Singing hymns of praise for church music from the past

From: Martyn L Scargill, Chantry Meadows, Kilham, East Yorkshire.

IT strikes me that Mrs Pickles (Yorkshire Post, October 26) finds herself at variance with myself because of current trends in “church music” which actually contains an unbelievably vast collection of top quality music in all styles, going back many centuries, from all denominations and countries.

Mrs Pickles must have painstakingly picked out one of the most obscure pieces of text possible from the old hymns

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What about the other 900 at least, many of which have truly inspiring words along with the tunes. Take for example Immortal Invisible, Hills of the North and Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken. I could continue, but it would take at least a week. It was the church that laid the foundations of music in the first place.

Perhaps the vicar or minister could say a few words at the beginning of a hymn to explain its meaning.

At any rate, they are far superior in content, to the over-simplified, nursery class words and music that are currently fashionable in modern “worship music” as many now term it.

In this age of tinkering, look how many times they have messed around with the Methodist hymn book of late, gradually phasing out the lovely melodies for which they were once renowned. All must be new.

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Why does everything have to “keep up with the times” indeed? The times are no criterion. If one thing is degraded, it is just foolish for everything else to follow suite. Standards should be maintained wherever possible.

The church could keep better pace with “the times” by speaking out against world and British poverty, environmental destruction, the celebrity cult and the evils of warfare. This would surely bring to it more credibility and encourage the young and others, rather than putting so much emphasis on music all the time.

I am not against anything modern in principle, if the quality is good. How do we know, pray, what the Victorians thought of their hymn tunes anyway?

Anyone to whom I have ever spoken likes them, so long as they know of them. The fact is, that they were composed in an age of generally good taste and less frantic living; their art is reflected in this. Look, for instance, at 18th and 19th century architecture, as compared to our efforts.

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Everything has to be “dumbed down” nowadays, and nowhere is this more blatant than in the field of music, where anything goes, and the world and his wife are encouraged to think of themselves as “composers”.

Equally, anyone can be a singer whether they have a good voice or not. Composition, like the ability to play an instrument properly, takes years of patience, hard work and practice. It also needs a thorough knowledge of harmony, texture and form; it cannot be achieved quickly.

Now John Bacchus Dykes, for example, of Hull, like many of his contemporaries, certainly did know how to write hymns. What with the output of all these superb writers, what is the need of all these new hymns? How many does the world want? What happened to all those lovely Sunday school tunes that we sang in the 1950s? Rhythmic, tuneful and stirring words they had.

Even at many concerts nowadays, half the content comprises people preferring to perform their own efforts, at the expense of good, established concert repertoire which has delighted audiences for years in less manic times.

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Where are the Sankey hymn books these days, that contain many good songs in lively style? Are they now dumped as they are not up-to-date enough? It is perhaps true that some of the older tunes are dirge-like, but at least they are not a muddled mix-up between the jingle, tiny tots TV and the best group.

Which brings me to the popular myth that a weekly sing-song is going to attract the young ones to church. They get this sort of thing practically 24/7 in the media. Should at least one institution not try to teach them something better?

It is the adult world that is clinging to this erroneous belief, not only in the church, but in education generally.

If the church feels that this is the only way forward, then it is a great pity.

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I have worked with thousands of children and young people from all over the world in my profession of music all my life, and I know that they enjoy the old hymns as they love “classical” music as well as rousing overtures, waltzes and marches and the like, but it is necessary to draw their attention to all these treasures in schools, at home and in churches.

From: John Richmond, Harrogate Road, Ripon.

WHILE Ruth Pickles (Yorkshire Post, October 26) may wish to defend modern church music and Martin Scargill (Yorkshire Post, October 21) rightly attacks the trendy ditties in church services, hopefully they both watched BBC Songs of Praise recently when the ten most popular hymns were broadcast from the Albert Hall.

They would note no trendy hymns were chosen.

On a private note imagine my disappointment when last week on the same programme Songs of Praise, an attempt was made to sing O Love That Will not Let Me Go, a beautiful solemn but uplifting hymn, to a dreadful modern jingle with guitar accompaniment.

Surely George Mattheson (1842-1906, writer) and Albert L Peace (composer) would turn in their graves.

Incidentally this was one of the hymns chosen for my wife’s funeral a few weeks ago, sung to the set tune of St Margaret.