When Charles Ives was assembling his publication 114 Songs, his effort to show the world (at his own expense) his vocal production of nearly three decades of hard compositional work, he sometimes re-worked earlier instrumental compositions into songs, particularly when the earlier versions had been inspired by particular words.

In the case of this song, it had been written in 1904 as the first movement, called Largo Cantabile, in A Set of Three Short Pieces, which John Kirkpatrick cataloged as Kw 15. This set itself is a rather disjointed piece, containing music written from 1903 to 1914, and with varying orchestration.

As Largo Cantabile the music was an instrumental work for string quartet, double bass, and piano and was already an arrangement of earlier music, having been adapted from a string quartet, Kw 8, that was not finished and whose music has been lost, leading it to be described by Kirkpatrick as the "Pre-Second String Quartet."

The song "Hymn" is through its text and its music one of Ives' most typical "transcendentalist" works. Musically, such works usually begin with a mysterious, meditative quality and gather in additional energy before subsiding to an even more hushed and mysterious conclusion.

Ives was strongly attracted to the New England school of transcendentalist writers and even based his Second Piano Sonata, subtitled "Concord, Mass. 1840-1860)" on their literary movement. Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of the leaders of this group, and a preface Ives added to the score of this song makes its pedigree from Emerson explicit. It quotes from Prof. Shutter's chapter "The God of Evolution" in his essays "Applied Evolution" as follows:

"Dr. Collyer recalls an interesting passage between Ralph Waldo Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes. The latter said that many of the hymns in use were mere pieces of cabinet work. Then his voice deepened and his eyes shone, as they did in his noblest moments, and he said, 'One hymn I think supreme.' Emerson threw back his head and waited, while Dr. Holmes repeated the text of the following song. Emerson responded, 'I know that is the supreme hymn. "I shall be shall be satisfied when I awake in Thy likeness."'"

The words of the hymn are from Wesley (who in turn adopted them from the Dutch writer Tersteegen). Ives quotes three hymn tunes in the vocal part: "More Love to Thee," "Olivet," and one that sounds like a quotation but has not been identified.

The texture of the song usually consists of slow arpeggiated figures (on strange, shifting chords), with a rising melody and low bass notes or chords. The music thins and finds stability when the voice expresses the hope of eventual rest in God.

© All Music Guide