High in regal glory - why "display title"?

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Haruo's picture

The instance authority for "Hark! the voice eternal" in the 1940 Episcopal Hymnal for some reason lists "High in regal glory" as the beginning of the refrain. I think of the refrain as a portion repeated verbatim in each stanza, with at most a change in the final stanza. But this hymn only has it verbatim in the first and last stanzas, while each of the other four stanzas has a slightly different text. I don't think I would both calling it a refrain, though I can see how you might. HPEC1940 does not so label it. But what really got my goat here was that they listed this as the Display Title, too. The Display Title really shouldn't be anything other than the first line, in a hymnal like HPEC1940 where the hymns aren't given "titles". The effect is to really mess up the user's understanding of the tune, PRINCE RUPERT. At least, that's effect it had on me just now.


Comments

The Display Title is a sytem generated title for when a hymn does not have a title entered. The Display Title defaults to the first line of the hymn except when there is a refrain, the the default is the first line of the refrain. This is because the titles of hymns with refrains typically are the first line of the refrain and because the refrain is often more memorable than the first line. This particular hymn is one of the exceptions. HPEC1940 does not designate a refrain, probably because it differs with each verse; however, it does give the meter as "6.5.6.5. D with refrain" - so the refrain would begin "High in regal glory." Display Titles do not display on the tune pages and you can turn off the column on the text pages.