The Story of the Hymns and Tunes Part 48

"SOUND THE LOUD TIMBREL."

One would scarcely guess that this bravura hymn of victory and "Come, ye disconsolate," were written by the same person, but both are by Thomas Moore. The song has all the vigor and vivacity of his "Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls," without its pathos. The Irish poet chose the song of Miriam instead of the song of Deborah doubtless because the sentiment and strain of the first of these two great female patriots lent themselves more musically to his lyric verse--and his poem is certainly martial enough to convey the spirit of both.

Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!

Jehovah hath triumphed, His people are free!

Sing, for the pride of the tyrant is broken; His chariots, his hors.e.m.e.n, all splendid and brave-- How vain was their boasting, the Lord hath but spoken, And chariots and hors.e.m.e.n are sunk in the wave.

_THE TUNE._

Of all the different composers to whose music Moore's "sacred songs"

were sung--Beethoven, Mozart, Stevenson, and the rest--Avison seems to be the only one whose name and tune have clung to the poet's words; and we have the man and the melody sent to us, as it were, by the lyrist himself. The tune is now rarely sung except at church festivals and village entertainments, but the life and clamor of the scene at the Red Sea are in it, and it is something more than a mere musical curiosity.

Its style, however, is antiquated--with its timbrel beat and its canorous harmony and "coda fortis"--and modern choirs have little use in religious service for the sonata written for viols and horns.

It was Moore's splendid hymn that gave it vogue in England and Ireland, and sent it across the sea to find itself in the house of its friends with the psalmody of Billings and Swan. Moore was the man of all men to take a fancy to it and make language to its string-and-trumpet concert.

He was a musician himself, and equally able to adapt a tune and to create one. As a festival performance, replete with patriotic noise, let Avison's old "Sound the Timbrel" live.

Charles Avison was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1710. He studied in Italy, wrote works on music, and composed sonatas and concertos for stringed orchestras. For many years he was organist of St. Nicholas' Kirk in his native town.

The tune to "Sound the Loud Timbrel" is a chorus from one of his longer compositions. He died in 1770.

"THE HARP THAT ONCE THROUGH TARA'S HALLS."

This is the only one of Moore's patriotic "Irish Melodies" that lives wherever sweet tones are loved and poetic feeling finds answering hearts. The exquisite sadness of its music and its text is strangely captivating, and its untold story beckons from its lines.

Tara was the ancient home of the Irish kings. King Dermid, who had apostatized from the faith of St. Patrick and his followers, in A.D., 554, violated the Christian right of sanctuary by taking an escaped prisoner from the altar of refuge in Temple Ruadan (Tipperary) and putting him to death. The patron priest and his clergy marched to Tara and solemnly p.r.o.nounced a curse upon the King. Not long afterwards Dermid was a.s.sa.s.sinated, and superst.i.tion shunned the place "as a castle under ban." The last human resident of "Tara's Hall" was the King's bard, who lingered there, forsaken and ostracized, till he starved to death. Years later one daring visitor found his skeleton and his broken harp.

Moore utilized this story of tragic pathos as a figure in his song for "fallen Erin" lamenting her lost royalty--under a curse that had lasted thirteen hundred years.

The harp that once through Tara's halls The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls As if that soul were fled.

So sleeps the pride of former days, So glory's thrill is o'er, And hearts that once beat high for praise Now feel that pulse no more.

No one can read the words without "thinking" the tune. It is supposed that Moore composed them both.

THE Ma.r.s.eILLAISE HYMN.

Ye sons of France, awake to glory!

Hark! hark! what millions bid you rise!

The "Ma.r.s.eillaise Hymn" so long supposed to be the musical as well as verbal composition of Roget de Lisle, an army engineer, was proved to be only his words set to an air in the "Credo" of a German ma.s.s, which was the work of one Holzman in 1726. De Lisle was known to be a poet and musician as well as a soldier, and, as he is said to have played or sung at times in the churches and convents, it is probable that he found and copied the ma.n.u.script of Holzman's melody. His haste to rush his fiery "Hymn" before the public in the fever of the Revolution allowed him no time to make his own music, and he adapted the German's notes to his words and launched the song in the streets of Strasburg. It was first sung in Paris by a band of chanters from Ma.r.s.eilles, and, like the trumpets blown around Jericho, it shattered the walls of the French monarchy to their foundations.

The "Ma.r.s.eillaise Hymn" is mentioned here for its patriotic birth and a.s.sociations. An attempt to make a religious use of it is recorded in the Fourth Chapter.

ODE ON SCIENCE.

This is a "patriotic hymn," though a queer production with a queer name, considering its contents; and its author was no intimate of the Muses.

Liberty is supposed to be somehow the corollary of learning, or vice versa--whichever the reader thinks.

The morning sun s.h.i.+nes from the East And spreads his glories to the West.

So Science spreads her lucid ray O'er lands that long in darkness lay; She visits fair Columbia, And sets her sons among the stars.

Fair Freedom, her attendant, waits, etc.

_THE TUNE_

Was the really notable part of this old-time "Ode," the favorite of village a.s.semblies, and the inevitable practice-piece for amateur violinists. The author of the crude symphony was Deacon Jan.a.z.iah (or Jazariah) Summer, of Taunton, Ma.s.s., who prepared it--music and probably words--for the semi-centennial of Simeon Dagget's Academy in 1798. The "Ode" was subsequently published in Philadelphia, and also in Albany. It was a song of the people, and sang itself through the country for fifty or sixty years, always culminating in the swift crescendo chorus and repeat--

The British yoke and Gallic chain Were urged upon our necks in vain; All haughty tyrants we disdain, And shout "Long live America!"

The average patriot did not mind it if "Columbi-_ay_" and "Ameri-_kay_"

were not exactly cla.s.sic orthoepy.

"HAIL COLUMBIA."

This was written (1798) by Judge Joseph Hopkinson, born, in Philadelphia, 1770, and died there, 1843. He wrote it for a friend in that city who was a theatre singer, and wanted a song for Independence Day. The music (to which it is still sung) was "The President's March,"

by a composer named Fyles, near the end of the 18th century.

There is nothing hymn-like in the words, which are largely a glorification of Gen. Was.h.i.+ngton, but the tune, a concerted piece better for band than voices, has the drum-and-anvil chorus quality suitable for vociferous ma.s.s singing--and a zealous Salvation Army corps on field nights could even fit a processional song to it with gospel words.

OLD "CHESTER."

Let tyrants shake their iron rod, And slavery clank her galling chains: We'll fear them not; we trust in G.o.d; New England's G.o.d forever reigns.

Old "Chester," both words and tune the work of William Billings, is another of the provincial freedom songs of the Revolutionary period, and of the days when the Republic was young. Billings was a zealous patriot, and (says a writer in Moore's _Cyclopedia of Music_) "one secret, no doubt, of the vast popularity his works obtained was the patriotic ardor they breathed. The words above quoted are an example, and 'Chester,' it is said, was frequently heard from every fife in the New England ranks.

The spirit of the Revolution was also manifest in his 'Lamentation over Boston,' his 'Retrospect,' his 'Independence,' his 'Columbia,' and many other pieces."

William Billings was born, in Boston, Oct. 7, 1746. He was a man of little education, but his genius for music spurred him to study the tuneful art, and enabled him to learn all that could be learned without a master. He began to make tunes and publish them, and his first book, the _New England Psalm-singer_ was a curiosity of youthful crudity and confidence, but in considerable numbers it was sold, and sung--and laughed at. He went on studying and composing, and compiled another work, which was so much of an improvement that it got the name of _Billings' Best_. A third singing-book followed, and finally a fourth ent.i.tled the _Psalm Singer's Amus.e.m.e.nt_, both of which were popular in their day. His "Majesty" has tremendous capabilities of sound, and its movement is fully up to the requirements of Nahum Tate's verses,--

And on the wings of mighty winds Came flying all abroad.

William Billings died in 1800, and his remains lie in an unmarked grave in the old "Granary" Burying Ground in the city of his birth.

National feeling has taken maturer speech and finer melody, but it was these ruder voices that set the pitch. They were sung with native pride and affection at fireside vespers and rural feasts with the adopted songs of Burns and Moore and Mrs. Hemans, and, like the lays of Scotland and Provence, they breathed the flavor of the country air and soil, and taught the generation of home-born minstrelsy that gave us the Hutchinson family, Ossian E. Dodge, Covert with his "Sword of Bunker Hill," and Philip Phillips, the "Singing Pilgrim."

THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER.

Near the close of the last war with England, Francis Scott Key, of Baltimore, the author of this splendid national hymn, was detained under guard on the British flag-s.h.i.+p at the mouth of the Petapsco, where he had gone under a flag of truce to procure the release of a captured friend, Dr. William Beanes of Upper Marlboro, Md.