In his mature years as a composer, Henry Cowell struck upon an idea that produced some 20 works for various instrumentation, which he designated as Hymn and Fuguing Tunes. Simply stated—by Cowell himself, in fact, in the pithiest of terms—a hymn and fuguing tune simply as "something slow followed by something fast." More specifically, the genre was inspired by the music of early American composers William Billings and William Walker. Recalling the sounds of Protestant hymnody from his youth, Cowell created a style of music that emulated the sturdy, melodic tunes found in the shape-note books Walker published in the pre-Civil War era and in the boisterously spiritual song gatherings of the Sacred Harp style. While Cowell certainly diverges from his models to a considerable degree, certain gestures and sonorities stand out as direct borrowings: strong, simple diatonic melodies, lucid triadic motions with little dissonance and virtually no chromaticism, and emphasis on "open" harmonies, such as the unadorned perfect fifth.

All these qualities are found in abundance in the piece under consideration here, the Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 10 for Oboe and Strings. This work stands as a fair representative of the genre, both chronologically and stylistically, Cowell having settled comfortably into rendering the style for larger forces and taking some licenses according to his own tastes, while still observing some of its most essential and unique features. The first section, the Hymn, begins with a robust, lyrical theme introduced by the oboe. Its modern identity is given away from the outset, as the oboe's entrance immediately outlines a plaintive major seventh interval. The melody unfolds in a moderately paced triple meter, with an underlying B minor tonality that hints strongly at its relative major, D. The hymn tune undergoes various transformations as it moves through the orchestra, including a rendering in exact inversion. A central section features various combinations of instrumental trios, this exchange finally leading to a return of the opening material.

The Fuguing Tune takes the form of a nimble duple meter dance in D Dorian (a modality closely associated with the practices of Sacred Harp singing). The principal eight-bar melody is split in two, its halves passed around the orchestra. Its transformations are easy to track, as it begins with a strident upward leap of a perfect fifth. A subsequent development section contains all sorts of contrapuntal tricks, including stretto (one instrument picking up the melody before another is done with it), augmentation (stretching the tune out into longer notes), and inversion (flipping it upside down). As the melody undergoes this extensive working out, it seems to have its rougher edges smoothed, and when it emerges in the final coda, it is not only more lyrical, but has actually been transformed into a vibrant major mode.

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