Hymn tune

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A hymn tune is a musical composition to which a hymn text is sung. Some tunes consist of only the melody, sung in unison or parallel octaves, with or without accompaniment. In other tunes the melody is accompanied by one or more other voice parts, with four voices being the most common. From the late Sixteenth century in England and Scotland, when most people were not musically literate and learned melodies by rote, it was a common practice to sing a new text to a hymn tune the singers already knew which had a suitable meter and character. To make it easier for the musicians, the practice of naming hymn tunes developed to make it easier for a musician to easily identify a particular tune. The name was chosen by the compiler of the tune book or hymnal, or by the composer. Robert_Stewart used his middle name for the hymn tune PRESCOTT, and named the tunes, ST. AUDOËN and ST. WERBURGH after churches in Dublin. The result is that, while some tunes are closely linked with a particular text, as in the case of Reginald Heber's text, "Holy, Holy, Holy!" with John Bacchus Dykes tune NICAEA, in other cases a text such as "O for a thousand tongues to sing" is associated with more than one tune, AZMON, RICHMOND, and other hymn tunes, such as "Old hundredth" are associated with more than one text. By contrast, in Germany and Scandinavia, names were not typically used even when a hymn tune was used for more than one text. The custom in such cases was to use part of the first line of the first text with which the tune was associated to refer to the tune. When Chorales were introduced in England during the eighteenth century, these tunes were sometimes given English style names. Names of hymn tunes are sometimes spelled in capital letters, small caps, or italics, as on this page, and other times are set in normal Upper / Lower case style. Most hymnals, besides indexing texts of hymns, provide indexes of hymn tunes by name, by meter, and by composer.

[edit] Performance

Typically, as part of worship services in churches and synagogues, hymn tunes are sung by congregations, often accompanied by organ, piano, guitars, or other instruments. The exact details of performance vary, depending upon the tune, and the text is is used to set. Some hymn tunes are sung in unison, and others are sung in parts. It is common for a congregation to sing the hymn tune in unison while a choir sings in four parts: soprano, alto, tenor, bass. Sometimes, especially on longer texts, more than one style of performance of the same tune may be used, for example, some stanzas will be in unison, some in parts, some with no accompaniment at all. Occasionally, an accompaniment with a different harmony one one stanza, a descant sung by some singers, or a fauxbourdon, where the melody is placed in the tenor voice instead of the soprano is used for greater variety of performance, or to give a different emphasis to a particular stanza.

[edit] History

While Paul encourages congregational singing in his Epistle to the Colossians (cf. 3:16), by the time of the Reformation, it had become common for most music, including liturgical hymns, to be sung in larger churches and monasteries in Latin. Because most lay persons did not read, speak, or understand Latin, the task of singing was assumed by choirs of priests and monks, although they sometimes included lay musicians as well. As part of his efforts at reform, Martin Luther prepared a version of the Mass in German, so that the congregation might be able to sing the texts. Luther also adapted texts and wrote tunes, including the tune for his German translation of Psalm 46, "EIN FESTE BURG". Nicholas Temperley writes in his Hymn Tune Index, that Luther "wished his congregations to take part in the singing, but in general they failed to do so" and writes ""It was the Calvinist, or 'Reformed', branches of Protestantism that succeeded in establishing congregation hymn singing in worship." From the Reformed tradition in Geneva, congregational singing was promoted in England and Scotland, where Sternhold and Hopkins, and Day published psalters which included tunes for singing the Psalms. During the decade 1791-1800, more than 8,000 hymn tunes were printed in Great Britain and between 7,000 and 8,000 were printed in the United States; during the decade 1801-1810, about 11,000 hymn tunes were printed in Great Britain, while more than 15,000 were printed in the United States. The total number of hymn tunes published with English-language texts in publications from 1535 up to and including 1820 is recorded as 159,123.

Many early hymnals consisted of texts only. The early Methodist movement provides an example. The co-founders, John Wesley and his brother Charles Wesley, published several text-only collections, culminating in A Collection of Hymns, for the Use of the People Called Methodists, in 1780. John Wesley published tune books separately, culminating in Sacred Harmony, in 1780. In 1786, with the fifth edition of the text-only Collection, Wesley indicated at the head of each hymn the tune to which he intended it to be sung. Among the tunes in Sacred Harmony that are still in use are DERBY, HELMSLEY, and SAVANNAH. As more people became musically literate, it became more common to print the melody, or both melody and harmony in hymnals. It is not standard practice in most traditions to print hymn tunes with texts when publishing a hymnal.

Among twentieth-century developments were the publishing of The English Hymnal in 1906, under the music editorship of Ralph Vaughan Williams, increased inclusion of ethnic hymn tunes, increased use of guitar accompaniments, and increased inclusion of descants in hymnals.

[edit] References

• Raymond F. Glover, ed., The Hymnal 1982 Companion, four volumes, The Church Hymnal Corporation, New York, 1990.
• Franz Hildegrandt and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Works of John Wesley, volume 7: A Collection of Hymns for the use of the People called Methodists, Oxford University Press, 1983. Includes Appendix J: Wesley's Tunes for the Collection, 1786.
• John Julian, A Dictionary of Hymnology, 2 vols., Dover Publications, New York, 1957.
• Nicholas Temperley, The Hymn Tune Index: a Census of English-language hymn tunes in printed sources from 1535 to 1820, four volumes, Oxford University Press, 1998.
• D. DeWitt Wasson, Hymntune Index and Related Hymn Materials, three volumes, Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland, 1998.