THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 5, 1996 TAG: 9607050242
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: 55 lines
Revising the United Methodist hymnal, a committee threw out ``Onward Christian Soldiers'' but then turned around and kept it.
Why did the committee members change their minds?
``Well, they got 11,000 letters and all but about 40 favored keeping it in the hymnal,'' said the Rev. Carlton R. Young, the hymnal's editor.
Professor emeritus of sacred music of Emory University, Young will speak Tuesday during the weeklong Church Music Summer Conference sponsored by the Center for Sacred Music of Virginia Wesleyan College.
Word of the committee's intention to junk the old hymn broke on Memorial Day in 1986 and stirred a storm of protests to which the committee members bowed.
Being a conservative, I opposed their giving up ANY old ones although ``Onward Christian Soldiers'' has a monotonous tramp-tramp-tramp to it. It slogs along. It doesn't swing out. Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan wrote it.
``He was at his worst when writing hymn tunes,'' Young said. ``His best writing was for the theater.''
I wish they had kept ``Eternal Father, Strong to Save,'' the mournful dirge that resonated through John Kennedy's funeral. The Navy loves that hymn catching the slow heave of the sea. But people were waxing so wroth over the temporary leave of absence of Christian Soldiers they didn't notice, apparently, that the committee had thrown overboard the Navy's favorite.
``I regret it's not there,'' Young said. ``In all committee action there are certain inconsistencies.''
People should be tolerant of each other's claims of the music they love, he said. Sometimes the academically trained think if music is popular there must be something wrong with it. They tend to put a higher priority on the complex rather than on simple forms.
There are 9 million Methodists - a sobering thought. Sales of the hymnal topped 5 million, a remarkable endorsement. At least two to three people use each copy.
The revised hymnal is a rich, invigorating mix of old and new.
The summer conference, sponsored by the college's Center for Sacred Music, will begin Sunday at 4 p.m. with an organ concert by Dudley Oakes at Norfolk's First Presbyterian Church.
Young will preach Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at Virginia Beach United Methodist Church, 19th Street and Pacific Avenue. Anton Armstrong, director of St. Olaf Choir, will conduct a 90-voice choir of local singers presenting the college's newly commissioned work by Norfolk's Don McCullough.
Friday at 7:30 p.m., a Children's Festival Workshop Service at Kempsville Presbyterian Church will feature a 50-voice choir of children led by Helen Kemp. College chaplain Scott Davis will preach. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Professor emeritus of sacred music of Emory University, the Rev.
Carlton R. Young, wil speak Tuesday in Virginia Beach during a
weeklong Church Music Summer Conference. by CNB