Change and continuity, the development of tune repertoire for congregational singing in the united church of canada, 1925-1975

grantor: University of TorontoThis dissertation presents, in two volumes, a study of the development of tune repertoire for congregational singing in the United Church of Canada during the first 50 years after church union in 1925, as found in the hymn, psalm and song resources published for or by the Church during this period. Volume 1 discusses this repertoire and places it within its historical and cultural context. The state of the repertoire in 1925, subsequent changes to the repertoire throughout the period, and the influence the publications of this period have had on the Church after 1975, are all addressed. Many elements affected the development of the repertoire during these years: the musical preferences of the people involved in compiling the published resources; cultural and technological change; regional concerns and needs in a geographically and culturally disparate church; the gap between high-church and low-church musical taste; and the compromises necessary in attempting to merge different denominational traditions, both at the time of union and in the later union negotiations with the Anglican Church in Canada. Volume 2 contains two computer database printouts, one organized by tune incipit and the other by textcode, of the contents of the hymn, psalm and song collections issued for or by the United Church and its parent denominations, the Methodist Church in Canada, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and the Congregational Union of Canada, from 1881, the date of the first united Canadian Presbyterian and Methodist tune collections, to 1997, the date of the supplement to the United Church's new hymn resource, Voices united (1996). This database, which was prepared by the author using a modification of the system devised by Nicholas Temperley for the production of the Hymn tune index, therefore provides the publication history of every tune and text in the official United Church repertoire during this larger timespan, as a companion reference to Volume 1 and as a separate resource for future scholarly use.Ph.D