Music and Worship: Two Good Tunes Compared

Let’s now look more closely at Dykes’s tune ‘Gerontius’ and compare it with something from a different tradition – Chris Bowater’s ‘Jesus shall take the highest honour’.

Dykes wrote his tune for a choir in four-part harmony (sopranos, altos, tenors and basses) plus congregation in unison, with organ doubling what the choir sings. In Bowater’s piece everyone sings in unison, and the accompaniment can be adapted for organ, piano, guitars, or whoever or whatever is available.

But the biggest difference is that Dykes composed ‘Gerontius’ for words already in existence, while Bowater wrote both words and music himself. Dykes provides the same music (14 bars long) for all seven verses of Newman’s hymn. This is convenient for the congregation – but there’s a risk that a tune which sets verse 1 excellently won’t set all the other verses quite so effectively. For example, in verse 1 Dykes puts the highest note of the melody on ‘height’ and the lowest on ‘depths’. What happens at the corresponding points in verses 2 and 6?

Bowater’s song has 28 bars of music which provide a setting for all the words. You can sing these 28 bars once, or can repeat them all a second (or third) time. Whereas each of Dykes’s 14 bars is different (the repetition being from verse to verse), Bowater builds some repetition into his 28 bars. Repetition is fundamental to almost all music – without it we find things rather shapeless. Bowater begins with an eight-bar section, and then, to new words, has a slightly varied repeat. He keeps all the same chords, but bends the tune slightly so that it fits the new words more easily – and also won’t sound too square or predictable. His chorus (the last 12 bars) also contains some repetition, but the climactic moment near the end on ‘Jesus Christ’ comes once only.

Bowater’s tune starts rather narrowly – the first two bars use only four different pitches, all quite low. A disappointing start? After all, Dykes begins with a quite athletic, powerful first four bars, ranging much more widely. Bowater, however, is looking for a gradual build-up which will achieve its goal in the chorus. And his almost meditative opening does already point towards its future growth – listen to how the first three rising notes in the bass part help the music to take off.

Dykes’s harmony is more varied than Bowater’s, with chords changing frequently (in the manner of most traditional hymns). The rhythm is straightforward, and the whole effect is very purposeful, with a no-nonsense confidence typical of much in mid-Victorian Christianity. Bowater is much more ‘laid back’ (typical of much in 1980s Christianity?). His rhythms are often syncopated, with many notes coming off the beat – this, like the luscious opening chord, points clearly to the music’s roots in late twentieth-century popular music.