Hymn

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Arvid Liljelund [de; fi; sv]'s Man Singing Hymn (1884)

A hymn is a type of

hymnist. The singing or composition of hymns is called hymnody. Collections of hymns are known as hymnals or hymn books. Hymns may or may not include instrumental accompaniment. Polyhymnia
is the Greco/Roman goddess of hymns.

Although most familiar to speakers of English in the context of Christianity, hymns are also a fixture of other world religions, especially on the Indian subcontinent (stotras). Hymns also survive from antiquity, especially from Egyptian and Greek cultures. Some of the oldest surviving examples of notated music are hymns with Greek texts.

Origins

Ancient Eastern hymns include the Egyptian

Hymn to Nikkal; the Rigveda, an Indian collection of Vedic hymns; hymns from the Classic of Poetry (Shijing), a collection of Chinese poems from 11th to 7th centuries BC; the Gathas—Avestan hymns believed to have been composed by Zoroaster; and the Biblical Book of Psalms
.

The Western tradition of hymnody begins with the

Orphic hymns
are a collection of 87 short poems in Greek religion.

Patristic writers began applying the term ὕμνος, or hymnus in Latin, to Christian songs of praise, and frequently used the word as a synonym for "psalm".[1]

Christian hymnody

In Christianity, church congregations often sing hymns together as part of their worship (Pictured: worshippers at Uffington Parish Church in England, 1944)

Originally modelled on the

Jesus Christ
either directly or indirectly.

Since the earliest times, Christians have sung "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs", both in private devotions and in corporate worship.[2][non-primary source needed] Non-scriptural hymns (i.e. not psalms or canticles) from the Early Church still sung today include 'Phos Hilaron', 'Sub tuum praesidium', and 'Te Deum'.

One definition of a hymn is "...a lyric poem, reverently and devotionally conceived, which is designed to be sung and which expresses the worshipper's attitude toward God or God's purposes in human life. It should be simple and metrical in form, genuinely emotional, poetic and literary in style, spiritual in quality, and in its ideas so direct and so immediately apparent as to unify a congregation while singing it."[3]

Christian hymns are often written with special or seasonal themes and these are used on holy days such as

High Church Anglicanism
.

A writer of hymns is known as a hymnodist, and the practice of singing hymns is called hymnody; the same word is used for the collectivity of hymns belonging to a particular denomination or period (e.g. "nineteenth century Methodist hymnody" would mean the body of hymns written and/or used by Methodists in the 19th century). A collection of hymns is called a hymnal, hymn book or hymnary. These may or may not include music; among the hymnals without printed music, some include names of hymn tunes suggested for use with each text, in case readers already know the tunes or would like to find them elsewhere. A student of hymnody is called a hymnologist, and the scholarly study of hymns, hymnists and hymnody is hymnology. The music to which a hymn may be sung is a hymn tune.

In many Evangelical churches, traditional songs are classified as hymns while more contemporary worship songs are not considered hymns. The reason for this distinction is unclear, but according to some it is due to the radical shift of style and devotional thinking that began with the Jesus movement and Jesus music. In recent years, Christian traditional hymns have seen a revival in some churches, usually more Reformed or Calvinistic in nature, as modern hymn writers such as Keith and Kristyn Getty[4] and Sovereign Grace Music have reset old lyrics to new melodies, revised old hymns and republished them, or simply written a song in a hymn-like fashion such as In Christ Alone.[5]

Music and accompaniment

In ancient and medieval times, string instruments such as the harp, lyre and lute were used with psalms and hymns.

Since there is a lack of

church modes, and most often by monastic choirs. While they were written originally in Latin, many have been translated; a familiar example is the 4th century Of the Father's Heart Begotten
sung to the 11th century plainsong Divinum Mysterium.

Western church

Hymns are often accompanied by organ music

Later hymnody in the

classical music
.

Today, except for choirs, more musically inclined congregations and a cappella congregations, hymns are typically sung in unison. In some cases complementary full settings for organ are also published, in others organists and other accompanists are expected to adapt the available setting, or extemporise one, on their instrument of choice.

In traditional

recessional, and sometimes at other points during the service. The Doxology
is also sung after the tithes and offerings are brought up to the altar.

Contemporary Christian worship, as often found in Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism, may include the use of contemporary worship music played with electric guitars and the drum kit, sharing many elements with rock music.

Other groups of Christians have historically excluded instrumental accompaniment, citing the absence of instruments in worship by the church in the first several centuries of its existence, and adhere to an unaccompanied a cappella congregational singing of hymns. These groups include the 'Brethren' (often both 'Open' and 'Exclusive'), the Churches of Christ, Mennonites, several Anabaptist-based denominations—such as the Apostolic Christian Church of AmericaPrimitive Baptists, and certain Reformed churches, although during the last century or so, several of these, such as the Free Church of Scotland have abandoned this stance.

Eastern church

Tewahedo Churches use drums, cymbals
and other instruments on certain occasions.

Development of Christian hymnody

Thomas Aquinas, in the introduction to his commentary on the Psalms, defined the Christian hymn thus: "Hymnus est laus Dei cum cantico; canticum autem exultatio mentis de aeternis habita, prorumpens in vocem." ("A hymn is the praise of God with song; a song is the exultation of the mind dwelling on eternal things, bursting forth in the voice.")[9]

The

Presbyterian churches of western Scotland
.

The other Reformation approach, the

Unitas Fratrum
.

Count

Zinzendorf, the Lutheran leader of the Moravian Church
in the 18th century wrote some 2,000 hymns.

The earlier English writers tended to paraphrase biblical texts, particularly

Psalms; Isaac Watts followed this tradition, but is also credited as having written the first English hymn which was not a direct paraphrase of Scripture.[10] Watts (1674–1748), whose father was an Elder of a dissenter congregation, complained at age 16, that when allowed only psalms to sing, the faithful could not even sing about their Lord, Christ Jesus. His father invited him to see what he could do about it; the result was Watts' first hymn, "Behold the glories of the Lamb".[11]
Found in few hymnals today, the hymn has eight stanzas in common metre and is based on Revelation 5:6, 8, 9, 10, 12.[12]

Relying heavily on Scripture, Watts wrote metered texts based on New Testament passages that brought the Christian faith into the songs of the church. Isaac Watts has been called "the father of English hymnody", but Erik Routley sees him more as "the liberator of English hymnody", because his hymns, and hymns like them, moved worshippers beyond singing only Old Testament psalms, inspiring congregations and revitalizing worship.[13]

Later writers took even more freedom, some even including allegory and metaphor in their texts.

Charles Wesley's hymns spread Methodist theology, not only within Methodism, but in most Protestant churches. He developed a new focus: expressing one's personal feelings in the relationship with God as well as the simple worship seen in older hymns.

Wesley's contribution, along with the

How Great Thou Art
" is a gospel song. During the 19th century, the gospel-song genre spread rapidly in Protestantism and to a lesser but still definite extent, in Roman Catholicism; the gospel-song genre is unknown in the worship per se by Eastern Orthodox churches, which rely exclusively on traditional chants (a type of hymn).

The

Methodist Revival of the 18th century created an explosion of hymn-writing in Welsh, which continued into the first half of the 19th century. The most prominent names among Welsh hymn-writers are William Williams Pantycelyn and Ann Griffiths. The second half of the 19th century witnessed an explosion of hymn tune composition and congregational four-part singing in Wales.[14]

Along with the more classical sacred music of composers ranging from

Monteverdi, the Catholic Church continued to produce many popular hymns such as Lead, Kindly Light, Silent Night, O Sacrament Most Holy, and Faith of Our Fathers
.

In some radical Protestant movements, their own sacred hymns completely replaced the written Bible. An example of this, the Book of Life (Russian: "Zhivotnaya kniga") is the name of all oral hymns of the Doukhobors, the Russian denomination, similar to western Quakers. The Book of Life of the Doukhobors (1909) is firstly printed hymnal containing songs, which to have been composed as an oral piece to be sung aloud.[15]

Many churches today use contemporary worship music which includes a range of styles often influenced by

pop music
style began in the late 1960s and became very popular during the 1970s, as young hymnists sought ways in which to make the music of their religion relevant for their generation.

This long tradition has resulted in a wide variety of hymns. Some modern churches include within hymnody the traditional hymn (usually describing God), contemporary worship music (often directed to God) and gospel music (expressions of one's personal experience of God). This distinction is not perfectly clear; and purists remove the second two types from the classification as hymns. It is a matter of debate, even sometimes within a single congregation, often between revivalist and traditionalist movements.

Swedish composer and musicologist Elisabet Wentz-Janacek mapped 20,000 melody variants for Swedish hymns and helped create the Swedish Choral Registrar, which displays the wide variety of hymns today.[16]

In modern times, hymn use has not been limited to strictly religious settings, including secular occasions such as Remembrance Day, and this "secularization" also includes use as sources of musical entertainment or even vehicles for mass emotion.[17]

American developments

Hymn writing, composition, performance and the publishing of Christian hymnals were prolific in the 19th-century and were often linked to the abolitionist movement by many hymn writers. Stephen Foster wrote a number of hymns that were used during church services during this era of publishing.

Thomas Symmes[

gospel hymns.[18]

Earlier in the 19th century, the use of musical notation, especially shape notes, exploded in America, and professional singing masters went from town to town teaching the population how to sing from sight, instead of the more common lining out that had been used before that. During this period hundreds of tune books were published, including B.F. White's Sacred Harp, and earlier works like the Missouri Harmony, Kentucky Harmony, Hesperian Harp, D.H. Mansfield's The American Vocalist, The Social Harp, the Southern Harmony, William Walker's Christian Harmony, Jeremiah Ingalls' Christian Harmony, and literally many dozens of others. Shape notes were important in the spread of (then) more modern singing styles, with tenor-led 4-part harmony (based on older English West Gallery music), fuging sections, anthems and other more complex features. During this period, hymns were incredibly popular in the United States, and one or more of the above-mentioned tunebooks could be found in almost every household. It is not uncommon to hear accounts of young people and teenagers gathering together to spend an afternoon singing hymns and anthems from tune books, which was considered great fun, and there are surviving accounts of Abraham Lincoln and his sweetheart singing together from the Missouri Harmony during his youth.

By the 1860s musical reformers like Lowell Mason (the so-called "better music boys") were actively campaigning for the introduction of more "refined" and modern singing styles, and eventually these American tune books were replaced in many churches, starting in the Northeast and urban areas, and spreading out into the countryside as people adopted the gentler, more soothing tones of Victorian hymnody, and even adopted dedicated, trained choirs to do their church's singing, rather than having the entire congregation participate. But in many rural areas the old traditions lived on, not in churches, but in weekly, monthly or annual conventions were people would meet to sing from their favorite tunebooks. The most popular one, and the only one that survived continuously in print, was the Sacred Harp, which could be found in the typical rural Southern home right up until the living tradition was "re-discovered" by Alan Lomax in the 1960s (although it had been well-documented by musicologist George Pullen Jackson prior to this). Since then there has been a renaissance in "Sacred Harp singing", with annual conventions popping up in all 50 states and in a number of European countries recently, including the UK, Germany, Ireland and Poland, as well as in Australia.[19][20][21]

Black America's hymns

spirituals during times of slavery to the modern, lively black gospel style. The first influences of African-American culture into hymns came from slave songs of the United States a collection of slave hymns, compiled by William Francis Allen, who had difficulty pinning them down from the oral tradition, and though he succeeded, he points out the awe-inspiring effect of the hymns when sung in by their originators.[22] Some of the first hymns in the black church were renderings of Isaac Watts hymns written in the African-American vernacular English of the time.[23]

Hymn meters

The meter indicates the number of syllables for the lines in each stanza of a hymn. This provides a means of marrying the hymn's text with an appropriate hymn tune for singing. In practice many hymns conform to one of a relatively small number of meters (syllable count and stress patterns). Care must be taken, however, to ensure that not only the metre of words and tune match, but also the stresses on the words in each line. Technically speaking an iambic tune, for instance, cannot be used with words of, say, trochaic metre.

The meter is often denoted by a row of figures besides the name of the tune, such as "87.87.87", which would inform the reader that each verse has six lines, and that the first line has eight syllables, the second has seven, the third line eight, etc. The meter can also be described by initials; L.M. indicates long meter, which is 88.88 (four lines, each eight syllables long); S.M. is short meter (66.86); C.M. is common metre (86.86), while D.L.M., D.S.M. and D.C.M. (the "D" stands for double) are similar to their respective single meters except that they have eight lines in a verse instead of four.[24]

Also, if the number of syllables in one verse differ from another verse in the same hymn (e.g., the hymn "I Sing a Song of the Saints of God"), the meter is called Irregular.

Hindu hymnody

Sanskrit manuscript page from the "Vivaha sukta" Rigveda, dated 1500–1200 BCE

The Rigveda is the earliest and foundational Indian collection of over a thousand liturgical hymns in Vedic Sanskrit.[25]

Between other notable Hindu hymns (stotras and others) or their collections there are:

A hymnody acquired tremendous importance during the medieval era of the

Radha-vallabha, Sikhism, completely or significantly replaced all previous Sanskrit literature. The same and with the songs of Baul movement. That is, the new hymns themselves received the status of holy scripture. An example of a hymnist, both lyricist and composer is the 15th–16th centuries Assamese reformer guru Sankardev with his borgeet-songs.[26][27]

Sikh hymnody

The

Sikh
worship.

In other religions

Buddhism

Confucianism

The earliest entries in the oldest extant collection of Chinese poetry, the Classic of Poetry (Shijing), were initially lyrics.[35] The Shijing, with its collection of poems and folk songs, was heavily valued by the philosopher Confucius and is considered to be one of the official Confucian classics. His remarks on the subject have become an invaluable source in ancient music theory.[36]

Islam

Jainism

Judaism

Shinto

Zoroastrianism

Appreciations

According to Nissim Ezekiel, views on hymns can be divided:

...poets who have mystical experiences and project them in verse have occasionally been successful but mystics who write poetry do it badly. Religious hymns, however notable the religious sentiment they express are not notably poetic. Great religious poetry undoubtedly exists but the greatness is unequally divided between the poetry and religion, while perfect integration between the two is rare.[37]

See also

References

  1. A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 8th edition 1897, 1985 printing), p. 1849; entry on 'hymnus,' Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary
    (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1879, 1987 printing), p. 872.
  2. ^ Bible, (Matthew 26:30; Mark 14:26; Acts 16:25; 1 Cor 14:26; Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16; James 5:13; cf. Revelation 5:8–10; Revelation 14:1–5
  3. .
  4. ^ "In praise of hymns". Retrieved 18 May 2017.
  5. ^ Songs of faith, retrieved 18 May 2017
  6. .
  7. ^ Processional Hymns, for Use in the Cathedral of All Saints, Albany, New York | Hymnary.org. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
  8. . Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  9. ^ Aquinas, Thomas. "St. Thomas's Introduction to his Exposition of the Psalms of David". Archived from the original on 10 April 2016. Retrieved 8 February 2008.
  10. .
  11. ^ Routley, Erik (1980). Christian Hymns, An Introduction to Their Story (Audio Book). Princeton: Prestige Publications, Inc. p. Part 7, "Isaac Watts, the Liberator of English Hymnody".
  12. .
  13. ^ Christian Hymns, An Introduction to Their Story (Audio Book) op. cit. p. Part 7, "Isaac Watts, the Liberator of English Hymnody".
  14. ^ E. Wyn James, 'The Evolution of the Welsh Hymn', in Dissenting Praise, ed. I. Rivers & D. L. Wykes (Oxford University Press, 2011); E. Wyn James, 'Popular Poetry, Methodism, and the Ascendancy of the Hymn', in The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature, ed. Geraint Evans & Helen Fulton (Cambridge University Press, 2019); E. Wyn James, 'German Chorales and American Songs and Solos: Contrasting Chapters in Welsh Congregational Hymn-Singing', The Bulletin of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland, No. 295, Vol. 22:2 (Spring 2018), 43–53.
  15. ^ Peacock, Kenneth, ed. (1970). Songs of the Doukhobors: An Introductory Outline (PDF). National Museums of Canada Bulletin No. 231, Folklore Series No. 7. Translated by E. A. Popoff (song texts). Ottawa: The National Museums of Canada; Queen's Printer of Canada.[permanent dead link]
  16. ^ "Vi gratulerar Elisabet Wentz-Janacek!". Lunds domkyrka (in Swedish). 21 January 2013. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
  17. .
  18. ^ Music, David. Hymnology A Collection of Source Readings. 1. 1. Lanham MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1996.
  19. ^ "Sacred Harp Bremen". www.sacredharpbremen.org. Retrieved 4 January 2018.
  20. ^ Macadam, Edwin and Sheila. "Welcome". www.ukshapenote.org.uk. Archived from the original on 15 August 2019. Retrieved 4 January 2018.
  21. ^ "Sacred Harp in Poland | Polish Sacred Harp Community Website". sacredharp86.org (in Polish). Retrieved 4 January 2018.
  22. ^ Music, David. Hymnology A Collection of Source Readings. 1. 1. Lanham MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1996. 179/185–186/192/199/206. Print.
  23. .
  24. ^ Children's Britannica. Vol. 9 (Revised 3rd ed.). 1981. pp. 166–167.
  25. .
  26. .
  27. .
  28. .
  29. .
  30. ^ Ganeri, Anita (2003). The Guru Granth Sahib and Sikhism. Black Rabbit Books. p. 13.
  31. ^ Kapoor, Sukhbir (2005). Guru Granth Sahib an Advance Study. Hemkunt Press. p. 139.
  32. ^ Partridge, Christopher Hugh (2005). Introduction to World Religions. p. 223.
  33. ^ Kashmir, Singh. Sri Guru Granth Sahib — A Juristic Person. Global Sikh Studies. Retrieved 1 April 2008.[permanent dead link]
  34. .
  35. .
  36. .
  37. ^ Ezekiel, Nizzim (1987). Critical Thought: An Anthology of Twentieth Century Indian English Essay. New Delhi: Sterling Publishing. p. 230.

Further reading

External links

The links below are restricted to either material that is historical or resources that are non-denominational or inter-denominational. Denomination-specific resources are mentioned from the relevant denomination-specific articles.

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