I was planning to have a look at The New Living Parish Hymn Book and in researching that hymnal, came across an interesting article by Veronica Brandt on the history of Australian hymnals currently in use, from which I borrowed this diagram.
I’m sure it’s not meant to comprehensive and it certainly isn’t wholly accurate – AOV was first published 1992, for example and there was the Sing Alleluia supplement to the AH in 1987, between it and TIS. At the time she wrote only AOV and CWB II were still in print, but CWB II is now unavailable and I believe AOV is digital only but I must ask, it may be print on demand.
I can’t agree with her unsubstantiated claim that AOV was only successful because it was cheap. What was actually cheap was staying with older hymnals and using public domain tunes or chant. I would suggest AOV was a success because it filled a need unmet by the institutional Catholic church in Australia, it was well curated by people with a musical sensibility who were prepared to do a mountain of work getting the selections and the style correct with no guarantee it would get them anywhere, and parishes who were prepared to pay for the pew hymnals and sheet music books. As I have commented already here, AOV Vol 1&2, provided enough usable hymns for most Australian parishes so that many have never moved beyond it. It did actually include some traditional hymns, despite Brandt’s protestations to the contrary.
She doesn’t mention the little blue loose leaf hymnal, the Living Worship Hymnal, from the Liturgical Commission in Brisbane, that was used widely. My second hand copy is heavily adapted with some pages lyrics only, some music and large jumps in the numbering system.
At Star of the Sea, George Town, Tasmania, before they used AOV they used the “green book”, which was in fact the Praise to God: Parish Hymn Book, published by the Dominican Hymnal Committee and edited by Nicolas Falzun OP. I have borrowed the accompaniment edition which is the revised edition with a supplement from 1990, only two years before the first publication of AOV. I haven’t been able to find copies second hand anywhere. If someone has copies they are looking to offload, let me know.
These pages let you know what is in the hymnal. Most were extracted from Catholic Worship Book 1, the Australian Hymn book, the Celebration Hymnal (available in pdf on the internet), Glory and Praise, and the New Living Parish Hymnal.
One thing about the New Living Parish Hymnal is the arrangements by John de Luca, who took some of the simple folk arrangements and added some sophistication, so I will get back to that, but I thought in the interim I would look at songs from the Praise to God collection that I haven’t covered here, that the Dominicans found from outside the main sources. There seems to be a lot of folk mass era pieces to go along with the traditional hymnody.
Much of the original version is just organ music, with only occasional guitar chords, but the supplement has a lot more chorded arrangements. It’s a bit of a hodge podge of styles really and some pieces are melody line only. In the hands of our late and much missed organist though it was quite enough.
On the plus side it was very well bound – our parish’s copy has had the cover replaced but the original stitched binding appears indestructable. There are are also instances when they have created their own arrangements, but mostly there is a lot of cut and pasting going on. You can understand when AOV arrived in 1992 with a consistent and usable style, that it made this collection look amateurish indeed.
I find it interesting that the Dominican Fathers, when assembling this collection and even into the supplement in 1990 were only just catching up with 1960s folk mass era. There was, however, a laudable attempt to collect Australian songwriters like Frank Andersen, Brian Boniwell, Leo Watt and Father Kevin Bates that were being used in parishes along with very early Trish Watts and Monica O’Brien songs. It is these songs that were outside the major sources that I wish to look at first from Praise to God.
I recently came across some *Living Worship* hymnals that a church didn’t need anymore, along with a handful of *Scripture in Song* and a *Living Parish* hymn book. I at first didn’t think much of it, but now after giving it a second look, the *Living Worship* quite a good little hymnal.
There are some other Australian hymnals I think should make the list, in particular, the *Pange Lingua* hymnal, compiled by Paul Newton is one I have seen, and it contains a lovely collection of traditional Catholic hymns in a very affordable format. Unfortunately, I have heard it is no longer available.
Another Australian hymnal that is overlooked is the *Little Flower Hymnal* by Dom. Stephen Moreno, from New Norcia, published in 1939. It contains mostly melodies composed by Dom. Moreno himself, and a scan is available from the National Library if you want to check it out. The *Little Flower* hymnal, like the *Pius X Hymnal*, may not have reached Mrs. Brandt’s list as many copies are no longer in use.
The *As One Voice* hymn book topic may cause a lot of conflict, and I hope I understand both sides of the argument. It is indeed a cheap and affordable musical resource for parishes, at $15 a copy, and it was a better source for new music than the files of photocopies, transparencies, and typed materials around at the time.
However, the Willow publishing website does state AOV was originally published as a supplementary hymnbook, but as a result of changing musical styles, the impracticality of a double hymn book system (as I can attest to!), and the digital recordings provided by the team at Willow Publishing, AOV became the preferred book for many churches.
Mrs. Brandt is technically correct when she says that AOV is ‘almost’ totally bereft of any traditional hymns, but the traditional hymns in AOV come mostly, if not entirely from protestant traditions. These hymns were likely included because they were not present in the prevailing hymnals at the time, (most likely the original *Living Parish*).
In short, *As One Voice* needs the context of the older hymnals and chant in order for it to be best utilised. The compilers clearly wanted it to compliment and add to the existing hymnals already in use in Australia,.
(Note: I haven’t gone through a copy of AOV2 or the new edition, but I suspect that they continued the good work of the original.)
The *New Living Parish* hymnal is a great resource and has lots of lovely music in it. Some of my favourite selections from there include the plainchant accompaniments, with the latin text as well as a singable translation.
I hope you are successful in your research!
Thanks, Gio.
I’m sure there are back rooms in churches and halls with old hymnals around Australia awaiting rediscovery – all donations welcome. I found mine at book fairs and secondhand shops.
Looking back it is astonishing how many Australian hymnals came out at much the same time from 1985-1995 and it sad that they are hard to come by now.
It is odd that in the post hymnal age, with projection and wide choice of hymns, traditional hymnody’s public domain status in many cases makes it a very sensible choice. On the other hand, today’s climate can also foster and encourage new music.
cheers
Geoff