Music in the History of the Western Church

Like a sun-burst, opening a brighter era, came the Wesleyan movement, and in the same period the hymns of Dr. Isaac Watts. Whatever the effect of the exuberant singing of the Methodist assemblies may have had upon a cultivated ear, it is certain that the enthusiastic welcome accorded by the Wesleys to popular music as a proselyting agent, and the latitude permitted to free invention and adoption of hymns and tunes, gave an impulse to a purer and nobler style of congregational song which has never been lost. The sweet and fervent lyrics of Charles and John Wesley struck a staggering blow at the prestige of the “inspired” psalmody. Historians of this movement remind us that hymns, heartily sung by a whole congregation, were unknown as an element in public worship at the time when the work of the Wesleys and Whitefield began. Watts’s hymns were already written, but had as yet taken no hold upon either dissenters or churchmen. The example of the Methodists was a revelation of the power that lies in popular song when inspired by conviction, and as was said of the early Lutheran choral, so it might be said of the Methodist hymns, that they won more souls than even the preaching of the evangelists. John Wesley, in his published directions concerning congregational singing, enjoined accuracy in notes and time, heartiness, moderation, unanimity, and spirituality as with the aim of pleasing God rather than one’s self. He strove to bring the new hymns and tunes within the means of the poor, and yet took pains that the music should be of high quality, and that nothing vulgar or sensational should obtain currency.

The truly beneficent achievement of the Wesleys in summoning the aid of the unconfined spirit of poesy in the revival of spiritual life found a worthy reinforcement in the songs of Isaac Watts (1674-1748). Although his deficiencies in the matter of poetical technic and his frequent dry, scholastic, and dogmatic treatment have rendered much the greater part of his work obsolete, yet a true spiritual and poetic fire burns in many of his lyrics, and with all necessary abatement his fame seems secure. Such poems as “High in the Heavens, eternal God,” “Before Jehovah’s awful throne,” and “When I survey the wondrous cross” are pearls which can never lose their place in the chaplet of English evangelical hymnody. The relaxing prejudice against “uninspired” hymns in church worship yielded to the fervent zeal, the loving faith, the forceful natural utterance of the lyrics of Watts. In his psalms also, uniting as they did the characteristic modes of feeling of both the Hebrew and the Christian conceptions, he made the transition easy, and in both he showed the true path along which the reviving poetic inspiration of the time must proceed.

What has come of the impulse imparted by Watts and the Wesleys every student of Christian literature knows. To give any adequate account of the movement which has enriched the multitude of modern hymn-books and sacred anthologies would require a large volume.83 No more profitable task could be suggested to one who deems it his highest duty to expand and deepen his spiritual nature, than to possess his mind of the jewels of devotional insight and chastened expression which are scattered through the writings of such poets as Charles Wesley, Cowper, Newton, Faber, Newman, Lyte, Heber, Bonar, Milman, Keble, Ellerton, Montgomery, Ray Palmer, Coxe, Whittier, Holmes, the Cary sisters, and others equal or hardly inferior to these, who have performed immortal service to the divine cause which they revered by disclosing to the world the infinite beauty and consolation of the Christian faith. No other nation, not even the German, can show any parallel to the treasure embedded in English and American popular religious poetry. This fact is certainly not known to the majority of church members. The average church-goer never looks into a hymn-book except when he stands up to sing in the congregation, and this performance, whatever else it may do for the worshiper, gives him very little information in regard to the artistic, or even the spiritual value of the book which he holds in his hand. Let him read his hymn-book in private, as he reads his Tennyson; and although he will not be inclined to compare it in point of literary quality with Palgrave’s Golden Treasury or Stedman’s Victorian Anthology, yet he will probably be surprised at the number of lyrics whose delicacy, fervor, and pathos will be to him a revelation of the gracious elements that pervade the minor religious poetry of the English tongue.

Parallel with the progress of hymnody, and undoubtedly stimulated by it, has been the development of the hymn-tune and the gradual rise of public taste in this branch of religious art. The history of the English and American hymn-tune may easily be traced, for its line is unbroken. Its sources also are well known, except that the origins of the first settings of the psalms of Sternhold and Hopkins are in many cases obscure. Those who first fitted tunes to the metrical psalms borrowed some of their melodies (the “Old Hundredth” is a conspicuous instance) from the Huguenot psalter of Marot and Beza, and others probably from English folk-songs. There were eminent composers in England in the Reformation period, many of whom lent their services in harmonizing the tunes found in the early psalters, and also contributed original melodies. All these ancient tunes were syllabic and diatonic, dignified and stately in movement, often sombre in coloring, in all these particulars bearing a striking resemblance to the German choral. Some of the strongest tunes in the modern hymnals, for example, “Dundee,” are derived from the Scotch and English psalters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and efforts are being made in some quarters to bring others of the same source and type into favor with present-day congregations. This severe diatonic school was succeeded in the eighteenth century by a taste for the florid and ornate which, in spite of some contributions of a very beautiful and expressive character, on the whole marked a decline in favor of the tawdry and sensational. If this tendency was an indication of an experimenting spirit, its result was not altogether evil. Earnest and dignified as the old psalm-tunes were, the Church could not live by them alone. The lighter style was a transition, and the purer modern school is the outcome of a process which strives to unite the breadth and dignity of the ancient tunes with the warmth and color of those of the second period. Together with the cultivation of the florid style we note a wider range of selection. Many tunes were taken from secular sources (not in itself a fault, since, as we have seen, many of the best melodies in the Lutheran and Calvinistic song-books had a similar origin); and the introduction of Catholic tunes, such as the peerless “Adeste Fideles” and the “Sicilian hymn,” together with some of the finest German chorals, greatly enriched the English tune-books.

In comparatively recent times a new phase of progress has manifested itself in the presence in the later hymnals of a large number of musical compositions of novel form and coloring, entirely the product of our own period. These tunes are representative of the present school of Church of England composers, such as Dykes, Barnby, Smart, Sullivan, Monk, Hopkins, and many others equally well known, who have contributed a large quantity of melodies of exceeding beauty, supported by varied and often striking harmonies, quite unlike the congregational songs of any other nation. Composed for the noble ceremony of the Anglican Church, these tunes have made their way into many of the non-liturgic sects, and the value of their influence in inspiring a love for that which is purest and most salutary in worship music has been incalculable. Much has been written in praise of these new Anglican tunes, and a good deal also in depreciation. Many of them are, it must be confessed, over-sophisticated for the use of the average congregation, carrying refinements of harmony and rhythm to such a point that they are more suitable for the choir than for the congregation. Their real value, taken collectively, can best be estimated by those who, having once used them, should imagine themselves deprived of them. The tunes that served the needs of former generations will not satisfy ours. Dr. Hanslick remarks that there is music of which it may correctly be said that it once was beautiful. It is doubtless so with hymn-tunes. Church art can never be kept unaffected by the secular currents of the time, and those who, in opera house and concert hall, are thrilled by the impassioned strains of the modern romantic composers, will inevitably long for something at least remotely analogous in the songs of the sanctuary. That is to say, the congregational tune must be appealing, stirring, emotional, as the old music doubtless was to the people of the old time, but certainly is no longer. This logical demand the English musicians of the present day and their American followers assume to gratify – that is, so far as the canons of pure art and ecclesiastical propriety will allow – and, in spite of the cavils of purists and reactionaries, their melodies seem to have taken a permanent place in the affections of the Protestant English-speaking world. The success of these melodies is due not merely to their abstract musical beauty, but perhaps still more to the subtle sympathy which their style exhibits with the present-day tendencies in theology and devotional experience, which are reflected in the peculiarly joyous and confiding note of recent hymnody. So far as music has the power to suggest definite conceptions, there seems to be an apt correspondence between this fervent, soaring, touching music and the hymns of the faith by which these melodies were in most instances directly inspired.

So far as there are movements in progress bringing into shape a body of congregational song which contains features that are likely to prove a permanent enrichment of the religious anthology, they are more or less plainly indicated in the hymnals which have been compiled in this country during the past ten or twelve years. Not that we may look forward to any sudden outburst of hymn-singing enthusiasm parallel to that which attended the Lutheran and Wesleyan revivals, for such a musical impulse is always the accompaniment of some mighty religious awakening, of which there is now no sign. The significance of these recent hymnals lies rather in the evidence they give of the growth of higher standards of taste in religious verse and music, and also of certain changes in progress in our churches in the prevailing modes of religious thought. The evident tendency of hymnology, as indicated by the new books, is to throw less emphasis upon those more mechanical conceptions which gave such a hard precision to a large portion of the older hymnody. A finer poetic afflatus has joined with a more penetrating and intimate vision of the relationship between the divine and the human; and this mental attitude is reflected in the loving trust, the emotional fervor, and the more delicate and inward poetic expression which prevail in the new hymnody. It is inevitable that the theological readjustment, which is so palpable to every intelligent observer, should color and deflect those forms of poetic and musical expression which are instinctively chosen as the utterance of the worshiping people. Every one at all familiar with the history of religious experience is aware how sensitive popular song has been as an index of popular feeling. Nowhere is the power of psychologic suggestion upon the masses more evident than in the domain of song. Hardly does a revolutionary religious idea, struck from the brains of a few leading thinkers and reformers, effect a lodgment in the hearts of any considerable section of the common people, than it is immediately projected in hymns and melodies. So far as it is no mere scholastic formula, but possesses the power to kindle an active life in the soul, it will quickly clothe itself in figurative speech and musical cadence, and in many cases it will filter itself through this medium until all that is crude, formal, and speculative is drained away, and what is essential and fruitful is retained as a permanent spiritual possession.

If we were able to view the present movement in popular religious verse from a sufficient distance, we should doubtless again find illustration of this general law. Far less obviously, of course, than in the cases of the Hussite, Lutheran, and Wesleyan movements, for the changes of our day are more gradual and placid. I would not imply that the hymns that seem so much the natural voice of the new tendencies are altogether, or even in the majority of cases, recent productions. Many of them certainly come from Watts and Cowper and Newton, and other eighteenth-century men, whose theology contained many gloomy and obsolete tenets, but whose hearts often denied their creeds and spontaneously uttered themselves in strains which every shade of religious conviction may claim as its own. It is not, therefore, that the new hymnals have been mainly supplied by new schools of poetry, but the compilers, being men quick to sense the new devotional demands and also in complete sympathy with them, have made their selections and expurgations from a somewhat modified motive, repressing certain phases of thought and emphasizing others, so that their collections take a wider range, a loftier sweep, and a more joyful, truly evangelical tone than those of a generation ago. It is more the inner life of faith which these books so beautifully present, less that of doctrinal assent and outer conformity.

These recent contributions to the service of praise are not only interesting in themselves, but even more so, perhaps, as the latest terms in that long series of popular religious song-books which began with the independence of the English Church. The Plymouth Hymnal and In Excelsis are the ripened issue of that movement whose first official outcome was the quaint psalter of Sternhold and Hopkins; and the contrast between the old and the new is a striking evidence of the changes which three and a half centuries have effected in culture and spiritual emphasis as revealed in popular song. The early lyrics were prepared as a sort of testimony against formalism and the use of human inventions in the office of worship; they were the outcome of a striving after apostolic simplicity, while in their emotional aspects they served for consolation in trial and persecution, and as a means of stiffening the resolution in times of conflict. The first true hymns, as distinct from versified psalms, were designed still more to quicken joy and hope, and yet at the same time a powerful motive on the part of their authors was to give instruction in the doctrines of the faith by a means more direct and persuasive than sermons, and to reinforce the exhortations of evangelists by an instrument that should be effective in awaking the consciences of the unregenerate. It is very evident that the hymnals of our day are pervaded by an intention somewhat different from this, or at least supplementary to it. The Church, having become stable, and having a somewhat different mission to perform under the changed conditions of the time, employs its hymns and tunes not so much as revival machinery, or as a means for inculcating dogma, as for spiritual nurture. Hymns have become more subjective, melodies and harmonies more refined and alluring; the tone has become less stern and militant; the ideas are more universal and tender, less mechanical and precise; appeal is made more to the sensibility than to the intellect, and the chief stress is laid upon the joy and peace that come from believing. It is impossible to avoid vagueness in attempting so broad a generalization. But one who studies the new hymn-books, reads the prefaces of their editors, and notes the character of the hymns that are most used in our churches, will realize that now, as it has always been in the history of the Church, the guiding thought and feeling of the time may be traced in popular song, more faintly but not less inevitably than in the instructions of the pulpit. When viewed in historic sequence one observes the growing prominence of the mystical and subjective elements, the fading away of the early fondness for scholastic definition. Lyric poetry is in its nature mystical and intuitive, and the hymnody of the future, following the present tendency in theology to direct the thought to the personal, historic Christ, and to appropriate his example and message in accordance with the light which advancing knowledge obtains concerning man’s nature, needs, and destiny, will aim more than ever before to purify and quicken the higher emotional faculties, and will find a still larger field in those fundamental convictions which transcend the bounds of creeds, and which affirm the brotherhood of all sincere seekers after God.

CHAPTER XII

PROBLEMS OF CHURCH MUSIC IN AMERICA

In the foregoing sketch of the rise and growth of music in the Western Church no account was taken of a history of church music in America. If by art history we mean a record of progressive changes, significant of a persistent impulse which issues in distinctive styles and schools, the chronicles of ecclesiastical song in this country hardly come within the scope of history. No new forms or methods have arisen on this side of the Atlantic. The styles of composition and the systems of practice which have existed among us have simply been transferred from the older countries across the sea. Every form of church music known in Europe flourishes in America, but there is no native school of religious music, just as there is no American school of secular music. The Puritan colonists brought with them a few meagre volumes of metrical psalms, and a dozen or so of tunes wherewith to sing them in the uncouth fashion which already prevailed in England. They brought also the rigid Calvinistic hostility to everything that is studied and uniform in religious ceremony, and for a century or more they seemed to glory in the distinction of maintaining church song in the most barbarous condition that this art has ever suffered since the founding of Christianity. It was not possible that this state of affairs could endure in a community that was constantly advancing in education and in the embellishments of life, and a bitter conflict arose between puritanic tradition and the growing perception of the claims of fitness and beauty. One who would amuse himself with the grotesque controversies which raged around this question among the pious New England colonists, the acrid disputes between the adherents of the “usual way” and the “rulable way” of singing psalmody, the stern resistance to choirs and to organs, and the quaint annals of the country singing-school, may find rich gratification in some of the books of Mrs. Earle, especially The Sabbath in Puritan New England. The work of such reformers as William Billings in the eighteenth century and Lowell Mason in the nineteenth, the first concerts of the Handel and Haydn Society, the influx of the German culture shifting all American music upon new foundations, are all landmarks which show how rapid and thorough has been our advance in musical scholarship and taste, but which also remind us how little of our achievement has been really indigenous.

In spite of the poverty of original invention which forbids us to claim that American church music has in any way contributed to the evolution of the art, there is no epoch in this art’s history which possesses a more vital interest to the American churchman of the present day. We have found amid all the fluctuations of ecclesiastical music, mediaeval and modern, Catholic and Protestant, one ever-recurring problem, which is no sooner apparently settled than new conditions arise which force it once more upon the attention of minister and layman. The choice of a style of music which shall most completely answer the needs of worship as the conceptions and methods of public worship vary among different communities and in different epochs, and which at the same time shall not be unworthy of the claims of music as a fine art, – this is the historic dilemma which is still, as ever, a fruitful source of perplexity and discord. The Catholic and Episcopal Churches are less disturbed by this spectre than their non-liturgic brethren. An authoritative ritual carries its laws over upon music also; tradition, thus fortified, holds firm against innovation, and the liturgic and clerical conception of music gives a stability to musical usages which no aberrations of taste can quite unsettle. But in the non-liturgic churches of America one sees only a confusion of purposes, a lack of agreement, an absence of every shade of recognized authority. The only tradition is that of complete freedom of choice. There is no admitted standard of taste; the whole musical service is experimental, subject to the preferences, more or less capricious, of choir-master or music committee. There is no system in the separate societies that may not be overthrown by a change of administration. The choir music is eclectic, drawn indiscriminately from Catholic, German, and English sources; or if it is of American composition it is merely an obvious imitation of one of these three. The congregational music ranges from the German choral to the “Gospel song,” or it may, be an alternation of these two incongruous styles. The choir is sometimes a chorus, sometimes a solo quartet; the latter mainly forced to choose its material from “arrangements,” or from works written for chorus. Anon the choir is dismissed and the congregation, led by a precentor with voice or cornet, assumes the whole burden of the office of song. These conditions are sufficient to explain why a distinct school of American church music does not exist and never can exist. The great principle of self-determination in doctrine and ecclesiastical government, which has brought into existence such a multitude of sects, may well be a necessity in a composite and democratic nation, but it is no less certainly a hindrance to the development of a uniform type of religious music.

There would be a much nearer approach to a reconcilement of all these differences, and the cause of church music would be in a far more promising condition, if there were a closer sympathy between the standard of music within the Church and that prevailing in educated society outside. There is certainly a diversity of purpose between church music and secular music, and corresponding distinctions must be preserved in respect to form and expression. A secularized style of church music means decadence. But the vitality of ecclesiastical art has always seemed to depend upon retaining a conscious touch with the large art movements of the world, and church music has certainly never thrived when, in consequence of neglect or complacency, it has been suffered to become inferior to its rival. In America there is no such stimulating interaction between the music of the Church and that of the concert hall and the social circle as there has been for centuries in Germany and England. The Church is not the leader in musical culture. We are rapidly becoming a musical nation. When one sees what is going on in the opera houses, concert halls, colleges, conservatories, public schools, and private instruction rooms, contrasting the present situation with that of fifty years ago, the outcome can easily be predicted. But the music of the Church, in spite of gratifying efforts here and there, is not keeping pace with this progress, and the Church must inevitably suffer in certain very important interests if this gap is permitted continually to widen.

There are many causes for this state of affairs, some incidental and avoidable, others lying in the very nature of music itself and the special service which the Church requires of it. Perhaps the chief difficulty in the way of a high artistic development of religious music is the opinion, which prevails widely among the most devout, that music when allied to worship must forego what seems the natural right of all art to produce pleasure as an end in itself, and that it must subordinate itself to the sacred text and employ its persuasive powers solely to enforce divine truth upon the heart, – meaning by divine truth some particular form of religious confession. Whether this view is true or false, whenever it is consistently acted upon, it seems to me, music declines.

Now it is evident that music is less willing than any other art to assume this inferior station. Architecture serves a utilitarian purpose, the pleasure of the eye being supplementary; painting and sculpture may easily become didactic or reduced to the secondary function of ornament. But of all the arts music is the most sensuous (I use the word in its technical psychologic sense), direct, and penetrating in its operation. Music acts with such immediateness and intensity that it seems as though it were impossible for her to be anything but supreme when she puts forth all her energies. We may force her to be dull and commonplace, but that does not meet the difficulty. For it is the very beauty and glory of music which the Church wishes to use, but how shall this be prevented from asserting itself to such an extent that devotion is swept away upon the wings of nervous excitement? Let any one study his sensations when a trained choir pours over him a flood of rapturous harmony, and he will perhaps find it difficult to decide whether it is a devotional uplift or an aesthetic afflatus that has seized him. Is there actually any essential difference between his mental state at this moment and that, for instance, at the close of “Tristan und Isolde”? Any one who tries this experiment upon himself will know at once what is this problem of music in the Church which has puzzled pious men for centuries, and which has entered into every historic movement of church extension or reform.