Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation;
O my soul, praise him, for he is thy strength and salvation:
Come ye who hear,
Brothers and sisters draw near,
Praise him in glad adoration.
This fine hymn, found in many English language hymnals, is by
Joachim Neander (fig 1). Translation from the German was by the
indefatigable Catherine Winkworth (d.1878). In recent years, another
of Neander's hymns, All my hope on God is
founded, has become popular.
Here, the translator was Robert Bridges (d.1930). Bridges was unique
in combining the possession of advanced medical qualifications
with literary abilities that led to his becoming Poet Laureate
of England.
Joachim Neander was typical of the serious-minded, industrious
and gifted German who has served church and state so well over
the centuries. He was appointed headmaster of a Dusseldorf Grammar
School at the age of 24. More than 60 of his hymns have
survived, together with other poetry; he also composed a number
of hymn-tunes and cantatas. The tune that bears his name in many
hymn-books is well-known to organists (fig 2). It is a stirring
melody that congregations sing, sometimes with greater enthusiasm
than accuracy. Organists know how the leap of a sixth in bar
three can call for some anticipation on their part if disaster
is to be avoided.
Neander died in 1680 at the age of 30 - young even for those
days. Outside Germany, his name today might well have meant
nothing more than this hymn tune but for the workings of chance.
Citizens of Dusseldorf held him in such high regard that they renamed
his favourite walking place near the town, “Neander-thal” -
Neander's valley. Later, spelling changes removed the letter “h” from
the word.
It was in the 1850s that the gathering pace of industrial development
caused extensive quarrying of the limestone of Neander's valley.
A cave was discovered in which lay fossilized bones. Quarrymen the
world over have a stock response to events of this kind: hide the
evidence, keep silent and hope that no-one disrupts extraction in
the interests of antiquarian research.
The strategy, though tried, failed on this occasion; the bones
were excavated and the hitherto unknown ancestor of mankind discovered
was named Neanderthal man. This event is one of many recorded in
Chris Stringer's book Homo Britannicus (published 2006). The volume
traces the history of the occupants of Northern Europe – to
which the British Isles were originally attached physically. Man
and other species ebbed and flowed across the continent as climate
varied between arctic and sub-tropical and as the shapes of land
masses were altered.
