We received the following message from Michael H. (For the sake of anonymity, we usually don’t reveal correspondents’ last names.)
AS THERE BEEN any push-back regarding the technique of shared melodies? Although I have seen metrical and tune indices before, I never gave them much thought. The concept seems to clash with modern songwriters where the lyrics and music would have a copyright as a complete unit. When I would see a “sung to the tune of…” I would dismiss it as the second text writer being lazy and stealing someone else’s music, possibly influenced by hearing criticisms of composers for being too clichéd and unoriginal. Is there an article addressing the history of shared melodies and text-only hymns? Was hymn composition originally modular where a religious poet would write in a specific meter and expect a choir director to carefully pair the text with music from a collection of the same meter? The weekday congregation is always small so the idea of introducing new texts on familiar melodies is appealing, but I am concerned other people would have the same prejudices, so would like to provide a proper explanation. Please thank Jeff Ostrowski for addressing the possibility of horrific text to hymn pairings in his article Six Pernicious Pairings.
Jeff Ostrowski responds to Michael on 23 January 2024:
EAR MICHAEL: Your thoughtful message is much appreciated. Let me begin by saying that I’ve written loads of articles which tackle your questions in a very specific way. The problem is, you’d have to use GOOGLE to search for them—because my answers are scattered amongst the various articles I’ve published over the last decade. For instance, in an article I published about a month ago, I spoke of a forgotten Catholic custom which employed ‘seasonal’ melodies during Benediction for the O Salutáris Hóstia. I pointed out at least one famous Catholic composer who did that during more recent times: viz. Achille P. Bragers (d. 1955). In the Divine Office, the same text is frequently used with different melodies depending upon the season (and solemnity of the feast). An example that springs immediately to mind would be the Te Lucis Ante Terminum. We should remember, too, that mediæval manuscripts won’t necessarily match the tune pairings Abbat Pothier and his team chose in the EDITIO VATICANA. That is to say, the same hymn text is sometimes—not always—paired with various tunes in mediæval manuscripts. If you look at this ancient MS, for instance, you’ll observe that Christe Redemptor Omnium (referred to as “Placare Christe Servulis” after 1632AD), an ancient hymn assigned to the feast of All Saints on 1 November, isn’t set to the bright tune Abbat Pothier chose. For the record, Dom Mocquereau sometimes chose a different tune in his 1903 LIBER USUALIS than the one chosen by Abbat Pothier in the 1896 LIBER USUALIS. Both Pothier and Mocquereau often included “extra” melodies that can be used ad libitum; an example would be Sanctórum Méritis Ínclyta Gáudia in Dom Mocquereau’s 1903 LIBER USUALIS on pages 616-619.
Pernicious Pairings • When the choice of hymn tunes is made by an expert, the results are superb. This is only natural. Abbat Joseph Pothier was (perhaps) the preëminent liturgist of his time, so his pairings tend to be magnificent. Contrariwise, when tunes are assigned willy-nilly, the results can be unpleasant, offensive, or grotesque. What do you think of the following pairing made by a liturgical book published in the 1870s?
In Medio Stat Virtus • Too much variety is bad. Too much familiarity (a.k.a. “repeating the same song a billion times”) is also bad. As I tried to explain in my Artistic Credo Article a few months ago, the tradition of the church has always been “some variety, some familiarity.” That’s why the official KYRIALE provides about 25 different Carmen Gregorianum settings of the ORDINARIUM MISSAE. Some of my Protestant friends tell me they have sung each week the same hymn for 60+ years of their life, ever since they were young. I’m all for repeating high-quality music, but imagine singing the exact same hymn tune every week for 60+ years! That deleterious practice (in my view) indicates someone whose grasp of music is infantile. I remember reading an interview about a famous pianist who had to judge a competition in which Liszt’s MEPHISTO VALSE was played by each competitor. At the end of the competition, the pianist heard that valse repeated something like 85 times. He declared that he couldn’t bear to hear it anymore—and never again programmed it. The other side of the coin would be the choirmaster who never repeats the same music; that’s also reprehensible.
Concrete Example (1 of 6) • Anyone familiar with the EDITIO VATICANA knows that multiple melodies are provided for “Ave Maris Stella,” an ancient hymn to our Lady. Here’s a setting found in the Brébeuf Catholic Hymnal with the ORIENTIS PARTIBUS tune:
Concrete Example (2 of 6) • That’s quite a beautiful tune, and the Brébeuf Hymnal also places an English translation of “Ad Cenam Agni Próvidi” with the ORIENTIS PARTIBUS tune:
Concrete Example (3 of 6) • There’s a beautiful hymn to the Holy Name of Jesus called “Victis Sibi Cognómina,” which the Brébeuf Hymnal sets to IOANNES. We recently sang it with female voices on the refrain:
Concrete Example (4 of 6) • If your choir already knows the ORIENTIS PARTIBUS tune, perhaps you don’t have time to rehearse anything else. Or, maybe you really enjoy singing ORIENTIS PARTIBUS! Either way, the Brébeuf Hymnal has you covered:
Concrete Example (5 of 6) • The ancient Latin hymns are often quite rich. That means another translation might “bring out” or “emphasize” or “place in a new light” different parts. Notice how the Brébeuf Hymnal includes a different English translation of “Victis Sibi Cognómina” set to the PASCHAL LAMB tune. Before (see above) we had a Long Meter English translation which began: “From conquered realms let tyrants claim.” The following is a different translation in a different meter:
Concrete Example (6 of 6) • Traditionally, the KINGSHIP of our Savior was celebrated during the season of Epiphany. In the 1920s, a modern feast dedicated to our Lord’s KINGSHIP—with Neo-Gregorian propers—was fabricated and added to the universal calendar. Pope Saint Pius X had “cleaned” the calendar fifteen years earlier, only to have Pope Pius XI start messing with it again! But I digress… The October KINGSHIP feast was supposed to remind people that Christ is not only King of Heaven (November 1st) and King of Purgatory (November 2nd), but also King of the world. Trying to shift emphasis away from the Epiphany to the October feast never made much sense, because a Christian would have to be pretty stupid—in my humble opinion—to “doubt” or “deny” or “fail to realize” that JESUS CHRIST is King of the world. In any event, it’s perfectly appropriate to celebrate Christ’s KINGSHIP during Epiphany, and our choir did precisely that by means of the following hymn, whose tune I suspect you’ll recognize:
The Most Holy Name • Since today we focused on a hymn for the MOST HOLY NAME, I can’t help but remind readers about the sensational review my seminar received from an organist and choirmaster named Beth Luther, who works at the HOLY NAME CATHEDRAL:
