9.0 (very popular)
Monday 30 March 2009
Tune of the Day: Amazing Grace
Traditional tune
This famous hymn is actually sung to a variant of the tune “New Britain”, whose composer is unknown. “New Britain” first appears in a hymnal from 1829, and its melody is believed to be Scottish or Irish in origin, as it is pentatonic and suggests a bagpipe tune. The hymn is actually frequently performed on bagpipes, and has become associated with that instrument. This tune seems to have been firmly established as the standard for “Amazing Grace” after an arrangement of it appeared in a series of popular hymnbooks in the early twentieth century.