Produced by Stephen Hutcheson (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
A Practical Discourse on some Principles of Hymn-Singing By Robert Bridges 1901
A Practical Discourse on some Principles of Hymn-Singing By Robert Bridges
Reprinted from the Journal of Theological Studies, October, 1899
Oxford: B. H. Blackwell, 50 & 51 Broad Street London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. 1901
The Author's thanks are due to the Editors of the Journal of Theological Studies, and to the Publishers, Messrs. Macmillan, for permission to reprint.
A PRACTICAL DISCOURSE ON SOME PRINCIPLES OF HYMN-SINGING
What St. Augustin says of the emotion which he felt on hearing the music in the Portian basilica at Milan in the year 386 has always seemed to me a good illustration of the relativity of musical expression; I mean how much more its ethical significance depends on the musical experience of the hearer, than on any special accomplishment or intrinsic development of the art. Knowing of what kind that music must have been and how few resources of expression it can have had,--being rudimental in form, without suggestion of harmony, and in its performance unskilful, its probably nasal voice-production unmodified by any accompaniment,--one marvels at his description,
'What tears I shed at Thy hymns and canticles, how acutely was my soul stirred by the voices and sweet music of Thy Church! As those voices entered my ears, truth distilled in my heart, and thence divine affection welled up in a flood, in tears o'erflowing, and happy was I in those tears[1].'
St. Augustin appears to have witnessed the beginnings of the great music of the Western Church. It was the year of his baptism when, he tells us, singing was introduced at Milan to cheer the Catholics who had shut themselves up in the basilica with their bishop, to defend him from the imperial violence:
'It was then instituted that psalms and hymns should be sung, after the manner of the Eastern Churches, lest the folk in the weariness of their grief should altogether lose heart: and from that day to this the custom has been retained; many, nay, nearly all Thy flocks, in all regions of the world, following the example[2].'