Home > The Magazine > Arts

Tuesday 7 October 2008

Dare to dream and make your ultimate trip a reality

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Michael Henderson

Michael Henderson suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value events

Click here for exclusive articles, offers, tasting notes and discussion

Lost in translation

Peter Phillips

Wednesday, 9th July 2008

Peter Phillips on why it is the music more than the words that makes hymns special

My interest in ridiculous sacred words began with a Victorian edition of Verdi’s ‘Requiem’, which I met at school. At the unbelievably splendid, and brassy, ‘Tuba mirum’ we were asked to sing the translation: ‘Hark! The trumpet sounds appalling’. I later discovered that there is a very enjoyable sub-culture of these things, mostly hidden away in our more traditional hymns.

Unlike the psalms, which in the King James translation have a linguistic robustness managing to avoid or transcend this kind of embarrassment, the hymns we sing have the most diverse backgrounds.

Shifts of meaning over time have been matched by changes in what is thought to be appropriate sentiment in religious worship. Publishers of hymn books for the modern market have to make some tricky decisions, as Kevin Mayhew, publisher of Hymns Old and New, made clear in a recent letter to the Church Times. Presumably Charles Wesley’s penchant for the word ‘bowels’ as an image for the mercy of Christ won’t do now; but what about ‘gay’?

Let me in season, Lord, be grave,
In season gay;
Let me be faithful to thy grace,
Just for today

What would the bigoted luminaries of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (Foca)do about that?

1 | 2 | 3 Next page

More articles from: Peter Phillips | this section

Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (3)

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Joe Camel

July 10th, 2008 3:13pm

I share your dislike of false rhymes, but they’re not found only in hymn books. Think of this couplet:

What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

And the false rhyme is only one of three objections that may be raised to that couplet. The usual meaning of “fearful” nowadays is timid, whatever it may have meant in Blake’s time. And however fearsome a tiger may be, symmetry has nothing to do with it. A butterfly or a day-old chick possesses just as much symmetry as a tiger. Any land animal has to be symmetrical, otherwise it wouldn’t be able to walk straight.

Jack Lion

July 11th, 2008 1:09pm

Dear Joe Camel:
Oh, shut up!

Hans Wildebeest

July 14th, 2008 5:04am

"What would the bigoted luminaries of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (Foca) do about that?"

A silly, unnecessary and ignorant comment, arguably equally 'bigoted', and unworthy of the Spectator.

IPod dilemma

Marcus Berkmann

A musician friend of mine acquired his first iPod recently, and like small boys who don’t realise that everyone else went through this about five years ago, he and I frequently discuss our battles with the things.