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Hymn-Singing, by Robert Bridges

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Title: A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing

Author: Robert Bridges

Release Date: June 6, 2007 [EBook #21722]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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A
Practical Discourse on some
Principles of Hymn-Singing
By Robert Bridges
1901

_Price, One Shilling, net_

A
Practical Discourse on some
Principles of Hymn-Singing
By Robert Bridges

Reprinted from the Journal of
Theological Studies, October, 1899

Oxford: B. H. Blackwell, 50 & 51 Broad Street
London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co.
1901

The Author's thanks are due to the Editors of the Journal of Theological
Studies, and to the Publishers, Messrs. Macmillan, for permission to
reprint.

A
PRACTICAL DISCOURSE
ON SOME
PRINCIPLES OF HYMN-SINGING

What St. Augustin says of the emotion which he felt on hearing the music
in the Portian basilica at Milan in the year 386 has always seemed to me
a good illustration of the relativity of musical expression; I mean how
much more its ethical significance depends on the musical experience of
the hearer, than on any special accomplishment or intrinsic development
of the art. Knowing of what kind that music must have been and how few
resources of expression it can have had,--being rudimental in form,
without suggestion of harmony, and in its performance unskilful, its
probably nasal voice-production unmodified by any accompaniment,--one
marvels at his description,

'What tears I shed at Thy hymns and canticles, how acutely was my soul
stirred by the voices and sweet music of Thy Church! As those voices
entered my ears, truth distilled in my heart, and thence divine
affection welled up in a flood, in tears o'erflowing, and happy was I
in those tears[1].'

St. Augustin appears to have witnessed the beginnings of the great music
of the Western Church. It was th