Men and Women All Do Sing, and Boys
“Men and women all do sing, and boys!”, so wrote and astonished parish clerk in the 16th century. It certainly doesn’t astonish us today. We are so used to singing hymns; we love some of them, we hate some of them, and heaven forbid that we have to sing more than four verses!
Hymns have a long history, dating back to St. Ambrose in the 4th century, but hymns then were chanted by priests. Ordinary people, people like us, took no active part in worship. The great revolution if the Reformation was that we, ordinary people, should participate in the service, and participate in our own language, a language we could understand, unlike pre-Reformation Latin.
Martin Luther led the way by providing verses in German, encouraging his congregation to sing these verses to stirring tunes they knew—tunes from popular songs of that time. “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” is one of those hymns. Soon composers began writing new tunes to Luther’s verses.
John Calvin, a French reformer, however considered it improper to sing anything but the psalms in the church service. Metrical psalm paraphrases—-that is, the essence of the psalm put into rhyme, became popular in France with the publication of the Huguenot Psalter. The tune that we sing as the Doxology came from this collection. In England, however, Henry VIII did not really want liturgical reform. It was not until his death that metrical psalms began to be sung—and they were frequently set to popular dance music of the time. Henry’s daughter, Elizabeth I permitted hymns to be sung before or after morning or evening prayer, but never as part of the service.
Most people could not read music, so usually hymns were sung to a small number of familiar tunes. By the end of the 17th century, there were about 18 tunes in use in England. “Lining out” was the custom of having the minister or parish clerk read out a line of the hymn for the congregation to sing, one line at a time. This enabled people who couldn’t read—and there were many—to participate in singing the hymns.
The first hymnal published in America was the Bay Psalm Book (1698), containing 13 of those 18 familiar tunes. The great Easter hymn “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” appeared in 1708. Our Hymnal 1982 contains many tunes from the Reformation and post Reformation, as well as many newly composed hymns. Singing together, participating in the service, and making a joyful noise to the Lord fills our souls and enriches our worship!
The choir rehearses on Thursday evenings at 7PM. Join us, no experience is necessary.
Lynn Gardner, Organist/Choirmaster
