1 Why do Masons sing Odes? The goal of our ceremonies is to make a lasting impression upon every Mason. For this purpose we may use several means that could otherwise be dispensed with, if the object of making a Mason was solely to recite a number of phrases. Music is eminently calculated as a means to this end. It is also a component of our ritual, an enhancement to the lodge experience. Unfortunately, our Masonic rituals are somewhat deficient in not giving more precise information about where our music comes from or when it is to be employed. The singing of Odes by the Brethren during Masonic ritual is a part of our tradition, not just in North Carolina but throughout Freemasonry. By including several odes along with the names of specific tunes to which they could be sung in the North Carolina Lodge ( Bahnson ) Manual of 1892, the Grand Lodge of North Carolina intended, then and now, that music be performed during our ritual. The six Masonic Odes in the Bahnson Manual appear as lyrics without printed music. They are, however, to be sung to specific well-known hymns or folk tunes. This have been indicated either by the first line of the song usually sung to that tune, such as Nearer, My God, to Thee, or by the hymn tunes' own names, such as Old Hundred and Arlington. A seventh item, Hark from the Tomb (p. 57) appears with a tune in the Grand Lodge s 1892 manuscript of the Bahnson Manual, but no tune was included in the printed version, a matter that is undergoing further investigation. The reliance on familiar tunes to which Masonic odes were sung is a matter of convenience, so that a myriad of Masonic lyrics could be sung instantaneously without having to learn new songs. In 1892, and even today, church-going Masons would know most of the tunes mentioned in the Bahnson Manual, and could therefore sing Masonic lyrics to them without having to learn new tunes. This is certainly true for at least one of the Scottish tunes, Auld Lang Syne, though it is difficult for us to know how popular Bonny Doon was among North Carolina Masons in 1892. Right Worshipful Brother Dwight M. Mack Sigmon s research on North Carolina s Masonic history tells us that the majority of the Bahnson Manual was obtained and assembled by Bahnson from a book assembled and written by Thomas Smith Webb in 1797 which in turn was taken from writings from William Preston of England years earlier. This applies to the Odes as well. They were selected, generally with lyrics and the recommended tunes intact, from several collections of Masonic songs. This document represents a portion of ongoing research into North Carolina s rich Masonic musical heritage. We invite scholarly participation, and will be happy to answer any questions. The Grand Lodge of North Carolina s Ad-Hoc Masonic Music Committee September 2016
2 OPENING (p.7): Great God, Behold Before Thy Throne [Tune - Old Hundred. LM] Lyrics: The first Ode in the Bahnson Manual, Great God, behold before thy throne, a band of brothers lowly bend, is a Masonic adaptation of the Christian hymn Great God, Behold Before Thy Throne, a Band of Children Lowly Bend, first published [Fig. 1] as Hymn #83 in American Sunday School Psalmody; Or, Hymns And Music, For The Use Of Sunday-Schools And Teacher's Meetings; With A Manual Of Instruction (Philadelphia, 1832). The Masonic adaptation of these lyrics [Fig. 2] was the work of George Wingate Chase, in The Masonic Harp: A Collection of Masonic Odes, Hymns, Songs, &c. (Boston, 1858). Adaptation and augmentation of non-masonic lyrics for Masonic purposes is a common practice, as shown by a comparison of the original and Masonically-adapted versions below. Fig. 1. #83, American Sunday School Psalmody (1832) Fig 2. #110, Chase s Masonic Harp (1858) Tune: Old Hundred is the most famous hymn tune in Protestantism, and the tune to which The Doxology is traditionally sung. Its name refers to its origin as the musical setting for Psalm 100 in the Geneva Psalter of 1551. Psalters are settings of the 150 Psalms of David reworked as rhyming poems in verse, allowing them to be sung instead of read, the precursors to hymnals. L.M. refers to the meter of each verse of this poem, an abbreviation for Long Meter. Long meter consists of four lines, each of which contains eight beats (syllables.) Beginning around 1700, the meter for every tune as well as every set of lyrics was indicated in hymnals and Masonic Songbooks, using a numerical or letter abbreviation (L.M. is also represented by 8.8.8.8.), to help singers mix and match lyrics with other appropriate tunes. As with most Masonic songbooks, some of the tunes in the Bahnson Manual have meters indicated, useful information for finding and using other tunes that fit these lyrics.
3 CLOSING (p.8): Brethren, We Meet Again [Tune Nearer My God to Thee] Lyrics: The proper title given to this Masonic poem is Brothers, Good Night. Its origins are uncertain, though the earliest identifiable appearance at present is in the 1888 Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Nova Scotia, to be sung after the closing charge at the Installation of Officers. Fig. 3. Four-part arrangement in 6/4(!) of Brothers, Good Night for men s voices. The Mystic Chord. (1908) Tune: Brothers, Good Night is ubiquitously sung in the United States to Dr. Lowell Mason s tune, Bethany, the tune to which the hymn Nearer, My God, to Thee is sung. Lowell Mason (1792-1872) is regarded as the Father of American Church Music. He also introduce music into the Boston Public School System, the first time that music was formally taught in the United States, published the first collection of Sunday School music, and composed more than 1,600 tunes for hymn singing. Despite his surname, he was not a Freemason. Nor did he reside in Lowell, Massachusetts, a town whose Masonic Lodge today consists almost exclusively of Lowell Masons.
4 ENTERED APPRENTICE S DEGREE (p.13): Behold, How Pleasant [Tunes: Auld Lang Syne or Arlington] Lyrics: This Ode is a paraphrase of the 133 rd Psalm, in a verse setting that permits it to be sung in the manner of a hymn. Although the original text is from Holy Scripture, this setting s author has cleverly extended the concept of brethren in the Scripture into the Accepted Brotherhood, making this a distinctly Masonic Ode. It was first published in The Masonic Trestle-Board, Adapted To The National System Of Work And Lectures As Revised... By The United States Masonic Convention... Baltimore, 5843. Note the remarkable comment on the more general introduction of Music into the Lodges [Fig. 4] which suggests that singing scripture instead of reciting it was a recent innovation. Fig. 4. Behold! How Pleasant as appeared in The Masonic Trestle-Board (2ed, 1846: p. 29.) Tune #1 - Auld Lang Syne: This is the first of two Odes in the Bahnson Manual for which a choice between a traditional folk tune and a hymn is given, ostensibly in case the Brethren did not know the Scottish folk tune Auld Lang Syne. That Auld Lang Syne was probably Bahnson s preferred tune for these lyrics may be inferred from the February 1892 autograph manuscript, where the alternative hymn tune or Arlington was added as an afterthought to the right of the neatly-centered Auld Lang Syne. Fig. 5: Separate sheet (inserted into the working autograph manuscript) showing the later addition of or Arlington as an alternative tune for the Ode, Behold! How Pleasant.
5 Auld Lang Syne identifies this traditional Scottish folk tune by the title of the poem, by Brother Robert Burns, usually sung to it. In 1788, Brother Burns wrote that it was to be sung to an old song, of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript until I took it down from an old man. Auld Lang Syne uses a musical scale consisting of only five pitches per octave, equivalent to playing only the raised black keys on a keyboard. This scale is characteristic of many English, Scottish and American folk melodies, (Oh, Susannah!) and is called the pentatonic (meaning five tone ) scale. Tune #2 Arlington: This tune arose from a dance in English composer Thomas Arne s 1762 opera Artaxerxes. Arne s most famous composition is Rule Britannia. The tune was simplified and turned into a hymn in 1786, where it appeared in Sacred Harmony A Collection of Psalmtunes, Ancient and Modern. (Boston, 1788. [Fig. 6] By 1878, the tune had been called into Masonic service in Robert McCoy s Masonic Vocal Manual (New York, 1878) for the lyrics, Now we must close our labors here. Fig. 6: The first appearance of the tune Arlington, named Artaxerxes, as a hymn. Sacred Harmony (1788).
6 FELLOW CRAFT S DEGREE (p.41): Come, Craftsmen, Assembled [Tune: Portuguese Hymn. 11s] Lyrics: This Ode was in widespread use sometime before 1850, and appeared in Thomas Powers Masonic Melodies: Adapted To The Ceremonies And Festivals Of The Fraternity (Boston: 1844) in a unique arrangement in which a pair of singers (the Duet ) would sing two lines, then everyone else ( the Cho(rus)) repeated those lines. Soon thereafter, numerous Masonic Songbooks included it. [Fig 7.] Fig. 7: Come, Craftsmen in an early and unusual vocal arrangement. Powers. Masonic Melodies (1844). Tune: In the earliest Masonic publications of this Ode, it was sung to the tune of a popular English song called What Fairy-Like Music. Composed in London and frequently performed in the 1830s on stage and in the home as a vocal duet, the full title is: What fairy like music! : a gondala song or duet as sung by Miss Love and Mr. Braham : with the most enthusiastic applause at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane / the poetry by Mrs. Cornwall Baron Wilson; the music by Joseph de Pinna. Public enthusiasm for this song eventually waned, and along with it, the familiarity needed to use the tune in Masonic songbooks. By the 1870s Masonic music looked to other tunes to accompany this powerful Masonic Ode. Given the unusual meter, four lines of eleven syllables each (indicated in the Bahnson Manual as 11s ), not few familiar tunes existed to which this Ode could be sung. The Bahnson Manual selected the tune that Malmene s Freemason s Hymnal used, The Portuguese Hymn. This extremely popular tune appeared in many 19 th c. American Shape-Note hymnals as Plenary, but it is most commonly known today as Adeste Fideles, the tune to which we sing the Christmas hymn O Come, All Ye Faithful. The origin of the tune Adeste Fideles is complicated and has no bearing on its use by Freemasonry. It was called Portuguese Hymn, the name by which it appears in the Bahnson Manual, because the Duke of Leeds, attending a concert at the Portuguese embassy chapel in London in 1795, was so impressed by the tune that he commissioned a fuller musical arrangement of it be made. This was performed two years later, in the famous "Concert of Ancient Music" series, where it was called "The Portuguese Hymn" simply because the Duke mistakenly assumed that the tune was originally Portuguese.
7 MASTER MASON S DEGREE, 1 st Section: (p.54-55): Let Us Remember in Our Youth Lyrics: This Ode is a paraphrase of Holy Scripture, Ecclesiastes 12: 1-7. By imposing regular meter on these words, they were transformed into verses that could be sung, as with the Entered Apprentice s Ode, Behold, How Pleasant. Rabbinical tradition holds that Ecclesiastes, whose author identifies himself only by the pseudonym the Gatherer and son of David, King of Jerusalem was written by King Solomon, in his old age, as a summary of the meaning of life and the best way to live. This Ode made an early appearance in Charles W. Moore s Masonic Trestle-Board (Boston, 1846), and was soon adopted by most American Masonic songbooks and integrated into the ritual of many Grand Jurisdictions. The Bahnson Manual uses only two of the three verses shown in Fig. 8, but separates them visually so they appear to be four verses. This was ostensibly done for clarity, in case they were sung to the alternate hymn tune, Hamburg, which is only half the length of the Scottish tune, Bonny Doon. That the first two verses both begin with Let Us suggests that the two-verse rendition may feel poetically superior. Moreover, when sung to Hamburg (or any other Long Meter tune) the second verse in the four-verse rendition begins in mid-phrase, with or. These two aspects favor performance of this Ode to the tune Bonny Doon. Fig. 9: First appearance of Let Us Remember from p. 53 of Masonic Trestle-Board (1846)
8 Tune # 1: Bonny Doon: Correctly spelled as Bonnie Doon, this is not actually an ancient Scottish folk tune, but an 18 th c. composition meant to sound like one, by limiting the melody to the pentatonic scale as described in the narrative (above) over Auld Lang Syne. In 1791, Brother Robert Burns wrote a poem entitled, Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie Doon and set out to find a suitable tune so that it could be sung. The beautiful tune he chose, perhaps his most popular song today, was composed by an amateur singer in Edinburgh, Brother James Miller, with a few helping touches from a professional organist. From that time since, the tune itself has been named after his poem, Bonnie Doon. This is a very useful tune for Masons to know, because it is the same setting to which Masons sing Brother Robert Burns much beloved Farewell to the Brethren at the closing of Masonic social gatherings. Tune #2 Hamburg: This simple hymn tune, composed by Lowell Mason (composer for Bethany / Nearer, My God, to Thee) in 1824, makes clever use of a very limited range of only five notes. It first appeared in the 3rd edition of the Handel and Haydn Music Society Hymnal (Boston, 1825), where it is said to have been inspired by an ancient Gregorian chant. Of the four lines (or staffs) of music in Fig 10 (below), the melody is not where one might expect it to be, on the uppermost line, but is found on the third line down. This was done so organists could more easily accompany the hymn by reading the melody and the bass line directly below it. Those who read music will observe that the original tune has since been slightly altered. Fig 10. First edition of the hymn tune Hamburg from the Handel & Haydn Society Hymnal of 1825.
9 MASTER MASON S DEGREE: (p.56): Solemn Strikes the Funeral Chime [Tune: Pleyel s Hymn. 7s] Lyrics: This Ode is used in many American Grand Jurisdictions and is generally referred to as the dirge. Dirge is a Middle English (1175-1250 AD) term meaning a funeral song or tune, or one expressing mourning in commemoration of the dead, as well as any composition resembling such a song or tune in character, as a poem of lament for the dead or solemn, mournful music. This aptly explains its placement and purpose in our 3 rd degree as well as Masonic funerals in many Grand Jurisdictions. Its author is Brother David Vinton, best known for publishing a selection entitled Masonic, Sentimental and Humorous Songs, Duets, Glees, Canons, Rounds and Canzonets under the title The Masonic Minstrel (Dedham, MA; 1816), an immensely popular Masonic hymnal that sold 12,000 copies. Brother David Vinton had strong ties to the Carolinas. Though born and raised in Rhode Island, he was an itinerant Masonic lecturer, particular of the York Rite, in the Southern United States. In 1821, he was brought up on Masonic charges by the Grand Lodge of North Carolina for making manuscript notes of Masonry. In 1833, he died at Russellville, KY, and was interred without benefit of a Masonic burial and procession that might have included his own Ode, were it not for his lapse of sobriety. Fig 11. Public denouncement of David Vinton by the GL of NC. Raleigh Register (Raleigh, NC) 18 May 1821, p. 4.
10 Tune: Pleyel s Hymn: This tune is very popular today as a setting for the children s hymn, Children of the Heavenly King and several other hymns. The music is from the 4th String Quartet, op. 7 (1791) by Brother Ignaz Joseph Pleyel. Wherever the Masonic dirge is sung, it is always wedded to this tune, which exists in a variety of vocal arrangements in many Masonic songbooks and Ahiman Rezons (Books of Constitutions) from many Grand Jurisdictions across the United States. Fig. 12. Early printing of Sacred Strikes set to Pleyels Hymn. Bro. Luke Eastman s, Masonic Melodies (1825) Both Pleyel and his brilliantly successful composition teacher, Franz Joseph Haydn, were Freemasons. Pleyel s career as composer and performer, though less stellar, was complimented by building exquisite pianos of his design and manufacture, which Chopin was said to have preferred over any other. Ad Hoc Masonic Education Committee, 2016. Version 1.0