THE HYMN SOCIETY BULLETIN Autumn 2019 301 Vol 22 No 8

contents EDITORIAL 298 CANTERBURY CONFERENCE 2019 Michael Garland 300 HYMN SOCIETY HYMN FESTIVAL Janet Wootton 304 CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL 24TH JULY 2019 NINE LESSONS AND CAROLS Christopher Gray 315 CHOOSING HYMNS AT CHRISTMAS John Barnard 322 THESE YOU HAVE LOVED: TOWARDS A Martin Leckebusch 327 CORE HYMNODY ANNIVERSARIES 340 ANNIVERSARIES QUIZ 347 REVIEWS 348 OBITUARY 352

The Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland EDITORIAL And then the third revelation of this worship service: Mercy. When Robin Knowles Wallace preached at the Hymn Society Mercy. Here we are in the midst of a service of Eucharist, with Conference in July, what she had to say put our task in preparing intercessions following the sermon - the table of justice prepared by and promoting hymnody in perspective. It bears repeating, so this the Spirit to strength and nourish God’s people. Editorial continues with her words… So here it is: in the midst of the people of God, before bread I received Robert Canham’s email asking me to preach the and grape, just as people have done for thousands of years, week in morning that I flew to Austin, Texas, to visit my daughter and then and week out, whether our worship is fancy or flat, whether we are attend the US/Canadian Hymn Society and come here to Canterbury. stuck in our own importance (as perhaps were the disciples in the And my first thoughts were: ‘That Amos scripture (Amos 5:21-24): gospel) or convinced of our utter unimportance or meaninglessness oh, no, I hate this scripture!’ God is indignant, to use John Bell’s (like a discounted child), God through Jesus reaches out and into us, word from last night; God is angry about our worship. I teach unmerited, unrequested, unceasingly, with an invitation to lift up our worship and watch students and pastors try so hard to “get worship heads, to know that life and grace are gifts to the world and to us, right” when all that work is ultimately worth nought, unless our to capture God’s message of overflowing justice, abundant grace and priority is God’s justice and kingdom-like behaviour. love so clearly in our hearts and minds and bodies that we radiate love and mercy, justice and grace. Ah, a second scripture (Matthew 18:1-6 and 10): Jesus and the children: becoming child-like for the kingdom, including the least To do the work of justice is to know the miracle of God’s important, reaching out to those marginalized by society . . . And presence with us at this table. To be, to receive, and to accept love, again, there it is, the indignation of God, which will be shown to mercy, grace, in spite of who we are but because of who God is - all those of us who mistreat children… we can say is ‘thanks be to God!’ To live in the world today, whether in the midst of refugee Robin Knowles Wallace crises that show the worst of human callousness, or unending political horrors which are neither just nor righteous, to watch the veneer of civility cracking everywhere we turn, is enough to make this Christian turn to despair. Where are the waters of justice and God’s everflowing streams of righteousness? Are those waters and streams like our planet’s cry for help: too wet, then too dry? And here we are, with the reality of humanity’s mess in one hand and God’s possibilities in the other, and we can still feel powerless to do anything. Yes, the mix of peace and justice is a complex thing… We don’t get it right for more than a moment at a time.

Cover photograph: Christopher Gray, Director of Music at Truro Cathedral. Photo © Andrew Pratt 2019

Opinions expressed in the Bulletin are not necessarily those of the Society or the Editor

298 299 CANTERBURY CONFERENCE 2019 by our Executive Vice-President, Martin Leckebusch, entitled: ‘These MICHAEL GARLAND you have loved: towards a core hymnody’. A careful study of the contents of sixteen current hymn books had revealed that around The pleasant summer sun shone brightly on the University of 140-150 hymns appeared in at least twelve books and 52 hymns Kent in Canterbury for our three-day Annual Conference in July. Not were common to all. An informative handout revealed the current only brightly, but fiercely one might add, as the temperatures soared ‘core’ with contemporary writers represented by one author, Timothy into the low thirties. Fortunately, this did not deter the seventy Dudley-Smith, with ‘Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord’ and people who arrived safely from many parts of the British Isles and ‘Lord, for the years your love has kept and guided’. further afield including guests and friends from the United States and South Africa. Our Executive President, Janet Wootton, extended Coaches were on hand for the short journey to Canterbury a warm welcome to all present and led the opening worship which Cathedral where, in the cool of the Western Crypt, we were warmly included the singing of ‘Jesu, priceless treasure’. greeted by the Dean, the Very Reverend Robert Willis. From here our morning hymns ascended, all informatively presented by Janet First to appear at the Lectern was Nicholas Markwell, who Wootton, with John Bell conducting and John Webber accompanying gave a fascinating appraisal of the life of James Ellor (1819-1899). us on the organ. The Deanery garden was the most delightful setting Like several composers of his day, Ellor suffers from being thought for a buffet lunch thanks to the gracious hospitality of our host. of as a ‘one tune person’ with the sparkling DIADEM considered by There was still time to enjoy a stroll around the Cathedral and to be many to be the ideal partner to ‘All hail the power of Jesu’s name’. In mindful of its place as a major centre of pilgrimage in England. On Anglican churches, DIADEM may have failed to oust MILES LANE as returning to the campus of the University we caught up with two the preferred choice, but it is more widely celebrated in evangelical further sectionals. Martin Ellis gave a speedy overview ofWesley circles. It was good to be introduced to several other tunes by James Hymns recently published by Hinde Street Methodist Church, London. Ellor that would no doubt have been sung with much enthusiasm Regretting the loss of many of these hymns in recent collections, and relish in the mid nineteenth century. A short but necessary our speaker warmed to the initiative which had brought this latest practice for the following day’s Festival of Hymns followed, ably and book with its ninety-eight hymns to print including ‘Since the Son efficiently led by John Bell. Following a drinks reception and dinner hath made me free’, a personal favourite of our Honorary President, where plenty of catch-up conversations were managed, we took our Archbishop Rowan Williams. In the final sectional, ‘Psalmody in the seats in the lecture room to hear John Bell address the intriguing Eucharist’, John Webber and Sue O’Neill gave a well-illustrated talk to question ‘Whatever happened to Jesus in the Church’s song?’ (this show how psalmody could be presented and encouraged in worship will be published in the Bulletin in due course). Following some using a variety of musical forms. It is surely a cause of concern specific research, our speaker had discovered a noticeable gap in that in many churches today the psalms are no longer in regular hymns dealing with the life and teaching of Jesus. He observed that usage and attempts to restore them, albeit in shortened responsorial many hymns make a swift transition from the cradle to the cross settings, are to be welcomed. and, as a result, thirty-three years of earthly existence, including three years of ministry, are overlooked. Key events in our Lord’s life Following a break for refreshments we returned to hear are well represented in our hymn books but active images of his Gillian Warson appraising one of our best-known hymns. ‘Gathering life are not common. One wonders whether someone might take up rushes and playing the meadows: Singing ‘All things bright and this challenge. The programme for our opening day was brought beautiful’ today’ was a strong affirmation of verses by Cecil Frances to a fitting close by our Conference Chaplain, Adam Carlill. We are Alexander whose popularity endures. This is evident by its regular grateful to him for providing us with thoughtful and creative liturgy appearance in funeral services and wedding services across the and song throughout the Conference. land. Shorn almost entirely now of its controversial verse about the rich man in his castle and occasionally of the verse referring to There was certainly a new look to the middle day of our the gathering of rushes and playing in the meadows, the hymn still programme when we broke with tradition by holding our Festival of retains its appeal and vitality as God is affirmed as the great creator. Hymns in the morning session. Ahead of this, the timetable afforded Following the speaker’s confident presentation, several questions us an opportunity to hear a sectional presentation after breakfast followed, citing for the most part warm approval for the hymn;

300 301 noting some reservations and concerns, and offering gratitude to the specially reconstructed (a transcript of this talk appears later in this speaker for her lecture. There was time before dinner for four well- Bulletin). timed presentations under the ever popular ‘Short Metre’ heading. After the coffee break members re-grouped for the AGM John Barnard encouraged us to think creatively about the choice of of the Society. Reports on work and progress achieved in 2018 hymns at Christmas (a transcript of his presentation appears later were well-received. Officers were thanked for their enthusiastic in the current Bulletin) observing that Carol Services do not always commitment and all those who had made the Canterbury Conference have to begin with ‘Once in royal David’s city’ and end with ‘Hark, the such an enjoyable occasion received warm appreciation. Our closing herald angels sing’! Ben Brody, President Elect of our sister society act of worship led by our Chaplain included the singing of ‘When I in North America enlightened us about the work of The Center for survey the wondrous cross’ to ROCKINGHAM. Congregational Song, the resource and outreach arm of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. Marjorie Dobson introduced Make sure you enter next year’s Conference dates in your us to her new collection of writings in Unravelling the Mysteries, an diaries: 14th – 17th July in Southport. accessible resource of forty new hymns together with other worship Michael Garland material. Our fourth and final contributor, John Matthews, warned us of the dangers of hymnological elitism and congregational preference when it comes to the choice and use of hymns. In our last session of the day we were pleased to welcome Carl Daw to speak about the latest project on which he had embarked, namely the compilation of a Psalter for Singing under the title Praise, Lament, and Prayer. Our links with Carl Daw go back several years and we recall his term of office as Executive Director of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada with much appreciation. We are also grateful for several of his texts which have been included in hymn books on this side of the Atlantic notably ‘Like the murmur of the dove’s song’ and ‘We sing of all the unsung saints’. In his lecture entitled ‘What would Watts do 300 years later? Embarking on a new Psalter’ we were given a fascinating insight in to how the author and poet works the words of the psalmist into fresh expressions of song. The work is not yet complete, but we were delighted to receive a copy of the first fifty psalms as a gift. We look forward to seeing the further fruits of our speaker’s labours with keen anticipation. Our final morning in Canterbury dawned bright and sunny but for our final lecture we were transported in heart and mind to the season of winter and specifically to Christmas in Truro 1880. Christopher Gray, Director of Music at Truro Cathedral, reminded us that here, in a shed in Cornwall, was born the Festal Service for Christmas Eve entitled ‘Nine Lessons with Carols’. Devised by Bishop Edward Benson, the service has now achieved world-wide fame thanks to the regular Christmas Eve broadcasts from the Chapel of Kings College, Cambridge. Our speaker had kindly made copies of the original service available to us and we were also treated to recordings of the Cathedral Choir from a CD in which the 1880 service had been

302 303 HYMN SOCIETY HYMN FESTIVAL of Music, and with Michael Tippett. He served with RCM for 24 years CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL, JULY 24TH 2019 as a professor of music, and has been a prolific composer. His book, A Composer’s Life,5 published in 1995, recalls that music was a CONDUCTED BY JOHN BELL, ORGANIST JOHN WEBBER, PRESENTED consuming passion from his very earliest years. BY JANET WOOTTON1 Let us bring our morning praises to God as we sing, ‘Praise It is fabulous to have two giants of modern hymnody the God of our salvation’. represented not only in their texts but actually in person at this Festival! John Bell is speaking at and conducting our hymn festival, 2) I love the Lord, John Bell; NEW FENWICK, John Bell and Carl Daw presenting a lecture. We shall be celebrating their Light and life belong to the morning, the daytime; death and work, alongside that of other mighty figures in the hymnological suffering belong to darkness and the night. It is in the Psalms that landscape, on whose shoulders we stand. we find the bitterest and harshest descriptions of suffering. This is 1) Praise the God of our salvation, Timothy Dudley Smith; what makes them such a powerful resource for people going through CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL, Alan Ridout. the agonies of life and death. No punches are pulled; no anodyne solutions are offered; no false dawns. Appropriately to this wonderful company and this glorious setting, our first hymn is written by Timothy Dudley Smith (1926- ), The setting of Psalm 116 that we are about to sing is one of our most venerable and best-loved members, and an Honorary similarly unyielding. The Psalm begins in the night time of sorrow. Vice-President of the Society. The tune, CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL, The suffering is real: death, hell, anxiety and fear grip the psalmist, was composed by Alan Ridout (1934-96) for these words. until rescue comes. Then the response is just as powerful: to suffering, earnest prayer; to rescue, an offering of blessing. Bishop Timothy is very well known to us and was a regular attender at Hymn Society Conferences for as long as he was John Bell’s (1949- ) life and work has the same ring of truth able. I was in contact with him most recently in March, when we about it. He began working with the Iona Community in 1984, and celebrated the centenary of Billy Graham’s birth as part of a local has become synonymous with its developing life. Iona has its roots hymn festival in South London,2 and he responded most generously in the vision of George MacLeod (1895-1991) in the 1930s, now with the story of his involvement. As an ordinand at Ridley Hall, expressed in the statement on the website: ‘working for peace and Timothy brought a group of young people to Billy Graham’s social justice, rebuilding of community and the renewal of worship’.6 London Crusade (as it was called) and, later, on the staff of the My friends, who are members, bear ample witness to this in the Evangelical Alliance, founded and edited a magazine dedicated to simplicity and spirituality of their own lives. the evangelistic thrust of the missions.3 His hymns express a strong The Community is a force of blessing in the world, not least evangelical theology in words which are memorable and profound. through the wealth of music and worship that it has released into They have become some of the best-known and best-loved texts in the church through John’s Bell’s hymns and worship material, his modern hymnody. leadership at conferences, music events, training and a million other Alan Ridout’s tune, published to this text in the 1990 contexts. His influence is incalculable. collection,Psalms for Today,4 is named for our present setting, A note on the published hymn text reminds us that, in what CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL. Ridout wrote for texts by a number of is the only scriptural allusion to Jesus singing, ‘. . . Before leaving for contemporary authors: Fred Kaan, Michael Forster, Chris Idle and Gethsemane, he and the disciples sang a hymn. This refers to the Barbara Woollett, among others. Born in West Wickham, in 1934, he second part of the Hallel Psalms (Psalms 115-118). So, in a very real studied under Gordon Jacob and Herbert Howells at the Royal College way, when we sing this Psalm, we do so in solidarity with Jesus.’7 1 This is a transcript of Janet Wootton’s commentary. 2 The People’s Song: Three Key Traditions, at All Saints Church, West Dulwich on March 9th 2019. See the Hymn Society Bulletin, Summer 2019, 300, Vol. 22, No. 7, p258. 3 Crusade, 1955- . 5 AlanRidout,A Composer’s Life (London: Thames, 1995). 4 Michael Perry and David Hill (ed.) Psalms for Today, (London: Jubilate, Hodder & Stoughton, 6 https://iona.org.uk/ accessed 29/8/2019. 1990). 7 The Truth that Sets us Free,(Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications, 2012), p. 71.

304 305 3) When rising from the bed of death, Joseph Addison; polyphony, which the Independent, Robert Browne, characterised as THIRD MODE MELODY, Thomas Tallis ‘tossing to and fro of psalms . . . like tenisse plaie’.10 Tallis was willing Our next text and tune were set together in the 1933 edition to adapt his style to the occasion, and the discipline of the syllabic of theEnglish Hymnal,8 and Gordon Giles assures me will continue style adds terseness to the intensity of the tune. into the Revised English Hymnal soon to be published. It is designed to be sung with the melody in the tenor line: Here, Joseph Addison, who died 300 years ago, imagines a rubric inThe Psalter reads: ‘The tenor of these partes be for the his own death and judgment, in words of brooding power. This is people when they will synge alone, the other parts, put for greater not ‘When Christ shall come with shouts of acclamation and take me queers, or to suche as will syng or play them privatelye.’ home, what joy shall fill my heart’, but a less triumphal song of hope As we are a ‘greater queer’, we will sing it as written, with in face of fear. On the dread morning after the dark night of death, the melody in the tenor line, supported by the other parts. the singer is ‘o’erwhelmed with guilt and fear’. And yet hope is there, in the gentle light of redemption. READING: Job 38:1-18 Addison (1672-1719) lived at one of the most intellectually 4) If you are a Son of Man, Sydney Carter; SON OF MAN, stimulating times in history. The late seventeenth to early eighteenth Sydney Carter century was alive with new ways of thinking, exploration and I love Job’s description of the morning shaking the darkness experimentation. He editedThe Spectator, with Richard Steele, and all evil away. Every now and again, hymns find fresh, new ways which aimed to bring learning ‘out of closets and libraries, schools of expressing this, shaking up the language of sin and redemption, and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables, and in death’s dark night and God’s new day. coffee-houses’. Fifty years ago, the third of three slim volumes of songs But the God of his better-known hymn, ‘The spacious was published. The three were Faith Folk and Clarity, Faith Folk and firmament on high’, whose praise resounds in reason’s ear, is yet the Nativity and Faith Folk and Festivity,11 published in 1969. For many God who judges all souls, before whom our only hope is in Christ’s young Christians, these were absolutely mind-blowing – a phrase that redemptive suffering. probably belongs to the same era! It is appropriately sung to the darkest of the nine tunes The 1960s saw, along with a great many changes, a revival that Thomas Tallis (1505-1585) composed for Matthew Parker’s The of the folk tradition. Singers like Martin Carthy, Ewan McColl and Joan Whole Psalter,9 and probably best known through the Fantasia on a Baez adopted not just the style, but also the radical political edge of Theme by Thomas Tallis by Vaughan Williams. much folk music. TheFaith, Folk and books bring this into Christian Tallis, of course, is another link with Canterbury, having worship, in a combination of traditional songs, items by established served as a lay clerk, singing at the Cathedral in the early 1540s folk musicians, and new material. before moving on to a prestigious position as a Gentleman of the They included several items by Sydney Carter (1915-2004), Chapel Royal, playing and composing for the Royal Court, through a who was in his 50s by the time they were published, and had been long and illustrious career. writing and performing for a number of years. His style, and his The third mode of the tune is the rare Phrygian mode, which questioning, intelligent theology, were perfect for the times. gives it a very intense feel. In a poem at the end of thePsalter , the To me, as a questioning teenager, angry with the world, the tunes are classified according to their emotional character. According songs came as a total revelation, a radical faith that suddenly made to this, ‘The third doth rage: and roughly brayth’. sense to me. It is written in a syllabic style, with one syllable to a note. 10 Robert Browne, True and Short Declaration (1583), cited in Percy Scholes,The Puritans and Music in England and New England: a Contribution to the Cultural History of Two Nations This was favoured by Cranmer, and other reformers, who disliked (London: Oxford University, 1934), p. 217. 8 English Hymnal, New Edition(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933). 11 Peter D. Smith (ed.) Faith Folk Clarity: a Collection of Folk Songs(Great Yarmouth: Galliard, 9 Matthew ParkerThe whole Psalter translated into English Metre, which contayneth an hundreth 1967); Faith Folk Nativity: a New Collection of Songs (Great Yarmouth: Galliard, 1968); Faith and fifty Psalmes (London: Iohn Daye, 1567?). Folk Festivity: a Collection of Folk Songs (Great Yarmouth: Galliard, 1969).

306 307 A couple of things to notice. Watch for the tense and mood We were guided in this by the link with Charles Kingsley of the verb ‘to be’. If you are a son of man; If I were the Son of (1819-75), the bicentenary of whose birth, as it happens, falls this God; and then, in the last verse, like a thunderbolt: ‘If you were year. Kingsley is well known as a leading Christian thinker and the son of man/You’ve tasted this as well’. If we sing the Psalms in Socialist. He was banned from preaching in the Diocese of London, solidarity with Jesus, here is Jesus in solidarity with us, facing a fully because of his early writings, which led to his being known as the human death. Chartist clergyman. Second, In Faith Folk and Clarity, the phrase Son of God The intellectual ferment, to which I referred in relation is capitalised and a son of man is lower case throughout. So far to Joseph Addison, was in this country tempered by a strong so good. But a writer like Brian Wren might have capitalised in the and radical Christian faith, determined that all should equally penultimate line, ‘if you were the Son of Man’. We found some benefit from advances in science and technology. This is the era versions where this was done. Which was right? We wrote to Stainer of the great philanthropic institutions in the fields of industry, & Bell, who have the original manuscripts, and it is lower case, and education and health care. Kingsley’s Christian socialism informs so we have left it. the text we are about to sing, which originally began: ‘Accept this building, gracious Lord,/No temple though it be;/We raised it for Incidentally, it was another decade and another our suffering kin,/And so, good Lord, for Thee’. It was reportedly transformation before I realised that the English phrase, ‘Son of sung at the opening of the New Wing of the Children’s Hospital in Man’ raised its own questions for a Daughter of humanity, but that’s Birmingham. another story! 6) Sing to the Lord ye distant lands. Isaac Watts; The Faith Folk and [Nativity/Clarity etc,] books also RICHMOND, Thomas Haweis encouraged new and younger writers, and a teenage Susan Tuck has a lovely, haunting text and tune about adolescence in the book: The next two hymns form a pair. 2019 marks the ‘Just on the threshold’.12 I was quite thrilled to meet her again, as tercentenary of the publication of Isaac Watts’ (1674-1748)Psalms Sue Gilmurray, singer/songwriter, and now a member of the Hymn of David: Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, and Society. She is going to sing the first verse as a solo. Apply’d to the Christian State and Worship.13 Carl Daw (1944 - ) will be speaking to us later about Embarking on a new Psalter, to mark 5) From Thee all skill and science flow, Charles Kingsley; the occasion. So we will sing two settings of Psalm 96, a rich and CREDITON, Thomas Clark glorious hymn of praise. Not all Canterbury musicians were associated with the Both authors have taken seriously the challenge in the first Cathedral or the Court. There was a lively musical tradition in the line of the Psalm: to sing a new song to the Lord. Chapels as well, as demonstrated by our next hymn. The composer of the tune CREDITON was Thomas Clark (1775-1859). He was born Watts is writing at a time of innovation in Christian song, and in Canterbury in 1775 and lived all his life there. By trade he was its place in worship. For Dissenters, even if congregational singing a boot and shoemaker, but he was keenly interested in promoting were to be allowed, the words should be purely scriptural, hence the music in chapel worship. He composed nine sets of Psalm tunes, and rather complex title of Watts’ book. He was attempting to show that tune books for Sunday Schools and Chapel Choirs. These all proved the scriptural words of the Psalms could be interpreted in the light of enormously popular and ran into many editions throughout the first the gospel, for worship. This is the new song - God’s grace in Jesus. part of the nineteenth century. The new words are Watts’s own. They are jewel-like: cities Famously, he was the composer of CRANFIELD, now shine in bright array, and fields in cheerful green (cheerful would universally sung to ‘Ilkley moor bah-tat’, but set to the text, ‘Grace ‘tis have had overtones of confidence and courage, lost in today’s a charming theme’. Now, that would have been fun to do, but common language); and an ‘unusual joy surprises … the islands of the sea’. sense prevailed and we chose something slightly less rambunctious. 13 Isaac Watts, Psalms of David: Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, and Apply’d to 12Faith, Folk and Clarity,no. 37. the Christian State and Worship (London, 1719).

308 309 Carl Daw has contributed hugely to the development of national board of examiners. Dauntingly for those facing examination, modern hymnody. Like Watts, he has been part of shaping Christian his own score of 95% is the highest ever recorded in over 100 years. song for his own and future generations, not only through his texts, The four anthologies of his hymn tunes include one under which are carried in most contemporary American hymnals, but also the titleSing to the Lord no Threadbare Song.14 The title was inspired in his writing, teaching and participation in events such as this, in by the Carl Daw text, and Carl has written a foreword to the book, in America, and Europe and globally, and as Executive Director of The which he writes movingly on the close and complex relation between Hymn Society in the United States and Canada for many years. a hymn text and tune, much in evidence here. For him, the newness of the song is a value in itself, a new READING: Matthew 25:31-40 song is not threadbare or toothless, but ‘just off the loom, fresh- woven, strong and dense’, like, indeed, the language of the Psalm 8) Mine eyes have seen the glory, Julia Ward Howe; BATTLE itself. HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC Both hymns weave rich colours from elsewhere in scripture This Festival has been a lot of fun to do. Suggestions of into the new song. In Watts, you can hear hints of Isaiah as the hymns for inclusion, and areas to explore flooded in. I was delighted to landscape prepares the way to welcome the Messiah; in Daw, there receive them, and often fascinated by the information. ‘Oh really? Well, are echoes from the far-off apocalypse, realised in a prophetic vision we must have that!’ It’s been a bit of a jigsaw puzzle to get it all in, of diverse melodic tongues joining in praise. and somewhere along the way, some of the pieces went missing. For each, the eschatological hope is different. This depends Far too late, when the booklet and all the copyrights were in, partly on a dramatic change in biblical translation of the Hebrew I realised that, despite my earnest intentions, I had only one text by wordmishpat , which I often explore with my biblical languages a woman writer. Gloat if you like. Rage if you must! I intend to give classes, from ‘Judgment’ – in the Authorised Version – to ‘Justice’ in myself a good talking to and find out how that happened! most modern versions. Watts’ text culminates in ‘Judgment, guilt and But what a woman! Born in 1819, Julia Ward Howe (1819- dread’, but Daw’s in ‘Justice, love and peace’. 1910) lived through and participated in the major political campaigns We sang the Watts text. Now a word about the tunes before of her time and is something of a hero of mine. I have written about we go on to Carl Daw’s hymn. her in my book about women’s hymn-writing,This is our Song,15 and her story is well worth the telling, but not here and now. Suffice it to 7) Sing to the Lord No Threadbare Song, Carl Daw; say that the call to serve ‘the least of these’ was in her blood. She CANTICUM NOVUM, Alfred V. Fedak campaigned against slavery, for women’s suffrage, and for peace. The tune RICHMOND was written by Thomas Haweis (1734 She was founder President of the Women’s Peace Congress. So how N.S.-1820) and harmonised by Samuel Webbe (1768-1843). Haweis did she come to write a battle hymn? was brought up and educated within the Established Church and ‘Mine eyes have seen the glory’ is an intense weave of Academy, but served as Chaplain of the Countess of Huntingdon’s prophetic and apocalyptic language about war. In a time when it is Chapel in Bath, and was also one of the founders of the London no longer generally acceptable even to use this imagery, it is a hard Missionary Society, which has its roots in nonconformist Dissent. hymn to sing, and the bouncy triumphalism of the tune, with its glory So it is appropriate to use his tune for a text of Isaac Watts, also hallelujah refrain retained, exacerbates the situation. a Dissenter, whose hymns inspired much of the early missionary movement, and then furnished it with hymnody. Here was a war, which she deplored, one of whose causes, the abolition of slavery, she supported with all her heart. So she Alfred Fedak is a church musician of enormous distinction, uses her detailed knowledge of scripture to harness the language of with over 300 choral and organ works in print as well as more war to the causes of justice and freedom, and to call the singer to than 100 hymn tunes. He is a Life Member of the Hymn Society of The United States and Canada, and a Fellow of the American Guild 14 Alfred V. Fedak, Sing to the Lord no Threadbare Song: New Hymntunes of Alfred V. Fedak of Organists, for which he has also served as the Director of the (Pittsburgh, PA: Selah Publishing, 2001). 15 Janet Wootton, This is our Song: Women’s Hymnwriting (London: Epworth, 2010).

310 311 jubilant participation, not in violent bloodshed, but in a struggle for 10)Come and find rest in Christ, Lim Swee Hong; BAO GUI, the right, which requires just as much courage and wisdom. Lim Swee Hong, arr. Bell Two or three more majestic or sombre tunes have been The optimism of Chadwick’s generation can no longer stand written. But we will sing it to the tune that inspired her, JOHN up to the recognition of the damage wrought in the name of all BROWN’S BODY. that progress: even, we have to admit, in the name of the grand missionary enterprise. 9) Eternal Ruler of the ceaseless round, J. W. Chadwick; SONG 1, Orlando Gibbons In our context, we know that with the missionaries of the 18th and 19th centuries went a blast of British and American hymnody Julia Ward Howe was a convert to Unitarianism. The hymn that crushed global Christian expression for generations. we are about to sing helps us to understand how attractive its liberal ideals were to contemporaries who wanted to bring transformation to This began to change as people such as Fred Kaan and the world. Doreen Potter listened to more diverse voices and brought them together into collections. The Iona Community, and John Bell John White Chadwick’s (1840-1904) text rings with those (1949 - ) in particular, have carried on this tradition. John Bell has breath-taking ideals, which have their roots in the Enlightenment. harmonised the song we are to sing now. Surely, with the advance of reason, and understanding, a new world was attainable, old wrongs could be eradicated. That optimism did Swee Hong Lim (1963 - ), Chinese Singaporean, also not survive the Somme, let alone Auschwitz and Hiroshima. But the challenges the broader American and European domination of the ideal stands as a beacon of hope! wholediscourse of hymnody. He is Deer Park Assistant Professor of Sacred Music at Emmanuel College, Toronto, and Director Chadwick was born in Massachusetts, but not into the New of its Master of Sacred Music Programme; a much sought after England elite. He was born into poverty, and educated at a ‘Normal worship leader and speaker at global conferences, including the School’ – often a route to advancement. He gained a place at World Council of Churches, for which he served as Co-Moderator Harvard Divinity School and went on to minister in New York. He was of the Worship Committee for the 10th General Assembly in South a published poet and author. He writes, in a book onUnitarian Belief: Korea in 2013. In the preface to a worship resource arising from ‘That is the noblest trust in God, to trust him in the strength of our that meeting, entitledHosanna! Ecumenical Songs for Justice and own arms, the stubbornness of our own wills, the warmth of our own Peace,19 he speaks of empowering the church to sing in solidarity 16 beating hearts’, and this is what the hymn celebrates. through its diversity. The tune to which it is set brings us back to late medieval In an online conversation, he challenges the wider church to Canterbury, and Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625), organist of the Chapel pay attention to Asian worship practices, as a potential healing point Royal and Westminster Abbey, and another musician to Royalty. His for some of the individualism and division that marks American and connection to Canterbury comes right at the end of his life. He was European hymnological traditions. travelling with the retinue of Charles I and the Chapel Royal to meet the King’s new bride, Henrietta Maria at Dover, but died while in The hymn is based on the story of the woman taken in Canterbury and is buried here. adultery (in John 8), and was conceived to help people who struggle with self-forgiveness. In line with Jesus’ response in that story, here, He was one of the last great figures of the English Polyphonic we find a God who longs to heal us, when all that confidence and School, composer of anthems, madrigals and motets. Sixteen hymn idealism falter, in whom we are made one. Not the conquering hero, tunes were published as an appendix to George Wither’s Hymnes and or even the miracle worker, but our nurse, our carer - wonderful 17 Songs of the Church. SONG 1 was set to a paraphrase of the Song female images of God. of Moses in Exodus 15. It was paired with the present text in the English Hymnal of 1906.18

16 John White Chadwick,Old and New Unitarian Belief (Boston: G.H. Ellis, 1894) p. 216. 17 George Withers,Hymnes and Songs of the Church (London, 1623). 19 Andrew Donaldson (ed.) Hosanna! Ecumenical Songs for Justice and Peace, (Geneva: World 18 The English Hymnal(London: Henry Frowde, 1906). Council of Churches) 2013.

312 313 11)All hail the power, Edward Perronet; DIADEM, James Ellor NINE LESSONS AND CAROLS21 In Canterbury around the 1780s, you would have found a CHRISTOPHER GRAY small independent chapel with a fiery minister, offspring of French Introduction: Protestant refugees, disaffected with the Anglican Church, in which he was expected to train as a clergyman, who had worked with On Tuesday 17th December 2013, Truro Cathedral was Whitfield and Wesley, fallen out with them, joined the Countess of packed to the rafters for a reconstruction of the first ever ‘Nine Huntingdon’s Connexion, upset them, and eventually had become Lessons with Carols’ which took place in Truro on Christmas Eve an independent pastor. Edward Perronet (1726-92) is recorded as 1880. [A recording of our live webcast of that reconstruction service being ‘full of fire and enthusiasm, . . . ebullient and volatile’.20 I can is on Truro Cathedral Choir’s Soundcloud page, and you can buy a say from my own experience that the Independent tradition is still an Truro Cathedral Choir DVD/CD about the history of Nine Lessons on attraction to the more ebullient and volatile among us! He is buried in the Regent label (2014)]. the cloisters of the Cathedral here. King’s took over the service in 1918 under Eric Milner He published several books of sacred verse and hymnody, White. It was broadcast annually from 1928 to the present day with and our final hymn comes from a series published in the last decade one exception. We are grateful to our friends at King’s for lots of of his life. innovations, some of which we in Truro have borrowed back (eg opening with a solo chorister singing ‘Once in royal’). James Ellor (1819-99) born about 30 years after Perronet’s death, was a hatmaker from Droylsden in Lancashire, working in the The paper that follows is in two parts: context and then music. local factory. In the evenings, he conducted the choir at his local Part 1: Context Wesleyan Chapel, for which he also wrote a number of rousing tunes. People would come from all around to worship at the chapel, drawn The Anglican church in Cornwall by Ellor’s music. There is a strong sense of identity in Cornwall: many He was only 19 when he introduced the choir to a new tune consider themselves to be Cornish rather than English. Some words to ‘All hail the power of Jesu’s name’, written for the Sunday School from Edward Fish in a letter to the Royal Cornwall Gazette published Anniversary – a major occasion in chapel life at the time. DIADEM on the 5th January 1877: was received and sung with great enthusiasm, and has become a Looking around in this great non-conformist county, we did not popular tune to the words. need a bishop any more than a duck needs an umbrella. My Text and tune work well together in their own particular statement as a non-conformist is this, and I do but echo the style, producing a huge romp, a triumph of rhymes for ‘all’ and a opinion of thousands in the county: we do not need a bishop. glorious explosion of praise. So if we think the church has problems at the moment, ’twas Janet Wootton ever thus. That new bishop Cornwall didn’t really need in 1877 was Edward White Benson, who went on to become Archbishop of Canterbury from 1883 until his death in 1896. He is buried in Canterbury Cathedral. Just to give you a little more of a picture of the county Benson was moving to: a few lines from the biography of Benson’s wife Mary, by Rodney Bolt (‘As Good as God and As Clever as the Devil’): …he would head off to isolated - sometimes desolate - spots, where he was a ‘foreigner from England’. Here were ancient churches, barely attended. Lonely priests who

20 John Julian,Dictionary of Hymnology (London: John Murray, 1892), p. 890. 21 A transcript of a paper given to the The Hymn Society Conference, Thursday 25th July 2019

314 315 struggled with poverty on miserable endowments, who were The carol revival shunned, even harassed by Dissenters. One priest was so Carols were popular in medieval times, but they often used lonely in his unpeopled church that he rented a pew in the secular tunes and church authorities were therefore wary of them. Wesleyan chapel, and would go there of a Sunday evening ‘to get a little warmth and light, and to see human beings The carol did not fare well through the Reformation in the and hear them speak’. Others were more eccentric in their fifteen hundreds, or at the hands of the Puritans in the sixteen isolation, such as the vicar who did not go into his church hundreds (the Puritans of course abolished Christmas altogether in at all, but spent Sundays walking in the rectory garden in the mid-1600s). Those carols that survived did so mainly in the aural a flowered dressing gown, smoking a hooka; the one who tradition, through community singing in pubs and so on. requested ‘white wine for a change’ at Communion; or the In the 1800s, interest in carols began to be rekindled. In the absent minded parson whose sister had to secure him to the first part of the century, the way was being paved for the Victorian altar rail with a dog chain and padlock to prevent him from Carol Revival and leading the vanguard was the MP for Bodmin, wandering off before the service was over. Davies Gilbert. In 1822, Gilbert published a collection under the Three Truro Cathedrals catchy title ‘Some Ancient Christmas Carols with the Tunes to which they were formerly sung in the West of England’. Against that backdrop, the first service of Nine Lessons with Carols took place in 1880 in Truro Cathedral but not the Truro Another important figure was William Sandys who was a Cathedral we know today. There have, in fact, been three Truro solicitor in London but also an able musician and an enthusiastic Cathedrals. The Diocese of Truro was created in 1876 and St Mary’s contributor to the carol revival. Sandys claimed to have collected more Parish Church in Truro was chosen to be elevated to cathedral status. than one hundred carols from the west of Cornwall alone. He published his collection ‘Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern’ in 1833, just over St Mary’s Parish Church must have been very pleased with a decade after Davies Gilbert’s collection. The work Gilbert and Sandys its ‘promotion’, but it was short lived. A year later, in 1877, Edward did in travelling around the country, and writing down what they White Benson was appointed Bishop of the new diocese and he heard, was of vital importance to preserving the carol. immediately set about planning a new cathedral to be built from scratch. On 20th May 1880, two foundation stones were laid for Maybe it’s because of the strong tradition of folk music and the new cathedral, and by 11th October 1880 the old parish church community singing in Cornwall that it was such a rich source of carols was closed and demolished, except for one aisle that was to be waiting to be mined by Gilbert and Sandys. The fact is that carols incorporated into the new building that had been designed in the were in the blood so much down here that Cornwall was the place Gothic Revival style by John Loughborough Pearson. A temporary for collectors to come. wooden structure was built which was Truro Cathedral mark two, and Benson and his carol service stood for seven years, until the first phase of Pearson’s cathedral was consecrated in 1887. Back to Benson, a new bishop who found himself in a town that needed something positive after its parish church had been knocked When we think about Benson’s Nine Lessons with Carols down, and who happened to be in a diocese that was central to the on Christmas Eve 1880, it’s perhaps a good idea to have that early carol revival that was, by 1880, in full swing. The idea of harnessing the history of the cathedral in mind. Whilst there was the somewhat carol to reconnect the church with the people was perhaps an obvious vague assurance of a new cathedral, some years down the road, and one, but it was one that was being used widely across the country and finances permitting, all the people of Truro had seen by December this was not part of Benson’s unique legacy. Nor did Benson invent the 1880 was that their sixteenth century parish church had been all but carol service. There had been carol services in previous years at Truro destroyed and some residents had had their homes repossessed and Cathedral, and in other cathedrals and churches. torn down to make way for the promised new building. What Benson invented was a particular format for a carol It would seem an opportune time for a fairly new Bishop to service, a format built around nine short readings, interspersed with bring his flock together for something special, but why a carol service? various pieces of music.

316 317 Carols in Truro in the years running up to 1880’s Nine Lessons In fact it was a great success and there were around 400 In 1878, and remember this is two years before Benson’s people crammed into the wooden shed which was notoriously very Nine Lessons with Carols, The West Briton announced that ‘The cold indeed in winter. I’m sure none of them suspected they were choir of the cathedral will sing a number of carols in the cathedral making a piece of Christmas history. tomorrow evening’ (tomorrow evening being Christmas Eve). We Part 2: Music, authenticity and decisions know that on Christmas Eve in the years before 1878, the choir had sung carols at the houses of prominent local parishioners, but that Considerations in our reconstruction changed in 1878 with the appointment of a new Succentor, the In this second part of my paper, I’m going to look at the Reverend Somerset Walpole. music that was sung in 1880 and how we approached some of the It was Walpole’s suggestion that carols were no longer sung decisions we had to take for our reconstruction of Nine Lessons with at the houses of parishioners, but were brought into the Cathedral Carols back in 2013. (which in 1878 was the old St Mary’s Parish Church) and into an act We started out with the broad aim of being as authentic of worship at 10 pm. F.W.B. Bullock’s book, A history of the parish as we could, but it was impossible to follow that through too far. church of St Mary, Truro, makes mention of the new 1878 Christmas Aside from the fact that we were in a different building, there was Eve service which was needed ‘both as a counteraction to the public the problem that our congregation, was quite different. Different in houses and as a right prelude to Christmas’. terms of what they knew and expected from being in church, and This is perhaps a good time to debunk a quick myth. It’s different in the way they would process music, which was influenced been said, in print and on TV, that Benson came up with his Nine by everything from Benjamin Britten to The Beatles. To paraphrase Lessons with Carols to keep people out of the pubs so they weren’t a lecturer from my time at university: ‘the first thing you need for an drunk at Midnight Mass. We checked our cathedral records and we authentic performance is an authentic audience’. had our first Midnight Mass in 1952. I suspect someone along the line Our guiding light in reconstructing the Nine Lessons with has made an incorrect assumption based on the late start time of 10 Carols was the original order of service that survives from 1880. pm and the quote from Bullock’s book about the new service being a counteraction to the public houses. The 1880 Nine Lessons with The order of service Carols was certainly not intended to keep people sobre for a Midnight Looking at the order of service, there are headings for Mass that didn’t take place for another 72 years. the different pieces of music listed. There are four carols, three Why did Benson devise the service? anthems, two hymns and one canticle. We are confident that all the items labelled ‘Carol’ were sung to music from Bramley and Three reasons that might be behind Benson’s new Nine Stainer’s collection Christmas Carols, New and Old. Copies of this Lessons with Carols seem much more compelling to me: carol book are to be found alongside the 1880 order of service in ● Giving the people of Truro something special in the wake of their Cornwall Record Office, stamped with ‘Truro Cathedral Choir’, and the parish church being pulled down. collection contains all four of the carols used in 1880. ● Using the carol revival and its Cornish roots as a way of connecting Three items titled ‘Anthem’ are sections from Handel’s with the local people. Messiah and they present few difficulties. For our reconstruction, the choir did not sing from a 19th century edition of Messiah, simply ● Simply creating a beautiful structure for a service that tells the because we have better, clearer editions nowadays. Christmas story and what it means for humankind. I think that as a passionate teacher, this would have really appealed to Benson. Hymns It was the most humble of beginnings for a service that has Our first assumption was that two items entitled ‘Hymn’ since travelled all over the world. It received only a tiny mention in The would be found in the cathedral’s hymnal, Hymns Ancient and West Briton in December 1880: ‘the usual festal service is to be held, Modern, which was published in 1861. O come, all ye faithful is but this time a pamphlet with the order of service is to be issued’. indeed there, with only a small alteration of the rhythm compared

318 319 with the version we know today. It’s in A major, rather than G, so the inside front cover, he writes: ‘During the Benedictions each some Victorian fortitude would have to have been mustered for the Reader stands in Choir door looking East then goes to lectern – ‘. top Es. Much of the spirit of the 1880 service may lie in these small The other ‘Hymn’ was more problematic. At first glance touches, theatrical as they may be. Bethlehem! of noblest cities did not seem to appear inHymns Ancient In the face of the kinds of pressures that surely come with and Modern. A little further digging revealed that it was a translation building a new cathedral in a new diocese, it is clear that Benson of a fourth-century Latin text which did appear in another translation, nonetheless took great care over this innovative service. We can only Earth has many a noble city. It seems that Benson took the marvel at his vision and creative energy and try to emulate it in our opportunity of having a printed order of service to introduce the new own climate today. translation, which he obviously preferred to the one in the cathedral hymn books. Both translations were sung to the tune Stuttgart as set Christopher Gray in Hymns Ancient and Modern. Back to the order of service Tucked away at the end of the order of service is a final musical item titled ‘Canticle’. There is a missing piece of the jigsaw here. The absence of any text or pointing in the order of service suggests that it was sung by the choir alone. With no further information to go on, we decided for our 2013 reconstruction to sing the Magnificat to Anglican Chant, as set in the 1890 Truro Diocesan Choral Union Festival Book. We know that there was a strong tradition of singing the Magnificat to Anglican Chant at that time in Cornwall and this version is the earliest one we know was used at Truro Cathedral. If this is not the correct chant, it would certainly have been something very similar indeed. Another curiosity that is often retained to this day is Benson’s hierarchy among the readers of the lessons. He starts with a lowly Chorister and moves up gradually until the ninth lesson, which is read by the Bishop. It’s interesting that Benson had gone to the trouble of typesetting and printing a special order of service for his Nine Lessons. This suggests that he viewed it as an important event. A number of these orders of service survive and are kept at Cornwall Record Office, but the most important one is Benson’s own copy, which has three comments handwritten in the margin. The first tells us that a collection was to be taken during O come, all ye faithful. Benson writes: ‘Offertory collected and placed on altar during this hymn’. The second comment is beside the anthem ‘There were shepherds abiding in the field’ where he writes: ‘Three boys sing the Recitatives standing in the midst of the Choir looking East – (Should they stand at Choir door looking West; & [?] East for Chorus)’. On

320 321 CHOOSING HYMNS AT CHRISTMAS parentis,best to my mind in Michael Saward’s version, the first 3 JOHN BARNARD verses of which run as follows: It seems simple enough, doesn’t it? Requiring just a modicum God of God, the uncreated, of intelligence and sensitivity. One would have thought so, but in my love before the world began; experience strange things can happen. he the source and he the ending, Son of God and Son of Man, Two examples of what I mean. I went to the carol service in Lord of all the things that have been, Southwark Cathedral last year. The introduction to the service order master of the eternal plan, included the following: ‘The pattern and strength of the service derive evermore and evermore. from the lessons, not the music. The music sung by the choir and congregation reinforces and develops the words of scripture’. There He is here, whom generations were seven readings and, unusually, a traditional reading that was sought throughout the ages long; omitted was the one about the visit of the wise men. So the question promised by the ancient prophets, is: Why did the choir sing ‘Three kings from Persian lands afar’ and justice for a world of wrong, why, in ‘O come all ye faithful’ was the verse ‘Lo, star-led chieftains, God’s salvation for the faithful: wise men, Christ adoring’ included? him we praise in endless song evermore and evermore. At the service of lessons and carols in my neighbouring parish of Pinner the wise men readingwas included, and there Happy is that day for ever immediately followed the hymn ‘See, amid the winter’s snow’ - six when, by God the Spirit’s grace, long verses not one of which mentions the wise men! lowly Mary, virgin Mother, bore the Saviour of our race. Let me develop with you some ideas based on four different Man and child, the world’s redeemer types of Christmas service: The carol service at which the musicians now displays his sacred face of the church are likely to be at their strongest, the Midnight Mass evermore and evermore. or some equivalent adult service probably with a sermon and communion, the crib service, nativity play or some equivalent aimed Isn’t that magnificent? The unison melody, CORDE NATUS, principally at children, and the Sunday after Christmas which will fall which moves by step, is much easier to keep in tune than IRBY and on a date between December 26th and January 1st. lends itself well to choir members singing the early verses with the congregation coming in for the final verse. And it ditches all that ‘he Let’s look at the carol service in more detail. Why the fetish was little, weak and helpless’ stuff. Yes, I know. People want to sing of starting with ‘Once in royal David’s city?’ Yes, they do it in King’s ‘Once in royal David’s city’, so why not slide it in after the bidding College Chapel. Is that a good reason for the rest of us to do the prayer, and sing it accompanied, maybe with upper voices alone same? Have not all of us at some time been at a carol service which on verse 1. And omit verses 3 and 4. By the way, those four top Es has got off to the most dreadful start with some nervous child or in the final lines are much too high for most of your male singers. wobbly soprano trying to sing the first verse unaccompanied and Consider singing it in F, not G major. It is not as bright a key, I going seriously sharp or flat. And then a semi-competent choir has know, but it seems to me a compromise worth making. struggled through verse 2, also unaccompanied, knowing perfectly well that something has gone horribly wrong. Finally the organ has There is only one Christmas hymn that goes well with the come in at a completely different pitch for verse 3. Why do it? Why wise men reading, and that is ‘The First Nowell’. But this is dreadfully risk it? This is one of the three or four services each year attended long, and includes a lot of rubbish, like the star being in the north- by people who don’t normally come to church. Is it really sensible to west; and you can’t omit any of verses 2-5 without losing part of the expose them to such an unnecessary shambles? story. In a survey of views of major church musicians a few years back this was the most disliked Christmas carol. But there is no viable Is there a better scene-setter for the start of a carol service? alternative that is sufficiently well-known. Michael Perry comes to Yes, I think there is: ‘Of the Father’s love begotten’,Corde natus ex

322 323 the rescue here. His version leaves the first and last verses virtually sing the verses which concentrate on the incarnation: O come all ye unchanged and he deals with the rest of the story in two verses. faithful, God of God, light of light, Sing, choirs of angels, Yea, Lord Here are his verses 2 and 3: we greet thee. The wise men from a country far You will need at least two more hymns for the Midnight looked up and saw a guiding star; Mass: ‘O little town of Bethlehem’, ‘It came upon the midnight clear’ they travelled on by night and day and ‘While shepherds watched their flocks by night’ fit particularly to reach the place where Jesus lay. well here for obvious reasons. At Bethlehem they entered in, ‘Christians, awake’ might be sung on Christmas morning, but on bended knee they worshipped him; keep it moving. It is deadly when sung too slowly! Less frequently they offered there in his presence sung nowadays, it contains that wonderful couplet: their gold and myrrh and frankincense. O may we keep and ponder in our mind By shortening the hymn in this way the endlessly repetitive God’s wondrous love in saving lost mankind. tune becomes somewhat more bearable. The children’s service will probably include ‘Away in a The other story-telling Christmas hymn that best fits in the manger’ and ‘Once in royal David’s city’ in any case; but it’s context of the carol service is ‘God rest you merry, gentlemen’, and important to include some livelier carols: ‘See him lying on a bed of potentially this has seven verses. But two of these can be omitted straw’, ‘Go, tell it on the mountain’ and ‘The Virgin Mary had a baby without doing damage to the overall story, and seven verses are in boy’ come to mind. any case simply too many. And keep it moving! Think two minim The Sunday after Christmas falls this year on December 29th beats per bar, not four crotchets. – the fifth day of Christmas. The lectionary for both the Anglican ‘Good Christians all, rejoice’ is another bright and cheerful and Roman Catholic churches mark this as a ‘Holy Family’ Sunday, congregational carol that can be slotted in amongst the Old which sounds a nice idea until you realise the Gospel appointed is Testament readings. about the flight to Egypt and the massacre of the infants (Matthew 2).Yet the wise men don’t visit the infant Jesus until the feast of the As for the New Testament readings, the crucial thing is to Epiphany on January 6th (Matthew 1). We musicians can do little connect carols with readings in a sane way. Annunciation? ‘The about this madness. I suggest this is the time to sing those Christmas angel Gabriel from heaven came’. Birth? ‘Silent night’, of course. hymns which don’t fit too well elsewhere, and particularly those that Shepherds? ‘While shepherds watched their flocks by night’ is rather concentrate on the incarnation rather than shepherds and wise men. staid. Why not ‘Angels from the realms of glory’? And keep it moving. ‘Unto us a child is born’ (or Michael Perry’s translation of the Latin It needs to go at the same speed as ‘Ding-dong merrily on high’ Puer natus: ‘Jesus Christ the Lord is born’) makes a good starter, and to which the tune is closely related. And again, F major is more refers briefly to Herod’s massacre, then ‘In the bleak midwinter’, ‘Of comfortable than G. the Father’s heart begotten’ (if not used at the carol service), maybe King’s College ends up with ‘O come all ye faithful’, followed even ‘A great and mighty wonder’. by a collect and blessing which together last about 45 seconds, and Three verses of ‘See, amid the winter’s snow’ (omitting verse then ‘Hark! The herald-angels sing’. The latter has 20 top Ds and 3 and 4 which are about the shepherds), make a fine ending to the Es in each verse. A ridiculous pitch for mere mortals. And is it really service: wise to ask people to sing two big hymns so close together? Leave ‘Hark! the herald angels sing’ for the Midnight Mass and/or Christmas See amid the winter’s snow, morning and sing it in F major rather than G. At the carol service born for us on earth below, sing just four verses of ‘O come all ye faithful’ concentrating on the see, the Lamb of God appears, story-telling verses: O come all ye faithful, See how the shepherds, promised from eternal years. Lo, star-led chieftains, Sing, choirs of angels. Then at Christmas itself

324 325 Lo, within a manger lies THESE YOU HAVE LOVED: TOWARDS A CORE HYMNODY he who built the starry skies, MARTIN LECKEBUSCH he who, throned in height sublime, sits amid the cherubim. The title above borrows, deliberately, from a BBC radio programme from the 1970s; the erstwhile newsreader, Richard Sacred infant, all divine, Baker, presenting favourite records. That programme was not the what a tender love was thine, presenter’s only foray into the world of the DJ. It was the sort of thus to come from highest bliss thing my parents would listen to; though my tastes in those days down to such a world as this! were more likely to be satisfied by the pop charts, the top thirty or It is a Christmas hymn that, particularly in this shortened form, still top forty – though the principle was similar: what was the music deserves its place in the repertoire. which people felt mattered to them? Three overarching thoughts in summary: Let me ask some different questions, but which I think follow in a way. Does the church in the British Isles have a core hymnody? ● Don’t feel you have to sing every verse of every carol. But be Is there a common repertoire on which most denominations can careful not to leave out essential verses in story-telling hymns. agree and which we can broadly reckon would be known by a ● Consider singing in a lower key carols that go up to top Es rather majority of hymn-singing churchgoers? And if so, what is it? These frequently. questions started to go around my mind some months ago, and I hope to address them here. ● Keep things on the move. Some Christmas hymns can be utterly joyless when sung at too stately a speed. If we aren’t joyful at In researching the subject, I started by making a list of Christmas, when can we be? hymnals which I would use. These are listed at the end of this article: sixteen of them, covering a broad spread of worshipping John Barnard traditions, spanning many of the key denominations in these lands. Some of these books are self-evidently the ‘official’ books used by their respective denominations –Singing the Faith and Rejoice & Sing are obvious examples – while others aim to serve denominations which have no ‘standard’ book. I have broadly aimed to cover the most recent volume from each tradition, though in a couple of cases this has meant using books which are actually no longer in print: Sing Glory was very short-lived and the Jubilate group has not produced another book since its demise; Baptist Praise & Worship is surely due for replacement but so many Baptist churches now use projection and sing worship songs rather than traditional hymns that a successor volume looks unlikely. At the other extreme, one of my source books is the very new Revised English Hymnal, for which I was working from a list of contents obtained ahead of the book’s appearance in print. This leads to another point I need to make. The culture of church in the UK has been changing over the past generation, and – notwithstanding the recent spate of new mainstream hymnals, including the forthcoming Revised English Hymnal – more and more places are turning to electronic means rather than printed books to provide words for worship, alongside the move towards newer – and potentially more ephemeral – material. I have not included this

326 327 approach in the analysis; I lack access to measures such as CCLI have the Mission Praise anniversary collection, which lacks only two returns, and my experience tells me that the choice of ‘real’ hymns of the ‘outer core’, followed by the 2013 A&M, which omits four - within song-oriented congregations draws on a very narrow range. and bearing in mind that this book was less than half the size of Mission Praise, that is a remarkable editorial achievement. Worthy This is also something of a point-in-time snapshot, or rather mentions here, too, for the Church of Ireland Church Hymnal 5th a time-lag photograph. The books used range in date from 1986 Edition with only six omissions; and with only ten items missing, the (New Redemption Hymnal), through the 1990s and 2000s (which Irish Presbyterian Hymnbook and the other Mayhew collection, One interestingly saw much new publication in Wales, Scotland and Family: Hymns Old & New for All Ages. Ireland – Christian Hymns, Church Hymnary 4, the Irish Presbyterian Hymnbook, the Irish Church Hymnal 5th Edition) and into the As a kind of coda to the production of the ‘core’ listings, a current decade with revisions from the Ancient & Modern andEnglish few years back I was given the double CD celebrating fifty years of Hymnal stables, as well as those from the Salvation Army and the ‘Songs of Praise’: a collection of forty-two items. Thirty-four of those Methodist Church. I have also here included a couple of recent items are on my wider list, and twenty of them are in the ‘inner core’: from the Mayhew Hymns Old & New family, one aimed at Catholic which means that an impressive 38% of the inner core features congregations, the other more generally low-church Anglican; and on those two CDs. Obviously that was a selection based on what from the Mission Praise tradition, the massive 30th Anniversary is popular for one TV programme; but it does beg the question of Edition. whether the items broadcast there are popular because they are well- known or well-known because they are popular. We will revisit that This last book is certainly the largest collection, with 1966 conundrum later. items; the Salvation Army Song Book and New Redemption Hymnal are next largest, with over 1400 items each. The smallest are the But what about the content, both of the wider list and, REH, Baptist Praise & Worship and Sing Glory, each numbering under more particularly, of that inner core? What is it that grants a hymn 700. The average is just over a thousand items. entrance to this hymnodic holy of holies? Within these volumes, I looked for items that were in a clear The short answer seems to be: there is no obvious formula majority of books. My focus was very much on texts rather than to guarantee a hymn will achieve prominence, popularity or tunes – a musical analysis would need a separate study, and one far durability. This selection covers quite a range of themes, theologies, beyond my skills. I also decided fairly soon that variants would count moods, metres and uses. There are hymns of creation and harvest, as the same hymn: ‘Lord, be my vision’ and ‘Be thou my vision’ are hymns of experience as well as doctrine, hymns in the singular and nearly identical, to say nothing of ‘Jesus/Jesu, lover of my soul’ and the plural, hymns of gratitude and longing. Perhaps inevitably, the ‘Thou whose / God whose almighty word’ – you get the picture. inner core contains no fewer than ten items which belong firmly to the Christmas period – and these are probably the few hymns With this approach, and a lot of help from HymnQuest and a still familiar to those who are not regular churchgoers. There are a few friends, I produced two lists: an ‘inner core’ of 52 hymns which handful for Holy Week, and only one or two for Easter, though the (allowing for variants) are in all 16 books; and an ‘outer core’ of a praises of the risen, ascended Christ feature in many others. Overall, further 107 items found in at least three-quarters of my sample of if you set aside the Christmas bias, what remains is a pleasingly hymnals. We thus have almost 160 hymns found in 12 or more of the balanced selection. (Even then, we could use more core hymns on 16 books I examined. This list can be found on the Society’s website. daily living, more laments, more on social issues – these are the gaps But before I look in more detail at the hymns in this core, a we probably already recognise within the broader repertoire.) comment or two on the books themselves may be in order. From the What is more striking is the variety of hymns in the inner ‘outer core’ list – those found in nearly all the books – I conclude that core. Take metre as just one example: Common Metre lives up to the least ecumenical collections were Christian Hymns, REH, New its name with seven hymns in the fifty-two (but including ‘Joy to the Redemption Hymnal and Mayhew’s Just Hymns Old & New Catholic world’, usually set to an extended tune); there are four Long Metre Edition – each omitted roughly a quarter to a third of the hundred and three each 7676D and 878747. On the other hand, there are or so which almost every book included. At the other extreme we over twenty texts here whose metres are unique within the inner

328 329 core; and more than one case where a shared metre cannot conceal and a further dozen or so authors each occur once. My inference very different stresses: ‘At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow’ from this is that it usually takes some time for a new hymn first to and ‘Immortal, invisible, God only wise’ are both 11 11 11 11 but be widely known and used, and then to become something which is their tunes are definitely not interchangeable. Perhaps all we can owned and valued by sufficiently many people to become accepted say in terms of a ‘formula’ is that in these hymns strong, memorable as ‘core’ material. tunes support well-written texts; moreover, they say something which There is also the question of the imbalance between male needed saying and, in God’s providence and timing, they took root. and female writers. Looking at the full list and excluding the few Yet there is more to say about the origins of these hymns. items of unknown authorship, I discovered that the roster of authors Forty-three of the inner core are genuine, home-grown, English- and translators involved in these hymns included 109 male names but language originals: we have a strong and fruitful hymn writing only 21 female. Historically, hymnody – like so many other aspects tradition going back several centuries. But simple arithmetic shows of church life and public life generally – has failed to appreciate we therefore have nine translations from other languages. Four of and nurture the gifts of half the human race. How can we redress these nine are from the German, and two from the Latin; and from that? Well, obviously, we cannot persuade writers who have died to within the British Isles we have one hymn that is Irish in origin (‘Be produce more new work – like Pilate, what they have written, they thou my vision’) and one Welsh (‘Guide me, O thou great Jehovah have written – but there are surely things we can do to encourage / Redeemer’). The ninth translation is a French text - ‘Thine be the female writers and potential writers today; and also to look further glory, risen, conquering Son’. For the record, on the wider list the into what unknown treasures remain to be found from writers and proportion of foreign-language sources drops slightly (to around translators of previous generations (and especially from among one in eight); the two largest contingents are still the Latin and women hymn writers). Alan Gaunt’s versifications of translations from the German, but this time the former are more numerous. But the the Welsh of Ann Griffiths22 serve as one example of what can be evidence shows our strong vernacular tradition is complemented by a done to make older texts available to today’s and tomorrow’s singers. healthy willingness to embrace texts from elsewhere. As for the ages of the texts: I assessed these as best I could Incidentally, where translations are involved, the picture by century of origin. Here, though, I need to add three caveats. contains extra layers of complexity and diversity when the same Number one: the figures given here are slightly muddied by the fact original has been translated by different hands. Sometimes one that not all hymn writers religiously recorded the dates when they translation wins through (for example, as with ‘Come down, O love wrote. Number two: there is some uncertainty, even occasionally divine’); but the variations on ‘O sacred head, sore wounded’ derive a little guesswork, where writers were born in one century and in part from separate translations by Henry Williams Baker, James lived on into another. Caveat three: in the case of hymns that have Waddell Alexander and Robert Bridges – even before hymnal editors been translated into English, I have here plumped for the date of decide to play mix and match. A similar story can be told for ‘Silent translation rather than the original date of writing. night’, where numerous English versions (some much better than With those disclaimers in mind, recall that I said few authors others) have been produced from Joseph Mohr’s German original. born since 1900 are represented; nevertheless, there are more The most-represented author in the inner core, predictably, than 30 texts in the wider list which were probably, if not certainly, is Charles Wesley, with seven texts out of the fifty-two; another eight written during the twentieth century: around 20% of the list. The in the wider selection make him by far the largest contributor there. nineteenth century yields very nearly half the wider list and an Isaac Watts and John Newton each appear three times in the inner even higher proportion of the inner core, with 31 of the 52 texts. In set; Watts has two more in the wider selection though Newton has round figures the eighteenth century supplies half as many hymns nothing more there. Three authors occur twice in the inner group: as the nineteenth; from before 1700 there are only two items in the Henry Francis Lyte; Mrs Alexander; and Timothy Dudley-Smith, the inner core, ‘While shepherds watched their flocks by night’ and ‘He only author born in the twentieth century in this list and, like Newton, who would valiant be’ – and it could be argued that the latter has found only in this inner core. Twentieth-century representation in the undergone translation into modern English anyway. The wider list has broader list is a little larger: Graham Kendrick occurs three times, 22 See Gaunt, Alan,Always from Joy: Hymn Texts 1991-1996, Stainer & Bell, London, 1997, pp81-107

330 331 around a dozen more texts predating 1700, the oldest English original text. Perhaps in these areas we delineate and defend our theological being ‘All people that on earth do dwell’ by William Kethe, who died positions more rigidly; and our theology is informed, reinforced and in 1594. expressed through what we sing. There is more to do if we want to establish a greater area of common ground here. But I want to include three other observations about the longevity of these hymn texts. First, had I used the dates of writing Having, then, found over 50 hymns that all these books rather than of translation for non-English material, we would have consider essential, can we then sing at least these together? Alas, noticed older hymns throughout the list: such as the work of no. Most of these texts have variations between the books. Some of Francis of Assisi, who died in the thirteenth century; Bernard of these are due to the tweaking in which all hymnal editors indulge, Clairvaux, from the twelfth; and Theodulph of Orleans, from the not least the shift from ‘thee’ to ‘you’ in church life during the past eighth. Secondly, part of the reason the nineteenth century features generation or two, a change that is reflected in many of these books. so heavily is that it was an age of discovering hymns from other Sometimes these revisions make substantial changes, even to first lands; the twenty-one non-English texts in the full list include six lines: perhaps the most blatant example is ‘He who would valiant be’ nineteenth-century translations each from German and Latin. Thirdly, also known as ‘All who would valiant be’ and ‘Who would true valour a note about the eighteenth century: take out Wesley and Watts, and see’ (but all essentially the same hymn). Sometimes these changes half the hymns from that century disappear. occur with items that are out of copyright; sometimes - whether sanctioned by the author or not - they are made despite copyright. So if Wesley and Watts are still the fathers of the English hymn, what of the great-grandparents - the psalmists? Metrical psalm Numbers of verses also differ. I once belonged to a church versions are part of our hymnic tradition and contribute a dozen which used two books:Hymns & Psalms,andaSongs of Fellowship of the broader core. There are also many hymns that draw heavily collection – in which I know of only one item which by coincidence on other Scriptural sources, from Cowper’s echoes of Job through occurred at the same number in both books, #602: ‘When I survey Dudley-Smith’s Magnificat text to Heber’s versification of parts of the wondrous cross’. But could we sing it using both books together? Revelation – to say nothing of the biblical allusions that pepper Not directly: four verses in Songs of Fellowship, five inHymns & almost every stanza by Charles Wesley. Our finest and most enduring Psalms. Sometimes the order of verses is also altered, or the order hymns are very largely informed by the Scriptures, as we should of lines within verses – ‘O little town of Bethlehem’, verse 2 is an perhaps expect – even if one or two of these were written by people example – and very occasionally the presence of a refrain, or the use who were hardly orthodox Christians, or who had no intention of of one verse as a refrain – ‘All glory, laud and honour’ – becomes a writing hymns; we have to hope they will forgive the foolish ways in factor. which we have adopted and adapted their words. Sometimes there is a variation between four-line and eight- This leads me to think of the denominational spread of these line verses, according to the set tune, and that leads to another texts. To tell the truth, ‘denominational’ is hardly a useful term here: divergence. Very few of the inner core are paired with the same of course there are plenty of Anglicans among these authors, but was melody in every book. In fact, I suspect that we have only one Charles Wesley a Methodist? Would we count Newman as an Anglican text with words consistent across all the books and always set with or a Roman Catholic? What we now think of as the Free Church the same tune: ‘Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord’ with traditions would have been given other labels – non-conformist or WOODLANDS. And even then, alternative tunes are offered in some dissenter – when many of these texts were written. Let’s just say collections. that there is a broad spread of churchmanship contributing to these I want, though, to return to the conundrum raised earlier. hymns. Are hymns in this list because they are popular, or are they popular Conversely, it should not be a surprise that there are no because they are in all the hymnals? Or, to turn the question round a communion hymns in the ‘inner core’ since one of the source little: what would we (the self-confessed anoraks of hymnology) think hymnals is the Salvation ArmySong Book; but what is more ought to be in a decent core repertoire? And how might we broaden noteworthy is that even the broader list contains scarcely anything its range? I mentioned that a dozen twentieth-century authors that could specifically be called either a communion or a baptismal occurred once in the longer list: they include Appleford, Saward,

332 333 Pratt Green, Perry, Bell and Maule. But no place yet for Alan Gaunt, The Hymn Books Christopher Idle, Fred Kaan, Andrew Pratt, Brian Wren; nor yet for the newer generation whose work straddles the worlds of hymn and # # song, such as Keith and Krystin Getty and Stuart Townend; nor for Items ‘Core’ Title Date today’s significant writers from beyond the British Isles, who include in items Carl Daw, Shirley Erena Murray and Thomas Troeger. There are book in book riches to be discovered here, as well as among items currently known only within our separate historic traditions. Ancient & Modern: Hymns & Songs for 2013 996 155 So I’d like to try an experiment. Assume, if you will, that we Refreshing Worship in The Hymn Society were a committee charged with producing a Baptist Praise & Worship 1991 669 146 new hymnal for use across the traditions. Assume that the hundred and sixty or so hymns on my list – those in at least a dozen of the Christian Hymns 2004 950 129 key hymn books – will be included. What else would you want to put into such a collection? I’m intending to open up the debate, primarily Church Hymnal 5th Edn 2000 849 153 through our website; all Hymn Society members can participate, and each can nominate up to twenty hymns, marking up to five as top Church Hymnary 4 2005 983 140 suggestions.23 If enough of our members respond, then I hope at next year’s Conference to tell you how we – the experts, the people Irish Presbyterian Hymnbook 2005 810 149 who know, appreciate and more importantly care about hymns – would expand the core repertoire. Just Hymns Old & New Catholic 2013 1057 124 If enough of you are willing and able to contribute to Edition this exercise, then maybe in twelve months we can produce a list Mission Praise 30th Anniversary borrowing from the title of another old BBC radio programme, and 2014 1966 157 one which for its final few years was, coincidentally, also presented Edition by Richard Baker. As I implied earlier, it would need someone with different skills to compile a list of ‘Your Hundred Best Hymn Tunes’, New Redemption Hymnal 19861472 127 though volunteers are welcome; but I’d like to try to identify your - One Family: Hymns Old & New for All rather, our - hundred best hymns. 2017 789 149 Ages

Praise! 2000 1062 137

Rejoice and Sing 1991 862 144

Revised English Hymnal 2019 625 135

Sing Glory 1999 698 140

Singing the Faith 2011 1006 143

Song Book of the Salvation Army 2015 2015 1457 142

23 For other details of how to participate, please see the Secretary’s Newsletter.

334 335 The Hymns ● Fill thou my life, O Lord my God ● For all the saints who from their labours rest Items in bold type are found in all 16 books listed above. Others are ● For the beauty of the earth in at least 12 books. ● For the fruits of all creation Variants of first lines (except Alleluia / Hallelujah) are indicated. ● Forgive our sins as we forgive ● Forth in thy name, O Lord, I go Author names or sources are shown where a different published text ● Forty days and forty nights exists with the same first line. ● From heaven you came, helpless babe ● Abide with me, fast falls the eventide ● Glorious things of thee are spoken ● All creatures of our God and King ● Glory to thee / All praise to thee, my God, this night ● All glory, laud and honour ● Go forth and tell! O Church of God, awake! ● All hail the power of Jesus’ name ● God moves in a mysterious way ● All my hope on God is founded ● Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father ● All people that on earth do dwell ● Guide me, O thou great Jehovah / Redeemer ● All things bright and beautiful ● Hail the day that sees him rise, Alleluia! ● Alleluia! Sing to Jesus ● Hail to the Lord’s anointed ● Amazing grace ● Hark the glad sound! The Saviour comes ● And can it be that I should gain ● Hark! The herald angels sing ● Angel voices ever singing ● He / All who would valiant be / Who would true valour ● Angels from the realms of glory see ● As with gladness men of old ● Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty! ● At / In the name of Jesus ● How sweet the name of Jesus sounds ● At even, ere the sun was set ● I cannot tell why he whom angels worship ● Awake, my soul, and with the sun ● I heard the voice of Jesus say ● Away in a manger, no crib for a bed ● I know that my Redeemer lives / what joy ● Be still for the presence of the Lord ● Immortal, invisible, God only wise ● Be thou / Be, Lord, my vision, O Lord of my heart! / Lord, ● In Christ there is no east or west (Oxenham) be my vision, supreme in my heart ● In heavenly love abiding / By heavenly love surrounded ● Breathe on me, breath of God ● In the bleak midwinter ● Brightest and best of the sons of the morning ● It came upon the midnight clear ● Brother, sister, let me serve you ● It is a thing most wonderful ● Christ is made the sure foundation ● Jesu, lover of my soul ● Christ triumphant, ever reigning ● Jesus calls us; o’er the tumult ● Christ, whose glory fills the skies ● Jesus Christ is risen today ● Christians awake, salute the happy morn ● Jesus is Lord! Creation’s voice proclaims it ● Come down, O Love Divine ● Jesus lives! Thy terrors now / Our hearts are free ● Come thou long expected Jesus ● Jesus shall reign where’er the sun ● Come, let us join our cheerful songs ● Jesus, the joy of loving hearts ● Come, ye thankful people, come ● Jesus, the very thought of thee / thought of you alone / O Jesus, ● Crown him with many crowns King most wonderful ● Dear Lord and Father of mankind ● Joy to the world! the Lord is / has come! ● Eternal Father, strong to save ● Just as I am, without one plea ● Father, hear the prayer we offer ● Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us ● Fight the good fight with all thy might ● Let all the world in every corner sing

336 337 ● Let us with a gladsome mind / Let us gladly, with one mind ● Saviour, again to thy dear name we raise ● Lo, he comes / Jesus comes / See him come with clouds ● See him lying on a bed of straw descending ● See, amid the winter’s snow / See, in yonder manger low ● Lord Jesus Christ, you have come to us ● Seek ye first the Kingdom of God ● Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy ● Silent night! holy night! / Still the night, holy the night ● Lord, for the years your love has kept and guided ● Soldiers of Christ, arise ● Lord, the light of your love is shining ● Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me (Iverson) ● Lord, thy Word abideth / Lord, your word shall guide us ● Stand up and bless the Lord ● Love divine, all loves excelling ● Take my life, and / Lord, let it be ● Make me a channel of your peace ● Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord! ● May the mind of Christ my Saviour ● The church’s one foundation ● Meekness and majesty ● The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended ● Morning has broken ● The God of Abraham praise ● My song is love unknown ● The head that once was crowned with thorns ● New every morning is the love ● The King of love my shepherd is ● Now thank we all our God ● The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want (Scottish Psalter) ● O breath of life, come sweeping through us ● The strife is o’er / past, the battle done ● O come, all ye faithful ● There is a green hill far away ● O come, O come, Immanuel ● There is a Redeemer ● O for a closer walk with God ● There’s a wideness in God’s mercy ● O for a heart to praise my God ● Thine be the glory / Glory to Jesus, risen, conquering Son ● O for a thousand tongues to sing ● This joyful Eastertide (Woodward) ● O God of Bethel, by whose hand ● Thou / God, whose almighty word ● O God, our help in ages past ● Thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown / Lord, you left ● O Jesus, I have promised your throne / You forsook your throne ● O little town of Bethlehem ● Through all the changing scenes of life ● O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder ● Thy hand, O God, has guided ● O love that wilt not let me go ● To God be the glory! Great things he has done ● O perfect Love, all human thought transcending ● We are marching in the light of God ● O praise ye the Lord! / Sing praise to the Lord! Praise him in the ● We have a Gospel to proclaim height ● We plough the fields, and scatter ● O Sacred head, sore / once wounded / surrounded ● We sing the praise of him who died ● O thou who camest from above ● Were you there when they crucified my Lord? ● O worship the King, all glorious above ● What a friend we have in Jesus ● O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness ● When all thy mercies, O my God ● On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry / the cry rings clear ● When I survey the wondrous cross ● Once in royal David’s city ● When morning gilds the skies ● Praise the Lord! Ye heavens, / Let heaven adore him ● While shepherds watched their flocks by night / While ● Praise to the holiest in the height humble shepherds watched their flocks ● Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation ● Will you come and follow me ● Praise, my soul, the King of heaven ● Ye / All holy angels bright ● Rejoice, the Lord is King! ● Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim ● Ride on, ride on in majesty Martin Leckebusch - July 2019 ● Rock of Ages, cleft for me

338 339 ANNIVERSARIES 100 years ago (1920) 100 years ago (1920) 2020 Anniversaries of Hymn Writers and Composers Composers Composers Authors Authors We are grateful to Kay Griffiths, who compiled this Born Died Born Died information (responsibility for any errors rests with the Editor to Bachelder, Booth, Cornelie Banyard, Edmund Booth, Cornelie whom corrections should be notified) Evangeline Morris, Ida Ernestine (née Arthur, 25 Oct Ida Ernestine (née 29 April Schoch), 31 May Barrett-Ayres, Schoch), 31 May Source: HymnQuest Barrett-Ayres, Florio, Caryl Reginald, 7 May Cox, Charles * = HymnQuest doesn’t give date and month Reginald, 7 May (pseudonym of Comfort, Henry William, † = HymnQuest lists no texts or tunes for this author/ composer Blanton, Leonard William James Alexander, 10 Feb 1 Jul Robjohn), 21 Nov There is a quiz at the end of this table (for amusement) Cooper, 20 Aug Davies, Marjorie Gates, Ellen Maria Brubeck, David Frost, William Beryl (née Smith), Huntington, 22 Oct 50 years ago (1970) 50 years ago (1970) (Dave) Warren, Lane* 27 Jul Gilmour, Henry Composers Composers Authors Authors 6 Dec Genge, Robert Dehqani-Tafti, Lake, 20 May Born Died Born Died Comfort, Sealy, 15 Apr Hassan, 14 May Hammond, J. Gilmour, Henry Dempster, 3 Dec Ash, Taran, Jan* Beaumont, Grant, Dominic Beaumont, Alexander, 10 Fagg, Ruth, 2 Nov Feb † Lake, 20 May Hewitt, Eliza Smith, Martin Geoffrey Phillips Stephen, 5 Jun Geoffrey Phillips Gelineau, Joseph, Hewitt, Eliza Edmunds James, 6 Jul (Pseudonym: Smith, Martin (Pseudonym: Gelineau, Joseph, 31 Oct Beaumont, Beaumont, 31 Oct Edmunds (née Stites) James, 6 Jul Heller, Ruth* Gerard), 24 Aug Gerard), 24 Aug Milveden, Ingmar, (née Stites) (Pseudonym: (Pseudonym: Ikeler, Carol Rose, Edmunds, Lizzie), Laloux, Fernand Chinula, Charles 15F eb Edmunds, Lizzie), 11 May 24 April Pierre Ghislaid, 5 C* Reynolds, William 24 April Jenkins, William Oct† Niles, Daniel Jensen, 2 Apr Maunder, John Vaughan, 30 Jun Reid, Eric James, Thambyrajah, 17 Stanko, Vasilj, Henry, 25 Jan 20 Aug Jul 20 Jul Mair, William, 26 Morgan, Evan* Jan Reid, Eric James, Södersten, 20 Aug Gunno, 10 Jan Moule, Handley Moule, Handley Carr Glyn, 8 May Sayle, Amy, 30 Carr Glyn, 8 May Jun Musgrave, John Pierson, Harriet H, Thomas, bur 2 Nov c 1920* Rendall, Edward Pitt, Emma F, c Davey, 10 Apr 1920* Roberts, John Rawnsley, Varley,9Feb Hardwicke Drummond, 28 May Sayford, Samuel M, c 1920* Smith, Isaac Gregory, 17 Jan

340 341 150 years ago (1870) 150 years ago (1870) 150 years ago (1870) 150 years ago (1870) Composers Composers Authors Authors Composers Composers Authors Authors Born Died Born Died Born Died Born Died Arnott, Arthur Havergal, William Allen, Elfrida Jane Bulfinch, Stephen Leachman, Smith, 17 Jun Henry, 19 Apr (née Hanbury), Greenleaf, 12 Oct Edgecombe Brown, Frank C Jones, Joseph 13 Jan Frothingham, Walter* (Collector)* David, 17 Sep Arnott, Arthur Nathaniel Langdon, Leatham, Edith Capek, Norbert Lvov, Alexis Smith, 17 Jun 4 Apr (née Rutter), 29 Fabián, 3 Jun Feodorovich, 28 Brook, Frances* Grinfield, May Champness, Dec Brooks, Arnold, Thomas* Lees, Harrington Charles Seymour*† White, Thomas 25 Dec Havergal, William Clare, 17 Mar† Fowles, Leonard Woolsey, 29 Apr Brown, Frank C Henry, 19 Apr Macalister, Nowell, Dec* (Collector)* Hickson, William Robert Alexander Stewart, 8 Jul Grozinsky, Capek, Norbert Edward, 22 Mar Gustave Adolf Fabián, 3 Jun Jefferson, Macnicol, Nicol, 26F eb Alexander Day, Matilda C, William, 13 Apr Augustine (c. 2 Apr Smyttan, George Macpherson, 1870)* Charles, 10 May Evans, Mark (c. Hunt, 21 Feb Hawley, William A 1870)* Wallace, John O’Connor, John, (c. 1870)* 5 Dec Fagan, Frances (c. Aikman, 9 Feb Jutson, Charles 1870)* Olson, Ernest Bentley, 28 Jun William, 16 Mar Fletcher, Frank, Macalister, 3 May Porter, Hugh de Robert Alexander Bock* Stewart, 8 Jul Grozinsky, Gustave Adolf Runyan, William Macpherson, Alexander Marion, 21 Jan Charles, 10 May Augustine (c. Stevenson, Lilian Moffatt, James, 1870)* Sinclair, 16 Nov 4 Jul Hawley, William A Tracy, Ruth Moody, May (c. 1870)* Fanny, 28 Nov Whittle, 20 Mar Hutchins, William Runyan, William Henry, 6 Nov Marion, 21 Jan

342 343 200 years ago (1820) 200 years ago (1820) 200 years ago (1820) 200 years ago (1820) Composers Composers Authors Authors Composers Composers Authors Authors Born Died Born Died Born Died Born Died Batiste, AntoineCoombs , Alstyne, Frances Drennan, Kidder, Mary E, 28 Mar James Morris Janev an (nee William, 5 Feb Ann (née Cooke, William (atributed), 7 Crosby) [also Haweis, Pepper), 16 Mar Henry* Mar† used several Thomas, 11 Feb McDonald, pseudonyms], 24 Cooper, George, Corfe, Joseph, William, 1 Mar Mar 7 Jul 29 Jul† Robertson, Brontë, Anne, Dedekam, Edson, Lewis* William, 15 Jul 17 Jan Sophie Hedwig, Haweis, Root, George 1 Apr Thomas, 11 Feb Brown, James Frederick (oka Baldwin, 19 Aug† Emerson, Würzel, G Luther Orlando, Conder, Eustace Friedrich), 30 3 Aug Rogers, 5 Apr Aug Hopkins, John Gallwey, Peter, Walworth, Henry Jr, 28 Oct 13 Nov Clarence Augustus Jenner, Henry Gurney, Archer Alphonsus, 30 Lascelles, 6 Jun Thompson, 15 Jul May McDonald, Whittemore, William, 1 Mar Hall, Elvina Mabel, 4 Jun William Meynell, Moberly, 19 Sep Charles Edward Hood, Edwin Woodford, * Paxton, 24 Oct James Russell, Hopkins, John Redhead, 30 Apr Richard, 1 Mar Henry Jr, 28 Oct Young, John Ingelow, Jean, Root, George Freeman, 30 Oct Frederick (aka 17 Mar Wurzel, G Jenner, Henry Friedrich), 30 Lascelles, 6 Jun 250 years ago (1770) 250 years ago (1770) Aug Composers Composers Authors Authors Born Died Born Died Beethoven, Broderip, John, Cooper, Whitefield, Ludwigv an, 16 Dec*† Edward* George, 30 Sep Dec Wordsworth, William, 7 Apr

344 345 300 years ago (1720) 300 years ago (1720) 450 years ago (1570) 450 years ago (1570) Composers Composers Authors Authors Composers Composers Authors Authors Born Died Born Died Born Died Born Died Gibbons, Walter, Johann Thomas, 31 May (oka Walther, Humphreys, Johann), 25 Mar Joseph, 28 Oct Maxwell, 500 years ago (1520) 500 years ago (1520) James* Composers Composers Authors Authors Merrick, James, Born Died Born Died 8 Jan None None None None Nyberg, Lorenz Thorstan, 4 Mar 550 years ago (1470) 550 years ago (1470) Composers Composers Authors Authors 350 years ago (1670) 350 years ago (1670) Born Died Born Died Composers Composers Authors Authors None None None None Born Died Born Died Freylinghausen, Freylinghausen, Johann Johann Anastasius, 2 Dec Anastasius, 2 Dec ANNIVERSARIES QUIZ Jacobi, John In the 2020 Anniversaries above, the eagle-eyed reader may spot the Christian* following - No prizes! Answers inside the back cover of this Bulletin. Lange, Joachim, 26 Oct 1. The author of the UK National Anthem; Winckler, 2. The author ofThank you for the world so sweet; Johann Joseph, 23 Dec 3. A nineteenth-century novelist, daughter of a vicar; 4. An eighteenth-century aurally-challenged composer; 400 years ago (1620) 400 years ago (1620) 5. A Lake District poet; Composers Composers Authors Authors Born Died Born Died 6. A Jesuit psalm-setter; Drese, Adam, Campion, Drese, Adam, Campion, 7. A twentieth-century jazz musician; 15 Dec Thomas (oka 15 Dec Thomas (oka Campian, Campian, 8. A long-serving headmaster of Charterhouse School; Thomas), 1 Mar Thomas), 1 Mar 9. Co-founder of the Twentieth Century Church Light Music Valerius, Group Adrianus, 27 Jan

346 347 REVIEWS creatively re-told in the first person from the perspective of the Soldier of our God, Arise! Martin Whybrow, 2019, ISBN – None. main character. In ‘Afterwards’, for example, we find an imaginative depiction of the fear and confusion experienced by Jesus’ mother in Soldier of our God, Arise!by Martin Whybrow, is a micro- the early days of her pregnancy. Later, in a monologue, Mary takes study of the life and times of Robert Johnson (1854-1898), a Scottish us graphically through those harrowing hours during which she ‘wept singer, song writer and violinist, who wrote a number of Salvation and railed at God’ while cradling her son’s crucified body. Army songs, including ‘Marching on in the light of God’, and ‘Storm the forts of darkness’—which is sung to a melody based on two Marjorie is often humorously down-to-earth in the language popular but disreputable drinking songs, ‘Come, landlord, fill the she uses. Old texts and teachings acquire fresh significance when flowing bowl’, and ‘Here’s to good old whisky, drink it down’. Using transferred to a contemporary setting. One dialogue exploring the fragments of information from newspaper reports, family papers, influence of John the Baptist imagines a rather smug, self-righteous diary entries, and other obscure sources, Martin has pieced together pillar of today’s church being asked, the life and death of Robert Johnson, during the years when William ‘Would you be happy if some big, hairy, loud-mouthed bloke Booth’s Christian Mission was renamed The Salvation Army, and accused you of being incompetent, hypocritical, corrupt and lacking faced its most severe opposition in the streets. in all sense of responsibility?’ Scores of Salvationists were encouraged to write words to ‘How dangerous would it be if he undermined my authority? popular tunes (copyright or otherwise), and the Army established He would need to be silenced, and quickly!’ the cleric replies. its first music department, and a travelling group of singing evangelists, the ‘Salvation Songsters’. Robert Johnson was involved Christians’ need for confidence is frequently highlighted in all these initiatives, and Martin’s lively account takes the reader and inventively explored. Psalm 100 encourages us to ‘Sing to the on a journey of discovery around Britain and beyond, meeting some Lord’, but what if we have reservations about our musical ability? colourful characters and sharing in their creative musical activities, No worries, we are told: the many diverse contributions listed in the which helped to give the Salvation Army its distinctive appeal in its poem will successfully blend in a chorus of praise. To quote just a formative years. few lines, Written in a lively and informative style, this 200-page Come crooners and crows, book demonstrates how much information can be gleaned by the Come singers from shows, dedicated investigator, shedding light on phases of history which Come tone-deaf or sweet. might otherwise pass unnoticed and unregarded. It is full of human Or those with a beat: interest stories and fascinating details that draw the reader in, and Musicians or not, provide insights on little-known but absorbing aspects of Victorian Just give what you’ve got! musical and religious life, in all its unexpected variety. In each of the book’s sections (Beginning, Faith, Grace, Gordon Taylor Choices, Sorrow, Resurrection) we encounter a God who is waiting to empower us. We are all potentially effective disciples, however incompetent, grief-stricken, ashamed, guilty, or doubt-filled we may Unravelling the Mysteries, Marjorie Dobson, (Stainer & Bell Ltd., currently feel. 2019) ISBN: 9780852499597, £15.95. Unravelling the Mysteries never descends into shallow religious optimism, though. The reality of human despair and anger is fully acknowledged, and people experiencing depths of anguish In a short poem Marjorie Dobson recalls her childhood, when are given a voice, as in the hymn, ‘God, hold us, unfold us, through hand-knitted items of clothing, once outgrown, could be untangled desolate loss’. and rewoven into a new garment. Something along these lines happens in this refreshingly unconventional assortment of hymns, What ultimately matters, we are told in the Epilogue, is the poems, monologues, dialogues and prayers. Biblical narratives are love of God which is at the core of our existence. This love shapes

348 349 us individually, but also transforms our relationship with others. In at Holy Communion. Others, equally sing-able, could be used on the dialogue ‘When did we see you?’ we are addressed by Jesus ‘public’ occasions such as infant baptisms or Remembrance Sunday, himself in several guises, for example a Big Issue seller, the starving where those leading worship might welcome fresh ideas and where child pictured in an appeal letter, a drug-addicted teenage criminal. people who attend church infrequently might find their conventional Most telling in this piece are the reasons presented to us by Jesus for expectations enjoyably challenged. The hymns are somehow our failure to recognize him in these people. We persuade ourselves ‘transferable’ in character: most, if not all of them, would fit as well that the people who run the charities are probably pocketing too into an informal gathering as into a more solemnly traditional service. much of the money for themselves, or we justify our avoidance of Many tunes are familiar, and new ones not difficult to learn. the teenager because we believe such people cannot be helped and So: Marjorie’s resistance to dogmatic confinement gives should be securely locked up, and so on. us freedom to argue, rebel, break loose, and explore. But all For whom is this book likely to be a resource? Well, this happens within a trustworthy framework: her declared preachers faced for the umpteenth time with crafting a sermon and unwavering faith in God’s love. This passionate belief is on some all-too-familiar Old or New Testament passage will breathtakingly expressed in the poem ‘Trinity’, which begins with the surely welcome Marjorie’s inventive take on around twenty biblical question: characters. Her adventurous ideas are colourfully expressed both in Is God confined poems and hymns. To an eternal triangle? People who find that the traditional language of creeds no Not for Marjorie! longer speaks to them may find themselves heartened as they sing the hymn ‘A house of prayer, where all may come’, Or is the creator God always reforming the shape... the living God stepping over the lines; A house of prayer, not just of creed: the vastness of God stretching the limits of love and A house where bread and wine will feed compassion Those hungry souls who come in need. until the seams are burst And in the final verse we celebrate a house ‘where truth transcends.’ angles destroyed and the multi-faceted nature of God is revealed Those who shy away from “religious literature” since they in mind-expanding glory? know from experience that quite frequently they have given up after the first chapter should be encouraged to give this book a try. It is Preachers, retreat-organisers, hymn-selectors, Bible- eminently suitable for dipping into at random! A message of comfort, study leaders, radical questioners, depression-sufferers, borderline stimulation, forgiveness or hope may leap out to us from any page. unbelievers, defensive evangelicals: order your copy today! Finally, (and of special significance to HSGBI members!): this Claire Wilson treasure-chest of insights, biblical exploration and encouragement to reflect and ask questions finds expression in a variety of hymns and songs. Living with uncertainty as to what the future holds takes courage, and this is emphasised in ‘A man set off for Bethlehem’, where we encounter Samuel setting off in trepidation before God’s purpose is finally achieved. Jesus’s own experience of fear and loneliness is imaginatively portrayed in ‘Afraid and alone’. Those attending a service of healing could find themselves moved by ‘The touch was so light’. The collection includes hymns appropriate for use during Lent, Holy Week (‘A towel and a basin’), Eastertide, Pentecost and

350 351 OBITUARY Eventually he retired to Aberdeen, where he became a THE REV’D ALASDAIR P W FRASER, M.A. member of the city’s Bon Accord Free Church. It was in my native city where once again we caught up with one another. By that time, however, he was suffering from a form of leukaemia, which did One of the unusual facts about our former member, the curtail his activities, but he received great support from his daughter, late Alasdair P W Fraser, whose death was announced at this following the death of his wife. The last Hymn Society event that he year’s meeting of General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, attended was the local Hymn Festival held at Queen Street Church, th was that he belonged to a denomination that did not sing hymns. Aberdeen, as part of the Society’s 75 Anniversary Celebrations in Indeed, it was something of a standing joke amongst members of 2011. He was most enthusiastic about it, and said at the time that he the Society that he would have to leave his Manse under cover of still hoped to have one more Conference in him – sadly, that was not darkness in order to make his way to the annual Conferences of to be. a Society whose aims were at odds with the practices of his own Graham D S Deans Church, in which only unaccompanied metrical psalm singing was permitted. But perhaps he had the last laugh, when at a special meeting of its General Assembly in 2010, the Free Kirk voted by a narrow majority to allow the singing of hymns at services of public worship. Alasdair was an M.A. of the University of St Andrews, and after graduation continued his studies for the ministry of the Free Church of Scotland at its own College in Edinburgh. He went on to serve for many years as Minister of the Free Kirk congregation in Elgin; he was also for a time Clerk to the Free Kirk’s Presbytery of Inverness. Always interested in how to improve the worship of the Church, but curious as to how this could best be done, he once revealed to me that it was the late Dr Erik Routley who had encouraged him to join the Hymn Society - although precisely how their paths came to cross was never disclosed. Amongst his other interests was the Scottish Symphony Orchestra - another one that defied convention. Few Free Church ministers of his time could claim to hold hymns and instrumental music amongst their affections! I first met Alasdair at what was my own first Conference – at Newcastle in 1994 – when, as a member of the Psalmody Committee of the Free Church, he invited the Society, at a “Short Metre” session, to “road test” some new versions of the Psalms, which were being prepared for inclusion in a revised contemporary metrical Psalter, which was eventually published asSing Psalms in 2003. When he attended other Conferences – to which he invariably drove in one go, no matter how great the distance was – he never failed at the AGM to express his thanks most courteously to the Conference organisers.

352 353 CORRECTION: In the last Bulletin in Ken Bowden’s paper ‘The Poets Laureate as Hymn Writers’ it was stated that the old Doric arch at Euston station, was built in 1937. This should, of course have read, 1837. Our apologies (Edit.)

Among out contributors: John Barnard is a prolific composer and member of the Society. Michael Garland is a Canon of Gloucester Cathedral and Treasurer of the Society. Christopher Gray is Director of Music at Truro Cathedral. Martin Leckebusch, Martin Leckebusch, our Executive Vice-President, is the author of over 500 hymn texts, some of which are in hymnals. At university he studied first Mathematics, then Numerical Analysis; since 1984 he has worked in IT. He and his family live in Gloucester and attend a Baptist church. Robin Knowles Wallace edits The Hymn, the journal of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. Janet Wootton is a hymn writer, academic and Executive President of the Society.

Answers to the Anniversaries Quiz: 1. William Edward Hickson, d. 1870 2. Edith Leatham, b. 1870 3. Anne Brontë, b. 1820 4. Beethoven, b. 1770 5. William Wordsworth, b. 1770 6. Joseph Gelineau, b. 1920 7. Dave Brubeck, b. 1920 8. Frank Fletcher, b. 1870 9. Geoffrey Beaumont, d. 1970

354 355 THE BULLETIN OF THE HYMN SOCIETY of GREAT BRITAIN & IRELAND

Honorary President: THE RT REVD & RT HON. BARON WILLIAMS OF OYSTERMOUTH Executive President:JANET WOOTTON Executive Vice-President: MARTIN LECKEBUSCH

Honorary Vice-Presidents: TIMOTHY DUDLEY-SMITH ALAN LUFF J. R. WATSON

Editor:ANDREW PRATT 18 Broadacre, Comberbach, Northwich, Cheshire CW9 6QD [email protected] Assisted by:LESLEY BUTLAND, ELIZABETH COSNETT, MICHAEL GARLAND and IAN SHARP

Secretary: ROBERT A. CANHAM Windrush, Braithwaite, Keswick CA12 5SZ [email protected]

Treasurer: MICHAEL GARLAND 6 Whimbrel Road, Quedgeley, Gloucester, GL2 4LJ [email protected]

Registered Charity No. 248225 Website: https://hymnsocietygbi.org.uk

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