And the New Testament hymns, such as Phil. 2, don't seem to be strophic.

What exactly is at stake, again?

I still see an awful lot of confusion with regard to the word "hymn" on this forum.

Where is the latest confusion?

In my own understanding (which I fondly believe to be butressed by objective literary reality), a hymn is a song of praise addressed to and extolling the deity (or, at times even, a great personage or a saint) and his attributes. A hymn may be strophic, or, as Kathy points out, non strophic (the New Testament and the Old are replete with them). Religious songs whose focus is primarily subjective are not hymns, they are religious or spiritual songs. Thus, examples such as 'Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven', or 'Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise', are hymns, while even such a fine poem as 'Come Down, O Love Divine' is a spiritual song, more precisely, a prayer. Regardless, though, of whatever distinctions one may make, I suspect that we will continue to call the songs that congregations sing in worship 'hymns'. However, as JMO suggests, it would be nice (and perhaps qualitatively profitable) if distinctions could be made.

CHG - How on earth, indeed!
I knew that someone would pillory me on Come Down...
It is one of my favourites and I know well its history and provenance.
Still, it is a prayer for the Holy Spirit's indwelling in one's inner being.
It is not in praise of the Holy Spirit and his attributes, but a prayer for the Spirit's gifts and their effects.
Wondrous as is this wedding of the arts of Bianco and Ralph, I don't conceive of it as an hymn, but as a prayer with some highly subjective if not pietistic overtones.
This assuredly is not intended as a qualitative judgment, but a mere assessment of proper category.
Thanks for jumping on me about this - perhaps your perspective is the better one?

I thought, too, that Lauda anima might be challenged. After all, it is 'my soul' which is being addressed, but it is being exhorted to praise the wondrous attributes and deeds of God, who is extolled over all; so it doesn't seem to me to be subjective in substance.

It might be interesting if readers would record here lists of 'hymns' that they considered really to be hymns, or really prayers, or theological expositions, or spiritual songs of purely subjective personal experience, or other categories.

JMO is right to bring this up. Clarification and proper designation of the categories of religious song could go a long way to get people to appreciate exactly what they sing, why, and when. It could result in a qualitative difference in the hymns/songs that are sung.

And WARNING: Plug about to be made!!!! If you sing hymns, always sing the introit after the Entrance Hymn, alway sing the proper Alleluya and Verse, always sing the Offertory Antiphon before the Anthem or Hymn, and always sing the Commumion Antiphon before any communion anthems and/or hymns or psalms. (And don't use Respond and Acclaim's poor settings - the Alleluyas being the worst.) AND - if your means are limited use the Simple English Propers and/or the Anglican Use Gradual........ or Fr Columba's or Fr Weber's work

"although only three of these stanzas have been included in hymnals (to the best of my knowledge). "

Is this a Catholic thing? Check out the English Hymnal. I don't recall whether the 3rd verse is included in my Catholic parish's hymn-book of choice, and don't have a copy to hand. I can't remember ever singing it without that verse, but I do my best not to think about that Catholic hymn-book, and anyway can't think of this hymn outside of the emotional context of the EH and its sober green covers, so may be wrong.

I teach my students that hymns are theological meditations on the mysteries of the Christian faith that are meant to be and need to be sung in their entirety for the theology to be understood. They need not be metrical or strophic; they may have refrains.

The Gloria in excelsis Deo is such a hymn.

{to be continued]

MJO, it seems to me that you have narrowly taken "hymn of praise" as the definition "hymn" - which would seem to preclude "hymn of thanksgiving", "hymn of supplication", etc. By your definition, a whole heckuva lot of hymns would have to be excluded, not just "Come down, O Love divine" - "O come, O come Emmanuel" - "To you before the close of day" (Te lucis ante terminum) - etc. etc. etc.

"Praise" is not the only form of "meditation on the mysteries of the Christian faith" (a much better working definition to me).

Francis, no worries. As in most cases, including yours with the Westendorf classic, I wonder if the fault lies not in the meter, but with a "Brutus" like performance; or maybe even "buffo" style ala our Sixtina tenores!?!
Regarding "national hymns" and even "wind (brass) bands" banned (I'm on a roll here!)- I don't know about Wyoming, but I consider myself fortunate that our Pentecostal Portuguese Assn. bands throughout the California lodges cease playing at the footsteps of the church doors on Holy Ghost and Fatima Festa Masses, save for maybe Pismo and Gustine! But, I think there's still more of that nationalistic stuff going on in Europe, AND most likely in Italy (gasp!) than there is Hamtramk or Chicago with Polka bands. Now, if you could just write Rocco Palmo a brief missive asking him to politely request no Mariachi Bands and gritos of "Viva Mexico!" on Dec. 12th in Whispers!

I'm not quite sure what you mean by making deductions in your response. Feel free to point out what I've said that seems contentious. I'm all ears. (I wish)

Blessings

Hymns, in general, mean songs of praise (Harvard dic). The meaning has been changed (or it rather became more specific) among Christians from early Christian era to modern days.

In the Holy Mass we have, there are distinctions between Propers, Ordinary parts (both of them are texts of the Mass given by the Church) and then what we usually call 'hymn' (with the text written by individuals). They have different roles and places in the Holy Mass of Latin rite.

I agree with the general consensus of Paul Ford. The hymns of the Church are 'extra' musical matter that align themselves to the theology of a particular Feast, Rite, etc. They don't have to be (but can be) metrical, but the important thing is that they are used in proportion (with discretion) to the needs and demands of a particular liturgy and are subservient to such. Too often music is put into the liturgy just because people want to sing what they want to sing. (WRONG!) In other words, not every liturgy needs a hymn. Many times I just the do the Propers and the Ordinary and that's it! No need to insert anything more.

Good examples for placement of hymns:

Processions at feasts (Holy Thursday, Corpus Christi, Palm Sunday, etc.)
Communion Processions
Sequence Hymns

Other than that, it would be more appropriate for chant and polyphony to be sung by the choir.

Ditto

Francis, I'm not quite sure your understanding of "hymn" aligns with what Dr. Ford stated exactly at all.
The coherence of "Gloria in excelsis Deo" or even "Phos hilaron" (non-scriptural) is vastly different than that of a wide array of systematically constructed texts throughout many centuries.
I think where we are trying to find consensus is to what degree may poets (and others) may construe what constitutes a "meditation" upon a universally acknowledged mystery of faith versus some didactic, even polemical intent. That's why we still have some measure of consternation over fairly antiquated texts, ie. "A mighty fortress" as well as some of our own, ie. "Gather and remember," "Sing a New Church" and the truly disabling "Anthem" (you thought I was gonna cite "All are welcome" I bet!) that must be deliberated by every conscientious DM at some time or the other. (My time for most of those came and went long ago.)
I wonder if I'm more on Mia's page (gasp) with a general assignation that "hymn" simply means "a song with sacred content"?
OTOH, if we stick to Office hymns, we all okay.
In that scenario, I'd just as soon use any of Kathy's settings for festal days, or those of Magnificat.

A pet peeve of mine, by the way, is this expression "liturgical abuse."

I think we should all avoid attaching our issues to the sexual abuse scandal. This happens constantly on the left. "The abuse scandal" is the perfect excuse for ending priestly celibacy and ecclesial structures and all sorts of things. In my most jaded moments, it appears to me that the victims turn out to be of little importance when compared to political aims.

Even in unjaded moments it is clear that the word "abuse" refers to a little kid being overwhelmingly injured. I don't think it should be used, at this historical moment, for anything else. Just my 2 cents.

***

lol. Very true.

I just think we should avoid the word for the time being.

+1, Charles.

"What's to like?"

"Like it or like it not."

+1, Charles in CenCA

There is something missing here that Jeff touched on in the original post but hasn't quite been fleshed out very well in this discussion.

There can be different musical stylistic settings of the same hymn. Thus I don't understand why Francis says that "Sequence hymns" are "good placement of hymns" and then follows by saying, "Other than that, it would be more appropriate for chant and polyphony to be sung by the choir."

Aren't sequences 1) typically plainchant, and aren't there 2) polyphonic settings of the sequences (e.g., "Benedicta semper sancta sit Trinitas," Isaac's setting of Notker's Most Holy Trinity sequence)? Not to mention all of the chant hymns that may or may not have been set by Renaissance polyphonists.

If I'm not mistaken, para. 88 of the GIRM states: "88. When the distribution of Communion is over, if appropriate, the Priest and faithful pray quietly for some time. If desired, a Psalm or other canticle of praise or a hymn may also be sung by the whole congregation." There can thus be no question as to whether or not hymns, in se, are "appropriate" for Mass. The only real questions are about musical style and theological soundness, not the definition or appropriateness of the thing itself.

There are hymns in every musical style, and hymns that date from every period of history. It seems far more useful to distinguish the types of hymns from one another (which was Jeff's original point) instead of to ask, "Is it a hymn or not?" Once the decision has been made to use a hymn in Mass, having that information is all that's important.

DougS said

Aren't sequences 1) typically plainchant, and aren't there 2) polyphonic settings of the sequences (e.g., "Benedicta semper sancta sit Trinitas," Isaac's setting of Notker's Most Holy Trinity sequence)? Not to mention all of the chant hymns that may or may not have been set by Renaissance polyphonists.

Exactly my point. You are absolutely, 100% correct. Thanks for backing me up. Hymns, in the Church's eyes, ARE Gregorian Chant.

Communion is an excellent place for a hymn, (as in my list), but should not displace chant and polyphony as the TE DEUM is THE PERFECT Communion 'hymn'. In other words, the 'Church's prescribed hymns' are, in general, always a better alternative than 'other' hymns. It's the old APTUS that gives us problems.

AKA Paul Ford on a different post:

Rome is thinking of this when they legislate that all sing the post-communion song of praise. The Graduale Simplex lists the Te Deum Laudamus, the Te Decet Laus, and the Te Laudamus for this time at Mass.

Again... the "pastoral approach" would be to follow the pastors of music, yes? So why are we doing something else ALL the time? I have NEVER heard, even once in my lifetime, any of these prescribed hymns sung after communion. Am I in the RC Church, or am I just reading the signs on the front of the buildings incorrectly? I just have to keep reminding myself (lIke they say in the real estate market), "Location, Location, Location".

Reboot again, please.

I could be dead wrong, but I don't think I have ever read anything in any church document about a 'hymn tune'.

"Holy God, We Praise Thy Name" is the hymn; Grosser Gott is the hymn-tune.
"Gloria" is the hymn - it can be set to many different melodies.

CHG:

There may be several (key word: Gregorian) tunes, but specifically we are speaking to the term 'hymn tune' as it would be described in a church document on music. I don't think there is any mention of 'hymn tune' in any church document that I have ever seen. How many Gregorian hymns have more than one Gregorian tune? I venture only a few if that. If there are more, we should be singing THEM!

DougS

And this is why we need to specify whether a hymn is a text or a tune. You are speaking of a text that is set to polyphony. Is it still a 'hymn'? In most people's minds, a hymn is a four part homophonic piece of music where the text is sung metrically in unison. A Chorale is a derivation of that as it might employ some scant polyphonic treatment. A motet is more the other way around (generally), more polyphony with a scant rendering of homophony. Then there is full blown polyphony, where each individual line is it's own independent melody.

As I said earlier up, there are TWO ASPECTS of a hymn, and that is why this is confusing: the text, and then the music. You are interchanging the term hymn as applied to the text. So you are calling a polyphonic variation of a 'hymn text' as such. So your understanding of hymn falls within a certain 'group' of people who profess hymns to be primarily textual content, and the music can be any style or treatment as long as it utilizes the 'hymn text'. That is dangerous territory and exactly why we are singing "rock praise hymns" today.

I hear you saying this:

"Well, it's the words that matter, not the music".

This is the crux of where the Church went south in terms of sacred music.

Many... and THOSE are the hymns of the Catholic Church... the ones we SHOULD be singing.

So of course, the underlying argument here, is again, the ole "chant versus any other kind of music set to a 'hymn' text". What else is new?

Thank you all for trying one more time to unravel the issues surrounding sacred music. It is always stimulating, enlightening and a worthwhile effort if it brings us to a common thinking... eventually.

JO, I hope you found an answer to your original question. I hope we didn't steer you away from your intended focus. See JO's post above.^^^

I am gonna go set the Pange Lingua to a setting for Jazz Quartet (ala idiom, Ella Fitzgerald) complete with cadenza for scat singing (in Latin). (will it still be a "hymn"? Will it still be a 'liturgical hymn?' Will it still be a "Catholic Hymn?' Will it still be fit for liturgy?)

Francis, just because a piece of music is polyphonic doesn't negate the fact that it's a hymn. Take the Gloria for example. Or Te Deum Laudamus. Polyphonic settings of those texts are still hymns. If you disagree, fine, but as I said before, that's why communication on this issue breaks down. People get such rigid definitions of words in their minds that any other conceivable possibility is essentially null and void.

We don't have categories: "Chant," "Polyphony," "HYMN." Hymns can be chant or polyphonic. They can be chorale-style settings. They can be many things. The question of musical style is simply a different question from the text, WHICH IS YET a different question than suitability for Mass. It all seems to run together in your mind, which means that this conversation is an utter failure.

DougS

The conversation is not an utter failure. Is that not a pessimistic attitude? I now understand that you mean hymn as a text... and only a text... the word 'hymn' for you is different than many others who visit here. For you it has nothing to do with musical style or idiom. That is where the breakdown occurs.