John Pyke Hullah

John Pyke Hullah, born on this day in 1812, is primarily remembered as a music educator, bur he was also a composer and editor. His mother encouraged his musical education when he was young; she had studied with the composer John Danby (who, in turn, was a pupil of Samuel Webbe)..

Hullah entered the Royal Academy of Music in 1833.  One of his fellow students was Fanny Dickens, whose brother was not yet a famous novelist.  A few years later, Hullah would write the music for an operetta with a libretto by Charles Dickens, The Village Coquettes.  The work was not successful, and Dickens reportedly attempted to buy all the copies of the score to keep it from being presented again, but some of the songs by Hullah were published separately as sheet music.  He later wrote two more operatic works which were presented at Covent Garden, but most of his compositions were glees, a particular type of song popular in England, written for at least three voices.

Hullah believed that musical education, particularly in choral singing, fostered an important type of community.  Singing schools in England had grown especially popular in the nonconformist churches of the eighteenth century, and he encouraged this sort of education.  This became known as the choral revival, or the Psalmody Movement.  Hullah also wrote popular books on music theory, such as his Rudiments of Musical Grammar, which were used for many years.  He was one of the founders of Queen's College, the first English institution of higher education for women.

Some of these things suggest that he must have had some interest in congregational singing as well, and indeed he did write several hymn tunes.  He also edited two collections, A Hymnal, chiefly from The Book of Praise (1868) and Hymns for the Young (1872).  Today's tune by Hullah, BENTLEY, was perhaps his longest-lasting tune (one of only two of his available at the Cyber Hymnal) though it probably is not very well known today. The short text by James Edmeston has a musical theme which makes it appropriate for Hullah's birthday (though I am not the first to join this tune and text).

When shall the voice of singing

Flow joyfully along?

When hill and valley ringing

With one triumphant song,

Proclaim the contest ended,

And Christ, who once was slain,

Again to earth descended,

In righteousness to reign.

Then from the craggy mountains

The sacred shout shall fly,

And shady vales and fountains

Shall echo the reply;

High tower and lowly dwelling,

Shall send the echo round,

All hallelujahs swelling

In one eternal sound.

James Edmeston, 1822

Tune: BENTLEY (7.6.7.6.D.)

John Pyke Hullah, 1867

In later years John Hullah was appointed a national musical inspector for training schools, a post which he held for a decade until two years before his death, in 1884.

Two Years Ago: Julia Anne Elliott

Samuel Webbe

The birthdate of composer Samuel Webbe is unknown, and the date of his death is apparently also uncertain, but several sources do list it as May 15.  He had a son by the same name who was also a composer, but not of any hymn tunes that survived to the present day.

The tunes of Webbe that we do know mostly appeared first in his Essay on the Church Plain Chant (1782), and thus were not harmonized as we know them.  Webbe was a Roman Catholic in England, writing for their liturgy and not for the Church of England.  

Today we have what is probably Webbe's best known tune, MELCOMBE, the melody of which came from that first book, and is still included in modern hymnals.  The tune gained popularity in a relatively short period of time; it next appeared in a 1791 collection called Sacred Harmony (where it received its name).  Webbe then included it in his later Collection of Motets (1792) with a rudimentary harmonixation.  Ir probably arrived in America through the efforts of Lowell Mason; it appeared in early as 1828 in one of his collections, where it was called NAZARETH.

Like so many other familiar text and tune combinations, this one comes from the first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861), where music editor William H. Monk harmonized the tune as we now know it.  In addition to today's well-known text by John Keble, that hymnal also matched MELCOMBE to Lord, speak to me that I may speak by Frances Ridley Havergal, but that pairing did not prove popular.

New every morning is the love
Our wakening and uprising prove;
Through sleep and darkness safely brought,
Restored to life and power and thought.

New mercies, each returning day,
Hover around us while we pray;
New perils past, new sins forgiven,
New thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven.

If, on our daily course, our mind
Be set to hallow all we find,
New treasures still, of countless price,
God will provide for sacrifice.

The trivial round, the common task,
Will furnish all we ought to ask;
Old friends, old scenes, will lovelier be,
As more of heav'n in each we see.

Only, O God, in thy dear love,
Fit us for perfect rest above,
And help us, this and every day,
To live more nearly as we pray.

John Keble. 1827; alt.
Tune: MELCOMBE (L.M.)
Samuel Webbe, 1782
harm. Willliam H. Monk, 1861

This text is from John Keble's The Christian Year (1828), part of a sixteen-stanza poem entitled Morning. Of course, some modern hymnals cut it even further to four stanzas.  In The Christian Year, this poem was preceded by a quote from Lamentations 3:22-23: "God's compassions fail not. They are new every morning," which may also remind you of a more recent hymn, Great is thy faithfulness.

I've already admitted that MELCOMBE is not a favorite of mine but someone must like it if it continues to appear in hymnals today. Archibald Jacob, in Songs of Praise Discussed (1933), calls it "an extremely well-balanced tune, of great dignity," which just shows what I know.

Three Years Ago: Samuel Webbe

Two Years Ago: Austin C. Lovelace

Let Us For a While Give O'er

Iu many churches today the readings will be recounting the story of the Transfiguration, which appears in three of the gospels. I believe this year's appointed version will be from Matthew 17:1-9. This is a twentieth-century innovation, because the true Feast of the Transfiguration falls on August 6. In earlier times, this Sunday was known as Quinquagesima, the last Sunday before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. The latest this day can fall in the calendar is March 7, so we are pretty much at the limit this year.

One of the customs associated with Quinquagesima in some places was a kind of farewell observance, in preparation for giving various things up for the duration of the Lenten season. In liturgical worship, the word Alleluia (from the Hebrew, meaning praise to God) is not used during Lent, neither spoken, sung, nor chanted, so this would be its last Sunday appearance until it re-emerges at Easter.

There were various local rites in the medieval church for this renunciation. In the French city of Toul, up until the fifteenth century, they would celebrate a full requiem mass and bury a coffin ostensibly containing the word Alleluia, which may have been the most extreme form of observance.

The Latin hymn for this occasion, from the eleventh century, is still sung today, though not quite as they sang it in Toul. It originally began:

Alleluia, dulce carmen

Vox perennis gaudii,

Alleluia vos suavis

Est choris coelestibus,

Quam canunt Dei manentes

In domo per saecula.

This was translated by our old friend John Mason Neale, preserving the original meter, and appeared in his Hymnal Noted (1851), and does still in several hymnals today.

Alleluia, song of gladness,

Voice of joy that cannot die;

Alleluia is the anthem

Ever dear to choirs on high;

In the house of God abiding

Thus they sing eternally.

Alleluia thou resoundest,

True Jerusalem and free;

Alleluia, joyful mother,

All thy children sing with thee;

But by Babylon’s sad waters

Mourning exiles now are we.

Alleluia though we cherish

And would chant forevermore

Alluluia in our singing,

Let us for a while give o'er

As our Savior in his fasting

Pleasures of the world forbore.

Therefore in our hymns we pray thee,

Grant us, blessèd Trinity,

At the last to keep thine Easter

With thy faithful saints on high;

There to thee forever singing

Alleluia joyfully.

Latin, 11th cent.; tr. John Mason Neale, 1851; alt

Tune: DULCE CARMEN (8.7.8.7.8.7)

Collection of Motetts and Antiphons, 1840

(there is, unfortunately, an egregious error in the harmony at the end of the third line)

The tune, which derives its name from this Latin text, had earlier appeared in plainsong form in An Essay on the Church Plain Chant (1782) by Samuel Webbe, but was arranged into its metrical form in a later book by Webbe. It's also been known as CORINTH and TANTUM ERGO, among other names.

Neale's first line of the translation was originally Alleluia, song of sweetness, which is really closer to the Latin dulce, but less often used today. His original third stanza is also quite different.

Alleluia we deserve not

Here to chant forevermore;

Alleluia our transgressions

Make us for a while give o’er;

For the holy time is coming

Bidding us our sins deplore.

I believe the revised version was written for the Episcopal Hymnal 1982 but I don't know by whom.

So here we have seven Alleluias to tide us over for the next six weeks. Alleluia will be back before we know it (nearly any good Easter hymn will have several of them). I'm kind of glad we don't have to actually bury it any more.

One (Liturgical) Year Ago: Not always on the mount may we

Samuel Webbe

Composer Samuel Webbe may have died on this day in 1816 (his birthdate in 1740 is unknown). The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music (1996) confirms the May 15 date, which is good enough for me, but I've seen three other possible dates in May in various sources (including two different dates in the Wikipedia entry linked above).

Webbe served seven years as apprentice to a cabinetmaker beginning when he was eleven. Following that, he studied Latin, French, and Italian, supporting himself by copying music for a London publisher. Continuing his musical interests, he took lessons from the organist of the Bavarian chapel. He formed singing groups for men and composed many popular catches and glees. Later in life, he was known for giving free music lessons on Friday evenings.

A Roman Catholic, Webbe was appointed organist at the chapels of both the Portuguese and Sardinian embassies (at this time in England, the Catholic mass was only allowed to be performed at foreign embassies). He published books of anthems and motets that were widely used in his time. His hymn tunes mostly derive from his book An Essay on the Church Plain Chant (1782), originally written in plainsong style and later arranged and harmonized by others into the forms we know today.

Over the years many people have known and loved this hymn with its tune by Webbe, though it may seem a bit dated to some.

Come, ye disconsolate,
Where’er ye languish,
Come to the mercy seat,
Fervently kneel.
Here bring your wounded hearts,
Here tell your anguish;
We have no sorrow
That heaven cannot heal.

Joy of the desolate,
Light of the straying,
Hope of the penitent,
Fadeless and pure!
Here speaks the Comforter,
Tenderly saying,
“We have no sorrow
That heaven cannot cure.”

Here see the Bread of Life,
See waters flowing
Forth from the throne of God,
Pure from above.
Come to the feast of love;
Come, ever knowing
We have no sorrow
But heaven can remove.

Thomas Moore, 1816;
rev. Thomas Hastings, 1831; alt.
Tune: CONSOLATOR (11.10.11.10)
Samuel Webbe, 1792

Webbe's Essay on the Church Plain Chant seems to be the first place that ADESTE FIDELES was priinted in England, and it's due (in a roundabout way) to Webbe's association with the Portuguese embassy chapel that that popular Christmas tune is called the "Portuguese hymn" in many older sources, though it's now more generally believed to be the work of John Francis Wade.