Hymns Ancient And Modern
By 1830 the regular singing of hymns in the dissenting churches (outside the Church of England) had become widely accepted due to hymn writers like Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley and others.[2] In the Church of England hymn singing was not an integral part of Orders of Service until the early 19th century, and hymns, as opposed to metrical psalms, were not officially sanctioned.[2][3] From about 1800, parish churches started to use different hymn collections in informal services, like the Lock Hospital Collection[4] (1769) by Martin Madan, the Olney Hymns[5] (1779) by John Newton and William Cowper and A Collection of Hymns for the Use of The People Called Methodists[6] (1779) by John Wesley and Charles Wesley.[2][7]
Hymns Ancient And Modern
A further impetus to hymn singing in the Anglican Church came in the 1830s from the Oxford Movement, led by John Keble and John Henry Newman.[3] Being an ecclesiastical reform movement within the Anglican Church, the Oxford Movement wanted to recover the lost treasures of breviaries and service books of the ancient Greek and Latin churches.[3][2] As a result Greek, Latin and even German hymns in translation entered the mainstream of English hymnody.[3] These translations were composed by people like John Chandler,[8] John Mason Neale, Thomas Helmore, Edward Caswall, Jane Laurie Borthwick and Catherine Winkworth.[3][9][10] Besides stimulating the translation of medieval hymns, and use of plainsong melodies, the Oxford Reformers, inspired by Reginald Heber's work, also began to write original hymns.[11][3] Among these hymnwriters were clergy like Henry Alford, Henry Williams Baker, Sabine Baring-Gould, John Keble and Christopher Wordsworth and laymen like Matthew Bridges,[12] William Chatterton Dix and Folliott Sandford Pierpoint.[3]
Besides their idea, Henry Williams Baker and Rev. P. Ward were already engaged on a similar scheme for rival books. Given the lack of unanimity in the church's use of hymns, Henry Williams Baker thought it necessary to compile one book which would command general confidence.[3] After ascertaining by private communications the widespread desire of churchmen for greater uniformity in the use of hymns and of hymnbooks in the services of the Church, Sir Henry Baker, vicar of Monkland in the diocese of Hereford, early in 1858 associated himself for this purpose with about twenty clergymen, including the editors of many existing hymnals, who agreed to give up their several books to try to promote the use of one standard hymn book.[19] In October of that year an advertisement in The Guardian, the High Church newspaper, invited co-operation, and over 200 clergymen responded.[19]
The Hymns Ancient and Modern was a rather eclectic collection of hymns that included a broad series of hymns from different religious traditions, in order to achieve a standard edition.[22] Sources included:[10][3][2]
Henry Williams Baker wrote and translated many of the hymns which it contains, and his ability, his profound knowledge of hymnology, and his energetic discharge of the duties of chairman of its committee for twenty years, mainly contributed to its success.[19] Not all the hymns in these sources were already provided with tunes. Therefore, composers like William Henry Monk, the editor of the 1861 edition, John Bacchus Dykes and Frederick Ouseley, John Stainer, Henry Gauntlett and Edmund Hart Turpin provided new hymn tunes. Among the hymns with newly-composed tunes were Eternal Father, Strong to Save and Praise to the Holiest in the Height (John Bacchus Dykes), Onward, Christian Soldiers (Arthur Sullivan) and Abide with Me (William Henry Monk).[25]
The Hymns Ancient and Modern was austere in style and conformed to the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.[11] It also established the practice of writing tunes for specific texts and publishing both texts and tunes together rather than in separate collections, which had been the practice until then.[3] Roughly, the hymns were arranged in the order of the Prayer Book.[20] More specifically, there were separate sections grouped according to liturgical criteria: hymns for the daily offices, Sunday, the church year, Holy Communion and other sacraments, and the various feasts.[22] Furthermore, the Hymns Ancient and Modern was the first influential book to attach "Amen" to every hymn.[20]
The first edition, musically supervised by William Henry Monk,[26] was published in 1861 by Novello & Co, with 273 hymns. They also published the 1868 Appendix; but following negotiations, the whole publishing project was placed in the hands of William Clowes and Son later that year. It was revised in 1875 by Monk to produce the second edition, to which Charles Steggall added several supplementary hymns in 1889. In 1904 a "new and revised edition" was published, edited by Bertram Luard-Selby. After many complaints about the difference between this and its predecessors, Charles Steggall's edition was republished in 1906 as the "Complete edition".
In 1950 the "revised edition" was published, with G. H. Knight and J. Dykes Bower having both edited since the death of Nicholson. Many hymns were weeded out from the 1950 edition as the editors wished to make space for more recent compositions and to thin out the over-supplemented previous versions. Bower was Organist at St. Paul's Cathedral, whilst Knight held the same post at Canterbury.
In 1975 the proprietors formed a limited company and a registered charity, and in 1983 published the "New Standard edition": this comprised 333 of the 636 hymns included in A and M Revised (AMR) and the entire 200-hymn contents of 100 Hymns for Today (HHT, 1969) and More Hymns for Today (MHT, 1980).
In March 2013 Canterbury Press published Ancient and Modern, so reverting to the original title without the word "Hymns", but also subtitled Hymns and Songs for Refreshing Worship, a brand new edition designed for contemporary patterns of worship. It contains 847 items, including some items from Common Praise and Sing Praise, ranging from psalm settings to John L. Bell, Bernadette Farrell, Stuart Townend and others. In 2014 the British organist John Keys completed recordings of organ accompaniments of all the hymns in the book.
The world's most famous hymn book has undergone a complete revision and now offers the broadest ever range of traditional hymns and the best from today's composers and hymn/song writers. 150 years since its first publication and after sales of 170 million copies, this brand new edition contains over 840 items, ranging from the Psalms to John Bell, Bernadette Farrell and Stuart Townend.
New features include added provision for all the seasons of the Church year, new items for carol services and other popular occasions where the repertoire is in need of refreshing, more choices for all-age worship, fresh translations of some ancient hymnody, beautiful new tunes, short songs and chants - alleluias, kyries, blessings etc. and music from the world church. A full range of indexes (including biblical and thematic) and a helpful guide to choosing hymns for every occasion will help to make Ancient & Modern the premier hymn collection of choice.
The world's most famous hymn book has undergone a complete revision and now offers the broadest ever range of traditional hymns and the best from today's composers and hymn/song writers. 150 years since its first publication and after sales of 170 million copies, this brand new edition contains over 840 items, ranging from the Psalms to John Bell, Bernadette Farrell and Stuart Townend. The guiding principles behind this collection are: * congregational singability * biblical and theological richness * musical excellence * liturgical versatility * relevance to today's worship styles and to today's concerns New features include added provision for all the seasons of the Church year, new items for carol services and other popular occasions where the repertoire is in need of refreshing, more choices for all-age worship, fresh translations of some ancient hymnody, beautiful new tunes, short songs and chants - alleluias, kyries, blessings etc. and music from the world church. A full range of indexes (including biblical and thematic) and a helpful guide to choosing hymns for every occasion will help to make Ancient & Modern the premier hymn collection of choice. This is the Full Music edition.
Each hymn was headed by a short Biblical quotation, chosen to reflect the theme of the hymn. Monk favoured simple, austere melodies, seeking to avoid, both in his own work and in his selections for inclusion in Hymns ancient and modern, the sentimentality that characterised much mid-Victorian hymn-writing. 041b061a72