10. Xmas speedbumps

There is a truism in text criticism that when variant readings do not seem to be a scribal error the editor should prefer the harder reading as more likely closer to the original.  The reasoning is that—all else being equal—it seems less likely that a scribe would intentionally produce something more awkward.

Of course, it must be exceedingly rare that anyone can assert “all else being equal.”  Sometimes the harder reading is so awkward that one must wonder what was behind it.  I can remember the experience even as a child of puzzling over the variant I discuss below.  It seemed so unlikely—so unmusical—that I wondered who could possibly have produced it.  In later years I felt gratified to see my childhood bewilderment justified.

The Rev. Thomas Helmore was a Victorian antiquarian and musician who was in the forefront of the musical revival of the Oxford movement.  He was a precursor to Ralph Vaughan Williams in the breadth of historical sources that he wanted to bring into active use in Anglican worship.  (For an interesting account of his on-site inspection of the chant manuscript universally known as St. Gall in 1875, see that in his brother’s memoirs, p. 99ff..)  It is a pity that for this post I dwell on one of his mistakes, as there is much good to be said about the man and his efforts.

Almost by chance, in 1853 Helmore came into possession of an extremely rare 1582 Scandinavian songbook entitled Piae Cantiones.  (That date—whenever it was—ought to be a red-letter day in music history, as the consequences of Helmore's acquaintance with Piae Cantiones would shape Anglo-American hymnody in far-reaching ways.)  The book was given to Helmore by John Mason Neale, another antiquarian cleric, whose part in the Oxford Movement is much more widely known—particularly because of his verse translations of ancient hymns.  Piae Cantiones was exactly Helmore’s cup of tea, and he collaborated with Neale to produce two publications the following year using the tunes he found there: Carols for Christmas-tide and Carols for Easter-tide (both available here).  Although these publications describe Neale’s lyrics as “principally in imitation of the original,” he sometimes departs very far from this—sometimes astonishingly brilliantly, as with his translation of Prudentius’s “Corde natus ex Parentis” (“Of the Father's love begotten”) matched by Helmore with an entirely independent medieval tune, never to be prised apart.

Another example is Neale’s text “Good Christian men, rejoice,” which he devised to go with the 14th-century German macaronic carol “In dulci jubilo.”  Although he didn’t know it, there was already an English translation that stuck pretty closely to the original—even preserving the macaronic mix with Latin tags from the liturgy.  That translation was devised by Robert Lucas de Pearsall for his 1834 part-song arrangement of “In dulci jubilo,” a mainstay of the Oxbridge Carols for Choirs repertoire, and an almost annual feature in the King's College carol service:

(For more, see Pearsall’s note about his composition, as it appeared in Carols for Choirs (OUP, 1961).)

Neale’s text is entirely his own.  He was faced with a challenge, however, because Helmore’s transcription of the melody produced an irregularity after the third line of text.  Here is what Helmore had before him:

SOURCE:  cropped from screenshot of Piae Cantiones (1582) available as IMSLP #89383

The Swedish text in Piae Cantiones introduced an extra syllable, and thus an extra note.  What in the German original had been only “leit” became “ligger.” Helmore then interpreted the notes I have circled in red to be not minims (i.e., half the length of the diamond-shaped semibreves) but rather longs (i.e., longer than the square breves).  His version of the melody thus introduces two speedbumps in the middle of the second line, and Neale had to accommodate these in his text:

SOURCE:  cropped page scan of Helmore’s Carols for Christmas-tide (1854), p. 20

Helmore’s harmonization is pedestrian in the extreme, but his misreading of the melody became the standard reading for the English-texted carol when it was included in the popular Christmas Carols New and Old, ed. Henry Bramley and John Stainer (Novello, 1871):

SOURCE:  cropped page scan from first edition of Bramley & Stainer.

Stainer’s harmonization has appeared in many English and American hymnals, although some wised up to the mistake and eliminated the seventh bar.  (I’m not sure who spotted it first.  As “In dulci jubilo” became more familiar to Anglo-American audiences through its use in concerted music by Bach and others, the speedbumps in “Good Christian men, rejoice” were bound to be noticed eventually.  Helmore’s error had already been eradicated by the Episcopal Hymnal of 1916, although glancing at Hymnary.org, I see that it persists in books published as late as 1995, 1997, and even a Korean hymnal of 2001.)  The neat thing is that simply excising the error does no damage at all to either the lyrics or the tune, as the repeated exclamations in each verse are gratuitous, and the melody has some phrases that begin with a pick-up and some that begin on the beat.  The New Oxford Book of Carols (1994) asserts that Neale’s lyrics were devised before Helmore transcribed the tune (p. 198), attributing the extra exclamation to Helmore, but no evidence is offered to support this.  I wonder if, rather, Neale had his doubts about this hiccup in Helmore’s transcription, and produced something which could be cut without harm.  Maybe Helmore himself had doubts about it; scholar that he was, he would doubtless prefer the hard reading.  And that’s what he gave us.

7. On second thought

In the Christian liturgical calendar, today is All Saints’ Day, which prompts me to consider small textual point about a hymntune that will be much in use today in Anglican services.  Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote his tune SINE NOMINE for the text “For all the saints who from their labors rest” as a processional hymn in The English Hymnal (1906), for which he served as music editor.  This book revolutionized the music of Anglo-American hymnody, incorporating a wealth of traditions (chorales, Genevan Psalms, plainchant, folk music) into a new mainstream.  In addition to many hymn arrangements of folk tunes, Vaughan Williams contributed a several original tunes to the book.  SINE NOMINE is probably RVW's best known hymntune, but there are a handful of other contenders for that distinction.  

Some fifty years after the fact, RVW described his work on the hymnal partly as one of purging the Victorian hymntune repertory:

Whilst trying to include all the good tunes, I did my best to eliminate the bad ones.  This was difficult, because I was not entirely my own master.  My committee insisted that certain very popular tunes should be retained.  The climax came when my masters declared that I must myself write a fulsome letter to a prominent ecclesiastic asking for leave to print his horrible little tune.  My committee and I finally settled our quarrel with a compromise by which the worst offenders were confined to an appendix at the end of the book, which we nicknamed the “Chamber of Horrors.”  (p. 3)

In his preface to the volume itself he is somewhat more restrained:  “...a short appendix is added of alternative tunes to certain hymns for the use of those who do not agree with the choice of the musical editor.”  (p. xii).  Joseph Barnby's tune for "For all the saints" was clearly one not to RVW's taste, as it is confined to the Appendix.  Charles Villiers Stanford's stirring tune ENGELBURG (1904) was under copyright in the new edition of Hymns Ancient & Modern, and thus not available for The English Hymnal.  So Vaughan Williams wrote his own.

Below on the left is the beginning of the hymn as it appeared in the first edition.  The hymnal appeared in a second edition in 1933, and the image on the right is how it appears there.  Ignore the difference in formatting:  the textual variant is bb. 4-6.

Source:  cropped digital scans (600 dpi) of (L) The English Hymnal (OUP) 1906 ed., p. 826; and (R) The English Hymnal (OUP) 1933 ed., p. 832.

The harmony of b. 4 is identical (tonic) in both versions, but in the later edition the walking bassline of the pedal is changed in order to accommodate a new harmony (V/V) in b. 5.  This, in turn, allows a suspended E on the downbeat of b. 6, resolving back to the 1906 text in the middle of that measure.

I have wondered about this passage for years.  This hymn is always in the service when I am on the organ bench on All Saints’ Day—or on the Sunday nearest to it.  It appears in many American hymnals, some with the 1906 text (as I first came to know it), and some with the revised text.  Why and when was the change made?

It is hard to date when it was changed, but earliest example I have found with the revised reading is another hymnal which RVW edited, namely Songs of Praise (OUP) which appeared first in 1925:

Source:   cropped digital scan Songs of Praise (OUP) 1925, p. 162.

If anyone can locate this reading in any printing of the first edition of The English Hymnal, I would be eager to know about it.  (A number of separate pamphlets of hymns from The English Hymnal were published over the years, including one in 1921 that included “For all the Saints.”  The only copy I have located is in the British Library, and for this post I haven't been able to check the reading there.  Perhaps the alteration was made at that time?)  Hymns are often the victims of cavalier and arbitrary musical alterations, as often the music editors of a hymnal are not really editors at all; at least in this instance, where Vaughan Williams was the musical editor and this is his own hymn tune, we can rule out the arbitrary and cavalier as a factors.

As to why the change was made, I can only suggest a possible reason.  Over the first notes of the hymn are instructions:

Source: detail of The English Hymnal (OUP) 1906 ed., p. 826.

Verses 4-6 are given a four-part harmony setting:

Source: detail of The English Hymnal (OUP) 1906 ed., p. 828.

There we note that the “original” harmony is used for bb. 5-6, and that all that is lacking of the original in b. 4 is  the walking bass of the organ pedal line.  My suggestion is that, as this harmonization would appear in three verses already, RVW made an alteration for the other five just for the sake of variety.  I can’t prove it, and I’ve never been convinced that is an improvement.  But while I’m on the subject of this alternate four-part setting, I think the counterpoint for the Alleluyas is gorgeous, the tenor line in particular:

Source:  ditto

Here is a performance from York Minster; it uses the 1906 reading through verse 7.  At verse 8, the revised reading is used.  I’ll remember that idea the next time it is on the service list when I am on the bench.