The Story of the Hymns and Tunes | Page 5

he saw and appreciated
the popular effect of musical sounds, and what an evangelical
instrument a chorus of chanting voices could be in preaching the
Christian faith; and he introduced the responsive singing of psalms and
sacred cantos in the worship of the church. "A grand thing is that
singing, and nothing can stand before it," he said, when the critics of
his time complained that his innovation was sensational. That such a
charge could be made against the Ambrosian mode of music, with its
slow movement and unmetrical lines, seems strange to us, but it was
new--and conservatism is the same in all ages.
The great bishop carried all before him. His school of song-worship
prevailed in Christian Europe more than two hundred years. Most of his
hymns are lost, (the Benedictine writers credit him with twelve), but,
judging by their effect on the powerful mind of Augustine, their
influence among the common people must have been profound, and far
more lasting than the author's life. "Their voices sank into mine ears,
and their truths distilled into my heart," wrote Augustine, long
afterwards, of these hymns; "tears ran down, and I rejoiced in them."
Poetic tradition has dramatized the story of the birth of the "Te Deum,"
dating it on an Easter Sunday, and dividing the honor of its
composition between Ambrose and his most eminent convert. It was
the day when the bishop baptized Augustine, in the presence of a vast
throng that crowded the Basilica of Milan. As if foreseeing with a
prophet's eye that his brilliant candidate would become one of the
ruling stars of Christendom, Ambrose lifted his hands to heaven and
chanted in a holy rapture,--

We praise Thee, O God! We acknowledge Thee to be the Lord; All the
Earth doth worship Thee, the Father Everlasting.
He paused, and from the lips of the baptized disciple came the
response,--
To Thee all the angels cry aloud: the heavens and all the powers therein.
To Thee cherubim and seraphim continually do cry, "Holy, holy, holy
Lord God of Sabaoth; Heaven and Earth are full of the majesty of Thy
glory!"
and so, stave by stave, in alternating strains, sprang that day from the
inspired lips of Ambrose and Augustine the "Te Deum Laudamus,"
which has ever since been the standard anthem of Christian praise.
Whatever the foundation of the story, we may at least suppose the first
public singing[3] of the great chant to have been associated with that
eventful baptism.
[Footnote 3: The "Te Deum" was first sung in English by the martyr,
Bishop Ridley, at Hearne Church, where he was at one time vicar.]
The various anthems, sentences and motets in all Christian languages
bearing the titles "Trisagion" or "Tersanctus," and "Te Deum" are taken
from portions of this royal hymn. The sublime and beautiful "Holy,
Holy, Holy" of Bishop Heber was suggested by it.
THE TUNE.
No echo remains, so far as is known, of the responsive chant actually
sung by Ambrose, but one of the best modern choral renderings of the
"Te Deum" is the one by Henry Smart in his Morning and Evening
Service. In an ordinary church hymnal it occupies seven pages. The
staff-directions with the music indicate the part or cue of the antiphonal
singers by the words Decani (Dec.) and Cantor (Can.), meaning first
the division of the choir on the Dean's side, and second the division on
the Cantor's or Precentor's side.

Henry Smart was one of the five great English composers that followed
our American Mason. He was born in London, Oct. 25, 1812, and
chose music for a profession in preference to an offered commission in
the East Indian army. His talent as a composer, especially of sacred
music, was marvellous, and, though he became blind, his loss of sight
was no more hindrance to his genius than loss of hearing to Beethoven.
No composer of his time equalled Henry Smart as a writer of music for
female voices. His cantatas have been greatly admired, and his hymn
tunes are unsurpassed for their purity and sweetness, while his anthems,
his oratorio of "Jacob," and indeed all that he wrote, show the hand and
the inventive gift of a great musical artist.
He died July 10, 1879, universally mourned for his inspired work, and
his amiable character.
"ALL GLORY, LAUD AND HONOR." Gloria, Laus et Honor.
This stately Latin hymn of the early part of the 9th century was
composed in A.D. 820, by Theodulph, Bishop of Orleans, while a
captive in the cloister of Anjou. King Louis (le Debonnaire) son of
Charlemagne, had trouble with his royal relatives, and suspecting
Theodulph to be in sympathy with them, shut him up in prison. A
pretty story told by Clichtovius, an old church writer of A.D. 1518,