Views from the Choir Loft

Hymn Tunes • What’s Up With Naming Them?

Jeff Ostrowski · August 11, 2016

ERE is an iPhone photograph of GIA’s Worship Hymnal. The metrical index doesn’t distinguish between Trochaic and Iambic—indeed, most hymnals do not. ¹ You may ask: “What’s the big deal?” Well, if you try to exchange the hymns according the GIA index, you’ll discover that they cannot be exchanged.

To illustrate this, I’ll choose two well-known hymns (although in real life I’d never recommend switching the text for PASSION CHORALE).

See how the wrong syllables end up being accented?

* * Mp3 Audio • A True Abomination

220 Trochaic Iambic

I’m currently working on a hymn project along with several people from the JP2 Institute. One problem we face is hymn melodies: they often have more than one name!

It’s a free country, so people can believe as they wish. Speaking for myself, however, I’m often bothered by hymn tune names. Everyone’s ear is different—and many will disagree—but here’s how I distinguish:

Unhelpful & Unspecific Names:

Lovely
Easter Hymn
Epiphany
Nature
National Hymn
Shepherds in the field
Veni Sancte Spiritus
This Joyful Eastertide
French Carol
Sunrise
Harvest
Italian Hymn
Gloria
Truth from Above
Psalm 6
Simple Chant

Weird Looking Names:

Praises
Bow Church
Duke Street
Farley Castle
Monkland
Strength and stay
Pilgrims
Metzler’s Redhead No. 66
Redhead No. 46

Unprepossessing or Inelegant Names:

Oswald’s Tree
Toplady
Marching
Knickerbocker
Geronimo
Little Cornard
Pike
Old Bath
Batty
My Dancing Day
Stars of Ice
Long is our Winter

Hard to Pronounce Names:

Hyfrydol
Khanta Zagun Guziek
Lux Eoi
Edgbaston
Gerrans
Wallet Will Ich
Wir Pflügen
Ins Feld Geh
St Aëlred
Trochrague
Cwm Rhondda

Perhaps my list proves I’m not very educated. Maestro David Hughes—surely one of the most respected church musicians working today—once told me many of these names are towns, cities, or even street names.

When Kevin Allen composed original hymn tunes for the Campion Hymn Book, he came up with the most gorgeous names, such as:

Edgewater
Bronzeville
St Peter Claver
Oakwood
Kenmore

NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1 Until recently, most Catholic hymnals didn’t even list the tune name! I’m told the 1950s book by Vincent J. Higginson was one of the first to do so.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

About Jeff Ostrowski

Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004). He resides with his wife and children in Michigan. —(Read full biography).

“Music List” • 5th Sunday of Easter (Year C)

Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for the 5th Sunday of Easter (18 May 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. The Communion Antiphon was ‘restored’ the 1970 Missale Romanum (a.k.a. MISSALE RECENS) from an obscure martyr’s feast. Our choir is on break this Sunday, so the selections are relatively simple in nature.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Communion Chant (5th Sunday of Easter)

This coming Sunday—18 May 2025—is the 5th Sunday of Easter, Year C (MISSALE RECENS). The COMMUNION ANTIPHON “Ego Sum Vitis Vera” assigned by the Church is rather interesting, because it comes from a rare martyr’s feast: viz. Saint Vitalis of Milan. It was never part of the EDITIO VATICANA, which is the still the Church’s official edition. As a result, the musical notation had to be printed in the Ordo Cantus Missae, which appeared in 1970.

—Jeff Ostrowski

“Music List” • 4th Sunday of Easter (Year C)

Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for the 4th Sunday of Easter (11 May 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. I don’t know a more gorgeous ENTRANCE CHANT than the one given there: Misericórdia Dómini Plena Est Terra.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Antiphons Don’t Match?

A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).

—Corpus Christi Watershed

When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962

There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop

—Veronica Brandt

The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum

Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.

—Daniel Tucker