A funeral hymn appears in the Cornish National Music Archive as Galargan Kostentin – the Constantine in Kerrier Funeral Hymn.1 The notation appears twice; both are unison settings in G minor with essentially the same words. Unfortunately, the annotations to these settings are not the clearest. The purpose of this monograph is to establish and summarise what is known about the Funeral Hymn.

Documentary Sources

The starting point is a series of articles in ‘Old Cornwall,’ the magazine of the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies, together with a section in the local guide to Constantine church.

• Old Cornwall, October 1936 (Vol 2, No. 12) pp. 11-13, has an article by M.H.N. Cuthbert Atchley giving music and three verses of a hymn sung by Constantine folk when following the coffin along the road to the church at a funeral.
• Old Cornwall, April 1962 (Vol. 6. No. 2) p.61, has an article by E. G. Retallack Hooper (Talek) giving a Cornish translation of the words made by Mordon (R. Morton Nance, 1873-1959).
• Old Cornwall, October 1962 (Vol. 6, No. 3) p.119 has a further article by Retallack Hooper presenting a Cornish translation made by Caradar (A.S.D. Smith, 1883-1950).
• David and Ida Fraser Harris, The Church of St Constantine in Cornwall (Locally printed 1975, updated 2023) is the church guide-book.

Kernewek

The English words of the hymn are said to be typically found on gravestones since the 17th century. However, no such ancient gravestone rhyme in Kernewek has yet been found.2 There is no evidence that the hymn was originally sung in Kernewek, and its earliest recorded polyphonic musical style barely overlaps the vernacular use of Kernewek. Thus, the words kindly supplied by Robert Morton Nance and Arthur Smith (and their Standard Written Form equivalent) should be principally viewed in the context of Cornish language advocacy rather than historical reconstruction.

Max Atchley

Max Heriot Nevil Cuthbert Atchley was born in Clifton on 6 March 1898. In 1911 he was still living with parents in Gloucestershire. An architect by profession, he married Margaret Kirkby Childers Thompson in Q2 1934 in Falmouth. They made Trewinnard House, Perranarworthal their home. Atchley made several contributions to ‘Old Cornwall’ and from 1935 published articles and pamphlets on the history and architecture of Cornish churches and chapels. With Canon G.H. Doble. he authored ‘A Guide to Constantine Church’ in about 1937.3 Atchley died on 24 June 1941.

In his ‘Old Cornwall’ article of 1936 describing the Funeral Hymn, Atchley wrote ‘The melody was remembered and a few years ago written down by an Old Constentener, the late Mr James Roberts. Atchley then gave it to a London organist who ‘harmonized it’ … and ‘… altered the air itself.’  However, Atchley thought the result inappropriate and so ‘tidied’ the words, restored the melody to Roberts’ original modal form, and created a new, homophonic harmony. Thus, Old Cornwall October 1936 has an arrangement in which the melody is, or is close to, Roberts’ remembered original, but the internal parts are a 20th century creation.

The guide to Constantine Parish Church compiled by David and Ida Fraser Harris in 1975 also has the hymn as recorded by Atchley, probably from his 1937 guide to the church. This is a different transcription, but in the same hand as the ‘Old Cornwall’ article, presumably that of Atchley. It has the useful annotation ‘with modal harmony by Cuthbert Atchley.’ Also, Atchley there gives an additional alternative, fugal, setting for the last four bars of the final verse.

James Roberts

James Roberts was born in Brillwater, Constantine in 1839, and baptised there on 29 Dec 1839. It is likely that Roberts heard the hymn in procession to the Anglican church of St Constantine between about 1849 and 1859. (The Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, now the Tolmen Centre, was not built until 1880.) James worked as a schoolmaster in Allerton, near Bradford, Yorkshire from 1859, retiring in 1882, and dying there on 8 February 1935. James was a musical man, frequently conducting massed choirs of the Band of Hope. President of the Bradford and district Cornish Association, he often wrote to friends in Cornwall about Constantine in the 1840s and 50s, and his monographs were read at Old Cornwall Society meetings.4 Through such correspondence the hymn became known to Atchley.

A Local Hymn?

Robert’s description of funeral singing en-route to church echoes that of Ralph Dunstan (1857-1933).5 Ralph’s father William (1813-1906), a carpenter and undertaker, conducted many funerals at Feock and Kea, often accompanied by Ralph in his youth. However, Dunstan wrote that in his experience four favourite hymns were sung at funerals. They were: Am I born to Die (C.Wesley), The Morning Flow’rs display their Sweets (S. Wesley jr.), Thee we Adore, Eternal Name (I. Watts), and Shrinking from the Cold Hand of Death (C. Wesley). Harry Woodhouse records that across Britain the most popular funeral hymn was Pope’s ‘The Dying Christian to his Soul,’ of 1770, commonly known as ‘Vital Spark.’6 The Constantine ‘Funeral Hymn’ is not found in any other Cornish manuscript, and although 19th century church music was widely circulated, it seems that it was indeed particular to Constantine. It is attractive to think that it was written locally, and this is one possibility. However, the tune has been found in one other place: Massachusetts, in a collection by one Aaron Cowling, possibly of about 1798.

Aaron Cowling

The choral scholar Peter Meanwell has shown that the Funeral Hymn is found in Aaron Cowling’s ‘The American Harmony, or Church Music Revised,’ a handwritten book, compiled in America, and now in the archives of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts.7 The hymn is found on Page 11 of Part Three of the book. Cowling describes this part of his book as ‘A collection of approved hymns and anthems, suited to several(?) occasions, set by the greatest masters in the world,’ implying that it was not he that wrote those works. There the Funeral Hymn appears in 4 parts, and is annotated ‘A Funeral Hymn or Ps 90th B & T.’ B & T probably refers to Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady, ‘A New Version of the Psalms of David’ of 1696. The words “Weep not for me ye standers by,” etc. are not found in Tate & Brady; Cowling is just suggesting that Psalm 90 could be sung to this music.This is a polyphonic setting of the type enthusiastically adopted by Cornish composers and carol singers in the mid-19th century, and more credible in a Cornish context than the homophonic setting presented by Atchley. However, Cowling sets the music in a diatonic minor key rather than the Aeolian Mode. Also, near the end, his juxtaposition of D natural and D sharp may have raised eyebrows; from bass to treble the chord is F, A, D sharp, D natural resolving to C. Cowling’s text is essentially that presented by Atchley, which suggests a common source.

Little is known of Cowling. Cowling is a popular surname in both Cornwall and Yorkshire, which may hint at his origins. From ‘The American Harmony’ we glean that he was a devout churchman with broad knowledge of religious music. His book begins with a large instructional section, so he may have been a music teacher or precentor. An Aaron Cowling was a resident of Berkshire County MA. He served in the Revolutionary War in 1781.8 “Cowling, Aaron. Private, Capt. Isaac Marsh’s Co., Col. Seare’s regt.; mustered July 21, 1781; discharged Nov, 2, 178l; service, 3 months, 12 days, under Brig. Gen. Stark at Fort Plains, Tyron Co.; company raised in Berkshire Co.” However, the 1790 Census has no Cowling in Massachusetts.

In 1802 and 1805 an Aaron Cowling witnessed three wills in Somerset County, New Jersey,9 some 170 miles from Berkshire Co. MA. In 1805 he may have been living in Pennsylvania.10  The death of an Aaron Cowling in 1827 is recorded in New Jersey.11 Cowling’s book contains the date 179?, often read as 1798. However, this date and its significance are unclear. It could be a date when compilation began,  during compilation, or after completion.

The Road to Constantine

As the tune is found in the U.S.A. some 50 years before being noted at Constantine this admits the possibility that it could have been written elsewhere and brought to Constantine by the mid-19th century. One possibility is that the hymn could have been brought there by the priest or the precentor who then led the singing. (The organ was not installed until 1890.) The vicars in that period were as follows. 12

• 8 February 1817 Edward Rogers M.A. (Cantab.) born in Helston.
• 17 October 1856 Robert Francis Bute Rickards M.A. (Oxon.) born in South Africa.

There is no record that either was particularly musical. But there was a musical priest in the area: Richard Cope, minister of New Street Independent Chapel, Penryn, just six miles from Constantine.

Richard Cope

Richard Cope (1776-1856) was born in central London on 23 August 1776. In 1794 he joined the Gate Street Musical Society, dedicated to sacred music. He entered Hoxton Theological Institution on 5 March 1798.13 After graduating on 2 June 1800, on 28 June he began a probationary period, after which he was appointed as a dissenting minister in Launceston. To make ends meet he also opened a boarding- school there. Whilst at Launceston, Cope composed a book of Sacred Music, probably published in 1810, using words by Isaac Watts and others. He left this post in June 1820 and was then a minister in Dublin (1820-1822), Wakefield (1822–29), Abergavenny (1829–36), and finally Penryn (1836–56).14 His autobiography was published in 1857.15  Cope could have encountered the Funeral Hymn at any date from 1794. In Penryn he had good working relations with his Anglican colleagues, leading weekly Anglican prayers in Penryn Union House (i.e. workhouse) on their behalf.

Who was the Composer?

The composer of the Funeral Hymn has not yet been identified. In 19th  century Cornwall at least 30 local composers are known, mainly for their polyphonic Christmas carols, but all capable of writing the Funeral Hymn. The portability of such music means that any one of them could have written it. However, that it was solely remembered in Constantine, suggests a local connection.

Music was widely shared among Nonconformist and Anglican communities and the hymn could have crossed the Atlantic in either direction. Aaron Cowling implies he was not the composer. Transmission from Constantine to Massachsetts in the late 18th or early 19th century is improbable but not impossible. If the hymn was by a member of the Gate Street Musical Association or Hoxton Theological Institution it could have been taken to the New World by an evangelist and to Cornwall by Cope.16 Many alternatives are possible.

Performance

Three versions of the Constantine Funeral Hymn exist.

• The monophonic melody remembered by James Roberts and now found in Cornish tune books such as Racca and Ilow Kernow.
• The homophonic 4-part version created by M. H. N. Cuthbert Atchley and printed in Old Cornwall.
• The polyphonic version recorded by Aaron Cowling and visible at Archive.org.

None is without merit. In an extended funeral procession, it is quite possible that a unison version was sung rather than complex polyphony. Atchley’s harmony is effective and preserves the melody. Cowling’s polyphony is redolent of Cornish choral music. Perhaps the most important point is that this beautiful hymn has been preserved and joyfully remembered as part of Cornish church tradition.

Mike O’Connor

St Ervan

6 November 2023.

 

 

 

Download a pdf of this monograph:The Constantine Funeral Hymn M OConnor

Notes

1.  https://cornishnationalmusicarchive.co.uk/content/galargan-kostentin-constantine-in-kerrier-funeral-hymn/ accessed 2 Nov 2023
2. At Paul the memorial to Captain Stephen Hutchens who died in Jamaica in 1709, has two lines of Kernewek. Many historic Cornish families have Kernewek mottoes. For example, in Lanhydrock church the memorial to George Carminow (d. 1599) and his wife Jane (d. 1609) is surmounted by arms with the motto ‘Cala rag whethlow’ (a straw for the tale, or perhaps tale- bearer) The Kernewek quotation on the memorial of Dolly Pentreath (d. 1777) at Paul is dated 1860. Henry Jenner has Cornish on his 1934 headstone at Lelant.
3. Published at Long Compton, Shipston-on-Stour: printed by the King’s Stone Press.
4.  The Cornishman and Cornish Telegraph, 21 February 1935
5.  Dunstan, R. The Cornish Song Book (London, Reid Bros., 1929) pp. 38-40
6.  Woodehouse, H., Face the Music (St. Austell, Cornish Hillside, 1997) p. 96
7.   https://archive.org/details/TheAmericanHarmony_201411/page/n65/mode/2up accessed 2 Nov 2023
8. Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors  of the Revolutionary War (Boston, Wright & Potter, 1898) p.44:
9.  https://archive.org/stream/somersetcountyhi06hone_0/somersetcountyhi06hone_0_djvu.txt accessed 2 Nov 2023
10. https://apps.lib.ua.edu/blogs/adhc/files/2013/06/SWASMIS-English-language-Sources-6-26-13.pdf accessed 2 Nov 2023
11. New Jersey, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1739-1991
12. https://www.british-genealogy.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-6675.html by Diane Grant-Salmon accessed 4 Nov 2023
13. It was then a ‘Dissenting Academy’, becoming a Wesleyan Ministerial Training Institution in September 1834.
14. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Cope, Richard accessed 4 Nov 2023.
15. Cope, R.J. (ed.) The Autobiography and Select Remains of the Rev. Richard Cope  (London, Judd and Glass, 1857) Kresen Kernow 285.8092 COP COPE, RICHARD (Cornish reference)
16. Hoxton’s student population was not large, growing from four in 1791 o thirty  in  1803. https://thoroglove.wordpress.com/tag/hoxton-academy/  accessed 4 Nov 2023.

See also

Galargan Kostentin

Kostentin /  Constantine