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The practice of using the letters of the alphabet to begin successive lines or stanzas of a verse composition is found already in the Hebrew Old Testament. Quite a few Psalms (9-10, 25, 34, 37, 111, 112, and 145) are composed using an alphabetical format. Psalm 119 is the longest (176 verses) and most elaborate of these, with each letter of the alphabet used to begin eight verses in succession. A section of Proverbs (31:10-31), the opening verses of Nahum, and the first four chapters of...
While organized efforts to end slavery began in the Anglo-American world early in the 18th century, the abolitionist movement generally refers to the specific fight against slavery that started in the United States around 1830. This movement grew out of many economic, political and cultural changes, including the political struggles over new states and their status as slave or free, the general indifference of the churches to slavery, and the increased economic growth of the 1820s. With the...
See 'Byzantine hymnody#Akathistos'*
The word 'Alleluia' originates from the Hebrew 'Hallel', or praise, followed by 'Yah' or 'Jah' for YHWH, an ascription of monotheistic praise, as in the opening and closing phrases of Psalm 104. The 'Hallel psalms', sung at Passover and other feasts, were Psalms 113 to 118; the 'Great Hallel' was Psalm 136. The word is found in Greek as 'Allelouia' in several verses of Revelation 19. It was used in the early church, and there are records of its being shouted or sung from the third century...
Alternation in the Latin liturgical hymn is intrinsic to the genre. Processional hymns frequently take a responsorial form: the refrain is announced by the cantor (or rulers of the choir), and is repeated immediately and after each stanza by the whole choir. No doubt this was originally a popular hymnic form, but many such hymns are adaptations to the responsorial form for processional purposes: a good example is 'Gloria, laus et honor'*, for Palm Sunday, still familiar in the translation 'All...
Antiphons are short chants with prose texts and generally simple melodies. They were sung by a soloist or the choir before and after the psalms of the medieval daily Office, which were sung by the ecclesiastical community. The medieval repertoire of antiphons is huge; most medieval Antiphoners contain in the region of 1500. The choral portions of the Introit chants of the Mass are also known as antiphons, and they alternate with a solo psalm verse (antiphon-psalm verse-antiphon).
Psalms can be...
Camp Meeting Hymns and Songs, USA
Since the publication of George Pullen Jackson*'s groundbreaking and provocative White Spirituals from the Southern Uplands (Chapel Hill, 1933), a considerable body of hymnological and musicological literature has accumulated on the folk hymnody of early America. In much of that secondary literature it is presupposed that a key component of this hymnic corpus is the camp-meeting 'chorus'. This sub-genre is typically constructed from wandering rhyme pairs or the...
Cantiga is Spanish for 'song', and there is a large tradition of secular lyric cantigas from the Iberian peninsula, most of which survive without music. The Cantigas de Santa Maria, the 'songs for the Blessed Virgin Mary', however, are approximately 450 religious songs with melodies, in Portuguese-Galician. The collection was created ca. 1270-90 under the supervision of King Alfonso X el Sabio (the wise, or learned) of Castile and León (1221-1284; ascended to the throne in 1252). It is...
Cantio is a Latin term simply meaning 'song' which has been applied to many repertoires, but which usually refers to sacred but non-liturgical Latin song traditions of the 14th-16th century (Schlager 1972, 286). Stevens uses this term for the Notre Dame conductus* in order to differentiate it from the type of conductus found in northern French Christmas-time liturgies. Cantiones are similar to hymns: both are strophic settings of devotional Latin poetry. However, cantiones often include a...
British Children's Hymnody
It became apparent from the very earliest days of hymnody that children needed their own hymns. This overview will show how educational, musical and cultural changes are reflected in the many collections of hymns written specifically for children. The challenge presented to writers of children's hymns has always been how to engage the young mind with thought-provoking material but present it in an attractive and accessible manner. Some of the earliest hymn texts...
Singing is a natural activity for children, and one of the most certain ways of passing on doctrine and history of faith is through hymn singing. Because of its ability to draw people into community while teaching doctrine, singing hymns strengthens the fostering of religious values. There is evidence that the teaching of hymnody happened with boys in monasteries as early as the fifth century, and after 1200 there is evidence of girls taking part in monastic liturgical singing. Though we may...
In modern German 'choral' is the term used for a hymn tune, either the melody or its simple setting, in contradistinction to 'Kirchenlied' which is commonly used for both hymn text and its associated tune. In modern English usage 'chorale' can be used to denote a German hymn, both text and tune, though it is more frequently used for the tune alone, and commonly associated with simple harmonizations of German hymn tunes, such as 'Bach chorales', or 'four-part chorales'.
In the 16th century two...
Christian popular music, USA
Introduction and antecedents
Christian popular music (hereafter CPM) is an umbrella category for a sonically diverse repertoire of late 20th- and early 21st-century evangelical Protestant commercial popular music. It encompasses several distinct subcategories based on musical genre, industrial context, or function, including, but not limited to, Jesus Music, Contemporary Christian Music (CCM), Praise & Worship music, and Christian rock. CPM is characterized by...
Two quite separate repertoires are identified as conductus in the Middle Ages. The first consists of para-liturgical monophonic Latin songs, sung on important liturgical feasts, and clustered around the Christmas season. This repertoire played an important role in the 13th-century feast of the Circumcision at the northern French cathedrals of Laon, Sens and Beauvais, including the famous conductus 'Orientis partibus' with its French refrain 'Hez sir asne, hez!'. Conductus were particularly...
Hymns which have references to the countryside have existed since the days of the early church and continue to be an essential part of worship. The psalms, for example, contain references to the grass which grows and dies (Psalm 90), to the flowers which bloom and fade (Psalm 103), to the beasts of the field (Psalm 8) and to the harvest (Psalm 65). These references, and others to the hills, the sea, the clouds and the sky, suggest that there was a consciousness of the natural world even before...
Greater Doxology
In Luke 2:14, the angels welcomed the birth of Jesus with a hymn, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men'. This was the starting point for one of the oldest Greek hymns, 'Doxa en ipsistis theo'. This morning hymn of praise to the Trinity appears as the last of 14 Odes at the end of the Psalms in the Alexandrine Codex, copied in 5th-century Egypt (London, BL Royal I.D.VII), as well as in various other 5th- and 6th-century sources, mostly...
The carol is in origin a secular round dance with singing, and the English carol is closely connected to the French carole, which flourished from the mid-12th to the mid-14th century. The stanzas, during which, as the word (from Italian stanze) indicates, all stood still, were sung by a solo voice, and all joined in the 'burden' during which the circle dance took place (on the connections between the carol and the goliard, see Goliards*).
The most accessible resources for those interested in...
The word 'environment' can be understood in very many different ways. In its most general sense it can mean all that surrounds us, particularly the natural world with its trees, mountains, plains and seas. Of course the idea of 'environment' can equally be applied to urban surroundings, to our homes and indeed to the universe as a whole. Throughout the history of hymn writing, hymn writers have responded to the many facets of the term. In recent times, human beings have become more conscious...
Throughout Christian history, the language and imagery of worship has been overwhelmingly male. Congregations have sung of themselves as 'men' and 'brothers'; apart from Mary the mother of Jesus, references to biblical characters have focused on males; and God has been addressed in terms that emphasise masculinity. For much of this time, the creators and leaders of liturgy have been almost exclusively men.
With the rise of 'second wave' feminism in the 1970s, there was a specific move towards...
Matthäus Apelles von Löwenstern
The Reformation and its Impact (1517-1618)
Of the pre-Reformation writers, the one whose work is still used is John Tauler*, one of whose hymns was paraphrased with a first line 'As the bridegroom to his chosen'*. This version by Emma Frances Bevan* was published in her Hymns of Tersteegen, Suso and Others (1894). It was printed in School Worship (1926), but was little known until it was selected for 100HfT (1969) with a new tune (BRIDEGROOM, by Peter Cutts*). It...
Goliards, goliardic
The term 'goliard' may first have arisen in connexion with Abelard*, though what we identify as the 'goliardic' tradition is some centuries older. An alternative, equally unsatisfactory, epithet is 'wandering scholars', a translation of vagantes, depicting the clerics whose journeys between ecclesiastical establishments in Europe were responsible for the transmission of Latin verse of various types such as love-songs, hymns and carols, polemical or trivial lyrics, planctus*...
HARP (as a title). As early as 1795, hymn collections with Harp or Harfe in the title were published in the USA, without music, and thereafter, a number of tunebooks were published with 'Harp' in the title.
The most widely-known Harp, as a collection of hymns, is The Sacred Harp*, by B. F. White* and Elisha J. King*. This usage of Harp probably started in connection with the Psalms of David, as in Dauids harpe ful of moost delectable armony, newely stringed and set in tune, by Theadore...
History of Hymns.
This is the name of a weekly print which became digital, a column containing commentary on hymns, hymn writers, composers, and hymn traditions and singing practices. The original 400-word weekly columns titled 'History of hymns', were written by Baptist hymnologist William J. Reynolds* and appeared in The Nashville Banner (Nashville, Tennessee) from 1979 until the closing of that newspaper in 1998, and were continued in The United Methodist Reporter from 1998 to 2003. David W....
Index to Anglo-American Psalmody
The Index to Anglo-American Psalmody in Modern Critical Edition was compiled by Karl Kroeger* and his wife Marie. It covers 2087 tunes, categorized by type (plain tune, extended tune, Fuging tune*, anthem, Set-piece*, canon), meter, composer, first line of text, modern collections in which the tune is found, and sources of texts. The Index is published as Recent Researches in American Music, volume 40 (Middleton, Wisconsin: A-R Editions, 2000).
CLARK...
Introduction: Hebrew hymns and the problem of English nomenclature
In discussions of Hebrew liturgy, the designation hymn poses a linguistic challenge. Neither the English term—especially in its modern Western connotations—nor its classical root has a precise or exclusive equivalent in Hebrew. Struggling to provide translations, modern Hebrew dictionaries give a series of generically loose Hebrew counterparts, none of which adequately captures the nature of the specific Hebrew liturgical forms...
See 'Byzantine hymnody#Kanon'*
See 'Byzantine hymnody#Kontakion'*
Kyrie eleison. 'Kyrie eleison' has been a supplication since pre-Christian times, particularly in the imperial cultus, in which the emperor was referred to as kyrios. This Greek text, which translates as 'Lord have mercy' is used, in Greek, in many churches beyond the Greek-speaking world, including the Coptic*, Ethiopian*, West Syrian* and Roman Catholic churches. It is translated into the vernacular in the Armenian*, Romanian* and Nestorian Syrian churches, as well as in many protestant...
Latin American hymnody
A new Christian hymnology has risen in Latin America and in many communities in the US, among Roman Catholics and Protestants alike. It has roots in Latin folk and popular music, and most of the time reflects the social realities of the southern continent, owing much to the secular movement called the 'newsong.' This new song is rooted in Latin folk and popular music of the 20th century which express the people's happiness (Raquel Gutiérrez-Achón*, in González, 1996,...
Latin hymns
The entry on 'Latin Hymnody' in JJ notes at the outset that 'a complete history of Latin Hymnody has never been written. It would occupy a considerable volume' (p. 640). Since that time much work has been done on the subject, beginning with James Mearns*'s Early Latin Hymnaries (Cambridge, 1913). Mearns deserves more than a passing note, for he was John Julian's ever-reliable and extremely learned assistant, responsible for many of the Latin entries in the Dictionary of Hymnology,...
'Leise' is the name of a devotional song type, supposedly so-called in reference to the words 'Kyrie eleison', which appear as a refrain. The majority are in German, although some can also be found in other languages. Through their use of the vernacular, Leisen reflect a pre-reformation tendency observable in many European countries to create religious lyrics with broader accessibility than the standard Latin. Leisen associated with major church feasts were very popular throughout the Middle...
The nature of the 'Liturgical drama' is much misunderstood. As Richard Axton showed (1974) the notion that secular drama derived from that of the church is the reverse of the truth. The idea of semi-dramatic presentations of parts of the liturgy seems to derive from the secular stage influencing the 'Quem queritis' Easter dialogue in the early 10th century. This dialogue initiated more florid episodes, especially at the Christmas season; eventually the dramatic (and sometime comical)...
Mission hymnody, USA
Beginnings
The beginnings of American churches' missions can be traced to the efforts of John Eliot (1604-1690) to gather 'Praying Indians' into towns for worship, preaching, language instruction and Bible study; the churches and day schools established by John Sargent (1710-1749) in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and Eleazar Wheelock (1711-1779) in Connecticut; and the organization of the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge among 'Indians' in North America in...
[Note: The terms most commonly used for North American aboriginal peoples are 'Native Americans' in the USA and 'First Nations' in Canada. Anthropologists and ethnologists tend to prefer language group designations, which often are not necessarily appropriately designated by national borders][1]
In North American hymnody there is no Christian tradition or denominational heritage that embodies the volume of productivity of hymns and hymnbooks that exists in Native American languages. The...
This is the name given to the chants for the liturgy composed during the 17th and 18th centuries in France, influenced by a desire in France to be more independent of Rome, and more clearly national. The supporters of the new liturgical movement advocated regularity in the metres of their Latin hymns, which could be sung to modern settings of plainchant, often with ornaments, to an organ accompaniment. In hymn texts the most important examples of the movement were the hymns of Charles Coffin*...
Because it is natural for human beings to use poetry at times of great emotion, it is not surprising that there are places in the New Testament (as in the Old Testament) in which people break forth into song. Probably the most famous examples occur in the first and second chapters of the Gospel of Luke. Following the Annunciation, Mary sings the Magnificat* (Luke 1: 46-55), with its message of God's recognition of those that are humble and meek; Zacharias is filled with the Holy Spirit at the...
This is the name given to hymns used in the recitation of the Divine Office, or the modern Liturgy of the Hours observed by cloistered communities. Prior to the Second Vatican Council, Office hymns were typically collected either in a separate volume — a combined hymnary and psalter, which would contain all of the hymns and psalms used in the Office — or in the breviary itself, in a special section either at the rear of the volume or in a dividing section between the Temporale and Sanctorale....
This is a term applied, for example in Analecta Hymnica, to medieval Latin hymns intended for private devotion rather than liturgical or para-liturgical use. Such hymns are sometimes called 'rhythmi', a term applied frequently and broadly in the Middle Ages to any kind of rhymed text; but this term is perhaps better reserved for rhythmically-structured hymns.
Different kinds of Pia dictamina include: 'Psalters' with 150 strophes, concerning Christ, Mary, or each psalm in turn; 'Rosaries' with...
Planctus (in print, the word is the same in the singular as in the plural) gives us, through French, the English word '(com)plaint'. The sources of planctus have been brought together by Janthea Yearly (1981). On the face of it, there seem to be various styles and categories: formal laments for monarchs — Charlemagne, William the Conqueror (both of these are in Latin, and their prosody betrays connections with the 'Goliards'*), Richard the Lionheart (in Occitan) or for other famous people...
The hymn was one of the most frequently set liturgical genres of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. It fits well into the style preferences of the period in its use of a version of the chant melody ordinarily associated with the text as the basis for the composition of one of the voices. Its brevity, four to six phrases corresponding to the lines of one stanza, allowed for ready production of a number of settings needed to provide for a polyphonic setting for Vespers* of every important...
In the Roman rite, these were cycles of chants composed for the celebration of the Divine Office on the feast days of saints in the Middle Ages. They typically comprise the following items: the Magnificat* antiphon* of First Vespers* (sometimes one or more antiphons for the Vesper psalms); the invitatory antiphon and the antiphons and responsories of the Nocturns of the Night Office (Vigils, or Matins); the antiphons for the psalms and Benedictus of Lauds; and the Magnificat antiphon of Second...
Sequence is a Latin medieval chant sung after the Alleluia* of the Mass on feast days and, like the Alleluia, not usually sung in Lent. The Latin term 'sequentia' appears to derive from the function of the chant as one which 'follows' the Alleluia, after the pattern: (i) Alleluia incipit, (ii) Alleluia jubilus, (iii) Verse, (iv) Alleluia incipit, (v) Sequence. But it is not certain if this was the original or authentic order of performance, or if it was universally practised.
Sequences are...
Singers Glen, Virginia, is a hamlet in the Shenandoah Valley about eight miles north-northwest of Harrisonburg. It was originally named Mountain Valley by its German-speaking Mennonite settler, Joseph Funk*, who is buried in Singers Glen. It was renamed Singers Glen in 1860 when a post office was established there, and after Funk's music business had become successful.
Its significance is twofold: (1) it was the original base of the music-publishing business (known variously as Joseph Funk...
Social Gospel Hymnody, USA
The 'Social Gospel' is a North American Christian movement, with roots in the Third Great Awakening (See Great Awakenings, USA*), which flourished from about 1890 to 1940, most prominently in the early 1900s. The main idea of the movement was application of Christian principles to bring about the transformation of society. At the end of the 19th century, mainline Protestant theology viewed individuals as fallen and in need of redemption; the Social Gospel extended...
The anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa captured the attention of the world during the 1980s. News reports from CNN often included singing black South Africans and their supporters singing songs of freedom. These songs were disseminated to the Western world in the mid-1980s largely through the work of Anders Nyberg* (1955- ) under the sponsorship of the Church of Sweden Mission (Lutheran). Nyberg took choirs to South Africa who, in turn, learned songs from South African choirs. Many of...
General
Southern Gospel is one of the multiple vernacular Christian music traditions that developed within American (and to some extent British) Protestant cultures during the 19th and 20th centuries, and part of the gospel music phenomenon that has flourished in Anglophone Christendom since the 1870s. It is also part of the Christian, but especially Protestant, practice of recreational musicking with vernacular songs and hymns.
'Southern Gospel' refers to a music tradition that dates arguably...
Sunday schools were founded in the UK and the USA in the late 18th century to teach reading, and the Bible to children, and others who worked six days a week. The American version of the Sunday school had a significant impact on many aspects of American society, not the least the school's distinctive song, which was an important laboratory for public and church music education, a leading participant in the dynamic growth, visibility and popularity of music during the century of expansion, and...
Te Deum Marianum
During the later Middle Ages an increasing devotion to the Virgin Mary inspired the composition of many Marian chants. Among them were paraphrases of the 'Te Deum'* which turned it into a song of praise for the Blessed Virgin. These paraphrases, opening with words like 'Te matrem Dei laudamus' or 'Te celi reginam laudamus', can be traced back to the late 12th century and from then on enjoyed a growing popularity.
Several texts exist, their differences being so large that they...
Temperance is one of the four cardinal virtues, and it is recorded as one of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5: 23). St Paul preached to Felix about temperance (Acts 24: 25) and the Second Epistle General of Peter includes temperance as part of the divine nature to which Christians are to aspire (2 Peter 1: 6). It was assimilated into the Christian order of moral thought from the 'nothing too much' of Greek philosophy, and it has remained an important constituent of the Christian life,...
See 'Byzantine hymnody#Troparion'*
The word 'Ultreia' has the meaning of 'onward', or 'keep going', and is used as an encouragement to pilgrims on the way to the shrine of St James at Santiago de Compostella in north-west Spain. This was part of a Europe-wide movement of devotion and travel to shrines of importance (see 'In Gottes Namen fahren wir'*). Ultreia has given its name to a pilgrim hymn. In Pedro Echevarria Bravo's Cancionero de los Peregrinos de Santiago (1967), chapter 1 is entitled 'El Canto de “Ultreia”', with a...
This entry is in two parts, the first by Sally Harper, the second by Alan Luff.
Welsh carols before 1700
There is little evidence to confirm that Wales had its own vernacular counterpart to the regular strophic structure and repeated burden of the English medieval carol (See 'English carols'*), although two carol-like texts recorded retrospectively from oral tradition in the 1950s in rural Cardiganshire may indeed be medieval survivals. Both are couched in rhymed accentual verse with a burden...