Recent Hymnal and Musical Adaptations of George Herbert

Recent Hymnal and Musical Adaptations of George Herbert by Paulette S. GoIl George Herbert's The Temple continues to serve as a sourcebook for hymnbook compilers and contemporary composers.1 Readers may be familiar with adaptations of Herbert's lyrics in Select Hymns Taken Out of Mr. Herbert's Temple (1697),2 Samuel Bury's Collection of Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1707), the Charleston Hymnal (1737), the first of John Wesley's twenty-three hymnals, which has the distinction of being America's first hymnal,3 and W. Sandy's Christmas Carols (1833), but may be less acquainted with The English Hymnal (1906 and 1933), Our Hymnody (1937), Songs with Praise with Music (1959), The Hymnal 1982, A New Hymnal for Colleges and Schools (1992), and Hymnal III (2000), which also contain reworkings of Herbert. While early adapters such as John Jenkins, John Playford and his son, Henry, John Blow, and Henry Purcell are generally well known,4 less known are some twentieth- and twenty-first century composers (C. Hubert H. Parry, Martin F. Shaw, Austin C. Lovelace, John Sanders, Alfred V. Fedak, and Roy Hopp) who, like their predecessors, have drawn inspiration for their musical compositions from Herbert's lyrics and composed and published settings for them. Although nearly four hundred years have passed since Herbert set his own lyrics to music, believed to have been destroyed with the burning of Highnam EIouse during the Civil War,5 the impact of The Temple on musicians still reverberates. In this essay I will trace this impact by surveying some of the recent hymnal and musical adaptations of Herbert's lyrics, focusing particularly on those that have not been noted by Herbert scholars. Church music of the Elizabethan period can be divided into two types, parish music and cathedral music. Parish music was frequently characterized by "lining out," where the minister or clerk would read aloud each line of text before it was sung by the congregation to a familiar tune. Cathedral music, on the other hand, was characterized by chanting, polyphonic settings, and "faburden," a fifteenth-century improvisational technique. Faburden, also called "fauxbourdon," is a treble descant imposed upon a hymn melody. Only two of the three parts were notated: the plainchant melody together with the lowest Hymnal and Musical Adaptations of Herbert 95 voice, usually a sixth below (as E below middle C) but occasionally an octave below (as C below middle C). The English faburden differs from the French fauxbourdon. In the English style, the melody is in the middle or lower voice, while in the French style, the outer voices form parallel sixths and the added middle voice is a fourth below the plainchant.6 In "Easter," Herbert, an accomplished lutist, makes reference to the faburden technique of weaving the common triad upon which all harmony is based: heart and lute "Consort . . . and twist a song / Pleasant and long" and ultimately join with Christ, "since all music is but three parts vied / And multiplied" (H. 13-16). Partbooks, like those for John Jenkins' melodies for six of Herbert's lyrics in the Library of Christ Church, Oxford (MSS 736-38), were used by the choir. Instrumental music of the period was played on organs, cornets, and sackbutts (medieval trombones). Of the 400,000 hymns in common use by the end of the nineteenth century, the compilers of Songs of Praise with Music selected 703 hymns for inclusion.7 Seven of these contain lyrics from The Temple. Modern congregations using Songs ofPraise with Music will recognize Herbert's lyrics and the tune "University" (with an alternate faburden version) as the setting for "The 23d Psalme," which is usually sung without the fifth stanza. This setting was composed byJohn Randall and can be heard onthe Internet website www.cyberhymnal.org. The short metre of "Sandy's" serves as the setting for "The Elixir." "The Call" may be alternatively sung to "Tunbridge" or "Savannah." "Gaza," a tune adapted from an ancient Jewish melody, is the setting for "Vertue." A slightly modified third stanza of "Trinitie Sunday" is set to "Wulfrun," and "Antiphon" (I) is set to "High Road," composed by Martin F. Shaw in 1915. "Praise" (II) ("King of...