Review: The Revised English Hymnal
The Canterbury Press (2023) £35
Review by Dr John Kitchen MBE
We have waited a long time for this, but at last it has appeared: the latest version of the English Hymnal. Its publication has been beset by endless delays, but the full music edition was finally published at the end of November 2023, although at the time of writing we still await the melody edition. I believe that the hard-working editors (there was a large editorial board) have done a fine job.
The English Hymnal first appeared in 1906, and its story is well known. The great Percy Dearmer, priest, liturgist and vicar of St Mary’s, Primrose Hill in London, was words editor, and the musical editor was an initially rather reluctant Ralph Vaughan Williams, then in his early thirties. Among several new tunes Vaughan Williams composed specially for this book were the immortal masterpieces Sine nomine (‘For all the saints’) and Down Ampney (‘Come down, O Love divine’); his father was vicar of the parish church in that Gloucestershire village.
After some initial controversy, the English Hymnal soon proved its worth in the early years of the 20th century and gave the then ubiquitous Hymns Ancient and Modern a run for its money. There were reprints with minor changes over the years; and in 1950 a special Hymnal for Scotland ‘authorized for use in the Episcopal Church in Scotland’ appeared, which was substantially the English Hymnal with some extra saints’ days hymns (not very good ones!) for Scotland. I don’t think it ever gained much currency. The original book existed substantially in its 1906 state until 1986 when the New English Hymnal (NEH) appeared, and since then has been widely used in the Church of England and in the Scottish Episcopal Church.
So, how does the new Revised English Hymnal (REH) compare with the previous editions? REH still has the familiar green cover and continues in the best traditions of EH; much of it is the same. However, the editors state that almost a third of the items in REH will be new to users of NEH. Few hymns are missing that I would expect to be there, and there is a generous proportion of new material. Many of these additions are recent classics in wide current use: ‘Christ triumphant ever reigning’, ‘The kingdom of God is justice and joy’ and ‘Lift high the cross’ (oddly not included in NEH) to name but three; and the inspirational tune Coe Fen for ‘How shall I sing that majesty’. Three fine hymns by Bernadette Farrell, both words and music, are included. And we still have Francis Stanfield’s ‘Sweet sacrament divine’ which appeared in NEH (and raised some eyebrows at the time). The book includes nothing which might be described as a worship song; that’s just not the style of the book. However, Patrick Appleford’s rather dated ‘Lord Jesus Christ’, surprisingly included in NEH, is retained.
Like its predecessors, it is very much a ‘liturgical’ book, containing around fifty liturgical items, an increase on NEH. It provides appropriate office hymns for every season of the church year, full provision for Holy Week and Easter, for saints’ days and for special feasts such as Pentecost, Corpus Christi, All Saints and All Souls, for which complete plainchant sequences are included. There are congregational mass settings in different styles, including Anthony Gregory Murray’s A New People’s Mass, as well as the well-established Missa de Angelis and Martin Shaw’s Anglican Folk Mass. A group of ‘contemplative chants’ written by Jacques Berthier for the Taizé community find a place.
One major concern in the last few decades or so has been that of inclusive language, and the REH editors have had to address this. In general, their approach has been conservative. As they state in the preface, ‘We have not amended classic or well-known texts [eg. ‘He who would valiant be’] but in the case of . . . hymns written in the last hundred years or so, small changes have sometimes been made.’ (‘We have a gospel to proclaim, good news for all throughout the earth.’) Significantly, they say, ‘We have not systematically substituted ‘men’ with ‘we’ or ‘us’, as that can suggest non-inclusive language of a different kind.’ ‘Thee’, ‘thou’ and ‘ye’ all appear where you would expect. No doubt some will think they have not changed nearly enough, and others will object to any changes at all. But the editors have done their best in a thorny area where you just can’t please everybody.
Its comprehensiveness makes it rather a thick book (the full music edition); this is true of other recent hymn books such as CH4 and the latest Ancient and Modern. However, I believe that REH is an excellent publication in the best English Hymnal tradition. It also includes a thoughtful and perceptive foreword by Rowan Williams, and many useful indexes and appendices giving guidance in using the rich resources of the book.
Dr John Kitchen MBE is Director of Music at Old St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Edinburgh. He is Edinburgh University and City Organist.