Page 32 - Church Music Quarterly March 2018

to Ardingly in Sussex in 1858. A further curacy at Ticehurst, Sussex began in 1861, until he became rector of Northill, near Biggleswade, in 1866. Sadly he became deaf, and so resigned in 1891. During the 1850s he was a member of the original committee that worked
on the first ever Hymns Ancient & Modern (HA&M), but it seems left the team before publication. ‘Angel-voices ever singing’ could not have appeared in that book, though, because it was written
in 1861, the same year as HA&M came out (it did find its way into the 1889 supplement, however).
Pott wrote it for his old Brasenose friend, William Kenneth Macrorie, at the time perpetual curate of Wingates, Bolton le Moors, Lancashire. He later became Bishop of Maritzburg in South Africa. Coincidentally Edwin Monk, the composer of the tune, was also a friend of Macrorie, as they had taught together at St Peter’s College, Radley, near Abingdon. It is likely that Pott and Monk collaborated on the hymn, which was specifically composed and written for the dedication of a new organ, and they headed it ‘For the Dedication of an Organ or for a Meeting of Choirs’ when it was published in the second edition of Pott’s Hymns fitted to the Order of Common Prayer (1866).
Monk was born in Somerset and learned the organ in Bath before moving to London where he was taught by George MacFarren, among others. He was organist of Midsomer Norton, then Frome, and then in 1844 left England
to become the first organist and music master of St Columba’s College, Stackallan near Navan, which moved five years later to Rathfarnham near Dublin. The school was modelled on Eton College, with an Anglo-Catholic ethos. In 1847 Monk returned to England as co-founder, organist and music master at St Peter’s, Radley,
near Abingdon, where he encountered Macrorie. He was also the conductor
of the Oxford University Motet and Madrigal Society and an editor of part-song books. In 1859 he was appointed organist of York Minster, where he founded the York Minster
Musical Society. Monk was also an astronomer of note and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Slight textual changes have been made in various hymn books over the years, mostly to remove archaisms such as ‘yea’, ‘thee’ and ‘rejoicest’. None of these changes affects the hymn much, and most people will prefer the version they have known from childhood. ‘Yea, we can’ is an odd phrase these days, but many will not countenance changing it!
The hymn begins with a reminder of the angels’ song found in Revelation 5.11–13:
Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands,
singing with full voice, ‘Worthy is the Lamb that was
slaughtered
to receive power and wealth and
wisdom and might
and honour and glory and blessing!’ Then I heard every creature in heaven
and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing,
‘To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honour and glory and might for ever and ever!’
The idea of a God who is subject to such worship is beyond our comprehension, and so the second verse asks whether
it is possible that such a divine being cares for us and forgives us, to which, supported by the unusual metrical structure of the hymn tune, we make the emphatic affirmative ‘yea, we can!’ The metre (8.5.8.5.8.4.3) is not balanced (and the rhyming scheme ABABCCB is distinctive) but handled so inventively by Monk that the tune carries us forward in each verse to a solid, conclusive cadence, having passed through a modulation to the dominant. Monk’s tune, though written for these words, was temporarily displaced in subsequent editions of HA&M: in the
much criticised 1904 edition, Angel voices was replaced by St Dionysius, also written by Monk, and St Ninian. (It never made
it into the English Hymnal of 1906.)
What now seems a bizarre change was rectified in the 1916 Second Supplement
of HA&M under the editorship of Sydney Nicholson where it has remained, and in every other hymnal since.
The central verses of the hymn
give us what we need to celebrate art and craft and music in worship. Pott summarises what we all know to be
true and feel inwardly: that the arts are gifts from God, with which to praise and glorify their creator. Just as we say at the Eucharist, ‘all things come from you and of your own do we give you’, the same is true of our artistic endeavours. Whatever the quality, we are offering talent as it has been received and nurtured, and it is our duty to ‘proffer’ back our best efforts, no matter how unworthy we may consider them. Hence, after the final doxology, we conclude by singing that it is the best that God has given us that we render
in grateful, loving return. For in this
we have the great gifts of music and
art: fundamentally human activities, inspired by God, which stretch and make great demands of us, but in
so doing give great pleasure, reward
and satisfaction. In us, God is both performer and hearer: the Spirit leads us to prayer and praise, praying in us through music and text, inhabiting
our praise, offered up in reverence
and awe to the holy throne, where
with angel voices we join in heaven’s eternal song.
PRAYER
O God, who is beyond the vision of our human sight, give to our hands and voices the desire and ability to turn the creativity with which you have blessed us to your glory. Make our art holy, our song angelic and our praise worthy, that in all things we may worship you alone, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, harmony
in unity, always. Amen.
32 CMQ