Hymn Tunes from the British Isles
Settings for Organ
Prelude on Brother James’ Air (2 pages)
Trio on Bryn Calfaria (3 pages)
Rondo on Cwm Rhondda and Ton-y-Botel (3 pages)
Postlude on Duke Street (3 pages)
Prelude on Greensleeves (3 pages)
Prelude on Nicaea (3 pages)
Carillon-Toccata on St. Anne (10 pages)
Four Verses on St. Columba (4 pages)
Rondo on St. Patrick and Deirdre (4 pages)
Brother James’ Air
sets a familiar hymn tune from Scotland. Written by James Leith MacBeth
Bain, or ‘Brother James,’ as an accompaniment for the 23rd Psalm, it was
first printed in London in 1915. Originally titled Marosa to honor
the seventh daughter of a friend whom he had christened, Bain's
melody eventually came to be known by its present name. This tonally
congenial chorale prelude presents the hymn tune in tenor register,
accompanied by loosely imitative counterpoint. The pedal part is minimal,
used to assist the manuals for occasional sustained pitches.
Trio on Bryn Calfaria draws on a Welsh hymn tune by William Owen that was first published in 1886, then subsequently included in The English Hymnal (1906) with the text, "Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendour." Following the pattern of Welsh melodies represented in this collection, the harmonic language and structure are set in a late Baroque keyboard idiom, in this instance limning a tightly imitative trio that presents its fugue-like subject in original and mirrored forms, with the hymn's cantus firmus melody heard in the soprano. As above, the pedal is used for occasional sustained pitches.
Rondo on Two Welsh Hymn Tunes sets John Hughes’ Cwm Rhondda and Thomas John Williams’ Ton-y-Botel in a late Baroque keyboard idiom. The first tune takes its name from the river valley and city of Rhondda and was written between 1905 and 1907. Ton-y-Botel ('Tune in a bottle'), also called Ebenezer in some collections, was extracted from an anthem by Williams and first published as a hymn tune in 1890. In both settings, the source melodies appear in the soprano voice, and in each a rhythmic reorientation has displaced the original beat pattern by shifting the meter from quadruple to triple. This keyboard rondeau for manuals offers some of the aspects of a piece de clavecin; its rounded structure (A-B-A) is emphasized by a contrasting change of key and mood, moving from B-flat major to G minor for the second tune, where dancing triplet figures animate the appearance of Ton-y-Botel. The returning statement of Cwm Rhondda can be abbreviated, without repeats.
Postlude on Duke Street sets a hymn tune that first appeared in a collection published in 1793; not until its inclusion in William Dixon’s Euphonia in 1805 was it ascribed to John Hatton and given the name by which it is now known. The traditional melody is retained here with all of its original pitches and sequences intact, but the tune is reset into flowing notes of equal value. Each successive phrase appears in points of imitation sounded in treble voices in rolling eighth notes, extended into a cantus firmus pedal presentation (in augmentation). The harmonic language and textural writing call for bold registrations and an expansive tempo.
Prelude on Greensleeves is an elaborate chorale prelude on an English ballad tune; although its origins likely go further back in time, the tune name first appeared in September, 1580 on two separately issued printing licenses for the title, Lady Greene Sleeves, and twelve days later for a sacred text with the same name. The tune is mentioned in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor. Its familiar hymn format is drawn from the collaborative efforts of Henry Ramsden Bramley and John Stainer, in their collection entitled Christmas Carols New and Old (London, 1871). This setting begins as a lilting siciliana, in which the traditional modal English folk melody emerges in long note values sounded in the soprano. At mid-point, the dancing dotted rhythms cede to a plaintively sighing eighth-note figure (in triple meter); the tune shifts to the tenor voice, then back to the soprano, accompanied by a return of the siciliana rhythm and opening dance figurations.
Prelude on Nicaea is a noble and stately setting, based on a familiar hymn tune composed by John Bacchus Dykes and first published in Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1861, where it appeared with its familiar text, "Holy, holy, holy!" In keeping with the Trinitarian nature of the verse, the tune name was drawn from the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325). The prelude opens with loosely imitative counterpoint in the manuals, making use of a rich array of dotted rhythms. Phrase by phrase, the hymn tune appears in boldly augmented note values in the organ pedal line.
Carillon-Toccata on St. Anne is based on a well known hymn tune ascribed to William Croft, dating from the early 18th century and first published in London in 1708, without a composer's name but with its present tune name. It has also appeared as Leeds, attributed to a Mr. Denby; in Canada the same melody was published with its now familiar text, "O God, our help in ages past," but with the name Chelsea. This large-scale setting of St. Anne offers a toccata in the late French Romantic organ tradition, but one with overtones of the English keyboard carillon in which pealing bells are imitated. The opening toccata figurations accompany an emerging thematic unit of three phrases based on the hymn tune and presented consecutively in tenor, then soprano and finally pedal voices. A developmental section follows and eventually cedes to a return of the opening toccata and its theme, all sounding over each of the four phrases of the hymn tune presented in augmented note values in the pedal. The coda adds a jubilant conclusion.
Four Verses on St. Columba sets an Irish folk melody that was first ‘collected’ by George Petri (ca. 1855), and was later published in Charles Villiers Stanford’s Complete Collection of Irish Music (London, 1902), prepared for the Irish Literary Society. The tune appeared again in Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1904, and Ralph Vaughan Williams subsequently included it in The English Hymnal in 1906 with the text, "King of Love." Its tune name evokes the name of Scotland's patron saint. After a brief introduction, four varied verses ensue, the first utilizing a rhythmic displacement of meter, the second presenting a canon between tenor and alto voices. After a brief modulation, the third variation begins in a remote key (A-flat), then finds its way through a circuitous route back to the original tonic key (D Major) for a fourth variation and briefly imitative codetta.
Rondo on St. Patrick and Deirdre combines two traditional Irish melodies, the former adapted for hymn use by Charles Villiers Stanford and first published in 1903, the latter adapted and combined with St. Patrick by Ralph Vaughan Williams for The English Hymnal. The two contrasting tunes pair up to create a hymn structure of epic proportions in which the first tune is presented, then returns with its concluding verses (abbreviated ad lib.) following Deirdre's appearance. The same overall form has been preserved in this organ setting, with a distinctive rhythm shift in St. Patrick that introduces accented syncopations. Individual fragments of each phrase are isolated and echoed on contrasting manuals and timbres throughout. The mid-section of the rondo presents Deirdre, phrase by phrase, in various contrapuntal inversions and at contrasting key levels, altering the period structure of the original tune with additional repetitions. St. Patrick’s return rounds out the three-part structure (A-B-A) and ends on a strongly affirmative tonic cadence.