Hymns: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (1948/1950)

In 1948, a new hymnbook that replaced both the Latter-day Saint Hymns (1927) and the Deseret Sunday School Songs was published under the title Hymns: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served as the official hymnbook of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1948 to 1985. The 1948 edition included 387 hymns.

Background and Development
With the deaths of Evan Stephens and George Careless in the early 1930s, the pioneer-era musicians that had dominated LDS hymnody had passed away, leaving the torch to a new generation of LDS musicians. Whereas the previous generation had heavily emphasized homespun music and were often heavily influenced by operatic composers like Arthur Sullivan, the new generation largely turned to more classical Protestant sources for inspiration. The music committee even specifically noted that many of the finest and favorite hymns in the Mormon tradition were adopted from Protestant sources rather than Mormon ones and suggested that they seek out more hymns from the Protestant tradition. They were also influenced by the research and writings of Sterling Wheelwright, who felt that LDS hymnals were losing their relevance through focusing on upbeat but trivial hymns rather than intimate and meditative ones. Overall, they sought to publish a hymnbook with a "better standard of musical expression" than previous LDS hymnals. Still, Church leaders weren't entirely trusting of leaving Mormon musicians to their own devices to select hymns and they created an executive committee of four apostles to oversee their work.

The music committee, now proceeding with direct apostolic oversight, sponsored an ongoing hymn contest for Mormons and set about collecting Protestant hymns. The latter were often slightly edited to conform to LDS theology. Frank I. Kooyman provided several of the new Mormon hymn texts that the committee favored, such as “Thy Spirit, Lord, Has Stirred Our Souls” and “When in the Wondrous Realms Above.” New musical compositions were encouraged to be dignified, singable, and similar to older styles of hymns (particularly the Johann Sebastian Bach chorales), perhaps best exemplified by Temple Square organist Alexander Schreiner’s neo-Bachian settings for hymns. The world-renowned classical composer Leroy Robertson also submitted music that was deemed suitable for many of the texts that were accepted by the committee. It was acknowledged, however, that the general membership of the Church might prefer the lighter hymns the committee was seeking to eliminate over the “better standard of musical expression” they were pushing for. Thus, committee head Tracy Y. Cannon suggested that the transition be performed gradually.

Publication
The resulting hymnbook dropped many of the Evan Stephens hymns that were prominent in previous hymnbooks and incorporated less hymns by committee members than the previous hymnbook had. Leroy Robertson had twelve, Alexander Schreiner eleven, and Tracy Cannon only had five. Protestant hymns formed approximately half of the 387 hymns selected for inclusion.

1950 Edition
Despite the involvement of apostles, some Church leaders questioned the hymns chosen by the committee after publication, and members tended to complain about the size and poor binding of the book. Due to this lackluster response, the music committee yielded and revised the hymnbook, releasing a modified second edition in 1950. This second edition dropped some of the well-respected Protestant hymns in favor of some popular hymns included in previous LDS hymnbooks that they had deleted. This change, in turn set precedent for the waning control of the music committee and their ability to push for what they deemed to be properly ascetic over lighter popular music in the Church's hymnbooks.

The differences between the 1948 and 1950 editions were as follows:

In 1960, two more hymns were added to the hymnal: