Scott Aniol June 20th, 2008
Introduction
There are many great hymns in the 1,100 year history of notated music in the Christian church, but surely Holy, Holy, Holy! has to be regarded as one of the finest. True theology, articulated in good poetry, set to beautiful music, is the combination of disciplines that make this hymn an enduring and great work. The goal of this article is to examine the objective musical facets of this hymn, and to point to some of the features of its constructs that contribute to its beauty and excellence. But a hymn is truly an interdisciplinary work, drawing on the separate fields of theology, poetry, and music, so it will be necessary to make reference to some of these extra-musical components as well. Since poetry and theology are not my particular fields of expertise, I’ll try to limit my comments in these areas to their interaction with the musical aspect of the work.
Once having laid out the objective characteristics of the music, an inevitable question arises: What are the criteria of beauty and excellence against which the musical structures are to be measured? For this, I will depend on the classic definitions of beauty and excellence as articulated by various theologians and philosophers throughout the centuries, but most succinctly and biblically put by Jonathan Edwards: unity and diversity (or consent of being to being in Edwards’ terminology), equality, proportion, and symmetry. Evaluation of the interaction of the text with the music will be made according to the criteria set forth by the apostle Paul in his first letter to the church at Corinth: “let all things in worship be done in a fitting (or appropriate) manner.” (I Cor. 14:40)
There are a few other premises that undergird the evaluations and I’ll set them forth here at the beginning for clarity. The first premise is that the sound constructs in music are capable of expressing emotions and extra-musical references in a manner that is universally understandable and that can be evaluated for their congruity (or lack thereof) with text. To support this premise, I will depend on John Makujina’s excellent exegesis in Measuring the Music of several scriptural passages wherein he defends the primacy of a bioacoustic semiotic over and above associative models of musical communication. The second premise is that craft and skill matter in the music we use in worship. Scripture reveals this in multiple locations, both explicitly and implicitly, beginning with the Cultural Mandate set forth by God in Genesis. Thirdly, the elements of music (melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.) are capable of being organized into perceivable architectonic layers. It will often be necessary to discuss these elements in their various layers.
It is not the purpose of this article to provide a history of the genre of the hymn or of works that bear the title ‘hymn.’ At a certain point in history, it becomes impossible to know about the musical characteristics of the genre since the term is used in writing (as in Paul’s epistles) prior to the development of musical notation. Nevertheless, it’s helpful to know something about the genre as it has come to be known and used today.
Today when we speak of a hymn, we are generally referring to a religious text syllabically set to a strophic musical composition. A syllabic setting is one where the composer assigns one note per syllable of text. There are, of course, exceptions to this when, for instance, the composer desires an elaboration of a given syllable of text, but mostly, for the sake of ease of congregational singing, hymns are for the most part set syllabically. Additionally, the genre of hymn has developed harmonically to become most commonly a work in chorale style - four voices whose notes usually move simultaneously (though not exclusively). This homorhythmic texture, as it’s known, assists the congregation in their ability to sing the hymn readily (since the person next to you should be singing the same rhythm), while the four separate voices (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) provide options for each individual in the congregation to sing the hymn within a range of notes that best suits his or her own voice. While nearly all hymns are strophic, there may be a wide variety of forms employed by the composer in order to best set the text.
A couple of final caveats before moving to an analysis of Holy, Holy, Holy:
1) Please know that I am not trying to impose a required level of expertise on the average worshiper or even pastor for meaningful worship in song. The analysis is necessarily musically dense and detailed. The state of worship in church has devolved into essentially two camps - those who say there is great music for worship and we should use it, and those who say, “Prove it.” Proving it requires analysis and criticism. This analysis is an effort toward defending a claim that there is objective excellence and beauty in music and that it is biblical that the church should seek these qualities in its worship. Detail has proven necessary in the defense of that claim as detractors persist. The level of detail in the following analysis is a normal part of the training that musicians acquire as they pursue the skill of their craft. It is understandably tedious for some, but part of the day-to-day craft of skilled music making.
2) What follows is not in any way intended to be a prescription for a great hymn. The forms of great hymns vary; the melodic structures vary; the rhythms vary; the harmonies vary; the proportions of these elements vary; the interactions of these elements vary. By no means am I suggesting with this analysis that composers who wish to write great hymns should follow a formula derived from this one hymn. This analysis is simply that: a collection of observations found in one hymn. Other great hymns may and do have widely disparate features. If there is an overarching principle to be found in greatness as it applies to hymns, it is more likely to be articulated in the writings of men like Jonathan Edwards and Augustine than in the common and necessarily tedious analysis of a single work.
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