catley's," after a person of that name, of whose reputation it would be well not to assume too much, who introduced it to the public in a London pantomime. For its dressing up for the ecclesi- astical market we are indebted to the Rev. Martin Marian. But besides casting out the more recently introduced music of conventicle flavour, the reforming clergy made a vigorous onslaught on the venerable triple- time tunes of the days of Tate and Brady. Some of these were dis- covered to be tunes of an older period, which, in accordance with the spirit of the age, had been converted from common time into their current form, and these were very quickly re-converted and made to re-assume their original appearance ; but the majority were laid on one side as unsuitable ; while a few only (perhaps too few) still keep their place in our more advanced tune-books. After violent hands had been laid on the music of the past generation, much to the regret of some who even now deplore the loss of Madan's 11 Before Jehovah's awful Throne," and Harwood's no less vulgar and more commonplace " Vital Spark," the stores of 16th and 17th century hymnody were opened, and a purer style of music began slowly but surely to permeate the Church. It was, however, soon discovered that the tunes of Reformation date ft did not completely satisfy the present requirements of the Church, from deficient variety both in metre and in melody, and to supply the want a large number of German chorales were introduced. English composers, too, were not idle, and shortly a lot of home-spun melodies were in the field as candidates for Church preferment. These were of various styles, and by writers differing widely in taste and ability. Some were written in the strict style of the old Psalter tunes ; some had the more melodious flow of the German chorale ; others were glee-like in style ; others ex- hibited the more modern feeling for expressive melody, combined with chromatic harmonization ; others were simply wishy-washy strains of sentimentality ; some were of the same class as the gin-and-music-hall ditties of the day ; while the list was completed by arrangements from masses, operatic airs, and part-songs, and by sundry fossils brought to light by antiquarian students of the ritual books of the pre-Reformation Church. Now as long as the reformation and restoration of Church Hymnody alone consisted in re-introducing the tunes of a former and purer age, the clergy could scarcely go far wrong in their efforts at improvement ; but when to these elements was added such a mass of heterogeneous material as that described above — the writings of musicians, legitimately so called, and of mere scribblers, who had no fixed principles as to what was true in art, and who consequently wrote according to their own lights, often- times very dim lights indeed — the work of judicious selection for Church use became no easy task for men who, as a body, had but little advanced in musical culture, or had no technical training whatever to enable them to cope successfully with the difficulties they had to meet. Here the clergy should have noticed the important fact that the Oxford revival (its aesthetic side at least) had spread beyond their own ranks, and had affected the laity ; for a body of ecclesiastical musicians had arisen as anxious as the clergy themselves that the music of the Church should be of the best, and with more technical knowledge than the clerical body in general possessed to temper their zeal with discretion. These men the clergy should have called to their aid, and, contenting themselves with general directions as to the style of music they wished to prevail in the services, should have left points of detail, such as the fitness of any particular tune for use in Church, questions of pitch, time, roper, and applied to such hymns as they would especially suit ; while such as Bristol, Durham, Franconia, Lincoln, S. Peter (Reinagle's), and a host of others, should be treated as common, for each one of them could be sung to some hundred hymns with equal propriety. If some such common- sense plan as this were adopted, we should find room for less rubbish, and might perhaps not so frequently discover that a tune which is proper for a certain hymn in one book is evidently considered improper in another. But the influence of " Hymn and Tune Books " must now be con- sidered, irrespective of the " proper tune " theory, as a force that both preserves our old tune3, introduces new, and stereotypes for future generations the music of the present. Of Tune Books only little need be said. Greatorex's arrangement of the 18th century forms of Psalmody may still in some Churches keep people from singing worse things, and the " Old Church Psalmody" of the late Rev, W. H. Havergal, wherever it is employed, will, doubtless, continue to educate the tastes of the few that use it ; but it is to the " Hymn and Tune Books " of the day that we must look for the power that chiefly regulates our hymnody now, and that will tend to mould the " Hymnal of the Future." Their name is Legion. The most important, however, are " The Hymnal Noted," with its Appendix, the Rev. W. Mercer's " Church Hymn Book," the S.P.C.K. Collection, entitled " Psalms and Hymns for Public Worship," the Rev. W. Windle's " Church and Home Metrical Psalter and Hymnal," "The Congregational Hymn and Tune Book," "The Anglican Hymn Book," " Hymns for the Church of England : with proper tunes," "Hymns Ancient and Modern," with its Appendix, and " The Hymnary." In the compilation of these books clergy and professional musicians have b^en for the most part associated, though, musically considered, " The Hymnal Noted," with its Appendix, and Mercer's Hymn Book are distinctively clerical, while " The Hymnary " is as distinctly the work of lay musicians. Many of these books, no doubt, aimed at improving the taste of congregations, and have been more or less successful in their praiseworthy efforts. Among this class may be mentioned, firstly, the late Rev. W. Mercer's work, which contains few secularities and has been the means of displacing very much vulgar trash from Churches of the Evangelical type, and introducing good sound music in its room. It does not aim at providing new tunes, the only names of late date that 19 are to be found in it arc S. Wesley, the Prince Consort, Bishop Turton, Sir John Goss, and Mr. Turle, and of these only the last survives : the music consists principally of the better class of well known tunes, with a large admixture of German chorales. Mr. Mercer never abused his opportunity to cram the book with padding of his own manufacture — this would have been a temptation too great for many ' w professional " editors of the present day to withstand. He is not represented by a single tune, and the reviser, Sir John Goss, is only credited with one, " S. Paul's" It is a good, honest book : long may it prosper. Secondly, the Rev. R. R, Chope's " Congregational Hymn and Tune Book " demands a word or two. While going in very freely for new compo- sitions rather than for German chorales to supply the wants of our modern hymns, twaddle is scrupulously avoided. It has not, for instance, been thought necessary to write down " Hursley " for " Sun of my soul," or *Ewing" for "Jerusalem the golden," simply because people like such things, or to make the book pay, and the few mediaeval tunes that are introduced are purged of redundant and unessential notes, and thus reduced to sensible and more singable proportions. Had this book only pandered to the evil taste of the day, it would, doubtless, ere this, have attained a much wider circulation than it lias : but, as it is, " Hymns Ancient and Modern," musically an inferior book, has in some degree stifled it. Of the S.P.C.K. Collection, and of Windle's Hymnal, much cannot be said — ■ Where they're not like Mercer, They're just that much worser. " The Anglican Hymn Book," edited by the Rev. R. C. Singleton and Dr. E. G. Monk, and " Hymns for the Church of England ; with proper tunes," edited by Dr. Steggall, contain some excellent music well arranged, the defects in both being of a negative rather than a positive character. Unfortunately, neither of these books have attained the circulation to which their intrinsic merits fairly entitle them. The three remaining books it will be necessary to regard more attentively. " The Hymnal Noted," with its Appendix, is the work of the Antiquarian and Music-hall schools ; " Hymns Ancient and Modem " is a more Eclectic production ; while " The Hymnary " stands apart, as showing what professional musicians of high repute, who are not pledged to any clerical crotchets of an antiquarian or sensational character, consider a fitting style of tune for use in Divine service. •' The Hymnal Noted," with which the Rev. Thomas Helmore's name is prominently connected, is an interesting production, as giving the melodies, from the Salisbury Hymnal and other like sources, to which the Latin hymns of the Pre-reformation Church were sung. Some of the simpler forms of tune thus introduced will probably hold their own again in some quarters, especially if they are submitted to a little judicious pruning ; but that the festal forms, with their three, four, and five notes to a syllable, should ever again come into general use is very improbable, and certainly not to be wished. These festal melodies are, practically, simpler tunes disfigured by ornamental notes ; the result of a cravine for additional musical effect finding vent in an illegitimate 20 manner. (A similar movement took place in the eighteenth century, when our tunes S. Anne, S. David, Winchester, &c. were actually treated in the same way : they have, however, happily survived the rough usage to which they were subjected). If we wish to render a hymn more effectively on a festal occasion than at any other time, we now use varied harmonies to its ordinary tune, or, perhaps, employ a tune of equally simple structure, but of a more festive character ; but in the days before harmony was understood or commonly used in Church music, a melody for festal occasions was stuck all over with unessential notes, * 8 or another melody of an extremely florid style was sung. Such florid tunes can never become congregational, and those who would introduce them make a great mistake in supposing they ever were so — the tunes some clergymen now expect their mixed congregations to sing were in the Pre-reformation Church sung by the monks and collegiate clergymen well versed in the Church music of the time, not by the people. To suppose that the congregations of the day were accustomed to sing the hymn-melodies of the " Sarum Psalter," etc., is every whit as absurd as to suppose that the services of the English Church are all now regulated by the Directorium Anglicanum. People will never successfully catch up by ear music in which there is no clearly defined rhythm. The simpler forms it may for some reasons be advisable to keep ; their roughness is an agreeable contrast to the sickly sentimentality of many modern tunes ; but, considering the great advance in musical composition that took place when harmony, as we at present understand it, began to exercise its influence on melody, we are never likely to go back to this style of music for our common hymnody. 1 9 Unfortunately, our Antiquarian friends will not allow us to examine these melodies critically and put them on their merits, but, instead, claim for them a kind of semi-inspired patent, Their demand for these tunes to be considered " proper tunes " seems to rest upon the fact that they were, in common with some three or four other melodies, sung to some particular hymn in the unreformed Church, and thus it is argued thr,t they possess Church authority and ought to be used to the same hymns (translated) now. A similar argument, duly acted upon, would secure to " Lo ! He comes" the perpetual companionship of that sacred gem " Helmsley," because our grandfathers used to sing the hymn to that tune. Nothing short of alleged inspiration or Divine authority for Gregorian hymn-tunes will ever succeed in bringing them into prominent use in England, and though their supporters are, no doubt, prepared to go great lengths in credulity, it cannot reasonably be supposed that they will ever set up a plea of that kind for the adoption of Gregorian hymns, whatever they may do for Gregorian chants. As a proof, if proof were wanted, that these tunes are not chosen because they are the best, attention may be called to the fact that some of their warmest advocates only urge their employment to the old office hymns, while to the remaining hymns in the service they use perfect dog-kennel ditties. And this brings us to the Appendix " as used at S. Alban's Holborn." Of any connection with this work Mr. Helmore must stand acquitted by all who recognize the valuable service he has rendered to Church music, and who know with what earnestness he has contended 21 for severity of style, albeit he may seem to some minds at times to have confounded severity with crudity : the secularities of this book are as foreign to Mr. Helmore's principles as its vulgarities to his cultivated taste. The editor states in the Preface that "many persons having made application for the Tunes to which the Hymns were sung in S. Albans Church, Holborn, as being so eminently congregational, it has been thought advisable to publish the collection." Had the editor been a sound Church musician, accustomed to watch closely the direction in which popular taste generally runs, instead of publishing this book of tunes he might have thought it advisable to issue such a notice as the following : — " The fact of so many persons having made application for the Tunes to which the Hymns are sung in S. Alban's Church, Holborn, as being so eminently congregational, has induced the clergy to consider that these tunes are unfitted by their secularity for use in Divine Service : their use, therefore, will henceforth be discontinued." If the editor had only done this he would have done the Church a service, for these tunes which are considered so eminently congregational, if they have any eminence whatever, have it developed in an extremely uncon- gregational direction. " But this," it may be said, " is, after all, a matter of opinion." Just so : it is the opinion of people with facts on which to base that opinion against opinion supported only by individual preferences. A congregational tune means, to a Church musician, a tune of simple structure, of definite rhythm, of clear melody, and limited to such a vocal range that it can be sung with ease by voices of every register. 2 ° A congregational tune, to the editor of this Appendix and to his enquiring friends, evidently means merely a tune of any range that tickles their ears; one that they enjoy. In defending these popular tunes as " congregational " it is customary to appeal to the heartiness with which they are sung, and the opponents of the claim are expected to take the noise they make as a satisfactory proof of their congregational character. To this it may be said in reply, that these tunes are no doubt sung loudly by all the trebles and tenors that like them and can sing at all, and that tenor shouting produces a powerful effect, so that it is easy to imagine that the whole congregation are singing unless one listens attentively ; but as bass voices are found in our congregations in considerable number, and as nature has assigned to such voices certain limits, tunes that exceed those limits never are, and never can be, so far as those voices are concerned, congregational. Many basses will, pro- bably, say that they like these tunes and can sing them, but they generally get over the singing difficulty by descending an octave, chopping and changing about at their own sweet will, and the fact of their liking these tunes will never make them congregational, unless we ignore the logic of facts and define a congregational tune to be "any tune that pleases a congregation." And if we are to do this why may not the question of organ voluntaries be settled in a similar way 1 If a Church organist occasionally plays a voluntary of a light style — say a march of the modern French school, an English imitation of such, or something on a Vox Humana stop, suggestive of Punch with a cold in the head — he is beset by " anxious enquirers " who wish to know what it 22 is, or where they can procure a copy ; but let him try a Bach fugue or some piece of good, sound organ music of the German school, and it will produce less effect (in the way, that is, of giving pleasure) upon an average congregation than it would upon a pig, for the latter might be moved to squeal. Surely we are not expected to say that good organ music is " all such music as congregations delight to hear on that instru- ment ! " But to return to the Appendix : a glance at these eminently congregational tunes will suffice to put many of them out of court at once, on account of their extreme vocal range (see tunes 200, 201, 222, and a host of others), while the secularity of others is only to be equalled by the tunes of that wretched little Roman Catholic "Crown of (musical) Thorns," the " Crown of Jesus," which has been the means of importing much rubbish and more unblushingly secular matter into our services than the 18th century Dissenters would ever have used. If only the book be Roman it must be good, so at least some of the gushing school seem to think ; but they need not go to Rome now, for the S. Alban's Appendix is unhappily indebted to the " Crown" in some measure for its own selections. It is only necessary to call attention to a few tunes, as samples of many more to be found in this Appendix, to justify what has been said of it; tune 221 is equal to any meretricious tune of former days ; 321 is frivolous ; 301 (2nd melody) is of the rollicking order : — while tune 268 is a specimen of what our ecclesiastical-acrobat friends call " go." Such a tune as this, sung, as the writer has too frequently heard it, during the "communion of the celebrant" can only cause a feeling of intense pain to everyone whose judgment or taste, one might almost say conscience, is not seared as by a hot iron. There are, of course, some fair tunes in the book, but much of the music can only be called " sacred " by courtesy. If it really is sacred, will the editor inform us what is or can possibly be secular? Among what is good there is such a farrago of archaic complexity, namby-pamby mawkishness, and imbecile frivolity, that a little of the vulgarity of the old Methodist hymnody would be welcome as a wholesome contrast. That frequently had some earnestness in it, if it was of a coarse sort • it was not all ear- tickling. If " The Hymnal Noted " did little or nothing to elevate our hymnody, its Appendix has done much to degrade it. In " Hymns Ancient and Modern " we have an honest attempt to meet the wants of the day, although some of these wants are, probably, imaginary, and others might, with advantage, be left to die out. The book provides a fair number of old English tunes, several German chorales, many modern tunes by careful writers, some plain (ornate) song melodies, and a little clap-trap rubbish. For a book that has attained an exceptionally large circulation, and on the literary portion of which so many able scholars have been employed, it would, perhaps, have been equally advisable that the musical editorship should have been shared by a few well-known Church musicians. There are occasionally to be 23 met with signs of a one-sided judgment in some matters, to which a conference with ooliaborateurs might have prevented the principal editor from yielding ; but, this question apart, the selection of Mr. XV. H. Monk for the post was a most happy one, for, besides the musical skill he could bring to bear upon the undertaking, the works he has published for the Church show how largely he is imbued with the spirit of the Church herself. But to review the work more critically. The introduction of the " unbarred melodies " may, for reasons given above, be considered, with few exceptions, a mistake ; as, however, another tune is now given in each case as an alternative, no practical hindrance to the use of the book need be felt. The vocal range of the congregation is, also, too frequently exceeded (see tunes 17 (Christchurch), 47, 142 (Ewing), 149, 193, 263, and others). 21 It may be said that these tunes can be taken at a lower pitch for unison singing ; but this is not enough ; it is expedient that a tune should be so arranged that some verses may be sung in harmony and some in unison, and this cannot conveniently be done where a change of pitch is necessitated. There are too many ultra-subjective hymns, "fancy hymns" as they may be called, and consequently too many " pretty tunes," which, however well they may sound in accurately-balanced four-part harmony, are not made of the right kind of stuff to bear singing by a congregation en masse. (Such tunes as 200, 299 ( : ), 317, 342, and similar compositions are referred to here. In some metres, notably in the 65's, there is a deficiency of any tunes except those of the tum-tum class. Why do almost all tunes of this metre so rejoice in repeated chords % (See Nos. 92, 368, 385, &c.) Then the selection of music for children's hymns is generally very unhappy. Tunes 230, 364, and 365 do certainly not exhibit any special fitness for use by the young, while, with the exception of No. 365, their range is much too high, and in this respect tunes 363 and 367 are equally faulty. Considering the difficulty that is experienced in getting partially-trained boys to sing upper F and G accurately in many of our choirs, it is much to be wondered at that tunes of high range should be selected as suitable for use by children, many of whom will have had no musical training whatever. Some tunes there are that ought not to be admitted into any hymnal that seeks to educate popular taste. Such tunes for instance as Hursley, 22 Eming, Miles Lane, and company. It may reasonably be supposed that if the clergy generally were prepared to adopt a new hymnal, and all questions of doctrine and price could be set on one side, the book that would be most extensively adopted would be the one that contained the most secularities, the one that pandered most to the evil taste of the day. The sale of a book would be in inverse proportion to its excellence. After the start which its editors were able to secure for it, there is no doubt but that the sale of " Hymns Ancient and Modern," as a musical work among the general public, was much advanced by " that darling Hursley," and that " lovely Ewing ; 2 3 but, as the book can now afford to stand on its own merits without recourse to such bolstering as this, cannot these and such like tunes be withdrawn from the long-promised new edition, or, at any rate, additional tunes be provided for their hymns? If some of the fancy hymns, with their 24 sentimental accompaniments, were relegated to a supplement, and labelled " Poison : may be used occasionally, at long intervals," real devotion would not suffer, and ecclesiastical art would be the gainer. This hymnal will, probably, exercise more influence upon the hymnody of the future than any other publication of the kind at present known ; therefore, now that its position is assured, and it takes rank as the most generally-accepted hymnal of the time, it is earnestly to be hoped that its compilers and mnsical editor or editors will endeavour to make it, in its forthcoming edition, as worthy as possible of the English Church. " Itching hearers," it has been truly said, " make scratching preachers " : we may add that they also make " scratching com- posers ; " and call " The Hymnary " into court to attest the fact. This book, musically speaking, instead of being, as perhaps might be expected from the names of mark connected with it, a serious attempt to repress the taste for " musical dram-drinking " to which our congregations seem almost wholly given up, aims only to refine and dilute the dram, and so make it palatable to those people whose stomachs could not bear it " overproof," as exhibited in the S. Alban's Appendix. But let the book speak for itself. In its preface the following passage occurs : "It should ever be borne in mind that Church music differs from all other music, in that whilst ordinary music, both sacred and secular, is conceived with the view of gratifying the senses and purifying the passions of humanity, Church music is distinctly an offering dedicated to God." This is all very true as far as it goes : but is there, then, to be no essential difference in style between a hymn tune and a composition set to secular words % If not, there is ample room for composers to write any number of part- songs in the style of " Sweet and low," and " hush thee, my babie," and dub them hymn tunes ; a license of which the writers in " The Hymnary " seem to have availed themselves rather freely. Again : If it (a hymn tune) should fail after a fair trial to stimulate the best feelings of the amateur by its too great severity, or offend the susceptibilities of the musician by an excess of laxity, it is surely unfit for its high purpose." If, then, tunes, written in that style which Dr. Crotch calls " the sublime," cannot be said to stimulate, they must be held to fail, and recourse must be had to a lower class of tune. 24 Is this dedication to God or dedication to the people 1 Vox populi vox Dei, perhaps. Now there are some people that look upon a tune merely as a vehicle to enable them to utter praises in metre with one accord and with regard to decency ; and if their hearts are not warmed by the work they are engaged in, or by the words they are uttering, they don't much care to have their feelings, even their best feelings, stimulated by the tune they are singing ; they doubt much whether this tune-stimulus is necessarily akin to devotion any more than the doctrine of assurance is to a state of salvation. The best feelings, too, may not always be those stimulated. The soldier on his way to action is stimulated by the band of his regi- ment, and the theatre-goer has his feelings stimulated by the " slow music " which ushers in the Ghost, by the " hurry " that always accom- panies " business " in a melo-drama, or by the " chord of consternation " which follows the " tr-remble. tr-raitor," of the gentleman that "does the 25 heroics," who has just dropped from the bough of a tree overhanging a precipice, in time to prevent the " heavy villain " despatching the "leading lady" with a shovel; but it does not follow that the best feelings of the theatre-goer or the soldier are stimulated ; in either case, those feelings will be stimulated that are, at the time, rendered by other causes the most susceptible to the influence of the stimulus : the feelings that are most susceptible in church and during the outward semblance of devotion are not always the best. The promotion of subdued feelings, of reverential awe, is what we require from a hymn tune, not excited emotions, the concomitant of religious dissipation ; the tune that gradually influences the worshipper to feel that he is in the presence of that God before whom the very angels veil their faces, that appeals first, and often without his being aware of it, to his heart, and afterwards becomes a favourite, though he little knows for how much he is indebted to it ; that tune is to be preferred to one that immediately strikes the ear, gives the singer a cold shiver, or in any way sensibly stimulates his feelings, and in which he can frequently pick out the very bar, or even chord, that does the business. A tune to be worthy of its purpose must unassumingly aid the worshipper to sing his hymn with more reverence and heartiness ; it must never attempt to rival the words, and so tend to create an independent interest in the mind of the singer, who might, else, be easily brought to sing the hymn with mocking lips for the sake of the tune alone. What class of tune the bulk of modern compositions in " The Hymnary " represents, any candid examiner will be able to decide for himself. To quote again: " It is hoped that there is not one composition in this large collection which falls below the musician's test," the test being : " that it shall equally satisfy the musician and the amateur." If this be really the case, and the susceptibilities of Church musicians in general be not offended, then there is either no such thing as " an excess of laxity," or else musicians are ready, now that some of the clergy have helped to ' degrade our music, to pander to and foster the popular taste, if it will pay them to do so. This, be it understood, is not an assertion that " The Hymnary " is a book got up simply for sale : no ; some of the writers for it are known to hold very advanced views in connexion with Church music, and they have the right to publish in support of those views, however much others may regret the exercise of it ; but there are musicians who openly acknowledge that their wares are made to sell, a foul truth though it be, and who, if they find " advanced " music popular, will not hesitate to pocket any principles they may hold, and a penny besides, by a job of the kind : it is, therefore, earnestly to be wished that some of our leading Church musicians will show that their susceptibilities have been offended by the "excess of laxity" in which their brethren of "The Hymnary " have indulged, and thus do some little towards discrediting this terrific stride that has lately been made in our hymn-music. But besides the introduction of questionable new music, " The Hymnary " endeavours thoroughly to obliterate old landmarks. The few old Psalter tunes that appear, and other tunes of a bye-gone period, are only distinguished by the heading " Old Melody," while the accustomed 26 harmonies, which in some cases were traditional, have been improved upon — surely it was not absolutely necessary that all this old music should be ground in the Barnbyan mill before it could be declared fit for use 1 But it is time to justify the remarks that have been made on these " hymn tunes of the period " by adducing examples. Three will suffice. For the first, take No. 553, which is about as unlike what a congregational tune ought to be as possible. This is a unison passage : — to the words : — Trembled the mariners, peril was high — Sorrow can never be, darkness must fly — Thou, when the storm of death roars, sweeping by. The rise to the fourth, from G to C, is calculated to interfere with correct emphasis in the first two lines quoted, and the opening bar of the tune produces, in conjunction with the words, the same ill result. The composer has evidently tried to run his tune as high as the peril, and if he gets a sound at all from the males of a congregation on the high G, " roars sweeping by " will admirably describe the quality of it. Another is No. 507, which, for see-saw effect, high pitch, and drawling ending is a caution, and would well represent in lines 5 and 6 an individual wearily descending the steps of the " Monument," and giving an upward glance as he reaches the bottom. Let the last be a " Processional," of which it will be unnecessary to give the number, as the description below will enable it to be easily picked out. It opens with a phrase of the " bold gendarmes' duet" in Genevieve de Brabant, then, a few bars later, comes in a poverty-stricken bit of melody suggesting the weakest part of Batti, batti, and a kind of "Tramp" chorus, with a smack of a galop, appears nearer the close. If this tune does not " offend the susceptibilities of the musician by an excess of laxity " nothing in the way of a tune ever will. If the composer (who, by the way, is a most accomplished musician) is likely to perpetrate any more such crimes, it would be but an act of loving kindness for some musical policeman, who may have the advantage of looking at things from Mr. Hatherly's " standpoint," to " run him in." Once more : "the Hymn being intended as an offering from the musically unlearned, a certain element of simplicity should never be wanting." Among sins against simplicity may be noted, firstly, the adoption of the modern (crotchet) notation, which, owing to dim lighting, can only be read with some difficulty in many choirs, and, owing to distance from the eye, at the organ-desk with more • and, secondly, the disuse of intermediate double bars, through the omission of which much time will be lost in correction of wrongly sung passages, as the singers will have to count their way, bar by bar, from the beginning or the end of the tune to the places that the choir- master has pointed out. In some cases the choirmaster will have to adopt the same wearisome plan of counting bars before he will be able to correct his choir, for without a glance at the words it is very difficult to tell where a line proper begins and ends, or even what metre the tune 27 is written in, it is so ill-defined. Distinction of metre should be made as evident to the sight as it ought to be to the ear. Why, if hymns are printed in lines according to their metre instead of as prose, should tunes be treated as prose and no sign be introduced to mark the end of a line ? By the faulty arrangement in " The Hymnary " in this respect, endless confusion will arise in practice between the end of a line in the text and the end of a line on the music page — two totally different things. The tunes, too, are very chromatic, and modulation to remote keys is very frequent (see tunes 250, 360, 392, 442, 591, in Mardley's hymn, *' Lord, turn not Thy face from me," we find — " What I have been ; and what I am, I know Thou know'st it well." This sounds too much like conjugation to be truly poetical. With regard to the musical department, the first point demanding attention is a piece of careless editing in setting some of the " six line sevens." These hymns fall into three divisions, and may be distinguished by figures, thus : 7-7;7-7;7-7. 7-7-7-7;7-7. 7-7;7;7-7;7. Spanish Chant and 8. John (6, 26, 110, and 284) are wrongly applied throughout. Mr. H. S. Irons' Hope (13) to "At even" is rather over- done with suspensions. Dr. Gauntlett's Nocturne (16) to " The day is 43 past and over " will not supersede the A. and M. settings ; it is too low in the parts and of too wide a melodic range. To " Saviour, breathe an evening blessing " is set a rubbishy tune, with its last line apparently cribbed from Haydn's Austria ; it is called Snowdon, but from a pecu- liarity in the melody of the sixth line it might more fitly have been named Hiccough. "Sweet Saviour" has Mr. Monk's tune S. Matthias from A. and M., a tune that goes better to " Jesu, my Lord " than to this hymn, on account of the unsuitableness of the fifth line to express the words. Adaptations are not to be commended as a rule, and most of those in this book are failures. The March from Eli is very unfortunate, but the arrangement from the Andante in Beethoven's piano-forte sonata, op. 14, No. 2 (32), is more than this, it is an imperti- nence ; others from Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Weber are weak ; the best is an arrangement from Spohr's " As pants the hart," in favour of which something may be said. The Old 32nd Psalm is a little too heavy for Heber's " Holy, holy, holy." Mr. J. H. Deane's Sorrento (24) lacks solemnity for "Saviour, when in dust to Thee:" it mates very well, however, with 345, " Deathless principle, arise," which, by the way, is not a very poetical phrase. The editor, from a desire to pet prejudices that he ought to put to rout, or from Protestant fright, has ventured to mutilate Dean Milman's " When our heads are bowed with woe." " David " is substituted for " woman," to the utter ruin of the spirit of the hymn. " Great King of nations " (28) is wedded to an excellent tune by Professor Macfarren. The Russian Anthem makes a good setting for " God, the all-terrible," but a special adjustment of music is required to the first line of the last verse. The tune, too, should have been set a semitone lower. " Thou that dwell'st," of very irregular metre, is set to Stanley's Montgomery, which answers the purpose fairly. S. Stephen does not well suit the first line of " Hark ! the glad sound !" (45). If this hymn, with its irregular accent in the opening line, must be set to a strictly iambic tune, it should be to one in which the second note is either a repetition of the first or one of lower pitch, so as to avoid exaggerating the faulty accentuation. The same remark applies to the next hymn, "Joy to the world " (46), which is inappropriately mated with London New. Dr. Gauntlett's Vigil (49) is, perhaps, less pleasing than peculiar. A good opportunity for employing a proper tune has been thrown away by the insertion of Cannons to " The Lord will come " (50). Olmutz to " That day of wrath " (51) is an instance of careful arrange- ment. Dr. Gauntlett's Triumph (53) is a good tune, but would be better a semitone lower. Sinai (55) to "The Lord of might " is a very inferior tune ; one line is suggestive of a knock-down blow : — $ ■sf Sr And met His Fa - ther'a An - ger. Dr. Gauntlett's Diesirae (56) is very elaborate and uncongregational, and his simpler alternative tune is unsatisfactory. There is room for a good, simple, almost chant-like composure for this hymn. " Who is this so weak and helpless " (63) loudly demands an eight line tune of strongly marked character to suit the regularly changing expression of the text, 44 but it has been set to Stutgard : this is a very culpable piece of business. " My times are in Thy hand " (68) also craves a special setting, but it is allied to Franconia, which would suit a hundred hymns better than this particular one. Mr. Barnby's pretty little choir tune Holy Trinity accompanies, "0 Thou who by a star" (71). Gotha is welcome, but hardly in place to "Come, Thou long-expected Jesus" (72). Dr. Burney's poor tune Truro is unsuited to " Arm of the Lord " (80). S. Osmond (attributed both to Dr. Dykes, and Mr. H. S. Irons) to " On the mountain's top ajmearing" (83) is acceptable. "Approach, my soul, the mercy seat " (95), a penitential hymn, demands a severe and mournful tune, but has been ill-matched with Dr. Dykes' effeminate S. Agnes : independently of the faulty emphasis induced by the tune this is as bad a bit of editorial work as here and there one. Norton Canes (106), by Dr. Gauntlett, is effective. Bethel, to "Nearer, my God, to Thee," is a failure. The only really satisfactory tune to this hymn appears to be that by Dr. Steggall in " Hymns for the Church of Eugland, with proper tunes : " it is full of expression and free from maudlin sentiment. Kirlchy Lonsdale, which is set to "I was a wandering sheep" (117), might appropriately have been called Jerks. " Art thou weary " is set to S. Stephen the Sabaite, a tune of little character, but with a different ending in each verse for the words of the last line : this is fanciful, but its use can only be to annoy congregations. Greenland from the Lausanne Psalter is too vigorous a tune to mate well with, " I need thee, precious Jesu." More bad editing! " Ride on " (123) is set to Brockham, which does not suit it. There are suitable tunes to this hymn, that by Dr. Dykes from the Rev. R. R. Chope's book being the best known. The tune called Corelli as set to " Bound upon the accursed tree " is an instance of editorial madness, to wit : — ifeipfe fcmrxzs-zq- UligfH 111 By the life-less bo-dy laid In the chamber of the dead, Be the mourners, come to Weep Where the bones of Je - sus sleep, Mr. Barnby's £. Hilda (135) is a pretty part song; [Dr. Steggall's S. Mildred (136) is, on the contrary, a hymn tune, popular in style so far as melody is concerned, but sound and forcible. "Blow ye the trumpet, blow," should have had another tune, or the semibreves in the fifth line of Dr. Croft's tune should have been turned into minims. The effect of the following passage is bad : — The of Ju The " Committee of Friends " appear to have been bent on proving the truth of the proverb that "too many cooks spoil the broth." A fair tune by Dr. Dykes is set to " Hosanna to the living Lord " (144), but there is room for a more effective setting of this hymn. Evan (148) suits well "Blest day of God." "Hail the day that sees Him rise" (152) has a noisy, shrieking tune by Dr. Gauntlett. There are good tunes for this hymn, viz.: one by S. Reay in Mr. Chope's hymnal, and others of more 45 subdued character by Mr. Redhead and Dr. Staiuer. S. Fidbert (153) is much improved by transposition to a lower key. " Our Lord is risen from the dead " is capitally matched with Jeremiah Clarke's Brockham, but as Mr. Mercer, in his hymnal, and Dr. Monk, in the "Anglican Hvmn Book," made the same assignment, the present editors cannot claim all the praise. S. George (169) should have been set a tone or semitone lower ; the repeated D's will be likely to fatigue a congrega- tion. Christ Chapel (185) is a specimen of a good, popular tune. Darwell (186) is a hearty old tune that has been under taboo too long, but it would have gained in solemnity by being set in D flat, a tone lower.. Arne (190) would have been wisely omitted ; it is dreary, and of too wide a range to suit men's voices. Dr. Gauntlett's Beaumaris to " Saviour, again to Thy dear name we raise " is pleasing, but not likely to eclipse in favour Pax Dei from A. and M. If Vespers (195) must be used, surely, the key could be lowered, and the shriek in the seventh line moderated. Mr. W. S. Bambridge's Calvary (202) is a good tune, but the first chord of the fifth line is susceptible of improvement. " We saw Thee not " (20-4) might be worse and much better treated than by Eaton. Halle (205) is very successful. Mr. Southgate's tune to " Through the love of God our Saviour" (213) answers also very well. "The roseate hues " (230) is not happily set ; the Rev. F. A. J. Hervey's tune, from "The Hymnary," and Sir Robert Stewart's, from the "Irish Church Hymnal," are the best proper tunes for this hymn. Aylesbury is well set to hymn 247. The Old 81st (254) to "The Son of God" is barred in an objectionable fashion, and should have been set in a lower key. The Saints' Days hymn, " From all thy saints in warfare" (255), with its special commemorative verse, is furnished with a sound and pleasing tune, Paradise, by F. Weber. Our lamented Henry Smart's tune, Pilgrims (265), is decidedly the best in common use for " Hark, hark, my soul," and is wisely reprinted here. When will some composer write a really satisfactory tune for "It came upon the midnight clear" (266)? It does not receive good treatment here. Mr. Turle's Lostivithiel (267) forms a good setting for " Head of the Church triumphant." " O Lord of heaven" (271) has not been thoroughly well set by Mr. E. H. Thome as regards emphasis, and the alternative tune by Dr. Gauntlett is worse. Mr. Hewlett's Dalkeith (279) is a good congregational tune, modern in style. Agnus Dei (282) by Dr. Gauntlett is not a good people's tune, and therefore wastes space that might be better filled. Dr. Dykes' Eucharist (285) is pretty, but lacks backbone, as, by the way, many of his tunes do. Sharon (286), by Dr. Boyce, is well rescued from neglect. Mehul (295) is a failure; it will not be sung clearly by children. The Rev. R. R. Chope's S. Lambert (296) is simple, pleasing, and congrega- tional. If the clergy and laity like poor tunes themselves there is no occasion to teach them to another generation, so Mount Ephraim (298) ought not to have been assigned to "Fair waved the golden corn." Lyra Innocent is (304) is the very spirit of "turn turn." Dr. Gauntlett's Salisbury to "Salvation, O the joyful sound" (306) will probably please. "Happy land" (316) and "Realms of the blest" (317) have taking melodies of a low order. They will be readily learned by children, but 46 surely there is no occasion to make hymn singing in Church a means of vulgarizing their tastes. Irene (327), by Dr. Dykes, is a thoughtful tune. Hanover (337) is much too imposing in style for "My rest is in heaven/' Walton (338) is a failure. Weymouth (339) is a poor and most wearisome tune, and it has to be sung seven times through. Paradise (350) is the secular ditty that first made that vulgar hymn popular. It is, how- ever, a fair specimen of much Roman Catholic hymnody, more's the pity. What is not effeminate about it is vulgar and fit to be associated with settings for the canticle in music-hall style — say by Macdermott, in D. The secular Belmont (351) with its reminiscence of Umbrella Courtship, " I'll meet you, love, when next it rains," is unhappily set to " Lord, it belongs not to my care," for the misplaced emphasis in the second line becomes more marked than ever by the use of a triple time tune : — whe - ther . Mr. E. J. Hopkins' otherwise good tune, S. Agatha (356), is less pleasing than it might be through the fall to a minor seventh in the extreme parts of the fourth line. There is a chance for some one to distinguish himself by writing a good tune to "All hail the power of Jesu's name " (365) ; Miles Lane is too vulgar, and S. George too destitute of indi- viduality, to enforce the fourth line properly. " The God of Abraham praise " is wisely set to Leoni, but more tone would be got out of it if it were transposed a tone lower. Frankfort (387) suits its hymn fairly well. Veni Creator (395) is very poor ; a good modern tune is required for this hymn. The National Anthem (400) is set too high, unless the editors wish to encourage congregations to vamp harmonies. As one of the three supplemental hymns, "Lead, kindly Light" finds a place in connexion with Dr. Dykes' womanish tune. A good tune is sadly wanted for this hymn. There are other good tunes, besides those that have been mentioned and the usual stock pieces of Church Hymnals, viz : Ceylon (88), by L. Schroeter ; S. Blaise (164), by T. B. Hosken ; Cloisters (229), by J. Turle ; Atonement (346), Bohemian ; and Clewer (348), by W. S. Bambridge. There is also a collection of inferior pieces, which ought either to have been omitted altogether or had alternative tunes of good and pleasing character assigned with them : these unfortunates are such as Calvary (Stanley's), Caritas, Helmsley, Holly, Sicilian Mariners', Spanish Chant, Warrington, Warwick, and Venice. Others might well have been omitted on account of their high pitch or wide range of melody, viz.: S. Salvador, and nearly all the adaptations; while the following would be far more acceptable for congregational rendering in iinison if they were transposed a semitone, and in some cases even a tone lower:— 41, 115, 120, 139, 160, 163, 168, 180, 188, 234, 321, 353, 377, and 389. This volume is musically an advance upon some of the hymnals met with among the Evangelical school in the Church of England, but it lacks the ecclesiastical tone of the Rev. W. Mercer's editing, and betrays in numerous instances the faulty judgment of the musical amateur. " Church Hymns," published, as the title page informs us, under the 47 direction of the Tract Committee of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, is one of the most important works that has of late years issued from the Society's press. The labours of the Tract Committee a few years ago seemed principally to consist in the selection and publica- tion of little tracts for distribution by clergy and district visitors — tracts of the most colourless, milk-and-water description imaginable, very goody-goody, and nothing in the world else. Some seventeen years ago, or possibly more, a book appeared entitled " Psalms and Hymns for Public Worship : with Appropriate Tunes, revised and edited by James Turle;" but it was in style nearly a quarter of a century behind the times, con- sisting of copious selections from the immortal platitudes of Tate and Brady, with an occasional resort to Sternhold and Hopkins by way of variety, styled " Psalms," and some three hundred hymns, many of which were very worthy of a place, either as established favourites or as of intrinsic merit, though not a few were of the same sleepy, soulless kind of material for which the Committee seemed to possess a patent. Under Mr. Turle's editing the tunes were, of course, well arranged and harmonized, though one might reasonably doubt whether some of the tunes employed (Helmsley, &c.) could be considered appropriate at all. It is doubtful, however, from the wording of the title page, whether Mr. Turle can be held responsible for the assignment of tunes to words. One would fain hope not. But a great change has taken place : the Tract Commitee, in " Church Hymns," have not been content, as of yore, to keep twenty years behind contemporary hymnals, but have boldly come to the front with a book that bids fair to rival " Hymns Ancient and Modern." Good names are to be found among its editors, viz. : the Rev. (now Bishop) Walsham How and the Rev. Berdmore Compton ; and the tune book has on its title page the name of Arthur Sullivan. The connec- tion of Mr. Sullivan's name with the hymnal was a surprise to many who, knowing that the book was in contemplation, thought, and not un- naturally, that Dr. Stainer's services to Church music would give him a claim to the post of editor, and something very advanced was expected as the result of Mr. Sullivan's appointment. But the work seems to have been done, on the whole, fairly well, though, possibly, certain objectionable features that will be noticed would not have appeared under different editing. The book contains 580 hymns and 12 metrical litanies, which may be thus classed : — Hymns for the day or Aveek, 60 ; Hymns for Church Seasons and Holy Days, 137 ; Holy Communion Hymns, 18 ; Hvmns for Special Occasions (baptism, confirmation, burial, times of trouble, harvest, missions, &c., — _=J_n ' 1 1 -J] =#*r*i f*3 —^- 1— -j— 1 I— 3^ 1 -J-fsJ- -45- F=rr n &Lt=± — \ — 4= ~1~ -&- *"J 1 rJ -