v0.9 | Initial edition |
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WITH AN INTRODUCTION
ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC AMONG PRIMITIVE AND
ANCIENT PEOPLES
BY
EDWARD DICKINSON
Professor of the History of Music, in the Conservatory of Music,
Oberlin College
HASKELL HOUSE PUBLISHERS Ltd.
Publishers of Scarce Scholarly Books
NEW YORK. N.Y. 20012
1969
First Published 1902
HASKELL HOUSE PUBLISHERS Ltd.
Publishers of Scarce Scholarly Books
280 LAFAYETTE STREET
NEW YORK. N.Y. 10012
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 68-25286
Standard Book Number 8383-0301-3
Printed in the United States of America
The practical administration of music in public worship is one of the most interesting of the secondary problems with which the Christian Church has been called upon to deal. Song has proved such a universal necessity in worship that it may almost be said, no music no Church. The endless diversity of musical forms and styles involves the perennial question, How shall music contribute most effectually to the ends which church worship has in view without renouncing those attributes upon which its freedom as fine art depends?
The present volume is an attempt to show how this
problem has been treated by different confessions and in
different nations and times; how music, in issuing from
the bosom of the Church, has been moulded under the
influence of varying ideals of devotion, liturgic usages,
national temperaments, and types and methods of expression
current in secular art. It is the author’s chief
purpose and hope to arouse in the minds of ministers
and non-professional lovers of music, as well as of church
musicians, an interest in this branch of art such as they
cannot feel so long as its history is unknown to them.
A few of the chapters in this work have appeared in somewhat modified form in the American Catholic Quarterly Review, the Bibliotheca Sacra, and Music. The author acknowledges the permission given by the editors of these magazines to use this material in its present form.
Chapter | Page | |
I. | Primitive and Ancient Religious Music | 1 |
II. | Ritual and Song in the Early Christian Church | 36 |
III. | The Liturgy of the Catholic Church | 70 |
IV. | The Ritual Chant of the Catholic Church | 92 |
V. | The Development of Mediaeval Chorus Music | 129 |
VI. | The Modern Musical Mass | 182 |
VII. | The Rise of the Lutheran Hymnody | 223 |
VIII. | Rise of the German Cantata and Passion | 268 |
IX. | The Culmination of German Protestant Music: Johann Sebastian Bach | 283 |
X. | The Musical System of the Church of England | 323 |
XI. | Congregational Song in England and America | 358 |
XII. | Problems of Church Music in America | 390 |
Bibliography | 411 | |
Index | 417 |
Leon Gautier, in opening his history of the epic poetry of France, ascribes the primitive poetic utterance of mankind to a religious impulse. “Represent to yourselves,” he says, “the first man at the moment when he issues from the hand of God, when his vision rests for the first time upon his new empire. Imagine, if it be possible, the exceeding vividness of his impressions when the magnificence of the world is reflected in the mirror of his soul. Intoxicated, almost mad with admiration, gratitude, and love, he raises his eyes to heaven, not satisfied with the spectacle of the earth; then discovering God in the heavens, and attributing to him all the honor of this magnificence and of the harmonies of creation, he opens his mouth, the first stammerings of speech escape his lips—he speaks; ah, no, he sings, and the first song of the lord of creation will be a hymn to God his creator.”
If the language of poetical extravagance may be
admitted into serious historical composition, we may
accept this theatrical picture as an allegorized image of
a truth. Although we speak no longer of a “first man,”
and although we have the best reasons to suppose that
the earliest vocal efforts of our anthropoid progenitors
were a softly modulated love call or a strident battle cry
rather than a sursum corda; yet taking for our point of
departure that stage in human development when art
properly begins, when the unpremeditated responses
to simple sensation are supplemented by the more stable
and organized expression of a soul life become self-conscious,
then we certainly do find that the earliest
attempts at song are occasioned by motives that must
in strictness be called religious. The savage is a
very religious being. In all the relations of his simple
life he is hedged about by a stiff code of regulations
whose sanction depends upon his recognition of the
presence of invisible powers and his duties to them.
He divines a mysterious presence as pervasive as the
atmosphere he breathes, which takes in his childish
fancy diverse shapes, as of ghosts, deified ancestors,
anthropomorphic gods, embodied influences of sun and
cloud. In whatever guise these conceptions may clothe
themselves, he experiences a feeling of awe which sometimes
appears as abject fear, sometimes as reverence and
love. The emotions which the primitive man feels
under the pressure of these ideas are the most profound
and persistent of which he is capable, and as they involve
notions which are held in common by all the
members of the tribe (for there are no sceptics or nonconformists
in the savage community), they are formulated
in elaborate schemes of ceremony. The religious
The symbolic dance and the choral chant are among
the most primitive, probably the most primitive, forms
of art. Out of their union came music, poetry, and
dramatic action. Sculpture, painting, and architecture
were stimulated if not actually created under the same
auspices. “The festival,” says Prof. Baldwin Brown, “creates the
artist.”
The prime feature in the earlier forms of worship is
the dance. It held also a prominent place in the rites
of the ancient cultured nations, and lingers in dim
reminiscence in the processions and altar ceremonies of
modern liturgical worship. Its function was as important
as that of music in the modern Church, and its
effect was in many ways closely analogous. When connected
with worship, the dance is employed to produce
that condition of mental exhilaration which accompanies
the expenditure of surplus physical energy, or as a mode
Far more commonly, however, does the sacred dance
assume a representative character and become a rudimentary
drama, either imitative or emblematic. It
depicts the doings of the gods, often under the supposition
It was among the Greeks, however, that the religious
dance developed its highest possibilities of expressiveness
and beauty, and became raised to the dignity of a
fine art. The admiration of the Greeks for the human
form, their unceasing effort to develop its symmetry,
strength, and grace, led them early to perceive that it
was in itself an efficient means for the expression of the
soul, and that its movements and attitudes could work
sympathetically upon the fancy. The dance was therefore
cultivated as a coequal with music and poetry;
educators inculcated it as indispensable to the higher
discipline of youth; it was commended by philosophers
and celebrated by poets. It held a prominent place in
the public games, in processions and celebrations, in the
mysteries, and in public religious ceremonies. Every
form of worship, from the frantic orgies of the drunken
devotees of Dionysus to the pure and tranquil adoration
offered to Phoebus Apollo, consisted to a large extent
of dancing. Andrew Lang’s remark in regard to the
connection between dancing and religious solemnity
among savages would apply also to the Hellenic sacred
dance, that “to dance this or that means to be acquainted
with this or that myth, which is represented in a dance or ballet
d’action.”
The Hellenic dance, both religious and theatric, was
adopted by the Romans, but, like so much that was
noble in Greek art, only to be degraded in the transfer.
It passed over into the Christian Church, like many
other ceremonial practices of heathenism, but modified
and by no means of general observance. It appeared
on occasions of thanksgiving and celebrations of important
events in the Church’s history. The priest
would often lead the dance around the altar on Sundays
and festal days. The Christians sometimes gathered
about the church doors at night and danced and sang
songs. There is nothing in these facts derogatory to
the piety of the early Christians. They simply expressed
their joy according to the universal fashion of
the age; and especially on those occasions which, as
As we turn to the subject of music in ancient religious
rites, we find that where the dance had already reached
a high degree of artistic development, music was still
in dependent infancy. The only promise of its splendid
future was in the reverence already accorded to it, and
the universality of its use in prayer and praise. On its
vocal side it was used to add solemnity to the words
of the officiating priest, forming the intonation, or
ecclesiastical accent, which has been an inseparable
feature of liturgical worship in all periods. So far as
the people had a share in religious functions, vocal music
was employed by them in hymns to the gods, or in responsive
refrains. In its instrumental form it was used
to assist the singers to preserve the correct pitch and
rhythm, to regulate the steps of the dance, or, in an
independent capacity, to act upon the nerves of the
worshipers and increase their sense of awe in the
presence of the deity. It is the nervous excitement
produced by certain kinds of musical performance that
accounts for the fact that incantations, exorcisms, and
Still another office of music in ancient ceremony, perhaps still more valued, was that of suggesting definite ideas by means of an associated symbolism. In certain occult observances, such as those of the Egyptians and Hindus, relationships were imagined between instruments or melodies and religious or moral conceptions, so that the melody or random tone of the instrument indicated to the initiate the associated principle, and thus came to have an imputed sanctity of its own. This symbolism could be employed to recall to the mind ethical precepts or religious tenets at solemn moments, and tone could become a doubly powerful agent by uniting the effect of vivid ideas to its inherent property of nerve excitement.
Our knowledge of the uses of music among the most
ancient nations is chiefly confined to its function in
religious ceremony. All ancient worship was ritualistic
and administered by a priesthood, and the liturgies and
ceremonial rites were intimately associated with music.
The oldest literatures that have survived contain hymns
to the gods, and upon the most ancient monuments
are traced representations of instruments and players.
Among the literary records discovered on the site of
There is abundant evidence that music was an important
factor in the religious rites of Egypt. The testimony
of carved and painted walls of tombs and
temples, the papyrus records, the accounts of visitors,
inform us that music was in Egypt preëminently a
sacred art, as it must needs have been in a land in
which, as Ranke says, there was nothing secular.
Music was in the care of the priests, who jealously
guarded the sacred hymns and melodies from innovation
and foreign intrusion.
In spite of the simplicity and frequent coarseness of
ancient music, the older nations ascribed to it an influence
over the moral nature which the modern music
lover would never think of attributing to his highly
developed art. They referred its invention to the gods,
and imputed to it thaumaturgical properties. The
Hebrews were the only ancient cultivated nation that
did not assign to music a superhuman source. The
Greek myths of Orpheus, Amphion, and Arion are but
samples of hundreds of marvellous tales of musical
effect that have place in primitive legends. This belief
in the magical power of music was connected with the
equally universal opinion that music in itself could
express and arouse definite notions and passions, and
could exert a direct moral or immoral influence. The
importance ascribed by the Greeks to music in the education
of youth, as emphatically affirmed by philosophers
and law-givers, is based upon this belief. Not only
particular melodies, but the different modes or keys
were held by the Greeks to exert a positive influence
upon character. The Dorian mode was considered
bold and manly, inspiring valor and fortitude; the
Lydian, weak and enervating. Plato, in the second
book of the Laws, condemns as “intolerable and blasphemous”
the opinion that the purpose of music is to
give pleasure. He finds a direct relation between
morality and certain forms of music, and would have
musicians constrained to compose only such melodies
Another explanation of the ancient view of music as
possessing a controlling power over emotion, thought,
and conduct lies in the fact that music existed only
in its rude primal elements; antiquity in its conception
and use of music never passed far beyond that
point where tone was the outcome of simple emotional
states, and to which notions of precise intellectual
significance still clung. Whatever theory of the origin
of music may finally prevail, there can be no question
that music in its primitive condition is more directly
the outcome of clearly realized feeling than it is when
developed into a free, intellectualized, and heterogeneous
I have laid stress upon this point because this attempt of the religious authorities in antiquity to repress music in worship to a subsidiary function was the sign of a conception of music which has always been more or less active in the Church, down even to our own day. As soon as musical art reaches a certain stage of development it strives to emancipate itself from the thraldom of word and visible action, and to exalt itself for its own undivided glory. Strict religionists have always looked upon this tendency with suspicion, and have often strenuously opposed it, seeing in the sensuous fascinations of the art an obstacle to complete absorption in spiritual concerns. The conflict between the devotional and the aesthetic principles, which has been so active in the history of worship music in modern times, never appeared in antiquity except in the later period of Greek art. Since this outbreak of the spirit of rebellion occurred only when Hellenic religion was no longer a force in civilization, its results were felt only in the sphere of secular music; but no progress resulted, for musical culture was soon assumed everywhere by the Christian Church, which for a thousand years succeeded in restraining music within the antique conception of bondage to liturgy and ceremony.
Partly as a result of this subjection of music by its
allied powers, partly, perhaps, as a cause, a science of
harmony was never developed in ancient times. That
music was always performed in unison and octaves, as
The student of the music of the Christian Church
naturally turns with curiosity to that one of the ancient
nations whose religion was the antecedent of the Christian,
and whose sacred literature has furnished the
worship of the Church with the loftiest expression of
its trust and aspiration. The music of the Hebrews,
as Ambros says, “was divine service, not
art.”
No authentic melodies have come down to us from the time of the Israelitish residence in Palestine. No treatise on Hebrew musical theory or practice, if any such ever existed, has been preserved. No definite light is thrown upon the Hebrew musical system by the Bible or any other ancient book. We may be certain that if the Hebrews had possessed anything distinctive, or far in advance of the practice of their contemporaries, some testimony to that effect would be found. All evidence and analogy indicate that the Hebrew song was a unison chant or cantillation, more or less melodious, and sufficiently definite to be perpetuated by tradition, but entirely subordinate to poetry, in rhythm following the accent and metre of the text.
We are not so much in the dark in respect to the use
and nature of Hebrew instruments, although we know
as little of the style of music that was performed upon
them. Our knowledge of the instruments themselves
is derived from those represented upon the monuments
of Assyria and Egypt, which were evidently similar to
those used by the Hebrews. The Hebrews never invented
a musical instrument. Not one in use among
them but had its equivalent among nations older in civilization.
And so we may infer that the entire musical
practice of the Hebrews was derived first from their
early neighbors the Chaldeans, and later from the Egyptians;
although we may suppose that some modifications
may have arisen after they became an independent
nation. The first mention of musical instruments in
the Bible is in
After the Exodus other instruments, perhaps derived
from Egypt, make their appearance: the shophar, or
curved tube of metal or ram’s horn, heard amid the
smoke and thunderings of Mt. Sinai,
Although instruments of music had a prominent place
in public festivities, social gatherings, and private
recreation, far more important was their use in connection
with religious ceremony. As the Hebrew nation
increased in power, and as their conquests became permanently
secured, so the arts of peace developed in
The function performed by instruments in the temple
service is also indicated in the account of the reëstablishment
of the worship of Jehovah by Hezekiah according
to the institutions of David and Solomon. With
the burnt offering the song of praise was uplifted to the
accompaniment of the “instruments of David,” the
singers intoned the psalm and the trumpets sounded,
and this continued until the sacrifice was consumed.
When the rite was ended a hymn of praise was sung by
the Levites, while the king and the people bowed
themselves.
With the erection of the second temple after the return
from the Babylonian exile, the liturgical service
was restored, although not with its pristine magnificence.
Ezra narrates: “When the builders laid the
foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the
priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites
the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the Lord,
after the order of David king of Israel. And they
sang one to another in praising and giving thanks unto
the Lord, saying, For he is good, for his mercy endureth
forever toward Israel.”
Notwithstanding the prominence of instruments in all
observances of public and private life, they were always
looked upon as accessory to song. Dramatic poetry
was known to the Hebrews, as indicated by such compositions
as the Book of Job and the Song of Songs.
No complete epic has come down to us, but certain allusions
in the Pentateuch, such as the mention in
All patriotic songs and religious poems properly
called hymns belong in the second division of lyrics;
and in the Hebrew psalms devotional feeling touched
here and there with a patriot’s hopes and fears, has once
for all projected itself in forms of speech which seem to
exhaust the capabilities of sublimity in language. These
psalms were set to music, and presuppose music in their
Of the manner in which the psalms were rendered in
the ancient Hebrew worship we know little. The
present methods of singing in the synagogues give us
little help, for there is no record by which they can be
traced back beyond the definite establishment of the
synagogue worship. It is inferred from the structure
of the Hebrew poetry, as well as unbroken usage from
the beginning of the Christian era, that the psalms were
chanted antiphonally or responsively. That form of
verse known as parallelism—the repetition of a thought
in different words, or the juxtaposition of two contrasted
thoughts forming an antithesis—pervades a
large amount of the Hebrew poetry, and may be called
its technical principle. It is, we might say, a rhythm
There is difference of opinion in regard to the style
of melody employed in the delivery of the psalms in the
worship of the temple at Jerusalem. Was it a mere
intoned declamation, essentially a monotone with very
slight changes of pitch, like the “ecclesiastical accent”
of the Catholic Church? Or was it a freer, more melodious
rendering, as in the more ornate members of the
Catholic Plain Song? The modern Jews incline to the
latter opinion, that the song was true melody, obeying,
indeed, the universal principle of chant as a species of
vocalism subordinated in rhythm to the text, yet with
abundant movement and possessing a distinctly tuneful
character. It has been supposed that certain inscriptions
at the head of some of the psalms are the titles of
well-known tunes, perhaps secular folk-songs, to which
the psalms were sung. We find, e. g., at the head of
That the psalms were sung with the help of instruments
seems indicated by superscriptions, such as
“With stringed instruments,” and “To the flutes,”
although objections have been raised to these translations.
No such indications are needed, however, to
prove the point, for the descriptions of worship contained
in the Old Testament seem explicit. The instruments
were used to accompany the voices, and also
for preludes and interludes. The word “Selah,” so often
occurring at the end of a psalm verse, is understood by
many authorities to signify an instrumental interlude
or flourish, while the singers were for a moment silent.
One writer says that at this point the people bowed in
prayer.
Such, generally speaking, is the most that can definitely
be stated regarding the office performed by music
in the worship of Israel in the time of its glory. With
the rupture of the nation, its gradual political decline,
the inroads of idolatry, the exile in Babylon, the conquest
by the Romans, the disappearance of poetic and
musical inspiration with the substitution of formality
and routine in place of the pristine national sincerity
and fervor, it would inevitably follow that the great
musical traditions would fade away, until at the time
of the birth of Christ but little would remain of the
elaborate ritual once committed to the guardianship of
Does anything remain of the rich musical service
which for fifteen hundred years went up daily from
tabernacle and temple to the throne of the God of
Israel? A question often asked, but without a positive
answer. Perhaps a few notes of an ancient melody, or
a horn signal identical with one blown in the camp or
With the possible exception of scanty fragments,
nothing remains of the songs so much loved by this
devoted people in their early home. We may speculate
upon the imagined beauty of that music; it is natural
to do so. Omne ignotum pro magnifico. We know that
it often shook the hearts of those that heard it; but our
knowledge of the comparative rudeness of all Oriental
music, ancient and modern, teaches us that its effect
was essentially that of simple unison successions of
tones wedded to poetry of singular exaltation and vehemence,
and associated with liturgical actions calculated
to impress the beholder with an overpowering sense of
awe. The interest which all must feel in the religious
music of the Hebrews is not due to its importance in the
history of art, but to its place in the history of culture.
Certainly the art of music was never more highly honored,
“It softened men of iron mould, It gave them virtues not their own; No ear so dull, no soul so cold, That felt not, fired not to the tone, Till David’s lyre grew mightier than his throne.”
This music foreshadowed the completer expression of Christian art of which it became the type. Inspired by the grandest of traditions, provided with credentials as, on equal terms with poetry, valid in the expression of man’s consciousness of his needs and his infinite privilege,—thus consecrated for its future mission, the soul of music passed from Hebrew priests to apostles and Christian fathers, and so on to the saints and hierarchs, who laid the foundation of the sublime structure of the worship music of a later day.
The epoch of the apostles and their immediate successors
is that around which the most vigorous controversies
have been waged ever since modern criticism
recognized the supreme importance of that epoch in
the history of doctrine and ecclesiastical government.
Hardly a form of belief or polity but has sought to
obtain its sanction from the teaching and usages of those
churches that received their systems most directly from
the personal disciples of the Founder. A curiosity less
productive of contention, but hardly less persistent,
attaches to the forms and methods of worship practised
by the Christian congregations. The rise of liturgies,
rites, and ceremonies, the origin and use of hymns, the
foundation of the liturgical chant, the degree of participation
enjoyed by the laity in the offices of praise and
prayer,—these and many other closely related subjects
of inquiry possess far more than an antiquarian interest;
they are bound up with the history of that remarkable
transition from the homogenous, more democratic
system of the apostolic age, to the hierarchical organization
which became matured and consolidated under
the Western popes and Eastern patriarchs. Associated
In the very nature of the case a new energy must enter the art of music when enlisted in the ministry of the religion of Christ. A new motive, a new spirit, unknown to Greek or Roman or even to Hebrew, had taken possession of the religious consciousness. To the adoration of the same Supreme Power, before whom the Jew bowed in awe-stricken reverence, was added the recognition of a gift which the Jew still dimly hoped for; and this gift brought with it an assurance, and hence a felicity, which were never granted to the religionist of the old dispensation.
The Christian felt himself the chosen joint-heir of a
risen and ascended Lord, who by his death and resurrection
had brought life and immortality to light. The
devotion to a personal, ever-living Saviour transcended
and often supplanted all other loyalty whatsoever,—to
country, parents, husband, wife, or child. This religion
was, therefore, emphatically one of joy,—a joy so
Not at once, however, could musical art spring up
full grown and responsive to these novel demands. An
art, to come to perfection, requires more than a motive.
The motive, the vision, the emotion yearning to realize
itself, may be there, but beyond this is the mastery of
material and form, and such mastery is of slow and
tedious growth. Especially is this true in respect to
the art of music; musical forms, having no models in
nature like painting and sculpture, no associative symbolism
like poetry, no guidance from considerations of
utility like architecture, must be the result, so far as
any human work can be such, of actual free creation.
And yet this creation is a progressive creation; its forms
evolve from forms preëxisting as demands for expression
arise to which the old are inadequate. Models
must be found, but in the nature of the case the art can
never go outside of itself for its suggestion. And although
Christian music must be a development and not
In theory, style, usage, and probably to some extent
in actual melodies also, the music of the primitive
Church forms an unbroken line with the music of pre-Christian
antiquity. The relative proportion contributed
by Jewish and Greek musical practice cannot be
known. There was at the beginning no formal break
with the ancient Jewish Church; the disciples assembled
regularly in the temple for devotional exercises; worship
in their private gatherings was modelled upon that
of the synagogue which Christ himself had implicitly
sanctioned. The synagogical code was modified by the
Christians by the introduction of the eucharistic service,
the Lord’s Prayer, the baptismal formula, and other
institutions occasioned by the new doctrines and the
“spiritual gifts.” At Christ’s last supper with his disciples,
when the chief liturgical rite of the Church was
instituted, the company sang a hymn which was unquestionably
the “great Hallel” of the Jewish Passover
celebration.
With the spread of the Gospel among the Gentiles, the increasing hostility between Christians and Jews, the dismemberment of the Jewish nationality, and the overthrow of Jewish institutions to which the Hebrew Christians had maintained a certain degree of attachment, dependence upon the Jewish ritual was loosened, and the worship of the Church came under the influence of Hellenic systems and traditions. Greek philosophy and Greek art, although both in decadence, were dominant in the intellectual life of the East, and it was impossible that the doctrine, worship, and government of the Church should not be gradually leavened by them. St. Paul wrote in the Greek language; the earliest liturgies are in Greek. The sentiment of prayer and praise was, of course, Hebraic; the psalms formed the basis of all lyric expression, and the hymns and liturgies were to a large extent colored by their phraseology and spirit. The shapeliness and flexibility of Greek art, the inward fervor of Hebrew aspiration, the love of ceremonial and symbolism, which was not confined to any single nation but was a universal characteristic of the time, all contributed to build up the composite and imposing structure of the later worship of the Eastern and Western churches.
The singing of psalms formed a part of the Christian
worship from the beginning, and certain special psalms
were early appointed for particular days and occasions.
At what time hymns of contemporary origin were added
we have no means of knowing. Evidently during the
life of St. Paul, for we find him encouraging the
Ephesians and Colossians to the use of “psalms, hymns,
It is to be noticed that St. Paul, in each of the passages
cited above, alludes to religious songs under three
distinct terms, viz.:
ψαλμοί,
ὕμνοι, and
ᾠδαὶ πνευματικαί.
The usual supposition is that the terms are not synonymous,
that they refer to a threefold classification of the
songs of the early Church into: 1, the ancient Hebrew
psalms properly so called; 2, hymns taken from the
Old Testament and not included in the psalter and since
called canticles, such as the thanksgiving of Hannah,
the song of Moses, the Psalm of the Three Children
from the continuation of the Book of Daniel, the vision
of Habakkuk, etc.; and, 3, songs composed by the
Christians themselves. The last of these three classes
Dr. Schaff defines the gift of tongues as “an utterance
proceeding from a state of unconscious ecstasy in
the speaker, and unintelligible to the hearer unless
interpreted. The speaking with tongues is an involuntary,
psalm-like prayer or song uttered from a spiritual
trance, in a peculiar language inspired by the Holy
Spirit. The soul is almost entirely passive, an instrument
on which the Spirit plays his heavenly melodies.”
“It is emotional rather than intellectual, the language
of excited imagination, not of cool
reflection.”
Out of a musical impulse, of which the glossolalia
was one of many tokens, united with the spirit of
prophecy or instruction, grew the hymns of the infant
Church, dim outlines of which begin to appear in the
twilight of this obscure period. The worshipers of
Christ could not remain content with the Hebrew
psalms, for, in spite of their inspiriting and edifying
character, they were not concerned with the facts on
which the new faith was based, except as they might
be interpreted as prefiguring the later dispensation.
Hymns were required in which Christ was directly
celebrated, and the apprehension of his infinite gifts
embodied in language which would both fortify the believers
and act as a converting agency. It would be
contrary to all analogy and to the universal facts of
human nature if such were not the case, and we may
suppose that a Christian folk-song, such as the post-apostolic
age reveals to us, began to appear in the
first century. Some scholars believe that certain of
these primitive hymns, or fragments of them, are
embalmed in the Epistles of St. Paul and the Book of the
Revelation.
Although the singing of psalms and hymns by the
body of worshipers was, therefore, undoubtedly the
custom of the churches while still in their primitive
condition as informal assemblies of believers for
mutual counsel and edification, the steady progress of
ritualism and the growth of sacerdotal ideas inevitably
deprived the people of all initiative in the worship, and
concentrated the offices of public devotion, including
that of song, exclusively in the hands of the clergy. By
the middle of the fourth century, if not earlier, the
change was complete. The simple organization of the
apostolic age had developed by logical gradations into a
compact hierarchy of patriarchs, bishops, priests, and
deacons. The clergy were no longer the servants or
representatives of the people, but held a mediatorial
position as the channels through which divine grace
was transmitted to the faithful. The great Eastern
In the liturgy of St. James, the liturgy of the Jerusalem
Church, a very similar share, in many instances
with identical words, is assigned to the people; but a
far more frequent mention is made of the choir of
singers who render the Trisagion hymn, which, in St.
A large portion of the service, as indicated by these
liturgies, was occupied by prayers, during which the
people kept silence. In the matter of responses the
congregation had more direct share than in the Catholic
Church to-day, for now the chancel choir acts as their
representatives, while the Kyrie eleison has become one
of the choral portions of the Mass, and the Thrice Holy
has been merged in the choral Sanctus. But in the
liturgical worship, whatever may have been the case in
non-liturgical observances, the share of the people was
confined to these few brief ejaculations and prescribed
sentences, and nothing corresponding to the congregational
song of the Protestant Church can be found.
Still earlier than this final issue of the ritualistic movement
the singing of the people was limited to psalms
and canticles, a restriction justified and perhaps occasioned
by the ease with which doctrinal vagaries and
mystical extravagances could be instilled into the minds
of the converts by means of this very subtle and persuasive
agent. The conflict of the orthodox churches with
the Gnostics and Arians showed clearly the danger of
unlimited license in the production and singing of
hymns, for these formidable heretics drew large numbers
away from the faith of the apostles by means of the
choral songs which they employed everywhere for
proselyting purposes. The Council of Laodicea (held
The history of the music of the Christian Church
properly begins with the establishment of the priestly
liturgic chant, which had apparently supplanted the
popular song in the public worship as early as the fourth
century. Of the character of the chant melodies at this
period in the Eastern Church, or of their sources, we
have no positive information. Much vain conjecture
has been expended on this question. Some are persuaded
that the strong infusion of Hebraic feeling and
phraseology into the earliest hymns, and the adoption of
the Hebrew psalter into the service, necessarily implies
the inheritance of the ancient temple and synagogue
melodies also. Others assume that the allusion of St.
Augustine to the usage at Alexandria under St. Athanasius,
which was “more like speaking than
singing,”
But scanty knowledge of Christian archaeology and
liturgies is necessary to show that much of form, ceremony,
and decoration in the worship of the Church was
the adaptation of features anciently existing in the
faiths and customs which the new religion supplanted.
The practical genius which adopted Greek metres for
Christian hymns, and modified the styles of basilikas,
scholae, and domestic architecture in effecting a suitable
form of church building, would not cavil at the melodies
and vocal methods which seemed so well suited to be
a musical garb for the liturgies. Greek music was,
In view of the controversies over the use of instrumental
music in worship, which have been so violent in
the British and American Protestant churches, it is an
interesting question whether instruments were employed
by the primitive Christians. We know that instruments
performed an important function in the Hebrew temple
service and in the ceremonies of the Greeks. At this
point, however, a break was made with all previous
practice, and although the lyre and flute were sometimes
employed by the Greek converts, as a general rule
the use of instruments in worship was condemned.
Many of the fathers, speaking of religious song, make
no mention of instruments; others, like Clement of
Alexandria and St. Chrysostom, refer to them only to
denounce them. Clement says: “Only one instrument
The transfer of the office of song from the general
congregation to an official choir involved no cessation of
the production of hymns for popular use, for the distinction
must always be kept in mind between liturgical
and non-liturgical song, and it was only in the former
that the people were commanded to abstain from participation
in all but the prescribed responses. On the
other hand, as ceremonies multiplied and festivals increased
in number, hymnody was stimulated, and lyric
songs for private and social edification, for the hours of
prayer, and for use in processions, pilgrimages, dedications,
and other occasional celebrations, were rapidly
produced. As has been shown, the Christians had
their hymns from the very beginning, but with the exception
of one or two short lyrics, a few fragments, and
the great liturgical hymns which were also adopted by
the Western Church, they have been lost. Clement of
Alexandria, third century, is often spoken of as the
first known Christian hymn writer; but the single poem,
the song of praise to the Logos, which has gained him
this title, is not, strictly speaking, a hymn at all.
From the fourth century onward the tide of Oriental
hymnody steadily rose, reaching its culmination in the
eighth and ninth centuries. The Eastern hymns are
Before the age of the Greek Christian poets whose
names have passed into history, the great anonymous
unmetrical hymns appeared which still hold an eminent
place in the liturgies of the Catholic and Protestant
Churches as well as of the Eastern Church. The best
known of these are the two Glorias—the Gloria Patri
and the Gloria in excelsis; the Ter Sanctus or Cherubic
hymn, heard by Isaiah in vision; and the Te Deum.
The Magnificat or thanksgiving of Mary, and the
Benedicite or Song of the Three Children, were early
adopted by the Eastern Church. The Kyrie eleison
appears as a response by the people in the liturgies of
St. Mark and St. James. It was adopted into the
Roman liturgy at a very early date; the addition of the
Of the very few brief anonymous songs and fragments which have come down to us from this dim period the most perfect is a Greek hymn, which was sometimes sung in private worship at the lighting of the lamps. It has been made known to many English readers through Longfellow’s beautiful translation in “The Golden Legend:”
“O gladsome light Of the Father immortal, And of the celestial Sacred and blessed Jesus, our Saviour! Now to the sunset Again hast thou brought us; And seeing the evening Twilight, we bless thee, Praise thee, adore thee Father omnipotent! Son, the Life-giver! Spirit, the Comforter! Worthy at all times Of worship and wonder!
Overlapping the epoch of the great anonymous hymns and continuing beyond it is the era of the Greek hymnists whose names and works are known, and who contributed a vast store of lyrics to the offices of the Eastern Church. Eighteen quarto volumes, says Dr. J. M. Neale, are occupied by this huge store of religious poetry. Dr. Neale, to whom the English-speaking world is chiefly indebted for what slight knowledge it has of these hymns, divides them into three epochs:
1. “That of formation, when this poetry was gradually throwing off the bondage of classical metres, and inventing and perfecting its various styles; this period ends about A. D. 726.”
2. “That of perfection, which nearly coincides with the period of the iconoclastic controversy, 726-820.”
3. “That of decadence, when the effeteness of an
effeminate court and the dissolution of a decaying
empire reduced ecclesiastical poetry, by slow degrees,
to a stilted bombast, giving great words to little meaning,
heaping up epithet upon epithet, tricking out
commonplaces in diction more and more gorgeous, till
The centres of Greek hymnody in its most brilliant period were Sicily, Constantinople, and Jerusalem and its neighborhood, particularly St. Sabba’s monastery, where lived St. Cosmas and St. John Damascene, the two greatest of the Greek Christian poets. The hymnists of this epoch preserved much of the narrative style and objectivity of the earlier writers, especially in the hymns written to celebrate the Nativity, the Epiphany, and other events in the life of Christ. In others a more reflective and introspective quality is found. The fierce struggles, hatreds, and persecutions of the iconoclastic controversy also left their plain mark upon many of them in a frequent tendency to magnify temptations and perils, in a profound sense of sin, a consciousness of the necessity of penitential discipline for the attainment of salvation, and a certain fearful looking-for of judgment. This attitude, so different from the peace and confidence of the earlier time, attains its most striking manifestation in the sombre and powerful funeral dirge ascribed to St. John Damascene (“Take the last kiss”) and the Judgment hymn of St. Theodore of the Studium. In the latter the poet strikes with trembling hand the tone which four hundred years later was sounded with such imposing majesty in the Dies Irae of St. Thomas of Celano.
The Catholic hymnody, so far at least as concerns the usage of the ritual, belongs properly to a later period. The hymns of St. Hilary, St. Damasus, St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, Prudentius, Fortunatus, and St. Gregory, which afterward so beautified the Divine Office, were originally designed for private devotion and for accessory ceremonies, since it was not until the tenth or eleventh century that hymns were introduced into the office at Rome, following a tendency that was first authoritatively recognized by the Council of Toledo in the seventh century.
The history of Christian poetry and music in the East
ends with the separation of the Eastern and Western
Churches. From that time onward a chilling blight
rested upon the soil which the apostles had cultivated
with such zeal and for a time with such grand result.
The fatal controversy over icons, the check inflicted by
the conquests of the Mohammedan power, the crushing
weight of Byzantine luxury and tyranny, and that insidious
apathy which seems to dwell in the very atmosphere
of the Orient, sooner or later entering into every
high endeavor, relaxing and corrupting—all this sapped
the spiritual life of the Eastern Church. The pristine
enthusiasm was succeeded by fanaticism, and out of
fanaticism, in its turn, issued formalism, bigotry, stagnation.
It was only among the nations that were to
rear a new civilization in Western Europe on the foundations
laid by the Roman empire that political and
social conditions could be created which would give
free scope for the expansion of the divine life of
Christianity. It was only in the West, also, that the
motives that were adequate to inspire a Christian art,
after a long struggle against Byzantine formalism and
With the edicts of Constantine early in the fourth
century, which practically made Christianity the dominant
religious system of the empire, the swift dilation
of the pent-up energy of the Church inaugurated an era
in which ritualistic splendor kept pace with the rapid
acquisition of temporal power. The hierarchical developments
had already traversed a course parallel to those
of the East, and now that the Church was free to work
out that genius for organization of which it had already
become definitely conscious, it went one step farther
than the Oriental system in the establishment of the
papacy as the single head from which the subordinate
members derived legality. This was not a time when
a democratic form of church government could endure.
There was no place for such in the ideas of that age.
In the furious tempests that overwhelmed the Roman
The commemoration of martyrs and confessors passed into invocations for their aid as intercessors with Christ. They became the patron saints of individuals and orders, and honors were paid to them at particular places and on particular days, involving a multitude of special ritual observances. Festivals were multiplied and took the place in popular regard of the old Roman Lupercalia and Saturnalia and the mystic rites of heathenism. As among the cultivated nations of antiquity, so in Christian Rome the festival, calling into requisition every available means of decoration, became the basis of a rapid development of art. Under all these conditions the music of the Church in Italy became a liturgic music, and, as in the East, the laity resigned the main offices of song to a choir consisting of subordinate clergy and appointed by clerical authority. The method of singing was undoubtedly not indigenous, but derived, as already suggested, directly or indirectly from Eastern practice. Milman asserts that the liturgy of the Roman Church for the first three centuries was Greek. However this may have been, we know that both Syriac and Greek influences were strong at that time in the Italian Church. A number of the popes in the seventh century were Greeks. Until the cleavage of the Church into its final Eastern and Western divisions the interaction was strong between the two sections, and much in the way of custom and art was common to both. The conquests of the Moslem power in the seventh century drove many Syrian monks into Italy, and their liturgic practice, half Greek, half Semitic, could not fail to make itself felt among their adopted brethren.
A notable instance of the transference of Oriental
custom into the Italian Church is to be found in the
establishment of antiphonal chanting in the Church of
Milan, at the instance of St. Ambrose, bishop of that
city. St. Augustine, the pupil and friend of St. Ambrose,
has given an account of this event, of which he
had personal knowledge. “It was about a year, or not
much more,” he relates, “since Justina, the mother of
the boy-emperor Justinian, persecuted thy servant
Ambrose in the interest of her heresy, to which she
had been seduced by the Arians.” [This persecution
was to induce St. Ambrose to surrender some of the
churches of the city to the Arians.] “The pious people
kept guard in the church, prepared to die with their
bishop, thy servant. At this time it was instituted
that, after the manner of the Eastern Church, hymns
and psalms should be sung, lest the people should pine
away in the tediousness of sorrow, which custom, retained
from then till now, is imitated by many—yea,
by almost all of thy congregations throughout the rest
of the world.”
The conflict of St. Ambrose with the Arians occurred
in 386. Before the introduction of the antiphonal
chant the psalms were probably rendered in a semi-musical
recitation, similar to the usage mentioned by
St. Augustine as prevailing at Alexandria under St.
Athanasius, “more speaking than singing.” That a
more elaborate and emotional style was in use at Milan
in St. Augustine’s time is proved by the very interesting
passage in the tenth book of the Confessions, in
which he analyzes the effect upon himself of the music
Antiphonal psalmody, after the pattern of that employed
at Milan, was introduced into the divine office
at Rome by Pope Celestine, who reigned 422-432. It
is at about this time that we find indications of the more
systematic development of the liturgic priestly chant.
The history of the papal choir goes back as far as the
fifth century. Leo I., who died in 461, gave a durable
organization to the divine office by establishing a community
of monks to be especially devoted to the service
of the canonical hours. In the year 680 the monks of
Monte Cassino, founded by St. Benedict, suddenly
appeared in Rome and announced the destruction of
their monastery by the Lombards. Pope Pelagius
received them hospitably, and gave them a dwelling
near the Lateran basilica. This cloister became a
means of providing the papal chapel with singers. In
connection with the college of men singers, who held
the clerical title of sub-deacon, stood an establishment
for boys, who were to be trained for service in the
pope’s choir, and who were also given instruction in
By the middle or latter part of the sixth century, the mediaeval epoch of church music had become fairly inaugurated. A large body of liturgic chants had been classified and systematized, and the teaching of their form and the tradition of their rendering given into the hands of members of the clergy especially detailed for their culture. The liturgy, essentially completed during or shortly before the reign of Gregory the Great (590-604), was given a musical setting throughout, and this liturgic chant was made the law of the Church equally with the liturgy itself, and the first steps were taken to impose one uniform ritual and one uniform chant upon all the congregations of the West.
It was, therefore, in the first six centuries, when the
Church was organizing and drilling her forces for her
victorious conflicts, that the final direction of her music,
as of all her art, was consciously taken. In rejecting
the support of instruments and developing for the first
time an exclusively vocal art, and in breaking loose
from the restrictions of antique metre which in Greek
and Greco-Roman music had forced melody to keep step
with strict prosodic measure, Christian music parted
company with pagan art, threw the burden of expression
not, like Greek music, upon rhythm, but upon melody,
and found in this absolute vocal melody a new art principle
of which all the worship music of modern Christendom
There is no derogation of the honor clue to the
Catholic Church in the assertion that a large element
in the extraordinary spell which she has always exercised
upon the minds of men is to be found in the
beauty of her liturgy, the solemn magnificence of her
forms of worship, and the glorious products of artistic
genius with which those forms have been embellished.
Every one who has accustomed himself to frequent
places of Catholic worship at High Mass, especially the
cathedrals of the old world, whether he is in sympathy
with the idea of that worship or not, must have been
impressed with something peculiarly majestic, elevating,
and moving in the spectacle; he must have felt as if
drawn by some irresistible fascination out of his accustomed
range of thought, borne by a spiritual tide that
sets toward regions unexplored. The music which
pervades the mystic ceremony is perhaps the chief agent
of this mental reaction through the peculiar spell which
the very nature of music enables it to exert upon the
emotion. Music in the Catholic ritual seems to act
almost in excess of its normal efficacy. It may, without
impropriety, be compared to the music of the dramatic
This secret of association and artistic setting must
always be taken into account if we would measure the
peculiar power of the music of the Catholic Church.
We must observe that music is only one of many means
of impression, and is made to act not alone, but in
union with reinforcing agencies. These agencies—which
include all the elements of the ceremony that
affect the eye and the imagination—are intended to
supplement and enhance each other; and in analyzing
the attractive force which the Catholic Church has
always exercised upon minds vastly diverse in culture,
we cannot fail to admire the consummate skill with
which she has made her appeal to the universal susceptibility
to ideas of beauty and grandeur and mystery as
Symbolism and artistic decoration—in the use of
which the Catholic Church has exceeded all other religious
institutions except her sister Church of the East—are
not mere extraneous additions, as though they
might be cut off without essential loss; they are the
natural outgrowth of her very spirit and genius, the
proper outward manifestation of the idea which pervades
her culture and her worship. Minds that need
no external quickening, but love to rise above ceremonial
observances and seek immediate contact with the
In the study of the Catholic system of rites and ceremonies,
together with their motive and development,
the great problem of the relation of religion and art
meets us squarely. The Catholic Church has not been
satisfied to prescribe fixed forms and actions for every
devotional impulse—she has aimed to make those forms
and actions beautiful. There has been no phase of art
which could be devoted to this object that has not
Since the ritual is prayer, the offering of the Church
to God through commemoration and representation as
well as through direct appeal, so the whole ceremonial,
act as well as word, blends with this conception of
prayer, not as embellishment merely but as constituent
factor. Hence the large use of symbolism, and even of
semi-dramatic representation. “When I speak of the
dramatic form of our ceremonies,” says Cardinal Wiseman,
“I make no reference whatever to outward display;
and I choose that epithet for the reason that the
poverty of language affords me no other for my meaning.
The object and power of dramatic poetry consist
These citations sufficiently indicate the mind of the
Catholic Church in respect to the uses of ritual and
symbolic ceremony. The prime intention is the instruction
and edification of the believer, but it is evident
that a necessary element in this edification is the
thought that the rite is one composite act of worship,
a prayer, an offering to Almighty God. This is the
theory of Catholic art, the view which pious churchmen
have always entertained of the function of artistic
forms in worship. That all the products of religious
art in Catholic communities have been actuated by this
motive alone would be too much to say. The principle
of “art for art’s sake,” precisely antagonistic to the
traditional ecclesiastical principle, has often made itself
felt in periods of relapsed zeal, and artists have employed
traditional subjects out of habit or policy, finding
them as good as any others as bases for experiments
in the achievement of sensuous charm in form, texture,
and color. But so far as changeless dogma, liturgic
unity, and consistent tradition have controlled artistic
effort, individual determination has been allowed enough
play to save art from petrifying into a hieratic formalism,
but not enough to endanger the faith, morals,
All Catholic art, in so far as it may in the strict use of language be called church art, separates itself from the larger and more indefinite category of religious art, and derives its character not from the personal determination of individual artists, but from conceptions and models that have become traditional and canonical. These traditional laws and forms have developed organically out of the needs of the Catholic worship; they derive their sanction and to a large extent their style from the doctrine and also from the ceremonial. The centre of the whole churchly life is the altar, with the great offices of worship there performed. Architecture, painting, decoration, music,—all are comprehended in a unity of impression through the liturgy which they serve. Ecclesiastical art has evolved from within the Church itself, and has drawn its vitality from those ideas which have found their permanent and most terse embodiment in the liturgy. Upon the liturgy and the ceremonial functions attending it must be based all study of the system of artistic expression officially sanctioned by the Catholic Church.
The Catholic liturgy, or text of the Mass, is not the
work of any individual or conference. It is a growth,
an evolution. Set forms of prayer began to come into
use as soon as the first Christian congregations were
founded by the apostles. The dogma of the eucharist
was the chief factor in giving the liturgy its final shape.
By a logical process of selection and integration, certain
prayers, Scripture lessons, hymns, and responses were
woven together, until the whole became shaped into
what may be called a religious poem, in which was expressed
the conceived relation of Christ to the Church,
and the emotional attitude of the Church in view of his
perpetual presence as both paschal victim and high
priest. This great prayer of the Catholic Church is
mainly composed of contributions made by the Eastern
Church during the first four centuries. Its essential
features were adopted and transferred to Latin by the
Church of Rome, and after a process of sifting and
rearranging, with some additions, its form was completed
by the end of the sixth century essentially as it
stands to-day. The liturgy is, therefore, the voice of
the Church, weighted with her tradition, resounding
with the commanding tone of her apostolic authority,
eloquent with the longing and the assurance of innumerable
martyrs and confessors, the mystic testimony
to the commission which the Church believes to have
been laid upon her by the Holy Spirit. It is not surprising,
therefore, that devout Catholics have come to
The insistence upon the use of one unvarying language
in the Mass and all the other offices of the Catholic
Church is necessarily involved in the very conception
of catholicity and immutability. A universal Church
must have a universal form of speech; national languages
imply national churches; the adoption of the
vernacular would be the first step toward disintegration.
The Catholic, into whatever strange land he may wander,
is everywhere at home the moment he enters a
sanctuary of his faith, for he hears the same worship, in
the same tongue, accompanied with the same ceremonies,
that has been familiar to him from childhood.
This universal language must inevitably be the Latin.
Unlike all living languages it is never subject to
change, and hence there is no danger that any misunderstanding
of refined points of doctrine or observance
will creep in through alteration in the connotation
of words. Latin is the original language of the Catholic
Church, the language of scholarship and diplomacy
in the period of ecclesiastical formation, the tongue
to which were committed the ritual, articles of faith,
legal enactments, the writings of the fathers of the
Church, ancient conciliar decrees, etc. The only exceptions
to the rule which prescribes Latin as the liturgical
speech are to be found among certain Oriental congregations,
where, for local reasons, other languages are
The Mass is the most solemn rite among the offices
of the Catholic Church, and embodies the fundamental
doctrine upon which the Catholic system of worship
mainly rests. It is the chief sacrament, the permanent
channel of grace ever kept open between God and his
Church. It is an elaborate development of the last
supper of Christ with his disciples, and is the fulfilment
of the perpetual injunction laid by the Master upon his
followers. Developed under the control of the idea of
sacrifice, which was drawn from the central conception
of the old Jewish dispensation and imbedded in the
tradition of the Church at a very early period, the office
of the Mass became not a mere memorial of the atonement
upon Calvary, but a perpetual renewal of it upon
the altar through the power committed to the priesthood
by the Holy Spirit. To the Protestant, Christ was
offered once for all upon the cross, and the believer partakes
through repentance and faith in the benefits conferred
by that transcendent act; but to the Catholic
this sacrifice is repeated whenever the eucharistic elements
of bread and wine are presented at the altar
with certain prayers and formulas. The renewal of the
atoning process is effected through the recurring
miracle of transubstantiation, by which the bread and
wine are transmuted into the very body and blood of
The whole elaborate ceremony of the Mass, which is such an enigma to the uninstructed, is nowhere vain or repetitious. Every word has its fitting relation to the whole; every gesture and genuflection, every change of vestments, has its symbolic significance. All the elements of the rite are merged into a unity under the sway of this central act of consecration and oblation. All the lessons, prayers, responses, and hymns are designed to lead up to it, to prepare the officers and people to share in it, and to impress upon them its meaning and effect. The architectural, sculptural, and decorative beauty of altar, chancel, and apse finds its justification as a worthy setting for the august ceremony, and as a fitting shrine to harbor the very presence of the Lord. The display of lights and vestments, the spicy clouds of incense, the solemnity of priestly chant, and the pomp of choral music, are contrived solely to enhance the impression of the rite, and to compel the mind into a becoming mood of adoration.
There are several kinds of Masses, differing in certain
details, or in manner of performance, or in respect to the
occasions to which they are appropriated, such as the
High Mass, Solemn High Mass, Low Mass, Requiem
Mass or Mass for the Dead, Mass of the Presanctified,
Nuptial Mass, Votive Mass, etc. The widest departure
from the ordinary Mass form is in the Requiem Mass,
where the Gloria and Credo are omitted, and their
places supplied by the mediaeval judgment hymn, Dies
Irae, together with certain special prayers for departed
souls. In respect to the customary service on Sundays,
festal, and ferial days there is no difference in the words
of the High Mass, Solemn High Mass, and Low Mass,
but only in the manner of performance and the degree
of embellishment. The Low Mass is said in a low tone
The prayers, portions of Scripture, hymns, and
responses which compose the Catholic liturgy consist
both of parts that are unalterably the same and of parts
that change each day of the year. Those portions that
are invariable constitute what is known as the Ordinary
of the Mass. The changeable or “proper” parts include
the Introits, Collects, Epistles and Lessons, Graduals,
Tracts, Gospels, Offertories, Secrets, Prefaces,
Communions, and Post-Communions. Every day of the
year has its special and distinctive form, according as it
commemorates some event in the life of our Lord or is
devoted to the memory of some saint, martyr, or confessor.
The outline of the Mass ceremony that follows relates to the High Mass, which may be taken as the type of the Mass in general. It must be borne in mind that the entire office is chanted or sung.
After the entrance of the officiating priest and his attendants the celebrant pronounces the words: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen;” and then recites the 42d psalm (43d in the Protestant version). Next follows the confession of sin and prayer for pardon. After a few brief prayers and responses the Introit—a short Scripture selection, usually from a psalm—is chanted. Then the choir sings the Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison. The first of these ejaculations was used in the Eastern Church in the earliest ages as a response by the people. It was adopted into the liturgies of the Western Church at a very early period, and is one of the two instances of the survival in the Latin office of phrases of the original Greek liturgies. The Christe eleison was added a little later.
The Kyrie is immediately followed by the singing by the choir of the Gloria in excelsis Deo. This hymn, also called the greater doxology, is of Greek origin, and is the angelic song given in chapter ii. of Luke’s Gospel, with additions which were made not later than the fourth century. It was adopted into the Roman liturgy at least as early as the latter part of the sixth century, since it appears, connected with certain restrictions, in the sacramentary of Pope Gregory the Great.
Next are recited the Collects—short prayers appropriate to the day, imploring God’s blessing. Then comes the reading of the Epistle, a psalm verse called the Gradual, the Alleluia, or, when that is omitted, the Tractus (which is also usually a psalm verse), and at certain festivals a hymn called Sequence. Next is recited the Gospel appointed for the day. If a sermon is preached its place is next after the Gospel.
The confession of faith—Credo—is then sung by the choir. This symbol is based on the creed adopted by the council of Nicaea in 325 and modified by the council of Constantinople in 381, but it is not strictly identical with either the Nicene or the Constantinople creed. The most important difference between the Constantinople creed and the present Roman consists in the addition in the Roman creed of the words “and from the Son” (filioque) in the declaration concerning the procession of the Holy Ghost. The present creed has been in use in Spain since 589, and according to what seems good authority was adopted into the Roman liturgy in 1014.
After a sentence usually taken from a psalm and called the Offertory, the most solemn portion of the Mass begins with the Oblation of the Host, the ceremonial preparation of the elements of bread and wine, with prayers, incensings, and ablutions.
All being now ready for the consummation of the sacrificial act, the ascription of thanksgiving and praise called the Preface is offered, which varies with the season, but closes with the Sanctus and Benedictus, sung by the choir.
The Sanctus, also called Trisagion or Thrice Holy,
is the cherubic hymn heard by Isaiah in vision, as described
in
The Canon of the Mass now opens with prayers that the holy sacrifice may be accepted of God, and may redound to the benefit of those present. The act of consecration is performed by pronouncing Christ’s words of institution, and the sacred host and chalice, now become objects of the most rapt and absorbed devotion, are elevated before the kneeling worshipers, and committed to the acceptance of God with the most impressive vows and invocations.
As an illustration of the nobility of thought and beauty of diction that are found in the Catholic offices, the prayer immediately following the consecration of the chalice may be quoted:
“Wherefore, O Lord, we thy servants, as also thy holy people, calling to mind the blessed passion of the same Christ thy Son our Lord, his resurrection from the dead, and admirable ascension into heaven, offer unto thy most excellent Majesty of the gifts bestowed upon us a pure Host, a holy Host, an unspotted Host, the holy bread of eternal life, and chalice of everlasting salvation.
“Upon which vouchsafe to look, with a propitious and serene countenance, and to accept them, as thou wert graciously pleased to accept the gifts of thy just servant Abel, and the sacrifice of our patriarch Abraham, and that which thy high priest Melchisedech offered to thee, a holy sacrifice and unspotted victim.
“We most humbly beseech thee, Almighty God, command these things to be carried by the hands of thy holy angels to thy altar on high, in the sight of thy divine Majesty, that as many as shall partake of the most sacred body and blood of thy Son at this altar, may be filled with every heavenly grace and blessing.”
In the midst of the series of prayers following the
consecration the choir sings the Agnus Dei, a short
hymn which was introduced into the Roman liturgy
at a very early date. The priest then communicates,
and those of the congregation who have been prepared
for the exalted privilege by confession and absolution
kneel at the sanctuary rail and receive from the celebrant’s
hands the consecrated wafer. The Post-Communion,
which is a brief prayer for protection and grace, the
dismissal
Interspersed with the prayers, lessons, responses,
hymns, etc., which constitute the liturgy are a great
number of crossings, obeisances, incensings, changing
of vestments, and other liturgic actions, all an enigma
to the uninitiated, yet not arbitrary or meaningless, for
each has a symbolic significance, designed not merely
to impress the congregation, but still more to enforce
upon the ministers themselves a sense of the magnitude
of the work in which they are engaged. The complexity
of the ceremonial, the rapidity of utterance and
the frequent inaudibility of the words of the priest,
together with the fact that the text is in a dead language,
are not inconsistent with the purpose for which
the Mass is conceived. For it is not considered as
proceeding from the people, but it is an ordinance performed
for them and in their name by a priesthood,
In reading the words of the Catholic liturgy from the Missal we must remember that they were written to be sung, and in a certain limited degree acted, and that we cannot receive their real force except when musically rendered and in connection with the ceremonies appropriated to them. For the Catholic liturgy is in conception and history a musical liturgy; word and tone are inseparably bound together. The immediate action of music upon the emotion supplements and reinforces the action of the text and the dogmatic teaching upon the understanding, and the ceremony at the altar makes the impression still more direct by means of visible representation. All the faculties are therefore held in the grasp of this composite agency of language, music, and bodily motion; neither is at any point independent of the others, for they are all alike constituent parts of the poetic whole, in which action becomes prayer and prayer becomes action.
The music of the Catholic Church as it exists to-day
is the result of a long process of evolution. Although
this process has been continuous, it has three times
culminated in special forms, all of them coincident
(1) The period in which the unison chant was the only form of church music extends from the founding of the congregation of Rome to about the year 1100, and coincides with the centuries of missionary labor among the Northern and Western nations, when the Roman liturgy was triumphantly asserting its authority over the various local uses.
(2) The period of the unaccompanied contrapuntal chorus, based on the mediaeval key and melodic systems, covers the era of the European sovereignty of the Catholic Church, including also the period of the Counter-Reformation of the sixteenth century. This phase of art, culminating in the works of Palestrina in Rome, Orlandus Lassus in Munich, and the Gabrielis in Venice, suffered no decline, and gave way at last to a style in sharp contrast with it only when it had gained an impregnable historic position.
(3) The style now dominant in the choir music of
the Catholic Church, viz., mixed solo and chorus music
with free instrumental accompaniment, based on the
modern transposing scales, arose in the seventeenth
century as an outcome of the Renaissance secularization
of art. It was taken up by the Catholic, Lutheran,
and Anglican Churches, and was moulded into its
The unison chant, although confined in the vast
majority of congregations to the portions of the liturgy
that are sung by the priest, is still the one officially
recognized form of liturgic music. Although in the
historic development of musical art representatives of
the later phases of music have been admitted into the
Church, they exist there only, we might say, by sufferance,—the
chant still remains the legal basis of the
whole scheme of worship music. The chant melodies
are no mere musical accompaniment; they are the very
life breath of the words. The text is so exalted in
diction and import, partaking of the sanctity of the
sacrificial function to which it ministers, that it must
be uttered in tones especially consecrated to it. So
intimate is this reciprocal relation of tone and language
that in process of time these two elements have become
amalgamated into a union so complete that no dissolution
is possible even in thought. There is no question
that the chant melodies as they exist to-day are
only modifications, in most cases but slight modifications,
of those that were originally associated with
the several portions of the liturgy. At the moment
when any form of words was given a place in the
Missal or Breviary, its proper melody was then and
there wedded to it. This fact makes the Catholic
liturgic chant a distinctive church song in a special
and peculiar sense. It is not, like most other church
music, the artistic creation of individuals, enriching the
If we enter a Catholic church during High Mass
or Vespers we notice that the words of the priest
are delivered in musical tones. This song at once
strikes us as different in many respects from any other
form of music with which we are acquainted. At
first it seems monotonous, strange, almost barbaric,
but when we have become accustomed to it the effect
is very solemn and impressive. Many who are not
instructed in the matter imagine that the priest extemporizes
these cadences, but nothing could be further
from the truth. Certain portions of this chant are very
plain, long series of words being recited on a single
note, introduced and ended with very simple melodic
inflections; other portions are florid, of wider compass
than the simple chant, often with many notes to a syllable.
Sometimes the priest sings alone, without response
This peculiar and solemn form of song is the musical
speech in which the entire ritual of the Catholic
Church was originally rendered, and to which a large
portion of the ritual is confined at the present day. It
is always sung in unison, with or without instrumental
accompaniment. It is unmetrical though not unrhythmical;
it follows the phrasing, the emphasis, and the
natural inflections of the voice in reciting the text, at
the same time that it idealizes them. It is a sort of
The chant appears to be the natural and fundamental
form of music employed in all liturgical systems the
world over, ancient and modern. The sacrificial song
of the Egyptians, the Hebrews, and the Greeks was
a chant, and this is the form of music adopted by the
Eastern Church, the Anglican, and every system in
which worship is offered in common and prescribed
forms. The chant form is chosen because it does not
make an independent artistic impression, but can be
held in strict subordination to the sacred words; its
sole function is to carry the text over with greater force
upon the attention and the emotions. It is in this
relationship of text and tone that the chant differs from
true melody. The latter obeys musical laws of structure
and rhythm; the music is paramount and the text
accessory, and in order that the musical flow may not
be hampered, the words are often extended or repeated,
and may be compared to a flexible framework on which
the tonal decoration is displayed. In the chant, on the
other hand, this relation of text and tone is reversed;
there is no repetition of words, the laws of structure
and rhythm are rhetorical laws, and the music never
asserts itself to the concealment or subjugation of the
meaning of the text. The “jubilations” or “melismas,”
which are frequent in the choral portions of the Plain
Chant is speech-song, probably the earliest form of
vocal music; it proceeds from the modulations of impassioned
speech; it results from the need of regulating
and perpetuating these modulations when certain exigencies
require a common and impressive form of utterance,
as in religious rites, public rejoicing or mourning,
etc. The necessity of filling large spaces almost inevitably
involves the use of balanced cadences. Poetic
recitation among ancient and primitive peoples is never
recited in the ordinary level pitch of voice in speech,
but always in musical inflections, controlled by some
principle of order. Under the authority of a permanent
corporate institution these inflections are reduced to a
No one can obtain any proper conception of this magnificent
Plain Song system from the examples which
one ordinarily hears in Catholic churches, for only
a minute part of it is commonly employed at the
present day. Only in certain convents and a few
churches where monastic ideas prevail, and where priests
and choristers are enthusiastic students of the ancient
liturgic song, can we hear musical performances which
afford us a revelation of the true affluence of this mediaeval
treasure. What we customarily hear is only the
simpler intonings of the priest at his ministrations, and
the eight “psalm tones” sung alternately by priest and
choir. These “psalm tones” or “Gregorian tones”
are plain melodic formulas, with variable endings, and
are appointed to be sung to the Latin psalms and canticles.
The theory and practice of the liturgic chant is a science of large dimensions and much difficulty. In the course of centuries a vast store of chant melodies has been accumulated, and in the nature of the case many variants of the older melodies—those composed before the development of a precise system of notation—have arisen, so that the verification of texts, comparison of authorities, and the application of methods of rendering to the needs of the complex ceremonial make this subject a very important branch of liturgical science.
The Plain Song may be divided into the simple and the ornate chants. In the first class the melodies are to a large extent syllabic (one note to a syllable), rarely with more than two notes to a syllable. The simplest of all are the tones employed in the delivery of certain prayers, the Epistle, Prophecy, and Gospel, technically known as “accents,” which vary but little from monotone. The most important of the more melodious simple chants are the “Gregorian tones” already mentioned. The inflections sung to the versicles and responses are also included among the simple chants.
The ornate chants differ greatly in length, compass,
and degree of elaboration. Some of these melodies
are exceedingly florid and many are of great beauty.
They constitute the original settings for all the portions
of the Mass not enumerated among the simple chants,
viz., the Kyrie, Gloria, Introit, Prefaces, Communion,
etc., besides the Sequences and hymns. Certain of
these chants are so elaborate that they may almost be
said to belong to a separate class. Examination of
many of these extended melodies will often disclose
The ritual chant has its special laws of execution
which involve long study on the part of one who wishes
to master it. Large attention is given in the best
seminaries to the purest manner of delivering the chant,
and countless treatises have been written upon the subject.
The first desideratum is an accurate pronunciation
of the Latin, and a facile and distinct articulation.
The notes have no fixed and measurable value,
In the long florid passages often occurring on a single
vowel analogous rules are involved. The text and
the laws of natural recitation must predominate over
melody. The jubilations are not to be conceived simply
as musical embellishments, but, on the contrary,
their beauty depends upon the melodic accents to which
they are joined in a subordinate position. These florid
passages are never introduced thoughtlessly or without
meaning, but they are strictly for emphasizing the
The principles above cited concern the rhythm of the chant. Other elements of expression must also be taken into account, such as prolonging and shortening tones, crescendos and diminuendos, subtle changes of quality of voice or tone color to suit different sentiments. The manner of singing is also affected by the conditions of time and place, such as the degree of the solemnity of the occasion, and the dimensions and acoustic properties of the edifice in which the ceremony is held.
In the singing of the mediaeval hymn melodies, many beautiful examples of which abound in the Catholic office books, the above rules of rhythm and expression are modified as befits the more regular metrical character which the melodies derive from the verse. They are not so rigid, however, as would be indicated by the bar lines of modern notation, and follow the same laws of rhythm that would obtain in spoken recitation.
The liturgic chant of the Catholic Church has already
been alluded to under its more popular title of “Gregorian.”
Throughout the Middle Age and down to
In addition to these genuine services historians have generally concurred in ascribing to him a final shaping influence upon the liturgic chant, with which, however, he probably had very little to do. His supposed work in this department has been divided into the following four details:
(1) He freed the church song from the fetters of Greek prosody.
(2) He collected the chants previously existing, added others, provided them with a system of notation, and wrote them down in a book which was afterwards called the Antiphonary of St. Gregory, which he fastened to the altar of St. Peter’s Church, in order that it might serve as an authoritative standard in all cases of doubt in regard to the true form of chant.
(3) He established a singing school in which he gave instruction.
(4) He added four new scales to the four previously existing, thus completing the tonal system of the Church.
The prime authority for these statements is the biography of Gregory I., written by John the Deacon about 872. Detached allusions to this pope as the founder of the liturgic chant appear before John’s day, the earliest being in a manuscript addressed by Pope Hadrian I. to Charlemagne in the latter part of the eighth century, nearly two hundred years after Gregory’s death. The evidences which tend to show that Gregory I. could not have had anything to do with this important work of sifting, arranging, and noting the liturgic melodies become strong as soon as they are impartially examined. In Gregory’s very voluminous correspondence, which covers every known phase of his restless activity, there is no allusion to any such work in respect to the music of the Church, as there almost certainly would have been if he had undertaken to bring about uniformity in the musical practice of all the churches under his administration. The assertions of John the Deacon are not confirmed by any anterior document. No epitaph of Gregory, no contemporary records, no ancient panegyrics of the pope, touch upon the question. Isidor of Seville, a contemporary of Gregory, and the Venerable Bede in the next century, were especially interested in the liturgic chant and wrote upon it, yet they make no mention of Gregory in connection with it. The documents upon which John bases his assertion, the so-called Gregorian Antiphonary, do not agree with the ecclesiastical calendar of the actual time of Gregory I.
In reply to these objections and others that might be given there is no answer but legend, which John the Deacon incorporated in his work, and which was generally accepted toward the close of the eleventh century. That this legend should have arisen is not strange. It is no uncommon thing in an uncritical age for the achievement of many minds in a whole epoch to be attributed to the most commanding personality in that epoch, and such a personality in the sixth and seventh centuries was Gregory the Great.
What, then, is the origin of the so-called Gregorian
chant? There is hardly a more interesting question
in the whole history of music, for this chant is the
basis of the whole magnificent structure of mediaeval
church song, and in a certain sense of all modern music,
and it can be traced back unbroken to the earliest
years of the Christian Church, the most persistent and
fruitful form of art that the modern world has known.
The most exhaustive study that has been devoted to
this obscure subject has been undertaken by Gevaert,
director of the Brussels Conservatory of Music, who
has brought forward strong representation to show that
the musical system of the early Church of Rome was
largely derived from the secular forms of music practised
in the private and social life of the Romans in
the time of the empire, and which were brought to
Rome from Greece after the conquest of that country
B.C. 146. “No one to-day doubts,” says Gevaert,
“that the modes and melodies of the Catholic liturgy
are a precious remains of antique art.” “The Christian
chant took its modal scales to the number of four,
and its melodic themes, from the musical practice of
the Roman empire, and particularly from the song
The Christian chants were, however, no mere reproductions of profane melodies. The groundwork of the chant is allied to the Greek melody; the Christian song is of a much richer melodic movement, bearing in all its forms the evidence of the exuberant spiritual life of which it is the chosen expression. The pagan melody was sung to an instrument; the Christian was unaccompanied, and was therefore free to develop a special rhythmical and melodic character unconditioned by any laws except those involved in pure vocal expression. The fact also that the Christian melodies were set to unmetrical texts, while the Greek melody was wholly confined to verse, marked the emancipation of the liturgic song from the bondage of strict prosody, and gave a wider field to melodic and rhythmic development.
It would be too much to say that Gevaert has completely
made out his case. The impossibility of verifying
the exact primitive form of the oldest chants, and
the almost complete disappearance of the Greco-Roman
There is no proof of the existence of a definite
system of notation before the seventh century. The
chanters, priests, deacons, and monks, in applying melodies
to the text of the office, composed by aid of their
memories, and their melodies were transmitted by memory,
although probably with the help of arbitrary mnemonic
signs. The possibility of this will readily be
granted when we consider that special orders of monks
made it their sole business to preserve, sing, and teach
these melodies. In the confusion and misery following
the downfall of the kingdom of the Goths in the middle
The system of tonality upon which the music of the
Middle Age was based was the modal or diatonic. The
modern system of transposing scales, each major or
minor scale containing the same succession of steps and
half steps as each of its fellows, dates no further back
than the first half of the seventeenth century. The
mediaeval system comprises theoretically fourteen, in
actual use twelve, distinct modes or keys, known as
the ecclesiastical modes or Gregorian modes. These
modes are divided into two classes—the “authentic”
and “plagal.” The compass of each of the authentic
modes lies between the keynote, called the “final,” and
the octave above, and includes the notes represented
by the white keys of the pianoforte, excluding sharps
and flats. The first authentic mode begins on D, the
second on E, and so on. Every authentic mode is
connected with a mode known as its plagal, which
consists of the last four notes of the authentic mode
transposed an octave below, and followed by the first
five notes of the authentic, the “final” being the
To suppose that the chant in this period was sung
exactly as it appears in the office books of the present
day would be to ignore a very characteristic and universal
usage in the Middle Age. No privilege was more
freely accorded to the mediaeval chanter than that of
adding to the melody whatever embellishment he might
choose freely to invent on the impulse of the moment.
The right claimed by Italian opera singers down to
a very recent date to decorate the phrases with trills,
cadenzas, etc., even to the extent of altering the written
notes themselves, is only the perpetuation of a practice
generally prevalent in the mediaeval Church, and which
may have come down, for anything we know to the
contrary, from remote antiquity. In fact, the requirement
of singing the notes exactly as they are written
is a modern idea; no such rule was recognized as invariably
binding until well into the nineteenth century.
It was no uncommon thing in Händel’s time and after
to introduce free embellishments even into “I know
that my Redeemer liveth” in the “Messiah.” In the
Middle Age the singers in church and convent took
great merit to themselves for the inventive ability and
Such was the nature of the song which resounded
about the altars of Roman basilicas and through convent
cloisters in the seventh and eighth centuries, and which
has remained the sanctioned official speech of the Catholic
Church in her ritual functions to the present day. Nowhere
did it suffer any material change or addition until
it became the basis of a new harmonic art in Northern
Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The
chant according to the Roman use began to extend itself
over Europe in connection with the missionary efforts
which emanated from Rome from the time of Gregory
the Great. Augustine, the emissary of Gregory, who
went to England in 597 to convert the Saxons, carried
with him the Roman chant. “The band of monks,”
says Green, “entered Canterbury bearing before them a
silver cross with a picture of Christ, and singing in concert
the strains of the litany of their church.”
The Roman chant was accepted eventually throughout
the dominions of the Church as an essential element of
the Roman liturgy. Both shared the same struggles and
the same triumphs. Familiarity with the church song
became an indispensable part of the equipment of every
clergyman, monastic and secular. No missionary might
go forth from Rome who was not adept in it. Monks
made dangerous journeys to Rome from the remotest
Among the convent schools which performed such
priceless service for civilization in the gloomy period
of the early Middle Age, the monastery of St. Gall
in Switzerland holds an especially distinguished place.
This convent was established in the seventh century
by the Irish monk from whom it took its name, rapidly
increased in repute as a centre of piety and learning,
and during the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries
numbered some of the foremost scholars of the time
among its brotherhood. About 790 two monks, versed
in all the lore of the liturgic chant, were sent from Rome
into the empire of Charlemagne at the monarch’s request.
“In the reign of Charlemagne (803) the Council of Aachen enjoined upon all monasteries the use of the Roman song, and a later capitulary required that the monks should perform this song completely and in proper order at the divine office, in the daytime as well as at night. According to other rescripts during the reign of Louis the Pious (about 820) the monks of St. Gall were required daily to celebrate Mass, and also to perform the service of all the canonical hours. The solemn melodies of the ancient psalmody resounded daily in manifold and precisely ordered responses; at the midnight hour the sound of the Invitatorium, Venite exultamus Domino, opened the service of the nocturnal vigils; the prolonged, almost mournful tones of the responses alternated with the intoned recitation of the lessons; in the spaces of the temple on Sundays and festal days, at the close of the nightly worship, there reëchoed the exalted strains of the Ambrosian hymn of praise (Te Deum laudamus); at the first dawn of day began the morning adoration, with psalms and antiphons, hymns and
[120] prayers; to these succeeded in due order the remaining offices of the diurnal hours. The people were daily invited by the Introit to participate in the holy mysteries; they heard in solemn stillness the tones of the Kyrie imploring mercy; on festal days they were inspired by the song once sung by the host of angels; after the Gradual they heard the melodies of the Sequence which glorified the object of the festival in jubilant choral strains, and afterward the simple recitative tones of the Creed; at the Sanctus they were summoned to join in the praise of the Thrice Holy, and to implore the mercy of the Lamb who taketh away the sins of the world. These were the songs which, about the middle of the ninth century, arose on festal or ferial days in the cloister church of St. Gall. How much store the fathers of this convent set upon beauty and edification in song appears from the old regulations in which distinct pronunciation of words and uniformity of rendering are enjoined, and hastening or dragging the time sharply rebuked.”
Schubiger goes on to say that three styles of performing the chant were employed; viz., a very solemn one for the highest festivals, one less solemn for Sundays and saints’ days, and an ordinary one for ferial days. An appropriate character was given to the different chants,—e. g., a profound and mournful expression in the office for the dead; an expression of tenderness and sweetness to the hymns, the Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei; and a dignified character (cantus gravis) to the antiphons, responses, and alleluia. Anything that could disturb the strict and euphonious rendering of the song was strictly forbidden. Harsh, unmusical voices were not permitted to take part. Distinctness, precise conformity of all the singers in respect to time, and purity of intonation were inflexibly demanded.
Special services, with processions and appropriate hymns, were instituted on the occasion of the visit to the monastery of the emperor or other high dignitary. All public observances, the founding of a building, the reception of holy relics, the consecration of a bell or altar,—even many of the prescribed routine duties of conventual life, such as drawing water, lighting lamps, or kindling fires,—each had its special form of song. It was not enthusiasm, but sober truth, that led Ekkehard V. to say that the rulers of this convent, “through their songs and melodies, as also through their teachings, filled the Church of God, not only in Germany, but in all lands from one sea to the other, with splendor and joy.”
At the convent of St. Gall originated the class of liturgical
hymns called Sequences, which includes some of
the finest examples of mediaeval hymnody. At a very
early period it became the custom to sing the Alleluia
of the Gradual to a florid chant, the final vowel being
extended into an exceedingly elaborate flourish of notes.
Notker Balbulus, a notable member of the St. Gall
brotherhood in the ninth century, conceived the notion,
under the suggestion of a visiting monk, of making a
practical use of the long-winded final cadence of the
Alleluia. He extended and modified these melodious
passages and set words to them, thus constructing a
brief form of prose hymn. His next step was to invent
both notes and text, giving his chants a certain crude
Many beautiful and touching stories have come down
to us, illustrating the passionate love of the monks
for their songs, and the devout, even superstitious,
reverence with which they regarded them. Among
these are the tales of the Armorican monk Hervé,
in the sixth century, who, blind from his birth, became
the inspirer and teacher of his brethren by
As centuries went on, and these ancient melodies,
gathering such stores of holy memory, were handed
down in their integrity from generation to generation of
praying monks, it is no wonder that the feeling grew
that they too were inspired by the Holy Spirit. The
legend long prevailed in the Middle Age that Gregory
the Great one night had a vision in which the Church
appeared to him in the form of an angel, magnificently
attired, upon whose mantle was written the whole art of
music, with all the forms of its melodies and notes.
The pope prayed God to give him the power of recollecting
all that he saw; and after he awoke a dove appeared,
who dictated to him the chants which are ascribed to
him.
In order to explain the feeling toward the liturgic chant which is indicated by these legends and the rapturous eulogies of mediaeval and modern writers, we have only to remember that the melody was never separated in thought from the words, that these words were prayer and praise, made especially acceptable to God because wafted to him by means of his own gift of music. To the mediaeval monks prayer was the highest exercise in which man can engage, the most efficacious of all actions, the chief human agency in the salvation of the world. Prayer was the divinely appointed business to which they were set apart. Hence arose the multiplicity of religious services in the convents, the observance of the seven daily hours of prayer, in some monasteries in France, as earlier in Syria and Egypt, extending to the so-called laus perennis, in which companies of brethren, relieving each other at stated watches, maintained, like the sacred fire of Vesta, an unbroken office of song by night and day.
Such was the liturgic chant in the ages of faith, before the invention of counterpoint and the first steps in modern musical science suggested new conceptions and methods in worship music. It constitutes to-day a unique and precious heritage from an era which, in its very ignorance, superstition, barbarism of manners, and ruthlessness of political ambition, furnishes strongest evidence of the divine origin of a faith which could triumph over such antagonisms. To the devout Catholic the chant has a sanctity which transcends even its aesthetic and historic value, but non-Catholic as well as Catholic may reverence it as a direct creation and a token of a mode of thought which, as at no epoch since, conceived prayer and praise as a Christian’s most urgent duty, and as an infallible means of gaining the favor of God.
The Catholic liturgic chant, like all other monumental
forms of art, has often suffered through the vicissitudes
of taste which have beguiled even those whose official
responsibilities would seem to constitute them the special
custodians of this sacred treasure. Even to-day there
are many clergymen and church musicians who have but
a faint conception of the affluence of lovely melody and
profound religious expression contained in this vast body
of mediaeval music. Where purely aesthetic considerations
have for a time prevailed, as they often will even
in a Church in which tradition and symbolism exert so
strong an influence as they do in the Catholic, this
archaic form of melody has been neglected. Like all the
older types (the sixteenth century a capella chorus and
the German rhythmic choral, for example) its austere
speech has not been able to prevail against the fascinations
of the modern brilliant and emotional style of
church music which has emanated from instrumental art
and the Italian aria. Under this latter influence, and
the survival of the seventeenth-century contempt for
everything mediaeval and “Gothic,” the chant was long
looked upon with disdain as the offspring of a barbarous
age, and only maintained at all out of unwilling deference
to ecclesiastical authority. In the last few decades,
however, probably as a detail of the reawakening in all
departments of a study of the great works of older art,
there has appeared a reaction in favor of a renewed culture
The historic status of the Gregorian chant as the
basis of the magnificent structure of Catholic church
music down to 1600, of the Anglican chant, and to a
large extent of the German people’s hymn-tune or
choral, has always been known to scholars. The revived
study of it has come from an awakened perception of its
liturgic significance and its inherent beauty. The
It has already been noted that the music of the
Catholic Church has passed through three typical phases
or styles, each complete in itself, bounded by clearly
marked lines, corresponding quite closely in respect to
time divisions with the three major epochs into which
the history of the Western Church may be divided.
These phases or schools of ecclesiastical song are so far
from being mutually exclusive that both the first and
second persisted after the introduction of the third, so
that at the present day at least two of the three forms
are in use in almost every Catholic congregation, the
Gregorian chant being employed in the song of the
priest and in the antiphonal psalms and responses, and
either the second or third form being adopted in the
remaining offices.
Since harmony was unknown during the first one
thousand years or more of the Christian era, and instrumental
music had no independent existence, the whole
vast system of chant melodies was purely unison and
unaccompanied, its rhythm usually subordinated to that
of the text. Melody, unsupported by harmony, soon
This mediaeval school of a capella polyphonic music
is in many respects more attractive to the student of
ecclesiastical art than even the far more elaborate and
brilliant style which prevails to-day. Modern church
music, by virtue of its variety, splendor, and dramatic
pathos, seems to be tinged with the hues of earthliness
which belie the strictest conception of ecclesiastical art.
It partakes of the doubt and turmoil of a skeptical
and rebellious age, it is the music of impassioned longing
Such pathetic suggestion clings to the religious music
of the Middle Age no less palpably than to the sculpture,
painting, and hymnody of the same era, and combines
with its singular artistic perfection and loftiness of tone
to render it perhaps the most typical and lovely of all
the forms of Catholic art. And yet to the generality of
students of church and art history it is of all the products
of the Middle Age the least familiar. Any intellectual
man whom we might select would call himself but
scantily educated if he had no acquaintance with mediaeval
architecture and plastic art; yet he would probably
not feel at all ashamed to confess total ignorance of
that vast store of liturgic music which in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries filled the incense-laden air of
those very cathedrals and chapels in which his reverent
feet so love to wander. The miracles of mediaeval architecture,
the achievements of the Gothic sculptors and
the religious painters of Florence, Cologne, and Flanders
are familiar to him, but the musical craftsmen of the
Low Countries, Paris, Rome, and Venice, who clothed
The period from the twelfth century to the close of
the sixteenth was one of extraordinary musical activity.
The thousands of cathedrals, chapels, parish churches,
and convents were unceasing in their demands for new
settings of the Mass and offices. Until the art of printing
was applied to musical notes about the year 1500,
followed by the foundation of musical publishing houses,
there was but little duplication or exchange of musical
compositions, and thus every important ecclesiastical
establishment must be provided with its own corps of
composers and copyists. The religious enthusiasm and
the vigorous intellectual activity of the Middle Age
found as free a channel of discharge in song as in any
other means of embellishment of the church ceremonial.
These conditions, together with the absence of an operatic
stage, a concert system, or a musical public, turned
the fertile musical impulses of the period to the benefit
of the Church. The ecclesiastical musicians also set to
music vast numbers of madrigals, chansons, villanellas,
and the like, for the entertainment of aristocratic patrons,
but this was only an incidental deflection from
their more serious duties as ritual composers. In quality
Of this remarkable achievement of genius the educated
man above mentioned knows little or nothing.
How is it possible, he might ask, that a school of art so
opulent in results, capable of arousing so much admiration
among the initiated, could have dominated all
Europe for five such brilliant centuries, and yet have
left so little impress upon the consciousness of the modern
world, if it really possessed the high artistic merits
that are claimed for it? The answer is not difficult.
For the world at large music exists only as it is performed,
and the difficulty and expense of musical performance
insure, as a general rule, the neglect of compositions
that do not arouse a public demand. Church
music is less susceptible than secular to the tyranny of
fashion, but even in this department changing tastes and
the politic compromising spirit tend to pay court to
In order to seize the full significance of this school of
Catholic music in its mature stage in the sixteenth century,
it will be necessary to trace its origin and growth.
The constructive criticism of the present day rests on the
principle that we cannot comprehend works and schools
of art unless we know their causes and environment.
We shall find as we examine the history of mediaeval
choral song, that it arose in response to an instinctive
demand for a more expansive form of music than the
unison chant. Liturgic necessities can in no wise
account for the invention of part singing, for even today
the Gregorian Plain Song remains the one officially
recognized form of ritual music in the Catholic Church.
It was an unconscious impulse, prophesying a richer
musical expression which could not at once be realized,—a
blind revolt of the European mind against bondage
to an antique and restrictive form of expression. For
the Gregorian chant by its very nature as unaccompanied
A century or so before the science of part writing had
taken root in musical practice, a strange barbaric form
of music meets our eyes. A manuscript of the tenth
century, formerly ascribed to Hucbald of St. Armand,
who lived, however, a century earlier, gives the first distinct
account, with rules for performance, of a divergence
from the custom of unison singing, by which the
voices of the choir, instead of all singing the same notes,
move along together separated by octaves and fourths
or octaves and fifths; or else a second voice accompanies
the first by a movement sometimes direct, sometimes
The freer and more promising style which issued from
the treadmill of the organum was called in its initial
stages discant (Lat. discantus), and was at first wholly
confined to an irregular mixture of octaves, unisons,
fifths and fourths, with an occasional third as a sort of
concession to the criticism of the natural ear upon
antique theory. At first two parts only were employed.
Occasional successions of parallel fifths and fourths, the
heritage of the organum, long survived, but they were
gradually eliminated as hollow and unsatisfying, and the
principle of contrary motion, which is the very soul of
all modern harmony and counterpoint, was slowly established.
It must be borne in mind, as the clue to all
mediaeval music, that the practice of tone combination
involved no idea whatever of chords, as modern theory
conceives them. The characteristic principle of the vastly
The transition from organum to discant was effected
about the year 1100. There was for a time no thought
of the invention of the component melodies. Not only
the cantus firmus (the principal theme), but also the
counterpoint (the melodic “running mate”), was borrowed,
the second factor being frequently a folk-tune
altered to fit the chant melody, according to the simple
laws of euphony then admitted. In respect to the words
the discant may be divided into two classes: the words
might be the same in both parts; or one voice would sing
the text of the office of the Church, and the other the
words of the secular song from which the accompanying
tune was taken. In the twelfth century the monkish
musicians, stirred to bolder flights by the satisfactory
results of their two-part discant, essayed three parts, with
results at first childishly awkward, but with growing
ease and smoothness. Free invention of the accompanying
From Coussemaker, Histoire de l’harmonie au moyen age. Translated into modern notation.
The period from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries
was, therefore, not one of expressive art work, but
rather of slow and arduous experiment. The problem
was so to adjust the semi-independent melodious parts
that an unimpeded life might be preserved in all the
voices, and yet the combined effect be at any instant
pure and beautiful. The larger the number of parts, the
greater the skill required to weave them together into a
After confidence had been gained in devising two or more parts to be sung simultaneously, the next step was to bring in one part after another. Some method of securing unity amid variety was now necessary, and this was found in the contrivance known as “imitation,” by which one voice follows another through the same or approximate intervals, the part first sounded acting as a model for a short distance, then perhaps another taking up the leadership with a new melodic figure, the intricate network of parts thus revealing itself as a coherent organism rather than a fortuitous conjunction of notes, the composer’s invention and the hearers’ impression controlled by a conscious plan to which each melodic part is tributary.
When a number of parts came to be used together,
the need of fixing the pitch and length of notes with
precision became imperative. So out of the antique
mnemonic signs, which had done useful service during
Even taking into account the obstacles to rapid development which exist in the very nature of music as the most abstract of the arts, it seems difficult to understand why it should have been so long in acquiring beauty and expression. There was a shorter way to both, but the church musicians would not take it. All around them bloomed a rich verdure of graceful expressive melody in the song and instrumental play of the common people. But the monkish musicians and choristers scorned to follow the lead of anything so artless and obvious. In a scholastic age they were musical scholastics; subtilty and fine pedantic distinctions were their pride. They had become infatuated with the formal and technical, and they seemed indifferent to the claims of the natural and simple while carried away by a passion for intricate structural problems.
The growth of such an art as this, without models,
must necessarily be painfully slow. Many of the cloistered
experimenters passed their lives in nursing an infant
art without seeing enough progress to justify any very
strong faith in the bantling’s future. Their floundering
helplessness is often pathetic, but not enough so to overcome
a smile at the futility of their devices. Practice and
theory did not always work amiably together. In studying
the chorus music of the Middle Age, we must observe
that, as in the case of the liturgic chant, the singers did
not deem it necessary to confine themselves to the
notes actually written. In this formative period of
which we are speaking it was the privilege of the
singers to vary and decorate the written phrases according
to their good pleasure. These adornments were
sometimes carefully thought out, incorporated into the
stated method of delivery, and handed down as traditions.
Such abuses were, of course, not universal, perhaps
not general,—as to that we cannot tell; but they illustrate
the chaotic condition of church music in the three
or four centuries following the first adoption of part
singing. The struggle for light was persistent, and
music, however crude and halting, received abundant
measure of the reverence which, in the age that saw the
building of the Gothic cathedrals, was accorded to everything
that was identified with the Catholic religion.
There were no forms of music that could rival the song of
the Church,—secular music at the best was a plaything,
not an art. The whole endeavor of the learned musicians
was addressed to the enrichment of the church service,
and the wealthy and powerful princes of France,
Italy, Austria, Spain, and England turned the patronage
of music at their courts in the same channel with the
patronage of the Church. It was in the princely chapels
of Northern France and the schools attached to them
that the new art of counterpoint was first cultivated.
So far as the line of progress can be traced, the art originated
in Paris or its vicinity, and slowly spread over the
adjacent country. The home of Gothic architecture was
the home of mediaeval chorus music, and the date of the
appearance of these two products is the same. The
princes of France and Flanders (the term France at that
period meaning the dominions of the Capetian dynasty)
faithfully guarded the interests of religious music, and
the theorists and composers of this time were officers of the
secular government as well as of the Church. We should
naturally suppose that church music would be actively
supported by a king so pious as Robert of France
About the year 1350 church music had cast off its
swaddling bands and had entered upon the stage that
was soon to lead up to maturity. With the opening of
the fifteenth century compositions worthy to be called
artistic were produced. These were hardly yet beautiful
according to modern standards, certainly they had little
or no characteristic expression, but they had begun to be
pliable and smooth sounding, showing that the notes
had come under the composer’s control, and that he was
no longer an awkward apprentice. From the early part
of the fifteenth century we date the epoch of artistic
polyphony, which advanced in purity and dignity until
it culminated in the perfected art of the sixteenth century.
So large a proportion of the fathers and high
priests of mediaeval counterpoint belonged to the districts
now included in Northern France, Belgium, and Holland
that the period bounded by the years 1400 and 1550 is
known in music history as “the age of the Netherlanders.”
With limitless patience and cunning, the French
and Netherland musical artificers applied themselves
to the problems of counterpoint, producing works enormous
in quantity and often of bewildering intricacy.
Great numbers of pupils were trained in the convents
and chapel schools, becoming masters in their turn, and
exercising commanding influence in the churches and
cloisters of all Europe. Complexity in part writing
steadily increased, not only in combinations of notes, but
also in the means of indicating their employment. It
often happened that each voice must sing to a measure
sign that was different from that provided for the other
voices. Double and triple rhythm alternated, the value
of notes of the same character varied in different circumstances;
It would, however, be an error to suppose that such
labored artifice was the sole characteristic of the scientific
music of the fifteenth century. The same composers
who revelled in the exercise of this kind of scholastic
subtlety also furnished their choirs with a vast amount
of music in four, five, and six parts, complex and
difficult indeed from the present point of view, but
for the choristers as then trained perfectly available,
in which there was a striving for solemn devotional
effect, a melodious leading of the voices, and the adjustment
of phrases into bolder and more symmetrical patterns.
Even among the master fabricators of musical
labyrinths we find glimpses of a recognition of the true
The contrapuntal chorus music of the Middle Age reached its maturity in the middle of the sixteenth century. For five hundred years this art had been growing, constantly putting forth new tendrils, which interlaced in luxuriant and ever-extending forms until they overspread all Western Christendom. It was now given to one man, Giovanni Pierluigi, called Palestrina from the place of his birth, to put the finishing touches upon this wonder of mediaeval genius, and to impart to it all of which its peculiar nature was capable in respect to technical completeness, tonal purity and majesty, and elevated devotional expression. Palestrina was more than a flawless artist, more than an Andrea del Sarto; he was so representative of that inner spirit which has uttered itself in the most sincere works of Catholic art that the very heart of the institution to which he devoted his life may be said to find a voice in his music.
Palestrina was born probably in 1526 (authority of Haberl) and died in 1594. He spent almost the whole of his art life as director of music at Rome in the service of the popes, being at one time also a singer in the papal chapel. He enriched every portion of the ritual with compositions, the catalogue of his works including ninety-five masses. Among his contemporaries at Rome were men such as Vittoria, Marenzio, the Anerios, and the Naninis, who worked in the same style as Palestrina. Together they compose the “Roman school” or the “Palestrina school,” and all that may be said of Palestrina’s style would apply in somewhat diminished degree to the writings of this whole group.
Palestrina has been enshrined in history as the
“savior of church music” by virtue of a myth which has
until recent years been universally regarded as a historic
fact. The first form of the legend was to the
effect that the reforming Council of Trent (1545-1563)
had serious thoughts of abolishing the chorus music
of the Church everywhere, and reducing all liturgic
music to the plain unison chant; that judgment was
suspended at the request of Pope Marcellus II. until
Palestrina could produce a work that should be free
from all objectionable features; that a mass of his composition—the
Mass of Pope Marcellus—was performed
before a commission of cardinals, and that its
beauty and refinement so impressed the judges that
polyphonic music was saved and Palestrina’s style proclaimed
Certain abuses that called for correction there doubtless
were in church music in this period. The prevalent
practice of borrowing themes from secular songs
for the cantus firmus, with sometimes the first few
words of the original song at the beginning—as in
the mass of “The Armed Man,” the “Adieu, my Love”
mass, etc.—was certainly objectionable from the standpoint
of propriety, although the intention was never
profane, and the impression received was not sacrilegious.
Moreover, the song of the Church had at times become
so artificial and sophisticated as to belie the true
purpose of worship music. But among all the records
of complaint we find only one at all frequent, and that
was that the sacred words could not be understood in
the elaborate contrapuntal interweaving of the voices.
In the history of every church, in all periods, down even
to the present time, there has always been a party that
discountenances everything that looks like art for the
sake of art, satisfied only with the simplest and rudest
The dissipation of the halo of special beatification
which certain early worshipers of Palestrina have
attempted to throw about the Mass of Pope Marcellus
has in no wise dimmed its glory. It is not
unworthy of the renown which it has so dubiously
acquired. Although many times equalled by its author,
he never surpassed it, and few will be inclined to dispute
the distinction it has always claimed as the most perfect
product of mediaeval musical art. Its style was not
new; it does not mark the beginning of a new era,
as certain writers but slightly versed in music history
have supposed, but the culmination of an old one. It
is essentially in the manner of the Netherland school,
which the myth-makers would represent as condemned
by the Council of Trent. Josquin des Prés, Orlandus
Lassus, Goudimel, and many others had written music
in the same style, just as chaste and subdued, with the
It may seem strange at first thought that a form which
embodied the deepest and sincerest religious feeling
that has ever been projected in tones should have been
perfected in an age when all other art had become to a
large degree sensuous and worldly, and when the Catholic
Church was under condemnation, not only by its
enemies, but also by many of its grieving friends, for its
political ambition, avarice, and corruption. The papacy
was at that moment reaping the inevitable harvest of
spiritual indifference and moral decline, and had fallen
upon days of struggle, confusion, and humiliation. The
Lutheran, Calvinistic, and Anglican revolt had rent from
the Holy See some of the fairest of its dominions, and
those that remained were in a condition of political and
intellectual turmoil. That a reform “in head and members”
The great church composers of the sixteenth century
were kindred to such spirits as these, and the reviving
piety of the time found its most adequate symbol in the
realm of art in the masses and hymns of Palestrina and
Under such influences, impelled by a zeal for the glory of God and the honor of his Church, the polyphony of the Netherland school put forth its consummate flower in the “Palestrina style.” In the works of this later school we may distinguish two distinct modes of treatment: (1) the intricate texture and solidity of Netherland work; (2) the “familiar style,” in which the voices move together in equal steps, without canonic imitations. In the larger compositions we have a blending and alternation of these two, and the scholastic Netherland polyphony appears clarified, and moulded into more plastic outlines for the attainment of a more refined vehicle of expression.
The marked dissimilarity between the music of the
mediaeval school and that of the present era is to a large
extent explained by the differences between the key and
harmonic systems upon which they are severally based.
In the modern system the relationship of notes to the
antithetic tone-centres of tonic and dominant, and the
freedom of modulation from one key to another by
means of the introduction of notes that do not exist in
the first, give opportunities for effect which are not obtainable
in music based upon the Gregorian modes, for
the reason that these modes do not differ in the notes
employed (since they include only the notes represented
by the white keys of the pianoforte plus the B
flat), but only in the relation of the intervals to the note
which forms the keynote or “final.” The concoction
of music based on the latter system is, strictly speaking,
In this “familiar style” which we may trace backward
to the age of the Netherlanders, we find a remote
anticipation of the modern harmonic feeling. A vague
sense of complementary colors of tonic and dominant,
The intricate style commonly prevails in larger works—masses,
motets, and the longer hymns. Only after
careful analysis can we appreciate the wonderful art
that has entered into its fabrication. Upon examining
works of this class we find the score consisting of four
or more parts, but not usually exceeding eight. The
most obvious feature of the design is that each part
appears quite independent of the others; the melody
does not lie in one voice while the others act as accompaniment,
but each part is as much a melody as any
other; each voice pursues its easy, unfettered way, now
one acting as leader, now another, the voices often crossing
each other, each melody apparently quite regardless
of its mates in respect to the time of beginning, culminating,
and ending, the voices apparently not subject to
any common law of accent or rhythm, but each busy
with its own individual progress. The onward movement
In considering further the technical methods and the
final aims of this marvellous style, we find in its culminating
period that the crown of the mediaeval contrapuntal
art upon its aesthetic side lies in the attainment
of beauty of tone effect in and of itself—the gratification
of the sensuous ear, rich and subtly modulated
sound quality, not in the individual boys’ and men’s
The singular perfection of the work of Palestrina has
served to direct the slight attention which the world
now gives to the music of the sixteenth century almost
exclusively to him; yet he was but one master among a
goodly number whose productions are but slightly inferior
to his,—primus inter pares. Orlandus Lassus in
The national love of pomp and ceremonial display
was shown in the church festivals hardly less than in
the secular pageants, and all that could embellish the
externals of the church solemnities was eagerly adopted.
All the most distinguished members of the line of Venetian
church composers were connected with the church
of St. Mark as choir directors and organists, and they
imparted to their compositions a breadth of tone and
warmth of color fully in keeping with the historic and
artistic glory of this superb temple. The founder of the
sixteenth-century Venetian school was Adrian Willaert,
a Netherlander, who was chapel-master at St. Mark’s
from 1527 to 1563. It was he who first employed the
method which became a notable feature of the music of
St. Mark’s, of dividing the choir and thus obtaining
The tendency to lay less stress upon interior intricacy
and more upon harmonic strength, striking tone color,
and cumulative grandeur is even more apparent in Willaert’s
successors at St. Mark’s,—Cyprian de Rore,
Claudio Merulo, and the two Gabrielis. Andrea and
Giovanni Gabrieli carried the splendid tonal art of
Venice to unprecedented heights, adding a third choir
to the two of Willaert, and employing alternate choir
singing, combinations of parts, and massing of voices in
still more ingenious profusion. Winterfeld, the chief
historian of this epoch, thus describes the performance
of a twelve-part psalm by G. Gabrieli: “Three choruses,
one of deep voices, one of higher, and the third consisting
of the four usual parts, are separated from each
other. Like a tender, fervent prayer begins the song in
the deeper chorus, ‘God be merciful unto us and bless
us.’ Then the middle choir continues with similar expression,
‘And cause his face to shine upon us.’ The
higher chorus strikes in with the words, ‘That thy way
may be known upon earth.’ In full voice the strain now
resounds from all three choirs, ‘Thy saving health among
all nations.’ The words, ‘Thy saving health,’ are given
with especial earnestness, and it is to be noticed that
this utterance comes not from all the choirs together,
Great as Giovanni Gabrieli was as master of all the
secrets of mediaeval counterpoint and also of the special
applications devised by the school of Venice, he holds
an even more eminent station as the foremost of the
founders of modern instrumental art, which properly
took its starting point in St. Mark’s church in the sixteenth
century. These men conceived that the organ
might claim a larger function than merely aiding the
voices here and there, and they began to experiment
with independent performances where the ritual permitted
such innovation. So we see the first upspringing
of a lusty growth of instrumental forms, if they
may properly be called forms,—canzonas (the modern
fugue in embryo), toccatas, ricercare (at first nothing
more than vocal counterpoint transferred to the organ),
fantasias, etc.,—rambling, amorphous, incoherent pieces,
but vastly significant as holding the promise and potency
of a new art. Of these far-sighted experimenters
Giovanni Gabrieli was easily chief. Consummate
Another composer of the foremost rank demands attention
before we take leave of the mediaeval contrapuntal
school. Orlandus Lassus (original Flemish
Roland de Lattre, Italianized Orlando di Lasso) was a
musician whose genius entitles him to a place in the
same inner circle with Palestrina and Gabrieli. He
lived from 1520 to 1594. His most important field of
labor was Munich. In force, variety, and range of subject
and treatment he surpasses Palestrina, but is inferior
to the great Roman in pathos, nobility, and spiritual
fervor. His music is remarkable in view of its period
for energy, sharp contrasts, and bold experiments in
chromatic alteration. “Orlando,” says Ambros, “is a
Janus who looks back toward the great past of music in
which he arose, but also forward toward the approaching
epoch.” An unsurpassed master of counterpoint,
he yet depended much upon simpler and more condensed
harmonic movements. The number of his works reaches
2337, of which 765 are secular. His motets hold a
more important place than his masses, and in many of
the former are to be found elements that are so direct
and forceful in expression as almost to be called dramatic.
His madrigals and choral songs are especially
notable for their lavish use of chromatics, and also for a
lusty sometimes rough humor, which shows his keen
sympathy with the popular currents that were running
Turning again to the analysis of the sixteenth-century
chorus and striving to penetrate still further the secret
of its charm, we are obliged to admit that it is not its
purely musical qualities or the learning and cleverness
displayed in its fabrication that will account for its long
supremacy or for the enthusiasm which it has often
excited in an age so remote as our own. Its aesthetic
effect can never be quite disentangled from the impressions
drawn from its religious and historic associations.
Only the devout Catholic call feel its full import, for to
him it shares the sanctity of the liturgy,—it is not
simply ear-pleasing harmony, but prayer; not merely a
decoration of the holy ceremony, but an integral part of
the sacrifice of praise and supplication. And among
Protestants those who eulogize it most warmly are
those whose opinions on church music are liturgical and
austere. Given in a concert hall, in implied competition
with modern chorus music, its effect is feeble. It is as
religious music—ritualistic religious music—identified
There can be no question that the Catholic Church has always endeavored, albeit with a great deal of wavering and inconsistency, to maintain a certain ideal or standard in respect to those forms of art which she employs in her work of education. The frequent injunctions of popes, prelates, councils, and synods for century after century have always held the same tone upon this question. They have earnestly reminded their followers that the Church recognizes a positive norm or canon in ecclesiastical art, that there is a practical distinction between ecclesiastic art and secular art, and that it is a pious duty on the part of churchmen to preserve this distinction inviolate. The Church, however, has never had the courage of this conviction. As J. A. Symonds says, she has always compromised; and so has every church compromised. The inroads of secular styles and modes of expression have always been irresistible except here and there in very limited times and localities. The history of church art, particularly of church music, is the history of the conflict between the sacerdotal conception of art and the popular taste.
What, then, is the theory of ecclesiastical art which
the heads of the Catholic Church have maintained in
precept and so often permitted to be ignored in practice?
What have been the causes and the results of
the secularization of religious art, particularly music?
The strict idea of religious art, as it has always stood
more or less distinctly in the thought of the Catholic
Church, is that it exists not for the decoration of the
offices of worship (although the gratification of the
senses is not considered unworthy as an incidental end),
but rather for edification, instruction, and inspiration.
As stated by an authoritative Catholic writer: “No
branch of art exists for its own sake alone. Art is a
servant, and it serves either God or the world, the eternal
or the temporal, the spirit or the flesh. Ecclesiastical
art must derive its rule and form solely from
the Church.” “These rules and determinations [in
respect to church art] are by no means arbitrary, no
external accretion; they have grown up organically
from within outward, from the spirit which guides
the Church, out of her views and out of the needs of
her worship. And herein lies the justification of her
symbolism and emblematic expression in ecclesiastical
art so long as this holds itself within the limits of
tradition. The church of stone must be a speaking
manifestation of the living Church and her mysteries.
The pictures on the walls and on the altars are not
mere adornment for the pleasure of the eye, but for
the heart a book full of instruction, a sermon full of
truth. And hereby art is raised to be an instrument
of edification to the believer, it becomes a profound
The truth of this principle as a fundamental canon
of ecclesiastical art is not essentially affected by the
fact that it is only in certain periods and under favorable
conditions that it has been strictly enforced.
Whenever art reaches a certain point in development,
individual determination invariably succeeds in breaking
away from tradition. The attainment of technic,
attended by the inevitable pride in technic, liberates
its possessors. The spirit of the Italian religious painters
of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, content
to submit their skill to further the educational
purposes of the Church, could no longer persist in
connection with the growing delight in new technical
problems and the vision of the new fields open to art
when face to face with reality. The conventional treatment
of the Memmis and Fra Angelicos was followed
by the naturalistic representation of the Raphaels, the
Da Vincis, and the Titians. The same result has followed
where pure art has decayed, or where no real
appreciation of art ever existed. The stage of church
All these principles must be applied to the sixteenth-century
a capella music. In fact, there is no better illustration;
its meaning and effect cannot be otherwise
understood. Growing up under what seem perfectly natural
conditions, patronized by the laity as well as by the
It is not true, however, as often alleged, that this form of music altogether lacks characterization, and that the style of Kyrie, Gloria, Crucifixus, Resurrexit, and of the motets and hymns whatever their subject, is always the same. The old masters were artists as well as churchmen, and knew how to adapt their somewhat unresponsive material to the more obvious contrasts of the text; and in actual performance a much wider latitude in respect to nuance and change of speed was permitted than could be indicated in the score. We know, also, that the choristers were allowed great license in the use of embellishments, more or less florid, upon the written notes, sometimes improvised, sometimes carefully invented, taught and handed down as a prescribed code, the tradition of which, in all but a few instances, has been lost. But the very laws of the Gregorian modes and the strict contrapuntal system kept such excursions after expression within narrow bounds, and the traditional view of ecclesiastical art forbade anything like a drastic descriptive literalism.
This mediaeval polyphonic music, although the most
complete example in art of the perfect adaptation of
means to a particular end, could not long maintain its
exclusive prestige. It must be supplanted by a new style
as soon as the transformed secular music was strong
enough to react upon the Church. It was found that
a devotional experience that was not far removed
from spiritual trance, which was all that the old music
could express, was not the only mental attitude admissible
in worship. The new-born art strove to give more
apt and detailed expression to the words, and why should
not this permission be granted to church music? The
musical revolution of the seventeenth century involved
[Note. A very important agent in stimulating a revival of interest in the mediaeval polyphonic school is the St. Cecilia Society, which was founded at Regensburg in 1868 by Dr. Franz Xaver Witt, a devoted priest
[181] and learned musician, for the purpose of restoring a more perfect relation between music and the liturgy and erecting a barrier against the intrusion of dramatic and virtuoso tendencies. Flourishing branches of this society exist in many of the chief church centres of Europe and America. It is the patron of schools of music, it has issued periodicals, books, and musical compositions, and has shown much vigor in making propaganda for its views. Not less intelligent and earnest is the Schola Cantorum of Paris, which is exerting a strong influence upon church music in the French capital and thence throughout the world by means of musical performances, editions of musical works, lectures, and publications of books and essays.]
To one who is accustomed to study the history of art
in the light of the law of evolution, the contrast between
the reigning modern style of Catholic church music
and that of the Middle Age seems at first sight very
difficult of explanation. The growth of the a capella
chorus, which reached its perfection in the sixteenth
century, may be traced through a steady process of
development, every step of which was a logical consequence
of some prior invention. But as we pass onward
into the succeeding age and look for a form of
Catholic music which may be taken as the natural
offspring and successor of the venerable mediaeval style,
we find what appears to be a break in the line of continuity.
The ancient form maintains its existence
throughout the seventeenth century and a portion of
the eighteenth, but it is slowly crowded to one side and
at last driven from the field altogether by a style which,
if we search in the field of church art alone, appears to
have no antecedent. The new style is opposed to the
old in every particular. Instead of forms that are polyphonic
in structure, vague and indefinite in plan, based
on an antique key system, the new compositions are
homophonic, definite, and sectional in plan, revealing an
This violent reversal of the traditions of Catholic
music was simply a detail of that universal revolution
in musical practice and ideal which marked the passage
from the sixteenth century to the seventeenth. The
learned music of Europe had been for centuries almost
exclusively in the care of ecclesiastical and princely
chapels, and its practitioners held offices that were
primarily clerical. The professional musicians, absorbed
in churchly functions, had gone on adding
masses to masses, motets to motets, and hymns to
hymns, until the Church had accumulated a store of
sacred song so vast that it remains the admiration and
despair of modern scholars. These works, although
exhibiting every stage of construction from the simplest
to the most intricate, were all framed in accordance
with principles derived from the mediaeval conception
The genius of Italy was equal to the demand. Usually when any form of art becomes complete a period of degeneracy follows; artists become mere imitators, inspiration and creative power die out, the art becomes a handicraft; new growth appears only in another period or another nation, and under altogether different auspices. Such would perhaps have been the case with church music in Italy if a method diametrically opposed to that which had so long prevailed in the Church had not inaugurated a new school and finally extended its conquest into the venerable precincts of the Church itself. The opera and instrumental music—the two currents into which secular music divided—sprang up, as from hidden fountains, right beside the old forms which were even then just attaining their full glory, as if to show that the Italian musical genius so abounded in energy that it could never undergo decay, but when it had gone to its utmost limits in one direction could instantly strike out in another still more brilliant and productive.
The invention of the opera about the year 1600 is
usually looked upon as the event of paramount importance
in the transition period of modern music history,
yet it was only the most striking symptom of a radical,
sweeping tendency. Throughout the greater part of the
sixteenth century a search had been in progress after a
style of music suited to the solo voice, which could lend
itself to the portrayal of the change and development of
emotion involved in dramatic representation. The folk-song,
which is only suited to the expression of a single
simple frame of mind, was of course inadequate. The
old church music was admirably adapted to the expression
The discovery that was to satisfy the longings of a century and create a new art was made in Florence. About the year 1580 a circle of scholars, musicians, and amateurs began to hold meetings at the house of a certain Count Bardi, where they discussed, among other learned questions, the nature of the music of the Greeks, and the possibility of its restoration. Theorizing was supplemented by experiment, and at last Vincenzo Galilei, followed by Giulio Caccini, hit upon a mode of musical declamation, half speech and half song, which was enthusiastically hailed as the long-lost style employed in the Athenian drama. A somewhat freer and more melodious manner was also admitted in alternation with the dry, formless recitation, and these two related methods were employed in the performance of short lyric, half-dramatic monologues. Such were the Monodies of Galilei and the Nuove Musiche of Caccini. More ambitious schemes followed. Mythological masquerades and pastoral comedies, which had held a prominent place in the gorgeous spectacles and pageants of the Italian court festivals ever since the thirteenth century, were provided with settings of the new declamatory music, or stile recitativo, and behold, the opera was born.
The Florentine inventors of dramatic music builded
better than they knew. They had no thought of setting
music free upon a new and higher flight; they never
dreamed of the consequences of releasing melody from
Thus a new motive took complete possession of the
art of music. By virtue of the new powers revealed to
them, composers would now strive to enter all the
secret precincts of the soul and give a voice to every
emotion, simple or complex, called forth by solitary
meditation or by situations of dramatic stress and conflict.
Music, like painting and poetry, should now
occupy the whole world of human experience. The
stupendous achievements of the tonal art of the past
two centuries are the outcome of this revolutionary
impulse. But not at once could music administer the
whole of her new possession. She must pass through
a course of training in technic, to a certain extent as
she had done in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
but under far more favorable conditions and quite different
circumstances. The shallowness of the greater part
Under such sanctions the Italian grand aria became
the dominant form of melody. Not the appeal to the
intellect and the genuine experiences of the heart was
required of the musical performer, but rather brilliancy
of technic and seductiveness of tone. Ephemeral nerve
excitement, incessant novelty within certain conventional
bounds, were the demands laid by the public upon composer
and singer. The office of the poet became hardly
less mechanical than that of the costumer or the decorator.
Composers, with a few exceptions, yielded to
the prevailing fashion, and musical dramatic art lent
itself chiefly to the portrayal of stereotyped sentiments
and the gratification of the sense. I would not be
understood as denying the germ of truth that lay in
this art element contributed by Italy to the modern
It was not long before the charming Italian melody
undertook the conquest of the Church. The popular
demand for melody and solo singing overcame the austere
traditions of ecclesiastical song. The dramatic and
concert style invaded the choir gallery. The personnel
of the choirs was altered, and women, sometimes male
sopranos and altos, took the place of boys. The prima
donna, with her trills and runs, made the choir gallery
the parade ground for her arts of fascination. The
chorus declined in favor of the solo, and the church aria
vied with the opera aria in bravura and languishing
pathos. Where the chorus was retained in mass, motet,
or hymn, it abandoned the close-knit contrapuntal texture
in favor of a simple homophonic structure, with
strongly marked rhythmical movement. The orchestral
accompaniment also lent to the composition a vivid
dramatic coloring, and brilliant solos for violins and
flutes seemed often to convert the sanctuary into a
concert hall. All this was inevitable, for the Catholic
musicians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
were artists as well as churchmen; they shared the
aesthetic convictions of their time, and could not be
expected to forego the opportunities for effect which
the new methods put into their hands. They were
In this adornment of the liturgy in theatrical costume
we find a singular parallel between the history of church
music in the transition period and that of religious
painting in the period of the Renaissance. Pictorial
art had first to give concrete expression to the conceptions
evolved under the influence of Christianity, and
since the whole intent of the pious discipline was to
turn the thought away from actual mundane experience,
art avoided the representation of ideal physical loveliness
on the one hand and a scientific historical correctness
on the other. Hence arose the naïve, emblematic pictures
of the fourteenth century, whose main endeavor was
to attract and indoctrinate with delineations that were
A noted example of this self-deception, although an
extreme one, is the picture entitled “The Marriage at
Cana,” by Paolo Veronese. Christ is the central figure,
but his presence has no vital significance. He is simply
an imposing Venetian grandee, and the enormous canvas,
with its crowd of figures elegantly attired in fashionable
sixteenth-century costume, its profusion of sumptuous
dishes and gorgeous tapestries, is nothing more or
less than a representation of a Venetian state banquet.
Signorelli and Michael Angelo introduced naked young
men into pictures of the Madonna and infant Christ.
Others, such as Titian, lavished all the resources of
their art with apparently equal enthusiasm upon Madonnas
and nude Venuses. The other direction which
was followed by painting, aiming at historical verity
and rigid accuracy in anatomy and expression, may be
illustrated by comparing Rubens’s “Crucifixion” in the
Antwerp Museum with a crucifixion, for example, by
Fra Angelico. Each motive was sincere, but the harsh
realism of the Fleming shows how far art, even in
reverent treatment of religious themes, had departed
from the unhistoric symbolism formerly imposed by the
The same impulse produced analogous results in the music of the Catholic Church. The liturgic texts that were appropriated to choral setting remained, as they had been, the place and theoretic function of the musical offices in the ceremonial were not altered, but the music, in imitating the characteristics of the opera and exerting a somewhat similar effect upon the mind, became animated by an ideal of devotion quite apart from that of the liturgy, and belied that unimpassioned, absorbed and universalized mood of worship of which the older forms of liturgic art are the most complete and consistent embodiment. Herein is to be found the effect of the spirit of the Renaissance upon church music. It is not simply that it created new musical forms, new styles of performance, and a more definite expression; the significance of the change lies rather in the fact that it transformed the whole spirit of devotional music by endowing religious themes with sensuous charm, and with a treatment inspired by the arbitrary will of the composer and not by the traditions of the Church.
At this point we reach the real underlying motive, however unconscious of it individual composers may have been, which compelled the revolution in liturgic music. A new ideal of devotional expression made inevitable the abandonment of the formal, academic style of the Palestrina school. The spirit of the age which required a more subjective expression in music, involved a demand for a more definite characterization in the setting of the sacred texts. The composer could no longer be satisfied with a humble imitation of the forms which the Church had sealed as the proper expression of her attitude toward the divine mysteries, but claimed the privilege of coloring the text according to the dictates of his own feeling as a man and his peculiar method as an artist. The mediaeval music was that of the cloister and the chapel. It was elevated, vague, abstract; it was as though it took up into itself all the particular and temporary emotions that might be called forth by the sacred history and articles of belief, and sifted and refined them into a generalized type, special individual experience being dissolved in the more diffused sense of awe and rapture which fills the hearts of an assembly in the attitude of worship. It was the mood of prayer which this music uttered, and that not the prayer of an individual agitated by his own personal hopes and fears, but the prayer of the Church, which embraces all the needs which the believers share in common, and offers them at the Mercy Seat with the calmness that comes of reverent confidence. Thus in the old masses the Kyrie eleison and the Miserere nobis are never agonizing; the Crucifixus does not attempt to portray the grief of an imaginary spectator of the scene on Calvary; the Gloria in excelsis and the Sanctus never force the jubilant tone into a frenzied excitement; the setting of the Dies Irae in the Requiem mass makes no attempt to paint a realistic picture of the terrors of the day of judgment.
Now compare a typical mass of the modern dramatic
school and see how different is the conception. The
music of Gloria and Credo revels in all the opportunities
for change and contrast which the varied text supplies;
the Dona nobis pacem dies away in strains of tender
longing. Consider the mournful undertone that throbs
through the Crucifixus of Schubert’s Mass in A flat, the
terrifying crash that breaks into the Miserere nobis in
the Gloria of Beethoven’s Mass in D, the tide of ecstasy
that surges through the Sanctus of Gounod’s St. Cecilia
Mass and the almost cloying sweetness of the Agnus
Dei, the uproar of brass instruments in the Tuba mirum
of Berlioz’s Requiem. Observe the strong similarity of
style at many points between Verdi’s Requiem and his
opera “Aïda.” In such works as these, which are
fairly typical of the modern school, the composer writes
under an independent impulse, with no thought of subordinating
himself to ecclesiastical canons or liturgic
usage. He attempts not only to depict his own state of
mind as affected by the ideas of the text, but he also
often aims to make his music picturesque according to
dramatic methods. He does not seem to be aware that
there is a distinction between religious concert music and
church music. The classic example of this confusion is
in the Dona nobis pacem of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis,
where the composer introduces a train of military music
in order to suggest the contrasted horrors of war. This
device, as Beethoven employs it, is exceedingly striking
and beautiful, but it is precisely antagonistic to the
In the Middle Age artists were grouped in schools or
in guilds, each renouncing his right of initiative and
shaping his productions in accordance with the legalized
formulas of his craft. The modern artist is a separatist,
his glory lies in the degree to which he rises above
hereditary technic, and throws into his work a personal
quality which becomes his own creative gift to the world.
The church music of the sixteenth century was that of a
school; the composers, although not actually members
of a guild, worked on exactly the same technical foundations,
and produced masses and motets of a uniformity
that often becomes academic and monotonous. The
modern composer carries into church pieces his distinct
personal style. The grandeur and violent contrasts of
Beethoven’s symphonies, the elegiac tone of Schubert’s
songs, the enchantments of melody and the luxuries of
color in the operas of Verdi and Gounod, are also characteristic
marks of the masses of these composers. The
older music could follow the text submissively, for there
was no prescribed musical form to be worked out, and
Besides the development of the sectional form, another
technical change acted to break down the old obstacles
to characteristic expression. An essential feature of the
mediaeval music, consequent upon the very nature of
the Gregorian modes, was the very slight employment
of chromatic alteration of notes, and the absence of free
dissonances. Modulation in the modern sense cannot
exist in a purely diatonic scheme. The breaking up of
the modal system was foreshadowed when composers
became impatient with the placidity and colorlessness
of the modal harmonies and began to introduce unexpected
dissonances for the sake of variety. The
The writer who would trace the history of the modern musical mass has a task very different from that which meets the historian of the mediaeval period. In the latter case, as has already been shown, generalization is comparatively easy, for we deal with music in which differences of nationality and individual style hardly appear. The modern Catholic music, on the other hand, follows the currents that shape the course of secular music. Where secular music becomes formalized, as in the early Italian opera, religious music tends to sink into a similar routine. When, on the other hand, men of commanding genius, such as Beethoven, Berlioz, Liszt, Verdi, contribute works of a purely individual stamp to the general development of musical art, their church compositions form no exception, but are likewise sharply differentiated from others of the same class. The influence of nationality makes itself felt—there is a style characteristic of Italy, another of South Germany and Austria, another of Paris, although these distinctions tend to disappear under the solvent of modern cosmopolitanism. The Church does not positively dictate any particular norm or method, and hence local tendencies have run their course almost unchecked.
Catholic music has shared all the fluctuations of
European taste. The levity of the eighteenth and early
part of the nineteenth centuries was as apparent in the
mass as in the opera. The uplift in musical culture
during the last one hundred years has carried church
composition along with it, so that almost all the works
The changed conditions in respect to patronage have
had the same effect upon the mass as upon other departments
of musical composition. In former periods down
to the close of the eighteenth century, the professional
composer was almost invariably a salaried officer, attached
as a personal retainer to a court, lay or clerical, and
bound to conform his style of composition in a greater
or less degree to the tastes of his employer. A Sixtus
V. could reprove Palestrina for failing to please with
a certain mass and admonish him to do better work
in the future. Haydn could hardly venture to introduce
any innovation into the style of religious music
sanctioned by his august masters, the Esterhazys.
Mozart wrote all his masses, with the exception of the
Requiem, for the chapel of the prince archbishop of
Salzburg. In this establishment the length of the mass
was prescribed, the mode of writing and performance,
which had become traditional, hindered freedom of development,
and therefore Mozart’s works of this class
everywhere give evidence of constraint. On the other
hand, the leading composers of the present century that
have occupied themselves with the mass have been free
from such arbitrary compulsions. They have written
masses, not as a part of routine duty, but as they were
inspired by the holy words and by the desire to offer the
free gift of their genius at the altar of the Church.
They have been, as a rule, devoted churchmen, but they
Under these conditions the mass in the modern musical
era has taken a variety of directions and assumed
distinct national and individual complexions. The Neapolitan
school, which gave the law to Italian opera in
the eighteenth century, endowed the mass with the same
soft sensuousness of melody and sentimental pathos of
expression, together with a dry, calculated kind of harmony
in the chorus portions, the work never touching
deep chords of feeling, and yet preserving a tone of
sobriety and dignity. As cultivated in Italy and France
the mass afterward degenerated into rivalry on equal
terms with the shallow, captivating, cloying melody of
the later Neapolitans and their successors, Rossini and
Bellini. In this school of so-called religious music all
sense of appropriateness was often lost, and a florid, profane
treatment was not only permitted but encouraged.
Perversions which can hardly be called less than blasphemous
had free rein in the ritual music. Franz Liszt,
in a letter to a Paris journal, written in 1835, bitterly
attacks the music that flaunted itself in the Catholic
churches of the city. He complains of the sacrilegious
virtuoso displays of the prima donna, the wretched
choruses, the vulgar antics of the organist playing galops
and variations from comic operas in the most solemn
Another branch of the mass was sent by the Neapolitan
school into Austria, and here the results, although
unsatisfactory to the better taste of the present time,
were far nobler and more fruitful than in Italy and
France. The group of Austrian church composers,
represented by the two Haydns, Mozart, Eybler, Neukomm,
Sechter and others of the period, created a form
of church music which partook of much of the dry,
formal, pedantic spirit of the day, in which regularity of
form, scientific correctness, and a conscious propriety of
manner were often more considered than emotional fervor.
Certain conventions, such as a florid contrapuntal
treatment of the Kyrie with its slow introduction followed
by an Allegro, the fugues at the Cum Sanctu Spiritu
The masses of Joseph Haydn stand somewhat apart
from the strict Austrian school, for although as a
rule they conform externally to the local conventions,
they are far more individual and possess a freedom
and buoyancy that are decidedly personal. It has become
the fashion among the sterner critics of church
music to condemn Haydn’s masses without qualification,
as conspicuous examples of the degradation of taste in
religious art which is one of the depressing legacies of
the eighteenth century. Much of this censure is deserved,
for Haydn too often loses sight of the law which
demands that music should reinforce, and not contradict,
the meaning and purpose of the text. Haydn’s mass
style is often indistinguishable from his oratorio style.
His colorature arias are flippant, often introduced at
such solemn moments as to be offensive. Even where
the voice part is subdued to an appropriate solemnity,
the desired impression is frequently destroyed by some
tawdry flourish in the orchestra. The brilliancy of the
choruses is often pompous and hollow. Haydn’s genius
Two masses of world importance rise above the
mediocrity of the Austrian school, like the towers of
some Gothic cathedral above the monotonous tiled roofs
of a mediaeval city,—the Requiem of Mozart and the
Missa Solemnis of Beethoven. The unfinished masterpiece
The Missa Solemnis of Beethoven, composed 1818-1822,
can hardly be considered from the liturgic point
of view. In the vastness of its dimensions it is quite
disproportioned to the ceremony to which it theoretically
belongs, and its almost unparalleled difficulty of
execution and the grandeur of its choral climaxes remove
it beyond the reach of all but the most exceptional
The last masses of international importance produced
on Austrian soil are those of Franz Schubert. Of his
six Latin masses four are youthful works, pure and
graceful, but not especially significant. In his E flat
The lofty idealism exemplified in such works as Mozart’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Mass in D, Schubert’s last two masses, and in a less degree in Weber’s Mass in E flat has never since been lost from the German mass, in spite of local and temporary reactions. Such composers as Kiel, Havert, Grell, and Rheinberger have done noble service in holding German Catholic music fast to the tradition of seriousness and truth which has been taking form all through this century in German secular music. It must be said, however, that the German Catholic Church at large, especially in the country districts, has been too often dull to the righteous claims of the profounder expression of devotional feeling, and has maintained the vogue of the Italian mass and the shallower products of the Austrian school. Against this indifference the St. Cecilia Society has directed its noble missionary labors, with as yet but partial success.
If we turn our observation to Italy and France we
find that the music of the Church is at every period
sympathetically responsive to the fluctuations in secular
music. Elevated and dignified, if somewhat cold and
constrained, in the writings of the nobler spirits of the
Neapolitan school such as Durante and Jomelli, sweet
and graceful even to effeminacy in Pergolesi, sensuous
and saccharine in Rossini, imposing and massive, rising
at times to epic grandeur, in Cherubini, by turns ecstatic
and voluptuous in Gounod, ardent and impassioned
in Verdi—the ecclesiastical music of the Latin nations
offers works of adorable beauty, sometimes true to the
pure devotional ideal, sometimes perverse, and by their
isolation serving to illustrate the dependence of the
church composer’s inspiration upon the general conditions
of musical taste and progress. Not only were
those musicians of France and Italy who were prominent
as church composers also among the leaders in
opera, but their ideals and methods in opera were
closely paralleled by those displayed in their religious
productions. It is impossible to separate the powerful
masses of Cherubini, with their pomp and majesty of
movement, their reserved and pathetic melody, their
grandiose dimensions and their sumptuous orchestration,
from those contemporary tendencies in dramatic
art which issued in the “historic school” of grand
opera as exemplified in the pretentious works of Spontini
and Meyerbeer. They may be said to be the reflection
in church art of the hollow splendor of French
imperialism. Such an expression, however, may be
accused of failing in justice to the undeniable merits
of Cherubini’s masses. As a man and as a musician
Cherubini commands unbounded respect for his unswerving
The effort of Lesueur (1763-1837) to introduce into
church music a picturesque and imitative style—which,
in spite of much that was striking and attractive in
result, must be pronounced a false direction in church
music—was characteristically French and was continued
in such works as Berlioz’s Requiem and to a
certain extent in the masses and psalms of Liszt. The
genius of Liszt, notwithstanding his Hungarian birth,
was closely akin to the French in his tendency to connect
every musical impulse with a picture or with some
mental conception which could be grasped in distinct
concrete outline. In his youth Liszt, in his despair
over the degeneracy of liturgic music in France and its
complete separation from the real life of the people,
proclaimed the necessity of a rapprochement between
church music and popular music. In an article written
Among the later ecclesiastical composers of France,
Gounod shines out conspicuously by virtue of those
fascinating melodic gifts which have made the fame of
the St. Cecilia mass almost conterminous with that
of the opera “Faust.” Indeed, there is hardly a better
example of the modern propensity of the dramatic and
religious styles to reflect each other’s lineaments than is
found in the close parallelism which appears in Gounod’s
secular and church productions. So liable, or perhaps
we might say, so neutral is his art, that a similar quality
of melting cadence is made to portray the mutual
avowals of love-lorn souls and the raptures of heavenly
aspiration. Those who condemn Gounod’s religious
music on this account as sensuous have some reason
on their side, yet no one has ever ventured to accuse
Gounod of insincerity, and it may well be that his
wide human sympathy saw enough correspondence
between the worship of an earthly ideal and that of a
heavenly—each implying the abandonment of self-consciousness
in the yearning for a happiness which is at
the moment the highest conceivable—as to make the
musical expression of both essentially similar. This is
to say that the composer forgets liturgic claims in
behalf of the purely human. This principle no doubt
involves the destruction of church music as a distinctive
form of art, but it is certain that the world at large, as
evinced by the immense popularity of Gounod’s religious
works, sees no incongruity and does not feel that such
Somewhat similar qualities, although far less sensational,
are found in the productions of that admirable
band of organists and church composers that now lends
such lustre to the art life of the French capital. The
culture of such representatives of this school as Guilmant,
Widor, Saint-Saëns, Dubois, Gigout is so solidly
based, and their views of religious music so judicious,
that the methods and traditions which they are conscientiously
engaged in establishing need only the reinforcement
of still higher genius to bring forth works
which will confer even greater honor upon Catholicism
than she has yet received from the devotion of her
The religious works of Verdi might be characterized in much the same terms as those of Gounod. In Verdi also we have a truly filial devotion to the Catholic Church, united with a temperament easily excited to a white heat when submitted to his musical inspiration, and a genius for melody and seductive harmonic combinations in which he is hardly equalled among modern composers. In his Manzoni Requiem, Stabat Mater, and Te Deum these qualities are no less in evidence than in “Aida” and “Otello,” and it would be idle to deny their devotional sincerity on account of their lavish profusion of nerve-exciting effects. The controversy between the contemners and the defenders of the Manzoni Requiem is now somewhat stale and need not be revived here. Any who may wish to resuscitate it, however, on account of the perennial importance of the question of what constitutes purity and appropriateness in church art, must in justice put themselves into imaginative sympathy with the racial religious feeling of an Italian, and make allowance also for the undeniable suggestion of the dramatic in the Catholic ritual, and for the natural effect of the Catholic ceremonial and its peculiar atmosphere upon the more ardent, enthusiastic order of minds.
The most imposing contributions that have been made to Catholic liturgic music since Verdi’s Requiem are undoubtedly the Requiem Mass and the Stabat Mater of Dvořák. All the wealth of tone color which is contained upon the palette of this master of harmony and instrumentation has been laid upon these two magnificent scores. Inferior to Verdi in variety and gorgeousness of melody, the Bohemian composer surpasses the great Italian in massiveness, dignity, and in unfailing good taste. There can be no question that Dvořák’s Stabat Mater is supreme over all other settings—the only one, except Verdi’s much shorter work, that is worthy of the pathos and tenderness of this immortal Sequence. The Requiem of Dvořák in spite of a tendency to monotony, is a work of exceeding beauty, rising often to grandeur, and is notable, apart from its sheer musical qualities, as the most precious gift to Catholic art that has come from the often rebellious land of Bohemia.
It would be profitless to attempt to predict the future
of Catholic church music. In the hasty survey which
we have made of the Catholic mass in the past three
centuries we have been able to discover no law of development
except the almost unanimous agreement of
the chief composers to reject law and employ the sacred
text of Scripture and liturgy as the basis of works in
which not the common consciousness of the Church
shall be expressed, but the emotions aroused by the
action of sacred ideas upon different temperaments and
Such masses as the Missa Solemnis of Beethoven, the
D minor of Cherubini, the Messe Solennelle of Rossini,
the St. Cecilia of Gounod, the Requiems of Berlioz and
Verdi, sublime and unspeakably beautiful as they are from
the broadly human standpoint, are yet in a certain sense
sceptical. They reveal a mood of agitation which is not
that intended by the ministrations of the Church in her
organized acts of worship. And yet such works will
The time is past, however, when we may fear any degeneracy
like to that which overtook church music one
hundred or more years ago. The principles of such consecrated
church musicians as Witt, Tinel, and the leaders
of the St. Cecilia Society and the Paris Schola Cantorum,
the influence of the will of the Church implied in all her
admonitions on the subject of liturgic song, the growing
interest in the study of the masters of the past, and, more
than all, the growth of sound views of art as a detail of
the higher and the popular education, must inevitably
promote an increasing conviction among clergy, choir
leaders, and people of the importance of purity and appropriateness
in the music of the Church. The need of
reform in many of the Catholic churches of this and other
The music of the Protestant Church of Germany, while adopting many features from its great antagonist, presents certain points of contrast which are of the highest importance not only in the subsequent history of ecclesiastical song, but also as significant of certain national traits which were conspicuous among the causes of the schism of the sixteenth century. The musical system of the Catholic Church proceeded from the Gregorian chant, which is strictly a detail of the sacerdotal office. The Lutheran music, on the contrary, is primarily based on the congregational hymn. The one is clerical, the other laic; the one official, prescribed, liturgic, unalterable, the other free, spontaneous, and democratic. In these two forms and ideals we find reflected the same conceptions which especially characterize the doctrine, worship, and government of these oppugnant confessions.
The Catholic Church, as we have seen, was consistent
in withdrawing the office of song from the laity and
assigning it to a separate company who were at first
taken from the minor clergy, and who even in later
periods were conceived as exercising a semi-clerical
function. Congregational singing, although not officially
In the Protestant Church the barrier of an intermediary priesthood between the believer and his God is broken down. The entire membership of the Christian body is recognized as a universal priesthood, with access to the Father through one mediator, Jesus Christ. This conception restores the offices of worship to the body of believers, and they in turn delegate their administration to certain officials, who, together with certain independent privileges attached to the office, share with the laity in the determination of matters of faith and polity.
It was a perfectly natural result of this principle that
congregational song should hold a place in the Protestant
cultus which the Catholic Church has never
sanctioned. The one has promoted and tenaciously
maintained it; the other as consistently repressed it,—not
on aesthetic grounds, nor primarily on grounds of
devotional effect, but really through a more or less distinct
perception of its significance in respect to the
theoretical relationship of the individual to the Church.
The struggles over popular song in public worship
which appear throughout the early history of Protestantism
are thus to be explained. The emancipated layman
found in the general hymn a symbol as well as an
agent of the assertion of his new rights and privileges
in the Gospel. The people’s song of early Protestantism
has therefore a militant ring. It marks its epoch
The second radical distinction between the music of the Protestant Church and that of the Catholic is that the vernacular language takes the place of the Latin. The natural desire of a people is that they may worship in their native idiom; and since the secession from the ancient Church inevitably resulted in the formation of national or independent churches, the necessities which maintained in the Catholic Church a common liturgic language no longer obtained, and the people fell back upon their national speech.
Among the historic groups of hymns that have appeared
since Clement of Alexandria and Ephraëm the
Syrian set in motion the tide of Christian song, the
Lutheran hymnody has the greatest interest to the student
of church history. In sheer literary excellence it
is undoubtedly surpassed by the Latin hymns of the
mediaeval Church and the English-American group; in
musical merit it no more than equals these; but in historic
importance the Lutheran song takes the foremost
place. The Latin and the English hymns belong only
to the history of poetry and of inward spiritual experience;
the Lutheran have a place in the annals of
politics and doctrinal strifes as well. German Protestant
hymnody dates from Martin Luther; his lyrics
were the models of the hymns of the reformed Church
in Germany for a century or more. The principle that lay
at the basis of his movement gave them their characteristic
The first questions which present themselves in tracing the historic connections of the early Lutheran hymnody are: What was its origin? Had it models, and if so, what and where were they? In giving a store of congregational songs to the German people was Luther original, or only an imitator? In this department of his work does he deserve the honor which Protestants have awarded him?
Protestant writers have, as a rule, bestowed unstinted
praise upon Luther as the man who first gave the people
a voice with which to utter their religious emotions in
song. Most of these writers are undoubtedly aware
that a national poesy is never the creation of a single
man, and that a brilliant epoch of national literature or
art must always be preceded by a period of experiment
and fermentation; yet they are disposed to make little
account of the existence of a popular religious song in
Germany before the Reformation, and represent Luther
almost as performing the miracle of making the dumb
to speak. Even those who recognize the fact of a preëxisting
school of hymnody usually seek to give the
impression that pure evangelical religion was almost, if
not quite, unknown in the popular religious poetry of
the centuries before the Reformation, and that the
Lutheran hymnody was composed of altogether novel
elements. They also ascribe to Luther creative work in
music as well as in poetry. Catholic writers, on the
other hand, will allow Luther no originality whatever;
they find, or pretend to find, every essential feature of
his work in the Catholic hymns and tunes of the previous
centuries, or in those of the Bohemian sectaries.
They admit the great influence of Luther’s hymns in
disseminating the new doctrines, but give him credit
only for cleverness in dressing up his borrowed ideas and
forms in a taking popular guise. As is usually the case
in controversy, the truth lies between the two extremes.
Luther’s originality has been overrated by Protestants,
and the true nature of the germinal force which he
imparted to German congregational song has been misconceived
by Catholics. It was not new forms, but a
new spirit, which Luther gave to his Church. He did
The singing of religious songs by the common people
in their own language in connection with public worship
did not begin in Germany with the Reformation.
The German popular song is of ancient date, and the
religious lyric always had a prominent place in it.
The Teutonic tribes before their conversion to Christianity
had a large store of hymns to their deities, and
afterward their musical fervor turned itself no less
ardently to the service of their new allegiance. Wackernagel,
in the second volume of his monumental collection
of German hymns from the earliest time to the
beginning of the seventeenth century, includes fourteen
Down to the tenth century the only practice among
the Germans that could be called a popular church song
was the ejaculation of the words Kyrie eleison, Christe
eleison. These phrases, which are among the most
ancient in the Mass and the litanies, and which came
originally from the Eastern Church, were sung or
shouted by the German Christians on all possible occasions.
In processions, on pilgrimages, at burials,
greeting of distinguished visitors, consecration of a
church or prelate, in many subordinate liturgic
offices, invocations of supernatural aid in times of distress,
When the phrase was formally sung, the Gregorian tones proper to it in the church service were employed. Some of these were florid successions of notes, many to a syllable, as in the Alleluia from which the Sequences sprung,—a free, impassioned form of emotional utterance which had extensive use in the service of the earlier Church, both East and West, and which is still employed, sometimes to extravagant length, in the Orient. The custom at last arose of setting words to these exuberant strains. This usage took two forms, giving rise in the ritual service to the “farced Kyries” or Tropes, and in the freer song of the people producing a more regular kind of hymn, in which the Kyrie eleison became at last a mere refrain at the end of each stanza. These songs came to be called Kirleisen, or Leisen, and sometimes Leiche, and they exhibit the German congregational hymn in its first estate.
Religious songs multiplied in the centuries following
the tenth almost by geometrical progression. The tide
reached a high mark in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries under that extraordinary intellectual awakening
which distinguished the epoch of the Crusades, the
Stauffen emperors, the Minnesingers, and the court epic
poets. Under the stimulus of the ideals of chivalric
Mystics of the fourteenth century—Eckart, Tauler, and others—wrote hymns of a new tone, an inward spiritual quality, less objective, more individual, voicing a yearning for an immediate union of the soul with God, and the joy of personal love to the Redeemer. Poetry of this nature especially appealed to the religious sisters, and from many a convent came echoes of these chastened raptures, in which are heard accents of longing for the comforting presence of the Heavenly Bridegroom.
Those half-insane fanatics, the Flagellants, and other
enthusiasts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
also contributed to the store of pre-Reformation hymnody.
Hoffmann von Fallersleben has given a vivid
account of the barbaric doings of these bands of
self-tormentors, and it is evident that their singing
In the fourteenth century appeared the device which played so large a part in the production of the Reformation hymns—that of adapting secular tunes to religious poems, and also making religious paraphrases of secular ditties. Praises of love, of out-door sport, even of wine, by a few simple alterations were made to express devotional sentiments. A good illustration of this practice is the recasting of the favorite folk-song, “Den liepsten Bulen den ich han,” into “Den liepsten Herren den ich han.” Much more common, however, was the transfer of melodies from profane poems to religious, a method which afterward became an important reliance for supplying the reformed congregations with hymn-tunes.
Mixed songs, part Latin and part German, were at one time much in vogue. A celebrated example is the
“In dulce jubilo Nu singet und seyt fro”
of the fourteenth century, which has often been heard in the reformed churches down to a recent period.
In the fifteenth century the popular religious song
flourished with an affluence hardly surpassed even in
the first two centuries of Protestantism. Still under
the control of the Catholic doctrine and discipline, it
nevertheless betokens a certain restlessness of mind;
the native individualism of the German spirit is preparing
These achievements of the Bohemians, answering popular needs that exist at all times, could not remain without influence upon the Germans. Encouragement to religious expression in the vernacular was also exerted by certain religious communities known as Brethren of the Common Life, which originated in Holland in the latter part of the fourteenth century, and extended into North and Middle Germany in the fifteenth. Thomas à Kempis was a member of this order. The purpose of these Brethren was to inculcate a purer religious life among the people, especially the young; and they made it a ground principle that the national language should be used so far as possible in prayer and song. Particularly effective in the culture of sacred poetry and music among the artisan class were the schools of the Mastersingers, which flourished all over Germany in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries.
Standing upon the threshold of the Reformation, and
looking back over the period that elapsed since the
pagan myths and heroic lays of the North began to
yield to the metrical gospel narrative of the “Heliand”
and the poems of Otfried, we can trace the same union
of pious desire and poetic instinct which, in a more
enlightened age, produced the one hundred thousand
evangelical hymns of Germany. The pre-Reformation
hymns are of the highest importance as casting light
upon the condition of religious belief among the
German laity. We find in them a great variety of
elements,—much that is pure, noble, and strictly
evangelical, mixed with crudity, superstition, and crass
realism. In the nature of the case they do not, on the
The religious folk-song, therefore, shows many traits
similar to those found in the secular folk-song, and we
can easily perceive the influence of one upon the other.
In both we can see how receptive the common people were
to anything that savored of the marvellous, and how their
minds dwelt more upon the external wonder than upon
the lesson that it brings. The connection of these
poems with the ecclesiastical dramas, which form such
a remarkable chapter in the history of religious instruction
in the Middle Age, is also apparent, and scores of
them are simply narratives of the Nativity, the Crucifixion,
the Resurrection, and the Ascension, told over
and over in almost identical language. These German
hymns show in what manner the dogmas and usages of
the Church took root in the popular heart, and affected
the spirit of the time. In all other mediaeval literature
we have the testimony of the higher class of minds, the
men of education, who were saved by their reflective
intelligence from falling into the grosser superstitions,
or at least from dwelling in them. But in the folk
poetry the great middle class throws back the ideas
imposed by its religious teachers, tinged by its own
crude mental operations. The result is that we have
in these poems the doctrinal perversions and the mythology
of the Middle Age set forth in their baldest
form. Beliefs that are the farthest removed from the
teaching of the Scriptures, are carried to lengths which
the Catholic Church has never authoritatively sanctioned,
but which are natural consequences of the
action of her dogmas upon untrained, superstitious
minds. There are hymns which teach the preëxistence
of Mary with God before the creation; that in
and through her all things were created. Others, not
All this, and much more of a similar sort, the product
of vulgar error and distorted thinking, cannot be
gainsaid. But let us, with equal candor, acknowledge
that there is a bright side to this subject. Corruption
and falsehood are not altogether typical of the German
religious poetry of the Middle Age. Many Protestant
writers represent the mediaeval German hymns as
chiefly given over to mariolatry and much debasing
superstition, and as therefore indicative of the religious
state of the nation. This, however, is very far from
being the case, as a candid examination of such a
collection as Wackernagel’s will show. Take out
everything that a severe Protestant would reject, and
there remains a large body of poetry which flows from
the pure, undefiled springs of Christian faith, which
from the evangelical standpoint is true and edifying,
gems of expression not to be matched by the poetry of
This mass of hymns covers a wide range of topics:
God in his various attributes, including mercy and a
desire to pardon,—a conception which many suppose
to have been absent from the thought of the Middle
Age; the Trinity; Christ in the various scenes of his
life, and as head of the Church; admonitions, confessions,
translations of psalms, poems to be sung on
pilgrimages, funeral songs, political songs, and many
more which touch upon true relations between man and
We see, therefore, how far Luther was from being the founder of German hymnody. In trying to discover what his great service to religious song really was, we must go on to the next question that is involved, and ask, What was the status and employment of the folk-hymn before the Reformation? Was it in a true sense a church song? Had it a recognized place in the public service? Was it at all liturgic, as the Lutheran hymn certainly was? This brings us to a definitive distinction between the two schools of hymnody.
The attitude of the Catholic Church to congregational
singing has often been discussed, and is at present
the object of a great deal of misconception. The
fact of the matter is, that she ostensibly encourages the
people to share in some of the subordinate Latin offices,
but the very spirit of the liturgy and the development
of musical practice have in course of time, with now and
then an exception, reduced the congregation to silence.
Before the invention of harmony all church music had
more of the quality of popular music, and the priesthood
encouraged the worshipers to join their voices in those
parts of the service which were not confined by the
rubrics to the ministers. But the Gregorian chant was
never really adopted by the people,—its practical difficulties,
and especially the inflexible insistence upon the
use of Latin in all the offices of worship, virtually confined
it to the priests and a small body of trained singers.
The very conception and spirit of the liturgy, also, has
by a law of historic development gradually excluded the
people from active participation. Whatever may have
been the thought of the fathers of the liturgy, the
eucharistic service has come to be simply the vehicle of
a sacrifice offered by and through the priesthood for the
people, not a tribute of praise and supplication emanating
from the congregation itself. The attitude of the worshiper
is one of obedient faith, both in the supernatural
efficacy of the sacrifice and the mediating authority of
the celebrant. The liturgy is inseparably bound up with
the central act of consecration and oblation, and is conceived
as itself possessing a divine sanction. The liturgy
is not in any sense the creation of the people, but comes
As regards the singing of hymns in the national languages, the conditions are somewhat different. The laws of the Catholic Church forbid the vernacular in any part of the eucharistic service, but permit vernacular hymns in certain subordinate offices, as, for instance, Vespers. But even in these services the restrictions are more emphasized than the permissions. Here also the tacit recognition of a separation of function between the clergy and the laity still persists; there can never be a really sympathetic coöperation between the church language and the vernacular; there is a constant attitude of suspicion on the part of the authorities, lest the people’s hymn should afford a rift for the subtle intrusion of heretical or unchurchly ideas.
The whole spirit and implied theory of the Catholic Church is therefore unfavorable to popular hymnody. This was especially the case in the latter Middle Age. The people could put no heart into the singing of Latin. The priests and monks, especially in such convent schools as St. Gall, Fulda, Metz, and Reichenau, made heroic efforts to drill their rough disciples in the Gregorian chant, but their attempts were ludicrously futile. Vernacular hymns were simply tolerated on certain prescribed occasions. In the century or more following the Reformation, the Catholic musicians and clergy, taught by the astonishing popular success of the Lutheran songs, tried to inaugurate a similar movement in their own ranks, and the publication and use of Catholic German hymn-books attained large dimensions; but this enthusiasm finally died out. Both in mediaeval and in modern times there has practically remained a chasm between the musical practice of the common people and that of the Church, and in spite of isolated attempts to encourage popular hymnody, the restrictions have always had a depressing effect, and the free, hearty union of clergy and congregation in choral praise and prayer is virtually unknown.
The new conceptions of the relationship of man to
God, which so altered the fundamental principle and the
external forms of worship under the Lutheran movement,
manifested themselves most strikingly in the mighty impetus
given to congregational song. Luther set the
national impulse free, and taught the people that in singing
praise they were performing a service that was well
pleasing to God and a necessary part of public communion
with him. It was not simply that Luther
charged the popular hymnody with the energy of his
Luther’s work for the people’s song was in substance a detail of his liturgic reform. His knowledge of human nature taught him the value of set forms and ceremonies, and his appreciation of what was universally true and edifying in the liturgy of the mother Church led him to retain many of her prayers, hymns, responses, etc., along with new provisions of his own. But in his view the service is constituted through the activity of the believing subject; the forms and expressions of worship are not in themselves indispensable—the one thing necessary is faith, and the forms of worship have their value simply in defining, inculcating, stimulating and directing this faith, and enforcing the proper attitude of the soul toward God in the public social act of devotion. The congregational song both symbolized and realized the principle of direct access of the believer to the Father, and thus exemplified in itself alone the whole spirit of the worship of the new Church. That this act of worship should be in the native language of the nation was a matter of course, and hence the popular hymn, set to familiar and appropriate melody, became at once the characteristic, official, and liturgic expression of the emotion of the people in direct communion with God.
The immense consequence of this principle was seen in the outburst of song that followed the founding of the new Church by Luther at Wittenberg. It was not that the nation was electrified by a poetic genius, or by any new form of musical excitement; it was simply that the old restraints upon self-expression were removed, and that the people could celebrate their new-found freedom in Christ Jesus by means of the most intense agency known to man, which they had been prepared by inherited musical temperament and ancient habit to use to the full. No wonder that they received this privilege with thanksgiving, and that the land resounded with the lyrics of faith and hope.
Luther felt his mission to be that of a purifier, not a destroyer. He would repudiate, not the good and evil alike in the ancient Church, but only that which he considered false and pernicious. This judicious conservatism was strikingly shown in his attitude toward the liturgy and form of worship, which he would alter only so far as was necessary in view of changes in doctrine and in the whole relation of the Church as a body toward the individual. The altered conception of the nature of the eucharist, the abolition of homage to the Virgin and saints, the prominence given to the sermon as the central feature of the service, the substitution of the vernacular for Latin, the intimate participation of the congregation in the service by means of hymn-singing,—all these changes required a recasting of the order of worship; but everything in the old ritual that was consistent with these changes was retained. Luther, like the founders of the reformed Church of England, was profoundly conscious of the truth and beauty of many of the prayers and hymns of the mother Church. Especially was he attached to her music, and would preserve the compositions of the learned masters alongside of the revived congregational hymn.
As regards the form and manner of service, Luther’s improvements were directed (1) to the revision of the liturgy, (2) the introduction of new hymns, and (3) the arrangement of suitable melodies for congregational use. Luther’s program of liturgic reform is chiefly embodied in two orders of worship drawn up for the churches of Wittenberg, viz., the Formula Missae of 1523 and the Deutsche Messe of 1526.
Luther rejected absolutely the Catholic conception of
the act of worship as in itself possessed of objective
efficacy. The terms of salvation are found only in the
Gospel; the worship acceptable to God exists only in the
contrite attitude of the heart, and the acceptance through
faith of the plan of redemption as provided in the vicarious
atonement of Christ. The external act of worship
in prayer, praise, Scripture recitation, etc., is designed as
a testimony of faith, an evidence of thankfulness to God
for his infinite grace, and as a means of edification and
of kindling the devotional spirit through the reactive
influence of its audible expression. The correct performance
of a ceremony was to Luther of little account;
the essential was the prayerful disposition of the heart
and the devout acceptance of the word of Scripture.
The substance of worship, said Luther, is “that our dear
Lord speaks with us through his Holy Word, and we
in return speak with him through prayer and song of
The Formula Missae of 1523 was only a provisional office, and may be called an expurgated edition of the Catholic Mass. It is in Latin, and follows the order of the Roman liturgy with certain omissions, viz., all the preliminary action at the altar as far as the Introit, the Offertory, the Oblation and accompanying prayers as far as the Preface, the Consecration, the Commemoration of the Dead, and everything following the Agnus Dei except the prayer of thanksgiving and benediction. That is to say, everything is removed which characterizes the Mass as a priestly, sacrificial act, or which recognizes the intercessory office of the saints. The musical factors correspond to the usage in the Catholic Mass; Luther’s hymns with accompanying melodies were not yet prepared, and no trace of the Protestant choral appears in the Formula Missae.
Although this order of 1523 was conceived only as a
partial or temporary expedient, it was by no means set
entirely aside by its author, even after the composition
of a form more adapted to the needs of the people. In
The Deutsche Messe of 1526, Luther explains, was
drawn up for the use of the mass of the people, who
needed a medium of worship and instruction which was
already familiar and native to them. This form is a still
further simplification, as compared with the Formula
Missae, and consists almost entirely of offices in the
German tongue. Congregational chorals also have a
prominent place, since the publication of collections of
vernacular religious songs had begun two years before.
This liturgy consists of (1) a people’s hymn or a German
psalm, (2) Kyrie eleison, (3) Collect, (4) the
Epistle, (5) congregational hymn, (6) the Gospel, (7)
the German paraphrase of the Creed, “Wie glauben all’
It was far from Luther’s purpose to impose these or any particular forms of worship upon his followers through a personal assumption of authority. He reiterates, in his preface to the Deutsche Messe, that he has no thought of assuming any right of dictation in the matter, emphasizing his desire that the churches should enjoy entire freedom in their forms and manner of worship. At the same time he realizes the benefits of uniformity as creating a sense of unity and solidarity in faith, practice, and interests among the various districts, cities, and congregations, and offers these two forms as in his opinion conservative and efficient. He warns his people against the injury that may result from the multiplication of liturgies at the instigation of indiscreet or vain leaders, who have in view the perpetuation of certain notions of their own, rather than the honor of God and the spiritual welfare of their neighbors.
In connection with this work of reconstructing the
ancient liturgy for use in the Wittenberg churches,
Luther turned his attention to the need of suitable
hymns and tunes. He took up this work not only out
of his love of song, but also from necessity. He wrote
The first hymn-book of evangelical Germany was
published in 1524 by Luther’s friend and coadjutor,
Johann Walther. It contained four hymns by Luther,
three by Paul Speratus, and one by an unknown author.
Another book appeared in the same year containing
fourteen more hymns by Luther, in addition to the eight
of the first book. Six more from Luther’s pen appeared
in a song-book edited by Walther in 1525. The remaining
hymns of Luther (twelve in number) were printed
in five song-books of different dates, ending with Klug’s
in 1643. Four hymn-books contain prefaces by Luther,
Luther certainly wrote thirty-six hymns. A few
others have been ascribed to him without conclusive evidence.
By far the greater part of these thirty-six are
not entirely original. Many of them are translations or
adaptations of psalms, some of which are nearly literal
transfers. Other selections from Scripture were used in
a similar way, among which are the Ten Commandments,
the Ter Sanctus, the song of Simeon, and the Lord’s
Prayer. Similar use, viz., close translation or free paraphrase,
was made of certain Latin hymns by Ambrose,
Gregory, Hus, and others, and also of certain religious
folk-songs of the pre-Reformation period. Five hymns
only are completely original, not drawn in any way from
No other poems of their class by any single man have
ever exerted so great an influence, or have received so
great admiration, as these few short lyrics of Martin
Luther. And yet at the first reading it is not easy to
understand the reason for their celebrity. As poetry they
disappoint us; there is no artfully modulated diction, no
subtle and far-reaching imagination. Neither do they
seem to chime with our devotional needs; there is a jarring
note of fanaticism in them. We even find expressions
that give positive offence, as when he speaks of the
“Lamb roasted in hot love upon the cross.” We say
that they are not universal, that they seem the outcome
of a temper that belongs to an exceptional condition.
This is really the fact; here is the clue to their proper
study. They do belong to a time, and not to all time.
We must consider that they are the utterance of a mind
engaged in conflict, and often tormented with doubt of
the outcome. They reveal the motive of the great pivotal
figure in modern religious history. More than that—they
In philological history these hymns have a significance
equal to that of Luther’s translation of the
Bible, in which scholars agree in finding the virtual
creation of the modern German language. And the
elements that should give new life to the national
speech were to be found among the commonalty. “No
one before Luther,” says Bayard Taylor, “saw that
the German tongue must be sought for in the mouths
of the people—that the exhausted expression of the
earlier ages could not be revived, but that the newer,
fuller, and richer speech, then in its childhood, must
at once be acknowledged and adopted. With all his
In spite of the fact that these songs were the natural
outcome of a period of spiritual and political conflict,
and give evidence of this fact in almost every instance,
yet they are less dogmatic and controversial than might
be expected, for Luther, bitter and intolerant as he
often was, understood the requirements of church song
well enough to know that theological and political
polemic should be kept out of it. Nevertheless these
hymns are a powerful witness to the great truths which
were the corner-stone of the doctrines of the reformed
church. They constantly emphasize the principle that
We lay especial stress upon the hymns of Luther,
not simply on account of their inherent power and
historic importance, but also because they are representative
of a school. Luther was one of a group of
lyrists which included bards hardly less trenchant
than he. Koch gives the names of fifty-one writers
who endowed the new German hymnody between
1517 and 1560.
The hymns of Luther and the other early Reformation
hymnists of Germany are not to be classed with
sacred lyrics like those of Vaughan and Keble and Newman
which, however beautiful, are not of that universality
which alone adapts a hymn for use in the public
assembly. In writing their songs Luther and his compeers
identified themselves with the congregation of
believers; they produced them solely for common praise
in the sanctuary, and they are therefore in the strict
sense impersonal, surcharged not with special isolated
experiences, but with the vital spirit of the Reformation.
No other body of hymns was ever produced under
similar conditions; for the Reformation was born and
cradled in conflict, and in these songs, amid their protestations
of confidence and joy, there may often be
heard cries of alarm before powerful adversaries, appeals
for help in material as well as spiritual exigencies, and
sometimes also tones of wrath and defiance. Strains
Along with the production of hymns must go the
composition or arrangement of tunes, and this was a less
direct and simple process. The conditions and methods
of musical art forbade the ready invention of melodies.
We have seen in our previous examination of the music
of the mediaeval Church that the invention of themes for
musical works was no part of the composer’s business.
Down to about the year 1600 the scientific musician
always borrowed his themes from older sources—the
liturgic chant or popular songs—and worked them up
into choral movements according to the laws of counterpoint.
He was, therefore, a tune-setter, not a tune-maker.
The same custom prevailed among the German
musicians of Luther’s day, and it would have been too
much to expect that they should go outside their strict
habits, and violate all the traditions of their craft, so far
as to evolve from their own heads a great number of
singable melodies for the people’s use. The task of
Luther and his musical assistants, therefore, was to take
melodies from music of all sorts with which they were
familiar, alter them to fit the metre of the new hymns,
and add the harmonies. In course of time the enormous
multiplication of hymns, each demanding a musical
setting, and the requirements of simplicity in popular
song, brought about a union of the functions of the tune-maker
Down to a very recent period it has been universally
believed that Luther was a musician of the latter order
i.e., a tune-maker, and that the melodies of many of his
hymns were of his own production. Among writers on
this period no statement is more frequently made than
that Luther wrote tunes as well as hymns. This belief
is as tenacious as the myth of the rescue of church
music by Palestrina. Dr. L. W. Bacon, in the preface
to his edition of the hymns of Luther with their original
melodies, assumes, as an undisputed fact, that many of
these tunes are Luther’s own invention.
1. If Luther was willing to take many of the prayers
of the Catholic liturgy for use in his German Mass, still
more ready was he to adopt the melodies of the ancient
Church. In his preface to the Funeral Hymns (1542),
after speaking of the forms of the Catholic Church
which in themselves he did not disapprove, he says:
“In the same way have they much noble music, especially
in the abbeys and parish churches, used to adorn most
vile, idolatrous words. Therefore have we undressed
these lifeless, idolatrous, crazy words, stripping off the
noble music, and putting it upon the living and holy
word of God, wherewith to sing, praise, and honor the
same, that so the beautiful ornament of music, brought
back to its right use, may serve its blessed Maker, and
his Christian people.” A few of Luther’s hymns were
translations of old Latin hymns and Sequences, and these
were set to the original melodies. Luther’s labor in this
field was not confined to the choral, but, like the founders
of the musical service of the Anglican Church, he established
a system of chanting, taking the Roman use as a
model, and transferring many of the Gregorian tunes.
Johann, Walther, Luther’s co-laborer, relates the extreme
pains which Luther took in setting notes to the Epistle,
Gospel, and other offices of the service. He intended to
institute a threefold division of church song,—the choir
anthem, the unison chant, and the congregational hymn.
Only the first and third forms have been retained. The
use of chants derived from the Catholic service was
continued in some churches as late as the end of the
2. In cases in which pre-Reformation vernacular hymns were adopted into the song-books of the new Church the original melodies were often retained, and thus some very ancient German tunes, although in modern guise, are still preserved the hymn-books of modern Germany. Melodies of the Bohemian Brethren were in this manner transferred to the German songbooks.
3. The secular folk-song of the sixteenth century
and earlier was a very prolific source of the German
choral. This was after Luther’s day, however, for it
does not appear that any of his tunes were of this
class. Centuries before the age of artistic German
music began, the common people possessed a large store
of simple songs which they delighted to use on festal
occasions, at the fireside, at their labor, in love-making,
at weddings, christenings, and in every circumstance of
social and domestic life. Here was a rich mine of
simple and expressive melodies from which choral tunes
might be fashioned. In some cases this transfer involved
considerable modification, in others but little,
for at that time there was far less difference between
the religious and the secular musical styles than there
is now. The associations of these tunes were not
always of the most edifying kind, and some of them
were so identified with unsanctified ideas that the
strictest theologians protested against them, and some
The choral tunes sung by the congregation were at first not harmonized. Then, as they began to be set in the strict contrapuntal style of the day, it became the custom for the people to sing the melody while the choir sustained the other parts. The melody was at first in the tenor, according to time-honored usage in artistic music, but as composers found that they must consider the vocal limitations of a mass of untrained singers a simpler form of harmony was introduced, and the custom arose of putting the melody in the upper voice, and the harmony below. This method prepared the development of a harmony that was more in the nature of modern chord progressions, and when the choir and congregation severed their incompatible union, the complex counterpoint in which the age delighted was allowed free range in the motet, while the harmonized choral became more simple and compact. The partnership of choir and congregation was dissolved about 1600, and the organ took the place of the trained singers in accompanying the unison song of the people.
One who studies the German chorals as they appear in the hymn-books of the present day (many of which hold honored places in English and American hymnals) must not suppose that he is acquainted with the religious tunes of the Reformation in their pristine form. As they are now sung in the German churches they have been greatly modified in harmony and rhythm, and even in many instances in melody also. The only scale and harmonic system then in vogue was the Gregorian. In respect to rhythm also, the alterations have been equally striking. The present choral is usually written in notes of equal length, one note to a syllable. The metre is in most cases double, rarely triple. This manner of writing gives the choral a singularly grave, solid and stately character, encouraging likewise a performance that is often dull and monotonous. There was far more variety and life in the primitive choral, the movement was more flexible, and the frequent groups of notes to a single syllable imparted a buoyancy and warmth that are unknown to the rigid modern form. The transformation of the choral into its present shape was completed in the eighteenth century, a result, some say, of the relaxation of spiritual energy in the period of rationalism. A party has been formed among German churchmen and musicians which labors for the restoration of the primitive rhythmic choral. Certain congregations have adopted the reform, but there is as yet no sign that it will ultimately prevail.
In spite of the mischievous influence ascribed to Luther’s hymns by his opponents, they could appreciate their value as aids to devotion, and in return for Luther’s compliment to their hymns they occasionally borrowed some of his. Strange as it may seem, even “Ein’ feste Burg” was one of these. Neither were the Catholics slow to imitate the Protestants in providing, songs for the people, and as in the old strifes of Arians and orthodox in the East, so Catholics and Lutherans strove to sing each other down. The Catholics also translated Latin hymns into German, and transformed secular folk-songs into edifying religious rhymes. The first German Catholic song—book was published in 1537 by Michael Vehe, a preaching monk of Halle. This book contained fifty-two hymns, four of which were alterations of hymns by Luther. It is a rather notable fact that throughout the sixteenth century eminent musicians of both confessions contributed to the musical services of their opponents. Protestants composed masses and motets for the Catholic churches, and Catholics arranged choral melodies for the Protestants. This friendly interchange of good offices was heartily encouraged by Luther. Next to Johann Walther, his most cherished musical friend and helper was Ludwig Senfl, a devout Catholic. This era of relative peace and good-will, of which this musical sympathy was a beautiful token, did not long endure. The Catholic Counter-Reformation cut sharply whatever there might have been of mutual understanding and tolerance, and the frightful Thirty Years’ War overwhelmed art and the spirit of humanity together.
The multiplication of hymns and chorals went on
throughout the sixteenth century and into the seventeenth
with unabated vigor. A large number of writers
of widely differing degrees of poetic ability contributed
to the hymn-books, which multiplied to prodigious
numbers in the generations next succeeding that of
Luther. These songs harmonized in general with the
tone struck by Luther and his friends, setting forth the
doctrine of justification by faith alone, and the joy that
springs from the consciousness of a freer approach to
God, mingled, however, with more sombre accents
called forth by the apprehension of the dark clouds in
the political firmament which seemed to bode disaster
to the Protestant cause. The tempest broke in 1618.
Again and again during the thirty years’ struggle
the reformed cause seemed on the verge of annihilation.
When the exhaustion of both parties brought the savage
conflict to an end, the enthusiasm of the Reformation
was gone. Religious poetry and music indeed survived,
and here and there burned with a pure flame amid the
darkness of an almost primitive barbarism. In times
of deepest distress these two arts often afford the only
outlet for grief, and the only testimony of hope amid
national calamities. There were unconquerable spirits
in Germany, notably among the hymnists, cantors, and
organists, who maintained the sacred fire of religious
art amid the moral devastations of the Thirty Years’
War, whose miseries they felt only as a deepening of
their faith in a power that overrules the wrath of man.
Their trust fastened itself unfalteringly upon those
assurances of divine sympathy which had been the
inspiration of their cause from the beginning. This
The production of melodies kept pace with the hymns
throughout the sixteenth century, and in the first half
of the seventeenth a large number of the most beautiful
songs of the German Church were contributed by such
men as Andreas Hammerschmidt, Johann Crüger,
J. R. Ahle, Johann Schop, Melchior Frank, Michael
Altenburg, and scores of others not less notable. After
the middle of the seventeenth century, however, the
fountain began to show signs of exhaustion. The
powerful movement in the direction of secular music
which emanated from Italy began to turn the minds of
composers toward experiments which promised greater
artistic satisfaction than could be found in the plain
congregational choral. The rationalism of the eighteenth
century, accompanying a period of doctrinal
strife and lifeless formalism in the Church, repressed
those unquestioning enthusiasms which are the only
source of a genuinely expressive popular hymnody.
Pietism, while a more or less effective protest against
cold ceremonialism and theological intolerance, and a
potent influence in substituting a warmer heart service
in place of dogmatic pedantry, failed to contribute any
new stimulus to the church song; for the Pietists either
endeavored to discourage church music altogether, or
else imparted to hymn and melody a quality of effeminacy
and sentimentality. False tastes crept into the.
Church. The homely vigor and forthrightness of the
Lutheran hymn seemed to the shallow critical spirits of
The history of German Protestant church music in
the seventeenth century and onward is the record of a
transformation not less striking and significant than that
which the music of the Catholic Church experienced in
the same period. In both instances forms of musical art
which were sanctioned by tradition and associated with
ancient and rigorous conceptions of devotional expression
were overcome by the superior powers of a style
which was in its origin purely secular. The revolution
in the Protestant church music was, however, less sudden
and far less complete. It is somewhat remarkable
that the influences that prevailed in the music of the
Protestant Church—the Church of discontent and
change—were on the whole more cautious and conservative
than those that were active in the music of the
Catholic Church. The latter readily gave up the old
music for the sake of the new, and so swiftly readjusted
its boundaries that the ancient landmarks were almost
everywhere obliterated. The Protestant music advanced
by careful evolutionary methods, and in the final product
nothing that was valuable in the successive stages through
which it passed was lost. In both cases—Lutheran
and Catholic—the motive was the same. Church music,
The German school entered the seventeenth century
with three strong and pregnant forms to its credit, viz.,
the choral, the motet (essentially a counterpart of the
Latin sixteenth-century motet), and organ music. Over
against these stood the Italian recitative and aria, associated
with new principles of tonality, harmony, and
structure. The former were the stern embodiment of
the abstract, objective, liturgic conception of worship
music; the latter, of the subjective, impassioned, and
individualistic. Should these ideals be kept apart, or
should they be in some way united? One group of
German musicians would make the Italian dramatic
forms the sole basis of a new religious art, recognizing
the claims of the personal, the varied, and the brilliant,
in ecclesiastical music as in secular. Another group
The nature of the change of motive in modern church
music, which broke the exclusive domination of the
chorus by the introduction of solo singing, has been
set forth in the chapter on the later mass. The most
obvious fact in the history of this modification of church
music in Germany is that the neglect in many quarters
of the strong old music of choral and motet in favor of
a showy concert style seemed to coincide with that
melancholy lapse into formalism and dogmatic intolerance
which, in the German Church of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, succeeded to the enthusiasms
of the Reformation era. But it does not follow, as often
assumed, that we have here a case of cause and effect.
It is worth frequent reiteration that no style of music
is in itself religious. There is no sacredness, says
Ruskin, in round arches or in pointed, in pinnacles or
buttresses; and we may say with equal pertinence
that there is nothing sacred per se in sixteenth-century
counterpoint, Lutheran choral, or Calvinist psalm-tune.
The adoption of the new style by so many German
congregations was certainly not due to a spirit of levity,
but to the belief that the novel sensation which their
aesthetic instincts craved was also an element in moral
edification. From the point of view of our more mature
experience, however, there was doubtless a deprivation
of something very precious when the German people
began to lose their love for the solemn patriotic hymns
of their faith, and when choirs neglected those celestial
harmonies with which men like Eccard and Hasler lent
these melodies the added charm of artistic decoration.
There would seem to be no real compensation in those
buoyant songs, with their thin accompaniment, which
Such was the gift to the world of German Protestantism, stimulated by those later impulses of the Renaissance movement which went forth in music after their mission had been accomplished in plastic art. In the Middle Age, we are told, religion and art lived together in brotherly union; Protestantism threw away art and kept religion, Renaissance rationalism threw away religion and retained art. In painting and sculpture this is very nearly the truth; in music it is very far from being true. It is the glory of the art of music, that she has almost always been able to resist the drift toward sensuousness and levity, and where she has apparently yielded, her recovery has been speedy and sure. So susceptible is her very nature to the finest touches of religious feeling, that every revival of the pure spirit of devotion has always found her prepared to adapt herself to new spiritual demands, and out of apparent decline to develop forms of religious expression more beautiful and sublime even than the old.
Conspicuous among the forms with which the new
movement endowed the German Church was the cantata.
This form of music may be traced back to Italy,
where the monodic style first employed in the opera
about 1600 was soon adopted into the music of the
salon. The cantata was at first a musical recitation
by a single person, without action, accompanied by a
few plain chords struck upon a single instrument. This
simple design was expanded in the first half of the
seventeenth century into a work in several movements
and in many parts or voices. Religious texts were soon
employed and the church cantata was born. The cantata
was eagerly taken up by the musicians of the
German Protestant Church and became a prominent
feature in the regular order of worship. In the seventeenth
century the German Church cantata consisted
usually of an instrumental introduction, a chorus singing
a Bible text, a “spiritual aria” (a strophe song,
sometimes for one, sometimes for a number of voices),
one or two vocal solos, and a choral. This immature
form (known as “spiritual concerto,” “spiritual dialogue”
or “spiritual act of devotion”), consisting of an
alternation of Biblical passages and church or devotional
hymns, flourished greatly in the seventeenth and early
part of the eighteenth centuries. In its complete development
in the eighteenth century it also incorporated
the recitative and the Italian aria form, and carried to
We have seen that the Lutheran Church borrowed
many features from the musical practice of the Catholic
Church, such as portions of the Mass, the habit of chanting,
and ancient hymns and tunes. Another inheritance
was the custom of singing the story of Christ’s Passion,
with musical additions, in Holy Week. This usage,
which may be traced back to a remote period in the
Middle Age, must be distinguished from the method,
prevalent as early as the thirteenth century, of actually
representing the events of Christ’s last days in visible
action upon the stage. The Passion play, which still
survives in Oberammergau in Bavaria, and in other more
The observance out of which the German Passion music of the eighteenth century grew was an altogether different affair. It consisted of the mere recitation, without histrionic accessories, of the story of the trial and death of Christ, as narrated by one of the four evangelists, beginning in the synoptic Gospels with the plot of the priests and scribes, and in St. John’s Gospel with the betrayal. This narration formed a part of the liturgic office proper to Palm Sunday, Holy Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and Good Friday. According to the primitive use, which originated in the period of the supremacy of the Gregorian chant, several officers took part in the delivery. One cleric intoned the evangelist’s narrative, another the words of Christ, and a third those of Pilate, Peter, and other single personages. The ejaculations of the Jewish priests, disciples, and mob were chanted by a small group of ministers. The text was rendered in the simpler syllabic form of the Plain Song. Only in one passage did this monotonous recitation give way to a more varied, song-like utterance, viz., in the cry of Christ upon the cross, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,” this phrase being delivered in an extended, solemn, but unrhythmical melody, to which was imparted all the pathos that the singer could command. The chorus parts were at first sung in unison, then, as the art of part-writing developed, they were set in simple four-part counterpoint.
Under the influence of the perfected contrapuntal art of the sixteenth century there appeared a form now known as the motet Passion, and for a short time it flourished vigorously. In this style everything was sung in chorus without accompaniment—evangelist’s narrative, words of Christ, Pilate, and all. The large opportunities for musical effect permitted by this manner of treatment gained for it great esteem among musicians, for since this purely musical method of repeating the story of Christ’s death was never conceived as in any sense dramatic, there was nothing inconsistent in setting the words of a single personage in several parts. The life enjoyed by this phase of Passion music was brief, for it arose only a short time before the musical revolution, heralded by the Florentine monody and confirmed by the opera, drove the mediaeval polyphony into seclusion.
With the quickly won supremacy of the dramatic and
concert solo, together with the radical changes of taste
and practice which it signified, the chanted Passion and
the motet Passion were faced by a rival which was destined
to attain such dimensions in Germany that it occupied
the whole field devoted to this form of art. In the
oratorio Passion, as it may be called, the Italian recitative
and aria and the sectional rhythmic chorus took
the place of the unison chant and the ancient polyphony;
hymns and poetic monologues supplemented and sometimes
supplanted the Bible text; and the impassioned
The path which German religious music was destined
to follow in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
under the guidance of the new ideas of expression, was
plainly indicated when Heinrich Schütz, the greatest
German composer of the seventeenth century, and the
worthy forerunner of Bach and Händel, wrote his “histories”
and “sacred symphonies.” Born in 1585, he
came under the inspiring instruction of G. Gabrieli in
Venice in 1609, and on a second visit to Italy in 1628
he became still more imbued with the dominant tendencies
of the age. He was appointed chapel-master at
the court of the Elector of Saxony at Dresden in 1615,
and held this position, with a few brief interruptions,
until his death in 1672. He was a musician of the
most solid attainments, and although living in a transition
period in the history of music, he was cautious and
respectful in his attitude toward both the methods which
were at that time in conflict, accepting the new discoveries
in dramatic expression as supplementary, not antagonistic,
to the old ideal of devotional music. In his
psalms he employed contrasting and combining choral
The works of Schütz, therefore, in spite of their sweetness and dignity and an occasional glimpse of picturesque detail, are not to be considered as steps in the direct line of progress which led from the early Italian cantata and oratorio to the final achievements of Bach and Händel. These two giants of the culminating period apparently owed nothing to Schütz. It is not probable that they had any acquaintance with his works at all. The methods and the ideals of these three were altogether different. Considering how common and apparently necessary in art is the reciprocal influence of great men, it is remarkable that in the instance of the greatest German musician of the seventeenth century and the two greatest of the eighteenth, all working in the field of religious dramatic music, not one was affected in the slightest degree by the labors of either of the others. Here we have the individualism of modern art exhibited in the most positive degree upon its very threshold.
In the Passions of Schütz we find only the characters of the Bible story, together with the evangelist’s narrative taken literally from the Gospel,—that is to say, the original frame-work of the Passion music with the chorus element elaborated. In the latter part of the seventeenth century the dramatic scheme of the Passion was enlarged by the addition of the Christian congregation, singing appropriate chorals, and the ideal company of believers, expressing suitable sentiments in recitatives, arias, and choruses. The insertion of church hymns was of the highest importance in view of the relation of the Passion music to the liturgy, for the more stress was laid upon this feature, the more the Passion, in spite of its semi-dramatic character, became fitted as a constituent into the order of service. The choral played here the same part as in the cantata, assimilating to the prescribed order of worship what would otherwise be an extraneous if not a disturbing feature. This was especially the case when, as in the beginning of the adoption of the choral in the Passion, the hymn verses were sung by the congregation itself. In Bach’s time this custom had fallen into abeyance, and the choral stanzas were sung by the choir; but this change involved no alteration in the form or the conception of the Passion performance as a liturgic act.
The growth of the Passion music from Schütz to its final beauty and pathos under Sebastian Bach was by no means constant. In certain quarters, particularly at Hamburg, the aria in the shallow Italian form took an utterly disproportionate importance. The opera, which was flourishing brilliantly at Hamburg about 1700, exercised a perverting influence upon the Passion to such an extent that the ancient liturgic traditions were completely abandoned. In many of the Hamburg Passions the Bible text was thrown away and poems substituted, all of which were of inferior literary merit, and some quite contemptible. Incredible as it may seem, the comic element was sometimes introduced, the “humorous” characters being the servant Malthus whose ear was cut off by Peter, and a clownish peddler of ointment. It must be said that these productions were not given in the churches; they are not to be included in the same category with the strictly liturgic Passions of Sebastian Bach. The comparative neglect of the choral and also of the organ removes them altogether from the proper history of German church music.
Thus we see how the new musical forms, almost
creating the emotions which they were so well adapted
to express, penetrated to the very inner shrine of
German church music. In some sections, as at Hamburg,
the Italian culture supplanted the older school
altogether. In others it encountered sterner resistance,
and could do no more than form an alliance, in which
old German rigor and reserve became somewhat ameliorated
and relaxed without becoming perverted. To
produce an art work of the highest order out of this
union of contrasting principles, a genius was needed
who should possess so true an insight into the special
The name of Bach is the greatest in Protestant church music,—there are many who do not hesitate to say that it is the greatest in all the history of music, religious and secular. The activity of this man was many-sided, and his invention seems truly inexhaustible. He touched every style of music known to his day except the opera, and most of the forms that he handled he raised to the highest power that they have ever attained. Many of his most admirable qualities appear in his secular works, but these we must pass over. In viewing him exclusively as a composer for the Church, however, we shall see by far the most considerable part of him, for his secular compositions, remarkable as they are, always appear rather as digressions from the main business of his life. His conscious life-long purpose was to enrich the musical treasury of the Church he loved, to strengthen and signalize every feature of her worship which his genius could reach: and to this lofty aim he devoted an intellectual force and an energy of loyal enthusiasm unsurpassed in the annals of art.
Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the monumental figures in the religious history of Germany, undoubtedly the most considerable in the two centuries following the death of Luther. Like Luther, of whom in some respects he reminds us, he was a man rooted fast in German soil, sprung from sturdy peasant stock, endowed with the sterling piety and steadfastness of moral purpose which had long been traditional in the Teutonic character. His culture was at its basis purely German. He never went abroad to seek the elegancies which his nation lacked. He did not despise them, but he let them come to him to be absorbed into the massive substance of his national education, in order that this education might become in the deepest sense liberal and human. He interpreted what was permanent and hereditary in German culture, not what was ephemeral and exotic. He ignored the opera, although it was the reigning form in every country in Europe. He planted himself squarely on German church music, particularly the essentially German art of organ playing, and on that foundation, supplemented with what was best of Italian and French device, he built up a massive edifice which bears in plan, outline, and every decorative detail the stamp of a German craftsman.
The most musical family known to history was that
of the Bachs. In six generations (Sebastian belonging
to the fifth) we find marked musical ability, which in a
number of instances before Sebastian appeared amounted
almost to genius. As many as thirty-seven of the name
are known to have held important musical positions. A
large number during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Thuringia was one of the most musical districts in Germany in the seventeenth century, and was also a stronghold of the reformed religion. From this and its neighboring districts the Bachs never wandered. Eminent as they were in music, hardly one of them ever visited Italy or received instruction from a foreign master. They kept aloof from the courts, the hot-beds of foreign musical growths, and submitted themselves to the service of the Protestant Church. They were peasants and small farmers, well to do and everywhere respected. Their stern self-mastery held them uncontaminated by the wide-spread demoralization that followed the Thirty Years’ War. They appear as admirable types of that undemonstrative, patient, downright, and tenacious quality which has always saved Germany from social decline or disintegration in critical periods.
Into such a legacy of intelligence, thrift, and probity came Johann Sebastian Bach. All the most admirable traits of his ancestry shine out again in him, reinforced by a creative gift which seems the accumulation of all the several talents of his house. He was born at Eisenach, March 21, 1685. His training as a boy was mainly received in choir schools at Ohrdruf and Lüneburg, attaining mastership as organist and contrapuntist at the age of eighteen. He held official positions at Arnstadt, Mühlhausen, Weimar, and Anhalt-Cöthen, and was finally called to Leipsic as cantor of the Thomas school and director of music at the Thomas and Nicolai churches, where he labored from 1723 until his death in 1750. His life story presents no incidents of romantic interest. But little is known of his temperament or habits. In every place in which he labored his circumstances were much the same. He was a church organist and choir director from the beginning to the end of his career. He became the greatest organist of his time and the most accomplished master of musical science. His declared aim in life was to reform and perfect German church music. The means to achieve this were always afforded him, so far as the scanty musical facilities of the churches of that period would permit. His church compositions were a part of his official routine duties. His recognized abilities always procured him positions remunerative enough to protect him from anxiety. He was never subject to interruptions or serious discouragements. From first to last the path in life which he was especially qualified to pursue was clearly marked out before him. His genius, his immense physical and mental energy, and his high sense of duty to God and his employers did the rest. Nowhere is there the record of a life more simple, straightforward, symmetrical, and complete.
In spite of the intellectual and spiritual apathy prevailing in many sections of Germany, conditions were not altogether unfavorable for the special task which Bach assigned to himself. His desire to build up church music did not involve an effort to restore to congregational singing its pristine zeal, or to revive an antiquarian taste for the historic choir anthem. Bach was a man of the new time; he threw himself into the current of musical progress, seized upon the forms which were still in process of development, giving them technical completeness and bringing to light latent possibilities which lesser men had been unable to discern.
The material for his purpose was already within his
reach. The religious folk-song, freighted with a precious
store of memories, was still an essential factor in
public and private worship. The art of organ playing
had developed a vigorous and pregnant national style
in the choral prelude, the fugue, and a host of freer
forms. The Passion music and the cantata had recently
shown signs of brilliant promise. The Italian solo song
was rejoicing in its first flush of conquest on German
soil. No one, however, could foresee what might be
done with these materials until Bach arose. He
gathered them all in his hand, remoulded, blended, enlarged
them, touched them with the fire of his genius
and his religious passion, and thus produced works of
Bach was one of those supreme artists who concentrate
in themselves the spirit and the experiments of an
epoch. In order, therefore, to know how the persistent
religious consciousness of Germany strove to attain
self-recognition through those art agencies which finally
became fully operative in the eighteenth century, we
need only study the works of this great representative
musician, passing by the productions of the organists
and cantors who shared, although in feebler measure,
his illumination. For Bach was no isolated phenomenon
of his time. He created no new styles; he gave
art no new direction. He was one out of many poorly
paid and overworked church musicians, performing the
duties that were traditionally attached to his office,
improvising fugues and preludes, and accompanying
choir and congregation at certain moments in the service,
composing motets, cantatas, and occasionally a
larger work for the regular order of the day, providing
special music for a church festival, a public funeral,
the inauguration of a town council, or the installation
of a pastor. What distinguished Bach was simply the
superiority of his work on these time-honored lines, the
amazing variety of sentiment which he extracted from
these conventional forms, the scientific learning which
Bach’s devotion to the Lutheran Church was almost as absorbed as Palestrina’s to the Catholic. His was a sort of cloistered seclusion. Like every one who has made his mark upon church music he reverenced the Church as a historic institution. Her government, ceremonial, and traditions impressed his imagination, and kindled a blind, instinctive loyalty. He felt that he attained to his true self only under her admonitions. Her service was to him perfect freedom. His opportunity to contribute to the glory of the Church was one that dwarfed every other privilege, and his official duty, his personal pleasure, and his highest ambition ran like a single current, fed by many streams, in one and the same channel. To measure the full strength of the mighty tide of feeling which runs through Bach’s church music we must recognize this element of conviction, of moral necessity. Given Bach’s inherited character, his education and his environment, add the personal factor—imagination and reverence—and you have Bach’s music, spontaneous yet inevitable, like a product of nature. Only out of such single-minded devotion to the interests of the Church, both as a spiritual nursery and as a venerated institution, has great church art ever sprung or can it spring.
Bach’s productions for the Church are divided into
two general classes, viz., organ music and vocal music.
The organ music is better known to the world at large,
and on account of its greater availability may outlive the
vocal works in actual practice. For many reasons more
or less obvious Bach’s organ works are constantly heard
in connection with public worship, both Catholic and
Protestant, in Europe and America, and their use is
steadily increasing; while the choral compositions have
almost entirely fallen out of the stated religious ceremony,
even in Germany, and have been relegated to the
concert hall. In course of time the organ solo had
grown into a constituent feature of the public act of
worship in the German Protestant Church. In the
Catholic Church solo organ playing is less intrinsic; in
fact it has no real historic or liturgic authorization and
gives the impression rather of an embellishment, like
elaborately carved choir-screens and rose windows, very
ornamental and impressive, but not indispensable. But
in the German system organ playing had become established
by a sort of logic, first as an accompaniment to
the people’s hymn—a function it assumed about 1600—and
afterwards in the practice of extemporization
upon choral themes. Out of this latter custom a style of
organ composition grew up in the seventeenth century
which, through association and a more or less definite
correspondence with the spirit and order of the prescribed
service, came to be looked upon as distinctively
a church style. This German organ music was strictly
church music according to the only adequate definition of
church music that has ever been given, for it had grown
up within the Church itself, and through its very liturgic
connections had come to make its appeal to the worshipers,
This form of music was evolved originally under the suggestion of the mediaeval vocal polyphony,—counterpoint redistributed and systematized in accordance with the modern development of rhythm, tonality, and sectional structure. Its birthplace was Italy; the canzona of Frescobaldi and his compeers was the parent of the fugue. The task of developing this Italian germ was given to the Dutch and Germans. The instrumental instinct and constructive genius of such men as Swelinck, Scheidt, Buxtehude, Froberger, and Pachelbel carried the movement so far as to reveal its full possibilities, and Bach brought these possibilities to complete realization.
As an organ player and composer it would seem that
Bach stands at the summit of human achievement. His
whole art as a player is to be found in his fugues,
preludes, fantasies, toccatas, sonatas, and choral variations.
In his fugues he shows perhaps most convincingly
that supreme mastery of design and splendor of
invention and fancy which have given him the place
he holds by universal consent among the greatest
artists of all time. In these compositions there is a
variety and individuality which, without such examples,
one could hardly suppose that this arbitrary form of
construction would admit. With Bach the fugue is no
dry intellectual exercise. So far as the absolutism of
its laws permits, Bach’s imagination moved as freely in
the fugue as Beethoven’s in the sonata or Schubert’s in
the lied. Its peculiar idiom was as native to him as his
rugged Teuton speech. A German student’s musical
education in that day began with counterpoint, as at
the present time it begins with figured bass harmony;
the ability to write every species of polyphony with ease
A form of instrumental music existed in the German
Protestant Church which was peculiar to that institution,
and which was exceedingly significant as forming a connecting
link between organ solo playing and the congregational
worship. We have seen that the choral, at the
very establishment of the new order by Luther, became
a characteristic feature of the office of devotion, entering
into the very framework of the liturgy by virtue of the
official appointment of particular hymns (Hauptlieder) on
certain days. As soon as the art of organ playing set
out upon its independent career early in the seventeenth
century, the organists began to take up the choral
melodies as subjects for extempore performance. These
tunes were especially adapted to this purpose by reason
of their stately movement and breadth of style, which
gave opportunity for the display of that mastery of
florid harmonization in which the essence of the organist’s
art consisted. The organist never played the
printed compositions of others, or even his own, for
voluntaries. He would no more think of doing so than
a clergyman would preach another man’s sermon, or
even read one of his own from manuscript. To this
day German unwritten law is rigorous on both these
matters. The organist’s method was always to improvise
in the strict style upon themes invented by himself
or borrowed from other sources. Nothing was more
natural than that he should use the choral tunes as his
That Bach always restricts his choral elaboration to the end of illustrating the sentiment of the words with which the theme is illustrated would be saying too much. Certainly he often does so, as in such beautiful examples as “O Mensch, bewein’ dein’ Sünde gross,” “Schmücke dich, meine liebe Seele,” and that touching setting of “Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sein” which Bach dictated upon his deathbed. But the purpose of the choral prelude in the church worship was not necessarily to reflect and emphasize the thought of the hymn. This usage having become conventional, and the organist being allowed much latitude in his treatment, his pride in his science would lead him to dilate and elaborate according to a musical rather than a poetic impulse, thinking less of appropriateness to a precise mood (an idea which, indeed, had hardly became lodged in instrumental music in Bach’s time) than of producing an abstract work of art contrived in accordance with the formal prescriptions of German musical science. The majority of Bach’s works in this form are, it must be said, conventional and scholastic, some even dry and pedantic. Efforts at popularizing them at the present day have but slight success; but in not a few Bach’s craving for expression crops out, and some of his most gracious inspirations are to be found in these incidental and apparently fugitive productions.
In order to win the clue to Bach’s vocal as well as
his instrumental style, we must constantly refer back to
his works for the organ. As Händel’s genius in oratorio
was shaped under the influence of the Italian aria,
direct or derived, and as certain modern composers,
such as Berlioz, seize their first conceptions already
clothed in orchestral garb, so Bach seemed to think in
Certainly no other religious institution has come so near the solution of the problem of the proper use of the instrumental solo in public worship. Through the connection of the organ music with the people’s hymn in the choral prelude, and the conformity of its style to that of the choir music in motet and cantata, it became vitally blended with the whole office of praise and prayer; its effect was to gather up and merge all individual emotions into the projection of the mood of aspiration that was common to all.
The work performed by Bach for the church cantata
was somewhat similar in nature to his service to the
choral prelude, and was carried out with a far more lavish
expenditure of creative power. The cantata, now no
longer a constituent of the German Evangelical worship,
in the eighteenth century held a place in the ritual analogous
to that occupied by the anthem in the morning and
evening prayer of the Church of England. It is always
of larger scale than the anthem, and its size was one
cause of its exclusion in the arbitrary and irregular
reductions which the Evangelical liturgies have undergone
in the last century and a half. There is nothing
in its florid character to justify this procedure, for it may
be, and in Bach usually is, more closely related to the
Bach wrote five series of cantatas for the Sundays and
festal days of the church year—in all two hundred and
ninety-five. Of these two hundred and sixty-six were
written at Leipsic. They vary greatly in length, the
shortest occupying twenty minutes or so in performance,
the longest an hour or more. Taken together, they
The devotional ideal of the Protestant Church as
compared with the Catholic gives far more liberal
recognition to the private religious consciousness of
the individual. The believer does not so completely
surrender his personality; in his mental reactions to
the ministrations of the clergy he still remains aware
of that inner world of experience which is his world,
not merged and lost in the universalized life of a religious
community. The Church is his inspirer and
guide, not his absolute master. The foundation of the
German choral was a religious declaration of independence.
The German hymns were each the testimony of
a thinker to his own private conception of religious
truth. The tone and feeling of each hymn were suggested
and colored by the general doctrine of the
Church, but not dictated. The adoption of these
utterances of independent feeling into the liturgy was
a recognition on the part of authority of individual
right. It was not a concession; it was the legal acknowledgment
The choruses of Bach’s cantatas would furnish a field
for endless study. Nowhere else is his genius more
grandly displayed. The only work entitled to be
compared with these choruses is found in Händel’s
oratorios. In drawing such a parallel, and observing
the greater variety of style in Händel, we must remember
that Bach’s cantatas are church music. Händel’s
oratorios are not. Bach’s cantata texts are not only
confined to a single sphere of thought, viz., the devotional,
but they are also strictly lyric. The church
cantata does not admit any suggestion of action or
“One peculiar trait in Bach’s nature,” says Kretzschmar,
“is revealed in the cantatas in grand, half-distinct
outlines, and this is the longing for death and
life with the Lord. This theme is struck in the cantatas
more frequently than almost any other. We
know him as a giant nature in all situations; great
and grandiose is also his joy and cheerfulness. But
The work that has most contributed to make the name of Bach familiar to the educated world at large is the Passion according to St. Matthew. Bach wrote five Passions, of which only two—the St. John and the St. Matthew—have come down to us. The former has a rugged force like one of Michael Angelo’s unpolished statues, but it cannot fairly be compared to the St. Matthew in largeness of conception or beauty of detail. In Bach’s treatment of the Passion story we have the culmination of the artistic development of the early liturgic practice whose progress has already been sketched. Bach completed the process of fusing the Italian aria and recitative with the German chorus, hymn-tune, and organ and orchestral music, interspersing the Gospel narrative with lyric sections in the form of airs, arioso recitatives, and choruses, in which the feelings proper to a believer meditating on the sufferings of Christ in behalf of mankind are portrayed with all the poignancy of pathos of which Bach was master.
Injudicious critics have sometimes attempted to set
up a comparison between the St. Matthew Passion and
Handel’s “Messiah,” questioning which is the greater.
But such captious rivalry is derogatory to both, for
they are not to be gauged by the same standard. To
In the formal arrangement of the St. Matthew Passion
Bach had no option; he must perforce comply with
church tradition. The narrative of the evangelist, taken
without change from St. Matthew’s Gospel and sung
in recitative by a tenor, is the thread upon which the
successive divisions are strung. The words of Jesus,
Peter, the high priest, and Pilate are given to a bass,
and are also in recitative. The Jews and the disciples
are represented by choruses. The “Protestant congregation”
forms another group, singing appropriate
chorals. A third element comprises the company of
Upon this prescribed formula Bach has poured all
the wealth of his experience, his imagination, and his
piety. His science is not brought forward so prominently
as in many of his works, and where he finds it
necessary to employ it he subordinates it to the expression
of feeling. Yet we cannot hear without amazement
the gigantic opening movement in which the awful
burden of the great tragedy is foreshadowed; where, as
if organ, orchestra, and double chorus were not enough
to sustain the composer’s conception, a ninth part,
bearing a choral melody, floats above the surging mass
of sound, holding the thought of the hearer to the significance
of the coming scenes. The long chorus which
closes the first part, which is constructed in the form
of a figured choral, is also built upon a scale which
The meditative portions of the work in aria, recitative,
and chorus are rendered with great beauty and
pathos, in spite of occasional archaic stiffness. Dry
and artificial some of the da capo arias undoubtedly
are, for that quality of fluency which always accompanies
genius never yet failed to beguile its possessor
into by-paths of dulness. But work purely formalistic
is not common in the St. Matthew Passion. Never did
religious music afford anything more touching and
serene than such numbers as the tenor solo and chorus,
“Ich will bei meinem Jesu wachen,” the bass solo,
“Am Abend, da es kühle war,” and the recitative and
chorus, matchless in tenderness, beginning “Nun ist
der Herr zur Ruh’ gebracht.” Especially impressive
are the tones given to the words of the Saviour. These
tones are distinguished from those of the other personages
not only by their greater melodic beauty, but also
by their accompaniment, which consists of the stringed
instruments, while the other recitatives are supported
by the organ alone. In Christ’s despairing cry upon
The chorals in the St. Matthew Passion are taken bodily, both words and tunes, from the church hymn-book. Prominent among them is the famous “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden” by Gerhardt after St. Bernard, which is used five times. These choral melodies are harmonized in simple homophonic style, but with extreme beauty. As an instance of the poetic fitness with which these chorals are introduced we may cite the last in the work, where immediately after the words “Jesus cried with a loud voice and gave up the ghost,” the chorus sings a stanza beginning “When my death hour approaches forsake not me, O Lord.” “This climax,” says Spitta, “has always been justly regarded as one of the most thrilling of the whole work. The infinite significance of the sacrifice could not be more simply, comprehensively, and convincingly expressed than in this marvellous prayer.”
This wonderful creation closes with a chorus of farewell sung beside the tomb of Jesus. It is a worthy close, for nothing more lovely and affecting was ever confided to human lips. The gloom and agony that have pervaded the scenes of temptation, trial, and death have quite vanished. The tone is indeed that of lamentation, for the Passion drama in its very aim and tradition did not admit any anticipation of the resurrection; neither in the Catholic or Lutheran ceremonies of Good Friday is there a foreshadowing of the Easter rejoicing. But the sentiment of this closing chorus is not one of hopeless grief; it expresses rather a sense of relief that suffering is past, mingled with a strain of solemn rapture, as if dimly conscious that the tomb is not the end of all.
The first performance of the St. Matthew Passion took place in the Thomas church at Leipsic, on Good Friday, April 15, 1729. It was afterwards revised and extended, and performed again in 1740. From that time it was nowhere heard until it was produced by Felix Mendelssohn in the Sing Academie at Berlin in 1829. The impression it produced was profound, and marked the beginning of the revival of the study of Bach which has been one of the most fruitful movements in nineteenth-century music.
A work equally great in a different way, although it
can never become the object of such popular regard as
the St. Matthew Passion, is the Mass in B minor. It
may seem strange that the man who more than any
other interpreted in art the genius of Protestantism
should have contributed to a form of music that is identified
There is no loftier example in history of artistic
genius devoted to the service of religion than we find
in Johann Sebastian Bach. He always felt that his
life was consecrated to God, to the honor of the Church
and the well-being of men. Next to this fact we are
impressed in studying him with his vigorous intellectuality,
by which I mean his accurate estimate of the
nature and extent of his own powers and his easy self-adjustment
to his environment. He was never the sport
of his genius but always its master, never carried away
like so many others, even the greatest, into extravagancies
or rash experiments. Mozart and Beethoven failed
in oratorio, Schubert in opera; the Italian operas of
Gluck and Händel have perished. Even in the successful
work of these men there is a strange inequality.
But upon all that Bach attempted—and the
amount of his work is no less a marvel than its quality—he
affixed the stamp of final and inimitable perfection.
All through Bach we feel the well-known German
mysticism which seeks the truth in the instinctive
convictions of the soul, the idealism which takes the
mind as the measure of existence, the romanticism
which colors the outer world with the hues of personal
temperament. Bach’s historic position required
that this spirit, in many ways so modern, should
take shape in forms to which still clung the technical
It has been reserved for recent years to discover
that the title of chief representative in art of German
Protestantism is, after all, not the sum of Bach’s
claims to honor. There is something in his art that
touches the deepest chords of religious feeling in whatever
communion that feeling has been nurtured. His
music is not the music of a confession, but of humanity.
What changes the spirit of religious progress
is destined to undergo in the coming years it would
be vain to predict; but it is safe to assume that the
warrant of faith will not consist in authority committed
to councils or synods, or altogether in a verbal
The verdict of the admirers of Bach in respect to
his greatness is not annulled when it is found that the
power and real significance of his work were not comprehended
by the mass of his countrymen during his
life, and that outside of Leipsic he exerted little influence
upon religious art for nearly a century after his
death. He was not the less a typical German on this
account. Only at certain critical moments do nations
When Bach had passed away, it seemed as if the
mighty force he exerted had been dissipated. He had
not checked the decline of church music. The art of
organ playing degenerated. The choirs, never really
adequate, became more and more unable to do justice
to the great works that had been bequeathed to them.
The public taste relaxed, and the demand for a more
florid and fetching kind of song naturalized in the
Church the theatrical style already predominant in
France and Italy. The people lost their perception of
the real merit of their old chorals and permitted them
to be altered to suit the requirements of contemporary
After the War of Liberation, ending with the downfall
of Napoleon’s tyranny, and when Germany began
to enter upon a period of critical self-examination,
demands began to be heard for the reinstatement of
church music on a worthier basis. The assertion of
nationality in other branches of musical art—the symphonies
of Beethoven, the songs of Schubert, the operas
of Weber—was echoed in the domain of church music,
not at first in the production of great works, but in
performance, criticism, and appeal. It is not to be denied
that a steady uplift in the department of church
music has been in progress in Germany all through the
nineteenth century. The transition from rationalism
The most wholesome result of these movements has been to bring about a clearer distinction in the minds of churchmen between a proper church style in music and the concert style. Church-music associations (evangelische Kirchengesang-Vereine), analogous to the Catholic St. Cecilia Society, have taken in hand the question of the establishment of church music on a more strict and efficient basis. Such masters as Mendelssohn, Richter, Hauptmann, Kiel, and Grell have produced works of great beauty, and at the same time admirably suited to the ideal requirements of public worship.
In spite of the present more healthful condition of
German Evangelical music as compared with the feebleness
and indefiniteness of the early part of the nineteenth
century, there is little assurance of the restoration of this
branch of art to the position which it held in the national
life two hundred years ago. In the strict sense writers
of the school of Spitta are correct in asserting that a
Protestant church music no longer exists. “It must be
denied that an independent branch of the tonal art is to
be found which has its home only in the Church, which
contains life and the capacity for development in itself,
and in whose sphere the creative artist seeks his ideals.”
On the other hand, a hopeful sign has appeared in recent German musical history in the foundation of the New Bach Society, with headquarters at Leipsic, in 1900. The task assumed by this society, which includes a large number of the most eminent musicians of Germany, is that of making Bach’s choral works better known, and especially of reintroducing them into their old place in the worship of the Evangelical churches. The success of such an effort would doubtless be fraught with important consequences, and perhaps inaugurate a new era in the history of German church music.
The musical productions that have emanated from
the Church of England possess no such independent
interest as works of art as those which so richly adorn
the Catholic and the German Evangelical systems.
With the exception of the naturalized Händel (whose
few occasional anthems, Te Deums, and miscellaneous
church pieces give him an incidental place in the roll of
English ecclesiastical musicians), there is no name to be
found in connection with the English cathedral service
that compares in lustre with those that give such renown
to the religious song of Italy and Germany. Yet in
spite of this mediocrity of achievement, the music of the
Anglican Church has won an honorable historic position,
not only by reason of the creditable average of excellence
which it has maintained for three hundred years, but
still more through its close identification with those fierce
conflicts over dogma, ritual, polity, and the relation of
the Church to the individual which have given such
a singular interest to English ecclesiastical history.
Methods of musical expression have been almost as
hotly contested as vital matters of doctrine and authority,
and the result has been that the English people look
upon their national religious song with a respect such as,
The study of English church music, therefore, is the study of musical forms and practices more than of works of art as such. We are met at the outset by a spectacle not paralleled in other Protestant countries, viz., the cleavage of the reformed Church into two violently hostile divisions; and we find the struggle for supremacy between Anglicans and Puritans fought out in the sphere of art and ritual as well as on the battlefield and the arena of theological polemic. Consequently we are obliged to trace two distinct lines of development—the ritual music of the Establishment and the psalmody of the dissenting bodies—trying to discover how these contending principles acted upon each other, and what instruction can be drawn from their collision and their final compromise.
The Reformation in England took in many respects a very different course from that upon the continent. In Germany, France, Switzerland, and the Netherlands the revolt against Rome was initiated by men who sprung from the ranks of the people. Notwithstanding the complication of motives which drew princes and commoners, ecclesiastics and laymen, into the rebellion, the movement was primarily religious, first a protest against abuses, next the demand for free privileges in the Gospel, followed by restatements of belief and the establishment of new forms of worship. Political changes followed in the train of the religious revolution, because in most instances there was such close alliance between the secular powers and the papacy that allegiance to the former was not compatible with resistance to the latter.
In England this process was reversed; political separation
preceded the religious changes; it was the alliance
between the government and the papacy that was first to
break. The emancipation from the supremacy of Rome
was accomplished at a single stroke by the crown itself,
and that not upon moral grounds or doctrinal disagreement,
but solely for political advantage. In spite of
tokens of spiritual unrest, there was no sign of a disposition
on the part of any considerable number of the
English people to sever their fealty to the Church of
Rome when, in 1534, Henry VIII. issued a royal edict
repudiating the papal authority, and a submissive Parliament
decreed that “the king, our sovereign lord, his
The immediate occasion for this action on the part of Henry VIII. was, as all know, his exasperation against Clement VII. on account of that pope’s refusal to sanction the king’s iniquitous scheme of a divorce from his faithful wife Catherine and a marriage with Anne Boleyn. This grievance was doubtless a mere pretext, for a temper so imperious as that of Henry could not permanently brook a divided loyalty in his kingdom. But since Henry took occasion to proclaim anew the fundamental dogmas of the Catholic Church, with the old bloody penalties against heresy, it would not be proper to speak of him as the originator of the Reformation in England. That event properly dates from the reign of his successor, Edward VI.
It was not possible, however, that in breaking the
ties of hierarchical authority which had endured for a
thousand years the English Church should not undergo
further change. England had always been a more or
less refractory child of the Roman Church, and more than
once the conception of royal prerogative and national
right had come into conflict with the pretensions of the
papacy, and the latter had not always emerged victorious
from the struggle. The old Germanic spirit of liberty
and individual determination, always especially strong in
England, was certain to assert itself when the great
European intellectual awakening of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries had taken hold of the mass of the
people; and it might have been foreseen after Luther’s
revolt that England would soon throw herself into the
arms of the Reformation. The teachings of Wiclif and
the Lollards were still cherished at many English fire-sides.
Humanistic studies had begun to flourish under
the auspices of such men as Erasmus, Colet, and More,
and humanism, as the natural foe of superstition and
obscurantism, was instinctively set against ecclesiastical
assumption. Lastly, the trumpet blast of Luther had
found an echo in many stout British hearts. The initiative
of the crown, however, forestalled events and
changed their course, and instead of a general rising of
the people, the overthrow of every vestige of Romanism,
and the creation of a universal Calvinistic system, the
conservatism and moderation of Edward VI. and Elizabeth
With the passage of the Act of Supremacy the Catholic and Protestant parties began to align themselves for conflict. Henry VIII. at first showed himself favorable to the Protestants, inclining to the acceptance of the Bible as final authority instead of the decrees and traditions of the Church. After the Catholic rebellion of 1536, however, the king changed his policy, and with the passage of the Six Articles, which decreed the doctrine of transubstantiation, the celibacy of the clergy, the value of private masses, and the necessity of auricular confession, he began a bloody persecution which ended only with his death.
The boy king, Edward VI., who reigned from 1547 to
1553, had been won over to Protestantism by Archbishop
Cranmer, and with his accession reforms in doctrine and
ritual went on rapidly. Parliament was again subservient,
and a modified Lutheranism took possession of the
English Church. The people were taught from the English
Bible, the Book of Common Prayer took the place
of Missal and Breviary; the Mass, compulsory celibacy
of the clergy, and worship of images were abolished, and
invocation of saints forbidden. We must observe that
these changes, like those effected by Henry VIII., were
With the purification and restatement of doctrine
according to Protestant principles was involved the
question of the liturgy. There was no thought on the
part of the English reformers of complete separation
from the ancient communion and the establishment of
a national Church upon an entirely new theory. They
held firmly to the conception of historic Christianity;
the episcopal succession extending back to the early
ages of the Church was not broken, the administration
of the sacraments never ceased. The Anglican Church
The ritual of the Church of England is contained in
a single volume, viz., the Book of Common Prayer. It
is divided into matins and evensong, the office of Holy
Communion, offices of confirmation and ordination, and
occasional offices. But little of this liturgy is entirely
original; the matins and evensong are compiled from
the Catholic Breviary, the Holy Communion with collects,
epistles, and gospels from the Missal, occasional
offices from the Ritual, and the confirmation and ordination
offices from the Pontifical. All these offices, as
compared with the Catholic sources, are greatly modified
and simplified. A vast amount of legendary and unhistoric
matter found in the Breviary has disappeared,
litanies to and invocations of the saints and the Virgin
In this dependence upon the offices of the mother Church for the ritual of the new worship the English reformers, like Martin Luther, testified to their conviction that they were purifiers and renovators of the ancient faith and ceremony, not violent destroyers, seeking to win the sympathies of their countrymen by deferring to old associations and inherited prejudices, so far as consistent with reason and conscience. Their sense of historic continuity is further shown in the fact that the Breviaries which they consulted were those specially employed from early times in England, particularly the use known as the “Sarum use,” drawn up and promulgated about 1085 by Osmund, bishop of Salisbury, and generally adopted in the south of England, and which deviated in certain details from the use of Rome.
Propositions looking to the amendment of the service-books were brought forward before the end of the reign of Henry VIII., and a beginning was made by introducing the reading of small portions of the Scripture in English. The Litany was the first of the prayers to be altered and set in English, which was done by Cranmer, who had before him the old litanies of the English Church, besides the “Consultation” of Hermann, archbishop of Cologne (1543).
With the accession of Edward VI. in 1547 the revolution in worship was thoroughly confirmed, and in 1549 the complete Book of Common Prayer, essentially in its modern form, was issued. A second and modified edition was published in 1552 and ordered to be adopted in all the churches of the kingdom. The old Catholic office-books were called in and destroyed, the images were taken from the houses of worship, the altars removed and replaced by communion tables, the vestments of the clergy were simplified, and the whole conception of the service, as well as its ceremonies, completely transformed. Owing to the accession of Mary in 1553 there was no time for the Prayer Book of 1552 to come into general use. A third edition, somewhat modified, published in 1559, was one of the earliest results of the accession of Elizabeth. Another revision followed in 1604 under James I.; additions and alterations were made under Charles II. in 1661-2. Since that date only very slight changes have been made.
The liturgy of the Church of England is composed,
like the Catholic liturgy, of both constant and variable
offices, the latter, however, being in a small minority.
It is notable for the large space given to reading from
Holy Scripture, the entire Psalter being read through
every month, the New Testament three times a year,
and the Old Testament once a year. It includes a
large variety of prayers, special psalms to be sung,
certain psalm-like hymns called canticles, the hymns
comprising the chief constant choral members of the
Latin Mass, viz., Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, and Sanctus—the
Te Deum, the ten commandments, a litany, besides
Although there is but one ritual common to all the congregations of the established Church, one form of prayer and praise which ascends from cathedral, chapel, and parish church alike, this service differs in respect to the manner of rendering. The Anglican Church retained the conception of the Catholic that the service is a musical service, that the prayers, as well as the psalms, canticles, and hymns, are properly to be given not in the manner of ordinary speech, but in musical tone. It was soon found, however, that a full musical service, designed for the more conservative and wealthy establishments, was not practicable in small country parishes, and so in process of time three modes of performing the service were authorized, viz., the choral or cathedral mode, the parochial, and the mixed.
The choral service is that used in the cathedrals,
royal and college chapels, and certain parish churches
whose resources permit the adoption of the same practice.
In this mode everything except the lessons is
rendered in musical tone, from the monotoned prayers
of the priest to the figured chorus music of “service”
and anthem. The essential parts of the choral service,
as classified by Dr. Jebb,
1. The chanting by the minister of the sentences, exhortations, prayers, and collects throughout the liturgy in a monotone, slightly varied by occasional modulations.
2. The alternate chant of the versicles and responses by minister and choir.
3. The alternate chant, by the two divisions of the choir, of the daily psalms and of such as occur in the various offices of the Church.
4. The singing of all the canticles and hymns, in the morning and evening service, either to an alternated chant or to songs of a more intricate style, resembling anthems in their construction, and which are technically styled “services.”
5. The singing of the anthem after the third collect in both morning and evening prayer.
6. The alternate chanting of the litany by the minister and choir.
7. The singing of the responses after the commandments in the Communion service.
8. The singing of the creed, Gloria in excelsis, and Sanctus in the Communion service anthem-wise. [The Sanctus has in recent years been superseded by a short anthem or hymn.]
9. The chanting or singing of those parts in the occasional offices which are rubrically permitted to be sung.
In this manner of worship the Church of England
conforms to the general usage of liturgic churches
throughout the world in ancient and modern times, by
implication honoring that conception of the intimate
union of word and tone in formal authorized worship
which has been expounded in the chapters on the
The parochial service is that used in the smaller churches where it is not possible to maintain an endowed choir. “According to this mode the accessories of divine service necessary towards its due performance are but few and simple.” “As to the ministers, the stated requirements of each parochial church usually contemplate but one, the assistant clergy and members of choirs being rarely objects of permanent endowment.” “As to the mode of performing divine service, the strict parochial mode consists in reciting all parts of the liturgy in the speaking tone of the voice unaccompanied by music. According to this mode no chant, or canticle, or anthem, properly so called, is employed; but metrical versions of the psalms are sung at certain intervals between the various offices.” (Jebb.)
This mode is not older than 1549, for until the Reformation the Plain Chant was used in parish churches. The singing of metrical psalms dates from the reign of Elizabeth.
The mixed mode is less simple than the parochial; parts of the service are sung by a choir, but the prayers, creeds, litany, and responses are recited in speaking voice. It may be said, however, that the parochial and the mixed modes are optional and permitted as matters of convenience. There is no law that forbids any congregation to adopt any portion or even the whole of the choral mode. In these variations, to which we find nothing similar in the Catholic Church, may be seen the readiness of the fathers of the Anglican Church to compromise with Puritan tendencies and guard against those reactions which, as later history shows, are constantly urging sections of the English Church back to extreme ritualistic practices.
The music of the Anglican Church follows the three divisions into which church music in general may be separated, viz., the chant, the figured music of the choir, and the congregational hymn.
The history of the Anglican chant may also be taken to symbolize the submerging of the ancient priestly idea in the representative conception of the clerical office, for the chant has proved itself a very flexible form of expression, both in structure and usage, endeavoring to connect itself sometimes with the anthem-like choir song and again with the congregational hymn. In the beginning, however, the method of chanting exactly followed the Catholic form. Two kinds of chant were employed,—the simple unaccompanied Plain Song of the minister, which is almost monotone; and the accompanied chant, more melodious and florid, employed in the singing of the psalms, canticles, litany, etc., by the choir or by the minister and choir.
The substitution of English for Latin and the
sweeping modification of the liturgy did not in the
least alter the system and principle of musical rendering
which had existed in the Catholic Church. The
litany, the oldest portion of the Book of Common
Prayer, compiled by Cranmer and published in 1544,
was set for singing note for note from the ancient Plain
Song. In 1550 a musical setting was given to all parts
of the Prayer Book by John Marbecke, a well-known
musician of that period. He, like Cranmer, adapted
portions of the old Gregorian chant, using only the
plainer forms. In Marbecke’s book we find the simplest
style, consisting of monotone, employed for the
prayers and the Apostles’ Creed, a larger use of modulation
in the recitation of the psalms, and a still more
song-like manner in the canticles and those portions,
such as the Kyrie and Gloria, taken from the mass.
To how great an extent this music of Marbecke was
employed in the Anglican Church in the sixteenth
century is not certainly known. Certain parts of it
gave way to the growing fondness for harmonized and
figured music in all parts of the service, but so far as
Plain Chant has been retained in the cathedral service
the setting of Marbecke has established the essential
form down to the present day.
The most marked distinction between the choral
mode of performing the service, and those divergent
usages which have often been conceived as a protest
against it, consists in the practice of singing or monotoning
the prayers by the minister. The notion of
impersonality which underlies the liturgic conception
of worship everywhere, the merging of the individual
It is of interest to note the reasons for this practice as given by representative English churchmen, since the motive for the usage touches the very spirit and significance of a ritualistic form of worship.
Dr. Bisse, in his Rationale on Cathedral Worship,
justifies the practice on the ground (1) of necessity,
since the great size of the cathedral churches obliges
the minister to use a kind of tone that can be heard
throughout the building; (2) of uniformity, in order
that the voices of the congregation may not jostle and
confuse each other; and (3) of the advantage in preventing
imperfections and inequalities of pronunciation
on the part of both minister and people. Other reasons
which are more mystical, and probably on that account
still more cogent to the mind of the ritualist, are also
given by this writer. “It is emblematic,” he says, “of
The word “chant” as used in the English Church (to
be in strictness distinguished from the priestly monotoning),
signifies the short melodies which are sung to
the psalms and canticles. The origin of the Anglican
chant system is to be found in the ancient Gregorian
chant, of which it is only a slight modification. It is
a sort of musically delivered speech, the punctuation
and rate of movement being theoretically the same as
in spoken discourse. Of all the forms of religious
music the chant is least susceptible to change and progress,
and the modern Anglican chant bears the plainest
marks of its mediaeval origin. The modifications which
distinguish the new from the old may easily be seen
upon comparing a modern English chant-book with an
office-book of the Catholic Church. In place of the
rhythmic freedom of the Gregorian, with its frequent
florid passages upon a single syllable, we find in the
Anglican a much greater simplicity and strictness, and
also, it must be admitted, a much greater melodic
monotony and dryness. The English chant is almost
entirely syllabic, even two notes to a syllable are rare,
while there is nothing remotely corresponding to the
melismas of the Catholic liturgic song. The bar lines,
unknown in the Roman chant, give the English form
much greater steadiness of movement. The intonation
of the Gregorian chant has been dropped, the remaining
four divisions—recitation, mediation, second recitation,
and ending—retained. The Anglican chant is
The manner of fitting the words to the notes of the chant is called “pointing.” There is no authoritative method of pointing in the Church of England, and there is great disagreement and controversy on the subject in the large number of chant-books that are used in England and America. In the cathedral service the chants are sung antiphonally, the two divisions of the chorus answering each other from opposite sides of the choir.
There are large numbers of so-called chants which are more properly to be called hymns or anthems in chant style, such as the melodies sometimes sung to the Te Deum and the Gloria in excelsis. These compositions may consist of any number of divisions, each comprising the three-measure and four-measure members found in the single chant.
The modern Anglican chant form is not so old as
commonly supposed. The ancient Gregorian chants
for the psalms and canticles were in universal use as
late as the middle of the seventeenth century. The
modern chant was of course a gradual development,
It must be acknowledged, however, that the Gregorian
chant melodies undergo decided modification in
spirit and impression when set to English words. In
their pure state their strains are thoroughly conformed
to the structure and flow of the Latin texts from which
they grew. There is something besides tradition and
association that makes them appear somewhat forced
and ill at ease when wedded to a modern language.
As Curwen says: “In its true form the Gregorian
chant has no bars or measures; the time and the accent
are verbal, not musical. Each note of the mediation
or the ending is emphatic or non-emphatic, according
to the word or syllable to which it happens to be sung.
The endings which follow the recitation do not fall
into musical measures, but are as unrhythmical as the
reciting tone itself. Modern music, and the instinctive
observance of rhythm which is an essential part of it,
have modified the old chant and given it accent and
time. The reason why the attempt to adapt the Gregorian
tones to the English language has resulted in their
modification is not far to seek. The non-accented system
Doubtless the fundamental and certainly praiseworthy
motive of those who strongly desire to reintroduce
the Gregorian melodies into the Anglican service
is to establish once for all a body of liturgic tones
which are pure, noble, and eminently fitting in character,
endowed at the same time with venerable ecclesiastical
associations which shall become fixed and authoritative,
and thus an insurmountable barrier against the intrusion
of the ephemeral novelties of “the Reverend C and
Miss D.” Every intelligent student of religious art
may well say Amen to such a desire. As the case now
stands there is no law or custom that prevents any
minister or cantor from introducing into the service
If Marbecke’s unison chants were intended as a complete
scheme for the musical service, they were at any
rate quickly swallowed up by the universal demand for
harmonized music, and the choral service of the Church
of England very soon settled into the twofold classification
which now prevails, viz., the harmonized chant and
the more elaborate figured setting of “service” and
anthem. The former dates from 1560, when John Day’s
psalter was published, containing three and four-part settings
of old Plain Song melodies, contributed by Tallis,
Shepherd, and other prominent musicians of the time.
From the very outset of the adoption of the vernacular
in all parts of the service, that is to say from the reign
of Edward VI., certain selected psalms and canticles,
technically known as “services,” were sung anthem-wise
in the developed choral style of the highest musical
science of the day. The components of the “service”
are to be distinguished from the daily psalms which are
The “service,” in respect to musical style, has moved step by step with the anthem, from the strict contrapuntal style of the sixteenth century, to that of the present with all its splendor of harmony and orchestral color. It has engaged the constant attention of the multitude of English church composers, and it has more than rivalled the anthem in the zealous regard of the most eminent musicians, from the time of Tallis and Gibbons to the present day.
The anthem, although an almost exact parallel to the
“service” in musical construction, stands apart, liturgically,
from the rest of the service in the Church of
England, in that while all the other portions are laid
down in the Book of Common Prayer, the words of the
anthem are not prescribed. The Prayer Book merely
says after the third collect, “In quires and places where
they sing here followeth the anthem.” What the
The anthem, although the legitimate successor of the
Latin motet, has taken in England a special and peculiar
form. According to its derivation (from ant-hymn,
responsive or alternate song) the word anthem was at
first synonymous with antiphony. The modern form,
succeeding the ancient choral motet, dates from about
the time of Henry Purcell (1658-1695). The style was
confirmed by Händel, who in his celebrated Chandos
anthems first brought the English anthem into European
recognition. The anthem in its present shape is a sort
of mixture of the ancient motet and the German cantata.
The form of anthem in which the entire body of singers is employed from beginning to end is technically known as the “full” anthem. In another form, called the “verse” anthem, portions are sung by selected voices. A “solo” anthem contains passages for a single voice.
The anthem of the Church of England has been more
or less affected by the currents of secular music, but to
a much slighter extent than the Catholic mass. The
opera has never taken the commanding position in England
which it has held in the Catholic countries, and
only in rare cases have the English church composers,
at any rate since the time of Händel, felt their allegiance
divided between the claims of religion and the
attractions of the stage. In periods of religious depression
or social frivolity the church anthem has sometimes
become weak and shallow, but the ancient austere
traditions have never been quite abrogated. The natural
conservatism of the English people, especially in
England had not been lacking in eminent composers for the Church before the Reformation, but their work was in the style which then prevailed all over Europe. Some of these writers could hold their own with the Netherlanders in point of learning. England held an independent position during “the age of the Netherlanders” in that the official musical posts in the schools and chapels were held by native Englishmen, and not, as was so largely the case on the continent, by men of Northern France and Flanders or their pupils. This fact speaks much for the inherent force of English music, but the conditions of musical culture at that time did not encourage any originality of style or new efforts after expression.
The continental development of the polyphonic school to its perfection in the sixteenth century was paralleled in England; and since the English Reformation was contemporary with this musical apogee, the newly founded national Church possessed in such men as Tallis, Byrd, Tye, Gibbons, and others only less conspicuous, a group of composers not unworthy to stand beside Palestrina and Lassus. It is indeed good fortune for the Church of England that its musical traditions have been founded by such men. Thomas Tallis, the most eminent of the circle, who died in 1585, devoted his talents almost entirely to the Church. In science he was not inferior to his continental compeers, and his music is preëminently stately and solid. Besides the large number of motets, “services,” etc., which he contributed to the Church, be is now best remembered by the harmonies added by him to the Plain Song of the old régime. Tallis must therefore be regarded as the chief of the founders of the English harmonized chant. His tunes arranged for Day’s psalter give him an honorable place also in the history of English psalmody.
Notwithstanding the revolutions in the authorized
ceremony of the Church of England during the stormy
Reformation period, from the revised constitutions of
Henry VIII. and Edward VI. to the restored Catholicism
of Mary, and back to Protestantism again under Elizabeth,
the salaried musicians of the Church retained their
places while their very seats seemed often to rock beneath
them, writing alternately for the Catholic and Protestant
services with equal facility, and with equal satisfaction to
themselves and their patrons. It was a time when no one
could tell at any moment to what doctrine or discipline he
might be commanded to subscribe, and many held themselves
ready loyally to accept the faith of the sovereign as
their own. Such were the ideas of the age that the claims
of uniformity could honestly be held as paramount to
those of individual judgment. Only those who combined
advanced thinking with fearless independence of character
were able to free themselves from the prevailing sophistry
on this matter of conformity vs. freedom. Even a
large number of the clergy took the attitude of compliance
to authority, and it is often a matter of wonder to
readers of the history of this period to see how comparatively
few changes were made in the incumbencies of
ecclesiastical livings in the shifting triumphs of the
hostile confessions. If this were the case with the
clergy it is not surprising that the church musicians
should have been still more complaisant. The style of
The old polyphonic school came to an end with Orlando Gibbons in 1625. No conspicuous name appears in the annals of English church music until we meet that of Henry Purcell, who was born in 1658 and died in 1695. We have made a long leap from the Elizabethan period, for the first half of the seventeenth century was a time of utter barrenness in the neglected fields of art. The distracted state of the kingdom during the reign of Charles I., the Great Rebellion, and the ascendency of the Puritans under Cromwell made progress in the arts impossible, and at one time their very existence seemed threatened. A more hopeful era began with the restoration of the Stuarts in 1660. Charles II. had spent some years in France after the ruin of his father’s cause, and upon his triumphant return he encouraged those light French styles in art and literature which were so congenial to his character. He was a devotee of music after his fashion; he warmly encouraged it in the Royal Chapel, and a number of skilful musicians came from the boy choirs of this establishment.
The earliest anthems of the Anglican Church were,
like the Catholic motet, unaccompanied. The use of
the organ and orchestral instruments followed soon after
the middle of the seventeenth century. No such school
of organ playing arose in England as that which gave
such glory to Germany in the same period. The organ
remained simply a support to the voices, and attained no
distinction as a solo instrument. Even in Händel’s day
and long after, few organs in England had a complete
pedal board; many had none at all. The English
anthem has always thrown greater proportionate weight
upon the vocal element as compared with the Catholic
mass and the German cantata. In the Restoration
period the orchestra came prominently forward in the
church worship, and not only were elaborate accompaniments
employed for the anthem, but performances of
orchestral instruments were given at certain places in
the service. King Charles II., who, to use the words of
Dr. Tudway, was “a brisk and airy prince,” did not find
the severe solemnity of the a capella style of Tallis and
Gibbons at all to his liking. Under the patronage of
“the merry monarch,” the brilliant style, then in fashion
on the continent, flourished apace. Henry Purcell, the
most gifted of this school, probably the most highly
endowed musical genius that has ever sprung from
English soil, was a man of his time, preëminent likewise
in opera, and much of his church music betrays the influence
of the gay atmosphere which he breathed. But
his profound musicianship prevented him from degrading
With the opening of the eighteenth century the characteristics of the English anthem of the present day were virtually fixed. The full, the verse, and the solo anthem were all in use, and the accompanied style had once for all taken the place of the a capella. During the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth centuries English choir music offers nothing especially noteworthy, unless we except the Te Deums and so-called anthems of Händel, whose style is, however, that of the oratorio rather than church music in the proper sense.
The works of Hayes, Attwood, Boyce, Greene,
Battishill, Crotch, and others belonging to the period
between the middle of the eighteenth and the middle of
the nineteenth centuries are solid and respectable, but as
a rule dry and perfunctory. A new era began with the
passing of the first third of the nineteenth century, when
a higher inspiration seized English church music. The
work of the English cathedral school of the second half
of the nineteenth century is highly honorable to the
English Church and people. A vast amount of it is
certainly the barrenest and most unpromising of routine
manufacture, for every incumbent of an organist’s post
throughout the kingdom, however obscure, feels that
his dignity requires him to contribute his quota to the
English church music has never been in a more satisfactory
condition than it is to-day. There is no other
country in which religious music is so highly honored,
so much the basis of the musical life of the people.
The organists and choir masters connected with the
cathedrals and the university and royal chapels are men
whose character and intellectual attainments would
make them ornaments to any walk of life. The deep-rooted
religious reverence which enters into the substance
of English society, the admiration for intellect and
honesty, the healthful conservatism, the courtliness of
speech, the solidity of culture which comes from inherited
wealth largely devoted to learning and the embellishment
of public and private life,—have all permeated ecclesiastical
The revised liturgy and musical service of the Church of England had not been long in operation when they encountered adversaries far more bitter and formidable than the Catholics. The Puritans, who strove to effect a radical overturning in ecclesiastical affairs, to reduce worship to a prosaic simplicity, and also to set up a more democratic form of church government, violently assailed the established Church as half papist. The contest between the antagonistic principles, Ritualism vs. Puritanism, Anglicanism vs. Presbyterianism, broke out under Elizabeth, but was repressed by her strong hand only to increase under the weaker James I., and to culminate with the overthrow of Charles I. and the temporary triumph of Puritanism.
The antipathy of the Puritan party to everything
formal, ceremonial, and artistic in worship was powerfully
promoted, if not originally instigated by John Calvin,
the chief fountain-head of the Puritan doctrine and
polity. The extraordinary personal ascendency of Calvin
was shown not only in the adoption of his theological
system by so large a section of the Protestant world,
but also in the fact that his opinions concerning the
The Geneva psalter had a very singular origin.
In 1538 Clement Marot, a notable poet at the court of
Francis I. of France, began for his amusement to make
translations of the psalms into French verse, and had
them set to popular tunes. Marot was not exactly in
the odor of sanctity. The popularization of the Hebrew
lyrics was a somewhat remarkable whim on the part of
a writer in whose poetry is reflected the levity of his
time much more than its virtues. As Van Laun says,
he was “at once a pedant and a vagabond, a scholar and
a merry-andrew. He translated the penitential psalms
and Ovid’s Metamorphoses; he wrote the praises of St.
Christina and sang the triumphs of Cupid.” His psalms
attained extraordinary favor at the dissolute court.
Each of the royal family and the courtiers chose a psalm.
Prince Henry, who was fond of hunting, selected “Like
as the hart desireth the water brooks.” The king’s
mistress, Diana of Poitiers, chose the 130th psalm, “Out
of the depths have I cried to thee, O Lord.” This
A visitor to Geneva in 1557 wrote as follows: “A most interesting sight is offered in the city on the week days, when the hour for the sermon approaches. As soon as the first sound of the bell is heard all shops are closed, all conversation ceases, all business is broken off, and from all sides the people hasten into the nearest meeting-house. There each one draws from his pocket a small book which contains the psalms with notes, and out of full hearts, in the native speech, the congregation sings before and after the sermon. Everyone testifies to me how great consolation and edification is derived from this custom.”
Such was the origin of the Calvinistic psalmody, which holds so prominent a place in the history of religious culture, not from any artistic value in its products, but as the chosen and exclusive form of praise employed for the greater part of two centuries by the Reformed Churches of Switzerland, France, and the Netherlands, and the Puritan congregations of England, Scotland, and America. On the poetic side it sufficed for Calvin, for he said that the psalms are the anatomy of the human heart, a mirror in which every pious mood of the soul is reflected.
It is a somewhat singular anomaly that the large liberty given to the Lutheran Christians to express their religious convictions and impulses in hymns of their own spontaneous production or choosing was denied to the followers of Calvin. Our magnificent heritage of English hymns was not founded amid the Reformation struggles, and thus we have no lyrics freighted with the priceless historic associations which consecrate in the mind of a German the songs of a Luther and a Gerhardt. Efficacious as the Calvinistic psalmody has been in many respects, the repression of a free poetic impulse in the Protestant Churches of Great Britain and America for so long a period undoubtedly tended to narrow the religious sympathies, and must be given a certain share of responsibility for the hardness of temper fostered by the Calvinistic system. The reason given for the prohibition, viz., that only “inspired” words should be used in the service of praise, betrayed a strange obtuseness to the most urgent demands of the Christian heart in forbidding the very mention of Christ and the Gospel message in the song of his Church. In spite of this almost unaccountable self-denial, if such it was, we may, in the light of subsequent history, ascribe an appropriateness to the metrical versions of the psalms of which even Calvin could hardly have been aware. It was given to Calvinism to furnish a militia which, actuated by a different principle than the Lutheran repugnance to physical resistance, could meet political Catholicism in the open field and maintain its rights amid the shock of arms. In this fleshly warfare it doubtless drew much of its martial courage from those psalms which were ascribed to a bard who was himself a military chieftain and an avenger of blood upon his enemies.
The unemotional unison tunes to which these rhymed psalms were set also satisfied the stern demands of those rigid zealots, who looked upon every appeal to the aesthetic sensibility in worship as an enticement to compromise with popery. Before condemning such a position as this we should take into account the natural effect upon a conscientious and high-spirited people of the fierce persecution to which they were subjected, and the hatred which they would inevitably feel toward everything associated with what was to them corruption and tyranny.
We must, therefore, recognize certain conditions of
the time working in alliance with the authority of
Calvin to bring into vogue a conception and method
of public worship absolutely in contradiction to the
almost universal usage of mankind, and nullifying the
general conviction, we might almost say the instinct,
in favor of the employment in devotion of those artistic
agencies by which the religious emotion is ordinarily
so strongly moved. For the first time in the history
of the Christian Church, at any rate for the first time
upon a conspicuous or extensive scale, we find a party
of religionists abjuring on conscientious grounds all
employment of art in the sanctuary. Beginning in an
inevitable and salutary reaction against the excessive
development of the sensuous and formal, the hostility
to everything that may excite the spirit to a spontaneous
joy in beautiful shape and color and sound was exalted
into a universally binding principle. With no reverence
for the conception of historic development and Christian
tradition, the supposed simplicity of the apostolic practice
was assumed to be a constraining law upon all later
generations. The Scriptures were taken not only as a
With regard to the matter of art and established form
in public worship Calvinism was at one with itself,
whether in Geneva or Great Britain. A large number
of active Protestants had fled from England at the
beginning of the persecution of Mary, and had taken
refuge at Geneva. Here they came under the direct
influence of Calvin, and imbibed his principles in fullest
measure. At the death of Mary these exiles returned,
many of them to become leaders in that section of the
Protestant party which clamored for a complete eradication
of ancient habits and observances. No inspiration
was really needed from Calvin, for his democratic and
anti-ritualistic views were in complete accord with the
temper of English Puritanism. The attack was delivered
all along the line, and not the least violent was
the outcry against the liturgic music of the established
Church. The notion held by the Puritans concerning
a proper worship music was that of plain unison psalmody.
The most conspicuous of the agitators during the reign of Elizabeth was Thomas Cartwright, Margaret Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, who first gained notoriety by means of public lectures read in 1570 against the doctrine and discipline of the established Church. The coarseness and violence of this man drew upon him the royal censure, and he was deprived of his fellowship and expelled from the University. His antipathy was especially aroused by the musical practice of the established Church, particularly the antiphonal chanting, “tossing the psalms from one side to the other,” to use one of his favorite expressions. “The devil hath gone about to get it authority,” said Cartwright. “As for organs and curious singing, though they be proper to popish dens, I mean to cathedral churches, yet some others also must have them. The queen’s chapel and these churches (which should be spectacles of Christian reformation) are rather patterns to the people of all superstition.”
The attack of Cartwright upon the rites and discipline of the Church of England, since it expressed the feeling of a strong section of the Puritan party, could not be left unanswered. The defence was undertaken by Whitgift and afterward by Richard Hooker, the latter bringing to the debate such learning, dignity, eloquence, and logic that we may be truly grateful to the unlovely Cartwright that his diatribe was the occasion of the enrichment of English literature with so masterly an exposition of the principles of the Anglican system as the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.
As regards artistic and liturgic music Hooker’s
argument is so clear, persuasive, and complete that all
later contestants upon the ritualistic side have derived
their weapons, more or less consciously, from his armory.
After an eloquent eulogy of the power of music over
the heart, Hooker passes on to prove the antiquity of
antiphonal chanting by means of citations from the
early Christian fathers, and then proceeds: “But whosoever
were the author, whatsoever the time, whencesoever
the example of beginning this custom in the
Church of Christ; sith we are wont to suspect things
only before trial, and afterward either to approve them
as good, or if we find them evil, accordingly to judge
of them; their counsel must needs seem very unseasonable,
who advise men now to suspect that wherewith
the world hath had by their own account twelve hundred
years’ acquaintance and upwards, enough to take
away suspicion and jealousy. Men know by this time,
if ever they will know, whether it be good or evil
which hath been so long retained.” The argument of
Cartwright, that all the people have the right to praise
God in the singing of psalms, Hooker does not find a
sufficient reason for the abolition of the choir; he denies
the assertion that the people cannot understand what is
being sung, after the antiphonal manner, and then concludes:
“Shall this enforce us to banish a thing which
all Christian churches in the world have received; a
thing, which so many ages have held; a thing which
always heretofore the best men and wisest governors
of God’s people did think they could never commend
enough; a thing which filleth the mind with comfort
and heavenly delight, stirreth up flagrant desires and
affections correspondent unto that which the words
The just arguments and fervent appeals of Hooker
produced no effect upon the fanatical opponents of the
established Church. Under the exasperating conditions
which produced the Great Rebellion and the substitution
of the Commonwealth for the monarchy, the
hatred against everything identified with ecclesiastical
and political oppression became tenfold confirmed; and
upon the triumph of the most extreme democratic and
non-conformist faction, as represented by the army of
Cromwell and the “Rump” Parliament, nothing stood
in the way of carrying the iconoclastic purpose into
effect. In 1644 the House of Lords, under the pressure
of the already triumphant opposition, passed an
ordinance that the Prayer Book should no longer be
used in any place of public worship. In lieu of the
liturgy a new form of worship was decreed, in which
the congregational singing of metrical psalms was all the
The rules framed by the commission left the matter of instrumental music untouched. Perhaps it was considered a work of supererogation to proscribe it, for if there was anything which the Puritan conscience supremely abhorred it was an organ. Sir Edward Deering, in his bill for the abolition of episcopacy, expressed the opinion of the zealots of his party in the assertion that ” one groan in the Spirit is worth the diapason of all the church music in the world.”
As far back as 1586 a pamphlet which had a wide circulation prays that “all cathedral churches may be put down, where the service of God is grievously abused by piping with organs, singing, ringing, and trowling of psalms from one side of the choir to the other, with the squeaking of chanting choristers, disguised in white surplices; some in corner caps and silly copes, imitating the fashion and manner of Antichrist the Pope, that man of sin and child of perdition, with his other rabble of miscreants and shavelings.”
Such diatribes as this were no mere idle vaporing.
As soon as the Puritan army felt its victory secure,
these threats were carried out with a ruthless violence
which reminds one of the havoc of the image breakers
of Antwerp in 1566, who, with striking coincidence of
temper, preluded their ravages by the singing of
psalms. All reverence for sacred association, all
respect for works of skill and beauty, were lost in the
indiscriminate rage of bigotry. The ancient sanctuaries
were invaded by a vulgar horde, the stained glass
windows were broken, ornaments torn down, sepulchral
monuments defaced, libraries were ransacked for ancient
service-books which, when found, were mutilated or
burned, organs were demolished and their fragments
scattered. These barbarous excesses had in fact been
directly enjoined by act of Parliament in 1644, and it
is not surprising that the rude soldiery carried out the
desires of their superiors with wantonness and indignity.
A few organs, however, escaped the general
destruction, one being rescued by Cromwell, who was
a lover of religious music, and not at all in sympathy
with the vandalism of his followers. Choirs were likewise
dispersed, organists, singers, and composers of the
highest ability were deprived of their means of livelihood,
and in many cases reduced to the extreme of
The reëstablishment of the liturgy and the musical
service of the Church of England upon the restoration
of the Stuarts in 1660 has already been described.
The Puritan congregations clung with tenacity to their
peculiar tenets and usages, prominent among which
was their invincible repugnance to artistic music.
Although such opinions could probably not prevail so
extensively among a really musical people, yet this was
not the first nor the last time in history that the art
which seems peculiarly adapted to the promotion of
pure devotional feeling has been disowned as a temptation
and a distraction. We find similar instances
among some of the more zealous German Protestants
of Luther’s time, and the German Pietists of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. At many periods of
the Middle Age there were protests against the lengths
to which artistic music had gone in the Church and a
demand for the reduction of the musical service to the
simplest elements. Still further back, among the early
Christians, the horror at the abominations of paganism
issued in denunciation of all artistic tendencies in the
worship of the Church. St. Jerome may not inaccurately
be called the first great Puritan. Even St.
Augustine was at one time inclined to believe that his
love for the moving songs of the Church was a snare,
More difficult to understand is the Puritan prohibition
of all hymns except rhymed paraphrases of the psalms.
Metrical versions were substituted for chanted prose
versions for the reason, no doubt, that a congregation,
as a rule, cannot sing in perfect unity of coöperation
except in metre and in musical forms in which one note
is set to one syllable. But why the psalms alone?
Why suppress the free utterance of the believers in
hymns of faith and hope? In the view of that day the
The rise of an English hymnody corresponding to that
of Germany was, therefore, delayed for more than one
hundred and fifty years. English religious song-books
were exclusively psalm-books down to the eighteenth
century. Poetic activity among the non-conformists
consisted in translations of the psalms in metre, or
rather versions of the existing translations in the
English Bible, for these sectaries, as a rule, were not
strong in Hebrew. The singular passion in that period
The Lord descended from above, And bowed the heavens most high, And underneath his feet he cast The darkness of the sky. [376]On cherub and on cherubim Full royally he rode; And on the wings of all the winds Came flying all abroad.
The graces of style, however, were not greatly prized by the Puritan mind. Sternhold and Hopkins held the suffrages of their co-religionists so long on account of their strict fidelity to the thought of the original, the ruggedness and genuine force of their expression, and their employment of the simple homely phraseology of the common people. The enlightened criticism of the present day sees worth in these qualities, and assigns to the work of Sternhold and Hopkins higher credit than to many smoother and more finished versions.
Sternhold and Hopkins partially yielded to Tate and Brady in 1696, and were still more urgently pushed aside by the version of Watts in 1719. The numerous versions which have since appeared from time to time were written purely for literary purposes, or else in a few cases (as, for example, the psalms of Ainsworth, brought to America by the Pilgrim Fathers) were granted a temporary and local use in the churches. Glass, in his Story of the Psalter, enumerates one hundred and twenty-three complete versions, the last being that of Wrangham in 1885. This long list includes but one author—John Keble—who has attained fame as a poet outside the annals of hymnology. No other version ever approached in popularity that of Sternhold and Hopkins, whose work passed through six hundred and one editions.
Social hymn singing, unlike liturgic choir music, is
entirely independent of contemporary art movements.
It flourishes only in periods of popular religious awakening,
and declines when religious enthusiasm ebbs, no
matter what may be going on in professional musical
circles. Psalm singing in the English Reformation
period, whatever its aesthetic shortcomings, was a powerful
promoter of zeal in moments of triumph, and an unfailing
source of consolation in adversity. As in the
case of the Lutheran choral, each psalm had its “proper”
tune. Many of the melodies were already associated
with tender experiences of home life, and they became
doubly endeared through religious suggestion. “The
metrical psalms,” says Curwen, “were Protestant in their
origin, and in their use they exemplified the Protestant
principle of allowing every worshiper to understand
and participate in the service. As years went on, the
rude numbers of Sternhold and Hopkins passed into the
language of spiritual experience in a degree only less
than the authorized version of the Bible. They were a
liturgy to those who rejected liturgies.”
Even this inspiration at last seemed to fade away.
When the one hundred years’ conflict, of alternate ascendency
and persecution, came to an end with the
Restoration in 1660, zeal abated with the fires of conflict,
and apathy, formalism, and dulness, the counterparts
of lukewarmness and Pharisaical routine in the
established Church, settled down over the dissenting
sects. In the eighteenth century the psalmody of the
Presbyterians, Independents, and Separatists, which had
also been adopted long before in the parochial services of
the established Church, declined into the most contracted
and unemotional routine that can be found in
the history of religious song. The practice of “lining
out” destroyed every vestige of musical charm that
might otherwise have remained; the number of tunes in
common use grew less and less, in some congregations
being reduced to a bare half-dozen. The conception of
individualism, which was the source of congregational
singing in the first place, was carried to such absurd
extremes that the notion extensively prevailed that
every person was privileged to sing the melody in any
key or tempo and with any grotesque embellishment
that might be pleasing to himself. These fantastic
abuses especially prevailed in the New England congregations
in the last half of the seventeenth and the first
half of the eighteenth centuries, but they were only the
ultimate consequences of ideas and practices which prevailed
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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,
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
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.
A little clear thinking on this subject, it seems to me, will convince any one that music alone, in and of itself, never makes people religious. There is no such thing as religious music per se. When music in religious ceremony inspires a distinctly prayerful mood, it does so mainly through associations and accessories. And if this mood is not induced by other causes, music alone can never be relied upon to create it. Music, even the noblest and purest, is not always or necessarily an aid to devotion, and there may even be a snare in what seems at first a devoted ally. The analogy that exists between religious emotion and musical rapture is, after all, only an analogy; aesthetic delight, though it be the most refined, is not worship; the melting tenderness that often follows a sublime instrumental or choral strain is not contrition. Those who speak of all good music as religious do not understand the meaning of the terms they use. For devotion is not a mere vague feeling of longing or transport. It must involve a positive recognition of an object of worship, a reaching up, not to something unknown or inaccessible, but to a God who reveals himself to us, and whom we believe to be cognizant of the sincerity of the worship offered him; it must involve also a sense of humility before an almighty power, a penitence for sin, a desire for pardon and reconciliation, a consciousness of need and dependence, and an active exercise of faith and love. Into such convictions music may come, lending her aid to deepen them, to give them tangible expression, and to enhance the sense of joy and peace which may be their consequence; but to create them is beyond her power.
The office of music is not to suggest concrete images,
or even to arouse definite namable sentiments, but
rather to intensify ideas and feelings already existing,
or to release the mind and put it into that sensitive,
expectant state in which conceptions that appeal to the
emotion may act unhampered. The more generalized
function of music in the sanctuary is to take possession
of the prepared and chastened mood which is the antecedent
of worship, to separate it from other moods and
reminiscences which are not in perfect accord with it,
and to establish it in a more complete self-consciousness
and a more permanent attitude. This antecedent
sense of need and longing for divine communion cannot
be aroused by music alone; the enjoyment of abstract
musical beauty, however refined and elevating, is not
worship, and a musical impression disconnected from
any other cannot conduce to the spirit of prayer. It is
only when the prayerful impulse already exists as a
more or less conscious tendency of the mind, induced
by a sense of love and duty, by the associations of the
time and place, by the administration of the other portions
of the service, or by any agencies which incline
the heart of the believer in longing toward the Mercy
Seat,—it is only in alliance with such an anticipatory
state of mind and the causes that produce it that music
fulfils its true office in public worship. It is not
enough to depend upon the influence of the words to
which the music is set, for they, being simultaneous
with the music, do not have time or opportunity to
act with full force upon the understanding; since the
action of music upon the emotion is more immediate
and vivid than that of words upon the intellect, the
latter is often unregarded in the stress of musical
excitement. However it may be in solo singing, it is
The spirit of worship, therefore, must be aroused by favoring conditions and means auxiliary to music,—it is then the province of music to direct this spirit toward a more vivid consciousness of its end. The case is with music as Professor Shairp says it is with nature: “If nature is to be the symbol of something higher than itself, to convey intimations of him from whom both nature and the world proceed, man must come to the spectacle with the thought of God already in his heart. He will not get a religion out of the mere sight of nature. If beauty is to lead the soul upward, man must come to the contemplation of it with his moral convictions clear and firm, and with faith in these as connecting him directly with God. Neither morality nor religion will he get out of beauty taken by itself.”
The soundest writers on art maintain that art, taken
abstractly, is neither moral nor immoral. It occupies
a sphere apart from that of religion or ethics. It may
lend its aid to make religious and moral ideas more
persuasive; it may, through the touch of pure beauty,
overbear material and prosaic interests and help to
produce an atmosphere in which spiritual ideas may
range without friction, but the mind must first have
been made morally sensitive by other than purely
artistic means. It is the peculiar gift of music that it
affords a speedier and more immediate means of fusion
between ideas of sensuous beauty and those of devotional
experience than any other of the art sisterhood.
It is the indefiniteness of music as compared with
painting and sculpture, the intensity of its action as
compared with the beauty of architecture and decoration,
which gives to it its peculiar power. To this
searching force of music, its freedom from reminiscences
of actual life or individual experience, is due
the prominence that has been assigned to music in the
observances of religion in all times and nations. Piety
falls into the category of the most profound and absorbing
of human emotions—together with such sentiments
as patriotism and love of persons—which instinctively
utter themselves not in prose but in poetry, not in
ordinary unimpassioned speech, but in rhythmic tone.
Music is the art most competent to enter into such an
ardent and mobile state of mind. The ecstasy aroused
in the lover of music by the magic of his art is more
nearly analogous than any other producible by art to
that mystic rapture described by religious enthusiasts.
Worship is disconnected from all the concerns of physical
life; it raises the subject into a super-earthly
region—it has for the moment nothing to do with
The substance of this whole discussion, therefore,
is that those who have any dealing with music in the
Church must take into account the inherent laws of
musical effect. Music is not a representative art; it
bears with it an order of impressions untranslatable
into those of poetry or painting. To use Walter
Pater’s phrase, “it presents no matter of sentiment
This conclusion is, however, very far from being the
end of the matter. The most devout intention will not
make the church music effective for its ideal end if the
aesthetic element is disregarded. There seems to be in
many quarters a strange distrust of beauty and skill
in musical performance, as if artistic qualities were in
some way hostile to devotion. This distrust is a survival
of the old Calvinistic fear of everything studied,
formal, and externally beautiful in public worship. In
other communities the church music is simply neglected,
as one of the results of the excessive predominance
given to the sermon in the development of
Protestantism. It is often deemed sufficient, also, if
the church musicians are devout men and women, in
forgetfulness of the fact that a musical performance
that is irritating to the nerves can never be a help to
devotion. These enemies to artistic church music—hostility,
indifference, and ignorance—are especially
injurious in a country where, as in America, the general
In all this discussion I have had in mind the steady and more normal work of the Church. Forms of song which, to the musician, lie outside the pale of art may have a legitimate place in seasons of special religious quickening. No one who is acquainted with the history of religious propagation in America will despise the revival hymn, or deny the necessity of the part it has played. But these seasons of spiritual upheaval are temporary and exceptional; they are properly the beginning not the end of the Church’s effort. The revival hymn may be effective in soul-winning, it is inadequate when treated as an element in the larger task of spiritual development.
There is another reason for insistence upon beauty
and perfection in all those features of public worship
into which art enters—to a devout mind the most
imperative of all reasons. This is so forcibly stated by
the great Richard Hooker that it will be sufficient to
quote his words and leave the matter there. Speaking
of the value of noble architecture and adornment in
connection with public acts of religion, he goes on to
say: “We do thereby give unto God a testimony of our
cheerful affection which thinketh nothing too dear to
be bestowed about the furniture of his service; as also
because it serveth to the world for a witness of his
almightiness, whom we outwardly honor with the chiefest
of outward things, as being of all things himself incomparably
the greatest. To set forth the majesty of kings,
his vicegerents in this world, the most gorgeous and rare
In urging onward the effort after beauty and perfection in church music I have no wish to set up any single style as a model,—in fact, a style competent to serve as a universal model does not exist. There can be no general agreement, for varied conditions demand diverse methods. The Catholic music reformer points to the ancient Gregorian chant and the masterpieces of choral art of the sixteenth century as embodying the ideal which he wishes to assert. The Episcopalian has the Anglican chant and anthem, noble and appropriate in themselves, and consecrated by the associations of three eventful centuries. But the only hereditary possession of the Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and other non-liturgic bodies is the crude psalmody of the early Calvinists and Puritans which, unlike the Lutheran choral, has none of the musical potencies out of which a church art can be developed. In these societies there is no common demand or opportunity which, in the absence of a common musical heritage, can call forth any new and distinctive form of ecclesiastical song. They must be borrowers and adapters, not creators. The problem of these churches is the application of existing forms to new conditions—directing the proved powers of music along still higher lines of service in the epoch of promise which is now opening before them.
In this era just upon us, in which new opportunities demand of the Church in America new methods throughout the whole range of its action, music will have a larger part to play than even heretofore. It is of great importance that her service should be employed intelligently. Both ministers and choir leaders should be aware of the nature of the problems which ecclesiastic music presents. They should know something of the experience of the Church in its historic dealings with this question, of the special qualities of the chief forms of church song which have so greatly figured in the past, and of the nature of the effect of music upon the mind both by itself alone and in collusion with other religious influences. How many ministers and choir-masters are well versed in these matters? What are the theological seminaries and musical conservatories doing to disseminate knowledge and conviction on this subject? In the seminaries lectures are given on liturgiology and hymnology; but what are hymns and liturgies without music? And how many candidates for the ministry are prepared to second the efforts of church musicians in musical improvement and reform? I am, of course, aware that in a few of the seminaries of the non-liturgic denominations work in this department of ecclesiology has been effectively begun. In the conservatories organ playing and singing, both solo and chorus, are taught, but usually from the technical side,—the adaptation of music to the spiritual demands of the Church is rarely considered. Every denomination needs a St. Cecilia Society to convince the churches of the spiritual quickening that lies in genuine church music and the mischief in the false, to arouse church members to an understanding of the injury that attends an obvious incongruity between the character of the music and the spirit of prayer which it is the purpose of the established offices of worship to create, and to show how all portions of the service may act in harmony.
The general growth in musical culture, which is so
marked a feature of our time, should everywhere be made
to contribute to the benefit of the Church. The teaching
of music in the public schools should be a means of
supplying the churches with efficient chorus singers.
The Church must also offer larger inducements to
musicians and musical students. Here we touch upon a
most vital point. If the Church wants music that is
worthy of her dignity, and which will help her to maintain
the place she seeks to occupy in modern life, she
must pay for it. The reason why so few students of
talent are preparing themselves for work in the Church
as organists and choir leaders is that the prospect of remuneration
is too small to make this special study worth
their while. The musical service of the Church is, therefore,
in the vast majority of cases, in the hands either of
amateurs or of musicians who are devoting themselves
through the entire week to work which has nothing to
do with the Church. A man who is trained wholly or
chiefly as a pianist, and who gives his strength and time
for six days to piano study and teaching, or a singer
whose energy is mainly expended in private vocal instruction,
can contribute little to the higher needs of Church
music. It is not his fault; he must seek his income
where he can find it. The service of the Church is a
side issue, and receives the benefit which any cause
must expect when it is given only the remnants of
The musical problem of the non-liturgic Church in America is, therefore, not one of creation, but of administration. Whatever the mission of the Church is to be in our national life, the opportunities of its music are not to be less than of old, but greater. It is evident that the notion of conviction of sin and sudden conversion is gradually losing the place which it formerly held in ecclesiastical theory, and is being supplemented, if not supplanted, by the notion of spiritual nurture. The Church is finding its permanent and comprehensive task in alliance with those forces that make for social regeneration; no longer to separate souls from the world and prepare them for a future state of existence, but to work to establish the kingdom of God here on earth; not denying the rights of the wholesome human instincts, but disciplining and refining them for fraternal service. In this broader sphere art, especially music, will be newly commissioned and her benign powers utilized with ever-increasing intelligence. The Church can never recover the old musical leadership which was wrested from her in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by the opera, the choral society, and the concert system, but in the twentieth she will find means of coöperating with these institutions for the general welfare.
The council of Carthage in the fourth century laid this injunction upon church singers: “See that what thou singest with thy lips thou believest in thy heart; and what thou believest in thy heart thou dost exemplify in thy life.” This admonition can never lose its authority; back of true church music there must be faith. There comes, however, to supplement this ancient warning, the behest from modern culture that the music of the sanctuary shall adapt itself to the complex and changing conditions of modern life, and while it submits to the pure spirit of worship it shall grow continually in those qualities which make it worthy to be honored by the highest artistic taste. For among the venerable traditions of the Church, sanctioned by the wisdom of her rulers from the time of the fathers until now, is one which bids her cherish the genius of her children, and use the appliances of imagination and skill to add strength and grace to her habitations, beauty, dignity, and fitness to her ordinances of worship.
List of books that are of especial value to the student of church music, not including works on church history. Books that the author deems of most importance are marked by a star.
*Ambros. Geschichte der Musik, 5 vols. and index. Leipzig, Leuckart, 1880-1887.
*Archer and Reed (editors). The Choral Service Book. Philadelphia, General Council Publication Board, 1901.
*Bacon and Allen (editors). The Hymns of Martin Luther set to their Original Melodies, with an English Version. New York, Scribner, 1883.
Bäumker. Das Katholische-deutsche Kirchenlied. Freiburg, Herder, 1886.
Burney. General History of Music, 4 vols. London, 1776.
*Caecilien Kalendar, 5 vols.; Haberl, editor. Regensburg, 1876-1885.
Clément. Histoire générale de la musique religieuse. Paris, Adrien le Clere, 1861.
Chappell. History of Music from the Earliest Records to the Fall of the Roman Empire. London, Chappell.
Chrysander. Georg Friedrich Haendel, 3 vols. (unfinished). Leipzig, Breitkopf & Haertel, 1856-1867.
*Coussemaker. Histoire de l’harmonie au Moyen Age. Paris, Didron, 1852.
*Curwen. Studies in Worship Music, 2 vols. London, Curwen.
Davey. History of English Music. London, Curwen, 1895.
*Dommer. Elemente der Musik. Leipzig, Weigl, 1862.
*Dommer. Handbuch der Musikgeschichte. Leipzig, Grunow, 1878.
Duen. Clement Marot et la psautier huguenot, 2 vols. Paris, 1878.
Duffield. English Hymns. New York, Funk, 1888.
Duffield. Latin Hymn Writers and their Hymns. New York, Funk, 1889.
Earle. The Sabbath in Puritan New England. New York, Scribner, 1891.
Engel. Musical Instruments (South Kensington Museum Art Handbooks). London, Chapman & Hall.
*Engel. The Music of the Most Ancient Nations. London, Murray, 1864.
Fetis. Biographie universelle des Musiciens, 8 vols. with 2 supplementary vols. by Pougin. Paris, Didot.
*Gevaert. La Mélopée antique dans le Chant de l’Église latine. Gand, Hoste, 1895.
*Gevaert. Les Origines du Chant liturgique de l’Église latine. Gand, Hoste, 1890.
Glass. The Story of the Psalter. London, Paul, 1888.
Gould. Church Music in America. Boston, Gould, 1853.
*Grove. Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 4 vols. London, Macmillan, 1879-1890.
*Haberl. Magister Choralis, tr. by Donnelly. Regensburg and New York, Pustet, 1892.
Häuser. Geschichte des Christlichen Kirchengesanges und der Kirchenmusik. Quedlinburg, Basse, 1834.
Hawkins. General History of the Science and Practice of Music, 3 vols. London, 1853.
*Helmore. Plain Song (Novello’s Music Primers). London, Novello.
Hoffman von Fallersleben. Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenliedes bis auf Luther’s Zeit. Hannover, Rümpler, 1861.
Hope. Mediaeval Music. London, Stock, 1894.
*Horder. The Hymn Lover. London, Curwen, 1889.
Hughes. Contemporary American Composers. Boston, Page, 1900.
*Jakob. Die Kunst im Dienste der Kirche. Landshut, Thomann, 1885.
*Jebb. The Choral Service of the United Church of England and Ireland. London, Parker, 1843.
*Julian. Dictionary of Hymnology. London, Murray, 1892.
Kaiser and Sparger. A Collection of the Principal Melodies of the Synagogue. Chicago, Rubovits, 1893.
*Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch; Haberl, editor. Regensburg, begun in 1886.
Koch. Geschichte des Kirchenliedes und Kirchengesanges, 8 vols. Stuttgart, Belser, 1866.
*Köstlin. Geschichte des Christlichen Gottesdienstes. Freiburg, Mohr, 1887.
*Kretzschmar. Führer durch den Concertsaal: Kirchliche Werke. Leipzig, Liebeskind, 1888.
*Kümmerle. Eucycloplëdie der evangelischen Kirchenmusik, 4 vols. Gütersloh, Bertelsmann, 1888-1895.
Laughans. Geschichte der Musik des 17, 18 und 19 Jahrhunderts, 2 vols. Leipzig, Leuckart, 1887.
La Trobe. The Music of the Church. London, Seeley, 1831.
Liliencron. Deutsches Leben im Volkslied um 1530. Stuttgart, Spemann, 1884.
Malim. English Hymn Tunes from the Sixteenth Century to the Present Time. London, Reeves.
*Marbecke. The Book of Common Prayer with Musical Notes; Rimbault, editor. London, Novello, 1845.
Maskell. Ancient Liturgy of the Church of England.
McClintock and Strong. Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature. New York, Harper, 1867-1885.
*Mees. Choirs and Choral Music. New York, Scribner, 1901.
Mendel-Reissmann. Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon, 11 vols. Leipzig, List & Francke.
Naumann. History of Music, tr. by Praeger, 2 vols. London, Cassell.
*Neale. Hymns of the Eastern Church. London, 1882.
*O’Brien. History of the Mass. New York, Catholic Pub. Soc., 1893.
*Oxford History of Music, 6 vols.; Hadow, editor. Oxford, Clarendon Press, now appearing.
*Parry. Evolution of the Art of Music. New York, Appleton, 1896.
Perkins and Dwight. History of the Handel and Haydn Society. Boston, Mudge, 1883-1893.
Pothier. Les Melodies gregoriennes. German translation by Kienle.
*Pratt. Musical Ministries in the Church. New York, Revell, 1901. Contains valuable bibliography.
*Proctor. History of the Book of Common Prayer. London, Macmillan, 1892.
Riemann. Catechism of Musical History, 2 vols. London, Angener; New York, Schirmer.
Ritter, A. W. Zur Geschichte des Orgelspiels. Leipzig, Hesse, 1884.
Ritter, F. L. Music in America. New York, Scribner, 1890.
Ritter, F. L. Music in England. New York, Scribner, 1890.
Rousseau. Dictionnaire de Musique.
Rowbotham. History of Music, 3 vols. London, Trübner, 1885-1887.
Same, 1 vol.
Schelle. Die Sixtinische Kapelle. Wien, Gotthard, 1872.
Schlecht. Geschichte der Kirchenmusik. Regensburg, Coppenrath, 1879.
Schletterer. Geschichte der kirchlichen Dichtung und geistlichen Musik. Nördlingen, Beck, 1866.
Schletterer. Studien zur Geschichte der französischen Musik. Berlin, Damköhler, 1884-1885.
*Schubiger. Die Sängerschule St. Gallens. Einsiedeln, Benziger, 1858.
Spencer. Concise Explanation of the Church Modes. London, Novello.
*Spitta. Johann Sebastian Bach, 3 vols., tr. by Clara Bell and J. A. Fuller Maitland. London, Novello, 1884-1888.
Spitta. Musikgeschichtliche Aufsätze. Berlin, Paetel, 1894.
Spitta. Zur Musik. Berlin, Paetel, 1892.
*Stainer. The Music of the Bible. London, Cassell, 1882.
Stainer and Barrett. Dictionary of Musical Terms. Boston, Ditson.
Thibaut. Purity in Music, tr. by Broadhouse. London, Reeves.
*Wagner, P. Einführung in die gregorianischen Melodien. Freiburg (Schweiz), Veith, 1895.
Winterfeld. Das evangelische Kirchengesang, 3 vols. Leipzig, Breitkopf & Haertel, 1845.
Winterfeld. Johannes Gabrieli und sein Zeitalter, 2 vols. Berlin, Schlesinger, 1834.
*Wiseman. Lectures on the Offices and Ceremonies of Holy Week. Baltimore, Kelly, 1850.
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