Tune names

The custom of giving tunes names that have no connection with the hymn text is peculiar to the English-speaking world. In France and Germany, for instance, psalm or hymn tunes have been known by the text for which they were written, such as PSEAUME 134 or EIN’ FESTE BURG. The same system had some currency in Britain, and survives in such names as OLD HUNDREDTH*, or in the case of revived or translated hymns such as VENI EMMANUEL. However, the English and Scottish metrical psalters never provided a distinct tune for each of the 150 psalms. In the Old Version*, psalms without tunes often carried an instruction such as ‘Sing this as the 18. psalm’. When four-line Common Metre tunes became...