Category search results
Bibliotheca Hymnologica is the title of a bookseller's catalogue of the above date. The bookseller was Charles Higham (1845-1920), who had a shop in Farringdon Street, London, specializing in theological literature. During the late 1880s he acquired, mainly through a series of deaths of hymnbook collectors, a vast collection of hymnals and related books, which he offered for sale ('the whole now on sale, FOR CASH'). The accumulated contents of the catalogue were described on its title page as...
As the oldest Methodist seminary in the United States (founded in 1839), Boston University School of Theology has always cultivated an appreciation of hymnody, but the current specialized hymnological collections did not have their genesis until the early 20th century. They began with the donation of the hymnological library of the prominent hymnologist Charles S. Nutter*, about the same time (1913) that he became a lecturer in Hymnology and Church Music at this institution. To this was...
The Dictionary of North American Hymnology (DNAH) was conceived in the early 1950s by the Hymn Society of America (in 1991 renamed Hymn Society in the United States and Canada*, HSUSC) and Henry Wilder Foote (II)* (1875-1964) as an American version of John Julian*'s Dictionary of Hymnology (1892, 1907). Originally titled the Dictionary of American Hymnology, its primary goal soon focused on indexing every hymnal published in the Americas. In 1952, the editorship fell to Leonard W. Ellinwood*...
The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition was established by the Divinity School at Duke University in 1979, under the direction of Frank Baker*. It is dedicated to four intertwined tasks:
staffing, supervising and enriching curricular and extracurricular offerings in Methodist and Wesleyan Studies at the Divinity School;
providing educational outreach programs to United Methodist constituencies and beyond;
developing research resources for students and scholars of the broad Wesleyan...
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....
The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada (HSUSC) is comprised of poets, composers, publishers, teachers and scholars, institutional and public libraries, church musicians, clergy, and laypersons, and is uniquely devoted to encourage, promote, and enliven congregational song. Throughout its history of more than a century, The Hymn Society has worked steadily and creatively to promote congregational singing, encourage the creation of new and excellent texts and tunes, and support...
The Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland was founded in 1936 by a group of enthusiasts brought together on the initiative of Dr J.R. Fleming with the aim of 'encouraging and promoting among interested people intelligent and systematic study of the rich resources of the Church's praise'. Membership was open to 'scholars who had already done published work in the field of hymnody' and also to 'ordinary members' with an interest in the subject. From the start a principal task was to up-date...
The Hymn Tune Index (HTI) project began in the 1970s at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, Illinois (UIUC). It arose out of research towards Nicholas Temperley*'s 1979 book, The Music of the English Parish Church (Cambridge, UK). He had been surprised to find how difficult it was to determine the origins and history of particular hymn tunes. Whenever a hymnal companion was being prepared, the editor had to carry out research in primary sources for each tune, and, even then,...
There are more than 300 hymnal collections in the United States ranging from personal collections, those held by independent institutions such as museums, historical associations, or public libraries, and collections owned by academic institutions. While nearly every collection includes items from a number of traditions, some have unique holdings.
The largest hymnal collection in the United States is that held by The Pitts Theological Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, with...
Hymnary.org
Hymnary.org is an online hymn and worship music database for worship leaders, hymnologists, and amateur hymn lovers. The site allows users to search or browse hymns by title, tune, meter, key, scripture reference, as well as advanced specialized queries.
In partnership with The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada* Hymnary.org houses the Dictionary of North American Hymnology*, adding over one million first lines of hymns, collected and organized by Leonard W. Ellinwood*...
The study of hymns has been approached in many ways in the USA. The initial development of hymnology as a field of study with rigorous standards took place in the second half of the 19th century as the scientific method of inquiry was incorporated into university education. This application of these standards and of increasingly exacting means of studying textual, musical, and historical aspects of the literature can be traced through extant publications. Influential books constitute the...
Hymnology Archive (https://www.hymnologyarchive.com/).
Hymnology Archive is an encyclopedic website for the study of hymns, spirituals, and carols, founded in April 2018 and edited by Chris Fenner*, Digital Archivist at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary* (SBTS), Louisville, KY. The site generally features histories for individual hymns and bio-bibliography pages for authors and composers. Additional pages include indexes (authors/composers, texts, tunes, Scriptures, and church year)...
Hymntune Index and Related Hymn Materials is a three-volume compilation by D. DeWitt Wasson*, published in 1998, and on CD-ROM in 2001 (Studies in Liturgical Musicology, no. 6, Michael Fry, technical advisor of the CR-ROM version, by Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland). Most of the tunes indexed were first published after 1810, so that there is relatively little overlap with Nicholas Temperley*'s Hymn Tune Index*.
Volume I includes a Foreword by Robin A. Leaver*, and a Compiler's Preface...
The Kathryn Sullivan Bowld Music Library, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas, USA was completed in 1992. It has provided valuable research materials for faculty, students and visiting patrons. Acknowledged as one of the largest music libraries on a seminary campus, it houses almost 16,000 recordings in various formats, approximately 40,000 books, and over 230,000 scores. These materials are used to meet the needs of students studying church music, but contain resources...
Luther Seminary in St Paul, Minnesota began with a cluster of Norwegian schools which became part of the American Lutheran Church (ALC): Augsburg Seminary, Augustana Seminary, Luther Seminary, Red Wing Seminary, and the United Church Seminary. The earliest of these was founded in 1869. In 1917 Luther Seminary was created from the former Luther Seminary, Red Wing Seminary, and the United Church Seminary. Augsburg Seminary joined it in 1963. In 1967 Northwestern Seminary moved next to Luther...
Preaching and hymns
From the earliest years of the Christian movement, the followers of Jesus have included in their worship the celebration of the Eucharist, prayers of praise and intercession as well as the singing of hymns and some form of preaching (e.g., 1 Corinthians 14: 1-19; Ephesians 5: 18-20; Colossians 3: 16-17). These activities, or better 'practices,' have thus been central to Christian liturgies in almost all traditions since groups of disciples began to form what we now call...
In 1834 anti-abolitionist riots ripped into New York City. In 1837 the Old School and New School Presbyterians split. In 1836, between those uproars, the New School founded Union Seminary, with two unusual moves: 1) an ecumenical commitment, and 2) in New York rather than in a smaller, more remote place.
The Board made another unusual move. On 12 April 1837, Abner Jones [fl. 1830-60] (this is not the 'Elder' Abner Jones [1772-1841] who organized 'Christian' churches) offered to raise $25,000...
Sign language is a visual form of communication developed by and for Deaf people world-wide. (A general history of signing is included in Costello, 2009). Signed languages, which differ from region to region in the same way that spoken languages differ, consist of formal, standardized lexicons containing hand shapes, movements of hands, arms, and body and facial expression to convey meaning. A skilled interpreter takes words or phrases in the source language, in this case the written or spoken...
Sing God's Glory (2001).
This is the title of a new and enlarged edition of Sing His Glory (1997), sub-titled 'Hymns for Sundays and Holy Days, Years A, B & C', published in Britain by the Canterbury Press, Norwich. The new title recognises the claims of the feminist movement in Britain, and the sub-title is an accurate description of the contents. The Revised Common Lectionary was authorised for use in the Church of England from Advent 1997, and this compilation is described as 'one...
Our earliest sources of information about medieval hymns are the 6th-century monastic rules of St Benedict*, Caesarius of Arles, and Aurelian of Arles. These mention, in more or less detail, hymns sung within the Divine Office. Indirect references to hymns continue to be an important source of information throughout the middle ages. Examples include the Ordines romani (descriptions of Roman liturgical practice), and grammatical treatises, from Augustine*'s De musica through Bede*'s De arte...
In 1944 Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky (founded in 1859) instituted a program leading to a degree in church music. President Ellis A. Fuller (1891-1950) was officially head of the program, but it was guided by Donald E. Winters (1910-1989) and Frances Weaver Winters (1908-1993), who included hymnology in its curriculum. In a reorganization of the seminary in 1953, a School of Church Music was established. Its name was changed in 1998 to School of Church Music and...
Strengthen for Service. 100 Years of the English Hymnal, 1906-2006.
The English Hymnal was a landmark in Anglican worship. Looking back after 100 years provided an opportunity for a measured appraisal, both of its creation and of its effect on Church of England worship of the 20th century. Just as The First Fifty Years (1956) was a retrospective view of the book, with some remarkable reminiscences by Ralph Vaughan Williams*, the centenary was the justification for a more ambitious collection of...
Teaching hymnody: a survey
Human beings are born with the 'propensity to make and listen to music that was encoded into the human genome during the evolutionary history of our species' (Mithen, 2006, p. 1). Mark J. Tramo's (1956-) studies on the nature of brain functioning show 'all of us are born with the capacity to apprehend emotion and meaning in music' (Tramo 2001, pp. 54-56). Research by Barbara S. Kisilevsky, et al., indicates that by the final trimester of pregnancy, fetuses are...
Text and tune
'Music . . . the exaltation of poetry. Both of them may excel apart, but sure they are most excellent when they are joyn'd' (Henry Purcell).
The primary hallmark of excellence in vocal music, whether sacred or secular, is the depth of poetic unity between words and music. Arguably, it is the quality of the relationship between tune and text that is likely to be the most effective in quickening the emotions of both performer and listener and, in the case of sacred vocal...
This essay examines four ways the Internet has influenced the study, accessibility, proliferation and practice of congregational song: the digitization of materials in the public domain, the born-digital and twinned digital combined with print materials, making digital objects findable and visible, and the emerging pedagogies.
The main focus of this entry is on those resources that offer the full text or image of a hymn. Serious scholars should devote attention to The Hymn Tune Index*. See...
Church Music Seminar
Organized in 1944 under the slogan 'the musical heritage of the church', the main objective of the Valparaiso University Church Music Seminar was 'to propagate a type of music that would have as its basis Christian faith and spiritual life' (brochure copy). Professor Theodore Hoelty-Nickel (1894–1986) founded the Seminar and directed it for over twenty-five years.
The Church Music Seminar brought together organists, conductors, singers, pastors, and interested lay people...