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The 20th Century Church Light Music Group
The 'popular hymn', forerunner of today's modern worship songs and the mould into which the majority of school hymns have been cast ever since, was born in the 1950s, child of the group of priests, chaplains, musicians and schoolmasters known as The 20th Century Church Light Music Group. Throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s, The 20th Century Church Light Music Group published a large corpus of material (I have found references to seventeen volumes, eight of which I have studied and are listed in the bibliography).
The group's name speaks for itself - the compositions are indeed 'light music' and this was very much the intention of the composers. Most are new tunes written for existing words, though some are entirely original compositions.
'They are offered in the belief that not only the great and lasting music of the past but also the ordinary and transient music of today - which is the background to the lives of so many - has a rightful place in our worship' (The 20th Century Church Light Music Group 1960).
'Transient music' - ephemera - has a place, so long as everybody is clear that that is what it is. Used to complement the tried and tested gems from tradition it can enliven worship and give it an immediacy and modern day relevance that might otherwise feel lacking. Some congregations in recent years have fallen into the 'ephemera trap,' eager to buy each new collection of worship songs as it is published, ditching the old in favour of the new. It is surely a mistake, however, to offer a diet solely comprised of modern, transient music. A faith that grows and endures must be fed with high quality musical nutrients, not just the 'quick-pick-me-up' sugary stuff.
The bulk of the repertoire of The 20th Century Church Light Music Group has proved to be ephemeral, with all but three of their compositions having sunk into obscurity. Patrick Appleford's hymn Living Lord; Michael Brierley's tune Camberwell (At the Name of Jesus) and Geoffrey Beaumont's Hatherop Castle (O Jesus, I Have Promised) were all originally published in the same book, Thirty 20th Century Hymn Tunes (The 20th Century Church Light Music Group 1960), yet individually have found their way into numerous later hymn collections, even, in the case of Appleford, the notoriously conservative New English Hymnal (The English Hymnal Company Ltd. 1986).
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