A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing

22

No. 28 is a good example of this. See also No. 98.

23

No. 57 is a good example. The line Du bist mein, und ich bin dein, corresponds in stanza 2 with Wenn die Welt in Trümmer fallt, and in stanza 4 with Elend, Noth, Kreuz, Schmach und Tod. Again in No. 77 the opening phrase, Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, of the twenty-second psalm needs music which conditions the other stanzas severely. Again the weak apologetic latter half of the German hymn Herzliebster Jesu, No. 42, is irreconcilably out of the key with the pathetic grief of the beginning. Cases in which caesuras and grammatical breaks are inconsistent are numberless.

24

See note to Hymn 90. Other english hymns altered for practical purposes in this book are Nos. 19, 35, 51, last verse of 52, 66, 94, and 96.

25

I give illustrations of these words in notes to Hymns 27, 54, 58, 63, 68, 84, and 98.

26

The cheapness is not the direct cause of the ugliness of our common hymn-books, nor is their ugliness the cause of their cheapness. If many copies of a book are sold, they can be sold cheaply; if only a few, then the initial expense, which is much the same whether the book be beautiful or ugly, must be shared between those few buyers and the author. But thus it comes about indirectly for cheapness to be the cause of meanness and ugliness, because in a larger market there is greater indifference to artistic excellence of all kinds, and from habit a preference for what is inferior. In a large edition this book could be sold as cheaply as another.

27

I state here once for all that in musical matters I offer my opinion with becoming humility.