Music of Christian Hymns

the long version

My main contention here is that hymn tunes are music. Everybody knows they are music of a special kind, but few musicians have any idea that they are, or anyhow can be, music, and great music at that. There is, for the church historian, no more illuminating commentary on the church's history than a study of its people's music -- what they were offered, and what they accepted. We shall observe, as we follow the story through, tides ebbing and flowing in various ways: sometimes the musicians were content to provide what the unmusical wanted; sometimes they sought to share with them musical experiences they would otherwise never encounter. Ideas of taste and appropriateness varied with the currents of culture. What one age thought beautiful another despised; what one thought impossible, another rescued and honored. We are going to follow that track wherever it may lead. -- Preface.