Grundtvigs salmer og deres melodier

Abstract

Grundtvigs Hymns and their Melodies. By Arthur Axnholtz.

1. Our Christian songs, like those of the rest of Europe, fall into two main groups, Church hymns and spiritual songs. Church hymns are composed for the special purpose of being used in the ritual of the Church and thus receive definite forms by becoming a part of the Service. Their subject is the doctrine of the Church. Their mode of expression is universal and impersonal, comprehensive and general, so that it may speak for the whole congregation. And both texts and melodies maintain an objective character and are conservatively preserved throughout the ages — as a sign that the Church and its song shall be one.

Spiritual songs are intended to be sung apart from the regular ritual of Divine Service, in the morning and the evening, to celebrate festivals, and for devotional and instructional purposes in school and home. In relation to them people felt freer. Their content is less dogmatic, their attitude more personal; the only characteristic which links them together is their fundamentally Christian tone. They are not so much confined to fixed forms; they are more subjective and opportune in phrasing and expression; and their melodies change from age to age in accordance with the prevailing musical fashions.

To both groups both professional artists and amateurs make their contribution. Down through the ages our hymn-writers have appeared in both fields and in both capacities. When they wrote Church hymns, they commonly respected the Church melodies which have been traditional since the Reformation. On the other hand, when they wrote spiritual songs they often borrowed from the secular melodies of their period according to their own taste, Sthen from the folk-ballads, Kingo from the pastoral songs of the Baroque period, Brorson from the arias of the Rococo period, and Ingemann from the ballads of the Romantic period.

In the succession of our hymn-writers, who were nearly all amateur musicians as well, Grundtvig stands out as the only one who was completely unmusical — and yet at the same time as the one who made both Church and people sing as never before. First of all, then, a few words to explain this paradox.

2. Grundtvig as a very young man had a definite aversion from music, but through the singing of Constance Leth during his years at Egeløkke he was led to develop a more positive, though somewhat vague, view of music. Only after the completion of his “ Sangværk I ” (which still makes no mention of the melodies to which the hymns were to be sung), when in the 1840’s he was starting to prepare his hymns for the practical purposes of congregational use — only then did he begin to consider the concrete problem of particular melodies, and we have plenty of evidence from this period of his perplexity about the matter. Since at the same time we have no record as to whether he ever chanted, sang or even hummed a hymn, and we possess evidence concerning his peculiar, rugged way of reciting poetry, we may conclude that he was in fact completely unmusical in the ordinary sense of the word.

On the other hand — and here lies the paradox — he seems to an exceptional degree to have preserved the insight of the Age of Enlightenment into the significance of song as a means of popular education, and its interest in creating, not the artistic and aesthetic type of music, but the kind of song which expresses faith and experience and which, when used at the right time and occasion, can have a truly ennobling influence. Whether he derived this idea from the founders of our modern folk-song and school-song, J. A. P. Schulz and A. P. Berggreen, or developed it on his own, influenced by the memory of the simple, pious songs of his old nurse, we do not know. But he put forward the idea in his proposal to Christian VIII for the conversion of Sorø Academy into a Folk High-School. And he made it a reality in his song-writing. The problem which thus arose with regard to Grundtvig’s songs was that the textual achievement in all its greatness and peculiarity stood alone — with no comparable musical support in his own lifetime or during the period immediately following it.

3. The problem of words and tunes was intensified because of Grundtvig’s originality and his new conception of hymn-writing, which was in advance of his time, not because of his lack of musical sense. This was outweighed by a remarkable understanding of song, an exceptional power of creating singable texts.

As regards their content, the texts of Grundtvig’s hymns are naturally singable, that is to say, suitable for elevated utterance in song; here dry, purely abstract reasoning is a rare exception. As regards their mode of expression they are also usually suitable for singing. Strained phraseology, closely packed sentences, and the tendency to play on words, which disturb the evenness of the song, usually disappear as his writing reaches the higher pitch of inspiration. Finally, his hymns are outstandingly singable as regards their form. In spite of his lack of musical sense, Grundtvig understood to a remarkable extent how to facilitate and ease the composition of the melodies for his songs by the arrangement of their form in detail as well as in entirety. Where he combines dissyllabic and trisyllabic metrical feet in order to give life to his lines, he often carries the combination congruently through from stanza to stanza — so that the characteristic feature of the text rhythm can always coincide with that of the music (“ Kirken den er et gammelt hus,? a. o.). His power of arranging the verses as a whole also reveals a musical quality. Not only are his best hymns clearly divided into parts, but there is such a moving connection between the parts that the singer is led on, as it were, through the song (“Nu falmer skoven trindt om land”). Finally, he develops the art of the refrain from the simple burdens of the folk-song right up to the monumental, durable passages of repetition which we meet in his best liturgical hymns, singable in their complete concentration on the wonder of the Passion and of the Resurrection (“O du Guds lam” and “ Krist stod op af døde”) .

4. Grundtvigs own relation to the tunes which were traditional in his time is quite simple and clear. Where he is writing for Church use, he sticks to the familiar Church tunes, borrowing impartially from all periods from the Reformation up to Pietism. Only for his songs about Bible history and other spiritual songs did he use our secular folk-tunes. Even if his idea was “vague” , yet he had, as it were, the intuitive judgement of the initiated. But when his followers went past him or beyond him, he could neither check nor guide them. His deep insight into the nature and function of hymns did not extend to their melodies, and his clear understanding of the historical position of the Church did not include its relation to music.

The Chorales of the Reformation period were generally composed in the ecclesiastical modes and had a more or less varying rhythm. The 17th century attempted to approximate them to the newly developed expressive, dramatic music in the modern major and minor keys, and towards the beginning of the period of Rationalism their rhythm was levelled out into complete uniformity, broken only by pauses at the ends of all the lines. When to this is added the evidence of the incredibly slow tempo at which they were sung, we are presented with the picture of a dying tradition, a decaying Church music. Against this dullness the first, dilettante reaction came from the newly awakened Grundtvigian circles in the 1840’s. Here J. C. Lindberg and P. O. Boisen not only chose to set folk-tunes to Grundtvigs festal hymns, but even went so far as to use the tunes of noisy patriotic and club songs. And here, in Vartov, the congregation sang them — according to the evidence of Edmund Gosse and others — “ in a loud, quick staccato manner invented by the poet.” But this naive ease and joy had established itself too cheaply.

Already in the 1850’s A. P. Bevggreen made his weighty attack against the traffic in exchange of melodies (“ Do they believe that they can without offence use the same melody one day at a gay party, and the next day in Church?”), and thus started the first controversy about the hymn-tunes. He purposed to preserve their character as Church melodies (without being able to establish any objective criteria as to what this implied), to revivify the rhythm and unfold the special characteristic mood of each hymn. Since this was often attempted by the artistic methods of Romantic music, the danger which constantly lay in wait was that of a too conscious and excessive differentiation.

5. The composition of original tunes for Grundtvig’s Christian songs had begun on the highest plane when C. E. F. Weyse produced their two prototypes: that of the new Church melody with “ Den signede dag” (1826) and that of the spiritual song with “Velkommen igen, Guds engle smaa” (1838). In our opinion, only the Norwegian L. M. Lindemans Church hymn, “ Kirken den er et gammelt hus” (1840) and ]. P. E. Hartmann s spiritual songs, “ Davids sejrssang” and “ Jairi datter” (I860) maintain this high level. In the two generations of Romantic composers after Weyse we find in general a declining curve: from rather isolated, well-balanced Church hymns to rather subjective and emotional sentimental pieces. — However, their historical significance is indisputable. The contribution of A. P. Berggreen and H. Rung was to create the first consciously-designed types of melodies for Grundtvig’s hymns — and the task of Christian Barnekow and H. Nutzhorn was to round off and arrange all this Romantic musical material for the Church and for the Folk High-School. They led the newly awakened, wild-ranging delight in song along ordered paths for the first time; and their best songs are preserved and loved to this day — for the peculiar warm-heartedness which they breathe from “ the very time itself” , that character of “belonging together” which no later generation can recreate.

6. About the turn of the century Thomas Laub began the second and far more significant controversy about our hymn-tunes with his epochal works: “ Om kirkesangen” (1884) and “ Kirkemelodier” (1888—90, 1902), and his chief works of later date, “ Dansk kirkesang” (1918), “Musik og kirke” (1920) and “Aandelige sange” (1925). In Laub Grundtvig at last met an equal in the hymnal field, one who, like himself, regarded the creation of Church songs for the people as his principal task and who, like him, was at the same time an artist and a well versed hymnologist. With German research as his starting-point, Laub attained to the positive conception of the character of Church melodies which the Romantics had lacked. The definitions laid down by Laub may be summarised as follows:

The melodies of the people, including the Church melodies, are usually strophic, i. e., they involve repetition. Therefore they do not serve the words as they should by illustrating details, but by creating a comprehensive whole, whose spirit and attitude correspond to the text as a whole. They should be general in character, but not generalised and inexpressive on that account. They should carry the texts forward with living rhythms and clear melodic steps which an assembly can sing both gracefully and correctly. Therefore the fossilised Chorales must have their original rhythmic life back again; therefore the melody in both old and new Church songs must develop self-dependently out of the vocal substance; it must not be the simple top-line derived from a series of chords. Therefore the old ecclesiastical modes reveal themselves as the truly singable type of melody, and if harmonization is wanted, the older objective way is to be preferred as a means of bringing out the melody rather than the later way of harmonization suggesting moods. When these characteristics were common to both Church song and folk-song (up till and at the Reformation), spiritual and secular songs might still exchange melodies without causing any harm. But on the other hand when secular music (since the Renaissance) developed its own language of emotion and became a means of expression for the individual, it became constantly more estranged from the Church. For the song of the Church is one. It may change its outward form, from the Gregorian through the art of Palestrina to the Lutheran Chorale, but its values, once created, remain valid, and “ it can never adopt anything alien . . which has not grown out of itself” (Th. Laub: “Musik og kirke” , 1920, p. 8 f.).

Here was an idea like Grundtvig’s, and here, after its own fashion, followed a work like his. The old store of melodies was made fit for use again, and a new one was created. The objective Church hymn, the composition of which been most difficult for the Romantics, was Laub’s chief contribution — monumental for the opening of the Church year: “ Blomstre som en rosengaard” (1916), unchallenged and durable for the liturgy of the Holy Communion: “ O, du Guds lam” (c. 1888), and in a deeply moved tone of prayer for the Passion: “Hil dig, Frelser og Forsoner” (1891). No less impressive is the meeting of the two great artists and stern fighters in the spiritual song, their joyfulness in the song of praise: “Alt hvad som fuglevinger fik” (1915), their reliance in the hymn to the Holy Spirit: “ Talsmand, som paa jorderige” (before 1909), and their gentleness and sense of loneliness in the prayer: “Aldrig, Herre, du forglemme” (1921).

In the movement to overthrow the mistaken ideas of the Church music of the Romantics Laub was the first and the greatest, both in theory and in practice. By his side Carl Nielsen took his stand — that great, prolific composer whom Laub guided on the way to his view of poetic creation and its relation to the life of the people. The two younger composers, Thorvald Aagaard and Oluf Ring — like the younger generation of the Romantics — rounded off the new musical material, arranged it, together with the two older men, in “ Folkehøjskolens melodibog” (1922), and introduced it into singing practice in their capacity as teachers of folk-music and choir leaders. Naturally enough, it was the Grundtvigians in the Church and in the Folk High-Schools who, thanks to Aagaard’s tireless mediation, first appreciated the great gift and paid the price for receiving it: the abandonment of the romantic Church melodies of their childhood. And later it was Ring's contribution, through his equally tireless activity as speaker, editor and musician, to pass the new melodies farther on to our schools and youth associations and therewith to the whole Danish people.

It was not vouchsafed to the great poet, who was unmusical and yet had the rare gift for song-writing, to have an equally great and like-minded musician by his side. The texts of his songs encountered first the happy chaos of the singing in Vartov, then the groping, sensitive Romantic Church music, and finally Laub’s work of reform which, as far as we can see, has for the first time united them with the musical greatness and depth which they deserve. We will preserve both the amusing and the noble memories of this hymnsinging, and believe that their distance in time does not separate Laub and Grundtvig — for they have both borne witness that the song of the Church is always one.