The invitation to write an article about church music brings to mind several questions with which I have been wrestling for a long time, in my earlier days as a practitioner and more recently as a teacher. It was my growing uncertainty about the role of music in worship that prompted me to spend a year as a student at the Virginia Seminary and eventually to seek ordination in the Episcopal Church. Whatever wisdom I may have gained with regard to church music came largely through the seminary community, in daily chapel, and in discussions with students and colleagues. The experience of the past fifteen years has increased my uneasiness about the use of music in church and deepened my conviction that music must have help from other theological disciplines. To be fruitful, church music needs deep biblical, theological, and liturgical roots.
According to ancient tradition, music is a divine gift used by men to appease and entertain the gods and give mortals a foretaste of immortality, through magical incantations and the ecstatic dance. The way in which music has served the major religions of the world has led to the assumption that music is the handmaid of religion. Like all other generalities, this needs careful scrutiny. Music may be the handmaid of pagan as well as the Christian religion: the question is, does music serve all religions equally well? Is there no difference, for example, between its use in Dionysiac orgies, in Orphic mysteries, and in Christian worship?
Worship is a universal phenomenon, but Christian worship is unique, and this uniqueness has a definite bearing upon the question of church music. Christian worship stems from faith in God’s revelation in the Word made flesh, in Jesus Christ, evoking a response in love. The uniqueness of Christian worship lies in the uniqueness of Christ made known through the words and symbolic action of the liturgy.
The warrant for music in Christian worship comes from the Psalms and from St. Paul’s admonition to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; these Scriptures provide a clue to the words that were sung, but not to the music. Following the biblical tradition, the early Fathers looked upon congregational singing as a means of safeguarding the uniqueness of the faith. Christian worship was more than the expression of a vague religiosity on easy terms with the surrounding cultures. There was to be a radical break with Jewish and pagan tradition, and it was urgent that ways be found to reinforce this. It was chiefly through the words of liturgical worship that the faith of the Church gained strength in the minds, hearts, and lives of its people.
Throughout the history of the Church, advocates of congregational singing have maintained that wholehearted participation in Song based upon the words is one of the foundations of liturgical worship, and there is a long tradition of protest against the tendency to obscure this principle, whether through inertia and neglect or by deliberate interference.
During the Middle Ages, seeds were sown that bore fruit in the Renaissance and following centuries in the remarkably rich repertoire of music for choir, organ, and orchestra that is hailed as one of the chief glories of the Church; but this music was intended for professional performers and not for the people. Not until the early days of the Reformation was the plea for congregational singing made. Wycliffe and Hus urged a return to the principles of St. Paul, and their plea was repeated with great urgency by Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, and many others. During the Reformation and for several generations afterward, these principles were taken seriously, and congregational singing flourished in nearly every branch of the Reformed church. The tradition was developed with greater freedom in the Lutheran than in the other churches, but even in the Calvinist churches in which the liturgy proper was spoken, there was enthusiastic singing of the metrical psalms. The latter tradition prevailed in the Church of England, where the liturgical services were read and singing was limited to the optional singing of metrical psalms before and after the Prayer Book services.
In the meantime the organ had fallen into disrepute in all but the Lutheran churches, partly because of its expense, but mostly because it distracted the people from their worship, obscured the words, and interfered with the liturgical action.
With a few exceptions the situation remained basically the same throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the Lutheran Church, the congregational chorale served as the basis for the organ chorale-prelude and the church cantata in the style of J. S. Bach. In the Reformed churches, the metrical psalm on the model of Calvin’s Genevan Psalter was strictly maintained as the norm and was imitated in the countless editions of English, Scottish, French, and Dutch psalters. In the Anglican church, where the singing of metrical psalms prevailed, Merbecke’s setting of the Litany, Eucharist, and Office fell into disuse, while music for choir, organ, and instruments in the style of Purcell was limited to the cathedrals and to the royal and private chapels. In the Non-conformist churches, noteworthy contributions to hymnody in the spirit of the Reformation were made by the German Pietists, by Amish and Mennonite hymnwriters, by Isaac Watts, and by the Wesleys in the popular style of hymnody that became a prominent feature in the revivals of Jonathan Edwards and later evangelists. In this country, hymn-singing was fostered from the very beginning as a vital popular expression of great religious, social, and political aspirations. The singing taught by itinerant music masters flourished wherever they traveled throughout the countryside and bore fruit in the publication of vast quantities of song-books and the organization of countless numbers of singing societies. Under the leadership of Lowell Mason, singing became a fixture in nineteenth-century homes, schools, and churches.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century a change began to take place in church music that involved a turning away from the conception strongly advocated by the Reformers and deeply embedded in the Reformation tradition. This change of attitude, which rapidly gained momentum in the early part of the twentieth century, produced a remarkable increase of interest in a more professional attitude toward church music. The signs of change were a sharp increase in the volume of music published for choir and organ, rapid growth in the organization of vested choirs, a radical upswing in the number of new organs built, and the establishment of new professional societies and schools of music. All this conspired to undermine the Reformation victory of music for, of, and by the people.
In our day there seems to be no limit to the amount of music available through concerts, recordings, radio, and television, and music is increasingly entertainment for a listening rather than a participating public. Choral music in particular has become a keenly competitive art requiring a high degree of skill and long hours of disciplined preparation. On the other hand, popular group singing has become a medium for expression of social concerns in a way that requires a minimum of effort and musical skill. Church music today seems to tend toward one or the other of these two extremes, the highly professional or the popular. This is an unhappy situation for those who lack the time and skill for achieving musical excellence but who sense the need for something more significant than an instinctive response to an exciting but vague musical stimulus.
Recognition of the uncertain state of church music has been on the increase since the early part of this century. In 1905, Pius X issued Motu Proprio, the first of several papal encyclicals specifically addressed to the need for reform in the music of liturgical worship. Two decades later the Joint Commission on Music of the Episcopal Church reported its findings and recommended a program of education and reform. Similar concern was expressed in Music in Church, the report of a commission appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, which first appeared in 1950. Of the various attitudes and interests expressed, one of the most significant is that of Bonhoeffer in his Life Together, under the heading “Singing the New Song.” Other expressions of sound theological and liturgical attitudes toward church music have appeared in Response (published by the Lutheran Society for Worship, Music, and the Arts) and in the publications of the Valparaiso University conferences on church music. Among the most valuable contributions of recent times are the writings of Erik Routley and the twelve position papers of Crisis in Church Music, published by the Liturgical Conference of Washington, D. C.
One of the first to break the traditional sound barrier was Geoffrey Beaumont with his 1955 Folk Song Mass, which met with a mixed response. Beaumont’s aim was to reinstate the people as active participants in the central act of Christian worship. Despite his good intentions, there is a serious error in his reasoning. Beaumont claims that Merbecke’s music for the first Book of Common Prayer (1550) was based upon popular ballad-tunes of that day. But this music was firmly rooted in the ancient plainsong tradition, adapted to fit the new liturgical text in English.
Beaumont’s example has led enthusiastic imitators to assume that the answer to the problem of church music is to open the doors of the Church to a flood of new music in the latest popular style. But this leaves unanswered the vital question of the relation of music to the liturgical text and action. Popular music, with its strong beat, is fairly successful when used to accompany the metrical texts of hymns, but it does violence to the prose texts of the basic parts of the liturgy. To force the words of the Nicene Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and other liturgical elements into waltz-time or march-time undermines their serious intent.
Since Beaumont’s Folk Song Mass, popular musical settings of the Eucharist have multiplied rapidly and have found particular favor among those who work with young people. This music has been fairly effective in getting young people involved in the life of the Church, but whether it has led to a deeper understanding of the meaning of worship and the message of the Gospel is another matter. While it is true that this music is intended to help increase congregational participation, I question whether it is more than a passing fancy.
The chief argument for popular music in church is that it can easily be appropriated by the congregation and can help to heighten the sense of spontaneity and joy that often seems lacking in corporate worship. The implication seems to be that if the barrier of musical technique is lowered, spontaneous singing will result. But this line of reasoning, if followed to its conclusion, leads to glossolalia. Corporate liturgical worship, whether sung or spoken, requires structure; structure requires technique; and technique requires serious effort: these are the plain facts. The solution lies not in removing the barriers of musical technique, but in helping people overcome these barriers in order to enjoy greater freedom and spontaneity. The argument that popular music makes people feel more at ease is incongruous with the basic message of the Gospel, and to defend the use of any device merely because it requires a minimum of effort is irresponsible.
The priority of liturgical words and action needs constant reemphasis. But when music is put in second place, the musician may feel he is being downgraded. The remedy is for the musician to come to understand the relation between music and worship through a deeper understanding of the meaning of worship. This points to a serious need in the life of the Church: dialogue between clergy and musician on a deep and enduring pastoral level. This dialogue can be fruitful only if ministers and musicians face the problem, not as competitors in two separate professions, but as servants of God working together toward the same end.
It will probably be hard for the clergy to convince musicians of the primary importance of the words, for the musician thinks primarily in terms of music. Patience, conviction, and tact to persuade may be necessary. Whether in prayer, praise, or preaching, it is the words that make worship uniquely Christian, and it is primarily through the meaning of the words that people come to understand the meaning of Christian symbols and sacraments. There is always the danger of exaggerating the rational function of words, to the detriment of their emotional and symbolic overtones. And yet, in all liturgical language there are inherent principles of imagery, rhythm, and inflection that penetrate and color the meaning of language in ways that defy analysis.
The question of church music cannot be answered merely by an appeal either to tradition or to popular taste. Church music needs to be rooted in a deep understanding of the uniqueness of Christian worship and in a strong conviction that the primary function of music is to provide a means for congregational participation in liturgical worship. This understanding will be found only as clergy and musicians work together under the sign of the cross of Christ.
