Naming
The practice of naming hymn tunes developed to help identify a particular tune. The name was chosen by the compiler of the tune book or hymnal or by the composer. The majority of names have a connection with the composer and many are place names. Most hymnals provide a hymn tune index by name (alphabetical) and a hymn tune index by meter.
In some instances a particular text and tune have an almost exclusive partnership with each other, such as Reginald Heber's text, "Holy, Holy, Holy!" sung to John Bacchus Dykes's tune Nicaea. In other instances a text may be used with a variety of tunes, such as "O for a thousand tongues to sing" sung to any of Lyngham, Oxford New, Arden, Lydia, Richmond, Azmon, or University. In yet other instances a tune may partner several texts, such as Dix for "As with gladness, men of old", "Christ, whose glory fills the skies", "God of mercy, God of grace", "Lord, to you immortal praise", and "For the beauty of the earth".
By contrast, in Germany and Scandinavia, tune names were not typically used even when a hymn tune was used for more than one text. The custom in such cases was to use part of the first line of the first text with which the tune was associated as a name for the tune: for example Lasst uns erfreuen (All Creatures of our God and King), Gelobt sei Gott (Good Christian men) and Was lebet, was schwebet (O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness). Renaming of tunes occurs from time to time, when a tune is chosen to be printed in a hymnal. When chorales were introduced in England during the eighteenth century, these tunes were sometimes given English-style tune names.
The Ravenscroft Psalter of 1621 was the first English book which specified, by name, which tune should set each text. This followed the procedure used for the first time in the 1616 Scottish Psalter. In this early time of defining text/tune marriages, editors of different psalters were apt to use different names for the same tune. For example, The French Tune, in the Scottish Psalter (1564), was the same tune as Dundee in the Ravenscroft Psalter. Common practice nowadays is for the composer of a tune to name it.
Read more about this topic: Hymn Tune
Famous quotes containing the word naming:
“See, see where Christ’s blood streams in the firmament!
One drop would save my soul—half a drop! ah, my Christ!—
Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!—
Yet will I call on him!—O, spare me, Lucifer!—
Where is it now? ‘T is gone; and see where God
Stretcheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows!—
Mountains and hills, come, come and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of God!”
—Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)
“Husband,
who am I to reject the naming of foods
in a time of famine?”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“The night is itself sleep
And what goes on in it, the naming of the wind,
Our notes to each other, always repeated, always the same.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)