RVW: Sine Nomine (1906)
In 1904, the young Ralph Vaughan Williams was commissioned to help in the editing of a new English hymnal that promised to be a “collection of the best hymns in the English language.” “This meant two years with no ‘original’ work except a few hymn tunes,” Vaughan Williams wrote in his “Musical Autobiography.” He would later come to recognize the value of these two years to his musical education. “I wondered then if I was ‘wasting my time.’ The years were passing and I was adding nothing to the sum of musical invention. But I now know that two years of close association with some of the best (as well as some of the worst) tunes in the world was a better musical education than any amount of sonatas and fugues.”
As well as rearranging hymn tunes and folk tunes for use in the hymnal, Vaughan Williams enriched the hymnology with several of his own compositions. (Two of these, Sine Nomine and Down Ampney remain world-wide favorites.) We will listen to the hymn “For All the Saints,” sung to the tune Sine Nomine (literally, “without name”), which Vaughan Williams composed for it. (The lyrics are included in the movie as subtitles. Read all the lyrics at CyberHymnal HERE.)
Historical Note: Ralph Vaughan Williams made important contributions to church music in hymnology. As well as editing The English Hymnal (1907), he helped edit Songs of Praise (1925) and The Oxford Book of Carols (1928).
Vaughan Williams’s presence in church music continues to this day. Next time you pick up a hymnal, turn back to the composer’s index and look up Vaughan Williams’s name. How many of the tunes did he arrange or write?
Friday, March 2, 2012