University of Iowa Institute for Sacred Music 2002

<p>Godwin Sadoh is a Nigerian church musician, composer,
pianist, organist/choral conductor and ethnomusicologist. He received his
Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ performance and composition from
Louisiana State University in May 2004, making him the first African to earn
the DMA degree in organ performance from any institution. His extensive
research on Nigerian church music, organ building, composers, African art
music, and intercultural musicology is published in The Diapason, The Hymn, The
Organ, Composer-USA, Living Music, Africa, Organ Encyclopedia, and Contemporary
Africa Database. His organ and choral works, as well as hymn book, E Korin
S'Oluwa: Fifty Indigenous Church Hymns from Nigeria, are published by Wayne
Leupold Editions. Sadoh's book, The Organ Works of Fela Sowande: Cultural
Perspectives (New York: Zimbel Press, 2005), will be in print in spring 2006.</p>

Fela Sowande's (1905-1987) centenary is being celebrated all around the
world with various types of music festivals in 2005. He was born one hundred
years ago into a musical family in Lagos, Nigeria. Although Sowande belongs to
the second generation of Nigerian composers, he can be regarded as the father
of modern African art music. The first generation of Nigerian composers comprised
mainly church musicians who wrote mostly hymns and choral pieces for worship.
It was Sowande who expanded Nigerian art music from the church arena to public
concert auditorium. He introduced art songs for voice and piano, sacred and
secular choral pieces as well as orchestra works to the repertoire of Nigerian
modern art music.

Sowande is also the father of the 'Nigerian organ school' because he
propelled the musical genre to an unprecedented height through his extensive
compositions and publications for the organ. There has never been any Nigerian
composer who has written such a significant body of organ works as Sowande. His
compositions for organ outnumbered his works for other genres. Today, Sowande
is the most celebrated Nigerian musician of international repute with his
career covering areas of music education, composition, performance, research,
broadcasting, as well as traditional religious practices.

Compositions

Fela Sowande composed for almost all the music media: voices and piano/organ
accompaniment, organ, and orchestra. He wrote three major works for orchestra:
Four Sketches for full orchestra (1953), African
Suite for string orchestra (1955), and the Folk
Symphony for full orchestra (1960). The
three works utilize Western conventional harmony, tonality, form, and
instrumentation. Elements of African traditional music in these pieces are
limited to the use of indigenous folksongs, ostinati, and selected Yoruba
rhythmic patterns. The Folk Symphony
is based on Yoruba melodies from Nigeria, while the African Suite is based on
melodies from both Nigeria and Ghana.

Sowande wrote several choral pieces of which the most popular in Nigeria are
Oh Render Thanks for SATB and organ,
Roll De Ol’ Chariot for SATBB and piano, Wheel,
Oh Wheel 
style='font-style:normal'>for SATB, and The Wedding Song
style='font-style:normal'> for SSA and piano. Oh Render Thanks
style='font-style:normal'>is a hymn anthem whose texts are derived from hymns
552 and 554 of the British Hymnal Companion. Sowande composed an original
melody for the combined five verses, which are clearly separated with organ
interludes. The first and the last verses are in full unison, while the second
and fourth verses are in four-part harmony. Verse three is a duet for double
tenor and double bass voices. Roll De Ol’ Chariot
style='font-style:normal'>and Wheel, Oh Wheel
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  are
both based on African-American spirituals. Wheel, Oh Wheel
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  is
a cappella and characterized by highly syncopated rhythms. The Wedding Song is
written for two sopranos, alto and piano accompaniment. The melody is borrowed
from a popular Yoruba wedding song with syncopated rhythms. The piano part
supplies a dance rhythm accompaniment to the vocal line. Structurally, the song
is divided into two parts. The opening section is a solo by the bride bragging
about the good qualities of the man of her dream. The second section is a
chorus for three vocal parts (SSA) in which the friends of the bride sing a
song of joy, adoration, and encouragement on her wedding day. Sowande's choral
works are generally characterized by vibrant lively tempos.

Sowande composed seventeen major works for organ. These pieces may be
broadly divided into three main categories for functional purposes in the
church: liturgical pieces, preludes and postludes, and concert pieces. Some of
these works could be placed in more than one group due to their stylistic
characteristics. Fantasia in D, Festival March, Plainsong
style='font-style:normal'>, and Choral Preludes on Yoruba Sacred
Melodies are not included in this
classification because the scores were not available to me at the time of
writing this essay.

Liturgical Pieces

There are nine organ works that are suitable for divine services, either for
the offertory, communion or any meditative aspect of worship. The contemplative
elements in these pieces include slow tempo, short duration, and simplicity.
The thematic materials of these works are mainly borrowed indigenous hymn tunes
from Nigeria and African-American spirituals; this aspect makes them more
appropriate for playing within worship.

The pieces are:

1. K'a Mura. London: Chappell, 1945.

2. Pastourelle. London: Chappell, 1952.

3. Yoruba Lament. London: Chappell, 1955.

4. Kyrie. London: Chappell, 1955.

5. K'a Mo Rokoso (unpublished score).

6. Supplication (unpublished score from Sacred Idioms of the Negro
style='font-style:normal'>).

7. Via Dolorosa (unpublished score from Sacred Idioms of the Negro
style='font-style:normal'>).

8. Bury Me Eas' or Wes' (unpublished score from Sacred Idioms of the
Negro).

9. Vesper (unpublished score from Sacred Idioms of the Negro
style='font-style:normal'>).

Preludes and Postludes

Six pieces fall within this category and are generally characterized by
moderate or lively tempos, and are of moderate difficulty. These pieces are
loud, moderate in length, sectional, and are mostly based on sacred themes from
the Yoruba church hymns and folksongs, as well as African-American spirituals.
They include:

1. Yoruba Lament. London: Chappell, 1955.

2. Joshua Fit De Battle of Jericho. London: Chappell, 1955.

3. Obangiji. London: Chappell, 1955.

4. Prayer (Oba A Ba Ke). New York: Ricordi, 1958.

5. Supplication (unpublished score from Sacred Idioms of the Negro
style='font-style:normal'>).

6. Jubilate (unpublished score from Sacred Idioms of the Negro
style='font-style:normal'>).

Concert Pieces

Sowande wrote most of his organ works for concert performances. Ten pieces
are in this category. These pieces are vividly distinct from others because of
the high level of difficulty, and they are virtuosic, showing the technical
ability of the performer. These are large multi-sectional works, loud and
lively. The thematic materials are derived from Nigerian folksongs,
African-American spirituals and also hymn tunes composed by local organists and
choirmasters. Some compositional forms include fugue, three-part form, and
theme and variations. The titles are listed below:

1. Jesu Olugbala. London: Novello, 1955.

2. Kyrie. London: Chappell, 1955.

3. Joshua Fit De Battle of Jericho. London: Chappell, 1955.

4. Obangiji. London: Chappell, 1955.

5. Go Down Moses. London: Chappell, 1955.

6. Oyigiyigi: Introduction, Theme and Variations. New York: Ricordi, 1958.

7. Gloria. New York: Ricordi, 1958.

8. Prayer (Oba A Ba Ke). New York: Ricordi, 1958.

9. Laudamus Te (unpublished score from Sacred Idioms of the Negro
style='font-style:normal'>).

10. Jubilate (unpublished score from Sacred Idioms of the Negro
style='font-style:normal'>). 

Yoruba Culture

Fela Sowande belongs to the Yoruba ethnic group of southwest Nigeria;
therefore, it should not be surprising to see elements of Yoruba music permeate
his compositions. Most of Sowande's works are based on melodies borrowed either
from Yoruba indigenous Christian songs or Yoruba folksongs. Some of the songs
are quoted verbatim, while others are slightly modified or varied. In any case,
his Yoruba audience in Nigeria has always been able to identify and relate to
the borrowed songs during concert performances. Indigenous rhythms featured in
Sowande's music are either ostinati or selected Yoruba rhythmic patterns such
as the popular konkonkolo rhythm (also
known as the West African time line) as exemplified in Laudamus Te
style='font-style:normal'> (from Sacred Idioms of the Negro
style='font-style:normal'> for organ). Most of the melodies employed in
Sowande's music are based on the five-note pentatonic scale commonly found in
Yoruba traditional songs.

The titles given to Sowande's compositions express symbolic and imaginary
ideas. The titles of his music have been influenced by the titles of the Yoruba
folksongs and indigenous hymn tunes employed in creating the music. His
experience in Yoruba folklore and mythology enhanced the shaping of the form
and character of the pieces. For instance, Obangiji, the title of one of his
organ works, is festive music meant to praise God the Almighty. Both the title
of the organ work and the original melody convey the same message--singing the
praise of God. Hence, the title informed the nature and character of the music.
In Via Dolorosa, from Sacred Idioms of the Negro, the composer paints the picture of the suffering and death of Christ
on Good Friday. The piece is based on a Yoruba Christian hymn normally sung on
Good Friday services at Yoruba churches in Nigeria. Sowande captures the
painful death of Christ with the expression mark at the beginning of the piece,
Lento con dolore, and the use of excessive chromatic passages on the manuals
and pedals.

Interculturalism

Three cultural groups played a major role in the life and music of Fela
Sowande: [1] the African/Yoruba cultural heritage from Nigeria, [2] European,
and [3] African-American cultures. Sowande was nurtured and brought up in these
cultures. He began his musical training in Nigeria as a choir boy and organist
apprentice at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, under the tutelage of
Thomas Ekundayo Phillips, and later went on to Great Britain to study music. He
was more of a university professor, performer and researcher in the United
States of America, where he spent the last thirty years of his life. Moreover,
Sowande was raised in a bicultural environment in Nigeria, where the Yoruba
traditional culture and English cultural values coexisted. Therefore, it should
not be surprising to witness the influence of indigenous African and foreign
cultures on Sowande's music.

It is interesting to observe that Sowande gives bilingual titles to some of
his compositions in English and Yoruba languages. For instance, Prayer (Oba
A Ba Ke) and Oyigiyigi:
Introduction, Theme and Variations on a Yoruba Folk Theme
style='font-style:normal'> for organ are representative of works in this
category. For those pieces based on Yoruba songs, Sowande often writes out the
Yoruba text of the song with its English translation in the composer's notes to
the music. In these compositions, we see the interactions of two major
languages. Another source of interculturalism in Sowande's music is the idea of
borrowing preexisting melodies from Yoruba culture in Nigeria, from Ghanaian
music, and from African-American spirituals. Melodies from Nigeria are present
in all his compositional genres, while a Ghanaian song is incorporated into his
African Suite. African-American
spirituals are employed mainly in his solo art songs, choral pieces and organ
works. Elements of Western classical music are vividly manifest in his choice
of tonality, 19th-century chromaticism, form, and instrumentation.

Nationalism

The wave of nationalism or cultural renaissance in Nigeria began in the mid
1940s and lasted until the independence of the nation from colonial governance
in 1960. This was a period in which the Nigerian elite united to revive the
traditional values and culture of Nigeria over the European imperialism that
was prevalent at the time. Indigenous playwrights, poets, dramatists, theater
artists, sculptors, fine artists, as well as musicians all embarked on a
massive campaign and incorporation of materials from their indigenous culture
into their works.

Hubert Ogunde, popularly known as the father of Nigerian 'Contemporary
Yoruba Theatre' wrote several operas and plays based on Nigerian legends,
myths, politics, socio/cultural life, dances, rituals, festivals, and
traditional musical styles. It is of interest to note that Fela Sowande started
composing major musical works around this period even though he did not return
to Nigeria until the early 1950s. Sowande's contribution to the Nationalist
Movement could be observed in his use of Yoruba traditional songs (either
sacred or secular), rhythms, and the titles given to his music. He was
commissioned by the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation to compose the Folk
Symphony for the 1960 Independence Day
Anniversary, although it was not accepted for performance. The work was later
premiered by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in 1962. This
was also the period in which Sowande embarked on intensive research on Nigerian
traditional music as well as Yoruba folklore for the purpose of dissemination
through the radio system, documentation in books and archives for further use,
and as source materials for his compositions. He used the resulting materials
from his field research to enlighten the Nigerian populace about their own
culture that was being aggressively eroded by Western traditions and values.

Music Scholarship

Fela Sowande contributed immensely to the field of music scholarship through
several documented presentations at international conferences and academic
institutions about Yoruba folklore, Odu Ifa (Ifa divination), the theory and
practice of African music in general, music education in Nigeria, modern
African art music and its composers, as well as the Africanization of Black
Studies in the United States of America. For instance, Sowande presented a
paper, "Nigerian Traditional Music," at the University of Ibadan in
1962. In 1963, he presented a lecture titled, "The Teaching of Music in
Nigerian Schools," at the meeting of the Association of Church Musicians
at Methodist Boys' High School, Lagos. On May 5, 1965, Sowande delivered
another lecture, "The Development of a National Tradition of Music,"
at a seminar under the auspices of the Department of Music, University of
Nigeria, Nsukka. Five years after his erudite presentation at Nsukka, Sowande
read a paper titled, "The Role of Music in Traditional African
Society," at an international conference sponsored by UNESCO in Yaounde,
Cameroon, in February 1970. Sowande wrote and published short essays in
Composer, Africa, World of Music, and African American Affairs. Some of his
unpublished manuscripts include Oruko A Mu T'Orun Wa, The Yoruba Talking
Drum, Children of the Gods among the Yorubas, The Mind of a Nation: The Yoruba
Child, Aspects of Nigerian Music, The African Child in Nigeria,
style='font-style:normal'>and Black Folklore
style='font-style:normal'>.

Fela Sowande is highly respected by the entire caucus of art musicians in
Nigeria. Hardly any professionally trained musician from Nigeria can write or
talk about art music from that part of the world without giving due credit and
respect to Sowande, either by quoting from his literary writings or his
compositions. He laid a solid foundation for modern African art music upon
which subsequent generations are now building. Although in the third
generation, Ayo Bankole (1935-1976) deviated from the traditional conventions
and nationalistic campaign of Sowande, he certainly relied on Sowande's works
as a guide to set him on the right track. Bankole uses mostly 20th-century compositional
devices and tonalities such as 12-tone method and atonality in his organ
works. 

In the fourth generation, I came onto the scene of the 'Nigerian organ
school' to turn the clock back to Sowande's model. Before I started composing
for solo organ, I invested a considerable amount of time studying Fela
Sowande's organ works in order to develop my own personal style. All my
published compositions for organ (Wayne Leupold Editions unless noted
otherwise)--Nigerian Suite No. 1 for Organ Solo, Nigerian Suite No. 2 for
Organ Solo, Impressions from an African Moonlight, Twenty-Five Preludes on
Yoruba Church Hymns--as well as
The Misfortune of a Wise Tortoise for Organ and Narrator
style='font-style:normal'>and Jesu Oba for Trumpet and Organ
style='font-style:normal'> (Florida: Wehr's Music House, 2005), were all
influenced by Sowande's organ works.

Sowande's centenary is widely celebrated all around the world, in the United
States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Nigeria. The Grand
Festival took place in June 2005, in Lagos, Nigeria, where Fela Sowande was
born one hundred years ago. The festival featured presentations of scholarly
papers on the life, contributions, and music of the foremost Nigerian composer
as well as performances of his compositions.

William Dickinson is a board member and past Dean of the River Valley AGO Chapter. He has written a number of articles for The Diapason and The American Organist.

The 2006 Institute for Sacred Music sponsored by the University of Iowa was held January 26–28 in Iowa City. This year’s presenters included Don Saliers, who is the William R. Cannon Distinguished Professor of Theology and Worship at Emory University; Carole Terry, Professor of Organ and Harpsichord at the University of Washington; and Thomas H. Troeger, who is currently the J. Edward and Ruth Cox Lantz Professor of Christian Communication at the Yale Divinity School.

Thursday

Don Saliers opened the conference on Thursday afternoon with his lecture “Singing Our Lives to God: Exploring the Assembly’s Sung Prayer,” in which he developed five theses. Thesis number one is that “Text depends radically on that which is not verbal.” Saliers feels that some liturgies are too verbal and asks the question, “How shall these texts sing?” His second thesis explains that words or text well set, whether in hymns or psalms, become more than just sounds—they invite one to see and taste. Thesis number three involved producing an ‘ordered’ sound that acts upon our senses. In worship, when the ear starts to see and the eye begins to hear, music will open all the senses (thesis number four). Finally, thesis five states that most crucial theology is understood in singing. Because music lies so close to the soul, when we sing the prayer is formed not only in music but also in theology. Saliers feels that shared music making in a gathered assembly helps the body to come to life and to receive life back from one another. Worship requires music that sees, hears, gestures and inhabits space. Yet music is not just performed for the assembly but must involve the assembly in active participation in prayer. We cannot assume that the congregation does not hear or participate, and should begin to think about various levels of participation that will provoke the assembly to realize the joys of singing, which should extend beyond the sanctuary to everyday outside activities such as fellowship. Finally, Saliers feels that the ecology of singing is missing in many assemblies, and he recommends quarterly hymn sings to give new life to congregational participation.
Thomas Troeger completed the Thursday afternoon session with his presentation “God Made All Things for Singing: how music and worship form our identities as creatures.” Dr. Troeger began by stating that we are all ‘mud creatures’ who have had life breathed into us by God and who are inherently musical. We have a drum (heart) that beats 40 million times a year. We are all ‘orchestras’ and to know that one is musical is to be “Lost in Wonder, Love, and Praise.” But he warns that if we human beings forget our primordial identity, we are apt to sponsor some dangerous illusions—my group is better than yours or my race is better, etc. Who, then, will call us back to our primordial identity? Troeger feels that no one is better equipped to remind people who they are and to lead them back to their essential identity than the church musician. Because the church musician has the ability to provide the medium (music) to bring people back to God, Troeger feels that the School of Music is perhaps the most important school at the University of Iowa. The church musician’s role is to try to put people into harmony with basic life by teaching that to love God is to sing. “Hit the first note of a hymn and all disparate groups hit the same note.”
On Thursday evening, the River Valley AGO Chapter hosted a dinner for area clergy and conference attendees at First United Methodist Church in Iowa City. The conference worship service, entitled “Lost in Wonder, Awe and Praise,” followed the dinner. The homilist was Thomas Troeger, the liturgist Don Saliers, and Carole Terry was the organist. A special schola was arranged for and directed by T. Andrew Hicks.

Friday

Friday morning was devoted to a masterclass led by Carole Terry and included a recital by the undergraduate and graduate organ students at the University of Iowa. The masterclass in the Krapf Organ Studio demonstrated why Carole Terry has such national and international acclaim as a lecturer and pedagogue. Participating in the masterclass and the following recital held in Clapp Recital Hall were Jin-Ah Yoo, Erin MacGorman, Tom Hamilton, Julia Howell, Michael Davidson and Aaron Sunstein. Friday afternoon opened with a lecture by Dr. Saliers entitled “Humanity at Full Strength: Doxology and Lament in Christian Worship.” In this lecture, Saliers tells us that music has the power to touch into the deepest places in our lives. It touches even those souls who can’t sing well—music takes them to places for which they have no words. Texted music can create sensations—a way of understanding the world through deep affections. In the context of the Judeo/Christian traditions, those affections conjure up a very special object—God. Text and music allow for the possibility of joy with tribulation. The Christian assembly must develop a capacity for experiencing joy, delight, and praise as well as the capacity for grieving. In fact, the capacity to grieve is the most basic and most profound thing that a person can experience. In responding to a joyful or grieving song, we experience how music has the ability to shape and give meaning to a deep appreciation and to serve as a representation of the manner in which we take in the world. In discussing liturgy, Saliers feels that ‘good’ liturgy requires our humanity to be stretched to the fullest. His thesis is that one must know the psalms to know scripture; to illustrate this thesis, he made five points: one, that psalms are language of the human heart and are a rigorous reminder of life on earth; two, that psalms are addressed to God; three, psalms are integral to our movement through time; four, psalms are the crucible of encounter (through the psalms we hear God speaking to us); and five, singing the psalms requires that the assembly is aware of and accepts the double message that the psalms impart in terms of the mystery of God and the depth of humanity.
Thomas Troeger completed the conference lecture series on Friday afternoon with his presentation “Created to Create: how music and worship form our identities as creators.” He noted that when one delves into the whole notion of creativity, there lies a great danger that there are many things created by humanity that are perverse—war, torture, etc. However, to move into the depths of what is beautiful and good is the only direction that should be strived for in creation. Troeger feels that God took a great risk in creating those (we musicians included) who create. Troeger’s presentation can best be summed up by the following hymn text, The Crickets Chanting through the Night:

The crickets chanting through the night,
The windswept, whistling trees,
the birds that welcome morning light,
the humming, roaring seas
are each assigned the notes they sing
while we make up our part
and fashion God an offering
through our creative art.

The budding wood, the flowered field,
the mountain robed in snow,
the burrow and the nest that shield
the beasts from winds that blow
are from the same inventive mind
that dared to set us free
to probe how nature is designed
and bring new worlds to be.
Created to create, we ask,
O God, before we start
that you will join us in our task
by moving in our heart
so everything that we create,
compose, produce, invent
will help the earth to celebrate
and honor your intent.

Text: Thomas H. Troeger (born 1945), from Borrowed Light, ©1994 Oxford University Press, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Carole Terry’s recital in Clapp Recital Hall on Friday evening was an eclectic program ranging from Sweelinck, Mendelssohn, Bach, Bolcom to Reger, Messiaen and finally to a thrilling presentation of three movements of the Vierne Symphony No. III. The entire recital reflected an intense personal involvement in each piece on the program and was enthusiastically received by a large and very receptive audience.

Saturday’s conclusion

The 2006 Institute for Sacred Music concluded with a roundtable discussion on Saturday morning. All three presenters discussed books that they have either published or that are in the works. The conference attendees and presenters discussed the need to (1) prepare the assembly so that they can better accept liturgy and music; (2) train seminarians in their role to properly lead the assembly; and (3) to continue with development of interaction between different religious organizations. In discussing ways to help in the formation of the assembly’s capabilities, it was noted that the use of children to lead the assembly in accepting various liturgical and musical paths should be considered and encouraged. Suggested reading on these subjects included Composing Music for Worship by Steven Darlington (Canterbury Press), and Music in Christian Worship by Charlotte Kroeker. The planning committee for this 2006 Institute for Sacred Music included Delbert Disselhorst, Brett Wolgast, Wallace Bubar and T. Andrew Hicks. Congratulations to this group for providing a most enlightening and engaging conference. And, of course, this not would have been possible without the talents of Drs. Saliers, Terry and Troeger.

Godwin Sadoh is a Nigerian composer, ethnomusicologist, organist and choir director with degrees in piano performance, organ performance, and ethnomusicology. He is currently a doctoral student in organ performance and composition at the Louisiana State University. His recent publications include "Music at the Anglican Youth Fellowship, Ile-Ife, Nigeria: An Intercultural Experience" published in The Hymn, in January 2001, and "A Centennial Epitome of the Organs at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, Nigeria" published in The Organ, in May 2002.

Historical Background

The history of Nigerian hymn-based compositions consists of several related experiences in which European and American missionary efforts played a major role. The establishment of the Christian church in the 19th century by the missionaries is a turning point of Western musical influence in Nigeria. However, other institutions such as the Christian mission schools, institutions of higher learning, and the modern Nigerian elite also contributed to the development of hymn-based works in the country.1

Through the church, the missionaries introduced hymns to Nigerians, and before long Nigerian congregations became familiar not only with European hymns, chants, and canticles, but with anthems, cantatas, oratorios, and organ works by European composers. Prominent among these works are variations on the Blue Bells of Scotland, George Frideric Handel's Messiah, Joseph Haydn's Creation, John Stainer's Daughter of Jairus, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Hiawatha, Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah, and the organ works of Dietrich Buxtehude, Johann Sebastian Bach, John Stanley, Felix Mendelssohn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Max Reger.

In the mission schools, Nigerians were taught to use European notation as well as play harmonium and piano. In fact, it is the introduction of Western musical exegesis that led to the rise of modern Nigerian composers. As Bode Omojola notes, from the advent of the missionaries around 1850 until the end of the 19th century, musical activities among elitist groups and churches in the Western and Eastern parts of Nigeria were mostly European.2

Rev. Robert A. Coker (the first Nigerian to study music abroad to a professional level) is reported to have trained a large number of Nigerian women in the performance of Western classical music between 1880 and 1890. In addition, he organized a number of public concerts known as the Coker concerts, which became the center of social life in Lagos.3 Rev. Coker was the first organist and choirmaster at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos (the present headquarters of the Anglican communion in Nigeria and the seat of the Archbishop). Dr. Thomas Ekundayo Phillips (the second Nigerian musician trained in Europe), who later became the organist and Master of the Music at the Cathedral Church, concentrated on oratorios and organ music for the churches in the southwestern region of Nigeria. A Passacaglia on an African Folksong for organ, Variations on an African Folksong for organ, and Samuel, a cantata for SATB, voice solos and organ accompaniment, are some of the compositions by Ekundayo Phillips.

After the nation gained its independence from Great Britain in 1960, the quest for a national identity was the paramount objective of art and church music composers in Nigeria. Experimental works by pioneering church organists and choirmasters produced compositions neither entirely Nigerian nor entirely Western. These works could be best described as a synthesis of Nigerian and Western musical idioms. The synthesis of the two musical idioms actually began in the church. Fela Sowande, an organist and composer and the foremost representative of the second generation of modern Nigerian composers, employed several folktunes as the basis of his work. Examples of such works are African Suite for string orchestra, and Folk Symphony for orchestra. Among his famous organ works are Oyigiyigi, Obangiji, Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho, Prayer, K'a Mura, Yoruba Lament, and Sacred Idioms of the Negro.

Hymn-Based Compositions

Sacred Idioms of the Negro is a six-movement work out of which five are based on Yoruba Christian hymns and one on the African-American spiritual "Bury Me Eas' or Wes'." Laudamus Te is based on a Yoruba hymn and it bubbles with rhythmic energy. The composer did not specify the title of the hymn. The thematic material of Supplication is derived from a Yoruba hymn of prayer in which the Yoruba Christian beseeches God to accept the gifts of their hands, so that when it is time to die, the Christian may wake up in Heaven. It is built on a local hymn tune composed by a Yoruba Methodist minister, The Rev. A.T. Ola Olude. The text of the hymn tune may be translated as "The day is gone, darkness draws near, soon every creature will sleep, May God watch us through the dark night, and may we not find ourselves out of the hands of Sleep into the hands of Death while we sleep." Via Dolorosa supplies a classic example of Yoruba melodies in speech rhythm. Here the Yoruba Christian ponders on the first Good Friday, and reminds us of the tragic event of that terrible day, when Christ was crucified on the cross. Bury Me Eas' or Wes' is based on an African-American spiritual, which has the same words for its title according to the composer. See Example 1 for the themes of each movement of Sacred Idioms of the Negro.4

The last movement of the work Jubilate is based on the tune of a Yoruba Christian hymn "Oyigiyigi, ota omi" (The sea pebble is immortal). Jubilate is a song of joy on the organ, the title deriving from Psalm 100, Jubilate Deo omnis terra (O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands). The rhythmic disposition of the work consists of syncopations, constant and variable rhythmic patterns, and an ostinato in the pedal. The texture is homophonic following 19th-century convention, while the harmony is triadic and functional. Its form is expanded ternary with a fanfare as introduction, a contrasting middle section with the principal theme over a pedal ostinato and a recapitulation of the principal section. See Example 2 for the middle section of Jubilate.

Another work based on a preexisting hymn is Sowande's Oh Render Thanks, a hymn anthem for SATB and organ accompaniment. The texts are derived from hymns 552 and 554 of the British Hymnal Companion. Sowande composed an original tune for the combined five verses, which are clearly separated with organ interludes. The first and last verses are in full unison, while the second and fourth verses are in four parts (SATB). Verse three is a duet for double tenor and double bass voices. It is very practicable to engage the congregation in singing this anthem with the choir. I do recall the congregation at my home church, the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, singing verses one and five with the choir since they are in unison. The choir sang verses two, three, and four. This creates an interesting alternatim. The anthem closes with a long Amen in imitative style. Example 3 shows the arrangement of the first verse of the anthem.

Ayo Bankole's Sonata No. 2 in C for piano (The Passion) is another example of hymn-based work. Bankole provided  an excellent structural analysis of the music in the composer's notes to the work. The three-movement composition is a programmatic piece depicting the passion and crucifixion of Christ. The first movement subtitled "And They Sought About for to Kill Him" is in conventional sonata form. The ticking of the seconds, the throbbing of the heart, the stillness of the night, the mischievous searchers and similar sinister concepts are realized by a subtle mixture of polytonality, wholetonality, and pentatonality. The exposition, which begins without an introduction, has two contrasting themes. The first, which is realized over a pedal C, is a rhythmic, pentatonic motive on the notes G-flat, A-flat, and B-flat. The second theme is a melodic setting of the hymn "Jesu, Jesu mo ki o o" (Jesus, Jesus I greet thee) over an implied ostinato. Note that this hymn is based on a pentatonic scale as shown in Example 4.

The development section pursues the searching motive and begins and ends with the passion song "Jesu Kristi, Igi Oro" (Jesus Christ, O painful Cross), by the late Rev. Canon J. J. Ransome-Kuti, one of the pioneering organists and choirmasters in Nigeria. The song vividly describes the agony and suffering of Christ.

The second movement, titled "And He Was Crucified," is in ternary form and begins with a slow, somber, chord progression in the minor key which blossoms into a broad, pentatonic melody suggesting the esoteric and mystical joy of the crucifixion. It depicts the hammering and nailing by the executioners, the sympathizers and the abandonment of Christ's body by his spirit.  The major chord at the end of this movement affirms that Christ's death was a triumphant achievement for the whole world as it guarantees salvation for all believers.

The final movement of this well crafted masterpiece is a rondo, subtitled "The Song of Mary." The few Africanisms in the work as a whole are found in the borrowed themes composed by local choirmasters and the use of pentatonic scale. Western musical elements predominate: 19th-century programmatic features, dynamic markings, polytonality and wholetone scale, form, instrument (piano), and several pianistic devices not found in indigenous Nigerian music.

Joshua Uzoigwe's Nigerian Dances is a collection of four pieces for piano. Dance No. 2 is a derivation of a popular Yoruba Christian hymn called "Ise Oluwa" (The Work of God). The piece is structured in three parts: an introduction, principal theme section with a development portion, and a conclusion. The principal section figures the hymn tune Ise Oluwa in the right hand with a chromatic accompaniment in the left hand. The coda is derived from the first two and last measures of the main tune. See Example 5 for an excerpt of the principal section of Nigerian Dances No. 2.

The last work for discussion is my own O Trinity Most Blessed Light, a hymn anthem for SATB and organ accompaniment. The text is taken from hymn 15 of the British Hymns Ancient and Modern. I arranged the three verses for choir only, however, the congregation may sing along with the choir in verse two which is in unison. The first verse is in strict homophonic four-part texture with accompaniment ad libitum. The first two measures of verse two are arranged for male voices (tenor and bass), while the last two are for female voices in unison with the sopranos singing the descant. The last verse marked Maestoso con mosso is a triumphant and brilliant ending in contrapuntal imitation of all the voices accompanied with full organ. The piece closes with a final Amen. See Example 6 for the arrangement of the second verse of O Trinity Most Blessed Light.

Summary

In conclusion, one may ask why the use of hymn tunes or texts as the basis of new compositions? The answers are not far-fetched. In the first place, 99.9% of the composers and audiences of these works are predominantly Christians. All the aforementioned composers received their early musical training from various churches. Most of them began their musical careers as choristers and later became organists in several denominations in Nigeria. Second, the borrowed hymn tunes and words are familiar to the audiences since they must have sung them during worship. The hymns then become an instrument of attraction to draw interested persons to the concert hall. Third, using hymns in classical music helps to distillate the social stigma of secularization attached to concert music. The sacred texts and tunes enhance the creation of a serene environment similar to worship. Fourth, all the works are suitable for divine services in churches. For instance, church choirs could sing Fela Sowande's Oh Render Thanks and my own O Trinity Most Blessed Light. Ayo Bankole's Passion Sonata is appropriate for prelude or offertory music on Good Friday, while Sowande's Sacred Idioms of the Negro is very suitable for preludes and postludes at divine services. Finally, creating new works from preexisting melodies is a good exercise for artistic stimulus and creativity. It enhances the development of the intuitive and creative imagination of the composers.

Godwin Sadoh is a Nigerian organist-composer, church musician, pianist, choral conductor, and ethnomusicologist. He is the author of several books, including The Organ Works of Fela Sowande: Cultural Perspectives (2007), Intercultural Dimensions in Ayo Bankole’s Music (2007), and Joshua Uzoigwe: Memoirs of a Nigerian Composer-Ethnomusicologist (2007). Sadoh is presently Professor of Music at Talladega College, Alabama.

The arrival of the Christian faith in Nigeria around the mid-19th century introduced not only the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but also church music to one of the most populous African countries. At the turn of the 20th century, indigenous church musicians began to develop a repertoire of music for worship. The music included church hymns, chants for singing Psalms, versicles and responses, and choral anthems, as well as organ pieces. The pioneers of church music composition endeavored to write music that would be close to the cultural roots of the congregations through the incorporation of traditional music resources. Foremost among the first generation of composers was Thomas King Ekundayo Phillips (1884–1969), popularly referred to among Nigerian musicologists as the “father of Nigerian church music,” for his immense contributions to the development, growth, and stabilization of Christian music.

Short biography of Thomas Ekundayo Phillips

Thomas King Ekundayo Phillips was born in 1884 and he attended the Church Missionary Society Grammar School (CMS), Lagos. Phillips received his first organ lesson from his uncle, Johnson, who was an Anglican priest. At the age of eighteen he was appointed organist of St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Breadfruit, Lagos, and served in this capacity for nine years. In 1911 he proceeded to the Trinity College of Music, London, to study piano, organ, and violin, becoming the second Nigerian to receive professional training in music abroad and the first Nigerian to formally study organ in a school of music (Robert Coker was the first Nigerian to study European music abroad in Germany in 1871).1
Upon his return to Nigeria in 1914, Phillips was appointed to the position of organist and master of the music at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos.2 Phillips’ tenure marked a great transition and a period unparalled in the history of Nigerian church music. His accomplishments far outshone those of all his predecessors at the church. He led the Cathedral Choir to great heights within a short period of time, since the choir was established to be a model for other churches. The choir sets the musical standard for choral performance in the country. In this way, Phillips succeeded in revolutionizing church music in Lagos and in Nigeria as a whole.
Phillips embarked on a massive campaign to educate Nigerian congregations in the latest repertoire. First, he concentrated on an intensive training of his choir on sight reading, vocal production and blend, and modern techniques of chanting the Psalms. Second, Phillips established a musical journal of which he was the editor-in-chief. He used the journal to disseminate cogent information about sacred music to the Yoruba congregations in southwest Nigeria, including its role in worship and its relationship to the culture of the people. Third, Phillips wrote a treatise on the compositional devices of early Nigerian church music entitled Yoruba Music.3 In this monumental book, Phillips described methods that composers could use to create new forms of music that employ Nigerian indigenous music resources—such as melodies, scale, and rhythms—to which congregations could relate. Nigerian congregations tend to embrace and appreciate hymns, anthems, and instrumental works based on indigenous popular melodies and rhythms. According to Bode Omojola, Phillips’ views in his Yoruba Music are summed up in three salient points: 1) Yoruba music is often based on the pentatonic scale; 2) harmony rarely exists in Yoruba music; and 3) Yoruba music, like all other musical traditions, is undergoing an evolutionary process.4 Phillips’ book represents the first musicological research and documentation of African traditional music by a professionally trained native. His postulations and research findings were circulated among church musicians through public presentations such as lectures, conferences, and symposia. His Passacaglia on an African Folk Song for Organ and Variations on an African Folk Song for Organ are representative works based on the ideas from his Yoruba Music. Fourth, Phillips founded the Conference of Church Organists and other musical organizations such as the Association of Diocesan Organists, which was a forum for church musicians to interact and exchange ideas on various aspects of sacred music from congregational singing to choral training to organ playing.
Phillips frequently gave lectures, addresses, and demonstrations for the improvement of musical taste and development in the church. He wrote numerous articles on harmonium and organ playing as well as on the maintenance of these instruments. At his instigation, some of the sermons at the Cathedral Church of Christ during this period were directed towards enlightening the congregation on devotional and reverential singing. The historical background of some of the hymns was also incorporated into the sermons. All these efforts led to a tremendous growth in the musical standard of the choir and the congregation in Lagos State and other parts of the country. The Cathedral Choir rendered settings of canticles, responses, anthems, hymns, and diverse choral works by famous European and indigenous Nigerian composers.
When the church was to be elevated to cathedral status in 1923,5 the congregation decided to buy a bigger pipe organ. Phillips embarked on several concert tours at home as well as in London to seek funds for the instrument, and he was able to raise over half of the budgeted amount. Works performed by the choir during these tours included Felix Mendelssohn’s Elijah, John Stainer’s Daughter of Jairus, and the Yoruba songs composed by Phillips. The money was used to purchase a three-manual pipe organ built by Abbot & Smith Co. in 1932.6 In 1964 Phillips was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree by the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, for his contributions to the development of church music in Nigeria. Phillips also trained most of the prominent and internationally famous Nigerian musicians, such as Fela Sowande (organist-composer, 1905–1987), Ayo Bankole (organist-composer, 1935–1976), his son, Charles Oluwole Obayomi Phillips (organist and choir director, 1919–2007), and Christopher Oyesiku (singer, choral conductor, and broadcaster, 1925–).7 Thomas Ekundayo Phillips directed the music ministry at the Cathedral Church of Christ for 48 years (Trinity Sunday 1914 to Trinity Sunday 1962). He was succeeded by his son, Charles Oluwole Obayomi Phillips, who served as organist and master of the music from Trinity Sunday 1962 to Trinity Sunday 1992.8

Issues in Nigerian hymn composition

The art of hymn composition in Nigeria is confronted with several related problems. The first issue to be tackled by a hymn writer is that of ethnic diversity—who is your audience or which of the ethnic groups is your primary target? Nigeria as a nation is made up of three major ethnic groups: Yoruba in the southwest, Igbo in the southeast, and Hausa to the north. In addition to this powerful tripartite caucus, there is a large body of minority groups including the Edo, Urhobo, Isoko, Ishekiri, Kwale, Efik, Tiv, Ijaw, Ibibio, and Fulani. All these groups speak different languages and hundreds of dialects. When you move from one small town to another, you might neither be able to understand nor speak the language there, even though you are a Nigerian.
For illustration, I am a Nigerian born to a Yoruba mother, but my father is from Edo State in the midwest region of the country.9 As a result of being raised in Lagos, I am very fluent in the Yoruba language; however, I can neither speak nor understand the local dialect of my father’s ethnicity. Each time I go to Edo State, I communicate in English, a language common to all or most Nigerians.
It follows, then, that a hymn composer in Nigeria must always have a targeted congregation in mind when writing a new song for worship. If the composer wants his/her songs to be sung in the southwest region, the hymn must be in Yoruba. And if the primary congregation is situated in the southeast, the hymn must be in Igbo. Alternately, a wise composer who wishes to reach a larger body of Christ that cuts across ethnic barriers, would write the hymns in English. With this approach, all the ethnic groups within the nation may be able to understand the message of the hymns.
Ironically, this procedure may even create a greater problem because there are some churches that have adamantly adhered to conducting services in their indigenous language and would not accommodate songs in any other language. Among these churches, there are some educated people who could communicate well in English, and there are also those who cannot read nor write the English language.
For instance, there are several Igbo Anglican (Episcopal) churches in Lagos, a Yoruba community. The Igbo Anglican churches were founded by Igbo priests who were confronted with fierce oppositions in convincing ministers in Yoruba churches to create English services to accommodate non-Yoruba speaking natives. The Igbo priests made this move to prevent further loss of Igbo Anglicans to other denominations.10
The only places where English hymns thrive are the newly founded evangelical churches, chapels on college and university campuses, and a few denominational churches such as the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, where services are conducted mainly in English. These congregations have a larger population compared to small parish churches because they are pan-ethnic and globally intercultural in their modes of worship. In most of the evangelical churches, you will find Igbo and Yoruba as well as other minority ethnic groups worshiping together. On college and university campuses, English is the official language of instruction; accordingly, services are conducted in English at all worship centers including student fellowship meetings.
The second problem a hymn writer may have to grapple with is the translation of hymn texts. This may be in the form of translating English hymns to any of the indigenous languages or the translation of a particular local dialect to another within the country. In the first situation, the composer may find it difficult to translate certain English words that do not exist in Nigerian culture. For instance, we do not have snow, winter, hail, or ginger bread in the Nigerian cultural experience. Therefore, the hymn composer will experience difficulty in translating these words into an indigenous language and choosing descriptive words that can best convey the exact meaning to Nigerian congregations. In another instance, when words are translated from one language to the other, there may be too many syllables to be inserted into a single note, or there may be too many words within a phrase that would not fit into the melodic phrase.
The hymn writer is then confronted with the problem of choice: which words are more important to retain and which are less important, to be deleted. A Yoruba Christian song, Kokoro Ayo lowo Mi, when literally translated into English becomes “The Key of Joy in My Hands.” There are several problems with this translation. The Yoruba text has eight syllables and melodic notes to go with it, while the English translation has only seven syllables. The composer will have to create an additional English word to complete the sentence or she/he may try to force two notes into a single syllable of the text. The other problem with this translation is that of positioning the important English words under the strong accents such as the first or third beats of each measure. In other instances, after creating a literal translation of the hymn text, the composer still has to rearrange the words.
The third obstacle to be addressed in composing hymns in Nigeria is the issue of melodic choice. The composer will need to choose between pre-existing tunes such as folk songs, traditional songs that belong to specific cults, popular dance tunes, or original melodies. Folk songs are generally acceptable because their texts deal with simple social life experiences, whereas traditional songs that are devoted to specific deities or divinities may be difficult to persuade Nigerian congregations to sing. The church members were taught by the early foreign missionaries to believe that such cultic songs belong to the devil, and, because of this, they should refrain from incorporating them into Christian worship. These songs are well known to the people; engaging in the singing of those songs may bring back to their consciousness the images of traditional gods and goddesses that they have disowned for the true God of the Christian faith.
Popular band songs on the other hand are perceived to be too “worldly” and mundane for true worship in the church. The argument here is that juxtaposing such melodies with sacred texts may bring back memories of “worldly” experiences that do not bring glory to God and Jesus Christ. In Nigeria, there has been a long controversy and debate on the issue of employing popular band tunes played at night clubs to accompany sacred texts. The Christian community has vehemently opposed this practice at every seminar, symposium, and conference. An alternative available to the composer is to write original melodies that align with new text or pre-existing words.
The fourth major problem confronting a hymn composer in Nigeria is melodic construction. After overcoming the issues of ethnic and language diversity, translation barrier as well as choice of melody, the hymn writer will still have to contend with the issue of tonal aspects of indigenous languages. Because all languages and regional dialects have tonal inflections, the composer must be mindful of the melodic shape of each note assigned to every syllable. Any discrepancies between the melodic contours and indigenous language can adversely dislocate the intended meaning to be conveyed to the congregation.
Most Nigerian dialects normally have three to four tonal inflections. Yoruba language has three main tone patterns on its words: the low, middle, and high tones. Consequently, if the tonal inflection of a word is high, the melodic contour must correspond to it by rising; if the inflection is low or middle on the word, the melodic contour has to move in that direction. In other words, the melodic shape of words in Nigeria has to run parallel with the rising and falling pitches of the local dialects.
Among the Yoruba, the word Ade means crown, and its tonal inflections are middle and high. Hence, the appropriate notes for the two syllables can be re–mi, mi–so, la–do, or so–la. If the hymn writer chooses a melody in the opposite direction, the meaning of the text will change and it will not make sense to the Yoruba congregation. By choosing different tonal pitches, this word can mean ade (crown), ade (to cover), ade (to tighten), or Ade (the name of a person from a royal lineage). The composer of indigenous Nigerian church hymns will have to take into account this problem in order to write meaningful and logical songs for Nigerian congregations.
The fifth problem a Nigerian hymn writer faces is that of harmonic organization. Nigerian traditional music has a concept of polyphony. Indigenous harmonic usages can be observed in both traditional vocal songs and instrumental music. While there is a predilection for thirds, fourths, fifths, and parallel harmonies in the musical repertoire of traditional music, one can also hear the clashing of seconds in tone clusters among the Ijesha and Ekiti from southwest Nigeria. Interestingly, the concept of harmony is more pronounced in the southern regions of Nigeria, such as the Yoruba, Igbo, Edo, Ijaw, Efik, etc. The northern Hausa-Fulani sings mostly in unison or what Kwabena Nketia calls “polarity,”11 which is a very strong influence from the Arabic culture. The reason for this might be twofold: 1) the southerners have a long history of harmonic singing in their traditional culture, in particular, the Igbo and Midwestern regions; and 2) the church music introduced by the early missionaries from America and England was restricted mainly to the south. Consequently, the foreign hymns in four-part harmony simply reinforced the concept of polyphony among the southern peoples. As one may recall, the colonial policy encouraged the northern Muslims to continue in their Islamic faith, while the southerners fully embraced the newly found Christian faith.12
The final problem confronting hymn composition and congregational singing in Nigeria is that of instrumental accompaniment. During the early stages of Christian worship in Nigeria, especially in the 19th century, congregational hymns were accompanied mainly with organ, harmonium, or piano in most churches. Unfortunately, native worshipers could not easily relate to nor embrace singing songs without movement. They were used to dancing, hand clapping, and all manner of bodily movements in their traditional culture. The singing of European or indigenous hymns with the exclusion of the dance experience created a major hindrance and stumbling block to congregational singing. This impasse created schisms and eventually led to the fragmentation of the early church in Nigeria into various factions and denominations. From this fragmentation evolved indigenous independent churches such as the Aladura (Prayer) Church in early 20th century, where traditional musical instruments were fully utilized to accompany congregational singing of hymns.
In Nigeria today, traditional musical instruments are employed in accompanying congregational singing at various indigenous churches and established traditional churches such as Anglican, Baptist, Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Methodist. Even European or American hymns are accompanied with indigenous drums, iron bells, sekere (shaking idiophone), and hand clapping. The only exception to this practice is to be found at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, where hymns are still accompanied only with the pipe organ and piano. The Cathedral Church is the only church in the country that strictly kept intact the European worship traditions in post-colonial Nigeria. The worship experience in the church is comparable to any of the British cathedrals such as St. Paul’s or Westminster Abbey. In addition to instrumental accompaniment, services have been conducted exclusively in English, from the inception of the Cathedral Church of Christ in 1867 to the present. The only occasions when other types of musical instruments and indigenous language is tolerated are during special services dedicated to the youth of the church or during diocesan events. Even in these specialized services, Western musical instruments such as trap drum set, electric guitar, and electric keyboard are mostly used in accompanying contemporary praise choruses from America and Nigeria. These instruments are used to play music that the youth of the church would like to hear and sing. The Standing Committee of the Cathedral Church approved the use of foreign instruments in order to keep their youth in the church and perhaps attract more young men and women to their congregation. Prior to this era, which began in late 1990s, the Cathedral Church was losing a lot of their young people to the newly founded contemporary churches where those instruments were being used to accompany modern praise choruses.
Therefore, a hymn writer in Nigeria needs to recognize the important issue of movement in worship. The composer is compelled to write songs that can align with percussion instruments and inevitably move the congregation to dance. In Nigeria, dance is visualized as an act of worship to God. We may ask at this juncture: how did Thomas Ekundayo Phillips solve the aforementioned problems in the hymns he wrote, and how did the congregations react to his compositions?

Selected indigenous hymns
Thomas Ekundayo Phillips wrote several songs of worship for the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, and other smaller parish congregations. His hymns are in both English and Yoruba languages. Although services were conducted mainly in English at the Cathedral Church, Phillips’ compositions in Yoruba language were permitted for rendition during special occasions such as choir concerts, synod services, diocesan events, and ordination of a bishop or archbishop in the church. Such events attracted people from various backgrounds, both the well-educated and the less-educated. As the church was located in a Yoruba state, the majority of the guests from other parishes were Yoruba; therefore, they felt more at home singing songs in their own language. Phillips’ music represents the first generation of Nigerian composers. Works in this era are quite simple, short, and tonal.
Phillips’ Versicles and Responses (Awon Adura Kukuru ati Idahun Won)13 was specifically written for worship in the smaller Yoruba parish churches in southwest Nigeria. It is a canticle of prayer sung in morning and evening worship. The performance technique of the song is the African “call and response,” with simple organ accompaniment. The priest (Alufa) sings the solo while the congregation (Ijo) responds in unison. The organist plays the first note of the opening solo and the priest sings his line a cappella, but the organ accompanies the congregational response. Since the Versicles and Responses is in Yoruba language, it cannot be sung at worship in other regions of the country. The melody is original and in five-note pentatonic scale (do–re–mi–so–la), which is commonly found in Yoruba folk songs. The vocal compass of the song is nearly an octave, making it easy for the members of the congregation to sing without straining their voices. While the melodic line employs a pentatonic scale, the organ accompaniment uses a free diatonic harmony with occasional tonicization of the dominant. The melodic contour mirrors the tonal patterns of the Yoruba text throughout the music. The translation of the first page of the Responses is as follows:

Priest: Oluwa, Iwo si wa l’e te (Lord open our lips)
Congregation: Enu wa yio si ma fi iyin Re han (Our mouths shall sing forth Thy praise)
Priest: Olorun, sise ki o gba wa la (Lord make haste to save us).
Example 1 shows the first page of Phillips’ Versicles and Responses.
Phillips wrote a very short Yoruba Vesper hymn for the closing of evening service, entitled Baba a f’ara Wa (Father, we surrender ourselves). This hymn is usually sung at the end of evening worship before the recessional hymn is sung. The organist plays the first chord as written in the score, then the congregation sings the entire song as quietly as possible. Apart from one sub-dominant note, the melody is in five-note pentatonic scale (do–re–mi–so–la), and its range is a seventh. The melodic shape of the hymn strictly mirrors the tonal inflections of the Yoruba text, and it is an original hymn. Consequently, by observing the compositional rules, Phillips was able to retain the intended meaning of the Yoruba words. The congregation sings in unison, but the organ accompanies with conventional four-part harmony and closes with a plagal cadence. The song is a prayer for God’s protection at night. Below is a translation of the Yoruba text:

Baba a f’ara wa
Si iso re l’ale yi
Dabobo wa ko pawa mo
Titi ‘le o fi mo, Amin.

Father we surrender ourselves
Under your care tonight
Protect and keep us safe
Until tomorrow morning, Amen.

See Example 2 for Phillips’ Vesper Hymn.
Yoruba Magnificat in C (The Song of Mary) is another evening hymn composed by Ekundayo Phillips. The text of this hymn is derived from Luke 1:46–55 in the King James Bible. It is a Yoruba hymn-anthem for four-part choir, congregation, and organ accompaniment. The hymn is commonly sung during a synodical or any other diocesan service that involves the Cathedral Church of Christ and other parishes in the community. Compositional technique combines monophony, polyphony, and contrapuntal devices. Structurally, the hymn-anthem is in three-parts: A) the congregation sings with organ accompaniment in C major; B) alternation of solo passages with full chorus in the key of G major; and A) full chorus with organ. Phillips maintains strict observance of parallel motion between the melodic shape and the Yoruba text. The original melody mirrors the contours of the inflection of the words. As regards tonality, Phillips uses the conventional diatonic scale for the melody, while the organ has more notes. Harmonically, there is a preponderance of thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths, and unison in the vocal lines. In addition, he uses all types of dynamics—mf, f, ff, cresc., dim., as well as rallentando, allargando, etc. Example 3 shows an excerpt from the Yoruba Magnificat in C.
Phillips wrote several Antiphons to Psalms with organ accompaniment. These short songs are all in Yoruba language and they are meant to be sung in unison before, during, and at the end of the Psalms. The melodies use tetratonic and pentatonic scales, and they are generally within the range of an octave. The melodic contours strictly imitate the inflections of the Yoruba words. The organ accompaniment is simple and often closes with either a plagal or perfect authentic cadence. The composer gives clear instructions on performance technique and at which points the antiphons are to be sung in the Psalms. Example 4 shows the opening page of the Antiphons to Psalms.
From Glory to Glory is a four-verse English hymn by Ekundayo Phillips, written in four-part harmony with short organ interludes inserted between all the verses except the final. This hymn is frequently sung at evening services and festive occasions at the Cathedral Church of Christ. In this hymn, Phillips keeps the melodic construction simple and the harmonization diatonic. He is not compelled to observe the Nigerian indigenous creative principles because of the English text. In fact, the harmony briefly tonicizes C in the third and fourth measures. However, the singing alternates between monophonic and polyphonic phrases. Phillips’ Yoruba hymns were well received and are still popular today in most Anglican churches in southwest Nigeria, especially Lagos. In fact, the current Cathedral Church of Christ Choir recorded some of Phillips’ hymns and anthems in 2006 to celebrate his musical legacy. From Glory to Glory is shown in Example 5.

Conclusion
Thomas Ekundayo Phillips indeed is the father of Nigerian church hymn composition. He laid a solid foundation for the composition of indigenous hymns through his numerous compositions and his book, Yoruba Music. He continually strove to encapsulate the theoretical framework of Yoruba traditional music in his compositions for the Christian church in Nigeria. In the area of tonality, he uses the popular five-note pentatonic scale, occasionally deviating from this method in songs such as From Glory to Glory, which is in English. Therefore, it would not be wrong to admit that Phillips adheres strictly to pentatonality in his Yoruba hymns, but uses the diatonic scale freely in composing English hymns. Phillips solved some of the problems in composing indigenous hymns by writing original texts and melodies. This procedure enabled him to successfully juxtapose the two entities in which the melodic contours consistently mirror the tonal patterns of Yoruba text in order to convey the intended meaning to his Yoruba congregations.
A large number of Phillips’ compositions are in Yoruba language, meaning that his targeted audience was the Yoruba congregations in southwest Nigeria. This corroborates the prevalent ethnic diversity among the Christian congregations in post-colonial Nigeria. Subsequent generations of composers rely on his research from well-documented field work on Yoruba music found in his book and his compositions. However, some modern Nigerian composers are making efforts to alleviate the issue of ethnic conflicts by writing songs in diverse indigenous languages as well as borrowing folk and popular songs from various ethnic groups in the country in their works. My new hymn book, E Korin S’Oluwa,14 is a major contribution towards uniting the vast ethnic groups in Nigeria. The indigenous texts are in Yoruba, Igbo, as well as English language, and pre-existing songs are borrowed from all the major ethnic groups in the country. I am but one of a growing number of Nigerians who have been touched by Thomas King Ekundayo Phillips, and so his efforts to build the musical life of the Nigerian church continue after his death.

Other articles of interest:

History of the organs of the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, Nigeria

Centennial of the Cathedral Church of Christ Choir, Lagos, Nigeria

Fela Sowande: Nigerian Musician Legend

Thomas Ekundayo Phillips: Nigerian composer

Thomas King Ekundayo Phillips

Malcolm Wechsler, of N. P. Mander, Ltd. - U. S. A., is Organist/Choirmaster at Trinity Episcopal Church, Stamford, CT.

Day One - Sunday, June 21

The convention day began at 1 p.m., the morning being filled with arrivals and registrations. First venue: The Paramount Theater, with its remarkable 20-rank WurliTzer, which speaks clearly and forcefully into the room from big, open chambers on either side. The Pedal is incredibly strong and quick. There is a tremendous variety of solo sounds, all of which we heard. The program began with the two consoles rising majestically from under the stage, with Joel Kremer and Robert Castle at the main console and "slave" console,  respectively, giving us a great medley of popular show tunes. It being Sunday, we made a feeble attempt to sing "The church's one foundation," accompanied by Robert Castle in something other than the "cathedral tradition," and without us having words in front of us. Robert then pushed a switch on the left side of the "slave," that sent it slowly back to the basement. Joel Kremer continued with several solo pieces, ending with "The Stars and Stripes Forever." Professor of History at the University of Colorado, Thomas Noel, then gave us, with slides, some history of Denver's development, which was partly spurred by a secondary gold rush, about a decade after the great one to California. James Mosby Bratton, complete with slides, spoke to the topic "Hook Your Hastings to a Steere," a history of Denver and area churches and organs. All too often, seeing the slide of a wonderful, old church building, we learned that it had been torn down or the organ replaced by an electronic substitute.

After a break, we returned to our seats for "White Desert," a full-length, wonderfully-made 1925 silent film about the building of the railroad through the mountains west of Denver. This was both a "cliff-hanger" and a "tear jerker," the effect heightened greatly by Robert Castle's seamless and suitable accompaniment on the great organ. Everyone was a bit drained and teary-eyed when the lights came up.

After dinner on our own, we were bussed to St. John's in the Wilderness Episcopal Cathedral for a glorious, if to some, a bit radical, Evensong. I was personally moved by the whole service, and in at least one place, to my great surprise. Donald Pearson is the Cathedral's musician, and his very capable associate is John Repulski. The organ is the justly celebrated 1938 Kimball, recently restored. Donald Pearson began with the ravishing Frank Bridge Adagio, followed by the Invitatory, from a set of Responses by Pearson, all of which we heard during the course of the service. Phos Hilaron was a plainsong-like setting by Richard Proulx, with several refrains for us all to sing. Psalm 138 was sung to an attractive verse-with-fauxbourdons sort of music by Glen McGrath. The Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis were the South American Rhythm-inspired settings by Bryan Kelly. We sang the Apostles' Creed on one note, accompanied by a lush chordal organ accompaniment by Jeffrey Rickard. In Donald Pearson's setting of the Versicles and Responses, the versicle was in each case accompanied richly, using mostly harp-like sounds, on an electronic keyboard played by John Repulski. I have an innate resistance to the presence of loudspeakers in church music-making, but I have to say, I found this very effective, and even beautiful. The music is well-written, the performance was solid, and there was clear amplification of the sound, with no distortion. Here followed three fine anthems, confidently sung by the very large Cathedral Choir: "O sing to the Lord with hymns newly made," by Donald Pearson; "How lovely are the messengers," Mendelssohn; and "How lovely are your dwellings," by John Leavitt. We finished with a rousing singing of Lauda Anima, "Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven," as only an OHS congregation can provide.

After a short stretch, we were treated to "A Concert of Mighty Organ Duets," played by Donald Pearson and John Repulski: Mozart, Fantasia K.608, four hands enriching the harmonies; Danse Macabre (Saint-Saëns), four hands; the C Major Soler Concerto, Andante and Minuet, with John Repulski going to a small Casavant continuo/chamber organ; The Ride of the Valkyries, with a wonderful thick texture, made possible by four hands. After singing "O filii et filiae" from the 1982 Hymnbook, we heard John Rutter's variations on it for two organists; Ragtime by Charles Callahan; and finally, French Toccata on the name Helmut, by Ralf Bölting (b. 1953). The performers were buoyed by the great ovation at the end, including many shouts of Bravo.

And so ended a great OHS first day!

Monday, June 22

Day two begins in Lyons, CO, and in line with convention policy, we are gradually experiencing higher and higher altitudes. Yesterday, it was enough just to adjust to mile high Denver. Today, we are at 8,500 feet. Tomorrow is a day in Denver, and on Wednesday, we will spend some of the day at over 10,000 feet. On this clear, beautiful day, we are surrounded by snow capped mountains, and are told we will be throwing snowballs by day's end! Enough travelogue.

The first musical event of the day took place at The Old Stone Church of Lyons with Will Headlee, Professor of Organ Emeritus, Syracuse University. The organ: Hook & Hastings two-manual, 9 stops, Opus 1948, built in 1902, an organ of great charm and beauty. Will Headlee is a regular at OHS conventions, and his cheerful playing, programming, and comments are always a delight. He also makes a point of telling helpful bits about his registrations, which really explored the organ very effectively. The program: Mendelssohn, Allegro con brio (Sonata 4); J.S. Bach, Wer nur den lieben Gott (Schübler); Rheinberger, Vision; Hobart Whitman (1904-1952), Elegy (1947); Charles Quef (1873-1931), Noël Parisien (1904); hymn, a rousing performance of "When morning gilds the skies" (Laudes Domini, Barnby).

First United Methodist Church, Boulder--Bruce Stevens, another welcome regular at these conventions. The organ: Frank Roosevelt, No. 382, built in 1888, a gutsy 3-manual instrument of about 35 stops. The program, a stolid collection of music, none of which I had heard before, full of interest, and beautifully played: Fleury, Variations on a Burgundian Noel "When, in the frosty season"; Soler, Sonatas in E minor and G Major; Fr. Davide da Bergamo (1750-1830), Sonatina for Offertory or Post Communion; Bonnet, Second Legend, op. 7, no. 10; Jongen, Cantabile, op. 37, no. 1; Rheinberger, Sonata No. 5 in F-sharp Major, op. 111; hymn, "I vow to thee, my country" (Thaxted, Gustav Holst).

Next came the great climb up to Central City, at 8,500 feet, first stop St. James United Methodist Church, to hear Jane Edge. As you will see below, she manages to find totally unusual programs--I thought I knew nothing on her list, but did discover that I recognized Narcissus, which I think I must have played on the piano as a child. The whole recital was great fun, played with spirit, and with registrations that showed careful thought, therefore showing off this charming instrument beautifully. The organ: J. W. Steere and Son, Opus 456, 1899, 16 stops. The program: hymn, "Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven" (Lauda Anima); F. Opel (??), Opening Voluntary (arr. from Farmer's Mass); Ole Bull (1810-1880), Solitude on the Mountain (arr. for organ by Claude F. Saunier); W. Hewitt (??), French Air With Variations (The Air turned out to be Twinkle twinkle, little star); Stravinsky, Berceuse from The Firebird (arr. for organ by J. T. Quarles); Horatio Parker, Impromptu, op. 17, no. 2; Ethelbert Nevin, arr. for organ by Reginald Goss-Custard, 1. The Rosary, 2. Narcissus; Easthope Martin (d. 1928), Evensong; Liszt, Adagio; Whiting, "Onward, Christian Soldiers" (something I would love to do as a postlude at home--possibly on my very last Sunday!).

A walk down the hill brought us to St. Paul's Episcopal Church, a fine-looking stone building, with a rather chaotic interior. The Anglican Spirit greeted us right inside the door, where we were offered iced cappuccino and lots of cookies, and a big collection basket seeded with dollar bills already. We were well and truly crammed into this church, with people standing all around. The charming James Mosby Bratton, retired U. of Denver professor whom we had heard talk at the Paramount the day before, presented a recital on a Mason & Risch Vocalion (a "first class reed organ"), No. 1033 (1893). He had some help with pumping, apparently much more strenuous at 8,500 feet, given the thin air. We began by singing a song, "Colorado Home," to the tune of "Home on the range." The rest of the program: Bach, Prelude in d minor (BWV 539); Willing, General Custer's Funeral March, op. 43; Louis Adolphe Coerne (1870-1922), Bagatelle, op. 24, no. 1; Gustav Baumhauser, Pike's Peak March (c. 1875); Lefébure-Wély, Fugue in d minor, op. 122, no. 6.

After this program, we were at liberty to explore the town and find some dinner on our own. Colorado has permitted three dying old mining towns to open casinos, and Central City is full of them. As is true in casinos elsewhere, meals are available at very low prices, and we ate in the dining room above one such, with Prime Rib for about $3. The food was good and plentiful, too.

Winding down the mountain on the bus, we reached the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Denver, where Fred Hohman delivered himself of lots of bombast, interspersed with some more delicate fare. The room is quite vertical, and despite carpeting everywhere, there is plenty of resonance bouncing off the hard surface walls and ceiling, and plenty of organ sound to do the bouncing! The organ was basically a Kimball, but is now, at least in large part, a new 3-manual instrument of about 35 stops by Ivan P. Morel & Associates, a well-regarded area builder. Fred, who is well-known for his skill as a transcriber, played a program entirely of works originally for the organ, as follows: Vierne, Symphony No. 2 in E, op. 20, Allegro, Scherzo; Naïades (Pièces de Fantaisie, Fourth Suite, op. 55); Franck, Choral No. 2 in B minor; Widor, Finale from the Sixth Symphony; Dupré, The World Awaiting the Savior (Symphonie-Passion); Langlais, Cantilène (Suite Breve); Mulet, Tu es Petra (Byzantine Sketches); Duruflé, Sicilienne and Toccata (Suite, op. 5).

Tuesday, June 23

Day three began at the Scottish Rite Masonic Temple, where three stars were in evidence: Richard Purvis, Kenneth Matthews, and the mighty Kimball, all working together for good. Kenneth was a student of Purvis, and also presided over another great Kimball, at a Christian Science Church in San Francisco for some time--so he came to his task with experience. This 1924, 3-manual Kimball, very much a theatre style instrument, is located all over the ceiling, but despite what look like relatively small places for tonal egress, it has immense impact. It appears to be about 18 stops, greatly unified and extended. Kenneth Matthews knew exactly what to do to demonstrate all the organ's virtues, using as a vehicle Christmas music of Purvis. We could not have asked for a better demonstration of the organ's resources, including the Bass Drum, Chinese Gong, Harp, and Chimes. The program, all Purvis: Prelude Solennel (Veni Immanuel); Offertory (Resonet in Laudibus); Communion (Gaevaert); Carillon (Puer Nobis Nascitur); Greensleeves (from Four Carol Preludes); Pastorale (Forest Green, from 7 Chorale Preludes on Tunes Found in American Hymnals); hymn: "O come, all ye faithful," with our sopranos having some success with the Willcocks descant from memory; Carol Rhapsody.

We walked across the street to the First Baptist Church of Denver, to hear a large organ built originally in 1945 by Aeolian-Skinner for the ubiquitous Senator Emerson Richards, of New Jersey. By 1949, he was tired of it, bought a replacement, and Opus 1047 was sold to the Denver Baptists. If it sounded in New Jersey as it now sounds in Denver, I have no problem understanding the Senator's wish to replace it. In Denver, it is buried in chambers, and speaks out only with difficulty. I could not help wondering if our ears ever thought that was a wonderful sound! To be fair, there may be beauty in small combinations and solo stops, but we never did get to hear any of them. Raymond Garner chose a program that basically featured full organ primarily, not this organ's happiest mode. The program: Wagner, Fanfares from Parsifal, arr. Virgil Fox; Widor, Allegro from the Sixth Symphony; hymn, "Behold a Sower."

Jonathan Ambrosino took the lectern, and delivered himself of a splendid lecture entitled "The Transition from the Symphonic to the English Ensemble 1925-1940: Denver's Response to a National Trend." I do hope the text of this will become available--I have no doubt it will.

We had a pleasant lunch at the Temple Events Center Uptown, a former Jewish Temple. We could see but not hear the 1911 Estey with two similar cases. Imagine two large auditoria side-by-side, completely open to each other at the point of joining. In each of these auditoria is a platform, and a choir loft above with an organ case. There is only one console, at the case to the right. One assumes that the left side auditorium was for the great overflow of the High Holy Days, and that this was a clever, if expensive, way to provide equal organ coverage in both places.

Our next stop, the fine former Second Church of Christ, Scientist, now The Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Denver. Baha'i worship makes no use of the organ, and the congregation had plans to try to sell it, but the local OHS gang stepped in, and made a case, successfully it would seem, that the organ should be preserved in situ. The Baha'i community has now embraced the instrument, and is planning a concert series in which it can be heard. That this large (3-manual, 34 stops) and wonderful Hook & Hastings, Opus 2370 of 1916, is worthy of preservation was more than amply demonstrated in a fine recital by Charles Rus, from San Francisco. He registered with wonderful care and imagination, enabling us to hear just about every possible combination of sounds. The program: Howells, Master Tallis' Testament; Schumann, No. 1 in C and No. 4 in D-flat of the Four Sketches for Pedal Piano; hymn, "Creation Spirit, by whose breath" (Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend'), with us singing the four stanzas of the hymn, one each after each of four variations on this tune by Georg Böhm. We sang in unison the rhythmic version found in the ELCA Hymnal. How lovely it would have been for us, glorious harmonists as we are, to have sung in four parts; Craig Phillips (b. 1961), Fantasy: Torah Song (Yisrael Voraita).

In yet another event demonstrating well the beauty of an old instrument, Dana Robinson of Davenport, Iowa played the following program in the South Gate Masonic Lodge Hall: Widor, Praeludium Circulaire from Symphony No. 2; Boëly, Andante con moto; Mozart, An Andante for a Cylinder in a Little Organ (K 616), Lasst uns mit geschlungnen Handen (Let us now with joined hands), appropriately from "A Little Freemason Cantata"; Liszt, Ave Maria von Arcadelt; hymn, "The spacious firmament on high," on which I thought we did quite well; and then, in a further inspired choice, Handel, Variations in E (The Harmonious Blacksmith). The organ--a tiny (7-stop) Farrand & Votey, Opus 776, c. 1897--made lots of music this day!

Next stop, the Iliff Theological Seminary Chapel to hear a rich and satisfying 1910 Wirsching organ of 16 stops. Richard Robertson, Denver, played the following program, which showed off the great power and variety of this instrument: Hurd, Suite in Three Movements (commissioned for this convention); Reger, Benedictus; Warlock, from Capriol Suite: 1. Pavane and Basse, 2. Danse; Mendelssohn, Prelude & Fugue in F Minor, op. 35.

After dinner at our hotel, back to St. John's Cathedral to hear the perfect match of music, instrument, and musician. I do believe that Thomas Murray is one of the most thorough of all performers in working out registration, and will limitlessly complicate his time at the console, if it means getting just the right effect. He also listens, as do very few, to what the instrument and building are telling him about tempo, texture, and touch. In addition to which, there is no more sensitive swell pedal foot in the organ world. We, and a large audience of non-OHS types as well, were the beneficiaries of all that work, in the following lovely program: Bach, Sinfonia from Cantata No. 29; Saint-Saëns, Prelude & Fugue in B Major; Elgar, Severn Suite, op. 87 (1932), transcribed by Thomas Murray. After a short intermission, Barbara Owen presented to the Junior Warden of the Cathedral, the OHS Plaque awarded to churches that have "instruments worthy of preservation," and have kept them well--certainly a well-deserved honor in this place. Fleury, Variations on a Burgundian Noël (heard earlier in the week); hymn, "Come down, O love divine" (Down Ampney); Rheinberger, Sonata No. 13, op. 161 (the opening theme of which is almost identical to the opening phrase of Down Ampney); encore: The last of Saint-Saëns Seven Improvisations, op. 150.

Wednesday, June 24

We reached maximum altitude, peaking at 11,300 feet at one point. Leadville, where we began our day, is, we were told, just 12 feet less than two miles above sea level, and I for one, really felt this, as did many others. It became most noticeable during the hymn singing. There clearly was not as much air to go around as one is used to. One of the local people told me that it can take six months to fully adjust. Around us, and slightly above us, was quite a bit of snow.

Lois Regestein, another regular at OHS conventions, played at St. George's Episcopal Church, on a gentle but lovely little George Ryder (1882) organ of 11-stops. Besides the fact that her program showed off the little organ very well, she made thoughtful and interesting connections with the organ and the town. Her program: Mendelssohn, Prelude in G, op. 37, no. 2; Woodman (b. 1957), Variations (selected) from Greensleeves; Mendelssohn, Fugue in G, op. 37, no. 2; (I did not get to ask Lois why she chose to break the Mendelssohn up in the manner of the Bach St. Anne in the Clavier Übung, part III. Did Mendelssohn somehow conceive of a split performance like that?) Having discovered the quality of the Oboe on this organ when she arrived in Leadville for the first time, Lois added at this point a little trumpet tune sort of piece of Telemann; Thomas Ryder (1836-1877), Moderato (Thomas Ryder was the brother of George Ryder, the organbuilder, and often dedicated his brother's instruments.); Douglas Moore, The Willow Song (from The Ballad of Baby Doe); (This was sung by Patti Smith, a wonderful soprano living in Leadville, but with a career well beyond her community. We had an interesting discussion about practicing daily in Leadville, with its very thin air, and then appearing in places closer to sea level. Apparently, in terms of breathing, this puts her at a decided advantage. Anyway, this was an ingenious bit of programming, as Baby Doe herself lived in Leadville!--well done, Lois!) Vaughan Williams, Prelude on Rhosymedre; hymn: "My song is love unknown" (Rhosymedre).

I first met and heard Grant Edwards last year at OHS in Portland, and thought his a very special musical personality, full of control, confidence, and good cheer, with clearly very careful preparation in every detail. Today's concert continued in that mold. It having been announced that the organ for today's performance might well be at least the second highest pipe organ in America, if not the first, Grant explained that he was convinced he was given this assignment because of his complaints last year in Portland about the bench not being high enough! We are now in First Presbyterian Church, Leadville, and the organ is a 13-stop instrument by William Schuelke, Opus 67 (1889). The program: Böhm, Partita on "Ach wie fluchtig, ach wie nichtig"; hymn: "What does the Lord require" to the lovely Erik Routley tune, Sharpthorne; Kodaly, Six Epigrams (charming pieces which Grant graciously substituted for the Vaughan Williams Rhosymedre, when he realized that Lois Regestein was going to play it); Widor, Pastorale from Symphony No. 2; Diemer, Farewell, Good Friends (Shalom Chaverim - 1996).

Next stop, Georgetown, and its very small Grace Episcopal Church. The group was broken into three parts, and Marilyn Stulken, another old hand at OHS conventions, had to play her program three times, while the rest wandered this interesting old town. I went to the group 3 recital, at the beginning of which, the church was given an OHS Plaque honoring its organ of "historical interest, and worthy of preservation." Quite a number of members of the congregation showed up for this--I think they are justly quite proud of the single manual, seven-stop instrument. It is a rare, intact survivor by Denver organbuilder Charles Anderson, built in 1876, and may well be the oldest organ in the state, although somewhat altered tonally. Marilyn gave a good demonstration of the organ, beginning with the Bach Partita on "O Gott, du frommer Gott." This was followed by two interludes from "Melodia Sacra," c. 1850, by George Frederick Bristow, after which we attempted to sing an old hymn written out with the melody in the tenor, "Jesus, the Conqueror reigns," to a tune called Germania. We were not a success. This was followed by two more of the Bristow interludes, after which we sang another hymn, "Awake, and sing the song," to Festal Song. We did much better this time around. The program finished with a Festival Postlude in D by W. Eugene Thayer.

At this point, music was done for the day. We were treated to a delightful narrow gauge steam train ride on the Georgetown Loop Railroad. The old steam engine was a marvel, making all the wonderful noises steam engines make, and with a very complex chord for a whistle! The scenery was spectacular. We then partook of a barbecue in the city park, with entertainment by the Queen City Jazz Band, playing in the old band stand. Back at the hotel, it was time to visit the last night of the exhibits and sales desks, and to spend, spend, spend on all the wonderful books, music, and CDs.

Those who know the OHS Catalogue will not be surprised that the many tables were littered with probably more organ and church music CDs than might have ever been seen under one roof. Joseph Vitacco was there representing his company, JAV Recordings, Ray Biswanger had a display and materials representing the Friends of the Wanamaker Organ, a truly worthy endeavor. Several members of the Richard Bond organbuilding team (Portland, Oregon) were on hand with large pictures of this excellent builder's work, and with a brand new, fine, and very attractive, three-stop continuo organ.

Thursday, June 25

We were scheduled for an earlier departure this morning--8:15 instead of the usual 8:30--but the bus company, creatures of habit, showed up at the usual time. No one would have minded, were it not for the fact that the Pharmacy Association was having its convention beginning today, and in the large lobby where we await the busses, there was laid out a most impressive breakfast spread. Most of us, unbreakfasted, tried removing our OHS badges and looking like pharmacists, but the tables were well guarded. No luck!

We bounced along I-225 South to Colorado Springs, and the Air Force Academy, to hear two organs in the Roman Catholic and Protestant Chapels respectively. Here, the work of designing the instruments and the job of building them were separate contracts, that in a state institution had to be put to tender separately. Walter Holtkamp Sr. won the design contracts, and Möller the building contracts. Holtkamp, I believe, voiced and finished the organs. Joseph Galema has been at the Academy since 1982, as Music Director of the Cadet Chapels since 1989. He is organist at the Protestant Chapel, and is responsible for ten choirs! He began his peripatetic recital in the Roman Catholic Chapel on the three-manual, 28-stop organ, as follows: Bach, Six Schübler Chorales; Gade, Festligt Präludium over Choralen "Lover den Herre." This Chapel is the basement of the chapel building, relatively low ceilinged, without resonance of any kind, but nonetheless clear and intimate. The Schüblers were probably the perfect vehicle for a demonstration, and much about the sound of this instrument strikes me as honest and good, after all these years. The Gade piece was a bit of a meander, I thought, not signifying very much, but I know others did indeed like it. A trumpeter was on hand just to play the choral and a bit more at the end.

We then walked upstairs to the Protestant Chapel with a three-manual, 62-stop instrument: hymn, "All creatures of our God and King" (Lasst uns erfreuen); Mathias, Jubilate, op. 67, no. 2; Gardner, Sonata da Chiesa sopra una tema di Claudio Monteverdi. I thought, given the great, soaring space (well worth seeing, inside and out) and a larger instrument (striking to look upon), we would hear something spacious and grand. I found the organ not really supportive in the hymn, nor projecting very well in the Mathias. Here is perhaps an example of a situation in which an encased instrument could really prove itself. In ensemble with two wonderful trumpet players in the Gardner, the organ was at its best--and what a truly amazing and wonderful piece this is, I say, as a long time Gardner fan. The main theme (there may have been others I did not recognize) was the majestic opening of the Coronation of Poppea, which, once heard (and seen), can never be forgotten. What Gardner does with it in four glorious movements is nothing less than magical. I am really grateful to Dr. Galema for bringing this to us.

We bussed to the dining hall at The Colorado College, also in Colorado Springs, for a sumptuous lunch, with many different food stations on offer, with all sorts of edibles, hot and cold, all one could eat, courtesy of Marriott Catering. I think I went to college too soon.

We walked across campus to Shove Memorial Chapel, wherein Frank Shelton, organist at Grace and St. Stephen's Parish, and College Organist, gave us a brilliant program full of interest, after Jonathan Ambrosino presented a "significant organ" plaque to a college official who had been instrumental in keeping the instrument and interest in it alive. The program: Simpson, Fantasy and Fugue on "My Lord, what a morning" (1994); Payne, Prelude, op. 19, no. 2; hymn, "O God, our help in ages past" (St. Anne) (The Colorado College Hymn!); Weaver, Passacaglia on a Theme by Dunstable (1978). The organ: Welte-Tripp Organ Corporation, Sound Beach, Connecticut, Opus 314, 1931, three manuals, 42 stops. There is a fascinating article in the convention book about this organ, and two names of great interest are involved in the history of the instrument: Richard Whitelegg and Charles Courboin. The convention book is available from OHS, and is full of information about a place that is very important in the development of the pipe organ in this country. And not at all by-the-way, this organ sounds really wonderful! I do believe that in some ways, it outdoes some Aeolian-Skinners of that time (1931). I found myself wondering if the Great chorus through mixture was truly of that period. It was silvery and brilliant.

We walked the few blocks to Grace and St. Stephen's Parish, Episcopal. In my little mental database of "Best Recitals Ever" was one played by Thomas Brown at the OHS Mini-Convention at Round Lake, New York last summer. Now I have to start a Tom Brown file, and put today's recital in beside the other one. It was an Anglophile's Orgy, played as last year entirely from memory, with everything perfectly in place--beautifully registered and wonderfully musical. There were lots of smiles around, and a spontaneous standing ovation at the end. The program: Bairstow, Prelude in C; Whitlock, Reflections (Three Quiet Pieces for Organ); Mendelssohn, Sonata in F minor; Karg-Elert, Chorale Prelude on "O Gott, du frommer Gott"; Vierne, Naïades; Grayston Ives (b. 1948), Entrata; hymn, "Sing we of the Blessed Mother" (Rustington - C. H. H. Parry). Methinks me heard the spirit of Henry Willis (Father) rustling around at the first notes of the play-through of this hymn. There are six manual 16' stops on the organ--I think perhaps they were all on! The organ: Welte (NY) opus 261, 1928, three manuals, 49 stops--a splendid organ, of great historic significance, and Frank Shelton, who had played at Shove Chapel, organist of Grace Church, accepted an OHS plaque.

Our next journey was to Manitou Springs, by way of an astonishing natural wonder, a place called The Garden of the Gods--gigantic outcroppings of a beautiful red rock, amongst many evergreens. It was like a very oversized sculpture park--around every corner, as we climbed, was yet another sight to take the breath away. Our goal was the Community Congregational Church, a lovely stone building, charming outside and in, and on the national register of historic buildings. There are two transept balconies, and I was busy dreaming up programs of Gabrieli and company. Surrounded as we were by great, high mountains, the inscription on the organ case announced: "Thy Righteousness is Like the High Mountains." The organ is our second by Charles Anderson of Denver: two-manual, 13 stops, built in approximately 1879. It seemed a bit transparent, after the two Weltes we had just been hearing. MaryAnn Crugher Balduf has been a regular at OHS conventions for some time. On the first day of the convention, she slipped getting off the bus (where is her lawyer when needed?) and was in some pain. But as always, gamely, she gave us the following interesting program, with helpful comments about her registrations: Pachelbel, Toccata in F; Benjamin Rogers (1614-1698), Prelude (Voluntary); Selby, A Fuge or Voluntary; Held (b. 1914), Flourish; Cadman, Legend, op. 30, no. 1; West, Passacaglia; Howells, Miniatures for Organ, nos. 12, 17, 18, 21; hymn, "O beautiful, for spacious skies" (Materna); Langlais, Prelude Modal; Sjogren, Fantasia, op. 15, no. 1.

Next, we rode to Pueblo, and to the Pacific Union Depot, a disused train station, now a restaurant, where we had a quite wonderful dinner. This was as close to a convention banquet as we get, so it was a time for a little OHS business and some heartfelt thanks to the members of the Denver committee, who had truly done a wonderful job with program and with organization. After dinner, we walked to the Memorial Auditorium, which contains Austin organ No. 860, of 1920, an instrument of 56 full stops, plus various bells and whistles, all of which got a workout during the evening. There are pipes all over the place, on the side and in the ceiling, plus an echo organ in back, all of which made possible a strong presence despite a very dead acoustic. The audience was not entirely our convention, we being joined by many others, possibly tourists, possibly town folk, or both. Paul Fleckenstein, I discovered tonight, is the perfect "town hall organist," possessed of great showmanship, total technical assurance, and a prodigious memory, and my goodness, he certainly knows how to get around that kind of instrument--finding an endless array of combinations. It was a terrific show, all from memory, beginning with the Choral, Minuet Gothique, Prière à Notre Dame, and Toccata from the Boëllmann Suite Gothique. This was followed by the seven parts of the ballet music from Gounod's Faust, in a terrific transcription, uncredited, so possibly Paul's own. Sharing in this concert was the Pueblo Chorale, a large and enthusiastic amateur choir, conducted by Charles Merritt. There were some lovely moments, but quite often, the inbuilt vocal limitations, particularly of the tenor variety, gave cause for alarm. I thought the choice of music a bit odd (Vierne Messe Solennelle), perhaps being something of a stretch for the non-musicians in the audience, not accustomed to a Latin Mass or the style of Louis Vierne. However, having thought that, I was probably wrong. The audience seemed genuinely interested, the choir was obviously very much into the music, and there was a great ovation at the end. Paul Fleckenstein's coloration and support at the organ were superb. After the Chorale left the stage, we all rose and sang, not half badly, the Star Spangled Banner, after which Paul played the Budley Duck variations really well. We hit the busses pretty quickly, and managed to get back to the Denver Doubletree just a bit after midnight.

Friday, June 26

What a beginning to the day! In a not terribly prosperous neighborhood, we walk into a church of great beauty, built by German immigrants--Annunciation Roman Catholic Church. The windows are thought to all be from Munich. As a fan of the Father Dowling Mysteries on TV, I was delighted to learn that this is the very church used in these wonderful programs! The irrepressible James Mosby Bratton gave us a fabulous musical start to our second last day. We had previously heard him on the Vocalion. Today, we took a great step up in the reed organ hierarchy, and heard his own 1887 instrument by Victor Mustel, of Paris. The sound, brilliant, somewhat steely, and perfectly adequate for the large-ish building we were in, is quite different from American harmonia some of us have known. It was placed down front, against the south wall. It would be somewhat underpowered for leading hearty hymn singing, but wonderful for lots of repertoire. Jim began with a really powerful and passionate performance of the Allegro assai from the Guilmant 4th Sonata. After being rewarded with thunderous applause, he gathered some friends around him--a 'cellist and a harpist--and they gave us a beautiful performance of the ravishing Nocturne in E flat, op. 21 for 'cello, harmonium and harp, by Marcel Fournier (1879-1951). Then, harmonium alone in Introduction and Fugue in D Minor, op. 62 by Franz Lachner (1803-1890), and last, with a pianist, Finale, op. 8, no. 6 (for harmonium, four hands) by Saint-Saëns, great fun, with a pianist who was able to balance well with the somewhat gentler harmonium. From the balcony, Robert Barney took over at the organ, leading us in singing Lobe' den Herren, aided by a trumpet player in a long introduction, in interludes, and in some verses of the hymn. The rest of the program: Karg-Elert, Lobe' den Herren, op. 65 (rather a perfect piece for demonstrating the virtues of the organ, beautifully and clearly played); Mozart, Andante, K. 616; Zeuner, Fugue No. 14 (just about as pallid as its name!); Schmidt, Prelude and Fugue in D. The organ is a 1910 Kilgen of 20 stops, much of which is really lovely and full, with only the full ensemble seeming a bit unblending.

I think I lack the Purvis gene. I have never appreciated the style and idiom of a lot of his music, although I did like some of the Christmas pieces that Kenneth Matthews played earlier in the week. I have mused about this a bit, particularly in regard to George Bozeman's program at the Chapel of Our Most Merciful Saviour, Episcopal. I have, in my wisdom, decided that you had to have been there, Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, that is--to have known the man, and heard the pieces in the context of a service, on that organ, and in that acoustic. He had to have been a remarkable person, as the people I know, and it is not a few, who had contact with him as students, choristers, or just listeners and friends, are immensely loyal to his music and his memory. Or maybe it is genetic after all. Some of the pieces in today's program required chimes, and George brought along his trusty synthesizer, which I heard and hated in Round Lake last summer, and did not grow to love any more today. (To think that I even helped him carry it upstairs at the beginning of the convention!) Having got all that out of my system, let me say that George played wonderfully well, as always, and I did really find lots to like in some of the pieces. The program: hymn, "Once to every man and nation" (Ton-Y-Botel or Ebenezer); Chorale Preludes on Tunes found in American Hymnals: Fantasy on Ton-y-Botel (dedicated to Ruth Barrett Arno), Pastorale on Forest Green (to George Henninger), Canzona on Liebster Jesu (to Frederic Freeman), Grand Choeur on Austria (to Porter Heaps), Contemplation on Tallis' Canon (to Alma Morse), Poeme Mystique on Manna Mercy (to Sally Harris), Toccata Festiva on In Babilone (to Clarence Snyder). The organ is by Farrand and Votey, Opus 88, 1890, of two manuals and 17-stops. Not possessed of great power, there are individual stops and combinations of beauty, and its decorated case pipes are wonderful to look at.

We next visited the Lotus in the Flame Temple, Denver Zen Center, a building which was formerly the Fourth Church of Christ Scientist. The members of the center were in a retreat when we arrived, one involving silence, so while we were able to talk, once in the church auditorium, and obviously make music, we were asked to enter the building in complete silence. Given our usually voluble nature, our success at this was all the more remarkable. The organ is a 1925 Austin, Opus 1233, of four manual divisions (Swell, Great, Choir, Echo and Pedal) over only 20 stops. Everything on the choir is from the Great, except a celesting rank. There is only one Pedal stop not borrowed. The highest pitched stop on the organ is one 2' on the Swell, and that is an extension, and is only a Flautino. Not an instrument of great brilliance or power! Thomas Brown, who played so wonderfully earlier in the week, gave us four completely brilliant improvisations on familiar hymn tunes: A sonata-allegro form on Salve festa dies; a Rondo (Scherzo) on Puer Nobis; Free form on Eventide; and Fugue and Finale on Salzburg.

Thomas Murray then stepped to the podium, to deliver a truly fascinating lecture entitled "Recording the Organ: The First Ten Years (1926-1936)." We heard 27 short examples recorded by all the great names in organ playing at the first part of this century, on a large number of significant pipe organs, recorded onto tape from Tom's extensive collection of 78s, accompanied with lots of interesting commentary and also some slides. With each example, we saw on the screen (a really nice touch) a slide of the actual record label--sometimes two labels, one for the original European or English release, and one for U.S. release. When possible, other slides were shown, perhaps the artist, or the building or organ. The organ was a "phonographic black sheep," because of its range, and powerful bass, but became less so with the advent of electric microphones in the mid-20s. The problem was getting such low frequencies on the grooves. Another problem for all music was the shortness of time available before a record had to be turned over--41/2 to 5 minutes on a 12-inch record, less on a 10-inch one. This was a fascinating history not only of developments in recording techniques in the 20s and 30s, but also of the organs and players of the time, and the music they chose to play.

Next, to Messiah Baptist Church, to hear Mary Gifford play the following program: hymn, "When the roll is called up yonder" (Roll Call) (We really shouted it out!); Roy Spaulding Stoughton (1884-1953), The Courts of Jamshyd, from Persian Suite; Edward d'Evry (1869-1950), Nocturnette; Gawthrop, Passacaglia, from Sketch Book 1 for Organ. The organ is a gutsy little thing, despite having only one 4' stop, the Orchestral Flute on the Swell. The scaling and voicing are such that there is real power and brightness, despite the way it looks on paper. Mary Gifford commented about the Open Diapason that "parts the Red Sea!" The organ is two manuals, with just eight stops, Kimball (1914). Rick Morel, who services and has built a number of organs in the area, got the roll player working for this organ, and we heard two rather fun organ rolls, provided by Jonathan Ambrosino.

Next, to All Saints Roman Catholic Church, a large, modern structure with a quite small Hook and Hastings, Opus 1702, 1896 way back in a very deep balcony. Lovely as it might be close up, sitting downstairs, it is insufficient for the singing of hymns--you simply cannot hear it. Nor did it have much oomph in the recital. Joseph Adam, organist of St. James Cathedral, Seattle, played the following program: Berlioz, Marche Hongroise (Damnation of Faust); Saint-Saëns, Improvisation in A Major; Vierne, Scherzo from Symphony No. 1; Herzogenberg, Orgel Fantasy on Nun danket, alle, Gott; hymn, "Now thank we all our God."

After a short break back at the hotel, on to Trinity United Methodist Church, where we were fed dinner, and then heard the splendid Peter Sykes. The organ is by Frank Roosevelt, No. 380, 1888, a wonderful and very large instrument of 65 stops, housed in a case that is a huge fantasy in beautiful wood, designed by George Ashdown Audsley! The Pastor of the church accepted an OHS Plaque from Mary Gifford, who announced that this was the church she attended as a child--so the presentation was particularly important to her. The program: Franck, Choral no. 1 in E Major; Whitlock, Three Extemporizations, Carol (Homage to Frederick Delius), Divertimento, Fidelis; Janacek, the organ solo from the Glagolitic Mass; Reger, Benedictus; Reubke, Sonata on the 94th Psalm; hymn, "God of Height and Depth and Sweep," to the fine tune "Shoemaker," composed by Peter Sykes. A recital by Peter Sykes is always a great event, and this was no exception. I think the most thrilling piece on the program for me was the Reubke Sonata--truly brilliant!

On our last day, we are on the busses, and heading up into the high mountains for a tour of Rocky Mountain National Park, having just heard the last two recitals of the convention, both played by David Macfarlane, of New York. The first was a somewhat bitter-sweet occasion, as the fine old building (the former Asbury Methodist Church) has been bought by a developer. Mike Rowe, convention chairman, says a great effort is being made to find a new home for this one of not-too-many remaining organs by Denver builder, Charles Anderson. This may not be an easy task, as the instrument is not small, and is divided in two cases on either side of a window. It's not fabulous, but is solid and good, if not overly colorful. It might also be one of those cases in which the owner would be just happy to find someone to take it out, without asking for money. David's program: hymn, "Father, we praise thee" (Christe Sanctorum); Saint-Saëns, Prelude & Fugue in G, op. 109, no. 3; Sweelinck, Variations: Balletto del Granduca; Vierne, Communion (Messe Basse) op. 30; Woodman, Noel Anglais; Mendelssohn, Allegretto and Finale from Sonata 4.

This program served to demonstrate all the possibilities of the instrument, built by Anderson in 1882, with two manuals and 16 stops. We next drove a short way to what is now a Roman Catholic home for the elderly, called The Gardens at St. Elizabeth's, with the lovely Chapel of Christ the King, built in 1903. The style is Christopher Wren, and the windows are by Clayton & Bell of London. The organ is one of the oldest extant Austins, Opus 92 from 1902/3. David's program was cleverly entitled and organized as "A Little Organ Mass," and was as follows: Introit, Frescobaldi, Toccata IX (2nd Book of Toccatas); Kyrie, de Grigny, Fugue à 5; Gloria, Bach, Allein Gott (BWV 663); Offertoire, Reger, Ave Maria (op. 80, no. 5); Elevation, Gaspard Corrette, Dialogue des Flutes (Missa Octavi Toni); Communion, Milhaud, Pastorale; Sortie, Langlais, Point d'Orgue; hymn, "From all who dwell below the skies" (Duke Street).

I think to do a program like this wants an organ of color, articulation, and variety, and also, perhaps, in a room which will give it space to expand. On a rather pallid instrument of 10 stops, with the highest pitch being four-foot flutes on both divisions, I don't think a program of such scope really works, being more "eye candy" than "ear candy." However, there were things to like, and many thanks to David for doing two recitals on two different organs back to back.

I wish I could "review" Rocky Mountain National Park for you, but mere words will not do. Go see it. Nor are mere words adequate to describe how wonderful was this convention. Like all OHS events, it was organized and run essentially flawlessly, by an army of totally devoted local volunteers, assisted and advised by the headquarters staff in Richmond. Great thought went into deciding what instruments, artists, and music would be heard, and how best to combine these elements. Great care and consideration was given to the comfort and convenience of several hundred attendees. I hope those of you who have made it to the end of this review will want to give serious thought to attending next year's convention, different in two ways from those in the past. Next summer, the convention will run from a Thursday through the following Wednesday. This requires only one Sunday off from playing in church, and includes an overnight Saturday, important to lower air fares. The second difference in this year's convention is the fact that it is outside of the U. S., in the magnificent cosmopolitan city of Montréal, with visits to many organs, old and newer in the region, and also to Ste. Hyacinthe, which may, in terms of numbers of builders, be the organ-building capital of the world! The dates: Thursday, August 19 through Wednesday, August 25th. The phone number in Richmond for joining OHS: 804/353-9226. I hope to see you there!

Charlie W. Steele is director of music ministries/organist at Brevard-Davidson River Presbyterian Church, Brevard, North Carolina, and an adjunct music faculty member at Brevard College, where he teaches applied organ. He holds BA (with Honors) and MA degrees in music from Radford University, Radford, Virginia, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Kentucky.

A significant part of America’s musical
heritage originating in the nineteenth century is the popular shape-note tunebooks that were an outgrowth of the “singing schools.” These collections, which, in their musical notation, used different shapes of note-heads for each syllable of a solfège system, are anthologies of the styles and genres of American music of the time, both sacred and secular. Nineteenth-century American shape-note tunebooks serve as sources for an important body of music—shape- note hymn tunes—which has been, and continues to be, assimilated into the late twentieth-century editions of the hymnals of mainline Protestant denominations.
The availability and popularity of the shape-note tunes in current hymnals has inspired organ composers to use them as cantus firmi for organ chorale preludes and variation settings. As a result, a wealth of organ chorale settings using shape-note hymn melodies has been published in the twenty-five years spanning 1980–2005. Many of these organ works were composed for use as voluntaries in the worship services of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century Christian church; moreover, some of the compositions are important contributions to the organ concert literature.

Origins
The shape-note phenomenon traces its origins to the psalm singing of New England. Congregational singing in the churches of the early eighteenth century had, in the opinion of the clergy and musicians of the day, fallen into a deplorable state. One person, eloquently describing the state of congregational singing in 1724, said, “The Singing appears to be rather a confused Noise, made up of Reading, Squeaking, and Grumbling, than a decent and orderly part of God’s worship.”1 In order to improve the state of congregational singing, a form of musical education, the “singing school,” was developed. Its purpose was to teach congregations the elements of music so the people could sing “by note, instead of rote.”2
One of the earliest books developed for use in singing schools was John Tufts’s An Introduction to the Singing of Psalm Tunes, which appeared in the 1720s. Tufts’s book utilized the four-note system of solfège (fa, sol, la, mi) that had been imported to America from England. Tufts used abbreviations of the syllables on the musical staff rather than traditional music notation. Tufts’s system, as it appeared in his book, is shown in Figure 1.
In 1801, William Little and William Small compiled what is considered the first shape-note collection, The Easy Instructor. Rather than using conventional notation, the two men devised a system in which the four syllables—fa, sol, la, mi—were each notated with a different note-head shape. The collection became so popular that, according to Marion Hatchett, thirty-four editions or printings of The Easy Instructor were published between 1802 and 1832.3 The shapes, as developed and notated in Little and Small’s collection, are shown in Figure 2. Using these four shapes, a major scale notated in shape-notes consists of the sequence demonstrated in Figure 3.
For the many Americans who had little or no formal musical background or education, this new approach to notation made music reading much simpler. The singers needed to know only the shapes of the notes; they did not have to deal with a music reading system in which locating the tonic note depended upon the ability to distinguish key signatures. The shape-note system did have one major disadvantage—no means was devised to indicate accidentals by using shapes. As many of the tunes used in the collections were diatonic in nature, this disadvantage evidently was not a major concern to either the compilers or the singers.

Collections
The invention of the shape-notes led to a proliferation of published music collections using the new notation system. During the first half of the eighteenth century, numerous compilers published editions of the shape-note tunebooks. George Pullen Jackson, one of the twentieth-century pioneers in the research of the shape-note tradition, lists thirty-eight collections published in the four-shape system between 1798 and 1855.4 Twenty-one of the books Jackson designated as works by compilers who lived in the South. Richard J. Stanislaw’s more recent research provides evidence of an even larger number of four-shape collections. Stanislaw lists some ninety-five tunebooks published in the four-shape system in the United States between 1798 and 1859.5
A significant contribution of the shape-note collections was their function as a repository of American tunes from the oral tradition. Though these types of tunes had appeared in hymnals or collections, such as the United States Sacred Harmony (1799) and The Christian Harmony (1805), the first shape-note hymnal to incorporate a large number of oral tradition tunes was John Wyeth’s Repository of Sacred Music: Part Second (1813).6 Irving Lowens observes that forty-four of the tunes in this collection were “folk hymns.”7 The Repository of Sacred Music: Part Second played an important role in the dissemination of these tunes. According to information provided by Lowens, Ananias Davisson, the compiler of the influential Kentucky Harmony and the Supplement to Kentucky Harmony, used fifteen tunes from Wyeth’s Part Second collection. William Walker, in his Southern Harmony, “borrowed” twenty of these tunes.8

Walker’s Southern Harmony
A significant source of the shape-note tunes found in today’s hymnals is Walker’s The Southern Harmony & Musical Companion (hereafter referred to as Southern Harmony). One of the most popular and successful of the nineteenth-century shape-note tunebooks, Southern Harmony stands as an important “anthology” of the musical styles and genres of its day. As Harry Eskew notes, it is probably the first shape-note collection to be compiled in the “Deep South.”9 The legacy and tradition of this popular collection continues even today at the “Big Singing Day” held annually in Benton, Kentucky.
Walker was born on May 6, 1809, in South Carolina, near a small village known as Cross Keys.10 Around the time he was eighteen years of age, Walker’s family moved to a small community called Cedar Springs, near Spartanburg, South Carolina.11 In 1835, Walker married Amy S. Golighty, the sister of Thurza Golighty, the wife of Benjamin Franklin White, who would become the compiler of The Sacred Harp.12 Not only is 1835 the year Walker married Amy, it is the same year he published his first and most popular shape-note collection, Southern Harmony.13 In addition to Southern Harmony, Walker compiled three other collections during his lifetime, including the Southern and Western Pocket Harmonist, The Christian Harmony, and Fruits and Flowers.14 Although Walker is considered the compiler of Southern Harmony and his name graces the cover, the work was initially a joint project of Walker and his brother-in-law, B. F. White.
After its introduction in 1835, Southern Harmony underwent several revisions, with the final one being the 1854 edition.15 During the years of its publication, the collection was obviously popular, as Walker later claimed that 600,000 copies of it had been sold.16
Harry Eskew cites several reasons why Southern Harmony is a significant shape-note collection: 1) its use as textbook to learn to read music, 2) its role in continuing early American psalmody, and 3) its function as a “musical companion for numerous word-only hymnals.”17 Eskew also notes that Southern Harmony is “significant as a repository of melodies from oral tradition” and that “Walker and other rural-oriented singing school teachers/compilers drew from the rich oral tradition of the Anglo-American folksong to provide melodies for many hymn texts.”18 Walker, in the preface to the first edition of Southern Harmony in 1835, states that he had “composed the parts to a great many good airs (which I could not find in any publication, nor in manuscript), and assigned my name as author.”19 It may be surmised that many of these “airs” were popular melodies or folk tunes of the day that were passed on by oral tradition. Hymnologist Austin C. Lovelace recounts that, “When Walker was going around doing singing schools, he always asked if anyone had some good tunes. He would then write them down and claim them as his own.”20
Sources of texts and tunes are indicated for some of the hymns, though often no source is documented for either. Glen Wilcox relates that approximately one-fourth of the hymn texts were by Isaac Watts.21 Of the 341 tune names in the index, Wilcox maintains that about 250 of them can be attributed to 110 composers, with the remaining tunes being anonymous.22 For the 1854 edition, Walker added 73 tunes to his collection. It is interesting to note that, according to Eskew, approximately half of the tunes Walker added in 1854 were “in the style of the folk hymn.”23
Southern Harmony incorporated some important “firsts” regarding several hymn tunes. The 1835 edition marked the first time the text “Amazing Grace” and the tune New Britain were joined together in a shape-note collection; the edition of 1840 contained the first appearance of the tune Wondrous Love with the text “What wondrous love is this;” and the 1854 edition has one of the early appearances of Dove of Peace.
The inclusion of the American tunes in this remarkable shape-note collection has helped to preserve them for future generations. Unlike its popular counterpart, The Sacred Harp, which has undergone a number of revisions over the years of its existence (even as recently as 1991), Southern Harmony has had no additions or corrections to its music since the final version of 1854. As it stands, Southern Harmony is a repository of musical styles and tastes of nineteenth-century America, particularly of southern and rural America. Eskew remarks that, “No wonder Southern Harmony was so popular: the hymns . . . were united with tunes which had circulated among the people for years in oral tradition, and they were furthermore printed in easy-to-read shape-notation!”24

New England “reforms”
As the shape-note tradition moved into the southern and western states, a mid-to-late nineteenth-century movement emerged in New England to eliminate American tunes, as found in shape-note tunebooks, from church hymnals and music collections. New England reformers, among whom were Lowell Mason and Thomas Hastings, considered music and hymns of European background and influence to be superior to America’s “folk-style” music. Hymn tunes and music composed in the European style were “based on ‘scientific’ principles producing ‘correct’ harmonies.”25 It is ironic that the New England area, whose musicians gave America its singing schools and shape-notes, is the same geographic area that led reforms contributing to the demise of shape-note singing and the use of these tunes in hymnals.
Jackson, in White Spirituals of the Southern Uplands, devotes a chapter to the subject of the disappearance of folk-hymns as denominational hymnals began to emerge in the nineteenth century. Though the 1889 edition of the Methodist Hymnal contained a number of the tunes, the 1905 edition included only four of what Jackson calls “fasola popular tunes”—Lenox, Nettleton, Mear, and Greenville.26 Jackson’s research points out that the Service of Song (1871), a hymnal used by southern Baptists in more urban areas, embodied only nine tunes from the “fasola” tradition.27 Another hymnal used by Baptists in the early twentieth century, Modern Hymnal (1926), incorporated only seventeen of what Jackson refers to as hymns of “specific southern fasola making or adoption.”28
Jackson ascertains that the Philadelphia publishers, suppliers of hymnals to southern Presbyterian churches, “avoided all indigenous songs of the southern and western revival.”29 An examination of Presbyterian hymnals of the late nineteenth century through the early twentieth century certainly underpins Jackson’s observation. The Presbyterian hymnals of 1874, 1895 (revised in 1911), and 1933 all contain some hymn tunes—just as today’s hymnals do—common to Southern Harmony and other similar collections. These tunes, however, are primarily ones with an identified composer—tunes such as Azmon, Coronation, and Duke Street. Based on this author’s examination of the index of tune names in each of these three editions of hymnals, Nettleton seems to be the only anonymous shape-note tune included in Presbyterian hymnals until the appearance of the 1955 edition of the hymnal.30
As late in the twentieth century as 1940, American shape-note tunes held little respect among some scholars who were interested in serious hymnody. Henry Wilder Foote, in Three Centuries of American Hymnody, spends little time focusing on the history or importance of the tunes. His writing contains remarks such as, “While in general their effect on American hymnody has been neither permanent or valuable . . . the folk hymn was suited to revivals and social gatherings like out-of-door camp meetings . . . and in any case they fall outside the main current of American hymnody.”31 As one can surmise from Foote’s statements, Raymond Glover’s supposition that the efforts of musicians like Mason created a standard whose “effects may still be seen in today’s mainline hymnals” is certainly supported.32 Fortunately, these effects initiated by the “scientific” musicians of the nineteenth century experienced a reversal in the late twentieth century.

Twentieth-century acceptance
Five Protestant denominational hymnals—Southern Baptist, Episcopal, Lutheran (ELCA), Presbyterian (USA), and United Methodist—were selected to be surveyed as to their inclusion of shape-note tunes. These particular hymnals were chosen because of the importance each denomination places on hymnals and hymn singing and because of the reputation each denomination enjoys regarding the quality of their hymnals. The survey included an inspection of ten hymnals to discern the number of tunes that appear to be of shape-note origin. African-American spirituals, frequently designated as American folk tunes or melodies in older hymnals, were not within the parameters of the research. The numerical results of the American tune survey, shown in Table 1, verify the thesis that there is a definite increase in the number of shape-note tunes in the current editions of mainline denominational hymnals compared to the previous editions. In the Episcopal, Lutheran, and Presbyterian hymnals, the growth in the number of tunes is significant. Though there is an increase in the number of shape-note tunes in the most recent hymnal of the Methodist Church, the percentage does not indicate an increase because the hymnal contains a larger number of total hymn tunes. The 1966 edition contains only 417 hymn tunes, whereas the 1989 edition includes 504 tunes.
Because denominational hymnals use various sources for their tunes, some of the shape-note tunes included in hymnals have indications of possible composers. An example is the tune Nettleton, identified in two hymnals as being composed by John Wyeth.33 The tune did appear in the 1813 edition of Wyeth’s Repository of Sacred Music, Part Second, but it originated from the “camp-meeting repertory of Methodists and Baptists.”34 Given that the tunes were sometimes part of an oral tradition before they were notated in hymnals, it is difficult for musicologists and historians to trace their exact origin.
Among the various shape-note collections of the nineteenth century, William Walker’s Southern Harmony serves as an important source of American shape-note tunes, especially in the more recent editions of the selected hymnals. In each denomination, the number of hymn tunes attributed to either William Walker or Walker’s Southern Harmony shows a significant increase. The frequency of their attribution as a source may be observed in Table 2.

Factors in 20th-century
acceptance
Based on the information and statistics indicated above, it is clear that there is a significant increase in the number of shape-note tunes included in recent hymnals. This phenomenon prompts one to reflect on what factors may have led to the increased presence of these tunes in the hymnals of the late twentieth century. Communications by this author with several persons who served on editorial boards of different hymnals help provide some possible answers to this question.
David W. Music, a member of the editorial board of The Baptist Hymnal (1991), suggests three main factors he believes are responsible for the growth in the number of shape-note hymn tunes incorporated into recent hymnals. Outlining these factors, Music states:

The increase in the number of shape-note tunes is due to a number of factors including: 1) the bicentennial of the USA in 1976 with church musicians seeking to honor their country by searching out some of its native expressions. I think this parallels the English folk song recovery that occurred with the 1906 English Hymnal; 2) the broadening of the base of congregational song to include a wider diversity of styles and types than before (including black spirituals, world hymnody, American Indian pieces, Taizé, Iona Community, plainsong, newly-written hymns, etc.); 3) in a few cases these melodies have become familiar outside the church (or at least outside the hymnal) and have subsequently been incorporated into them; a good example is Resignation (“My shepherd will supply my need”), which everybody learned from the Virgil Thomson choral arrangement, later realizing what a great congregational text and tune combination this is. Perhaps related to this was the increased respectability gained by these often very simple tunes through their use by significant American composers such as Thomson and Aaron Copland.35
The factors that Music considers significant are echoed by others who have been involved in the editorial process of recent hymnals. Carlton Young, editor of the 1966 and 1989 Methodist hymnals, refers to the 1906 English Hymnal and the increase in diversity in hymnals as significant factors in the selection of tunes. Young asserts that “most mid-20th-century mainline USA Protestant hymnals followed the lead of R.V. Williams” and “reflected the work of folklorists such as Cecil Sharp.”36 Young also observes that “The increased number of USA folk melodies in TUMH ’89 [The United Methodist Hymnal] continues this trend in mainline hymnals, but is also related to the increased number of Native American, Latino, African-American, Asian, and gospel songs.”37
Ray Glover, editor of The Hymnal 1982, affirms that “The inclusion of a goodly number of American folk tunes in The Hymnal 1982 was, I believe, our response to the growing awareness of the great, rich repository we have in, largely though not exclusively, Southern folk hymnody from the shape-note tradition.”38 Likewise, Carl Schalk, who initially served on the editorial board of the Lutheran Book of Worship, feels that the inclusion of American folk hymn tunes was a way to become more American, much in the same way Vaughan Williams used the English folk song.39 Schalk considers the American folk tunes a source that “had not been tapped before” and a “looking back to some kind of heritage.”40 The editor of The Presbyterian Hymnal (1990), LindaJo H. McKim, echoes a similar sentiment, observing that “The tunes really are a part of who we are and for that reason need to be included in any collection coming out of the Americas today.”41 Marion Hatchett mentions the influence of Vaughan Williams and comments that the inclusion of three American folk tunes in the 1906 English Hymnal made it “respectable” for Americans to use these type of tunes in their own hymnals.42

The organ chorale prelude
The genre of the organ chorale prelude is helping to perpetuate the unique body of tunes stored in the nineteenth-century shape-note tunebooks. The term “chorale” originally referred to the tune used with a hymn text in the sixteenth-century German Protestant Church.43 Over time, the distinction between “chorale” and “hymn” (“a song in praise of God”) has blurred to the point that the two terms are now used interchangeably.44 Today, “organ chorale” and “chorale prelude” are generic terms referring to pieces composed in the tradition of the chorale prelude, whether they are based on a chorale, a Protestant hymn tune, or even a religious ethnic folk song. They may still serve as introductions to the singing of hymns or chorales. More often than not, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first-century liturgical setting, a chorale prelude functions as service music. It may be performed as a prelude, a postlude, as a selection during the collection of the offering or the serving of communion, or as music covering movement in other parts of the liturgy.
The performance of chorale preludes is not limited to liturgical use. Chorale preludes occupy an important role as part of the literature performed on organ recitals and concerts. A scanning of the recital programs listed each month in The Diapason reveals that various works of this genre are included in many recitals. The works may range from the large settings of J. S. Bach to the jazz-influenced pieces of Johann Michel. For example, of the 20 recital programs listed in the February 2010 issue of The Diapason, at least 24 of the total selections performed appear to be some form of a chorale prelude.45
Because the hymnals of the early-to-mid twentieth century contained very few, if any, American shape-note tunes, it was not until their inclusion into mainline hymnals that they became familiar to many organists and to the general concert or church audience. Even though the tunes were neglected by hymnal committees during the first half of the twentieth century, some significant organ settings of American shape-note tunes did appear around the middle of the century. These settings, however, were not inspired by the composer’s familiarity with tunes found in a denominational hymnal; instead, they seem to be the result of the composer’s acquaintance with a shape-note collection, primarily The Sacred Harp.
Twentieth-century American composer Gardner Read composed a number of organ works, among which are two collections of shape-note hymn tune settings. Read relied on a copy of The Sacred Harp as the source of the tunes used in his collections. In the scores of both collections, Read notes that the “preludes are based on authentic old hymn-tunes found in the 1902 edition of ‘The Sacred Harp,’ a collection of white spirituals and Southern hymns, first published around 1850.”46 Eight Preludes on Old Southern Tunes, opus 90, was published in 1952, and the publication of Six Preludes on Old Southern Hymns, opus 112, followed in 1963. Of the fourteen tunes Read employed in these two notable collections, seven of them are found in Southern Harmony.
Samuel Barber’s Wondrous Love: Variations on a Shape-note Hymn, written in 1958 for the inaugural recital of the new Holtkamp organ at Christ Episcopal Church, Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, is primarily a concert piece.47 As the publication of the work predates any inclusion of the tune into a mid-to-late twentieth-century denomination hymnal, one could posit that Barber’s piece helped contribute to the popularity of the Wondrous Love tune. In his reference to the tune’s source for the composition, Barber notes in the score that the tune was “published in the ‘Original Sacred Harp,’ Atlanta, Ga., 1869.”48 The score also contains a reproduction of a four-part harmonization of Wondrous Love, probably taken from the 1911 edition of The Sacred Harp, as the copy credits the alto part to “S. M. Denson, 1911.”49

Growth since 1980
In late twentieth to early twenty-first century America, the publication of chorale preludes based on shape-note tunes has increased significantly. This trend, during the period from 1980 to 2005, can be confirmed by consulting reference books that list published organ works and chorale settings. In a repertoire list compiled by this author, a total of 238 organ pieces, based on 46 different tunes found in Southern Harmony, were documented. Of the works in the repertoire list, only 46 (19%) were composed prior to 1980. The significant number of organ chorale preludes based on these tunes is a direct result of the growth in the number of shape-note tunes appearing in recent hymnals.
Five shape-note tunes found in Walker’s Southern Harmony (1854)—Foundation (The Christian’s Farewell in Southern Harmony), Holy Manna, New Britain, Wondrous Love, and Dove of Peace—are popular tunes found in hymnals of the late twentieth century or, as in the case of Dove of Peace, have recently become popular. The information shown in Table 3 compares the inclusion of these hymn tunes between the previous and present editions of the five selected denominational hymnals.
A look at the occurrence of these five popular shape-note tunes as cantus firmi for organ chorales helps illustrate the growing use of the tunes by composers of organ literature. For example, Jean Slater Edson’s book, Organ Preludes: An Index to Compositions on Hymn Tunes, Chorales, Plainsong Melodies, Gregorian Tunes and Carols, published in 1970, contains a meager listing of published organ works based on shape-note tunes. For the five tunes considered, Edson’s index identifies the following number of chorale preludes: Foundation – 5; Holy Manna – 1; New Britain – 4; Wondrous Love – 5; and Dove of Peace – 0.50
In 1987, Dennis Schmidt published the first volume of An Organist’s Guide to Resources for “The Hymnal 1982.” Compared to Edson’s book of 1970, Schmidt’s number of listings indicates a slight increase in the quantity of published organ settings using the five tunes. In Schmidt’s first volume, the number of works cataloged for each of the selected tunes includes: Foundation – 4; Holy Manna – 4; New Britain – 7; Wondrous Love – 6; and Dove of Peace – 0.51
A second volume of Schmidt’s An Organist’s Guide to Resources for “The Hymnal 1982” appeared in 1991. Compared to the first volume, the second volume confirms a continued increase in the number of organ settings of American tunes. For the five tunes, volume two lists the following number of organ settings: Foundation – 23; Holy Manna – 7; New Britain – 30; Wondrous Love – 15; and Dove of Peace – 0.52
The repertoire list of organ compositions based on shape-note tunes from the Southern Harmony, compiled by the author, substantiates the growth of these published works between 1980 and 2005. The number of organ works in the repertoire list using the five selected tunes as cantus firmi is summarized below:
Foundation (The Christian’s Farewell) – 22, 3 published prior to 1980
Dove of Peace – 7, all published since 1996
Holy Manna – 15, 1 published prior to 1980
New Britain – 33, 5 published prior to 1980
Wondrous Love – 30, 4 published prior to1980
The phenomenon of many new shape-note based organ works is, no doubt, a result of composers discovering shape-note tunes as they began to appear in new editions of hymnals. Robert J. Powell, retired organist/choirmaster of Christ Church, Greenville, South Carolina, and a well-known composer of organ and choral music, is the contributor of a number of individual pieces and collections based on shape-note tunes. These tunes are an important source for Powell in his work as a composer. Powell states:

Because many American folk hymns appear in present-day hymnals, I have found they have been influential in my compositions, not only because there are so many from which I have created anthems and organ pieces, but also for their use of modal melodies and uncompromising harmonies.53
Michael Burkhardt, formerly a member of the music faculty at Carthage College and currently on the staff of Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Livonia, Michigan, is the composer of a significant number of chorale preludes for the organ. Included in his output are several settings of shape-note tunes. In a personal correspondence with this author, Burkhardt supports the thesis that the growth in the use and appearance of the American tunes in hymnals is a contributing factor to the increasing number of organ compositions utilizing the tunes. Burkhardt comments that:

An increase in the number of early American tunes in hymnals has certainly been an impetus for my settings in the American Folk Hymn Suite and in various other organ publications. But an even greater motivation for me is that these hymns are truly hymns of the people and, more specifically, hymns birthed by the people of this country. I love the ruggedness of the tunes as well as their unique qualities, individualities and the texts with which they are associated. . . . I hope that perhaps in some small way an organ setting or two of mine might excite someone regarding this great genre of hymnody.54
Samuel Adler, professor of composition at the Juilliard School of Music, has composed a set of organ chorale preludes based on early American tunes, one of which is Foundation. Entitled Hymnset: Four Chorale Preludes on Old American Hymns, the work was premiered in 1984 and published in 1987.55 In correspondence with this author in reference to Hymnset, Adler states that “I have always felt that we do not have enough Chorale Preludes on these beautiful hymn tunes and so while I was in residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts I wrote one of these Preludes a week.”56 Clearly, Adler’s sentiment that there is a need for more chorale preludes using American tunes is one that echoes in the minds of other American composers and organists. The result has been a profusion of chorale preludes representing various levels of difficulty, length, quality, and effectiveness. This particular body of organ literature deserves to be both performed and recognized for the continuing role it plays in exposing both church and concert attendees to the music of Southern Harmony and similar nineteenth-century collections.

Summary
The heritage of American tunes contained within the shape-note tunebooks of the nineteenth century, whether they are called shape-note, folk-hymn, or American folk tunes, represents an important body of music, which, in the past thirty years, has been reclaiming its rightful place in American hymnody. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, the rediscovery of this music prompted mainline Protestant denominational hymnal editors and committees to include many of these tunes into their new editions of hymnals.
The current availability of shape-note tunes in the hymnals of mainline Protestant denominations has, since 1980, significantly affected organ literature. A number of tunes once unknown are now common in many hymnals; as a result, organists and composers have been, and continue to be, drawn to them as fresh sources of cantus firmi. This growing body of organ literature represents music of a wide range of difficulty, effectiveness, compositional creativity, and usefulness.
The shape-note collections of the nineteenth century, including the popular and significant Southern Harmony, helped preserve the tunes and harmonizations that are part of our American history and hymnody. The hymnals of the late twentieth century, with their inclusion of a representative body of American shape-note tunes, have assisted composers, organists, and concert and church attendees in rediscovering this music. The organ literature resulting from this rediscovery will assist in the preservation of these tunes for new audiences and generations to come. ■