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How about a bit of Lent?



From the 1919 Church Hymnal with Accompanying Tunes, used by the Church of Ireland. Source: Wikipedia, public domain.


Yes, I’m a heathen who grieves for the loss of the pagan world. And yes, I think that St. Patrick was just about the worst thing that ever happened to the people of Ireland. They hardly knew what hit them, and over the centuries they forgot. But I’m also an amateur musician and organist and creature of this culture, and I know a good hymn when I hear one.

Earlier today I came across the image above on Facebook, posted by a political friend. At first I thought she must be a hymn scholar but had never thought to mention it. But when I asked about the source of what she had posted, she wrote: “Just a copy/paste from Wikipedia. My lent mini practice today was to pick a hymn and research it, listen to it, etc.”

Having seen this wonderful Irish hymn on paper, I had to hear it sung. That, of course, sent me to YouTube. There are infinitely many versions on YouTube, brutally murdered in every way imaginable. But one of the things I know as a musician and organist is that hymns are properly sung in only two places in the world: the chapel of King’s College Cambridge, and church congregations in Wales. The music-loving Celtic spirit in Ireland and Wales seems to have gone in two different directions, and it was the Welsh who perfected the choir. Below is a YouTube link to a congregation that sounds Welsh — Swansea, I wouldn’t doubt — though the YouTube page doesn’t say. This was the best version I found. It’s not properly attributed on YouTube, but I believe it may be a BBC recording. This congregation has been rehearsed.

Three things stand out: First, that everyone is singing. Most are even looking up so they can watch the director. Second, the vigor and symmetry of the director, making sure that no one loses the beat. Third, that the organist provides a long pause between verses, to give the singers a little time to catch their breath. Note also the time signature of this hymn, 3/2. Like 3/4 meter, this is a waltzy rhythm. Hymns with three-beat rhythms are in the minority. “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” comes to mind, in 3/4.

I do not know of a grander form of human collective activity than group singing. And of course group singing was one of the many things shut down by Covid-19. Those who either can’t, or won’t, put their lungs into singing with a group of other human beings who know how to sing don’t know what they’re missing.




7 Comments

  1. JamesM wrote:

    Truly inspired singing and a lovely resonant acoustic to help. Unlike US churches which have to be fitted out with carpet and seat cushions so it sounds and feels and looks more like the local country club.

    Saturday, March 6, 2021 at 1:23 pm | Permalink
  2. daltoni wrote:

    Hi James: You are so right about the acoustics. I wouldn’t be surprised if the long rest between verses is timed to the reverberation. It’s a great effect.

    Saturday, March 6, 2021 at 2:43 pm | Permalink
  3. JamesM wrote:

    If you haven’t seen, check this week’s New Yorker article, The Wasting of the Evangelical Mind.

    Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 11:58 am | Permalink
  4. Jo wrote:

    I enjoyed listening to this so much. Many years ago, I enjoyed singing in the glee club during school.

    Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 3:21 pm | Permalink
  5. daltoni wrote:

    Once I tried to stir up interest in a community chorus here. We even have the work of a well-known Black composer to draw on, Jester Hairston, who is from this county. But those who are qualified as directors (I’m not) said that there would be an unbridgeable gap between those (like me) who want to sing in a disciplined way following the score, and those who want to improvise however the spirit moves them. I acknowledge that improvisation can be beautiful, but it’s not something that I (or most directors) would be able to work with.

    In a great many American churches, organs and choirs have been displaced by “praise bands.” In fact that’s how I acquired my far-from-small Rodgers organ — from a church that had “gone to guitars,” as I put it, and put the organ in storage. Frankly my definition of hell would be having to listen to a praise band.

    As for community singing, as far as I know only the Welsh do that — for example, Only Boys Aloud, which became famous a few years ago on Britain’s Got Talent.

    Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 4:33 pm | Permalink
  6. Malinda wrote:

    As another pro-heathen who has a weakness for choral cathedral music, I love Handel in particular for all those reasons you mentioned and I have a book on his composing of the Messiah I plan to read soon. I’ve heard it said he was the only predecessor and genius Mozart gave respect to. Of course he was German, not Irish or Welsh, but later English.

    Curious if you’ve read the book ‘Julian’ by Gore Vidal — about the last Hellenist Emperor of Rome, Julian the Apostate, nephew of Constantine, who leaned strongly into his philosopher-scholar advisers as an insatiable student and fiercely opposed Christianity (but was also too seduced by the mystical). Julian was so tolerant of religious and cultural diversity that the cultists (or Galileans) only bided their time until he was killed mysteriously (perhaps assassinated) during a battle in Persia. Then, as you’re probably aware, following the loss of any scholarly cohesive leader at the seat of power, the world rushed to reject the pagans once again who were disorganized by nature, never looking back. Anyway, it’s a chilling sliding door of impactful history to the present that crosses my mind now and then in a ‘what if’ kind of way, and Gore Vidal’s interpretation is colorful and sharp and entertaining, written with a kind of cheekiness I enjoyed. He gives a shy, self-deprecating hat tip to Robert Graves before starting, which as an ardent RG fan I found endearing. It’s a favorite for sure; ovation to RG and elegy to the lost pagan world. A darkly humorous castigation of cult-think. I recommend if you haven’t read it.

    https://www.thoughtco.com/julian-and-the-fall-of-paganism-119349

    Julian’s ‘Against the Galileans’ (below) is a little lengthy, but parts of it made me laugh out loud and marvel at how modern he sounds at times. I appreciate his incessant questioning, though as an agnostic-atheist, wherever he diverges off from the secular, I don’t agree with him. I like his love of nature, though.

    http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/julian_apostate_galileans_1_text.htm

    Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 6:16 pm | Permalink
  7. daltoni wrote:

    Hi Malinda: I have indeed read Vidal’s Julian, in 2017. I was drawn to the novel — particularly a novel by a heretic like Vidal — because Julian’s story is so fascinating. It was the last chance the West had to save the world from the church. Soon after Julian, Augustine of Hippo, whom the church of course calls St. Augustine, came on the scene. All was lost.

    I wrote about “Julian” here:

    https://acornabbey.com/blog/?p=11152

    As for Vidal, back in 1998, in Berkeley, I went to an event at the Berkeley Community Theater, “Gore Vidal in Conversation with Christopher Hitchens.” I don’t recall now what they talked about, other than that it was here-and-now, not historical. Both Vidal and Hitchens are gone now, of course. Neither was a particularly nice person. But their loss fed into the poverty of heresy that plagues us today.

    Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 6:42 pm | Permalink

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