Book(s) of the Week: Oxford Hymn Settings for Organists, volumes 8 and 9

Instead of Piece of the Week, it’s Books of the week! – the two brand new volumes 8 and 9  in the Oxford Hymn Settings for Organists series, jointly edited by Rebecca Groom te Velde and myself.

If you are not an organist, you may not have had much to do with the ‘hymn setting’ or ‘hymn prelude’. This is a piece for use in a church service – prelude, interlude, or postlude – based in some way on a hymn tune that a congregation is likely to know and may indeed have sung, or be about to sing, that day. Almost every hymn-tune has a short name – not necessarily the first line of the words, as often they can be sung to several texts – and it is these names by which organists identify them. (And an apology to those who already know about these things for my attempts to explain them!)

The concept of ‘dressing up’ an existing melody for use during a church service goes back many centuries, and the chorale preludes of J. S. Bach are perhaps the most well-known (for our purposes, chorale is really just an old word for hymn). But he was certainly not the first, as earlier composers such as Sweelinck, Pachelbel and Buxtehude wrote many. The concept was revived in the nineteenth century by Brahms, Reger, Franck, Karg-Elert, and others, and became even more widespread in the twentieth century, spreading to other parts of Europe and the USA, with a very wide range of composers, many of whom were and are active church musicians. But the concept has always been the same – to present an existing hymn, known to the congregation, in a way that will shed new light on its character.

The two new collections contain 80 pieces based on hymns for ‘general use’ (i.e. not specifically for Christmas, Easter, etc.) and form the final volumes of the nine-volume series which in total contain around 350 pieces based on hymns that are popular in Great Britian and the USA. All the pieces were written specially for the books by approximately 30 composers ranging in age from 20-plus to 80-plus.

The role of Rebecca and I as editors was, firstly, to decide on a list of suitable hymns (with advice from a liturgical specialist) which hadn’t already been used in the earlier books (each of which had a focus on a particular time of the church year), and then to decide on a range of composers to ask, and what hymn(s) to ask them to use. To do this we split the list in half and Rebecca took, largely, the US composers and I took largely, the UK ones (two or three composers were of other nationalities). Naturally this involved a certain amount of arm-twisting, but we were very pleased that we were able to involve such a wide range of composers from many different backgrounds and put younger, developing composers alongside experienced composer/organists who are well-known figures in cathedral and church music. After that, our roles varied depending on the composer – some of course needed no advice except the occasional ‘did you really mean that?’ (answer: ‘oops, slip of pen or computer key’), whereas others needed some advice with shaping their exciting and imaginative ideas into something suitable for the skills of the average church organist. And then, of course, working with the publisher’s editor to check the final proofs against the composer’s copy – and also writing a few preludes ourselves!

The results are 80 pieces each with their own character and approach. In each prelude, the hymn-tune on which its based is there somewhere – but there are so many different ways in which the composers have presented it. The tune might be fragmented or hidden at the beginning, only appearing clearly at the end of the prelude. Or it might be stated proudly and clearly at the beginning, and then subjected to various variations. Or it can be played in the middle of the texture, perhaps by the left hand on a different manual or keyboard so that it stands out, or it might be played by the feet on the pedals – or several of these things! The tune might have its character changed by putting it in a different rhythm or metre, perhaps syncopated or dancing, or it might be decorated or ornamented.  It might be treated as a fast moving toccata, or a ringing carillon; or as a slow and expressive meditation. It might be very contrapuntal, or rely on rich harmony and colour for its effects. It might deliberately borrow favourite textures from other composers as a backing to the hymn-tune. Stylistically it might feel jazzy, folky, contemporary, quirky, worship-song like, neo-romantic, neo-classical or neo-baroque, and of course all of these concepts can be coloured by the vast range of sounds obtainable on the church organ. There really is an excitingly wide range of textures and approaches!

I am the third of the UK editors to be involved in this series – but on the US side, Rebecca te Velde has seen all nine books through the press – a fantastic achievement which hasn’t in any way dimmed her enthusiasm for the multitude of ways that the organ can be used in worship. For a time, Zoom calls between Oklahoma and East Anglia were a regular and delightful feature of our working week, and it has been a real honour and pleasure to work with Becky on these books!

More details here: Volume 8Volume 9

And a complete list of the preludes in all nine books is here.