As part of a larger project dealing with congregational repertory, I had occasion recently to look again after many years at Hymns III, part of the Episcopal Church’s trial-use series leading to the Hymnal 1982. With fresh eyes I found a number of sadly missed opportunities – things which did not find their way into the Hymnal in the end. Chief among them:

H-105 ‘Macht hoch die Tür, die Tor macht weit’

This Advent hymn by Georg Weißel, inspired by Psalm 24, is represented in the Hymnal, but the translated stanzas ( the work of Catherine Winkworth ) were split in half and shorn of their final couplets, so that it is not possible to sing the text – even by reuniting the sundered stanzas – to its classic tune. If this charming tune ( from Freylinghausen’s 1704 Geist-Reiches Gesang-Buch ) is more domestic than liturgical in character, it is a far sight less vulgar than ‘Truro’, the tune to which the reorganized text was set in the Hymnal 1982.

H-106 ‘O Heiland, reiß die Himmel auf’

This fine tune, from a 1666 German Catholic collection, supports a strong Advent hymn inspired by Isaiah 64 and no doubt other passages. Hymns III included only two stanzas in an indifferent translation, making unsurprising its failure to be adopted in the Hymnal. The tune was taken over, supporting versions of ‘Rerum Deus tenax vigor’ [ 14 ] and ‘Verbum supernum prodiens’ [ 64 ]; it deserves wider use than these Office hymns are likely to give it, and, being a Long Metre tune, can find it without much difficulty.

H-108 ‘Bereden väg för Herran’

The Hymns III text certainly could have used work ( I am not qualified to rate its faithfulness to the Swedish original, nor the quality of that original ), but it retained much more of the Psalm 24 / Triumphal Entry imagery that is missing in the final Hymnal text. As I have written elsewhere, the Hymnal text is serviceable but rather more vague and therefore less powerful.

H-147 ‘Komm, heiliger Geist, Herre Gott’

This classic German chorale is possibly too sprawling for very many Episcopal parishes to adopt it today, any more than the English were inspired to do so by its inclusion in Coverdale’s Goostly Psalmes and Spirituall Songes in 1535. But at least the first stanza can be strongly compelling ( subsequent stanzas of the 1941 Lutheran Hymnal text used in Hymns III might have wanted reworking to speak more meaningfully to the intended context ), and the piece is long enough that that single stanza could stand on its own as a sort of introit, sung by a choir.

H-176 ‘For the bread which you have broken’

The text was modernized for the Hymnal 1982 – and that effort in itself gets no argument from me. As I have pointed out elsewhere in these pages, however, the change in st. 3 from ‘With our sainted ones in glory /.... / may the Church that waiteth for thee / keep love’s tie unbroken, Lord’ to ‘As our blessed ones adore you...’ weakens the sense that the Church in heaven and earth are one single body, simultaneously active. 

Several strong tunes ( considered apart from their texts ) also did not make it into the Hymnal, although of course music is not legislated in the Episcopal Church and these ( where copyright is not an issue ) may be used where appropriate:

H-110 ‘Natale’

A 1962 tune by one Leslie Bassett, much better than the text, ‘Follow now, this happy day’, with which it was paired. The text is irregular, but the tune could be scanned as either 7 7 7 7 ( trochaic ) following stanza 1, or 8 7 8 8 ( iambic–trochaic ) following subsequent stanzas, with a refrain of 10 5 iambic–trochaic. The copyright was held by the composer, so the tune cannot be used freely.
 
H-111 ‘A solis ortus cardine’

Yes, this chant tune – one of the finest in the repertory – is too hard for most congregations and probably for many choirs, and the Hymnal’s adoption of the ‘carol’ or simplified metrical version of the tune, ‘Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schar’, instead, for both the Christmas [ 77 ] and Epiphany [ 131 ] portions of this hymn is welcome. But several other rather elaborate chant hymn-tunes did make it into the Hymnal, and it’s a shame that this one did not appear as an alternative.

H-166 ‘Llef ’

A beautiful Long Metre, minor-mode tune by Welsh composer Griffith Hugh Jones ( Bardic name Gutyn Arfon ). The tune appears here in 3/4 time, but a search online for more information shows the tune exclusively in duple meter ( notated in a number of ways ). This sort of editorial change has been common in the history of hymn-tunes and is arguably an improvement in this case, but perhaps the alteration should have been noted. 

H-181 ‘St Mary’

Another tune by a Welsh composer, Edmund Prys, found in the Llyfr y Psalmau of 1621. Angular like other old British psalm-tunes, but with interesting harmonic implications. Common Metre.

H-206 ‘Dunfermline’

Another Common Metre tune, this from the 1615 Scottish Psalter; ordinary, but perhaps useful.
 
H-207 ‘Jefferson’

A typical American ‘shape-note’ tune not unlike ‘Pleading Savior’ and thus a sort of minor-mode sibling of ‘Holy Manna’. First published in the 1818 Tennessee Harmony, later in the Southern Harmony. 8 7 8 7 D trochaic.
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