On my recent visit to Canterbury Cathedral one of these was a late substitution at evensong, in honour of a presentation to leaders of the bell-ringing team. All English hymnbooks seem to have at least one hymn for bellringers, and a collection of a dozen or so can be found here (though intrusive line-breaks don’t make this page easy to read except on a wide screen).
At Canterbury we sang the NEH’s Let bells peal forth the universal fame, which was written for Durham Cathedral (and with a Durham-specific verse which can be omitted). Fortunately we did not follow the page’s suggestion to sing it instead of the Magnificat, on the grounds that the tune is the same as that of a well-known paraphrase of the Magnificat! I’ve never done bellringing, but I did miss the sentiments of another, older hymn, which acknowledge the complexities of the art: Our lives, like bells, while changing, An ordered course pursue ….
As a bellringer and organist I have played the last hymn you cite on several occasions, what a dreary tune (‘Belfry Praise’ 496 in A&MR) which is contrived to include named ‘changes’ in the melody, namely rounds (a descending scale) and Queens. Queens (odd bells then even bells, so C A F D B G E C) is also made to be the bass line near the end. It’s clever I grant you but makes almost makes me vomit when I hear it. I agree that the words carry a good message; they deserve a better tune.
– and replete with ringing puns as well!
e.g. “Attain our place in heaven, Called home to rest at last”
(You’d have to be a ringer…)
Thanks Martyn, I’d missed those.
It’s a shame NEH didn’t use one of the traditional bellringers’ hymns though, instead of trying to introduce a new one.
Someone has tried to write a new tune for ‘Unchanging God’ and unfortunately that is the one linked to the list of hymns cited above.
I don’t dislike ‘Belfry Praise’ myself (even though I’ve sung and played it for umpteen years), but the new tune is really dire and to be avoided.
‘Unchanging God does’ go (extremely tenuous ringing link here – presumably named after the place and not the inventor of chiming apparatus) to the tune Ellacombe.
‘Unchanging God’ goes very well to the tune ‘Dies Dominica’- the tune for the Communion hymn ‘We pray thee heavenly father’. Try it!