A
hymn tune is a musical composition to which a hymn text is sung. Some tunes consist of only the
melody, sung in unison or parallel octaves, with or without accompaniment. In other tunes the melody is accompanied by one or more other voice parts, with four voices being the most common.
From the late sixteenth century in England and Scotland, when most people were not musically literate and learned melodies by rote, it was a common practice to sing a new text to a hymn tune the singers already knew which had a suitable meter and character.
The practice of naming hymn tunes developed to help identify a particular tune. The name was chosen by the compiler of the tune book or hymnal or by the composer. The majority of names tend to be from places or churches, often having some sort of connection with the composer; to a lesser extent personal names are occasionally used. Robert_Stewart used his middle name for the hymn tune PRESCOTT, and named other tunes ST. AUDOËN and ST. WERBURGH after churches in Dublin.
In some instances a particular text and tune have an almost mutually exclusive partnership with each other, such as Reginald Heber's text, "Holy, Holy, Holy!" sung to John Bacchus Dykes's tune NICAEA. In other instances a text may be used with a variety of tunes, such as "O for a thousand tongues to sing" sung to any of LYNGHAM (Mission Praise), OXFORD NEW (New English Hymnal), ARDEN (also New English Hymnal), LYDIA (Hymns and Psalms), RICHMOND (Hymns and Psalms) or UNIVERSITY (Hymns and Psalms). In yet other instances a tune may partner several texts, such as DIX for "As with gladness, men of old" and "For the beauty of the earth".
