Singing to end wars

Music has long been used to inspire and encourage. Chapter 20 of II Chronicles recounts the story of an unprovoked attack on the southern kingdom of Judah by several neighbouring countries. The good King Jehoshaphat of Judah famously tells his people (verse 15): 

"Don't be afraid. Don't be paralyzed by this mighty army. For the battle is not yours, but God's" (The Living Bible).

Furthermore, he enlists a choir to lead the march! And it was at this point that the enemy began fighting each other and that was the end of the war.

I do wonder what sort of music the choir sang. Possibly a hymn?

Shortly after reading this story this morning, I tuned into ABC Classic FM radio and was delighted to hear a program about hymns. A quick Google search offers the following definition of what a hymn is: 

HYMN. (from Greek hymnos, "song of praise"), strictly a song used in Christian worship usually sung by the congregation and characteristically having a metrical, strophic (stanzaic) nonbiblical text.

While I tuned in, the radio program included Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi's Mass Gloria (probably written 1715) and Finnish composer Jean Sibelius' Finlandia (1899) - both the hymn and the tone poem from which the hymn has been extracted. 

First performed in July 1900, Finlandia served as a protest against Russian encroachment on the autonomy of Finland.

Writing on the blog site Interlude in 2022, Dr. Georg Predota has this to say about the symphonic tone poem from which the hymn is taken:

For Sibelius, Finlandia was “the song of our battle, our hymn of victory.” From the very beginning, Finlandia proved hugely popular, and the magnificent closing hymn tune became an international hit. Often incorrectly cited as a traditional folk melody, the hymn actually sprang from the composer’s mind. It was sung around the world with such words as “Be Still My Soul,” “At the Table,” “Land of the Pine,” and “Our Farewell Song.” The composer had mixed feelings about these versions: “It is not intended to be sung… It is written for an orchestra. But if the world wants to sing it, it can’t be helped.”

Well, we do want to sing it! And the 2017 Christian Science hymnal gives us two versions of the glorious tune.

The first is hymn 469, "Eternal God, the Cause of All Creation", where we sing words (adapted) by Oak E. Davis. This hymn is in F major and could conceivably work well for four-part harmony.

The second setting is hymn 561, "Our heavenly Father-Mother Love abiding", with words by Richard D. Row (altered), paraphrasing Matthew 6:9-13, which is of course the Lord's Prayer. This hymn is in the slightly lower key of E flat major and has a slightly more active accompaniment, above which the melody soars. 

My preference is for the first setting - somehow the long dotted minims held over the bar line to the crochet in the next bar provide a sense of both stillness and movement which results in an anticipation that stirs the heart. 

I’m now thinking about the joy of congregational singing and its potential to end wars!

Julie Swannell