Hymn Tunes
from the
British Isles
Settings
for
Organ
Volume I
(35 pages)
Prelude
on
Brother James’ Air
(2 pages)
Trio
on
Bryn Calfaria
(3 pages)
Rondo
on
Cwm Rhondda
and
Ton-y-Botel
(3 pages)
Postlude
on
Duke Street
(3 pages)
Prelude
on
Greensleeves
(3 pages)
Prelude
on
Nicaea
(3 pages)
Carillon-Toccata
on
St. Anne (10
pages)
Four Verses
on
St. Columba
(4 pages)
Rondo
on
St. Patrick
and
Deirdre
(4 pages)
Notes
Prelude
on
Brother James’ Air
sets a familiar hymn tune from Scotland. Written by James Leith MacBeth
Bain, or ‘Brother James,’ as an accompaniment for the 23rd Psalm, it was
first printed in London in 1915. Originally titled Marosa to honor
the seventh daughter of a friend whom he had christened, Bain's
melody eventually came to be known by its present name. This tonally
congenial chorale prelude presents the hymn tune in tenor register,
accompanied by loosely imitative counterpoint. The pedal part is minimal,
used to assist the manuals for occasional sustained pitches.
Trio
on
Bryn Calfaria
draws
on a Welsh hymn tune by William Owen that was first published in 1886,
then subsequently included in The English Hymnal (1906) with
the text, "Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendour." Following the
pattern of Welsh melodies represented in this collection, the
harmonic language and structure are set in a late Baroque
keyboard idiom, in this instance limning a tightly imitative trio that
presents its fugue-like subject in original and mirrored forms, with the
hymn's cantus firmus melody heard in the soprano. As above,
the pedal is used for occasional sustained pitches.
Rondo on
Two Welsh Hymn Tunes
sets John Hughes’
Cwm Rhondda
and Thomas John Williams’
Ton-y-Botel
in a late Baroque keyboard idiom. The first tune takes its name from
the river valley and city of Rhondda and was written between 1905 and 1907.
Ton-y-Botel ('Tune in a bottle'), also called Ebenezer in
some collections, was extracted from an anthem by Williams and first
published as a hymn tune in 1890. In both settings, the source melodies
appear in the soprano voice, and in each a rhythmic reorientation has
displaced the original beat pattern by shifting the meter from quadruple
to triple. This keyboard rondeau for manuals offers some of the
aspects of a piece de clavecin; its rounded structure (A-B-A)
is emphasized by a contrasting change of key and mood, moving from
B-flat major to G minor for the second tune, where dancing triplet
figures animate the appearance of Ton-y-Botel. The returning
statement of Cwm Rhondda can be abbreviated, without
repeats.
Postlude on Duke
Street
sets
a hymn tune that first appeared in a collection published in 1793;
not until its inclusion in William Dixon’s Euphonia in 1805
was it ascribed to John Hatton and given the name by which it is
now known. The traditional melody is retained here with all of its
original pitches and sequences intact, but the tune is reset into
flowing notes of equal value. Each successive phrase appears in
points of imitation sounded in treble voices in rolling eighth notes,
extended into a cantus firmus pedal presentation (in augmentation).
The harmonic language and textural writing call for
bold registrations and an expansive tempo.
Prelude on
Greensleeves
is
an elaborate chorale prelude on an English ballad tune; although its
origins likely go further back in time, the tune name first appeared in
September, 1580 on two separately issued printing licenses for the title,
Lady Greene Sleeves, and twelve days later for a sacred
text with the same name. The tune is mentioned in Shakespeare’s Merry
Wives of Windsor. Its familiar hymn format is drawn
from the collaborative efforts of Henry Ramsden Bramley and John
Stainer, in their collection entitled Christmas Carols New and Old
(London, 1871). This setting begins as a lilting siciliana, in
which the traditional modal English folk melody emerges in long note
values sounded in the soprano. At mid-point, the dancing dotted rhythms
cede to a plaintively sighing eighth-note figure (in triple meter);
the tune shifts to the tenor voice, then back to the soprano,
accompanied by a return of the siciliana rhythm and opening
dance figurations.
Prelude on
Nicaea
is a noble and stately setting, based on a familiar hymn tune composed by
John Bacchus Dykes and first published in Hymns Ancient and Modern
in 1861, where it appeared with its familiar text, "Holy, holy,
holy!" In keeping with the Trinitarian nature of the verse, the tune name
was drawn from the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325). The prelude opens with
loosely imitative counterpoint in the manuals, making use of a rich
array of dotted rhythms. Phrase by phrase, the hymn tune appears
in boldly augmented note values in the organ pedal line.
Carillon-Toccata on
St. Anne
is based on a well known hymn tune ascribed to William Croft, dating from
the early 18th century and first published in London in 1708, without a
composer's name but with its present tune name. It has also appeared as
Leeds, attributed to a Mr. Denby; in Canada the same melody
was published with its now familiar text, "O God, our help in ages past,"
but with the name Chelsea. This large-scale setting of St. Anne
offers a toccata in the late French Romantic organ tradition, but one
with overtones of the English keyboard carillon in which
pealing bells are imitated. The opening toccata figurations accompany
an emerging thematic unit of three phrases based on
the hymn tune and presented consecutively in tenor, then soprano
and finally pedal voices. A developmental section follows and
eventually cedes to a return of the opening toccata and
its theme, all sounding over each of the four phrases of the hymn
tune presented in augmented note values in
the pedal. The coda adds a jubilant conclusion.
Four Verses
on
St. Columba
sets an Irish folk melody that was first ‘collected’ by George Petri (ca.
1855), and was later published in Charles Villiers Stanford’s Complete
Collection of Irish Music (London, 1902), prepared for the Irish
Literary Society. The tune appeared again in Hymns Ancient and Modern
in 1904, and Ralph Vaughan Williams subsequently included it
in The English Hymnal in 1906 with the text, "King of Love."
Its tune name evokes the name of Scotland's patron saint. After a
brief introduction, four varied verses ensue, the first utilizing a
rhythmic displacement of meter, the second presenting a canon between
tenor and alto voices. After a brief modulation, the third
variation begins in a remote key (A-flat), then finds its way
through a circuitous route back to the original tonic key
(D Major) for a fourth variation and briefly imitative
codetta.
Rondo on St.
Patrick
and
Deirdre
combines two traditional Irish melodies, the former adapted for hymn use by
Charles Villiers Stanford and first published in 1903, the latter
adapted and combined with St. Patrick by Ralph
Vaughan Williams for The English Hymnal. The two contrasting
tunes pair up to create a hymn structure of epic proportions in which the
first tune is presented, then returns with its concluding verses
(abbreviated ad lib.) following Deirdre's appearance.
The same overall form has been preserved in this organ setting,
with a distinctive rhythm shift in St. Patrick that
introduces accented syncopations. Individual fragments of each phrase
are isolated and echoed on contrasting manuals and timbres throughout.
The mid-section of the rondo presents Deirdre, phrase by
phrase, in various contrapuntal inversions and at contrasting key
levels, altering the period structure of the original tune with
additional repetitions. St. Patrick’s return rounds out the
three-part structure (A-B-A) and ends on a strongly affirmative
tonic cadence.