Unison hymn tune in Britain, 1861-1939

Unison hymn tune in Britain, 1861-1939. 1. Victorian hymn tunes in the late 19th Century.  One of the principal features that a student of 19th-century and early 20th-century music has learned about the hymnody of this period in Britain is its transformation from a legacy of the Old Version* and the New Version*. John Stainer* noted that the OV and NV tunes that were still in use at St Paul’s Cathedral in the late 1840s were ‘groaned through’ with commensurate reluctance by choir and congregation. They were transformed by an art form in which music’s post-Tractarian role was to reflect the passing phases of the church calendar, a much wider society, and a rebirth, thanks largely to the...

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