What Is a Hymn Heritage

[Editor's note: The author delivered this plenary address at 2007 Hymn Society Conference at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.] Making It Up On Sunday before Memorial Day, Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, where I teach, celebrated its hundred and thirty-eighth commencement. We sang three hymns. The first was O Day Full of Grace, a pre-Reformation Scandinavian folk hymn which, stimulated by Lutheran Reformation, received its first printing in Danish in sixteenth century, was reworked in nineteenth century by Lutheran churchman Nikolai F. S. Grundtvig, and then received English versions in Lutheran hymnals in this country. We sang of two versions given in most recent hymnal of Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Evangelical Lutheran Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2006). It is a translation by Gerald Thorson, a twentieth-century professor of English at St. Olaf College, which is a Lutheran college in Northfield, Minnesota. The tune, DEN SIGNEDE DAG, was written for and is usually used with this text. It is by Christoph E. Weyse, nineteenth-century Danish Lutheran church musician and composer. The Hymn of Day followed reading of great commission in Matthew 28 and a sermon on that text. It was, as might expect, Lord, You Give Great Commission. The text is by twentieth-century Anglican priest, bishop, and teacher Jefferey Rowthorn; and tune, ABBOT'S LEIGH, is by twentieth-century Anglican musician and theologian Cyril V. Taylor. The last hymn was sung tune PRAISE MY SOUL (also known as LAUDA ANIMA or BENEDIC ANIMA), by John Goss, nineteenth-century Anglican organist at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. The text we used is a recent one, Voices Raised You, by former President of Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Herman G. Stuemplfe Jr., who recently died. On Wednesday after Commencement I received an e-mail. It had been sent Registrar who forwarded it others through whom I got it. It came from a relative of of graduates. She said, One of things that lured me Lutheran church some 25 years ago was respect for Not surprisingly, therefore, she signed herself a Lutheran. She said she was privileged attend Luther Seminary's graduation ceremony and expressed thanks for processions in and out, organ, brass quartet, preacher, and the program which she regarded as exceptional. But she was disappointed that none of three congregation sang was familiar. She said that no one knew them and no one sang them. She was upset that we used ecumenical version of Lord's Prayer and not sacred traditional one. She asked if we were trying to be or more relevant or more modern for what or for whom. I thought her note deserved a response, so Seminary Pastor suggested I write one. I did, ran it by a number of people on staff for their comments and approval, and sent it. Since a committee had planned this service and my involvement came only minimally at end of process, I indicated I could not speak for all planners but was willing address her concerns. I said songs we sang were familiar many Lutherans, that people near me were singing them quite lustily, that familiarity in our fractured society and church life is complex, and that what we sang was close center of tradition. As Lord's Prayer, I explained that we were simply doing what Luther and sixteenth-century Reformers called for, praying in our language. I said we were not trying be hip at all but were expressing deepest possible respect for tradition, and that many Lutherans regularly used vernacular version of Lord's Prayer that we had used. She sent back a brief response right away. She thanked me for my reply and found my explanation interesting. …

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