I Love the Lord, He Heard My Cry

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Thu, 02/09/2012 - 14:32 — dzechman

We use the 1990 Presbyterian Hymnal which only includes 2 verses which I believe is too few for just about any hymn; so incomplete. :) Watts wrote 12 for his paraphrase of Psalm 116--Part 1, 1-6 and part 2, 1-6.
http://www.cgmusic.org/workshop/watts_frame.htm
Any suggestions for a better, more chronologically appropriate tune to sing Watts' text?
Also, does anyone know what text was originally sung to that apparently anonymous Spiritual tune?

It appears the other hymnals listed here at hymnary.org all use the same Spiritual tune. Did Smallwood (the harmonizer/arranger of the spiritual) join the two and why have so many hymnals repeated this?

Note: The African American Heritage Hymnal (#395) credits Smallwood as the author AND the composer--WRONG on BOTH counts. Poor editorial research by the AAHH or do they use a completely different text and a completely different tune? The text is not listed and the scan of hymnal page is not available (copyright) so I can't tell since I don't have that hymnal in my collection.

Thanks! I love digging into the origins of the music and the poetry.
David Zechman, Music Director, First Presbyterian Church of Alameda


Comments

Mon, 02/13/2012 - 15:13 — hutcheson

In my copy of "Lift Every Voice and Sing II"(*), the text is listed as "traditional", and the music as "traditional, arr. Smallwood".

Googling around, I see Smallwood is a professional performer, not a hymnwriter or hymnologist. And for those folk, attribution is different. On the typical big-entertainment-company recording contract, a tiny fraction of the cost of the CD goes to the performer, a much larger (i.e. only a small amount) goes to the songwriter. Looking at CD sales, it makes a big difference to the performer's income to claim to have been the songwriter also. I suspect the AAHH copied the attribution from s songbook published by Smallwood, where it was intended to support the royalty stream.

(*) Supplement to "Episcopal Hymnal 1981"

Thu, 02/16/2012 - 12:49 — cfenner

1. For historic tunes set to Watts' texts, you should consult the Hymn Tune Index, which lists every tune setting of Watts (and others) up to 1820. The text code for "I love the Lord" is ILTLHH1; 22 settings as early as 1775. If you need help getting a copy of any of those tunes, add another post here and one of us can help you with that, I'm sure.

2. I've never heard that tune sung to anything other than Smallwood's arrangement. Assuming that this is in fact an adaptation of a spiritual, there isn't a great way to go about finding the answer. Some possibilities:

(A) Eileen Southern and Josephine Wright's African-American Traditions in Song (1990) lists every known spiritual published up thru 1920; "I love the Lord" is not listed there, and the book doesn't deal with tunes. If the tune was published prior to Smallwood, you would have to go digging for it. Your best options would be a Fisk collection or Hampton collection, but many others are listed in the book above.

(B) Contact an editor of Lift Every Voice and Sing II or Hymns for Worship (Faith Alive, 2010) and see if they have any insight into the tune, since they both list the source as a spiritual.

(C) Contact Richard Smallwood. Really, if you could get a response from him, he could probably tell you how he learned the tune (or if he really did compose it himself). If he learned it to a different text, then you could work backward using Southern/Wright to find an old printing.

If you succeed at A, B, or C, please let us know so the proper attribution can be more widely known.

Thanks,

Chris Fenner

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