DICTIONARY OF MUSIC - El Atril

454 HYMN HYMN
turned these circumstances to account by producing
a vast amount of German KirchenUeder,
which, adapted to the most favourite melodies
of the day, both sacred and secular, and set for
four, five, and six voices (with the Plain Chant
in the Tenor) by Johannes Walther, were first
published, at Wittenberg, in 1524, and re-issued,
in the following year, with a special pireface by
Luther himself.* Innumerable other works of a
similar description followed in rapid succession.
The vernacular Hymn found its way more readUy
than ever to the inmost heart of the German
people. The Chorale was sung, far and wide ;
and, at last, under the treatment of John
Sebastian Bach, its beauties were developed, with
a depth of insight into its melodic and harmonic
resources which is not likely ever to be surpassed.
Even the simplest settings of this great master
bear tokens of a certain individuality which
will render them household words, in the
land of their birth, as long as true musical
expression shall continue to be valued at its
true worth : and, perhaps, in these gentle
inspirations, Bach speaks more plainly to the
outer world than in some cases where he has
subjected the melody to more elaborate treatment.
[See Choeale.]
Nun ruhen alle Wdlder.
iLLljnAiAJA,
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In France, the metrical Psalms of Clement
Marot, and Theodore Beza, were no less enthusiastically
received than the Hymns of Luther
in Germany, though their popularity was less
lasting. The history of the French Psalter
has already been recounted in the article BoUK-
GEOI.S.
It was not to be supposed that the movement
which had spread thus rapidly in France and
Germany, would be suH'ered to pass unheeded in
England. The Reformation had created here
the like popular demand for a musical outlet
for its religious enthusiasm, and moreover the
study of the Madrigal had already brought
part-singing to a high degree of perfection.
[Madkigal,] Here, as in France, the first
incentive to popular Hymnody seems to have
been the rendering of the Psalms into verse in
the mother tongue, and the English metrical
Psalter of Sternhold and Hopkins met the
need. [See P.saltek.]
Apart from the metrical Psalter there was
little development of Hymns properly so called,
and nothing at all analogous to the German
Chorales. The old Latin hymns disappeared for
no other reason than that there was no one to
put them into English dress. Archbishop
Cranmer himself lamented the failure of his
efforts in this direction. Thus the bald translation
of the ' Veni Creator ' into Common
Metre inserted in the Ordinal in 1550 represented
the sum total of the result of the efforts of the
Reformers to preserve the old office-hymns.
Attempts to introduce the German chorales
in an English dress were no more successful
Bishop Coverdale began them in 1546 with his
Goosfly PsaJmes aiid Spirituals Songs : but the
moment was not propitious, and he found no
imitators in this direction. Indeed his little
book with its crude adaptations of German words
and tunes is of excessive rarity, and it is doubtful
if any copy exists except the one preserved in the
Library of Queen's College, Oxford.
One great hindrance, no doubt, to the spread
of the hymns was the objection, which had
militated against the introduction of hymns in
early days and now appeared afresh and with new
force, against the use in public worship of
anything that was not directly scriptural. The
early metrical Psalters, it is trae, accepted into
the Appendix, wdiich mainly comprised the Bible
canticles, some few pieces of a non- scriptural
character. Besides the ' ' Te Deum ' and Veni
Creator ' which had the authority of the Prayer
Book to support them, there were, for example,
the ' Lamentation, '
' Lord, turn not Thy face
away,' which survives in an altered form in
Hymns Ancient and Modern, No. 103 ; and
others of a penitential character—
' The Complaint
of a Sinner,' 'The Humble Suit of a Sinner,'
together with a prayer for peace and occasionally
some other ' prayer ' or a thanksgiving at Communion.
But it is noteworthy that apart from
these, the Appendix drew direct upon German
sources, not only for the metrical version of the
Lord's Prayer but also for Luther's celebrated
' Pope and Turk ' hj'nm, ' Preserve us, Lord, in
Thy dear word, From Pope and Turk defend