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Ennis Fruhauf
Early American Hymn Tunes
Settings for Organ
Variations
on Amazing Grace (4 pages)Notes
(2 pages)Variations on Amazing Grace is a setting based on the pentatonic hymn tune, New Britain, which appeared in Virginia Harmony in 1831. The tune has also been called Harmony Grove, Symphony, Solon, and Redemption, and its origins likely extend back into early American folk music, and even possibly to earlier roots in British secular folk culture. In this setting, a sequence of variations follows a brief introduction, with each verse becoming increasingly elaborate. Following a modulation from G major to E major for the third verse, the richly harmonized fourth variation returns to the original tonic and is concluded by a brief restatement of the introduction.
Prelude and Fugue on Azmon sets a hymn tune that was written originally by Carl Gotthilf Gläser for Lowell Mason’s 1839 publication of the Modern Psalmist. Its reemergence in 1850 in The New Carmina Sacra, and also in Mason’s and George Webb’s Cantica Laudis, reflects a change from quadruple meter (4/4) to its contemporary format in triple meter (3/2). The prelude and fugue are composed in a conservative 19th century American romantic idiom. The prelude opens with freely imitative writing and closes with a full and elaborated statement of the hymn. The fugue develops a fragment of the first phrase of the hymn tune as a contapuntal subject, with a complete statement of the melody appearing boldly, phrase by phrase, as a cantus firmus in the pedal. A brief coda brings the setting to a gentle conclusion.
Quiet Prelude on Land of Rest presents three verses of variations on an anonymous hexatonic melody. An early published version of the tune appeared in The Sacred Harp (1844), titled New Prospect and attributed to W. S. Turner. In 1938, a harmonized version of the tune was published in Annabel Morris Buchanan’s Folk Hymns of America. Quiet Prelude opens with a slowly rocking ostinato pattern in the right hand and the hymn tune sounding in the tenor. The second verse modulates from F major to E-flat major, and the accompanied melody migrates to the soprano voice. Following a brief modulatory passage back to the original tonic, a freely canonic third verse includes a return of the ostinato figuration, with a gently concluding codetta.
Grand Rondo on Simple Gifts and Bourbon is an extended setting of two contrasting hymn tunes, both with roots in American folk music. Simple Gifts traces its folk origins to 18th century Shaker culture, while Bourbon’s pentatonic melody was first published in William Moore’s Columbian Harmony (Cincinnati, 1825), attributed to Freeman Lewis. In this setting, Simple Gifts is presented as part of a three-section rondo; its second statement offers a richly harmonized version of the melody in a new tonality. In contrast with the deceptive simplicity of the opening sections, the intervening five variations on Bourbon offer a marked contrast, with their chromatic and modulating passacaglia-like structure; the hymn melody migrates between voices, sounding out strongly in the bass registers for the last two variations. Following a brief pause, Simple Gifts returns in abbreviated form to bring Grand Rondo to a gentle and serene conclusion. For those who seek a more straightforward setting of Simple Gifts, the rondo has been exerpted and formatted into a single score.
Orison on Toplady is composed on a hymn tune that has become one of the cornerstones of the American hymn tradition. Thomas Hastings wrote his musical setting for the text, "Rock of Ages," which appeared in Hastings’ and Mason’s Spiritual Songs for Social Worship in 1832. Following Orison’s brief introductory flourish, the hymn tune is presented in the soprano line, then modulates from B-flat major to D major for a contrasting variation in which the melody is sounded in canon between the soprano and pedal bass line. A return to the beginning, or da capo restatement, and a brief codetta round out this gentle setting.
The setting of Three Verses on Wondrous Love presents an unusual and modal hymn tune of anonymous origins that first appeared in William Walker’s Southern Harmony, published in 1843, and a year later in B. F. White’s The Sacred Harp. The metric format is similar, with its textual repetitions, to a recurring folk structure, the "Captain Kidd meter," so named for a ballad linked to the date 1701, with earlier roots in the British Isles and Scotland. The first verse presents Wondrous Love’s dorian mode melody in the soprano over a gradually descending and syncopated ‘stride’ bass line pulse, which gives way to an etherial verse in a tonally reoriented A-flat major. Following the return of the opening intruductory material and original tonic key, the third and final verse offers a brief toccata with the hymn tune presented in the tenor, leading in turn to a dramatic pause and the brief ending flourish of a coda.
Copyright © 2005 Ennis Fruhauf
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