PBEH Discussion: Amazing Grace
  • francis
    Posts: 10,799
    That is what I assumed this project was out to mine, but in the end I suspect this really will be an eclectic hymnal with a conservative bent.
  • Francis, please provide a list of 250 English hymns that are certifiably Catholic (from their origin) in both text and music.
    Thanked by 1PurpleSquirrel
  • I'm also curious about the origin of Immaculate Mary. I'm guessing 19th century.
  • 'Immaculate Mary' is certainly not in my top ten. That tune is just schmaltz. Not arguing with the words. I think one could compare it to 'Amazing Grace' as a traditional hymn loved by many, tho from two different traditions/cultures.

    Donna
  • JDE
    Posts: 588
    Yes, and please provide the Official Certificate of Religious Purity and Freedom from Non-Catholic Taint for each of those 250 hymns. I simply could not buy a hymnal without that official stamp of approval.
  • It is schmaltz. Seems like a waltz. This is the problem with nearly all metrical hymns. They all remind us of something else we've heard. The modern stuff reminds me of sit-coms and diaper commercials. The old ones remind me of beer halls and marching bands. There are perhaps have a dozen exceptions in my mind.

    Contrast to chant, English or Latin. They make us think of...Church.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,507
    I've been meaning to recommend this book: http://www.archive.org/stream/earlylatinhymnsw00walpiala/earlylatinhymnsw00walpiala_djvu.txt

    Chant & metrical are not mutually exclusive terms.
  • Jeffrey, Sorry nearly all metrical hymns do NOT remind me of brass bands or beer halls! Today, I was able for the last time before my choir is in for the year to attend my Epis Church home. We opened with 'Engelberg', and closed with 'Bryn Calfaria'. In between we sang anthem arr of Draw us in the spirit's Tether, Jesus, meine Zuversicht & canticum refectionis for Communion and East Acklkam. Hardly Beer Hall or Brass Band. Maybe Bryn Calfaria might remind of a SILVER BAND. LOL

    Donna
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,507
    OTOH, I was conducting At the Name of Jesus (King's Weston) not long ago and all I could think was, "This tune is impious. No religious content whatsoever." Fortunately the Colloquium was only a week later.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,799
    JT:

    I could be entirely off base, but I was excited that this project was going to be exactly that! It would take more time, thinking, digging, writing texts and new hymn tunes and mining the old ones (and even digging into the Eastern Rite and other avenues that are more esoteric), and we could truly have put something together that was really different, and maybe even approaching earth shattering, all for the service of the RC liturgy. We already have the Adoremus hymnal which seems to be about the same thing as what this project is hoping to do. Am I mistaken?

    I was thinking including some of the best of the St. Gregory, the Basil, and perhaps simple motets old and new, like the earlier 20th century hymnals put together. No?
  • francis
    Posts: 10,799
    Yurodovi:

    Just send me a SASE and I will provide you with the proper certificate. I promise!
  • Francis, yes, that's right. You will see.
  • If you want to combine a dislike for his particular hymn AND a standing disenchantment with unfettered cantors you should look up "Omazing Grace" on YouTube. (Yes that's an "O", I just can't bear to post the link. Be sure you've waited at least 60 minutes since eating.)
  • "There is problematic theology in the song, depending on how you interpret it. That's the real reason to leave it out."

    Amen Maureen.
    I cannot describe how much I dislike this song - my kids already have had it spelled out clearly to them that they absolutely are not to have this at my funeral...
  • tdunbar
    Posts: 120
    I had thought that the central goal of this project was getting a high quality collection of english hymns into the public domain and so, since the lyrics are generally in the public domain, the main issue was the TUNES rather than the lyrics. However, the discussion has suggested otherwise.

    A collection for use in Appalachia (the part of the US that I care about) would have to include New Britain under any criteria that would seem rational to me. Granted, I may not be very rational.

    While on the topic of tunes, I wish there was a hymnal with the tunes for every hymn in the liturgy of the hours.
  • tdunbar--

    You mention Appalachia. Noel, Donna Swan, CharlesW, and I are all in East Tennessee. We're planning a CMAA chapter meeting in a couple of weeks. If you're anywhere nearby, you're very welcome (as, of course, is anyone else).

    Mary
  • Chrism
    Posts: 870
    I'm also curious about the origin of Immaculate Mary. I'm guessing 19th century.


    Sorry, why would that be an issue? Most of English-language Catholicism dates from about that time as well.
  • tdunbar
    Posts: 120
    marymezzo,
    when/where?
    I'd very much like to come..i live in the New River Valley of Virginia (Radford)
  • Maureen
    Posts: 678
    Re: the hymnal contents --

    I wouldn't worry too much about it. You can only consult the group mind so long, and then you just have to make an executive decision. If you're really worried, do like the ancient Hebrews and cast lots. :)

    Re: "New Britain" --

    The way it's written in some of the modern Catholic hymnals is not the way anybody else in the history of creation has written it down. You were probably trying to play it the way people really do play and sing it. :)

    Re: "Waly, Waly" --

    Some of the differences between hymn tune and folk tune are inevitable. For one, you have to pick one single tune out of the zillions of variants and declare it to be _the_ "Waly, Waly". :) Also, you can't vary the tune to fit slightly different verse scansion in every verse, or else you will drive everyone crazy. (Learning a song orally and writing one out under a score are totally different worlds.)

    However, every tune for "Waly, Waly" tends to be fairly complicated. The basic structure might be simple, but nobody sings it that way. The hymn tune chops out pretty much every note of interest.

    Another major difference is that "Waly, Waly" does not really cut up the scansion of the verses in a pattern that the hymnal version is designed for. Here's how you really sing "Waly, Waly":

    It's waly, waly, down the banks (breath)
    And waly, waly, down the brae (breath)
    And waly, waly, yon burnside, where my love and I (finally a breath)
    Were wont to gae.

    The water is wide, I cannot get o'er, (breath)
    And neither have I wings to fly (breath)
    But give me a boat that can carry two, and both shall row (finally a breath)
    My love and I.

    Now, that's not the way you'll see those verses written as poetry, but pretty much every traditional ballad singer sings them that way -- except the ones that leave out the third breath, and only stop at the end of the verse:

    But give me a boat that can carry two, and both shall
    Row, my,
    love a-and I.

    That third line's more or less the exciting bit of the ballad, when the verse gets all worked up into either a faster run, or where the singer draws it out even more, before hitting the last line climax. There's a lot stronger pulse to it, too. I'm fairly sure that time signatures change, the way lots of people sing it, or at least that they stretch quite a lot!

    The hymn tune has no idea of any of this, and just pounds along more or less the same tempo and the same emphases all the way. Which is necessary to a certain extent, but... I think they really pounded it past meek submission and all the way to "dead horse".

    Also, there's a lot less ornamentation in the hymn tune. A lot, lot less. "Waly, Waly" is a paradise for low-key ornamentation, and you ornament or vary it however you feel will complement the particular verse best, or whatever you like to do to it. But you don't ever sing it really plainly. When you've got a song that runs to ten or fifteen verses, you really like ornamentation! (Even if you're just singing it to yourself.) Naturally, any hymn that's going to be sung by a choir can only afford to have the ornamentation built into the choir arrangement. But... most hymnals these days tend to skimp on ornamentation severely for any Celtic tune, and when they throw any in, it's usually not very Celtic-sounding. It makes me sad.

    I'm probably being very mean and nasty and unfair in my take on this, but it's hard to see why composers would want to take a slithery, sobbing little tune like "Waly, Waly" and turn it into something boxy. (And of course, the American versions of the ballad, that get called "The Water Is Wide", do tend to be a little more regularized. And then there's Benjamin Britten and other classical arrangements. But still, it's very strange.)

    OTOH, although I find it disconcerting to have it turned into a march and be turned into a regularized hymn, the arrangement of "Star of the County Down" used for Cooney's Magnificat is sensible enough. I'm not sitting there wondering what was in the man's mind and how much crack was required to put it there.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    tdunbar, we are all in Knoxville, Tennessee.
  • tdunbar
    Posts: 120
    CharlesW,
    yes, i've found facebook & web .. since i had to work today and was on call last week, i'm thinking of taking a little roadtrip down to Holy Ghost this weekend
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    If you are at one of the four Sunday morning masses, come up to the choir loft and introduce yourself. I will be the one at the organ, and marymezzo will also be there at the 10:00 a.m. mass.
  • tdunbar--

    Looks as though our upcoming CMAA get-together will be at 11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 19, in the Chancery offices in Knoxville. (I will e-mail you the details.) It's just a mixer--a chance for us to talk about what we're doing in our parishes and groups. And to plot, I mean, plan for the future.

    In the spring we hope to bring JT and AOZ for a weekend chant workshop.

    If anyone else wants to pop in, please e-mail me--marymezzo at gmail.com.
  • Sorry I can't come. Previous engagement in th mountains
    Donna
  • tdunbar
    Posts: 120
    Charles and Mary,
    yes, since it's a fair drive I figure i'll make a day of it, ie come to a morning mass (will try to make it to the 10am one) and then stay for the 1:30pm EF mass.
    see you'll then
    thomas

    ps: sorry that i can't make the Sept 19th meeting..i've a prior commitment then.
  • I like using the tune "New Britain" with a poem of St. Robert Southwell:

    A Child My Choice

    Let folly praise that fancy loves, I praise and love that Child
    Whose heart no thought, whose tongue no word, whose hand no deed defiled.

    I praise Him most, I love Him best, all praise and love is His;
    While Him I love, in Him I live, and cannot live amiss.

    Love's sweetest mark, laud's highest theme, man's most desired light,
    To love Him life, to leave Him death, to live in Him delight.

    He mine by gift, I His by debt, thus each to other due;
    First friend He was, best friend He is, all times will try Him true.

    Though young, yet wise; though small, yet strong; though man, yet God He is:
    As wise, He knows; as strong, He can; as God, He loves to bless.

    His knowledge rules, His strength defends, His love doth cherish all;
    His birth our joy, His life our light, His death our end of thrall.

    Alas! He weeps, He sighs, He pants, yet do His angels sing;
    Out of His tears, His sighs and throbs, doth bud a joyful spring.

    Almighty Babe, whose tender arms can force all foes to fly,
    Correct my faults, protect my life, direct me when I die!
  • Oh, I have always loved that poem. Never thought of attaching it to New Britain. Years ago there was a setting by ....Richard Dirksen, maybe? Can't remember. It reposes somewhere in my moldering library of octavos I will never use or sing again, but can't bring myself to throw away.

    Donna
  • I have no special attachment to "Amazing Grace", although the reference to self as "wretch" is refreshing actually. Imagine my disappointment at a recent visit to another parish with the horrendous WLP missalettes... as you know, "a wretch like me" is now "and set me free." Luckily that little treasure of an alt. is under copyright, preventing its inclusion in the PBEH.
  • Luckily that little treasure of an alt. is under copyright


    How interesting that this seems to be a developing pattern. Providential?
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,507
    One of my favorite poems!

    I'm not crazy about the way the stanzas are cut in two here, though, and to my ears the tune seems too aggressive for this sweet poem.

    Could New Britain be an alternate tune to the (extremely CATHOLIC, Francis! :-) ) Jerusalem, My Happy Home?
  • 'Land of Rest' is also a good tune for the St. Robert Southwell poem !
  • tdunbar--

    excellent! We look forward to meeting you.

    Mary
  • We have recently started singing a memorial acclamation to the tune of Amazing Grace.
    It doesn't seem to bother most people as, being French, they don't have an knowledge of the original but I find it really off-putting, especially as I've never really been a fan of this hymn.
  • Oh my goodness. That's my Purgatory.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,507
    A quick google shows multiple instances of this hymn online, nicely laid out in SATB. This is not a hymn that must be set free into the public domain. With so many objections, why include it in the PBEH?
  • That's probably right. In any case, it has become a distraction.
  • Amazing Grace is very simple, actually, in that it seeks not to make an intricate and loaded theological statement, but is a recounting of a Damascus Road sort of moment. To postulate any further about theological abstractions is to miss the point. Further, if you look in some of the old books like the Sacred Harp, or especially, the Southern Harmony, there are a couple of excellent verses that are very appropriate for funerals, but are not usually sung anymore.
    I would also advocate for a conventionally singable version of this tune based on the shaped-note versions and not on the cleaned-up versions we usually see and hear today at church.
  • Jerusalem, my happy home? Sing it to "Materna", aka "America the Beautiful". "Thy gardens and thy gallant walks/ continually are green...." For more on this, see the old 1918 Episcopal hymnal, if you can find one. At my parish, I always instruct them to sing the verse "Jerusalem! Jerusalem! God grant that I may see/ thine endless joys, and of the same partaker ever be!" as a refrain to the other verses. Start the tune at "America! America!" and you'll see what I'm talking about! Schmaltzy, yes, but in the best sort of way.
  • I don't like the song. Including it with a disclaimer, part of the plan, is better then excluding it.

    The more that is excluded that people want to sing, the more chance that they will not get the good stuff with the less than stellar.

    They will be able to read and learn about each hymn. And see a "catholicity rating."
  • If you were to choose three verses of Amazing Grace...which ones would you keep?
  • Leave it out. If this is a Catholic hymnal, some consideration should be made to leave out hymns (songs) that are so protestant in spirit (while not precisely heretical) that it's noticeable.
  • We were reminded beautifully last night at the University of St Thomas' (Houston) 2010 Aquinas Lecture by Archbishop Miller of Vancouver that truth (or Truth), regardless of by whom it were spoken (be it by the devil himself), remains the truth: so saith Aquinas. There are, of course, some Protestant hymns that convey what is not true; for instance, Lutheran hymns that deny the efficacy of good works. Otherwise, a wise man would recognise that truth is truth and delight in its any and every expression - perhaps especially its expression among our separated brethren and even non-Christians.
  • Michael, while I agree, this has nothing to do with PBEH...it's an outside project of healing.
  • Two years have gone my and today I get an email asking what's wrong with singing AG. After a polite, considered answer, I got this:


    I thank you for your reply and appreciate your point of view. However, as a 63-yearr old Catholic, I recall that Pope John XXIII hosted the Ecumenical Council to lessen the disparities between our CHRISTIAN faiths. I ask you: Is there anything in "Amazing Grace" that is de facto contrary to Christian doctrine? No. So why would we, as Catholic CHRISTIANS, take offense at a beautiful, hymn such as "Amazing Grace"? On the day the Catholic Church officially says we can't sing this beautiful hymn, that is the day that I believe we have returned to the Inquisition. In my opinion, both are equally wrong. And I believe that Popes John XXIII and John Paul II would agree.

    I would be concerned about our safety here in the wilds in the case of a visit by this self-appointed Catholic Christian protector of all that is good and right if we did not share the farm with a wildlife officer with an armory of firepower at his fingertips...

    His view of VAT II is interesting. I need to get the dictionary out and figure out what de facto contrary means...well, why bother.

    Maybe I shouldn't have pointed out that the Bishops are required to approve the lyrics of any music to be sung at Mass and, even if they have fail choose not to act as the church requires them to, it is still the law of the church.

    Unless someone has changed the law and didn't tell me.

    Pointing out that it would be unacceptable to sing a hymn about the Mormon Golden Plates at Mass may have been a mistake, too...well, if you can't take a joke, serious comment....
    Thanked by 1PurpleSquirrel
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,209
    Maybe you can offer to include it next time there's an ecumenical prayer service at your parish, but not at Mass.
  • DanielCDanielC
    Posts: 37
    I would have to agree that hymns which are not expressly Catholic do tend to "water down" the liturgy. Amazing Grace is a nice enough spiritual to sing with my family on road trips and such, but we have to remember that the Sacred Liturgy deserves all the rich tradition and theology that Holy Mother Church has prescribed for it.

    I have noted this fact in an article I wrote comparing different hymnals, found here.

    Some really great free resources I've found for singing good, solid hymns:
    http://www.ccwatershed.org/vatican/harmonizations/2/
    http://www.ccwatershed.org/vatican/harmonizations/3/
    http://www.ccwatershed.org/vatican/harmonizations/4/
  • I find that it is rarely sung here in Canada, with the exception of funerals. Then EVERYONE wants it. (The CBW changed the lyrics..... They didn't like the word "wretched".)

    I refuse to sing it. Period.
  • benedictgal
    Posts: 798
    I would rather excise it from Catholic hymnals, along with Pescador de Hombres. What is just as worse is hearing AG in Spanish.
    Thanked by 1PurpleSquirrel
  • TCJ
    Posts: 986
    "I would rather excise it from Catholic hymnals, along with Pescador de Hombres. What is just as worse is hearing AG in Spanish."


    Or even worse - Pescador de Hombres sung in English.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,799
    So, three years out from producing the PBEH, what is the success rate of anyone using it as a hymnal in its entirety? Did anyone print multiple copies and use it for their congregation? Does anyone use single pdf files in their worship aids? Has there been other uses of this effort? Very curious!

    I still use the 1940 for harmonizations as we use the WLP program of which many of the harmonizations suck. Once in a while they keep the excellent time proven ones, but it's rare.

    Also, I never gave JT my list of 250 Catholic hymns. Amongst the composers here, and the lyricists (I am thinking of Kathy, Gavin, etc.) we could have (and still could) created a masterpiece of a truly Catholic hymnal which includes the great chant hymns (many of which are found in the PBC. The model I am best thinking about is the likes of Marier's hymnal. I recently got that one, and wow. What a resource. The only thing it lacks is the chant hymns in chant notation.

    The other sad truth about a hymnal like that is it falls prey to obsolescence with the fad of changing English translations. What a pity.