Ending a minor hymn with a major chord
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 238
    My organist is kind of fixated on doing this with recessional hymns. I don't like it for the most part, and if I have any forewarning I usually tell him not to. Sometimes though he just does it unexpectedly. He's a kind of mischievous guy, though a great musician.

    If he plays a postlude where he modulates in a sensible way, that's one thing, but it's when he takes a hymn like O Mary of Graces and does it just for the final chord out of nowhere, I feel like it wrecks the piece. My sacred music sensibility is truthfully formed on modal music, so I'm rarely impressed by modulation to begin with.

    Since I started to deal with this I notice it happening in a lot of online recordings of various hymns too, so I think he hasn't come up with this habit/idea on his own.

    Opinions? Currently I just let him do it sometimes, on the assumption that it makes him happy and I'm the only one it bothers.
  • clarabella92
    Posts: 1
    The Picardy Third? It's been around since the Renaissance...
    Thanked by 7Chant_Supremacist Marc Cerisier LauraKaz Liam Roborgelmeister CHGiffen davido
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 238
    Interesting, I wasn't aware it had a name. Thank you.

    Of course I've heard pieces modulating at the end many times. I was thinking here of an organist's personal decision to suddenly modulate at the end of a hymn, which I either hadn't encountered much or hadn't noticed much prior to having responsibility for a choir. Chalk it up to inexperience and lack of formal training.

    Whatever the lineage it usually strikes me as inartistic, as if there is either some misunderstanding of the emotional content and value of minor tonality, or else some discomfort I can't quite understand with allowing a sentiment other than expansive happiness and perfect stability.
  • kevinfkevinf
    Posts: 1,240
    Whatever the lineage it usually strikes me as inartistic,
    Tell that to JS Bach, Telemann and others. The Picardy 3rd is quite common. I suppose if I had 3 hymns right together and they all ended on the Picardy, it might get old but i regularly do it.
    Thanked by 3Marc Cerisier Liam CHGiffen
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 238
    Did JS Bach and co. really employ it so un-artfully in composed music? Like semi-regularly out of nowhere on the final chord of pieces that haven't suggested it previously? I confess that's strange to me.

    I guess I'm willing to accept being a minority of one here, since I don't think I can change my perception of this (in this context) as musically destructive.
  • kevinfkevinf
    Posts: 1,240
    Its not un-artfully. Its common. Spend some time listening to Bach organ works. A great example is BWV 538 of JS Bach, the Dorian Toccata and Fugue in D minor. The toccata ends on the D major cadence. Your ear might grow a little in listening to these things.

    From an old and grumpy organist. I played the piece in question a couple of weeks ago.
    Thanked by 3Marc Cerisier Liam CHGiffen
  • Marc Cerisier
    Posts: 594
    I have no issue with a piccardy 3rd, though I think it can be overused. Did I end on E major in Veni Emmanuel for Gaudete Sunday? You bet. There might have been a chamade employed at some point as well...

    I find interesting the notion that such practice is modulating... I have never heard it referred to as such. My understanding is that modulation is to move from one tonic/key center to another. I don't think a raised third in one chord at the end could ever count as such, but I guess maybe a song that beings in e minor, and then transitions to E major—that wouldn't be a new key center, but it would certainly be different? I'm pretty sure there's a hymn in the 82 that starts minor and goes major halfway through, but I don't have the name on the top of my head.

    Interesting theory thoughts...
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  • Marc Cerisier
    Posts: 594
    My organist is kind of fixated on doing this with recessional hymns.


    Then maybe just pick major hymns for the recessional?
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 238
    Having gone away and listened to the suggested music, I wouldn't say that the ending comes unartfully out of nowhere in the way I'm talking about. Major tonicization happens pretty frequently earlier in the piece, and the last several measures intentionally create so much tension that the major ending feels relieving. I don't think forcing a major chord at the end of a minor hymn, effectively at random even if there's an extrinsic rationale that it "sounds hopeful", is apples to apples.
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 238
    @Marc Cerisier

    Ending O Come Emmanuel that way "because it's Gaudete Sunday" is exactly the type of thing my organist would do, and I would have been highly disgruntled for about 5 minutes after. Congratulations are in order for coming up with an absolutely perfect example of this. No offense meant, I'm sure you're a great musician with excellent taste, but I can't stand it.
    Thanked by 1MatthewRoth
  • GerardH
    Posts: 623
    It's just a matter of taste. My own preference is to use the Picardy third very sparingly, but there are times when the suggestion is quite obvious. For an example, 'Creator of the earth and skies' set to AGINCOURT (DEO GRACIAS): the last line, 'until our darkness turns to day', is begging for a Picardy third. On Veni Emmanuel, David Willcocks' arrangement ends on the tonic major too.
    Thanked by 2Liam CHGiffen
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,476
    It's a very standard practice, and has been since whenever. When a choir is singing SATB on the concluding verse, the singers should be made aware of it - or directed to simply omit the third. (FWIW, despite the standard rules of composition, in a warm acoustic I rather enjoy the third being omitted and letting the acoustic and listeners discern the third ... there were hymns in the past where I've had directors direct such.)
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  • TCJ
    Posts: 1,035
    Are you required to use the Picardy third when playing a hymn to the tune PICARDY?
    Thanked by 4Marc Cerisier liampmcdonough CHGiffen davido
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 238
    I would love to agree that it's just a matter of taste and leave it there, and I'm not denying that it can be done more or less tastefully. But to take up the Veni example again, changing the final chord to major "because it's Gaudete Sunday" (which captures the oddly extrinsic thinking behind this to perfection), is to my mind so wrongheaded that I sense there must be some quite interesting (to me, anyway) difference of symbolic cognition underlying it that could be brought out if I spent time with it.
    Thanked by 1MatthewRoth
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,476
    Well, there's a difference between the Veni Veni as a Mode I monody chant hymn and as fully harmonized hymn. Fraternal twins or siblings, take your analogical pick.
  • Marc Cerisier
    Posts: 594
    In my very limited musical experience (20 yrs. as cathedral musician), Gaudete Sunday is marked by a more joyful atmosphere throughout the liturgy—and who doesn't love rose vestments? Don't worry Chant_Supremacist, there will be no altered thirds this coming Sunday!

    Astonishingly enough, every parish I've ever visited handles music just a touch differently, so it appears that within the uniformity of our rite, there might just be room for different interpretations to coexist. I would hesitate to call wrong a practice well embraced in common practice music myself, though.

    TCJ—oddly enough, I tend to omit the 3rd entirely on the last chord of Picardy.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,229
    Gaudete Sunday is unusual in that it can already be the Sunday on which O Sapientia is sung, or that might not be for just about another week; if it is, then I would sing that hymn (in English, preferably: it’s an English hymn after all), and while I would hate to say that Willcocks is wrong, I can appreciate that there’s a lot going on when we are in this situation such that I guess I understand it (but Willcocks truly was a master, unfortunately maybe that isn’t the case for CS’s organist…)

    And to Liam’s point: for better or worse, we either have unison + descant or unison only with the organist returning to the standard harmonization with a different registration (I wish that we could have reharmonizations and more fun here, but that’s just not the style). Interior verses are SATB when we have women; sometimes refrains are only SATB, though last week after Vespers, I was cheeky and did vv 1 and 4 of Thou art the star of morning with the refrain after those verses in unison, then vv. 2 and 3 with the refrain after those respective verses in harmony, and it was great: the real lesson was to give something to our singers and let the congregation simply listen.
    Thanked by 1Marc Cerisier
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 238
    I get it, many organists are fond of doing this thing at least sometimes. You want the option, let's say. It does halfway answer my question of what's going on with my mischievous organist: it's not just him, you're all crazy!
  • trentonjconn
    Posts: 776
    What's the difference between an organist and a terrorist? You can negotiate with a terrorist.
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  • JonathanKKJonathanKK
    Posts: 549
    It is certainly possible to make a picardy third sound dorky. The remedy for dorkiness is good taste. I wish you well in your efforts in this regard.

    Since a picardy third is sometimes applied in performance when not explicitly notated, it is arguably a type of ornamentation. That makes it hard to condemn the practice outright.

    But really, if you are going to apply any type of ornamentation, sound judgement requires that doing so must fit in with the overall scheme. I don't think that is a hard argument to make.

    It should also be easy for anyone to think of examples of composers where any use of certain ornamentation is inappropriate.

    So, each case requires due thought.
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  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 238
    @Liam

    You shared a subtlety that I think I overlooked earlier, about omitting the third. Do you think that idea might open a compromise solution here? I have a feeling he won't like it, but it's interesting.
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,196
    By the time you get to common-practice hymnody, and particularly Victorian hymnody, final major chords seem really willful. Would one apply a trill to the penultimate note of such a hymn? If you're doing old German chorales, it's much more at home. And for vocal polyphony, it's been regarded as de rigeur.

    One element of taste (not so much in hymnody as in polyphony) is to sharpen the structural cadence as opposed to "the last note." It's fairly common for superius and tenor to make their cadence but then there's a "tag ending" where the altus and bassus keep things going. A notorious example is Ludwig Senfl's In Maien, where sharping only the last chord misplaces the climax, so to speak, and sounds "dorky",

    A similar issue happens in harmonizations of chant hymns where people don't take modality into consideration. I HATE versions of "Creator of the Stars of Night" that end on a Do chord instead of a Mi chord.
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  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,101
    The Picardy third rubs me the wrong way too. When an organist forces a cheap happy ending onto a penitential Lenten hymn such as "Ah, Holy Jesus" (HERZLIEBSTER JESU), it contradicts the gravity of the text.
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  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,270
    When an organist forces a cheap happy ending onto a penitential Lenten hymn such as "Ah, Holy Jesus" (HERZLIEBSTER JESU), it contradicts the gravity of the text.

    Although I don't view it as a happy ending, J.S. Bach's setting of Herzliebster Jesu in the St Matthew Passion ends with a Picardy third. In fact, I find it quite moving.

    https://youtu.be/xSDcgoXBiE4?si=DtJNiPN4hkrKk05X

    https://hymnary.org/hymn/NEH1985/page/146
    Thanked by 1Liam
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,476
    You shared a subtlety that I think I overlooked earlier, about omitting the third. Do you think that idea might open a compromise solution here? I have a feeling he won't like it, but it's interesting.


    Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
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