Discovering the Songs of Christmas

Just in time for Christmas!

Apostolorum passio

In honor of the liturgical leadership of our Holy Father Pope Benedict, here is my translation of this great Ambrosian hymn. Perhaps it could be nicely sung to the tune Deo gratias.

Apostolorum passio

Blest day by suff’ring sanctified:
Christ’s chosen high apostles died.
Today St. Peter wins renown.
Today St. Paul accepts the crown.

Together, equally, they bled:
Together: the victorious dead.
They followed God and sacrificed
And now their faith is crowned by Christ.

St. Peter holds the highest place,
Yet Paul is not the less by grace.
An equal faith was giv’n to Paul:
The chosen vessel of God’s call.

St. Peter, downward crucified—
To honor God in how he died—
Securely tied, he sees unfold
The death his Shepherd once foretold.

On such foundations Rome may claim
The highest service of God’s name.
His noble blood has dignified
The city where this prophet died.

Let all the world, then, run to Rome.
Let families of nations come!
The head of nations teaches there
Beside the nations’ teacher's chair.

O Lord, we ask that we may be
In their exalted company,
And with our princes sing Your praise
Forever, to unending days.

C. 2010 Kathleen Pluth. May be used only with permission.

Hymn books online

One of the great joys of the modern age is the amount of information available free, online.

I've spent hours in the Mullen Library at Catholic University looking through books just like these. Comfy as libraries can be, it's wonderful that a virtual library like this is available anywhere you can get a wireless signal.

Once when my office was located above a library, I would run downstairs to look at this on my lunch hour. Now, I just go to the sidebar of my blog, click on Dictionary of Hymnology vol. I, and enjoy!

Songs and Hymns

New to the links bar: please welcome the Center for Church Music's Songs and Hymns website.

This is their mission:

Through edification and education, we seek to assist the church--pastors, music directors and key laypeople-- in maintaining fidelity to its biblical and historical heritage of music. Bringing together congregational singing and choral and instrumental music, our desire is to build new awareness and excitement for church music in general and the singing of hymns in particular.

Music Education in Seminaries

Immoderate discusses Paul Jones' Singing and Making Music: Issues in Church Music Today. At issue is the use of praise songs in seminary hymnology courses at the expense of traditional hymnody. Interesting stuff!

Hymn Tune Index

I've filled the sidebar with resources for hymn and chant research. Many of these were provided by Dr. Bert Polman of Calvin College in his Seminar in Teaching Hymnology.

One of the most useful cannot be linked directly from the sidebar in blogger because of its format. Here it is: The Hymn Tune Index.

My Summer Vacation

Last week I had the blessing and delight of participating in a Seminar on Teaching Hymnology, taught by Dr. Bert Polman as part of Calvin College's Seminars in Christian Scholarship. Calvin College is in Grand Rapids, Michigan, about an 11-hour drive from where I live and a two-hour drive from my Uncle Don, so I've had an extremely enjoyable combination of summer vacation, learning experience, ecumenical encounter, road trip, and family visit.

The Seminars are designed to be intensive, and this one certainly was. We met all day, every day, but with a few hours off on Wednesday. For me the time flew by. Dr. Polman is a gifted teacher, experienced hymnal editor, and published hymn writer, with a dry and ready wit, a superb sense of the ridiculous, and an encyclopedic understanding of both hymns and the Scriptures. And he is kind. He engaged us in many helpful learning activities and taught us very well. I'd never met a hymnologist before, not a real one--and he is someone I can truly emulate. I do hope that I will have the opportunity to work with him or learn from him in the future.

A highlight of my week was working with Dr. Benjamin Brody, a seminar participant, on an assigned project, in which we developed a core hymnody list. I was pleasantly surprised to find throughout the week that there was a lot of agreement among us on matters of taste, and in working with Ben I found that our agreement was quite thorough. He taught me a lot about the traditions of hymn singing in the Reformed tradition, and about Gospel songs. I may have convinced him not to like a certain song. Ben also drummed out a beat in our class presentation of Sing a New Song Unto the Lord, which refreshed it somewhat for me.

The following are mostly tongue-in-cheek musings and inside jokes, some of my memories of the week. The chicken memory belongs to Dr. Paul Richardson. As it happens, there was a lot of laughter throughout the week, and a joyful comraderie, made possible in large part by the graciousness of the Calvin College hospitality, but primarily by the deeply committed Christian backgrounds of everyone who was there.

• Calvinists are among those Christians who actually, you know, believe in God.


• Charles Wesley is taller than one might have expected.


• There's rather a consensus that hymns should generally avoid heresy.


• The refrain of the hymn tune BETHANY is unique in structure--each line consisting of a dactylic and a cretic foot--which allows the expression "total depravity" to be neatly incorporated. The implications of this finding for Reformed theology are to be the subject of a roundtable discussion, hopefully to be held in the summer of 2008. A grant proposal is underway. It is intended that this discussion will be the springboard for further discussions.


• People can be really nice.


• Genevan psalmody is a whole new world.


• Monday was chicken.


• Stan can play any hymn whatsoever off the top of his head.


• Another way to say "how well does it say one thing?" is "unity."


• Most good things are done by more than one person.


• However, if you get 4 people working on a project, at least one of them is going to step outside for a cigarette while the Type-A personalities do most of the work. Or probably that's just undergraduates.


• Little things can make big changes: a B-flat where you expected a G, a half-note instead of a quarter. The difference between excellence and banality, congregational participation and congregational frustration, can rest on little moments in a hymn.


• The Psalter and the Sermon on the Mount are fundamentally opposed. There is no remedy.
  
• The Songs of Ascents were uncovered in the archeaological excavation of the back of the closet of a former tour guide in the Holy Land. He had these hymnals for people on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. That's what they sang.
  
• Although it falls nicely into metrical feet, "irresistible" is an awfully long word to be useful to the hymn writer.

Further reflections will be posted as they float to the surface of consciousness. Your comments are very welcome.