Hardy Miscellany

Volume I, 1997

     Psalming in Mellstock (essay with music) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .John A. Gould
     A Simplified Mayor of Casterbridge (A Man of Character) (poem) . . . Willie Glass
     "Thomas Hardy - Man of Wessex" (video review) . . . . . . . . . . . . Paul Kalkstein
     "She -- At His Funeral" (song) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mango

Psalming in Mellstock

  Afternoon Service in Mellstock
      (Circa 1850)
On afternoons of drowsy calm
   We stood in the panelled pew,
Singing one-voiced a Tate-and-Brady psalm
   To the tune of 'Cambridge New'.
We watched the elms, we watched the rooks,
   The clouds upon the breeze,
Between the whiles of glancing at our books,
   And swaying like the trees.
So mindless were those outpourings! --
   Though I am not aware
That I have gained by subtle thought on things
   Since we stood psalming there.

"Afternoon Service at Mellstock" is a celebration of a practice so far removed from us now that most of us have never heard of it: "psalming," the singing of metrical arrangements of psalms to various sacred tunes. As a church musician, Hardy was proficient at the practice, and the poem above doubtless recalls an actual event: a drowsy summer Sunday afternoon at Evensong, with the Mellstock Quire singing its psalm in the warm tranquility of St. Michael's Church in Stinsford (left).

     In church services today, hymns and their tunes are fixed, either by authorial intent or by custom. "Ein Feste Burg" is the invariable setting for "A Mighty Fortress is Our God," because Martin Luther wrote both words and music. On the other hand, Isaac Watt's venerable "Before Jehovah's Awful Throne," a paraphrase of Psalm 100, was given in England a setting called "Old 100th" (what else?); but when Watt's words crossed the Atlantic, they were set in the Episcopal Hymnal to a different tune, "Winchester, New," Meanwhile "Old 100th" became and in America has invariably remained the ubiquitious setting for "The Doxology." There are even doorbells that chime it: "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow...."

     In fact hymnals per se, which present both words and music together, are comparatively recent inventions. Hymns Ancient and Modern was first published in 1860, 20 years after Hardy's birth. The words sung during the services of the Mellstock Quire's days were contained instead right there -- without music -- in the Book of Common Prayer. In 1692 Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady published their New Version of the Psalms, a collection of the psalms set in rhyme and meter (generally "common meter," alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and trimeter). Hardy's prayer book contained the all the Tate and Brady psalms, and his notations therein often indicate to which tune he sang a particular psalm.

     For there was no general agreement as to which tune belonged with which psalm. Particular favorites became the custom of particular congregations, but even so church musicians could conjoin various words and music ad lib. Michael Henchard shows us an example of this process in The Mayor of Casterbridge, when he asks the quire, reclining at post-service ease in the Three Mariners, to perform "His Seed Shall Orphans Be," Psalm 129, to the tune of "Wiltshire" as a curse upon the wedding of Farfrae and Lucetta. This was surely not a usual performance number, but the quire is quite equal to the task, much to its subsequent distress when it learns to whom the dreadful words are addressed. Here is Henchard's evil psalm:

To view a larger copy of the music, click on it. (153K)
To hear the music, click below.

Apple Macintosh Format (AIFF) Windows/ PC Format (WAV)

  Wiltshire   (0:28 sec., 620K)
    performed by the Two-by-Fours   Wiltshire   (0:28 sec., 303K)
    performed by the Two-by-Fours

There were many well-known hymn tunes for psalming. Hardy sometimes mentions one or another in his poetry: Mt. Ephraim, in "The Choirmaster's Burial," or, as we have seen above, "Cambridge New." Nineteenth-century composers were busily creating more; in the 1830's Vincent Novello, London organist and father of the music publisher J. Alfred Novello, published five volumes of hymn-tunes titled The Psalmist. But Hardy tended to enjoy the old tunes he had learned as a child.

In a seminar he presented at the 1996 Thomas Hardy Society Conference, Peter Coxon of St. Andrew's University mentioned that in Hardy's own book of hymn music, "Psalm 78" is written next to "Cambridge New." Psalm 78, "Hear, O My People! To My Law," addresses the necessity of attending to God's commandments, and it takes 72 stanzas in doing so. Asked whether such length might explain the "mindless" nature of the "outpourings," Peter noted that only the first few verses were sung. In the interest of averting mindlessness, here is only the first verse:

Hear, O my people! to my law
  Devout attention lend!
Let the instruction of my mouth,
  Deep in your hearts descend.

     "Cambridge New" does not seem to have crossed the Atlantic, but Peter was able to supply a copy from an old Methodist hymnal. So here is the music as Hardy might have seen it, although the poem does make the point of singing it "one-voiced," i.e., without harmony (which is how it is performed here). This point is interesting, for the music, with the repeats of the last line going from unison bass to three-part SAB to all four parts, seems to beg for a four-voiced arrangement.

To view a larger copy of the music, click on it. (102K)
To hear the music, click below.

  Apple Macintosh Format (AIFF) Windows/ PC Format (WAV)

  Cambridge New  (0:36 sec., 816 K)
    performed by The Ungrateful Dead   Cambridge New  (0:36 sec., 413 K)
    performed by The Ungrateful Dead

One final point of interest -- even controversy -- about "Afternoon Service at Mellstock": James Gibson, editor of The Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy and former Chairman of the Thomas Hardy Society, reports in the February 1997 issue of the Thomas Hardy Journal that he attempted to have this poem placed on a "Hardy Information Board" outside St. Michael's Church. However, church officials decided that the third stanza "was not acceptable in that it was a subtle criticism of the Church's teaching. I argued at length against this, pointing out that it could be regarded as a compliment rather than an insult -- but I was over-ruled and censorship had its way."

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Simplified Mayor of Casterbridge (A Man of Character)

sell wife-
bad life.

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Thomas Hardy - Man of Wessex
A Wessex Video Production

A Review

     This 36-minute videotape, filmed and produced in 1994 by Ray Cooper and Jonathan Eckardt, is a rich introduction to the life and works of Thomas Hardy. From the lush green Dorset landscapes at the opening, through presentations of the heath of The Return of the Native, to a calf auction in Dorset, to shots of the austerity and power of the Cornwall coast, the video recreates Hardy's settings alluringly. Although the 1990's intrude into certain of the shots, a surprising number of scenes are without modern contrivances, and allow one to see the villages and countryside as it might have looked 100 years ago.

     The narration by Gerald Pitman, himself "a man of Wessex," is clear and helpful. Pitman reads mostly from Hardy's poetry, with here and there an excerpt from a novel, to punctuate the biographical narrative. Ten of the novels are touched upon. Supplementing the moving video, the director pans some close-up stills and makes effective use of portraits and statues to recreate the personalities mentioned in the narration. The background is enhanced by country songs and dances played by Tranters Folly, a Dorset band that features a lively accordion.

     The tape is accompanied by an educational guide preparted by W. Eugene Davis of Purdue University. One can pleasantly learn a great deal about Hardy's life and works in a short time from Thomas Hardy - Man of Wessex. At least one viewer was moved to begin The Mayor of Casterbridge after seeing the film's Dorchester street and country scenes.

--Paul Kalkstein © 1997



  Above is a clip from Thomas Hardy - Man of Wessex, (1.2 MB) It shows Beeny Cliff, in Cornwall, an important setting for A Pair of Blue Eyes. Hardy recalls Emma riding there in "Beeny Cliff," a couplet from which is quoted in the clip. Click on the photo to view the clip.
Viewers interested in obtaining the video should write to the Miscellany for information.

Movie clip is in QuickTime format.
If you do not have QuickTime soft-
ware, you may download it by
clicking on the icon below.


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"She -- At His Funeral"

The poem with Hardy's sketch of St. Michael's Church, Stinsford, appeared in Wessex Poems in 1898. The musical setting is "Penshurst," by Vincent Novello, published in The Psalmist in 1835.

Click on the title below to hear the song:

WAV Format

  She -- At His Funeral  (0:66 sec., 714K)
  performed by Mango, Margaret Bell, solo

-- Mango © 1995

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Last Update: 3/22/01

Apple Macintosh Format (AIFF)	Windows/ PC Format (WAV)
Wiltshire (0:28 sec., 620K) performed by the Two-by-Fours	Wiltshire (0:28 sec., 303K) performed by the Two-by-Fours

Apple Macintosh Format (AIFF)	Windows/ PC Format (WAV)
Cambridge New (0:36 sec., 816 K) performed by The Ungrateful Dead	Cambridge New (0:36 sec., 413 K) performed by The Ungrateful Dead