Looking Back: The Revised Church Hymnary controversy

From February 1934

Readers of The Scotsman were provided with much entertainment during the Christmas season by a lively controversy about the Revised Hymnary. Originating in a protest by a well-known organist against the altered harmonies of many familiar tunes, it broadened out into a general attack on the alleged musical detriments of the book. Eminent organists of the older generation led off in the hostile criticism. They were answered with equal vigour by others of the younger school, who were no less convinced and resolute in defence.

Expressions of lay opinion appeared to come exclusively from older men, who were naturally aggrieved by the difficulties occasioned for them by departure from what to them had been almost lifelong usage.

Some correspondents went the length of demanding a new revision with the old harmonies restored. One called for a purely Scottish book, and another, with his sense of humour manifestly in abeyance, seriously invited the original critics to produce a new revision of the harmonies themselves. One delightful contribution purported to come from Rip van Winkle redivivus, who poked fun at the musician who had started the controversy for giving well-known Scots songs the very treatment which he objected to in the music of the psalms and hymns.

The cleavage of opinion appeared to be pretty much between age and youth, the older people complaining of departure from their custom, and the younger, with whom no custom had had time to develop strong preference, finding the new book full of interest and taking it to their hearts. It was evident also that in some cases strong feeling on particular points had produced virtual blindness to the merits of the book as a whole, and that in others summary judgement was passed on insufficient experience.

The new book is definitely established in the use of the Church for the next twenty-five or thirty years. Does it not seem common sense that people should settle down to work at it and master it? Many things in it cannot be appreciated until they have been well tried. The spirit needed is that of David, who, when Araunah offered his threshing-floor for the building of an alter, answered that he would not offer unto the Lord of that which had cost him nothing. Where the necessary expenditure of patience and trouble in learning the unfamiliar things has been given, the revised book is recognised to have greatly enriched the Church in its resources for worship.

The Revised edition (or CH2) had been published in 1927, replacing the original 1898 Church Hymnary. It lasted even longer than this writer envisaged, as the third edition (CH3) did not appear until 1973. The fourth (CH4), came out in 2005.

Looking Back menu

Life and Work is the magazine of the Church of Scotland. Subscribe here.