There are roughly forty hymns in Christian Worship (2021) that were retuned—same text as before, sung to a different melody. It can be one of the more jarring realizations that comes along when a new hymnal is published and put to use: “That hymn certainly doesn’t sound like it used to.” When people in our churches come across these changes, there can easily be a broad range of reactions, from “That’s more like it! That’s how we always sang that hymn” to “Why in all the world did they change that one!” As with most everything across the Christian Worship suite of products, the retuning of these forty hymns was the result of extensive research and several levels of review by multiple committees.

One main item that led to the retuning decisions was usage statistics. From both WELS and LCMS congregations, a host of usage statistics was available to gauge how frequently each hymn in the previous hymnal and supplement was being sung. Infrequent usage, of itself, was never the sole determining factor for inclusion or exclusion of a hymn. That’s actually where retuning comes in. If a fine text is not being sung and its music is playing a big role in its unpopularity, setting the text to a different tune is a way of preserving a text we want people to keep singing.

The other main consideration for retuning a hymn was the history of the pairing of text and tune (often referenced by the marriage analogy of “a tune that has been wedded to a text”). Had we retuned “Crown Him with Many Crowns,” replacing George Elvey’s majestic tune DIADEMATA with Fernando Ortega’s retuning of that text, the negative outcry would have been loud and justified. Once in a while, I might enjoy hearing that text to a different tune, but a retuning like that is not at all what we were looking to do in CW21. The marriage of the Matthew Bridges text and Elvey’s DIADEMATA tune is just too strong and retuning was never considered.

Especially in the area of pairing texts and tunes, the database at hymnary.org was a tremendous asset. Its cataloguing of thousands of hymnals allows the researcher to see in how many hymnals each hymn has been published, as well as all of the different text and tune pairings that have appeared across recent centuries. Some of those statistics will be shared below.

Finally, by way of introduction, the hymnal committees were certainly sensitive to familiarity of text and tune pairings within our own church body. “We’ve always sung it that way” is not a guarantee that any particular hymn is best sung that way, but in a hymnal with a total of 683 hymns, the overall percentage of retuning came out to roughly 5%, a percentage that we believe was very respectful of the other 95% of text/tune pairings that remained unaltered.

What follows are examples of specific rationale for the retuning that was done in CW21. Readers who want to dive in and explore the examples might best have available a copy of both CW93 and CW21, and perhaps The Lutheran Hymnal (1941) as well (TLH).

Analysis of Tune Usage

Low usage/various reasons: Time passes and some hymns are simply no longer sung. Reasons vary. In the first Lutheran hymnal (Achtliederbuch, 1524), Martin Luther paraphrased Psalm 12 in a hymn entitled, “O Lord, Look Down from Heaven, Behold.” Almost from its inception, two tunes were used. CW93—205 used a tune written specifically for this text, but in our day, that pairing has not seen much use. The other utilitarian hymn tune, published in Achtliederbuch for Luther’s Psalm 12 text, is ES IST DAS HEIL (“Salvation unto Us Has Come”). The tune is still in common use and CW21—865 pairs it (once again) with Luther’s text. Similarly, Paul Gerhardt’s wonderful text at CW93—253, “I Will Sing My Maker’s Praises,” saw extremely low usage, though its tune (SOLLT ICH MEINEM GOTT NICHT SINGEN) was composed by musical giant Johann Schop (who also wrote the tune that spawned Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”). That same Gerhardt text had a history of being sung to many different tunes, including the tune to which we sing “Let Us Ever Walk with Jesus” (LASSET UNS MIT JESU ZIEHEN). That much more familiar tune was chosen to carry the retranslated Gerhardt text at CW21—611.

Low to non-existent usage in the broader Christian church: The Lenten hymn “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood” (CW93—112) made use of a tune (COWPER) by the popular composer Lowell Mason. While quite familiar in our Lutheran church, the vast majority of Christian churches in our day sing this hymn to the early American tune CLEANSING FOUNTAIN, as it now appears at CW21—401. An additional factor in a retuning such as this is the fact that people are still writing new arrangements of the CLEANSING FOUNTAIN tune, as seen in this performance by Shane & Shane.

Usage in other Lutheran hymnals past and present: Users of TLH50 had a choice when it came to the closing hymn, “Lord, Dismiss Us with Thy Blessing.” Two tunes were printed in the hymnal: REGENT SQUARE and NEW ULM. CW93—329 had the NEW ULM tune. CW21—927 makes use of the REGENT SQUARE tune. The decision was based on past WELS usage, a number of specific requests to return to this tune, and the fact that this is the tune in the LCMS’ most recent hymnal. Similarly, the classic Charles Wesley text “Jesus, Lover of My Soul,” published in a staggering 3,245 hymnals, appeared in TLH345 with the tune MARTYN, in CW93—357 with the tune ABERYSTWYTH, and was returned to the MARTYN tune at CW21—533. While both tunes carry the text equally well (but with a noticeably different mood), hymnary.org showed use of the MARTYN tune outpacing ABERYSTWYTH significantly, with appearances in 717 hymnals for the former and 133 for the latter (chart immediately below).

ABERYSTWYTH falls under the category “Other.”

Usage most common in the broader Christian church: This particular criterion is one of the more significant considerations among the forty retuned hymns in CW21. The song of our Savior’s church is sung by the church catholic. Among the forty hymns retuned in CW21, several are much more commonly sung to tunes other than those with which they were paired in CW93. Both in terms of non-Lutheran new members joining our congregations and music literature published for certain tunes, we did in several cases wish to align ourselves with the broader Christian church. The tune AZMON is ubiquitously the tune of choice for “Oh, for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” (CW21—520). I probably can’t express the debt of gratitude we owe Bernhard Schumacher, the Lutheran school teacher who composed all of the settings (harmony, not melody) of all of the hymns in TLH. He also wrote the TLH427 tune for “How Firm a Foundation.” And yet that text/tune pairing appears only in TLH and CW93. Practically all of English-speaking Christendom sings that text to the tune FOUNDATION, as it appeared in CWS2008—768 and now appears in CW21—800.

Also in this category are hymns such as “Jesus Shall Reign, Where’er the Sun,” set in CW21—380 to DUKE STREET (“I Know That My Redeemer Lives”) rather than TRURO (CW93—84), with hymnary.org listing 453 occurrences of the former and 21 of the latter. Perhaps surprising to many, the Epiphany hymn “Songs of Thankfulness and Praise,” sung in CW93—82 to the tune ST. GEORGE’S, WINDSOR (“Come, Ye Thankful People, Come”) is much more commonly set to the classic tune SALZBURG (CW21—386) across most recent hymnals. Published in 34 hymnals since 1978, 26/34 hymnals use the SALZBURG tune (which is closely tied to Bach’s ALLE MENSCHEN MÜSSEN STERBEN, TLH 601, but that is a story for another day). CW21—620, “O Worship the King,” moved away from the CW93—HANOVER tune to the CW21—620 tune LYONS, which is the more published text/tune pairing by a factor of four (see chart below).

Analysis of Text/Tune Marriage

Hymn texts and tunes long married are most often best left that way. In any number of cases, the wedding of text and tune has not necessarily been original or longstanding. The tune VATER UNSER was utilized six times across TLH. Of course, its original marriage is untouchable, with text and tune both by Dr. Luther for his versification of the Lord’s Prayer. Some may disagree, but that somewhat austere tune doesn’t seem the best fit for the Gerhardt text, “Jesus, Your Boundless Love to Me,” the text/tune pairing of both TLH349 and CW93—479. With a nod to the pairing in the LCMS hymnal Lutheran Service Book, CW21—714 uses the tune RYBURN, with the thinking that this text/tune pairing is more felicitous than that of the past and the tune will see more arrangements in the future.

Revert to historic text/tune pairing: VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN (“All Glory, Laud, and Honor”) is one of several tunes in TLH that was used seven times. In both TLH and CW93, the Paul Gerhardt Advent text “O Lord, How Shall I Meet You” was paired with both VALET and its original tune WIE SOLL ICH DICH EMPFANGEN. CW21—324 let go of the VALET tune, so that the Gerhardt text might be sung only to its original Johann Crüger tune. Similarly, Martin Opitz’s Epiphany hymn “Arise and Shine in Splendor” (CW93—81), appearing throughout the twentieth century only in Lutheran hymnals, was returned to the tune O WELT ICH MUSS DICH LASSEN, aka INNSBRUCK (CW21—375). Not all such historic pairings of text and tune last forever, but a comprehensive review of all the pairings in CW21 resulted in these decisions.

Begin a new and hopefully better marriage: With a paucity of Holy Thursday hymns available, there was a desire to preserve Isaac Watts’ text “’Twas on That Dark, That Doleful Night,” set in CW93—136 to the tune ST. CROSS, as in TLH164. Of various other hymnals that have carried that text (none recent), tune selection was all over the map. With the way that it calls to mind its native text (“When in the Hour of Utmost Need), WENN WIR IN HÖCHSTEN NÖTEN SEIN was seen as a fitting choice. In CW93—326, stanzas by two authors were combined into a three stanza Close of Service hymn (“May the Grace of Christ Our Savior”). Dropping the third stanza, combining the two John Newton stanzas into one, and setting the hymn to the familiar BEACH SPRING tune was thought to be a good, single stanza Close of Service hymn.

Explore a tune new to us: While the marriage of the tune CORONAE with the text “Look Ye Saints, the Sight Is Glorious” (TLH222; CW93—216) has been the leading pairing in hymnals where it has been published, neither the text nor the tune are all that common in the broader Christian church. Lutheran composer Kenneth Kosche’s tune GLORIOUS VISION (CW21—473) is worth learning and using for the Ascension of Our Lord. It also has available a full choral setting. The 20th century text “Christ Is the World’s Light” (CW93—343) was obviously not an original pairing with the 17th Century tune CHRISTE SANCTORUM, best known in WELS by its CW93 pairing with “Father We Praise You” as the opening hymn for Matins. The tune NANDINA HILL (CW21—515) by respected composer K. Lee Scott was chosen to broaden our musical horizons a bit with a pleasant and singable tune (also available in a choral setting). There was similar thinking in setting the Isaac Watts text “Jesus My Great High Priest” (CW93—359) to a tune other than BEVAN, which is in very few recent hymnals. CW21—538 sets this text to the tune ST. PETER’S, MANCHESTER. With four appearances in TLH and two in CW93, the tune ICH SINGE DIR is one that does not appear in CW21. To carry another Paul Gerhardt text, “Rejoice My Heart Be Glad and Sing” (CW21—827), the tune GRATUS, published in thirteen very recent hymnals, was chosen as a melody that matches the joy of the text.

Related items: Since a hymnal supplement is less permanent than a hymnal, some of its hymns are like test balloons, published to see how they will go over. Eleven hymns in Christian Worship: Supplement (2008) had been retuned when they arrived in CW21.

Additionally, CW21 includes fourteen hymn texts that have two tunes. Two such hymns can serve as examples of respecting both 1) familiarity with a text/tune pairing of long standing in our Lutheran church, and 2) aligning ourselves with text/tune pairings of the broader Christian church. “Take My Life and Let It Be” (CW93—469), sung to the tune PATMOS, had unanimous support for inclusion in CW21 and high usage ratings. In the broader Christian church, that text is sung to the tune HENDON, which, by statistical appearance in hymnals, outpaces PATMOS by an 8:1 ratio. The hymn now appears with both tunes (CW 21—695/696). Long-time Lutherans might hardly be able to imagine singing “My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less” (TLH370; CW93—382) to any tune other than MAGDALEN. Step outside Lutheranism, however, and for more than a century the overwhelming majority of Christian churches have sung this text to the tune SOLID ROCK. For this hymn text, hymnary.org shows the following published hymnals count by tune: SOLID ROCK (452); MELITA, the tune for “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” (11); ST. CATHERINE, the tune for “Faith of Our Fathers” (9); MAGDALEN (7).

Conclusion: All of the hymns in CW21 were treated on a case by case basis. Not all of the forty retuned hymns fall neatly under the italicized subtitles above. A good number of them were retuned for more than one reason. The complete list appears at this link.

This article in Devote Yourself was contributed by the team that previously created and distributed Worship the Lord. View past worship-related articles at worship.welsrc.net/downloads-worship/worship-the-lord.