Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns

Subject: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Haruo
Date: 30 Dec 01 - 01:05 AM

I don't know how many times I've looked at the tune Beach Spring in The Sacred Harp (see here) but I had never before noticed that the other tune on the same page, Cookham, with which I am not familiar, has "Hark! the herald angels sing" for a text.

I think everybody now sings it to Mendelssohn, but of course I knew the text predated the latter tune, it just never occurred to me to wonder what preceded it.

Are there any other well-known carols that are universally sung to a particular tune now but were once sung to a different one? Examples?

And what about "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound"? Everybody from Judy Collins on up sings it to New Britain, but the lyrics were around a good forty, fifty years before the first attestation of the tune. What did they sing it to originally? (Yeah, I know, House of the Rising Sun... ;-)

"Auld Lang Syne" is another example; my website has a MIDI of the original tune (For old long syne, my Jo) as background sound on my Auld Lang Syne in Esperanto page.

Etc. Other similar cases sought.

Liland

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Helen
Date: 30 Dec 01 - 05:03 AM

I'm also interested to know which of the two common tunes I hear is the original one for Oh Little Town of Bethlehem.

Helen

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Willa
Date: 30 Dec 01 - 09:08 AM

Carols for Choirs (OUP)has two tunes for 'Away in a Manger'; one by W.J. Kirkpatrick (1838-1920), which is the most commonly used, I think, and one quoted as a Traditional Normandy tune, with no date. I also sing it to an Traditional Germany melody, again undated.
I think the English trad. tune for 'O Liitle Town of Bethlehem', arr. by Vaughan Williams, is the most commonly used, the alternative I know is credited to Lewis H. Redner, undated.
'While Shepherds watched their flocks by Night' can be sung to a tune by Handel.

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Dec 01 - 12:01 PM

It looks like "Hark" may have a history of change. According to the Cyber Hymnal, Wesley's words were changed in a hymn book by Chope, 1857 (the old text is given, same meter). I don't have Mendelssohn's cantata, Festgesang, so I don't know how much the tune excerpted from the cantata was "arranged" by Wm. Cummings in 1885 (this is the common one)- it could be quite a change.
Was Cookson a person or a place? You might have to trace that down to see if there was an older tune.

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Dec 01 - 02:02 PM

A little more on "Hark." Words were first changed by George Whitefield in 1753 (didn't like word "welkin" and changed some lines). Whitefield set the hymn to music that was later discarded- this probably is where the "Cookson" came in, haven't been able to find it.
In 1855, Cummings, organist at Waltham Abbey, set the hymn to music ("with changes") from the 2nd chorus of Mendelssohn's Festgesang No. 7, commemorating Gutenberg, the printer. Cummings also changed "King of Kings" to "newborn king" (and other changes?). Mendelssohn expressly asked that the music not be used for sacred texts, but he was dead by the time that Cummings borrowed it. The tune should be properly cited as Mendelssohn arr. Wm. Cummings.
The date 1885 which I mentioned in the previous post may be a misprint for 1855.
Publication apparently was in Chope, 1857.

A more famous William Cummings was the first curve ball pitcher.

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 30 Dec 01 - 03:10 PM

We (Ky. mountaineers)have different tunes to, "Amazing Grace," and, "O Little Town of Bethlehem." And a few years ago, when participating in, The Christmas Revels, in Cambridge, "While Shepherds Watched" was sung wonderfully to the tune for, "On Ilkly Moore." Don't know how traditional that match was, though!

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Dec 01 - 04:09 PM

"O Little Town..." seems to be an easy one. The cyber hymnal gives midis of 3 tunes. Lewis H. Radner, 1868, to words by Phillip Brooks 1867; Uzziah C. Burnap, 1895 and an arrangement of "an English melody" by R. Vaughan-Williams, 1906. All three are pleasant. The common one is the one by Radner.

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Dec 01 - 04:42 PM

"Amazing Grace" - see esp. the comments by Burke and Bruce O. in this thread:
Here

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Snuffy
Date: 30 Dec 01 - 06:28 PM

Jean, I believe that tune was originally used for "While Shepherds Watched" quite some time before it was used for "Ilkley Moor".

Dicho, "Songs of Praise" gives two tunes to O Little Town. One is "Christmas Carol" by H Walford-Davies, and the other is "Forest Green" English Traditional Melody, words by Bishop Phillips Brooks (1835-93). As Vaughan-Williams was co-editor of this book, I presume that is the one you refer to. In England, anyway, Forest Green would account for 90% and the Walford-Davies for the other 10%. I've never heard either the Burnap or the "common" Radner versions.

WassaiL! V

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Dec 01 - 07:53 PM

Snuffy, from your post, Forest Green must be the melody that V-W used. The reference I had just said "English melody."
The Radner version in the Cyber Hymnal is the one commonly heard in the USA and Canada but the V-W is also sung by choral groups. I don't believe that I have heard the Burnap tune except on the Cyber Hymnal midi.
The Cyber Hymnal mentions Walford-Davies as a composer of oratorios and choral suites but doesn't cite him as a tunesmith for "O Little Town..." They do include 3 hymns for which he wrote music.

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: masato sakurai
Date: 30 Dec 01 - 08:19 PM

The Walford Davies tune of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" is in The New Oxford Book of Carols (no. 101, setting III); Shorter NOBC (no. 56); 100 Carols for Choirs (Oxford, App. 1); Carols for Choirs 3 (Oxford, no. 32); Hymns Ancient and Modern (no. 40, setting II); Carols for Today (Hodder & Stoughton, no. 40); Hymns for Today's Church (Hodder & Stoughton, no. 88ii). Recordings are on Choir of King's College, On Christmas Night; Quink Vocal Ensemble, Carols Around the World.
~Masato

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Dec 01 - 08:22 PM

Well, guess who has the best discussion of "O Little Town"! Liland, who started this thread. She has all the midis including one by G. W. Fink. The midi for Burnap doesn't work. I have a hard time fitting the words to the tune by Walford Davies.
I will let Liland put a clickie for her website.

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Haruo
Date: 31 Dec 01 - 01:31 AM

Sorry, Dicho, I'm a man! (I know, my name "looks" feminine; not sure why; on my birth certificate it's "Leland", which "looks" much more manly, again don't know why.)

I was wondering why you didn't seem to have seen my copy of Cookham (not Cookson, FWIW), and then I noticed the link in my initial post (the one that says "see here") doesn't go anywhere. Try this one: Beach Spring and Cookham (from the fasola shapenote classic Sacred Harp, 1844). In looking at the tune remember that the "melody line" is in the middle (tenor) staff, not the upper (treble) one. Unfortunately the Sacred Harp only gives the first verse, so I can't tell whether the whole thing was in its modern textual form by 1844 or not; if so, the folks at the Cyber Hymnal should be notified.

Here is a link to my hymnal's entry for O Little Town of Bethlehem; the MIDI links are below the lyrics; just scroll down till you see them. The Redner tune is the original; Redner was the organist in the church where Brooks was the pastor, and wrote the tune at Brooks' request. The latter named the tune "St. Louis" in a play on Lewis Redner's name and in gratitude for the composition having been finished in time for the Christmas (Eve? I don't recall) service (a story similar to, though neither as touching nor as well known as the story of Stille Nacht's debut).

The Walford Davies tune does work (check the Christian Science Hymnal, the older edition). But certainly "St. Louis" (in America) and "Forest Green" (in Europe) are by far the most commonly heard tunes for it. What do the Australians etc. sing it to? BTW, many recent USA denominational hymnals offer it twice, once with "St. Louis" and then again with "Forest Green" (or vice versa). Incidentally, there's a German carol "O Betlehem, du kleine Stadt" sung to "Forest Green" that is clearly inspired by "O Little Town of Bethlehem" but not closely enough based on it, textually, to qualify as a translation. I have an Esperanto version of it, too, in my hymnal.

I believe both text and tune ("St. Louis") of "O Little Town" should be dated 1868; in any case, they were written the same year, so the alternative possibility is that they should both be 1867. Not sure on what grounds the Cyber Hymnal gives them different years.

A somewhat similar situation obtains for "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear", with Americans (and Free Churchers) favoring the original tune "Carol" by Richard Storrs Willis, while Europeans (and Liturgical Types) tend towards "Noel", an English folk tune arranged in this case by Arthur S. Sullivan.

As for Away in a Manger, the Kirkpatrick tune ("Cradle Song") is more common in Europe, the tune called "Mueller" is more common in America, and is the original (or oldest extant) tune for the text. It is sometimes misleadingly referred to as "Luther's Cradle Hymn" and occasionally actually credited to Martin Luther (even though it is of American origin, 1880s vintage), so it may be the tune Willa referred to as "Traditional Germany". A "Traditional Normandy" tune for this text is news to me. It's been awhile since I looked at Carols for Choirs; will check it out. The other tune often used for "Away in a manger" is the Spilman tune best known as "Flow Gently, Sweet Afton". I have the Vietnamese version set to this in my online hymnal (as it was in the Alliance hymnal I took the text from). I find it easy to confuse the Kirkpatrick tune and the Spilman one; I know the latter better, and often catch myself slipping into it when trying to sing the former without the music in front of me. "Mueller", on the other hand, is completely distinct.

My hymnal has over 120 Christmas pieces in it (mostly, granted, in Esperanto, but tunewise, what diff?) and the easiest way to access them for you Anglophones is through my Christmas Carols in Esperanto index by English titles. Among those with a diversity of tunes probably the most extreme example is "Brightest and best", for which I have 9 MIDIs and am looking for two more tunes ("Epiphany (Hopkins)" and "Spean").

Jean, can you recommend a recording of the Kentucky tunes for Amazing Grace and O Little Town that you referred to? Especially the former intrigues me. Also any odd tunes for "How Firm a Foundation" (in the US I think the old shapenote tune "Foundation", aka "Bellevue" and many other names, is nigh universal now though there was a time when "Adeste Fideles" was the most common hymnal tune for it over here with "Lyons" ("O Worship the King", for most Americans) a distant runner-up. In England on the other hand I think "Montgomery" is still the dominant tune for the text (and the only one old enough to have been, just possibly, the original tune). But if you Kentucky folks [I'm a descendant of Dan'l Boone, well actually of his brother, myself] sing Amazing Grace to a different tune, maybe you do Foundation, too?

Thank you all kindly. Keep it coming.

Liland (male)

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Helen
Date: 31 Dec 01 - 03:40 AM

Regarding O Little Toown of Bethlehem, I haven't heard the ones by Davies and Fink, but the one I have heard most often in Oz until lately was the St Louis melody, but now I hear the Forest Green one more often.

It's a fashion thing, perhaps.

Thanks for the comprehensive info. I actually thought that the St Louis version sounded more modern, and I think it was in the early movie of little women, so I was wondering whether Hollywood had something to do with it, but now I know that I should forget about trying to guess the time a tune was written because I am hopeless at it. [grin]

Helen

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Dec 01 - 09:37 AM

The history of "O little town" is even cited as an example in a discussion of copyright law! Click here and scroll down to footnote 31.

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: DMcG
Date: 31 Dec 01 - 01:49 PM

Liland: I use this tune for Brightest and Best - is it one of the ones you are looking for - or yet another tune!

X:1 T:Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning (Hail! The Blest Morn) Tune name C: I: Q:1/4=86 V:1

M:4/4 L:1/8 K:C "C"C2 |E"Em"F "F"G2 "Dm"C"G"C "C(F)"F2 |"C"F"F"A "G"G"Em"C/"C"D/ "Dm"E4 |"C(Dm)"C2 "Em"E"C"F "Dm"G2 "Em"CC | w:Hail the blest morn, see the great Me-di-a----tor Down from the re-gions of A2 GF G4 |E2 GF (ED) CC |D2 DE (DC) _B,2 |E2 GF (ED) CC | w:glo-ry de-cend! Shep-herds go wor--ship thebabe in the man- ger Lo! for his gu-ard the bright D2 FF E4 |] w:an-gels at-tend!

Also, try searching for "Village Carols" for about six different Yorkshire tunes for "WHile Shepherd's Watched"

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 31 Dec 01 - 01:56 PM

Thank you, GUEST! More than one thread on copyright laws have appeared in Mudcat; this is the first time I have seen Phillips brief. It is worth reading.

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Willa
Date: 31 Dec 01 - 03:46 PM

Liland, refs for Away in a Manger
Carols for Choirs OUP 1961 p3 Away in a Manger Trad Normandy tune arr. By Reginald Jacques, melody reprinted from University Carol Book by permission of H. Freeman & Co.
The tune simply referred to as Trad. German comes from 'Autoharp Accompaniments to Old Favorite Songs', by Elizabeth Blair.
The abc is:
M:3/4
K:G
L: 1/8
d2|d3cB2|B3AG2|G2F2E2|D4D2|D3ED2|D2A2F2|E2D2G2|B4d2|d3cB2|B3AG2|G2F2E2|D4D2|c3BA2|B2A2G2|A2E2F2|G4
Hope this enough to identify it.

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 31 Dec 01 - 06:43 PM

Liland- Happy New Year- the hour is nearing! Sorry that my recordings have all been the "ordinary" tune, in deference to audiences' singing along, or my co-singer on the album (Doc Watson on "Jean and Doc at Folk City, for the latter category). If you'll send a PM and nag me, I'll get son Jon to set down the music somehow for you. You must already have a source for the tune we used for "O Little Town," as it was one of the common ones of yesteryear.

You might be interested in a longago photo-story my husband and I did with Daniel Boone VII. He claimed to be a direct descendant, and laughingly told us his younger cousin was mad at him because he(the cousin)had also been named the same...there was some sort of race being run to have sons so that the name could be appropriated first! Of course none of this got printed in the article- would you like a copy? We still have it, I think.

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 31 Dec 01 - 07:41 PM

One of my favorite settings of "O Little Town" is an adaptation by Charles Ives. He adapted the words to fit his beautifully serene melody.

JP

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Burke
Date: 31 Dec 01 - 07:49 PM

Liland, I've had occasion to sing religious songs socially with some Primitive Baptists who use word only books. I can still remember a stint with people from several churches who went through 4 or 5 tunes for the same set of words. I've also heard them sing Amazing Grace to several different tunes.

"While Shepherds Watched thier flocks" is a great example of a text that's been used with innumerable tunes. The tune for "On Ilkly Moore" was written for "Grace 'tis a Chaming Sound," was popularly adopted for use with Shepherds & finally "On Ilkla Moor Bah T'at" was written to go with the tune. Here's a thread on it. This sort of existing words/tune/other existing words/new words for tune evolution is not uncommon with hymns of any sort. The words/tune at the same time seems to have really caught steam in the mid to late 19th century.

"Hark the Herald" by Charles Wesley, like his non-Christmas hymns, was set down with no particular hymn tune in mind. Cookham is a really good tune, like most of the other triple time tunes in Sacred Harp, it dances. According to the '91 ed. it's earliest publication was 1760 in a book called Harmonia Sacra.

Your best bet to find what other tunes were used before the current ones is to just go through old hymnals. There's no sure way to know which were really popular but the more different places you find the pairing in, the more popular it was. I also look at denominational hymnals as more likely to have been really used than some others.

I seem to recall seeing Amazing Grace set to Arlington in either a Moravian or Methodist Hymnal. Sacred Harp singers use it for alternate verses to Hallelujah & almost any other common meter tunes that have only 1 verse in the book.

Since you've got a Sacred Harp, see Plenary for other words for the 'Auld Lang Syne' tune. Portuguese Hymn is a different translation of Adetes Fideles, but I don't really like the arrangement.

The meter indexes in hymnals will help you find other tunes for 'How firm' (or any other hymn) that could work for words, but there's no real way to know what's really been used. I'm sure Cyberhymnal has a meter index. Here's the Sacred Harp.

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 01 Jan 02 - 11:37 AM

You Sacred Harpies mustn't have this thread to yourselves: here is the Southern Harmony on Line. (Joke. It was a joke. The link is real, though.)

The words "O Worship the King all Glorious above" is often sung to the tune called Hanover, but it fits with the tune in the same meter called Old 104th, so I wouldn't be surprised if Old 104th were the earlier setting, though I can't document it. In roughly the same meter also is the tune Burns used for "Lady Mary Anne", and also the tune that the Irish band Dervish uses for "The Hills of Greenmore." The tune for "Lady Mary Anne" can also be used for "Away in a Manger", which is in a meter (11.11.11.11) which differs only by two syllables from the meter (10.10.11.11) of "O Worship the King all Glorious above".

T.

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: GUEST,rangersteve
Date: 02 Jan 02 - 10:06 AM

This is related to the subject: The melody for Good King Wenceslaus predates the lyrics. Does anyone know what the original lyrics were?

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: masato sakurai
Date: 02 Jan 02 - 11:27 AM

The tune of "Good King Wenceslas" comes from TEMPUS ADEST FLORIDUM (English translation: "Flower Carol") in Piae Cantiones, a Finnish (not Swedish) collection of Latin songs published in 1582 (see this site, too). MIDI is HERE. Another English version to this tune is Let Us Now Our Voices Raise.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Jan 02 - 01:14 PM

I seem to remember that the origin of the tune for "The Good King" from Piae Cantiones appeared in Mudcat recently prior to this thread, but can't find it. Three threads on origins of Christmas Carols are:
Here
St. Stephen
Here

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Jan 02 - 01:32 PM

Other threads on carols-hymns from Piae Cantiones are:
Here
Here
Here

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Arbuthnot
Date: 02 Jan 02 - 04:55 PM

When I was at school we used to sing In Our Day of Thanksgiving One Psalm Let Us Offer to the tune Was Lebet, Was Schlebet at our annual Founder's Day service. This tune is commonly used for O Worship The Lord in the tum-tum of holiness, and does not fit as written in most hymnals. To allow use as stated the first note is split (for In our, rather than single for O) and the triplet at the end of the first line (holiness) is changed to a double note (offer). This usage probably dates back at least a hundred years. Sorry about the tum-tum - can't remember where the selzer is!

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Jan 02 - 05:15 PM

Acc. to Flaj, 04-nov-01, there is a book called Jack Goodison's Collection of Local and Traditional Carols that lists 12 tunes for "While Shepherds Watched..."
South Yorkshire Carols:
Here
The Oxford Camerata has recorded 13 songs from Piae Cantiones on Naxos 8.553578, a cd that received good reviews from Gramaphone, etc., and is a budget label as well.

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Burke
Date: 02 Jan 02 - 05:33 PM

Arbuthnot, tum-tum is beauty. It's in Cyberhymnal

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: masato sakurai
Date: 03 Jan 02 - 10:35 AM

"Flower Carol" is in The Oxford Book of Carols (1928, no. 99), with this interesting comment attached:

This is a free translation, with a doxology, of the words proper to the melody of No. 136, 'Tempus adest floridum', the Spring carol which Neale unfortunately turned into a Christmas carol by writing his rendering of the legend of 'Good King Wenceslas'. We have therefore reprinted the proper tune here, with the suggestion that it should be sung as a Spring carol, and that 'Good King Wenceslas' might be gradually dropped. (p. 207)

Interestingly again, the underlined words was deleted from the 1964 reset edition (p. 215).

~Masato

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 03 Jan 02 - 03:17 PM

Masato- In my OXFORD BOOK, the "King Wenceslas" lyric is referred to as, 'doggerel.'

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Jan 02 - 04:00 PM

Doggerel indeed! Amusing at times, how opinions of the upper classes clash with those of the general public in Oxford compendia as well as the Oxford English Dictionary. In the OED, there are (or were, I am talking about the 1971 ed.) a number of little asides. I always had fun with this one (thread drift).
Serviette (Sc. serviot, etc.): "The older use of the word was exclusively Sc. In the 19th C. it was re-introduced with the French spelling (at first only as a foreign term). It may now be regarded as naturalized, but latterly has come to be regarded as vulgar."
To lexicographers,the unnecessary use of a foreign term is vulgar. In England, table napkin is the proper term, but below the upper classes, serviette is in common usage; it also is widespread in Canada (but rarely heard in the United States). If anyone has the current complete OED edition, I would like to know how the entry reads now.

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Burke
Date: 03 Jan 02 - 04:22 PM

[a. F. serviette a towel, table-napkin, of obscure formation, connected with servir SERVE v.1 The older use of the word was exclusively Sc. In the 19th c. it was re-introduced with the French spelling (at first only as a foreign term). It may now be regarded as naturalized, but latterly has come to be considered vulgar.]

I hope this was quick enough for you ;-)

Aren't French terms usually upper class, though?

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Jan 02 - 05:46 PM

Thanks, Burke, looks like no updates on that word in 30 years.

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Haruo
Date: 05 Jan 02 - 10:24 PM

Incidentally, I now have two MIDIs of "Cookham", the Sacred Harp's tune for "Hark! the herald angels sing" (scroll down for MIDI links below lyrics), in my hymnal. The first one, Cookham1.mid, differs from the second in that the latter, Cookham1r.mid, repeats the last half of the tune. I am not sure whether the two dots in the notation are part of a repeat or not. The end of the song does not appear to indicate a repeat, and I am unfamiliar with a notation that shows the beginning but not the end of a repeated section. Perhaps one of you (Burke?) with a bit more familiarity with the fasola tradition than I have can say whether Cookham does or does not properly repeat its last two lines. I do agree, Burke, that Cookham is a really good tune.

Liland

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Burke
Date: 07 Jan 02 - 05:56 PM

Liland,
The short answer is keep them both, either are correct.

The long answer is an explanation of both tradition & the notation you're seeing. (Examples drawn mostly from online Southern Harmony)

The 'rule' is that internal repeats are always observed & repeats at the end are optional. The internal repeats usually are for repeating the next section of words to the same music, like in your Beach Spring copy. The final repeat is the option of the leader.

In practice the terminal repeats are usually just done on the last verse. They are almost always done on fuging tunes. The only time I've seen them omitted in a fuge is because the leader lost track of if it had been done or not. For a tune that's not a fuge, like Cookham, it's up to the requestor/leader. What you should do in only very rare cases is use the repeat on every verse. Leaders will sometimes also put repeats in that are not written, especially if there's a chorus. My rule of thumb is do what comes naturally & feels right at the time. It's not always the same.

When coming from a choir/sing as written frame this seemed like it was strange esoteric practice. It fell into place for me in a 'folk' frame at a Welsh hymn sing I went to where the director was soaking it up & at the end of a hymn kept right on going. Without prior alert & barely missing a beat the singers & the organist knew just what to sing over again simply because it comes so naturally. Think of Cwm Rhondda, you just know to repeat the last 2 lines. It's even more obvious with chorus songs. Then pay attention to any kind of folk performance & notice how often final verses, final choruses or final sections are repeated.

On to the notation. I can tell you're not using a James, Denson or 1991 edition for your source. Is it a reprint of the 1859? I started noticing the missing repeat marks at the end when I started using the Cooper edition, which also omits them. If you look at any of the older shape note books, you'll find that they are just not present. At best there will occasionally be a 2nd ending (as in your Cookham copy). If you really want confusion try to figure out the internal repeats for Easter Anthem. The interpretation of the repeats supplied by ccel (repeating the lines before the : rather than the portion after), is not the way we do it. Then try Huntington!

I think either the 1911 (James) or the 1935 (Denson) editions must have added the terminal repeats. I don't have a copy of the 1859, but, I've also discovered that we have many repeats that are not present in the Cooper ed. or the Southern Harmony. Beach Spring is a good example where the 1991 ed. has a repeat of the 2nd half. Coronation is another. Many of the fuging tunes lack repeats in Southern Harmony that are in Sacred Harp.

Now is where I go into pure speculation. It would appear that James added the repeats that were commonly done when the revision was done. Just from the practice of singing, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that a final repeat is just something that comes naturally. In that context, one does not need a terminal repeat to tell you to repeat the last section. One might, however, need a repeat if the point to return to seems ambiguous. One might also be needed if the repeat changes the counting a bit so a 1st & 2nd ending would complete the measures.

I guess a final note is that repeating has a lot to do with the feel of the song at the moment it is being done. Not only is the repeat optional, but if it's really kicking the repeat may be done several time. One good example is Hallelujah. There's no repeat in Walker's original. Later editions of Sacred Harp do have a repeat & I have done the chorus 3 times when it was really hot.

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Haruo
Date: 08 Jan 02 - 09:43 PM

Is Candler (the Scottish folk tune favored by American Methodists for "Come, O Thou Traveller Unknown") a fasola tune? In the form I'm familiar with it involves the obligatory repeat of the last two lines of each verse (though the tune isn't the same the second time) — sort of the opposite of what happens in the first half of Beach Spring, where the tune repeats but the words change.

For that matter, what does anyone here know about the origins and history (and other, perhaps secular, traditional texts) of Candler? I think I asked this in another thread years ago. Not sure. A MIDI of Candler is available at The Cyber Hymnal (on the "Come O Thou Traveler" page) if you don't know what tune I'm talking about.

Liland

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Burke
Date: 09 Jan 02 - 12:10 PM

The Shape Note version for Come O Thou Traveler is Vernon. Note the repeat of the 2nd part. It's also at the Cyberhymnal. Boston Camerata did a recording of it as well.

Our church choir has also done it to a different tune, but I don't recall what it is right now. It is not Candler. Candler is L.M.D. (Long Meter, double) It would work well with an 8 line hymn or 2 verses of a 4 line hymn treated as 1. Come O... is 6 lines of 8 so the words are repeated to match the music. I don't know how common a practice that is. Combining 2 verses into 1 is not unusual.

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Haruo
Date: 09 Jan 02 - 07:14 PM

Well, Candler (though it's two lines too long, I agree) is the tune given in both the 1935 Methodist Hymnal and the 1990 United Methodist Hymnal (different arrangements, but same tune, both requiring that the last two lines of text be sung twice). FWIW.

Liland

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Haruo
Date: 09 Jan 02 - 07:15 PM

But what I was really looking for was whether Candler was used in fasola circles for some text, and/or what its nonhymnic text(s) is/are.

Liland

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Burke
Date: 09 Jan 02 - 07:24 PM

Cyberhymnal says Candler is from The Hesperian Harp. If that's accurate & they mean William Houser'sThe Hesperian Harp., then your answer is yes; as Houser's book is a shape note book.

I don't know what other books it may have been in, I'm not familiar with the tune.

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Haruo
Date: 10 Jan 02 - 04:20 PM

'Course, Burke, when I say "fasola" I mean not merely shapenote, but four-shape shapenote, where the scale sings "fa sol la fa sol la mi". There are also seven-shape shapenote books, and while I think the Hesperian Harp is four-shape, I'm not 100% sure.

Liland

Subject: RE: Help: Earlier tunes of songs, carols, hymns
From: Burke
Date: 10 Jan 02 - 07:32 PM

You're right, it is. If you want to go any further on this title try the fasola discussion list. Someone there might know more on it's use & history.