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Editor Nancy E. Hall volume 60 no. 2 Editorial Advisory Board Beverly Howard, Riverside, CA spring 2009 Kenneth W. Inkster, Alliston, ON Tina Schneider, Lima, OH Larry Wolz, Abilene, TX Design Director John Wattai Contributing Editors Robin Knowles-Wallace . Book Reviews Paul A. Richardson . Dissertations Daniel Jay Grimminger . Hymns in a journal of Periodical Literature Deborah C. Loftis . Indexer congregational song Columnists Margaret Leask . Hymnic Anniversaries William L. Wallace . Hymn Interpretation ◆◆◆ David Buley . Hymn Performance Sue Mitchell-Wallace . Reviews of Hymn-based Compositions 2009 Hymnic Anniversaries: Addenda S T Kimbrough, Jr. Reviews of 9 Hymn-based Recordings COMPILED BY MARGARET LEASK Advertising Mark Meyer, 10 You Are a Woodwind and a Drum Hymn Society office Recovering the Image of God through [email protected] Congregational Song BY THOMAS H. TROEGER 22 Adapting Western Chants and Hymn Tunes to Buddhist Texts Unlocking Scriptures, Opening Hearts BY REV. HELEN CUMMINGS 34 Theses and Dissertations Related to Hymnody Executive Committee COMPILED BY PAUL A. RICHARDSON Mary Louise Bringle, Brevard, NC President Deborah C. Loftis, Richmond, VA ◆◆◆ President-Elect David Eicher, Louisville, KY Immediate Past President 2 Editor’s Notes Nancy Wicklund Gray, Doylestown, PA Secretary 3 From the Executive Director Jacque Jones, Brooklyn, NY Treasurer 4 News Nancy E. Hall, Berkeley, CA 8 Research Director’s Report Editor of THE HYMN Tina Schneider, Lima, OH 41 New Arrivals in the Book Service Director of Research Don Anderson, Toronto, ON 43 Hymn Interpretation—BY WILLIAM L. WALLACE Anthony Ruff, OSB, Collegeville, MN Adam Tice, Hyattsville, MD 46 Hymn Performance—BY DAVID BULEY Members-at-Large 48 Reviews Dictionary of North American Hymnology A Calendar of Praise: Thirty Contemporary Hymns for Seasons of the Christian Year— Mary Louise VanDyke, Project Coordinator TIMOTHY DUDLEY-SMITH Oberlin College Library Oberlin, OH 44074 A Treasury of Faith: Lectionary Hymns Series B—GRACIA GRINDAL (440) 775-8622 [email protected] Blessed Assurance: Hymns of Fanny J.Crosby—EDITED BY S T KIMBROUGH, JR Paul R. Powell, Editor Music by Heart: Paperless Songs for Evening Worship—EDITED BY MARILYN HASKEL P.O. Box 58830 Rise, O Church: Reflections on the Church, Its Music, and Empire— New Orleans, LA 70158 [email protected] PAUL WESTERMEYER Executive Director Walking by the River: 100 New Hymn and Song Texts with Other Verses— Carl P. Daw, Jr. The Hymn Society CHRISTOPHER M. IDLE Boston University School of Theology 745 Commonwealth Ave. Reviews of Hymn-based Compositions Boston, MA 02215-1401 Reviews of Hymn-based Recordings (800) THE HYMN (617) 353-6493 fax (617) 353-7322 [email protected] www.thehymnsociety.org © Copyright 2009, The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, Inc. Journal printed on recycled paper Spring 2009 • Vol. 60, No. 2 The Hymn • 1 Adapting Western Chants and Hymn Tunes to Buddhist Texts Unlocking Scriptures, Opening Hearts REV. HELEN CUMMINGS SHASTA ABBEY hat do Loreena McKennitt, Martin United States in 1969, establishing Shasta Abbey Luther, and St. Gregory the Great have in Northern California in 1970, and Throssel Hole in common? Their music is part of the Buddhist Abbey in northern England in 1972. She liturgical treasury of Shasta Abbey, a founded the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives in SotoW Zen monastic community in northern California 1978, and served as Head of the Order and Abbess of founded in 1970. I suggest that it was inevitable that Shasta Abbey until her death in 1996. Buddhist scriptural texts would be combined with West- Her musical compositions prior to becoming a monk ern chants and hymn tunes; and in this article I would included several motets and songs, a cantata, two like to share how one Buddhist tradition has successfully operettas, and a string quartet; yet already in 1961, she blended Buddhist scriptural texts with Western chants won an international contest for a Buddhist Wesak cel- and hymn tunes for daily use in the liturgies and cere- ebratory anthem. Her entry, “Welcome, Joyous Wesak monies in our Western Soto Zen monastic community. Day,” with music written in a style that would allow it A key figure in this development was Rev. Master to be completely at home in an Anglican hymnal, is Jiyu-Kennett,* born near Hastings in Sussex, England, now sung throughout the Buddhist world. on New Year’s Day, 1924. Baptized into the Church of After she became a monk Rev. Kennett’s musical England as Peggy Teresa Nancy Kennett, she grew up legacy may be described quite simply: she translated in World War II London. At an early age she showed the key scriptures of the Soto Zen Buddhist tradition great musical ability; she earned a Bachelor of Music into accessible, metrical English, and set them to plain- degree from Durham University (UK), with concen- chant. At the time she did so, these were unusual prac- trations in early music (Western plainsong) and com- tices. The general practice was to leave them untrans- position, and a Fellowship by Double Licentiate of lated or to set them to single-beat, monotone Trinity College of Music (London). Building on these accompaniments as was done in Japan—or both. studies, she spent many years as an organist in the When she was still Peggy Kennett, Rev. Kennett Anglican Church, and taught music in a Catholic observed, “The composer really starts to compose boarding school at Westminster. when he throws away his textbooks and . creates Early in life she had found in Buddhist teaching something in which the form is almost accidental yet something meaningful that drew her into involvement inseparable from and inevitable to the music, for form with the London Buddhist Society. It was through this is the result of creation and not creation the result of involvement that she met her teacher, the Venerable form.”1 She set out to bring the heart of Zen teaching Keido Chisan Koho Zenji, Chief Abbot of Soji-ji, to the West. What she created is an altogether accessi- when he came to London as part of a world tour that ble Buddhist liturgy built on the rich treasury of chants included meeting with President Eisenhower in Wash- and hymn tunes that are the religious music of the ington. At his invitation she went to Japan in 1962 to West. She set ten major Buddhist scriptures to Angli- become his disciple. The first woman to train at Soji- can chant, scriptures that our monastic community ji, one of the two major training monasteries of the sings regularly—several of them at least once a day. Soto Zen tradition in Japan, Rev. Kennett came to the Similarly, she set twelve major litanies to Anglican * It is customary within the Buddhist traditions to take care chant, as well as numerous offertories, mantras, dedi- that names, especially those of teachers and fellow monastics, cations, and the “Homages” that, much like the famil- are accompanied by appropriate honorifics. We have retained iar “Amen,” close each of our recitations of scripture. this practice of monastic courtesy and respect in the text, in the She wrote or set to music sixty-two hymns that we sing hope that it will carry with it a little of the atmosphere of the throughout our liturgical year.2 Building on the foun- life of the Abbey. —Ed. dation she laid for us, we continue to create new Bud- 22 • The Hymn Vol. 60, No. 2 • Spring 2009 the street made it possible for all to have access to and to remember these teachings. Mantras, a particular kind of vocalized sound, also have a significant place in Buddhism. While the word has developed a much wider usage today, it originally meant sacred sounds that communicate through vibra- tion to inspire and open the heart rather than the mind. Sacred sound, one definition of Buddhist “music,” indeed seeks to open the heart and mind to that which is larger than the self, to harmonize body and mind, and in so doing, to create the mind of med- itation. Rev. Kennett held that chanting is considered portable meditation. It is no surprise, then, that chanting is an integral practice of all forms of Buddhism, in India and in the countries to which it spread, including Sri Lanka, China, Japan, Tibet, and Korea. But what has unfolded in the spread of Buddhism over the last 2,553 years is essentially the same “problem of transla- tion and transmission from age to age and from land to land”3 that Christianity has faced. The varied forms of chanting in Buddhism are cultural rather than doc- trinal. There is nothing inherent in the Buddha’s legacy that requires a certain form of chanting or singing. Thus, there is a broad range of chanting styles evident in Buddhism today. Pali chanting has been described as speaking in a musical way. Chinese chant- ing is very percussive and regular. Sanskrit chanting is much less percussive and more melodic. Japanese chanting is a forceful monotone. One thing, however, common to all the varied forms is this: the religious music of the East often does not make sense to the ear of the Western religious person. Rev. Jiyu-Kennett. Courtesy of Shasta Abbey We at Shasta Abbey chant in English—and metrical English at that! We sing melodies rooted in a range of dhist hymns and chants, either setting scriptures and Western hymn books and traditions, many of them text to hymn tunes of the past and the present or cre- quite familiar to those of us coming to Buddhism from ating our own music in the forms that are rooted in these traditions. The act of chanting scriptural texts the very familiar religious music of the West.

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