Chapter 15 - Christian Socialism and The English Hymnal

Summary

This chapter explores Vaughan Williams’s collaboration with the Christian Socialist vicar Percy Dearmer to produce The English Hymnal (1906). It considers Vaughan Williams’s interest in community music-making alongside Dearmer’s political and religious community building. It draws parallels between the ecumenism of the Hymnal and both editors’ interests in national culture and its relationship with internationalism. These elements are all linked together by Vaughan Williams’s use of folk-song tunes as hymn tunes. This chapter positions the Hymnal as an early exploration of his interest in the place of these songs in national culture and cultural institutions. Finally, this chapter shows Vaughan Williams at an early stage of his music career as he begins to grapple with his place in relation to the English past – that of Tudor composers, folk songs, and the Church of England itself – paving the way for his future work.