Henry John Gauntlett: hymn tunes and carols

About Henry John Gauntlett

Henry John Gauntlett was born at Wellington, Shropshire, on 9 July 1805. He was playing the organ at Olney by the age of nine, but trained as a lawyer and practised until he was nearly forty before turning to music full time. He was organist at St Olave's, Tooley Street, Southwark, from 1827 to 1846, and at Union Chapel, Islington, from 1852 to 1861, and he designed organs as well as played them; in 1852 he patented an electrical action for the instrument. He received a MusDoc from the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Mendelssohn chose him to play the organ at the first performance of Elijah in Birmingham in 1846. He died in London on 21 February 1876 and was buried at Kensal Green.

Gauntlett wrote more than a thousand hymn tunes and edited several hymnals. The best known is IRBY, written in 1849 for Cecil Frances Alexander's Christmas hymn Once in Royal David's City. UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, from about 1852, is the tune usually sung to Oft in danger, oft in woe.

The catalogue's 48 entries are mostly short hymn-tune settings rather than anthem-length works, which explains the 20-minute total. Forty-seven are classified as classical and one as folk; the lyric field is populated on only seven, so the metadata is thinner than the music itself.

Listening and playing notes

Hymn-tune playing depends on registering the stanza rather than interpreting a long arc. Keep the four parts balanced, bring out the tenor where the tune lies there, and let the final line broaden without slowing the pulse. For the carols, a lighter registration and clear consonants will carry the text; for the more chromatic Victorian tunes, tune the inner parts carefully, since the harmony moves in semitones. Most of these pieces are one stanza long, so the repeat is the performance.

Selected scores

1. Once in Royal David's City

   The most-viewed entry: Cecil Frances Alexander's 1848 Christmas hymn, sung to Gauntlett's tune IRBY (1849).

2. Oft in Danger, Oft in Woe

   A hymn text after Henry Kirke White, expanded by Frances S. Colquhoun; Gauntlett's tune UNIVERSITY COLLEGE dates from about 1852.

3. I Love to Hear the Story

   A children's hymn; the catalogue credits Gauntlett with the setting but does not name the tune.

4. As Joseph Was a-Walking

   The Cherry Tree Carol, a traditional Nativity text; the file gives no tune name or source.

5. O Son of God, Our Captain of Salvation

   A hymn on Christ as captain of salvation; the catalogue does not record the text author or tune name.

6. No Room in the Inn

   A Christmas carol on the inn at Bethlehem; it is one of several related entries on the same subject.

7. The Wise Men Saw a Light Afar

   An Epiphany hymn on the Magi; no tune name is recorded.

8. To the Name of Our Salvation

   A hymn on the name of salvation; the catalogue gives no text author.

9. I Was a Wandering Sheep

   Horatius Bonar's hymn of the straying sheep, in a setting credited to Gauntlett.

10. To Christ, the Prince of Peace

    A hymn to Christ as Prince of Peace; the entry has no composer credit in its title, but the catalogue places it under Gauntlett.