HYMN TUNES

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 49, 26 August 1922, Page 12

HYMN TUNES

TRADITIONS OF MUSIC.

"■Vyhy should the devil have all the best tunes?" Luther used to ask, said Mr. R. H. Wilson, speaking at the Ceri. toal Hall, London, on " Hymns—Good, Bad, and Indifferent.'' Luther,. he went on to say, had tried using some of "the devil's ■ tunes'' —that is, ordinary secular music—for religious purposes. But it had not worked, because people found it difficult to dissociate secular music from secular ideas.

Some of the ideas Luther expressed in his own; hymns (when, for instance, he wrote ■"■ From Pope and Turk Defend Us") '■might, indeed, find a becoming accompaniment in a secular air, but not so more ordinary Christian sentiment. However, from Luther's beginnings there had grown up the German chorale. Later the somewhat frivolous French tunes had been popular. But it was not until the Nonconformists were allowed liberty of worship that hymn music really developed its modern beauty. The Nonconformist released sacred singing from the Psalms, which in their metrical versions had almost enjoyed a- monopoly, and composed solid, daw-moving grand tunes that cannot be detached from their words. There was a certain amount of rather light music in the eighteenth century that smacked of Italian opera; Baxter, Mason, Dr. Watts, and the Wesleyans had all contributed to the new tradition of hymn music j it' received a further stimulus about the middle of the nineteenth century. '

Lately a new school had arisen that despised this tradition and was bent on getting back to plainsong and Gregorian chants; in fact, to medieval-melody. It wished to, ed/ucate congregations and to eliminate the ornate and the sentimental. Such a wish was gross impertinence. Bjmns were a vehicle by which, congregations could express their emotions. Congregations included people who. knew nothing about music, and people1 who didn't want to know anything about music, and all must be catered for if hymns were to fulfil their function. A good .hymn should have style, outline, or' contour of melody, should be contained within reasonable compass with-, out ever going so high or so low that it forced some voices into silence, and it should fit absolutely its words. There were, some tones that we could not imagine - dissociated from their wordfl. They were sung to them in church aud chapel alike. These were the best hymns. "My God, How Wonderful Thou, Art" was an example.

Artificial musical expression should never be introduced; it Was inconsistent with the spirit of Worship. Hymns were meant to be sung straight through. "Abide With Me," for instance, was often spoilt by variations in the volume of sound given to each passage. This Was as bad as were most of the innovations' introduced by the new school in their revised book. This book included a hymn by Christina Rosseti, which the Halle Choir sang, and Mr. Wilson described as worse- than the very worst Moody and Sankey. Even traditional hymns, however, were sometimes feeble —for instance, "Jesu the Very Thought of Thee," although we had grown so accustomed to it that it could not bs spared. It had a tune that would not be unsuitable' for a love ballad.