music and theology in uk

Music and Theology in Nineteenth-Century Britain

Edited byMartin V. Clarke

Music and Theology in nineTeenTh-cenTury BriTain

For my parents, with love and gratitude

Music and Theology in nineteenth-century Britain

Edited byMarTin V. clarkeDurham University, UK

VPrinted and bound in great Britain by the MPg Books group, uk.

Martin V. clarke 2012

all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataMusic and theology in nineteenth-century Britain. (Music in nineteenth-century Britain) 1. Music religious aspects. 2. sacred music great Britain 19th century history and criticism. 3. great Britain religion 19th century. i. series ii. clarke, Martin. 781.1'2'0941'09034-dc22

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataMusic and theology in nineteenth-century Britain / [edited by] Martin clarke. p. cm. (Music in nineteenth-century Britain) includes bibliographical references and index. isBn 978-1-4094-0989-2 (hardcover) isBn 978-1-4094-3803-8 (ebook) 1. church music great Britain 19th century. i. clarke, Martin (Martin V.)

Ml3131.4.M87 2011780'.023dc23 2011023635

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Contents

List of Figures viiList of Tables ixList of Musical Examples xiList of Contributors xiiiPreface xvGeneral Editors Series Preface xvii

Introduction 1Martin V. Clarke

1 The Theology of the Victorian Hymn Tune 5 Ian Bradley

2 Meet and Right it is to Sing: Nineteenth-Century Hymnals and the Reasons for Singing 21

Martin V. Clarke

3 Sacred Sound for a Holy Space: Dogma, Worship and Music at Solemn Mass during the Victorian Era, 18291903 37

T.E. Muir

4 Thy Love Hath Broken Every Barrier Down: The Rhetoric of Intimacy in Nineteenth-Century British and American Womens Hymns 61

C. Michael Hawn and June Hadden Hobbs

5 Christianity, Civilization and Music: Nineteenth-Century British Missionaries and the Control of Malagasy Hymnology 79

Charles Edward McGuire

6 Sing a Sankey: The Rise of Gospel Hymnody in Great Britain 97 Mel R. Wilhoit

7 Singin in the Reign: Voice, Faith and the Welsh Revival of 19041905 117

James Deaville and Katherine Stopa

MuSIC AND THEoLoGy IN NINETEENTH-CENTuRy BRITAINvi

8 Beyond the Psalms: The Metamorphosis of the Anthem Text during the Nineteenth Century 133

Peter Horton

9 From Elijah (1846) to The Kingdom (1906): Music and Scripture Interacting in the Nineteenth-Century English oratorio 181

David Brown

10 ConfidenceandAnxietyinElgarsDream of Gerontius 197 Jeremy S. Begbie

11 Spiritual Selection: Joseph Goddard and the Music Theology of Evolution 215

Bennett Zon

Bibliography 237Index 257

5.1 Jeso Sakaizanay, Tiona Ela Sy Vao Mbamy Ny Tononkira Mahamety Azy (Antananarivo, 1879), p. 173. 87

5.2 Abby Hutchinson, Kind words, Songs of Gladness (London, 1872), p. 167. 88

10.1 Immuringimmured tonal structures in The Dream of Gerontius, according to J.P.E. Harper-Scott 203

11.1 Spencer: Knowable and Unknowable in constant succession 22911.2 Goddard: Musical Emotion and Spiritual in constant succession 230

List of Figures

This page has been left blank intentionally

4.1 Nineteenth-century female hymn writers represented in Hymns and Psalms (London, 1983) and The United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville, 1989) 72

5.1 Nineteenth-century missionaries who taught Tonic Sol-Fa in Madagascar 91

7.1 Welsh hymns and songs recorded in The Western Mail 1237.2 English hymns and songs recorded in The Western Mail 1238.1 Novellos Octavo Anthems: nos. 150 (187172) 1358.2 Novellos Octavo Anthems: nos. 112868 (192330) 1368.3 John Clarke Whitfeld, Behold, God is my salvation 1418.4 Anthem Texts by Samuel Sebastian Wesley 1458.5 Samuel Sebastian Wesley, Let us lift up our heart 1478.6 Anthem texts by John Goss 1508.7 Comparison of settings of The wilderness (Isa. 35) by

S.S. Wesley and John Goss 1528.8 Anthem texts by George Elvey 1548.9 George Elvey, And it was the third hour 1578.10 Ouseley, Special Anthems for Certain Seasons, vol. 1 (1861) 1598.11 Ouseley, Special Anthems for Certain Seasons, vol. 2 (1866) 1618.12 Frederick Ouseley, Awake thou that sleepest 1628.13 Contents of Novellos Collection of Thirty-One Anthems

(London, 1861) 1648.14 Anthem Texts by John Stainer 1658.15 John Stainer, And Jacob was left alone 1698.16 Comparison of the texts of Drop down, ye heavens by Joseph

Barnby and John Stainer 1718.17 Anthem texts by Joseph Barnby 1728.18 Anthem texts by Edward Vine Hall 1758.19 Anthem texts by Charles Villiers Stanford 178

List of Tables

4.1 J.B. Dykes, horbury 744.2 Lowell Mason, bethany 744.3 Henry Smart, misericordia 754.4 William Bradbury, woodworth 75

List of Musical Examples

Jeremy S. Begbie is Thomas A. Langford Research Professor in Theology at Duke Divinity School, North Carolina. He teaches systematic theology, and his particular research interest is the interplay between music and theology. He is author most recently of Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music (Grand Rapids, 2007).

Ian Bradley is Reader in Church History and Practical Theology at the University of St Andrews, a University chaplain and Associate Minister of Holy Trinity Church, St Andrews. He writes and broadcasts regularly on hymnody and church music. His recent books include Water Music: Music Making in the Spas of Europe and North America (Oxford, 2010) and Grace, Order, Openness and Diversity: Reclaiming Liberal Theology (London, 2010).

David Brown is Professor of Theology, Aesthetics and Culture and Wardlaw Professor at the University of St Andrews. He has interests in the relations between theology and wider culture, especially the arts. A five-volume work written for Oxford University Press pursues that concern with extensive discussions of the visual arts, architecture, music, ballet, poetry and the theatre.

Martin V. Clarke is an Associate Lecturer at the Open University and teaches at Durham University. He has published articles and essays on various aspects of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century hymnody, including contributions to Music and the Wesleys (ed. Nicholas Temperley and Stephen Banfield, Urbana, 2010), Nineteenth-Century Music Review and Methodist History.

James Deaville is Professor in the School for Studies in Art and Culture: Music at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. His most recent publication was an edited essay collection for Routledge entitled Music in Television: Channels of Listening. He has recently published on Liszt, Wagner and Schumann for Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Princeton.

C. Michael Hawn is University Distinguished Professor of Church Music at Southern Methodist University, Dallas and has research interests in global music and worship, cross-cultural worship and enlivening congregational song. His publications include Gather into One: Praying and Singing Globally (Grand Rapids, 2003) and One Bread, One Body: Exploring Cultural Diversity in Worship (Bethesda, 2003).

List of Contributors

MUSic ANd THeology iN NiNeTeeNTH-ceNTUry BriTAiNxiv

June Hadden Hobbs is Professor of english at gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, where she teaches American Studies. Among her publications are I sing for I cannot be silent: The Feminization of American Hymnody, 18701920 and a number of articles on gravestone iconography and epitaphs.

Peter Horton is Reference and Research Librarian at the Royal College of Music. He is editor of Samuel Sebastian Wesleys complete anthems for Musica Britannica and author of Samuel Sebastian Wesley (Oxford, 2004). He has recently been working on editions of Vaughan Williams and Sterndale Bennett.

Charles Edward McGuire is Associate Professor of Musicology at Oberlin college. He studies the musical life and culture of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain. He has written essays on Elgar and Vaughan Williams, and the monographs Elgars Oratorios: The Creation of an Epic Narrative (Aldershot, 2002) and Music and Victorian Philanthropy: The Tonic Sol-Fa Movement (Cambridge, 2009).

T.E. Muir is the author of Roman Catholic Church Music in England, 17911914: A Handmaid of the Liturgy? (Aldershot, 2008), as well as numerous historical and musicological articles. He is an experienced composer, his most recent projects being two CDs: Legends of the Wild Wood, a large cycle of chamber music inspired by the legend of the Green Man (Orchard Publications, 2009); and Hodie! Christmas Music from Whalley (Orchard Publications, 2010).

Katherine Stopa is an MA student at the Music and Culture programme at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. She holds a BA Honours in Mass Communications and a Minor in Music. Her research interests include media modes and public participation, television music, issues in popular music and critical theory.

Mel R. Wilhoit is Chair of Music at Bryan College and has research interests in hymnody and congregational song, and has published extensively in the field of gospel music and the music of nineteenth- and twentieth-century revivalism. He is also a trumpet performer, conductor and classical music critic.

Bennett Zon is Professor of Music and director of the centre for Nineteenth-Century Music at Durham University. He is General Editor of Nineteenth-Century Music Review (Cambridge University Press) and the book series Music in Nineteenth-century Britain (Ashgate). Zon researches in areas of nineteenth- and twentieth-century musical culture, with particular interest in British science, theology and intellectual history.

This volume of essays reflects the growing interest in the relationships between music and theology witnessed in recent scholarly work by both musicologists and theologians, including many of those represented here. I am grateful to each author for their willingness to contribute to the volume. The diversity of their disciplinary backgrounds and scholarly interests reflects the multifarious ways in which musical and religious life in nineteenth-century Britain came into contact with each other, both in thought and practice. I would like to express particular thanks to Bennett Zon for planting the idea of such a volume in my mind and for his continued support throughout its preparation. Thanks too are due to Heidi Bishop and the staff at Ashgate. On a personal note, I wish to record my gratitude to my wife, Alison, for her support and understanding throughout the project. Finally, I will always be grateful to my parents for their continued support and encouragement and it gives me great pleasure to dedicate this volume to them.

Martin V. Clarke March 2011

Preface

Music in nineteenth-century Britain has been studied as a topic of musicology for over two hundred years. It was explored widely in the nineteenth century itself, and in the twentieth century grew into research with strong methodological and theoretical import. Today, the topic has burgeoned into a broad, yet incisive, cultural study with critical potential for scholars in a wide range of disciplines. Indeed, it is largely because of its interdisciplinary qualities that music in nineteenth-century Britain has become such a prominent part of the modern musicological landscape.

This series aims to explore the wealth of music and musical culture of Britain in the nineteenth century and surrounding years. It does this by covering an extensive array of music-related topics and situating them within the most up-to-date interpretative frameworks. All books provide relevant contextual background and detailed source investigations, as well as considerable bibliographical material of use for further study. Areas included in the series reflect its widely interdisciplinary aims and, although principally designed for musicologists, the series is also intended to be accessible to scholars working outside of music, in areas such as history, literature, science, philosophy, poetry and performing arts. Topics include criticism and aesthetics; musical genres; music and the church; music education; composers and performers; analysis; concert venues, promoters and organizations; the reception of foreign music in Britain; instrumental repertoire, manufacture and pedagogy; music hall and dance; gender studies; and music in literature, poetry and letters.

Although the nineteenth century has often been viewed as a fallow period in British musical culture, it is clear from the vast extent of current scholarship that this view is entirely erroneous. Far from being a land without music, nineteenth-century Britain abounded with musical activity. All society was affected by it, and everyone in that society recognised its importance in some way or other. It remains for us today to trace the significance of music and musical culture in that period, and to bring it alive for scholars to study and interpret. This is the principal aim of the Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain series to advance scholarship in the area and expand our understanding of its importance in the wider cultural context of the time.

Bennett Zon Durham University, UK

General Editors Series Preface

Martin V. Clarke

The burgeoning scholarly interest in the relationship between music and theology reflects an increased awareness that the two are frequently intertwined in both thought and practice. Such scholarship attempts to understand and explain the meaning of music in religious contexts, to explore the reasons behind the composition, advocacy and performance of particular pieces and genres, with regard to the theological values held by individual composers and religious groups, and to probe philosophical ideas about musics origins and meaning. That such connections are being explored is hardly surprising, for, as Don Saliers notes, in most theistic traditions, seeing and hearing have a primary place in awakening, sustaining, and deepening awareness of the divinehuman relationship.1 The experiential aspects of music and spirituality have often been connected by thinkers from both backgrounds and musics communicative ability has made it central to almost all forms of organized religion.

The essays that follow reflect many of these concerns through consideration of a wide variety of topics, united by their historical location within the long nineteenth century in Britain. In religious terms this was a period of considerable change with the emergence of many new groups both as individual entities and within pre-existing religious institutions, as well as legal changes, such as the Roman Catholic Relief Act (1829). Scholarly interest in music flourished too, while both music and religion were naturally affected by external changes and developments both practical and intellectual.

The interactions of music and theology in nineteenth-century Britain can be seen to reflect changes in religious practices and beliefs and musical preferences and understandings, both within and beyond the confines of the church in its various denominational manifestations. As well as these immediate influences, such interactions were often shaped by changes and developments in other spheres, both intellectual and practical, including aesthetics, philosophy, science, technology, historical awareness and architecture, as well as shifts in population centres, employment patterns and social activities. Music continued to play a significant role in religious activities during the century and the ways in which it was created, used and understood need to be interpreted in the light of theological considerations that prevailed at the time.

The degree to which musical and theological practices and attitudes reflected wider cultural values and developments is a theme that emerges in several essays. As

1 Don E. Saliers, Music and Theology (Nashville, 2007), p. 1.

Introduction

MuSIc AND ThEology IN NINETEENTh-cENTuRy BRITAIN2

noted by Iwan Rhys Morus, developments in scientific thought and understanding had significant connections with and consequences for a whole range of concerns embracing art, industry, literature, politics and religion.2 In Chapter 11, Bennett Zon demonstrates how such ideas were absorbed into considerations of musics origins and meaning, as he explores the notion of spiritual selection in Joseph goddards writings on the philosophy of music. Similarly, in chapter 5, charles Mcguire demonstrates how one particular aspect of technological and pedagogical development, Tonic Sol-Fa notation, was taken up by British missionaries as a means of expounding their Evangelical theology and understanding of civilized religion. Conversely, conservatism and a desire to distance musical practices from contemporary trends were also situated within a theological framework, as demonstrated in T.E. Muirs discussion of ultramontanism in chapter 3 and my own discussion of the advocacy of plainchant within the church of England by John Mason Neale and Thomas helmore in chapter 2. As both chapters show, such views were challenged by others within the same denominations who sought to embrace more recent musical genres and styles.

Prominent theological emphases within the church also had a profound effect on its music during the nineteenth century. Evangelicalisms concern with conversion and personal assurance of salvation was a dominant feature of nineteenth-century christianity and one that crossed denominational boundaries.3 Revivalism emerged as a distinctive feature of religious life, commonly existing beyond the traditional boundaries of church structures, liturgies and identities. Initially emerging in local contexts, often as a result of particular events, as the century wore on, however, spontaneity gradually gave way to arranged revivals.4 connections between Britain and America were particularly important in this regard, as shown by Mel Wilhoit in his discussion of the influence of Moody and Sankey and the ways in which their use of music embodied the directness and personalization of religion that underpinned their methods in chapter 6. James Deaville focuses on the more spontaneous aspect of revivalism through consideration of the Welsh Revival of 19045 in chapter 7. This also highlights the particularly strong popular perception of the important role of music in Welsh revivalism. Meanwhile, transatlantic commonalities and the personalization of religious devotion are also key themes in June hadden hobbs and c. Michael hawns consideration of female hymn writers and the tunes associated with their texts in chapter 4. one important feature noted there is the individualization of

2 Iwan Rhys Morus, The Sciences, in chris Williams (ed.), A Companion to Nineteenth-Century Britain (Blackwell Reference online: Blackwell Publishing, 2004); available at , accessed 24 Mar. 2011.

3 Mark A. Smith, Religion, in chris Williams (ed.), A Companion to Nineteenth-Century Britain (Blackwell Reference online: Blackwell Publishing, 2004); available at , accessed 25 Mar. 2011.

4 D.W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (london, 1989), p. 116.

INTRoDucTIoN 3

the relationship between tune and text that was to become a feature of nineteenth-century hymnals. This practice developed a model adopted by John Wesley towards the end of the eighteenth century and was further strengthened by the increasing use and popularity of hymnody within the church of England during the nineteenth century, which saw the publication of a plethora of collections of texts and tunes. This individualization reflected a common compositional concern to respond to the nuances of a particular text both in terms of their imagery and sentiment. In chapter 1, Ian Bradley explores the degree to which nineteenth-century hymn tunes can be seen as having a theological identity through exploration of their musical characteristics and their relationships with particular texts.

understandings of tradition played an important role in the relationship between music and theology in nineteenth-century Britain. My own chapter examines how appeals to tradition were used as a means of establishing hymnodys place in the church of England and giving theological justification for it. T.E. Muir demonstrates how theological understandings of the Mass alongside other aspects of Roman catholic theology elicited various musical responses and attitudes both in terms of repertoire and liturgical function. In a rather different way, Peter horton reveals in chapter 8 how rapid and wide-ranging changes took place in the selection of texts set by composers in choral anthems during the nineteenth century, from a tradition where verses from the Psalms were used almost exclusively to one where they were but one source alongside other biblical and non-biblical texts and in which composite texts grew in popularity. These changes are set against a backdrop of theological and liturgical change within the church of England and the influence of various composers appointments and professional backgrounds.

In chapter 9, David Brown also examines the importance of text, showing how the libretti of various nineteenth-century oratorios reflected a variety of theological concerns and illustrating how the relationships between words and music can be explained more clearly if the theological perspective of the libretto is properly understood. Brown shows how the selection, manipulation and linking of biblical and non-biblical texts, coupled with distinctive musical settings, can have a profound effect on the theological understanding of the story and also opens up the possibility of using the composers own religious viewpoint and experience as a means for understanding their compositional output. Jeremy Begbie pursues this approach in his detailed study of the theological emphases of Elgars Dream of Gerontius in chapter 10, interpreting Elgars musical language in view of his oscillation between religious confidence and anxiety.

These essays encompass a diverse range of musical and theological practices, viewpoints and experiences, yet they are united in highlighting the interaction of music and theology as a way of understanding aspects of religious, cultural and social life in nineteenth-century Britain.

Chapter 1

The Theology of the Victorian Hymn TuneIan Bradley

The seeds for this chapter were sown during a conference entitled Liberal Voices organized by the Free to Believe network of the United Reformed Church in October 2008. It included much singing of hymns written by two of the great liberal voices of later twentieth-century hymnody, Brian Wren and Fred Kaan. It became increasingly clear to me and to others that the predominantly late twentieth-century tunes to which these hymns were set, and for which they had in most cases been especially written, did not serve their open, inclusive, liberal theological outlook and message very well. They were convoluted and difficult to sing, lacking in clear melodic line and flow and often set in a rather depressing minor key. How much better, I kept feeling, to have been singing them to one of the great affirmative, melodic Victorian hymn tunes.

I tested this thesis out at the conference, where I was principal speaker along with Brian Wren, when I introduced delegates to the work of Andrew Pratt, the contemporary Methodist hymn writer who writes from a distinctly liberal theological perspective. We sang his hymns exclusively to nineteenth-century hymn tunes and the general view was that they fitted Pratts liberal theology much better than the late twentieth-century tunes had for the not dissimilar sentiments of Wren and Kaan. It is, indeed, noticeable that while Pratt often seeks and commends new tunes for his hymns, he also regularly suggests singing them to Victorian classics. A trawl through his collection Whatever Name or Creed reveals that his favourite Victorian tune is Richard Redheads laus deo, which he suggests for three of his own hymns. S.S. Wesleys aurelia is recommended for two: the particularly open and inclusive O source of many cultures and a hymn based on Stephen Hawkings A Brief History of Time. W.H. Gladstones ombersley is suggested for a further two, and J.B. Dykes gets a good showing with st oswald, dominus regit me, gerontius and melita all featuring as suggested tunes.1

It is not just liberal hymn writers who recommend Victorian tunes as often providing the best accompaniments to their verses. The list of suggested tunes in the collected hymns of Timothy Dudley-Smith, who stands in the Anglican Evangelical tradition reveals a clear preference for twentieth century tunes and those derived from English and Welsh folk tunes, but still includes a good sprinkling of Victorian favourites.2 Dudley-Smith, whose collection is more than

1 Andrew Pratt, Whatever Name or Creed (London, 2002).2 Timothy Dudley-Smith, Collected Hymns 19612001 (Oxford, 2003).

MUSIC AnD THEOLOGy In nInETEEnTH-CEnTURy BRITAIn6

double the size of Pratts, with 285 hymns as against 135, shows a particular preference for Dykes melita, which is suggested eight times, with S.S. Wesleys aurelia coming a close second with seven mentions, followed by Henry Smarts regent square (five) and Redheads petra, Henry Gauntletts irby, George Elveys st georges windsor, Edward Hopkinss ellers, S.S. Wesleys cornwall, George Martins leominster and Arthur Sullivans lux eoi each with three.

If the choices of these two leading contemporary hymn writers suggest that Victorian hymn tunes appeal equally to those writing from a liberal and an Evangelical standpoint, a comparison of two relatively recent hymn books of sharply contrasting theological hue seems to indicate that among hymnal editors, liberals are considerably more likely than conservative Evangelicals to favour Victorian tunes. The two that I have compared, both published in the same year (1987), are the ultra-liberal Hymns for Living, the hymnal of the Unitarian Church, and the conservative Evangelical Songs and Hymns of Fellowship, published by Kingsway. The Unitarian collection has just half the number of hymns (317 against 645 in Songs and Hymns of Fellowship) but includes a much greater number of tunes by Victorian composers led by Dykes with nine, Stainer (six), Gaunlett (four), Sullivan and Hopkins (three each) and Barnby (two). In Songs and Hymns of Fellowship, the only Victorian composers to achieve more than one appearance are Dykes, with six, and Monk and Sullivan with two each.

Of course, Victorian tunes are still regularly chosen by modern hymn writers and hymn book editors across the denominational and theological spectrum primarily because they are well-known and singable rather than out of any theological considerations. However, my experience at the Liberal Voices conference and the striking difference in the use of Victorian tunes in Hymns for Living and Songs and Hymns of Fellowship raise the question of the theology of the Victorian hymn tune. Does this distinctive musical genre, rightly recognized as such by musicologists, also express or embody a distinctive theology or, rather, does it encompass a range of theologies reflective of its time?

Certain hymn tunes from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century do seem to me to display very clear and distinct theologies. One need go no further than two of the melodies to which Charles Wesleys O for a thousand tongues is nowadays most usually sung. richmond, composed by Thomas Haweis around 1792 for his own hymn O Thou from whom all goodness flows superbly represents musically from its opening arpeggio and through its elegantly structured and spacious phrasing the broad, latitudinarian strain in eighteenth-century theology. It is really much too stately, laid-back and comfortable for the Evangelical fervour of Wesleys text, to which it was not wedded until 1933, by the editors of the Methodist Hymn Book, and is better kept for the broad, spacious theology of the Unitarian-inclined Samuel Johnsons City of God, how broad and far. Much more appropriate to the sentiments and message of O for a thousand tongues is the fervent, hearty, fuging counterpoint of Thomas Jarmans lyngham first published in 1803 and, again, only set to Wesleys verses in the twentieth century. These two tunes express two dominant theological movements

THE THEOLOGy OF THE VICTORIAn HyMn TUnE 7

of the times from which they date. richmond perhaps marks a final flowering of comfortable, optimistic eighteenth century deism moscow (1769) represents an earlier expression of the same general outlook while lyngham is one of the first of those great artisan-crafted fuging tunes of the early nineteenth century sagina (1825) and lydia (1844) are among its finest successors which express the full emotional fervour of Evangelical nonconformity and are so decidedly un-Anglican and non-Establishment in their colour and contours.

Are there similarly clear theological statements in Victorian hymn tunes? Musically, they range from the restrained four-square settings of Goss and Smart, through the harmonic eccentricities of S.S. Wesley to the high Victorian sentimentality and part-song style of Dykes and Barnby. yet there is one overwhelming characteristic that nearly all Victorian hymn tunes share and that is their careful matching to particular words. This was achieved in one of two ways either by the writing of a melody to fit a specific text, rather than, as the practice had largely been before, just to provide a stock tune in a particular metre which could do service for a whole range of hymns, or by the pairing in hymn books of a text and a tune in an exclusive way that had not been done before and which established that indissoluble association between particular words and music which was at the heart of the Victorian love affair with hymns and which has largely continued ever since. Victorian composers excelled at crafting tunes to fit the mood and message of a text and Victorian hymn book editors, led by those responsible for Hymns Ancient and Modern, excelled at finding the right tune for each item in their collection. The dedicated hymn tune, specially written or chosen for a particular text and firmly and exclusively wedded to it, was as much a Victorian invention as the penny postage stamp or the railway system.

Given this close attention to words, their meaning and mood, one would expect Victorian hymn tunes to express the full gamut of Victorian theology. Within the Church of England, where most of those writing hymns in the middle and later nineteenth century were located (nonconformists having experienced their great creative burst of hymn writing in the eighteenth century and Roman Catholics being still largely yet to experience the full joys of congregational hymn singing), there were four main theological movements and parties: conservative, traditional high church; Tractarian / Anglo-Catholic; Evangelical / low church; and liberal / broad church. These theological and ecclesiological divisions were to a lesser extent mirrored in other churches, most notably in the established Church of Scotland where the main parties were the Evangelicals and the Moderates, with a small but significant group of Scoto-Catholics representing a high-church, liturgical tendency. Across all the hymn-writing and hymn-singing denominations, there were, as there still are, fundamental tensions between those of a more conservative and those of a more liberal theological bent. Victorian hymn writers included high churchmen (and those from that stable were almost all men) led by Sir Henry Baker, editor of Hymns Ancient and Modern; Tractarian devotees of the Oxford Movement, like John Keble; Evangelicals, among whom women were particularly well represented by the likes of Frances Ridley Havergal and Charlotte Elliott;


those of a broad-church perspective, including John Ellerton in the Church of England and George Matheson and norman Macleod in the Church of Scotland; and also those deeply affected by the Victorian crisis of faith who might perhaps best be described as doubt-ridden believers, agnostics or idealistic theists, chief among whom should perhaps be counted Alfred Tennyson.

This considerable theological variety on the part of those who wrote hymns in the latter half of the nineteenth century was not matched among those who composed the tunes to which their words were largely set and sung. The latter were overwhelmingly of high-church Anglican background and/or Tractarian sympathies. I cannot think of a single leading Victorian hymn-tune composer who could be described as Evangelical in theology and there are very few who can be located in the broad-church camp. An analysis of the tunes across a range of later nineteenth-century hymnbooks reveals that fourteen composers stood head and shoulders above the rest in terms of popularity and frequency of usage. They were, in alphabetical order, Joseph Barnby, John Bacchus Dykes, George Elvey, Henry Gauntlett, John Goss, Edward Hopkins, William Henry Monk, Herbert Oakeley, Frederick Ouseley, Richard Redhead, Henry Smart, John Stainer, Arthur Sullivan and S.S. Wesley.3 Of these fourteen, all but two are usually identified as having high-church and/or Tractarian associations or sympathies.

Some words of caution are needed here. In many cases, we have little or no evidence of any actual theological writings or utterances on the part of these musicians and the identification of their particular position within the Victorian Church of England (to which they all, without exception, belonged or conformed, making them together with their exclusive maleness a much less heterogeneous company than the writers whose texts they set) is more often made on ecclesiological and liturgical rather than theological grounds. They are often described by biographers and musicologists as high church or Tractarian on the basis of the churchmanship of the churches where they were organists and on their position regarding certain liturgical practices, notably the revival of Gregorian chant which is seen as a mark of Tractarian sympathy. Bennett Zon, author of the most comprehensive account of the plainchant revival in the Victorian Church of England, is one of a number of modern historians of nineteenth-century music who regard this movement as a talisman of both high churchmanship and Tractarianism. In his words, the Anglican plainchant revival is the aesthetic realization of high churchmanship within the Established Church, the most obvious manifestation of which is Tractarianism or the Oxford Movement.4

3 This list is based on the one in Ian Bradley, Abide with Me: The World of Victorian Hymns (London, 1987; repr. 2010), pp. 2578. I have removed Josiah Booth from the list as further research has confirmed what I suggested there (p. 148) that beyond the pages of the Congregational Church Hymnal (London 1887), his tunes are hardly if at all to be found. A more extensive trawl through hymnals displaces him from the top team which otherwise remains the same.

4 Bennett Zon, The English Plainchant Revival (Oxford, 1999), p. 251.


There are two problems with this approach. First, it conflates two different and distinct movements traditional, conservative, high and dry high churchmanship and the more recent and much more Catholic Tractarianism of the Oxford Movement with its emphasis on ritualism and eucharistic theology. Secondly, it takes what is essentially an aesthetic and liturgical preference, for Gregorian chant, and erects into a theological position. These caveats having been made, it is probably right to assign virtually all the leading Victorian hymn-tune composers either a high-church or Tractarian label. Smart, Goss, Oakeley and Elvey are probably best described as traditional high churchmen. They display the conservative, antiquarian preferences associated with this grouping. Significantly, they were not all fans of the plainchant revival. Smart, indeed, was strongly opposed to it. He once rounded on a young Tractarian curate, next to whom he found himself sitting at a dinner party and who had expressed his enthusiasm for Gregorian chant: Who asked your opinion upon a musical question of which you know absolutely nothing? You may rely on it, that some day when you and your friends are shouting those ugly Gregorian chants, Heaven will punish you, and rain down bags of crochets on your heads.5

A clear majority of the group, eight out of the fourteen, can fairly safely be identified as Tractarian in sympathy although, as already pointed out, this should be taken more as an aesthetic and liturgical preference than a theological position. The extent of their commitment to the ritualistic and doctrinal aspects of the Oxford Movement was mixed. Perhaps the most enthusiastic was Dykes, an unequivocal and unapologetic ritualist who believed that it is comparatively little use preaching doctrine, if you do not act doctrines outward visible expression in ritual and who took legal action against his diocesan bishop for refusing to licence his curate unless he would give a written pledge never to wear a coloured stole, have anything to do with incense, nor stand with his back to the congregation at the Eucharist.6 Doubtless largely because he was a clergyman, and thanks to the considerable correspondence of his that survives, Dykes is the only one of the leading Victorian hymn-tune composers who has left clear indications of his theological position. They suggest that it was very conservative, as evidenced in a comment he made after reading Rowland Williamss Rational Godliness: Unfortunately, he has most loose notions on the subject of the Inspiration of Holy Scripture. It strikes me these notions are spreading fearfully. The devil seems to have a great many irons in the fire at present.7

The other ordained member of the group, Ouseley, was a rather more tentative and hesitant Tractarian although he seems to have shared Dykess generally conservative theological position. He expressed concern at the more extreme

5 David G. Hill, Henry Smarts Contribution to Victorian Hymnody, Musical Times 130 (1989): 23741, at p. 241.

6 Joseph T. Fowler, Life and Letters of John Bacchus Dykes (London, 1897), pp. 109, 16893.

7 Ibid., p. 59.


Romanizing practices of W.J.E. Bennett, whom he served as curate at St Barnabas, Pimlico, and whose activities sparked off anti-Popery riots in 1850, but he was also very uneasy about the inclusive broad-church agenda for the future direction of the Church of England. Although he was antagonistic to Gregorian chant his overall ministry conformed to the Tractarian mould and it is surely significant that the Evensong held to mark the consecration of his church music training establishment, St Michaels College, Tenbury Wells, included a sermon entitled The Principles of Ritualism Defended.8

The other six Tractarians have been so identified largely on the basis of their particular church connections and/or enthusiasm for plainchant revival. Redhead was organist of Margaret Chapel, later All Saints, Margaret Street, one of the main London temples of Anglo-Catholicism. He collaborated with the incumbent there, Frederick Oakeley, on what has been called the first truly Anglican-Gregorian psalter, Laudes Diurnae.9 Barnby was organist first at St Andrews, Wells Street, where the vicar was another leading Tractarian, Benjamin Webb, and then at St Annes, Soho, where he adopted and adapted music from Roman Catholic masses and led a surpliced choir of 64 in services which were nicknamed Sunday opera. Monk edited the journal of the Tractarian Society for Promoting Church Music and was a strong advocate of reviving plainsong, as were Gauntlett and Hopkins. Similar musically and aesthetically driven Anglo-Catholicism almost certainly characterized the religious position of Stainer. In his recent biography Jeremy Dibble locates Stainer firmly in the Tractarian camp, suggesting that at Oxford he was profoundly influenced in terms of his religious devotion in that direction by Henry Liddon and pointing out that his hymn tunes display a simplicity that also concealed a more, complex, autonomous art coupled with spiritual emotionalism, values indeed cherished by the Tractarians.10 Stainer also had a very liberal side not least politically, being chosen shortly before his death as Liberal candidate for Oxford and he was certainly no spiky Anglo-Catholic bigot. As Dibble points out, he was in many ways a very Gladstonian figure, the conservative churchman, profoundly influenced by the values, discipline and ritual of the Oxford Movement, yet driven by a Liberal social conscience that looked to educate, ameliorate and edify.11

It is important to note that high-church Anglican though they may have been in their own sympathies and preferences, these men were not narrowly partisan but rather eirenic and ecumenical in outlook. Gauntlett happily served as organist of the Congregationalist Union Chapel in Islington from 1853 to 1861 and collaborated with its minister, Henry Allon, in the production of The Congregational Psalmist.

8 David Bland, Ouseley and his Angels (Eton, 2000), pp. 457, 62.9 Zon, The English Plainchant Revival, p. 253; on Redheads Tractarianism, see

Peter Galloway, A Passionate Humility: Frederick Oakeley and the Oxford Movement (Leominster, 1999), p. 70.

10 Jeremy Dibble, John Stainer: A Life in Music (Woodbridge, 2007), pp. 137, 289.11 Ibid., p. 313.


Stainer enjoyed editing the 1898 Church Hymnary for the Presbyterian churches of Scotland and Ireland and found its committee a good deal more congenial than some of the Anglican bodies on which he served. Dykes was delighted to contribute to nonconformist hymnals. His last ever composition was a setting of Adelaide Procters The Pilgrims in 1876 for the Congregational Psalmist.

Only two of this group of the leading Victorian hymn-tune composers did not belong within the high-church / Tractarian fold. Wesley is described by his recent biographer Peter Horton as a follower of the mid-nineteenth-century Broad Church tradition. Whilst not opposed to the practical reforms of the Tractarians, he cared little for their practices and, as a forward-looking Cathedral musician, was resolutely opposed to two of their central tenets the use of Gregorian tones and congregational participation in the offices.12 Once again, of course, this is to define Tractarianism entirely in terms of its musical outworkings rather than its doctrinal or theological precepts. When I pressed Peter Horton as to the grounds on which he claims Wesley as a broad churchman he pointed to the composers concern about high church tendencies at Helmsley and also to a certain sense of humility and modesty revealed in a letter to his father. The truth is that Wesley, like most of the other composers who wrote hymn tunes, was not very interested or expert in matters theological. However, he was clearly uneasy with both the high-church and Tractarian movements within the Church of England (as with so much else) and, in the absence of clear evidence that he espoused his grandfathers Evangelicalism, perhaps he is best assigned to the moderate broad-church camp, although I doubt that it is a label which he himself would have used.

This leaves just Sullivan, the least churchy and most worldly of the group, certainly in terms of his career, lifestyle and the range of his other compositions. It is difficult to make any firm judgement about his beliefs. His biographer, Arthur Jacobs, writes that his religion hardly went beyond a superficial conformity to the Church of England: neither on the threshold of death nor earlier in his mature years is there evidence of spiritual guidance sought or offered.13 In fact, Sullivans settings of sacred texts show a considerable spiritual sensitivity and there are clear hints of a Christian faith of a broad and trusting kind in his writings but he was perhaps the member of the group who came closest to the agnosticism and honest doubt lauded by Tennyson in his great hymn Strong Son of God.

This analysis of the theological position of the leading Victorian hymn tune writers raises two questions. Is there a prevailing high church or Tractarian feel to their work and are there apparent differences in the tunes written by those of divergent theological persuasions? It is tempting to suggest that those qualities that critics found so nauseous about Victorian hymn tunes, their sickly sweet, cloying sanctimonious quality, achieved through too much chromaticism, close harmony and over use of diminished and dominant sevenths what their arch-detractor W.H. Hadow characterized as the honeyed cadence and the perfumed

12 Peter Horton, Samuel Sebastian Wesley: A Life (Oxford, 2004), p. 313.13 Arthur Jacobs, Arthur Sullivan: A Victorian Musician (Aldershot, 1992), p. 410.


phase were the musical expression of Tractarian ritualism.14 The same words are often used to describe both Victorian hymn tunes and Tractarian practices weak, effeminate, emotional, sentimental and precious. Several scholars have linked them explicitly, notably Louis Benson who wrote of Victorian hymn tunes that they express more the feeling of the Oxford Revival than its resolution, the spiritual sentiment of the individual rather than the sense of corporate worship.15

The Tractarian leanings of so many of their composers did, perhaps, often make Victorian hymn tunes spiritual more than theological statements and gave them an individualistic bias which, as we shall see, was well suited to Evangelical hymns as well as to those of Catholic piety and devotion. Both these aspects are certainly evident in some of the tunes of two of the most self-consciously Tractarian composers, Dykes and Barnby. The formers horbury, written for nearer, my God, to Thee, and the latters laudes domini for When morning gilds the skies, do in their somewhat arch reverence and emotionalism recall the lace cottas and affected piety of a certain kind of Anglo-Catholic priest. Barnbys for all the saints, has something of this quality as well, certainly in comparison with the much more masculine and gutsy sine nomine by the agnostic Vaughan Williams which lifts William Walsham Hows great celebration of the Church Triumphant from Tractarian reserve and individualism to full-throttle corporate congregational engagement.

yet we need to be careful of generalizing here. The fact is that many Victorian hymn tunes, certainly among those that have remained in common usage, do not suffer from excessive chromaticism or too many diminished or dominant sevenths. nor is it only the most evidently Tractarian inclined composers who are guilty of treating hymn tunes as part songs, if that is, indeed, a crime. Dykes and Barnby at their worst may be the prime exponents of the honeyed cadence and the perfumed phrase but the possibly broad-church Sullivan and Wesley are not immune to these temptations. There are a good many maudlin, soupy, sentimental Victorian hymn tunes but there are also plenty that are clean, muscular and vigorous the very qualities most conspicuously lacking in Tractarianism in the eyes of its detractors.

It is, perhaps, more fruitful to move on to the second question I posed above and compare the tunes and attitudes of composers with differing theological perspectives. The key figure here is Wesley, not just because of his identification as the only broad churchman in a shoal of high-church Tractarians, but also because he was such a fierce critic of the hymn tunes of his contemporaries, claiming that the majority are contemptible and unworthy of being used in any service of public worship from their love-song affectations (and this even in tunes, by clergymen, to the most solemn words).16 What is difficult to determine is how far Wesleys objections and his prime target is very clearly Dykes are in any way theological

14 The Guardian (31 Oct. 1900): 1532.15 Louis Benson, The Hymnody of the Christian Church (Richmond, VA, 1927), p. 262.16 Horton, Samuel Sebastian Wesley, p. 273.


and representative of broad-church distaste for the excessive emotionalism of Tractarianism or simply aesthetic.

Wesley pursued his crusade against his contemporaries largely by writing alternative tunes for the well-loved hymns which they had already set to considerable popular acclaim. It is worth examining some of these for signs of theological deviation from the settings of the Tractarian composers favoured by the editors of Hymns Ancient and Modern. Good examples are the two tunes that he wrote for Henry Lytes Abide With Me, which had been paired with the Tractarian Monks eventide in the first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern. Both of Wesleys alternatives appeared in The European Psalmodist, his massive compendium of hymn and psalm tunes published in 1872. The first, refuge, is undistinguished and unremarkable in all respects. The second, orisons, is one of his most interesting hymn tunes. It appeared in two versions first as a recitative-like unison chant with an excessive number of repeated notes and secondly harmonized in a strikingly original and varied way with a certain amount of chromaticism and yet also having something of the feel of a German chorale, a characteristic found in several of Wesleys tunes and perhaps deriving from his work in popularizing Bachs organ music in Britain. It is undoubtedly a better crafted, more intellectual and less vulgarly sentimental tune than eventide, which includes the dreaded diminished seventh, albeit only once as the penultimate note in the second line, but it is also much less singable and lyrical.

Wesley was especially keen to oust Dykes from his role as the favourite composer to whom hymnal editors turned when they wanted settings for popular contemporary hymns. As Erik Routley has documented, he systematically set about providing alternative settings for pretty much every Dykes tune in Hymns Ancient and Modern.17 The one exception is melita which he wisely did not try to better as a setting for William Whitings Eternal Father, strong to save. melita is surely one of Dykess most theological hymn tunes. As Patrick Little concludes after his detailed musicological analysis of it, here he has succeeded not only in representing the imagery of the hymn in his music but also in encapsulating its theology.18 Significantly, perhaps, Whitings words have the objectivity and reassurance of a broad-church text and Dykes does not give them a particularly high church or Tractarian spin, although he does underline the dramatic imagery of restless wave and foaming deep and the theme of reassurance with his use of plagal cadences and the subdominant. His nicaea, written for Reginald Hebers Holy, holy, holy and another of those enduring pairings established in the first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern, displays more obviously Tractarian characteristics in its hushed, reverential tone but it is not particularly blighted by diminished or dominant sevenths or chromaticisms. Wesleys alternative tune for this hymn, trinity, is in fact harmonically weaker and has a curiously disjointed

17 Erik Routley, The Musical Wesleys (London, 1968), pp. 21621.18 Patrick Little, Melita: A Hymn Tune by J.B. Dykes, Musical Times 131 (1990):

6758, at p. 678.


feel and lack of flow, its one impressive feature being the exciting rising phrase which accompanies the line Our song shall rise to Thee.

Perhaps the closest that Wesley comes to providing a broad-church challenge (or is it simply an intellectual musical snub?) to Dykess Tractarianism is in the tunes that he wrote for John Kebles Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear in an attempt to supplant Dykess keble, the very title of which of course suggests an act of homage to one of the leading lights of the Oxford Movement. keble does undoubtedly display something of the slightly cloying, saccharine, part-song quality that Dykess critics so disliked and perhaps shows him at his most characteristically Tractarian. Wesleys alternatives, winscott, which appeared in two very distinct versions, and kerry, which was closely based on the first form of winscott, were less sweet and cloying and much more challenging and inventive musically, with some daring harmonies, notably the striking dissonances in the third quarter, the sudden modulations to the relative minor and the dramatic rise in the melody to express the last line we lose ourselves in heaven above. If not perhaps an explicit broad-church challenge to Tractarian saccharine sentimentality, Wesleys tunes do take a noticeably more rigorous, cerebral approach to Kebles words in contrast to Dykes one which emphasizes their spiritual meaning.19

It is also interesting to compare settings of the same words by Dykes and Sullivan. Sarah Flowers Adamss nearer, my God, to Thee, immensely popular with the Victorians, is a strange beast one might expect extreme liberal theology from its Unitarian author yet its individualism and sense of personal faith and devotion is positively Evangelical. Dykess horbury could be taken almost as a textbook example of the high Victorian hymn tune at its most parlour ballad like, sentimental and dreary. It is achingly slow, full of chromatic slides and has a soporific, maudlin quality. Sullivans propior deo manages to be more affirmative, without losing the poignancy. It is not so full of suspensions, the melodic flow is better and the harmonies are not so cloying. Perhaps the most telling testimony of the theological differences between Sullivan and Dykes is in their respective settings of John Henry newmans Lead, kindly Light, another favourite which was regularly at the top of the Victorian hymnological hit parade. On the basis of its authorship, this text might initially be taken as standing alongside Sun of my soul and Sweet sacrament divine as an Anglo-Catholic icon. yet in fact it is essentially an expression of doubt-filled faith (or perhaps it is faith-filled doubt), penned by newman when he was at the height of the spiritual crisis which was to find its resolution in his reception into the Roman Catholic Church. Its popularity surely had much to do with the Victorian crisis of faith. Dykes, as a committed Tractarian, was immune from that whole movement. lux benigna, one of his stronger tunes, does not reflect the doubt and uncertainty in Newmans text at all it is infectiously positive, even bouncy, with a strong forward movement, especially in the third line beginning with those steady, reassuring repeated minims

19 For a fuller analysis of Wesleys hymn tunes, see Ian Bradley, S.S. Wesleys Hymn Tunes, Organists Review, 96 (2010): 1519.


and then the falling scale, especially appropriate for Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see. newman himself favoured this setting of words which he had never intended to be sung, saying: It is not the hymn, but the tune, that has gained the popularity! The tune is Dykess and Dr Dykes was a great master.20 History does not record whether he ever heard Lead, kindly Light being sung to Sullivans lux in tenebris. If so, he would probably have found it a more painful and anguished experience. It provides a much more nuanced and honest setting of the words, with the tune being slightly adapted to fit each verse, and its modulation into the minor brings out the ambiguity and doubt that marked this period of newmans life. In that respect, the worldly Sullivan understood and captured the meaning and mood of this hymn better than the pious Dykes.

This raises a further question as to how Victorian hymn tune composers fared when setting texts expressing a very different theological tradition from their own. Let us start with Dykes again. Was he at his happiest and best when providing tunes for texts of a definite Catholic character such as st matthias for Frederick William Fabers Sweet Saviour, bless us ere we go, or paradise for the same authors O Paradise! O Paradise!? gerontius, which he wrote for Newmans Praise to the holiest in the height, is undoubtedly one of his finest tunes, with a broad, lyrical sweep reminiscent of the best eighteenth-century psalm melodies and largely free of chromaticisms and diminished sevenths. But another of Dykes best tunes was his setting of I heard the voice of Jesus say by the Evangelical Free Church of Scotland minister Horatius Bonar. vox dilecti, squeezes every ounce of meaning and emotion out of the text with the dramatic key change from minor to major in the middle of each verse which makes the invitation of Jesus all the more personal and plaintive and the effects of responding and coming to him all the more positive. His setting brings out the Evangelical doctrine of assurance in Bonars hymn and its sense of personal relationship with Jesus as saviour, much more than does the overly easy folk tune kingsfold which Vaughan Williams substituted in the English Hymnal. The Tractarian Dykes could relate to Bonars very Evangelical sense of personal relationship with Jesus much better than to the ambiguities and uncertainties of newmans Lead, kindly Light. Stainer had a similar capacity to understand and empathize with Evangelical piety as well as with that of a more Catholic kind, evidenced by his ability to provide in just as i am a very sensitive setting of the very personal Evangelical credo of Charlotte Elliot as well as to produce what Jeremy Dibble rightly calls the Dykes-inspired tune matrimony for Kebles The voice that breathd oer Eden.21

There is another classic Dykes hymn tune which I think can be regarded as displaying a distinctly liberal theology. dominus regit me, rightly lauded by Erik Routley as the quintessential Victorian hymn tune, speaks as clearly and eloquently as Henry Bakers very free version of Psalm 23, The King of Love

20 Fowler, Life and Letters of John Bacchus Dykes, p. 104.21 Dibble, John Stainer, p. 291.


my shepherd is, of a gracious, generous, forgiving God.22 There is a wonderful sense of prevenient grace in this tune. Partly, perhaps, because of the regularity of the rhythm and the even balance between the descent in the first and third phrases and the ascent in the second and fourth it is confident without being complacent and reassuring without being cloying. In this respect, it is perfectly matched to Bakers lines:

Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,And yet in love he sought me,And on his shoulder gently laid,And home rejoicing brought me.

The fact that Dykes could provide such suitable and sensitive settings for texts embodying Evangelical and liberal as well as Catholic theological principles brings us back to that defining characteristic of the Victorian hymn tune, whether specially crafted or carefully chosen for a specific hymn by the editors of a hymnal its faithfulness to the words. To what extent was this faithfulness to the text a theological enterprise? The fact is, of course, that Victorian hymn tune composers were musicians rather than theologians. They were, however, for the most part guided by two key principles in their work which gave it a theological dimension. The first was their sense of having a calling to propagate and advance the Christian faith and the second was the seriousness with which they approached the texts they were setting, their determination to do them justice and to enhance their power and effect through their tunes.

Those who composed most of the great Victorian hymn tunes may not have been Evangelical in the partisan sense of the word but they were undoubtedly evangelical in its original and broader sense of wanting to share the good news of the gospel and win over hearts. Several of them wrote very explicitly of the evangelistic motivation and purpose of their work. Dykes said that he wrote hymn tunes to impress, soften, humanise and win an intriguing quartet of aims which manages to combine high-church, Tractarian, broad-church and Evangelical themes and wrote to Monk that his one desire was that each hymn should be so set to music (by whomsoever God wills to select for that purpose) that its power for influencing and teaching may be best brought out.23 Stainer spoke in similar terms, insisting that the true estimate of a hymn tune cannot be found by principles of abstract criticism but rather in something indefinable and intangible which can render it, not only a winning musical melody, but also a most powerful evangeliser.24 W.H. Gladstone, son of Britains only hymn-writing Prime Minister and himself a politician and amateur composer, responsible for that fine and characteristically

22 Routley, Musical Wesleys, p. 197.23 Bradley, Abide With Me, p. 164; Fowler, Life and Letters of John Bacchus Dykes,

p. 200.24 John Stainer, Hymn Tunes (London, 1900), p. iii.


Victorian tune, ombersley, was another who emphasized the evangelistic role of the writer of hymn tunes: His office has some analogy to that of the preacher. He, too, has to select, expound and illustrate his text, to dive into its inner meanings, and clothe it in a vesture of song . such was the spirit in which one, whose name has been endeared to thousands by his hymns Dr Dykes approached his task. Dr Wesley confesses the same.25

It is both paradoxical and appropriate that Wesley should be bracketed together with the man whose work he so much despised. The broad-church Wesley, if that is what he was, may have had more of a sense of himself as an artist than the Tractarian Dykes with his priestly and sacramental calling, but he had no less strong a conviction of the seriousness and importance of church music and its evangelistic and devotional purpose. Indeed, it was precisely because of that conviction that he so disliked what he took as the trivializing and secularizing effects of the love-song affectations that he found in the tunes of Dykes and others. He wrote of his own calling as a cathedral organist in terms that would have gladdened both Tractarian and Evangelical hearts to be one whose principal task was to compose music to the glory of God, promote the solemnity of Divine worship, and give a larger emphasis to passages of Holy scripture.26

Alongside this sense of their evangelistic role went a concern on the part of the composers that their hymn tunes would both be appropriate to and enhance the meaning of the words which they set. This led to annoyance with hymn-book editors who married their melodies to texts for which they were not suited. The career soldier and amateur composer Alexander Ewing objected strongly when, in his absence on active service abroad, his tune ewing, which had been written for J.M. neales For thee, O dear, dear country was assigned by the editors of Hymns Ancient and Modern to Jerusalem the Golden to which he felt it was completely unsuited, being pathetic, not triumphant.27 It also meant that composers kept re-trying to set a hymn to which they did not feel they had done justice. More than 25 years after first coming up with a tune for what he described as the old Evangelical Just as I am, Dykes had another go at setting it because he felt that neither he nor anyone else had properly represented the meaning and power of the words.28

How did hymn writers of different theological persuasions regard the tunes to which their texts were set? As it happens, we have a trinity of comments from across the Victorian theological spectrum about the tunes of Sullivan. Significantly, perhaps, the most derogatory comes from the Tractarian Francis Pott who found the setting of his Angel voices ever singing by this most secular and least churchy of all the Victorian hymn tune composers to be trivial, pretty but altogether unfit.29

25 Bradley, Abide With Me, p. 160.26 Samuel Sebastian Wesley, A Few Words on Cathedral Music and the Musical

System of the Church (London, 1849), p. 62.27 Bradley, Abide With Me, p. 144.28 Fowler, Life and Letters of John Bacchus Dykes, p. 198.29 Bradley, Abide With Me, p. 167.


The theologically liberal and broad church John Ellerton, by contrast, commended Sullivans st millicent as a near perfect interpretation of the words of his Let no tears today be shed and the Evangelical Edward Bickersteth was so impressed by the shamelessly triumphalistic bishopgarth written for William Walsham Hows patriotic hymn to celebrate Queen Victorias Jubilee, Oh King of Kings, and Lord of Lords that he wrote his own Evangelical missionary hymn, For my sake and the Gospels, go, especially for it.30

Sullivan was almost certainly the least theologically engaged of any of the main Victorian hymn-tune composers. yet he shared their commitment to capturing the spirit of the words that he was setting and enhancing their message. He did this particularly sensitively, as we have seen, with lux in tenebris for Lead, kindly Light. He did it again with courage brother for norman MacLeods heartfelt expression of liberal muscular Christianity, Courage, brother! do not stumble where he reinforced its simple stirring message with the threefold repetition of the phrase Trust in God. He was at his best when setting hymns with a strong narrative thrust or an uplifting moral theme. He wrote perhaps the finest of all his hymn tunes, samuel, for the Evangelical Free Church of Scotland minister, James Drummond Burns re-telling of the story of the Lords call to Samuel. When faced with a text of some theological complexity, he floundered. His pedestrian tune chapel royal totally fails to capture the nuances of George Mathesons O love that wilt not let me go.

Sullivans success in setting hymns of a liberal, Catholic and Evangelical hue perhaps reflects the fact that he was not coming from a particular theological position and was simply trying to point up the words with a good singable tune. What he himself wrote about bishopgarth It is not a part song, nor an exercise in harmony. It is a tune which everyone will, I hope, be able to pick up quickly and sing heartily equally well applies to st gertrude, lux eoi and those other rousing choruses that could have come straight off the Savoy stage.31 It also raises the question as to whether the strength of the best and most enduring Victorian hymn tunes was actually their un-theological quality.

In fact, I do think that there is a distinct theology to be discerned in the melodic and harmonic structure of the Victorian hymn tune, and I think it can be described as liberal or perhaps more accurately as liberal Evangelical, not in a partisan way but in terms of an open, affirmative, reassuring mood and direction. In a recent book, I have suggested that the heart of liberal theology is to be found in the attributes of grace, order, openness and diversity.32 It seems to me that Victorian hymn tunes at their best and most characteristic display these qualities. Let me end this brief investigation of a subject which bears much more examination by taking ten of the most characteristic and enduring examples of the genre and

30 Ibid., p. 167.31 Ibid., p. 168.32 Ian Bradley, Grace, Order, Openness and Diversity: Reclaiming Liberal Theology

(London, 2010).


considering them under these heads. They are: dominus regit me (Dykes), nicaea (Dykes), melita (Dykes), vox dilecti (Dykes), praise my soul (Goss), regent square (Smart), aurelia (Wesley), cross of jesus (Stainer), lux eoi (Sullivan) and petra (Redhead).

Grace is certainly a conspicuous and abiding characteristic of all these tunes. Theologically speaking, as already pointed out, dominus regit me speaks of a gracious, forgiving God and vox dilecti of a gracious, welcoming Jesus. The theme of reassurance that Patrick Little identified as having been achieved by Dykess use of the plagal cadence in melita is also to the fore in Redheads petra where the composers Tractarian reserve has the effect of softening the harsh Calvinism and terrifying imagery of Topladys Rock of ages. Stainers cross of jesus is another prime example of a hymn tune suffused with grace. It is poignant rather than triumphalist but, like the composers inspired setting of the phrase God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world in The Crucifixion, it breathes the message of divine forgiveness and mercy.

The ordered nature of Victorian hymn tunes is most conspicuously displayed in regent square and praise my soul, both superbly structured, moving steadily within clear confines, sober but never dull and, in the case of the latter, being given added variety and sensitivity by the different harmonizations provided by Goss for the various verses. It is achieved in some measure through that characteristic and often criticized device of the repeated note, found also in the opening of aurelia and in so many Sullivan hymn tunes, which as well as giving a somewhat didactic and preachy feel can also powerfully help the overall sense of order and controlled emotion in a hymn. These tunes are also open, both in a literal sense in their clean and open harmonies and also in their positive, affirmative quality, achieved in the case of petra, regent square and nicaea by the use of opening rising phrases. This latter device can, in fact, be taken as an indicator of both liberal and Tractarian theology. As Joseph Harper points out, the rising melody through the tonic triad in the opening bars of nicaea is at once optimistic, Trinitarian and representative of priestly prayerful levitation.33

Openness is also displayed in the sense of yearning conveyed in several of these tunes and even more conspicuous in other still very popular Victorian hymn tunes like Hopkins ellers and Scholefields st clement (in which I and others have suggested that Sullivan may have had a significant hand).34 That may well be why they suit modern expressions of liberal theology so much better than the cramped, convoluted tunes to which they are so often set. They combine a certain wistfulness with a forward-looking confidence which manages to avoid complacency. Even lux eoi stops itself from being a shallow piece of triumphalism with its modulation

33 Joseph Harper, Towards An Understanding of Tractarian Hymnody (Durham, 2010), p. 236.

34 On Sullivans possible involvement in st clement, see Mervyn Horder, A note on St Clement, Bulletin of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 200 (1994): 678, at p. 67; Ian Bradley, The Daily Telegraph Book of Hymns (London, 2005), pp. 4256.


in the sixth line. They are also manifestly diverse, not just in terms of the genre as a whole but also within themselves, never being one dimensional. This internal diversity, most conspicuously demonstrated in the mid-verse key change in vox dilecti, is the upside of the part-song approach that critics castigated.

So what tentative conclusions can we draw about the theology of Victorian hymn tunes, a subject which calls for much more study? Perhaps, somewhat paradoxically, that despite the overwhelming high-church and Tractarian sympathies of their composers, their overall ethos is essentially liberal. It is expressed in the reassuring, ordered graciousness which runs as a thread through the genre, from the vigorous unsentimentality of Smart and Goss to what William Gatens identifies as the tenderness and understatement of Barnby and Stainer.35 Perhaps the Tractarian quality of reserve played an important part in achieving this effect. There is also an undeniably Evangelistic, if not narrowly evangelical, purpose and feel to these tunes they are there to move hearts and win souls to the gracious, generous God who is slow to chide and swift to bless.

35 William J. Gatens, Victorian Cathedral Music (Cambridge, 1986), p. 170.

Chapter 2

Meet and Right it is to Sing: Nineteenth-Century Hymnals and

the Reasons for SingingMartin V. Clarke

The hymn book occupied an increasingly important place in religious life in nineteenth-century Britain. Many different religious groups issued hymnals during the course of the century, ranging from small-scale local productions to official denominational publications. Often, the production of a hymnal was a key part in establishing a religious identity for a particular group. The many Methodist groups that proliferated during the nineteenth century typically issued a hymnal early in their existence, marking the important role Methodists traditionally attached to hymn singing, while also affirming its particular content as being in accordance with their own beliefs and practices. Denominations such as the General Baptists and Particular Baptists, each with distinct theological traditions, issued their own collections, underlining important links between hymnody and theology. While there was no official hymnal for the Church of England, hymnody did come to occupy a firmer place within the Established Church, as its inclusion in worship was now clearly at the discretion of the incumbent minister.1 As a result, many hymnals were complied and issued by various Anglican clergy and musicians, in what Bryan D. Spinks refers to as a new industry of published hymnals.2 These were often intended to appeal to groups with particular theological, liturgical or musical preferences. Temperley notes:

1 Temperley notes the importance of the case of Holy and Ward against Cotterill in the Province of York in 1820, in which the common use of hymnody was formally recognized, despite its dubious legality: By consent of the parties the question was referred to the archbishop, who undertook to compile a new Selection of Psalms and Hymns for Mr. Cotterills Church. This bizarre action had the important effect of determining that in practice any hymns or psalms could be introduced in a parish church at the discretion of the incumbent (Nicholas Temperley, The Modern English Hymn, in Warren Anderson et al., Hymn. Grove Music Online, , accessed 5 Jan. 2011).

2 Bryan D. Spinks, Anglicans and Dissenters, in Geoffrey Wainwright and Karen B. Westerfield Tucker (eds), The Oxford History of Christian Worship (Oxford, 2006), p. 523.

MusiC ANd THEology iN NiNETEENTH-CENTury BriTAiN22

The early and mid-Victorian periods witnessed an unparalleled amount of activity in the composition, rediscovery, arrangement and publication of hymn texts and tunes. Much of it was frankly commercial, and there was an unedifying stampede to commission hymns and tunes from well-known authors and composers, and to get selections adopted by fashionable churches and recommended by bishops.3

Unsurprisingly, these different collections varied considerably in the repertoire they included and the connections they sought to establish between particular types of hymnody and liturgical practices and theological positions. Compilers and editors typically used a preface to justify their selection and to explain its suitability for use in worship. These prefaces naturally reflected the tastes, values and attitudes of the editor and the tradition of churchmanship they represented. Despite these various differences, which are often very marked and forcefully expressed, there is, of course, a more fundamental commonality, in that the very compilation of these hymnals indicates a widespread acceptance and appreciation of the place of congregational hymnody in Christian worship. This essay explores the prefaces of two nineteenth-century Anglican hymnals, the Evangelical Christian Psalmody (1833) compiled by Edward Bickersteth, and the high-church Hymnal Noted (1851) and an accompanying volume prepared by John Mason Neale and Thomas Helmore. The arguments, emphases and preferences expressed in them will be explained in relation to the traditions they sought to serve, after which consideration will be given to the theological, social and ecclesiological reasons for the more fundamental common advocacy of congregational hymnody that lies behind their divergent liturgical and aesthetic emphases.

The reasons for focusing on just two examples are partly pragmatic, due to the length of the essay, but the choice of these particular hymnals is quite deliberate. Firstly, they were both born out of nineteenth-century Anglicanism and aimed at its adherents. As noted, the nineteenth-century saw a considerable increase in and acceptance of congregational hymnody in the Church of England. As hymnody was a relatively new phenomenon in the denomination, compilers of hymnals were often at great pains to justify its place within worship and therefore give clear insights into their theological understandings of hymnody. By contrast, Methodism and many other Nonconformist denominations had embraced congregational hymnody much earlier, and the prefaces to their nineteenth-century hymnals are often more pragmatic, focusing on the need for alterations and additions rather than presenting theological justifications for hymnody. secondly, the two examples chosen reflect two of the main groupings within nineteenth-century Anglicanism, which had manifestly different theological, ecclesiological and liturgical attitudes and understandings.

3 Ibid.

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To Serve the Present Age: Evangelical Intent in Bickersteths Christian Psalmody (1833)

After its publication in 1833, Christian Psalmody became one of the most popular and influential hymnals for evangelical Anglicans. Compiled by the revd Edward Bickersteth, then Rector of Watten but formerly secretary of the Church Missionary Society, it sold widely over several decades4 and formed the basis of two further collections, Psalms and hymns, based on the Christian psalmody (1858) and the Hymnal companion to the Book of Common Prayer (1870). Bickersteth was a well-known author and compiler of religious works, strongly rooted in evangelicalism. John Wolffe described him as among the most significant and respected leaders in his generation both of the evangelical party in the Church of England and of the wider evangelical movement.5

The preface to Christian Psalmody is lengthy and detailed. In it, Bickersteth justifies the contents of the collection, sets out his objectives in publishing it, explains his editorial procedure and sets out theological and practical principles for hymn singing in Christian worship. He immediately identifies himself firmly as a supporter of contemporary hymnody, observing that the increase of valuable hymns is a refreshing sign of our times, and furnishes a reason for compiling a fresh collection.6 He does, however, acknowledge the importance of hymnody from previous generations and claims that his collection has the advantage of being able to combine old and new: The advantage of having many preceding labourers has, it is hoped, enables this compiler to combine in one volume several of the various improvements in Hymn Books, and to give some of the most generally useful of recent hymns.7 Bickersteths affirmation of contemporary hymnody highlights his willingness to engage with material that reflected the cultural practices of the day. Doreen Rosman argues that evangelicals shared in the tastes and interests of the more cultured of their contemporaries to a far greater extent than is always recognised,8 although their relationship with some cultural pursuits was often strained, hymnody and music were far more easily reconciled to the Evangelical way of life, due to their obvious usefulness in worship:

A knowledge of music was profitable because music was an adjunct of worship and a means of enhancing devotion. Whereas the fashionable associations of

4 Temperley notes that it had sold 248,000 copies by 1867 (Nicholas Temperley, The Music of the English Parish Church (Cambridge, 2006), vol. 1, p. 297).

5 John Wolffe, Bickersteth, Edward (17861850). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, , accessed 5 Jan. 2011.

6 Edward Bickersteth, Christian Psalmody: a collection of above 700 Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs: selected and arranged for public, social, family and private worship (london, 1833), p. iii.

7 Ibid.8 Doreen M. Rosman Evangelicals and Culture (london and Canberra, 1984), p. 43.


many recreations caused evangelicals to dismiss them as essentially worldly, the overriding example of the saints and angels in light enabled them to regard music as peculiarly innocent.9

Evangelicals were often willing to embrace aspects of contemporary culture, with prominent writers and preachers such as Charles Simeon seeking to show that, so long as they were viewed within the greater context of the Christian life, such pursuits need not be avoided. The use of music in worship could therefore allow contemporary preferences to be indulged while keeping them in proper perspective. In a sermon on vanity, Simeon argued that worldly pleasures should be sought in their proper place, and they are comforts in the way to heaven, though they can never stand to us in the place of heaven.10

However, the evangelical concern for purity of thought is also evident, as Bickersteth describes the awful responsibility of seeking to direct the devotion of the Church of Christ, in some of the highest and sweetest acts of fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ, and the danger of sentiments in any hymns that might leave an unscriptural impression on the mind.11 This keenly felt responsibility provides a clear example of the frequent attempts to impress upon Evangelicals the need to focus on personal holiness and to avoid worldly distractions. As Rosman notes, the danger, preachers reiterated, lay in a worldly spirit, that was in vanity, pride, self-indulgence, in the assumption that one was basically acceptable in the sight of God.12

Bickersteths statement also highlights the concern for scriptural integrity, both on the part of the individual Christian using the book and its contents. later on, as he lists his objectives in compiling the book, he emphasizes this aspect once again: To bring both Psalms and Hymns under one arrangement, so as to preserve the unity of the whole book, and yet intersperse the fuller light of the New Testament, with the rich experiences of the Sweet Psalmist of Israel.13 Further on in the list of objectives, the influence of his Evangelical background can be clearly discerned, as he seeks to underline the scriptural roots of each hymn: To prefix a text of scripture, embodying the leading idea of the hymn, that might direct the reader to the clearer and fuller light of the word of God, (the only infallible truth and sure warrant of faith,) and also might assist ministers in appointing hymns adapted to their discourses.14

such statements were clearly designed to resonate with the Evangelical wing of the Church of England, for whom the centrality of the Bible in worship and

9 ibid., pp. 1356.10 Charles Simeon, Horae Homileticae (london, 18312), vol. 7, no. dcccxxvii;

quoted in Rosman, Evangelicals and Culture, p. 567.11 Bickersteth, Christian Psalmody, p. iii.12 Rosman, Evangelicals and Culture, p. 61.13 Bickersteth, Christian Psalmody, p. iii.14 Ibid.

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Christian living was of paramount importance. As g.M. ditchfield notes, the Bible stood at the centre of evangelical prayers, preaching and hymns. It was the essential text for theological disputes among themselves and with the non-evangelical critics.15 Bickersteths insistence on the primacy of the Bible indicates that this is the supreme standard by which the contents of the book have been judged. This was a crucial element in the book being regarded as a valid expression of Evangelical theology, as illustrated by roger Martins comment:

The primacy of the Biblical word in evangelical theology was paramount: Here was the oracle of religious truth. The Bible, moreover, was not only the medium of a past revelation of the Divine Will, but it was also the medium through which the Holy Spirit continued to awaken and regenerate sinners.16

The preface makes its Evangelical credentials explicit both in terms of its content and purpose. The latter is expressed in Bickersteths first objective for the collection, where he explains that the choice of hymns was calculated to promote evangelical and devotional feelings.17 The former is highlighted later, as he explains his editorial method: Alterations in the hymns were occasionally necessary either to correct an unscriptural or a harsh expression. Many have been made that an impression not according to the general bearing of evangelical truth might not be left on the mind.18 This justification for the alterations contains an implicit criticism of the original versions of the altered hymns and is perhaps the clearest indication that this collection was compiled with a distinct theological position in mind.

While the first section gives the clearest evidence of Bickersteths Evangelicalism, the second section, titled remarks on the duty, Privilege, and Practice of Singing, is the most interesting in terms of evaluating his understanding of hymnody. For Bickersteth, the duty of singing stems from scripture. He refers to many texts, drawn from both the Old and New Testaments, to emphasize that it is something required as part of Christian worship. As well as commenting on why the Christian worshipper ought to participate in singing, he highlights a particular benefit that may be derived from it, claiming that many blessings are connected with it.19 The remarks on the Privilege of Singing expand upon this observation and identify hymnodys importance as a conveyor of theology: It tends to store the memory with the previous truths of Gods word, and thus assists in maintaining spirituality of mind and constant communion with our God.20 Hymnody is

15 g.M. ditchfield, The Evangelical Revival (london, 1998), p. 26.16 Roger H. Martin, Evangelicals United: Ecumenical Stirrings in Pre-Victorian

Britain, 17951830 (Metuchen, NJ, and london, 1983), p. 82.17 Bickersteth, Christian Psalmody, p. iii.18 Ibid., p. iv.19 Ibid., p. v.20 Ibid.


therefore seen as having pedagogical value in assisting the recall of aspects of theology and doctrine, which is reinforced further as he notes: It greatly helps the poor to acquire the knowledge of the things of Christ,21 as well as being spiritually edifying. In this regard, hymnodys capacity to control and direct thoughts is clearly uppermost in Bickersteths mind, as he explains that it furnishes constant subjects of devout meditation. The heart is prepared for and supported under trials, and many a vital and precious truth is received and expressed in a hymn, which the unhealthy moral atmosphere of the world would otherwise quench and suppress.22 Here, there is also an indication of

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