Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
Lynn Rohrbough said that, within a year of the first publication of “Kum Ba Yah” in Cooperative Recreation’s Service’s Song Sampler, it had appeared “in a dozen agency books.” The one he specifically mentioned in a 1959 letter was Hymns of Universal Praise. [1] It was compiled in February and March of 1956. [2]
Bliss Wiant and Carlton Young intended the hymnal to include “representative hymns of the church universal.” [3] It included three from India, three from China, one from Japan, and one from Nigeria. The last had been recorded at the Student Volunteer Movement meeting in December of 1955. [4]
Wiant surely would have attended the SVM meeting discussed in the post for 31 July 2022. He had been a missionary in China from 1923 [5] until 1952 when Mao Zedong dismantled the Yenching University [6] where he was working. The university had been established as a joint enterprise by western Protestant churches. [7]
In the 1930s, he was music editor for Hymns of Universal Praise, [8] an ecumenical collection of songs that combined Chinese musical motifs with Christian theology. [9] Andrew Leung said the anthology “established the foundation of Chinese hymnody and is now set as a model of Chinese hymnology.” [10]
The CRS Hymns of Universal Praise was unashamedly a hymnal: [11] three were by Charles Wesley, [12] three by Isaac Watt [13] and one was by Martin Luther. [14] In addition, one melody was by Wesley’s son Samuel. [15] It was organized by topic, so the spirituals and international texts were scattered through the songster. Thirty-one of the sixty-seven selections attached “amen” endings. [16]
Fifty-two selections relied upon four-part chords that mirrored the melody, with no tempo or dynamics markings. Wiant converted “Kumbaya” to this form. The tune is doubled a third below on the treble clef, and two notes appear in the bass clef. There are two exceptions to the parallelism. Only one note is heard in the upper part of the opening phrase, which emphasizes the expansion to the triad on the second note. The two notes used on the final “Lord” are sung only by the upper part. The other parts sustained the first note, to again emphasize the melodic variation.
Wiant made one other change to “Kumbaya”: he dropped the “someone’s crying” verse, and reduced it to a three-verse song. The post for 24 February 2019 reports that liturgists, who include the song in their services, often do not specify all the verses. The “crying” verse was the least popular stanza among Methodists.
In 1963, Wiant moved to Hong Kong where he worked on the revision of Hymns of Universal Praise for the exiled Chinese living there, [17] and created an English translation for use in this country. [18] Two years later he retired to Delaware, Ohio. [19] CRS published a revised edition of its Hymns of Universal Praise in 1965. [20] This one contained forty-five of the original songs. It dropped some by Wesley and Watt, as well as those from India and Nigeria. “Kum Ba Yah” had appeared on the same page as one of the omitted Wesley verses, and also disappeared. The Chinese songs were grouped together.
Kum Ba Yah
Performers
Vocal Group: four parts
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano
Credits
Harm. by Bliss Wiant
© 1956 Coop. Recreation Service, Inc., Delaware, O. [21]
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: no comment
Verses: kumbaya, singing, praying
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: 3-verse song
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 3/4
Key Signature: no sharps or flats
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one note to one syllable except for final “Lord”
Harmonic Structure: parallel thirds in trebel clef, parallel fifths in base, diverging harmony at beginnings of phrases
Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: four part chords
Notes on Performance
Cover: pattée cross superimposed on a globe with the phrase “All within the four seas are brothers”
Color Scheme: dark brown on tan cover; inside blue-gray ink on off-white paper
Plate: made by Jane Keen
Notes on Audience
Young recalled the songbook “was prepared for general use in events of the North East Conference of the Methodist Church, and may have been used at its Annual Conference, June 1956.” [22]
Notes on Performers
Wiant was raised in central Ohio, and graduated from Ohio Wesleyan in 1920. After completing work at Boston University’s seminary, he went to China as a missionary. [23] He spent World War II in the United States, where he taught at Scarritt College. [24] During this time, Wiant produced the first edition of The Pagoda for CRS. The twenty-five Chinese songs were translated and arranged with four-part chords by Wiant. [25]
When he left China in 1952, Wiant returned to Delaware, Ohio, where he was pastor of the Methodist church near Ohio Wesleyan. Two years later he transferred to Youngstown. [26] As mentioned in the post for 9 February 2020, he moved to Nashville in 1957 as the director of the denomination’s new Ministry of Music. He died in Delaware in 1975. [27]
Young’s life and career are discussed in the posts for 14 February 2019, 9 August 2020, and 27 December 2020. One of his most significant tasks was overseeing the 1988 edition of the church’s hymnal. While Wiant’s later CRS Hymns of Universal Praise retreated from a strong bias toward traditional and international hymns, Young returned to its inclusive vision. Sam Hodges notes he replaced some of the less popular hymns with “spirituals, contemporary gospel, sacred jazz (by Duke Ellington), and Hispanic hymns.” [28] Young elevated “Kumbaya” to the canon with his arrangement of the melody he called “Desmond.” [29]
Availability
Book: “Kum Ba Yah.” 31 in Hymns of Universal Praise. Edited for North East Ohio Conference of the Methodist Church by Bliss Wiant and Carlton Young. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service, 1956.
End Notes
1. Lynn Rohrbough. Letter to Shawnee Press, 8 June 1959. “Our first use of Kum Ba Ya was in the Jan. 1956 Sampler; during the year it came out in a dozen agency books. One of the earliest was Hymns of Universal Praise, where it seems to fit.”
2. Carlton Young. Email, 7 December 2016.
3. Bliss Wiant and Carleton Young. Note on inside cover.
4. “Glory to the Trinity.” 6 in Hymns. From a recording of Emanuel Fashade and transcribed by Bliss Wiant.
5. Stacey Bieler. “Bliss Mitchell Wiant.” Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity website.
6. “Yenching University.” Wikipedia website.
7. Bieler.
8. Liu Tingfang and Bliss Wiant. Hymns of Universal Praise (P’u Ti’en Sung Tsan). Shanghai, China: Christian Literate Society, 1936.
9. Calida Chu. “The Evolution of Hymns of Universal Praise: A Reflection on the Contextualisation of Chinese Hymnology in the Last Century.” University of Glasgow, Conference on Understanding and Misunderstanding between the Far East and the West, 2017.
10. Andrew Napp-Kei Leung. The Emergence of a National Hymnody: The Making of Hymns of Universal Praise (1936). Hong Kong: Chinese Christian Literature Council, 2015. 127. Quoted by Chu. 10.
11. Wiant disdained Victorian gospel hymns, which, he claimed, were sentimental and good for nothing. Its message is that everything is blessed and peaceful. That’s not the message of Christ. The message of Christ is ‘Are you able to endure all things as I endure them - even crucifixion?’” Time reported his preference was for “such Reformation hymns as A Mighty Fortress is Our God and O God, Our Help in Ages Past.” [30]
12. “A Charge To Keep I Have” (p31), “O for a Thousand Tongues To Sing” (p22), and “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” (p40).
13. “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” (p44) “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” (p64) and “Jesus Shall Reign where’er the Sun” (p59).
14 “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” (pp12–13).
15. “The Church’s One Foundation” (p41).
16. The post for 27 November 2017 traces the history of the use and disuse of “amen” endings. Modernists typically discourage them.
17. Chu.
18. Bliss Wiant. Selected Chinese Indigenous Hymns from Hymns of Universal Praise. 4 July 1965. United States Copyright Office. Catalog of Copyright Entries. Third Series. July-December 1965. 2291.
19. Bieler.
20. Bliss Wiant. Hymns of Universal Praise. Delaware, Ohio: Informal Music Service, World Around Songs. The copyrighted songs are dated 1965. It has a light blue cover.
21. This is the only known copyright by CRS for “Kum Ba Yah.” If this copyright language had appeared in every other songbook, CRS would have a valid right to the song. However, as shown in the version in Guiana Sings for 7 August 2022, Rohrbough did not do that. Under the copyright law then in governing music publications, the song entered the public domain as soon as it was published without that notice, and this copyright was reduced to this specific arrangement. I suspect this copyright probably was not renewed and the arrangement also lost copyright protection.
22. Young, email.
23. Bieler.
24. Scarritt College is mentioned in the post for 16 May 2021.
25. I have a copy of fifth edition from 1967, which probably means fifth printing. The Pagoda, arranged by Bliss Wiant. Cooperative Recreation Service Inc, © 1946, 1967.
26. Bieler.
27. Bieler.
28. Sam Hodges. “Mr. Music of United Methodism.” The United Methodist Church Michigan Conference website, 22 September 2020.
29. For more on the revised Methodist hymnal, see the post for 14 February 2019.
30. Bliss Wiant. Interview. Time, 31 August 1959. Quoted by Bieler.
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