Haunting and thumping
Sir: Hymn-banners and hymn-mourners alike put all their emphasis on the words (A.N. Wilson, 25 June). They ought also to celebrate the tunes. Some are dull as ditch- water of course. But a good poignant haunting thumping foursquare hymn tune is something wonderful, a talisman in the memory, about as much to do with the words as the melody of `Greensleeves'. You get the best, of course, where words and music are matched. They are folksongs and shouldn't be tampered with. Someone lucky enough to have had them imprinted in memory from his or her first two decades, the most potent for aural memory, has a treasure that has nothing to do with continuing to go to church. I see 'The Son of God Goes Forth to War' has been dumped, and it has a perfectly good tune: at Wellesley College in the 1930s, when war was also a worry, we sang other quite adequate words to it on the theme of `Prince of Peace', so as not to lose the tune. Yet warlike hymns can be perfectly marvellous, life in this world being what it is and ever will be — surely they won't ban `Onward Christian Soldiers'? A choir sweeping down the aisle singing 'We march, we march to victory/ With the Cross of the Lord before us/ With his loving eye looking down from the sky/ And his HO-O-OLY arm spread o'er us' needn't suffer from a sense of the ridiculous. What today's messers-up of hymns lack is musical sense. Hymns are for singing.
Priscilla Metcalf
37 Gainsborough House, Erasmus Street, London SW1
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