Three Varied Hymn Tune Settings
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Arranged for Organ

Prelude and Fugue on Azmon
Hymn Tune by Carl Gotthilf Gläser  (1738-1829)
Adapted by Lowell Mason  (1792-1872)

Prelude on Nicaea
Hymn Tune by John Bacchus Dykes  (1823-1876)
from Hymns Ancient and Modern  (1861)

Variations and a Postlude on Stuttgart
Hymn Tune from Psalmodia Sacra  (1715)
Adapted by William Henry Havergal  (1793-1870)

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Click on the link below to download a PDF booklet
available 06/2025
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Notes

Prelude and Fugue on Azmon sets a hymn tune composed by Carl Gotthilf Glaser and originally intended for inclusion in Lowell Mason’s 1839 publication of  the Modern Psalmist.  Its 1850 reemergence in The New Carmina Sacra, and also in Mason’s and George Webb’s Cantica Laudis, is altered in form, with the original quadruple meter (4/4) converted to triple meter (3/2). 

This setting is written in a conservative 19th-Century American Romantic idiom. The prelude opens in G-major with freely imitative writing and closes with a bold statement of the hymn. A fugue subject based on the beginning of the hymn tune's first phrase is introduced in an exposition and followed by a series of episodes and recurring fugal entries, all underpinned by phrase-by-phrase statements of Azmon's tune in an augmented pedal cantus firmus, presented in the subdominant key.  A brief codetta provides a calming close.

Prelude on Nicaea is a noble and stately setting, based on a familiar hymn tune composed by John Bacchus Dykes (1823-1876). It was first published in Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1861, where it appeared with its familiar text, "Holy, holy, holy!,” paired with verses authored by Reginald Heber. In keeping with the Trinitarian nature of the verse, the tune’s traditional name was drawn from the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325), and the tune itself was likely a permu-tation of a preexisting one, Trinity by name.

The prelude opens with loosely imitative counterpoint in the manuals, making use of a rich array of dotted rhythms and French overture flourishes. Phrase by phrase, the hymn tune appears as a pedal cantus firmus statement in boldly aug-mented note values, and providing a broad underpinning for the setting.

Five Variation and a Postlude on Stuttgart treats the tune of a familiar Advent hymn. A historical form of the melody can be found in Psalmodia Sacra (Gotha, 1715), a collection edited by Christian Friedrich Witt, who is also thought to be its composer. Stuttgart was subsequently altered to its present state by William Henry Havergal (1793-1870).

Following a brief introduction, the first variation presents the tune in F-major in the tenor register. The melody migrates to the alto and soprano voices for the second variation, remaining in the soprano for a chromatic duet. After the fourth variation's brief contrast of key (D-major), the hymn tune reverts to the tenor voice, and then back to the soprano for a return of tonic (F-major) in the fifth variation. The postlude offers bold pedalpoints underpinning a series of building statements and echoes; it is culminated by a presentation of the entire hymn at a broader tempo, followed in turn by a briefly repeated codetta  figure. The variations and postlude are technically conservative and  readily accessible.

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