Vanishing Lutheran Time Signatures

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Fri, 01/25/2013 - 16:37 — al-in-chgo

Can someone tell me why LCMS and ELCA (including predecessor) hymnals, post-World War II, stopping showing time signatures at the beginning of their hymns? Doesn't make sense to me. Is there a lucid reason? I miss them, and not just for tradition's sake but because I find them useful. - al-in-chgo (Chicago)


Comments

Fri, 01/25/2013 - 21:08 — hutcheson

Check out this brief introduction at Smith Creek Music:

http://www.smithcreekmusic.com/Hymnology/Lutheran.Hymnody/Rhythmic_Isorhythmic.html

If the tune's rhythm is irregular, then it doesn't make sense to impose regular measures on it. ("Isorhythmic" is how you describe one of the old irregular-meter tunes after it's been chopped and twisted into regular measures.)

Liemohn briefly expresses himself on the same side of the argument in "The Chorale through Four Hundred Years", http://ia700504.us.archive.org/2/items/TheChoraleThroughFourHundredYears/chorale2.pdf (pg 153-4).

Also http://www.ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/leaverchorale.pdf, p. 123-126, suggesting that the original rhythms contributed to livelier singing in the Missouri Synod.

Whether the isorhythmic forms contributed to slower singing, or when the singing slowed down enough all trace of the rhythm was forgotten, there does seem to be a connection.

But I can see the problem: as a not-particularly-musically-educated song leader, I have struggled with the concept of beating time to songs like "Genevan 42" http://www.hymnary.org/media/fetch/100215 . All the same, I'd hate to lose the lively rhythm just because it was hard to beat time to.

Fri, 01/25/2013 - 22:12 — al-in-chgo

Dear Mr. or Ms. Hutcheson:

Thank you for your thoughtful and quick reply. I enjoy seeing both versions of "Ein' Feste Burg" and think both belong in a Lutheran hymnal especially. Of late, I have learned, I've been botching up my terms: I think I'm safe in believing that "Rhythmic" means in this context "the style of the century in which Martin Luther wrote 'A Mighty Fortress'," but I had assumed the more modern counterpart would be called "Isometric" meaning "same or equal measures." But if "Isorhythmic" is the countervailing term, I am glad to accept that and will reword the term in the couple of Amazon hymnal reviews in which I used them. And indeed, why is it necessary even to show meter bars in the music transcribed as best as possible from Luther's day?

But I was thinking in specific of the complete disappearance of time signatures in all hymns in recent LCMS - ELCA family hymnals. TLH (1941) used them, but LW and LCMS' current LSB do not -- neither do SBH, LBW and ELW (the "cranberry book" of ELCA - 2005). I can figure out that "DUKE STREET" is 4/4, but I really need to know that, say, "Blessed Assurance" is in 9/8, to take a more extreme example. I just don't know why all time signatures disappeared all at once. There are the relative handful you mentioned for which it can be argued that no time signature is a better descripion of now to play. This is almost never the case otherwise, and I just don't know who or what forces conspired to terminate them.

I should note that it isn't "German hymnody" in general. I have the latest Brethren/Mennonite and Moravian hymnals, and they use time signatures. As does the WELS hymnal, CHRISTIAN WORSHIP (1993), if I recall correctly. But the LCMS and (pre-and-including) ELCA families don't. I'm just curious, mainly. There must be a motive or rationale somewhere along the line. The disappearance of all time signatures affects both type-set and computer-processed hymnals, so it isn't a simple shift in publishing technology that occasioned the change.

I got a really quick first response. This looks like a lively forum . . .
Who else out there wants to say something? - al-in-chgo (Chicago)

Sun, 01/27/2013 - 12:57 — al-in-chgo

...So the original question remains; I'll reword it a little:

Why did LCMS and ELCA (including forerunner) hardbound pew hymnals, post-WWII to the present, drop the practice of putting a time signature (4/4, 6/8, etc.) before all their hymns??

Inquiring minds want to know!
Thanks, Al Smalling, Chicago

Mon, 01/28/2013 - 14:58 — hutcheson

At least one of the "companions" to one of those hymnals mentions that they deliberately omitted the time signatures. I don't recall that they mentioned a reason. I'll see if I can find the reference again.

Mon, 01/28/2013 - 16:51 — hplantin

It's becoming stylish among publishers to simplify the presentation of music as much as possible -- presumably, to make scores less intimidating for non-specialists. Dropping time signatures is one way to do that. I've even seen dropped measure lines.

Tue, 01/29/2013 - 11:54 — hutcheson

Had a chance to look at the current Wisconsin Synod Lutheran hymnal (which is IIRC more recent than the Missouri and LCA books). It puts time signatures on the dance tunes, and omit them from the rhythmic chorales--which seems a sensible approach to me.

Tue, 01/29/2013 - 22:45 — al-in-chgo

Thanks for the replies! Well, I'm all for simplicity but I just can't understand musicians saying "4/4! I knew that! How dare they condescend to me!" I do believe time signatures should be absent when they didn't exist to begin with (rhythmic original version of "A Mighty Fortress" and other old tunes), but in general I am all for them. I'd rather have them all than have to judge yea or nay, if I were editor.

How do some of you others feel -- or have you found any further clues? - a.s.

Wed, 01/30/2013 - 02:19 — Haruo

but that's because "they had them when I was in Music"; I'm not much of a musician, and for me they make reading the score easier, not more intimidating, as Harry suggested the publishers think.

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 20:51 — brandtsteph

I am a church pianist at a Lutheran (LCMS) church and I have to figure out the time signature before I learn a new hymn because it isn't written in. It's not difficult for a trained musician. But I also wonder why the signatures were removed in the first place. I think the time signatures are more meaningless than intimidating to regular folks. I don't understand why they would want to make things any harder on the actual musicians. Oh well! Every musician needs to know the time signature (if there is one - not isorhythmic) and the key in which they are playing anyway. I wish I knew the answer! It would make my life easier for sure.

Wed, 09/23/2015 - 07:48 — mykloenz

Canon Press' amazing Cantus Christi (2001) omits time signature on every selection except "Great God of Wonders". The preface states,
"3. There are no time signatures in any of the Psalms or hymns except in one case where the meter changes for the refrain. Otherwise, the meter is obvious or so varied that time signatures only cause confusion."

Fully a quarter of the selections are original-rhythm chorales and Psalm-tunes which time signatures would only confuse (true also of many Lutheran hymnals). Perhaps they omit the others to to be consistent: it looks neater. Doesn't it?

By the way, 'isometric' is the correct term for the flattened rhythm of the Enlightenment, according to Harry Eskew:

“One influence of the rationalistic mindset remains in the chorale melodies of many current American hymnals. This is the tenet that every measure should have an equal number of beats, and that rhythms should be basically equal. This resulted in the development of the isometric (“same meter”) chorale.” Sing With Understanding, 1980, p. 100

Isorhythm is something entirely different.

Michael Owens

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