VII

AMERICAN HYMN TUNES

ROM this consideration of the hymnal as a whole let us turn to the study of the individual tunes, their history and practical value. There can be no question as to the importance of this familiarity to any minister. He should know the melodies and the names of these tunes and be able to refer to them accurately and with proper discrimination. Does he wish to sing Perronet's classic, "All hail the power of Jesus' name," he ought to know whether he wants it sung to "Coronation," "Miles Lane," or the more recently introduced "Welsh Coronation." The names, Duke Street, Old Hundredth, Bethany, Webb, Olmutz, Harwell, Uxbridge, Vox Delicti, Nicæa, Laudes Domini, should instantly set the corresponding tunes singing in his mind.

While hymns and tunes whose marriage has been solemnized in the church's consciousness by generations of associated use should be divorced only for the most peremptory reasons, there are many hymns which it may be wise to sing to one tune at one time and to a different tune at another. A clear realization of the associations clustering about each tune, of the practical characteristics it presents in actual use, is therefore absolutely essential.

It is but natural and right that one should first turn to the hymn tunes written in America. This is all the more proper because in no other field of church activity has America done so much for religious life abroad or

wielded so wide an influence. These tunes, moreover, are the work of our own people and, what is more important, are adapted to our use, because they are the product of our peculiar conditions and of our American individuality of thought and spirit. In other words, they are an expression of the peculiar nervous conditions which stamp all our social, mental and religious life as distinctively American.

This is not a historical work, and I do not propose to give the detailed historical facts of the development of American church music, as they are easily accessible. The barest outline will suffice for my purpose. Undoubtedly, the earliest tunes used in American churches were brought over by the colonists from time to time. How soon the impulse was felt to make tunes of their own is not clear, but there is reason to believe that "Mear," first published in America in the year 1726, was the first tune composed and printed in America. There probably were many others that never reached the dignity of print, but were transmitted orally. William Billings, whose "Easter Anthem" is still sung occasionally, made the first notable effort to furnish American hymn tunes. They were very crude and imperfect and were fugal in character. Oliver Holden and Daniel Read soon issued their collections, also in the fugal style, of which only simplified forms of " Coronation" and "Lisbon" yet survive. From the fugal era thus set in motion "Northfield" still survives in its original form, and "Lenox" and "Windham" in an arranged form that eliminates the fugue.

When the fugal tune, like the polyphonic music of the later Middle Ages, lost itself in intricate absurdities, there was a strong reaction. An earnest reform move

ment to bring back the original simplicity was instituted. While Lowell Mason was a product of the movement rather than its originator, his personal character, his thorough musical education, his power as a teacher, his fine discrimination in the selection and adaptation of secular music to religious uses, and his own fertility in writing attractive, practical, and appropriate psalm and hymn tunes, fully entitle him to recognition as the premier among the leaders in the effort. His influence in England was quite as great as in America, for there the same hydra-headed fugal dragon was to be slain.

Such a transformation could not be wrought without calling out bitter antagonism. The new music was extremely popular and the books of Lowell Mason and those of his contemporaries, Webb, Emerson, Bradbury, Woodbury, and others sold by the hundred thousand. Human nature being then what it is now, there was no lack of imputations of interested motives. One writer sneers at the "whining singsong tunes, Hebron, Balerma, Ward, etc.," and calls these authors "a set of speculators who trade in the songs of Zion. The public ought to be cautioned against such pickpockets." Compare this specimen of Christian charity with the remark of a recent writer on the popularity of Sunday-school and Gospel songs," Certain irresponsible publishing houses thrive upon it and succeed all too well in imposing a lot of periodical trash upon credulous congregations."

Mason's popular tune, "Bethany," closely approaches the style of the more dignified Gospel songs. It used to be held up to scorn as a plagiarism based on " Oft in the Stilly Night," but the slight resemblance strikes me as one of those coincidences of which musical literature is so full. It is a most valuable and expressive tune,

whether used by a small or by a large audience. In America, at least, it should never be divorced from "Nearer, my God, to Thee."

His " Uxbridge" has the dignity and strength of the old Reformation psalm tunes like "Old Hundredth." While there is little harmonic variety in "Laban," the melody is so virile in its simplicity that it is most admirably adapted to hymns of aggressiveness. But space fails me to fitly characterize "Hebron," and "Missionary Hymn," and "Olivet," and "Rockingham," and Migdol," and "Harwell," and the twoscore other noble tunes bearing his name as composer or arranger that are found in our present hymnals. Has not their sound gone out to the ends of the earth?

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Perhaps Lowell Mason did almost as much for our American church music by his remarkable gift of selection and adaptation as by his original work. He levied tribute upon every province of European music to enrich and vary the singing of the churches in his native land. Gregorian chants, oratorios, operas, popular instrumental music, popular songs of every character, fugitive issues of German and Swiss folk-songs,-all yielded their treasures to his keen insight and skill of adaptation. "Dennis," "Antioch," "Hamburg," " Ariel," « Olmutz,” "Mendon,"-what a noble list of immortal tunes it is! Everything was grist to the mill of his psalm and hymn tune books, and out of the great mass of original, selected and arranged material he supplied, the people's taste and sense of appropriateness and practicability have slowly made the selection of the several score of tunes that are the abiding heritage, not of the American churches alone, but almost of the Church universal.

This broad mental hospitality of Lowell Mason, George

Kingsley, and their contemporaries, has given a variety, a pliability and an adaptableness to American hymnody that makes it peculiarly practicable and useful. What Dr. Breed criticises in Lowell Mason, that he has not "formulated any positive principle," is really his glory. He founded no school with pronounced limitations, appealing only to a particular type of mind. He was too vital, too catholic, too practical, to hamper himself with formulæ.