Music in the history of the western church : with an introduction on religious music among primitive and ancient peoples

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MUSIC IN THE HISTORY

OF

THE WESTERN CHURCH

BY EDWARD DICKINSON

THE SPIRIT OF MUSIC

MUSIC IN THE HISTORY OF THE WESTERN CHURCS

THE STUDY OF THE HISTORY OF MUSIC

THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER

MUSIC AND THE HIGHER EDUCATION

CHARLES SCRIBNEWS SONS

MUSIC IN THE HISTORY
OF THE WESTERN CHURCH

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

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1925

:i3>

'^

w

Copyright, 1902, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Printed in the United States of America

Published April. 1902

To My Wife

PREFACE

The practical administration of music in public wor-
ship 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 ex-
pression 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.

viii PREFACE

A knowledge of history always tends to promote humility
and reverence, and to check the spread of capricious
perversions of judgment. Even a feeble sense of the
grandeur and beauty of the forms which ecclesiastical
music has taken, and the vital relation which it has
always held in organized worship, will serve to con-
vince a devoted servant of the Church that its proper
administration is as much a matter of concern to-day
as it ever has been in the past.

A few of the chapters in this work have appeared in
somewhat modified form in the American Catholic Quar-
terly Review^ the Bihliotheca Sacra, and Music, The
author acknowledges the permission given by the editors
of these magazines to use this material in its present
form.

CONTENTS

Chapteb Pagb

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 Medieval 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

MUSIC IN THE HISTORY

OF THE

WESTERN CHURCH

CHAPTER I

PRIMITIVE AND ANCIENT RELIGIOUS MUSIC

Leon Gautier, in opening his history of the epic
poetry of France, ascribes the primitive poetic utter-
ance 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 impres-
sions 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 har-
monies of creation, he opens his mouth, the first stam-
merings 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
1 1

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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 some-
times 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 in-
volve notions which are held in common by all the
members of the tribe (for there are no sceptics or non-
conformists in the savage community), they are formu-
lated in elaborate schemes of ceremony. The religious

2

PRIMITIVE AND ANCIENT RELIGIOUS MUSIC

sentiment inevitably seeks expression in the assembly —
"the means," as Professor Brinton says, "by which
that most potent agent in religious life, collective sugges-
tion, is brought to bear upon the mind " — the liturgy,
the festival, and the sacrifice.^ By virtue of certain
laws of the human mind which are evident everywhere,
in the highest civilized condition as in the savage, the
religious emotion, intensified by collective suggestion in
the assembly, will find expression not in the ordinary
manner of thought communication, but in those rhyth-
mic and inflected movements and cadences which are the
natural outlet of strong mental excitement when thrown
back upon itself. These gestures and vocal inflections
become regulated and systematized in order that they
may be permanently retained, and serve in their reaction
to stimulate anew the mental states by which they were
occasioned. Singing, dancing, and pantomime compose
the means by which uncivilized man throughout the
world gives expression to his controlling ideas. The
needed uniformity in movement and accent is most
easily effected by rhythmical beats ; and as these beats
are more distinctly heard, and also blend more agreeably
with the tones of the voice if they are musical sounds,
a rude form of instrumental music arises. Here we have
elements of public religious ceremony as they exist in
the most highly organized and spiritualized worships,
— the assemblage, where common motives produce com-
mon action and react to produce a common mood, the
ritual with its instrumental music, and the resulting
sense on the part of the participant of detachment from

1 'Rimtovi, The Religions of Ancient People*.

3

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

material interests and of personal communion with the
unseen powers.

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."^ Festivals among primitive races,
as among ancient cultured peoples, are all distinctly
religious. Singing and dancing are inseparable. Vocal
music is a sort of chant, adopted because of its nerve-
exciting property, and also for the sake of enabling a
mass of participants to utter the words in unison where
intelligible words are used. A separation of caste be-
tween priesthood and laity is effected in very early
times. The ritual becomes a form of magical incanta-
tion; the utterance of the wizard, prophet, or priest con-
sists of phrases of mysterious meaning or incoherent
ejaculations.

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 impor-
tant as that of music in the modern Church, and its
effect was in many ways closely analogous. When con-
nected 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

1 Brown, The Fine Arts.
4

PRIMITIVE AND ANCIENT RELIGIOUS MUSIC

of symbolic, semi-dramatic expression of definite reli-
gious ideas. "The audible and visible manifestations
of joy," says Herbert Spencer, "which culminate in
singing and dancing, have their roots in instinctive
actions like those of lively children who, on seeing in
the distance some indulgent relative, run up to him,
joining one another in screams of delight and breaking
their ran with leaps ; and when, instead of an indulgent
relative met by joyful children, we have a conquering
chief or king met by groups of his people, there will
almost certainly occur saltatory and vocal expressions
of elated feeling, and these must become by implication
signs of respect and loyalty, — ascriptions of worth
which, raised to a higher power, become worship." ^
Illustrations of such motives in the sacred dance are
found in the festive procession of women, led by
Miriam, after the overthrow of the Egyptians, the
dance of David before the ark, and the dance of the boy
Sophocles around the trophies of Salamis. But the
sacred dance is by no means confined to the discharge
of physical energy under the promptings of joy. The
funeral dance is one of the most frequent of such obser-
vances, and dread of divine wrath and the hope of pro-
pitiation by means of rites pleasing to the offended
power form a frequent occasion for rhythmic evolution
and violent bodily demonstration.

Far more commonly, however, does the sacred dance
assume a representative character and become a rudi-
mentary drama, either imitative ac—emblematic. It
depicts the doings of the gods, often under the supposi-

1 Spencer, Professional Institutions .* Dancer and Musician.

5

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

tion that the divinities are aided by the sympathetic
efforts of their devotees. Certain mysteries, known
only to the initiated, are symbolized in bodily movement.
The fact that the dance was symbolic and instructive,
like the sacrificial rite itself, enables us to understand
why dancing should have held such prominence in the
worship of nations so grave and intelligent as the Egyp-
tians, Hebrews, and Greeks. Representations of reli-
gious processions and dances are found upon the
monuments of Egypt and Assyria. The Egyptian
peasant, when gathering his harvest, sacrificed the first
fruits, and danced to testify his thankfulness to the
gods. The priests represented in their dances the
course of the stars and scenes from the histories of Osiris
and Isis. The dance of the Israelites in the desert
around the golden calf was probably a reproduction of
features of the Egyptian Apis worship. The myths of
many ancient nations represent the gods as dancing, and
supposed imitations of such august examples had a place
in the ceremonies devoted to their honor. The dance
was always an index of the higher or lower nature of the
religious conceptions which fostered it. Among the
purer and more elevated worships it was full of grace
and dignity. In the sensuous cults of Phoenicia and
Lydia, and among the later Greek votaries of Cybele
and Dionysus, the dance reflected the fears and passions
that issued in bloody, obscene, and frenzied rites, and
degenerated into almost incredible spectacles of wanton-
ness and riot.

It was among the Greeks, however, that the religious
dance developed its highest possibilities of expressive-

6

PRIMITIVE AND ANCIENT RELIGIOUS MUSIC

ness and beauty, and became raised to tbe 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 there-
fore 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 hallet d'' action.^ ^ ^ Among the favorite subjects for
pantomimic representation, united with choral singing,
were the combat between Apollo and the dragon and
the sorrows of Dionysus, the commemoration of the
latter forming the origin of the splendid Athenian
drama. The ancient dance, it must be remembered,
had as its motive the expression of a wide range of
emotion, and could be employed to symbolize senti-
ments of wonder, love, and gratitude. Regularly

1 Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion.
7

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

ordered movements, often accompanied by gesture, could
well have a place in religious ceremony, as the gods and
their relations to mankind were then conceived; and
moreover, at a time when music was in a crude state,
rhythmic evolutions and expressive gestures, refined
and moderated by the exquisite sense of proportion
native to the Greek mind, undoubtedly had a solemniz-
ing effect upon the participants and beholders not unlike
that of music in modern Christian worship. Cultivated
as an art under the name of orchestih^ the mimic dance
reached a degree of elegance and emotional significance
to which modern times afford no proper parallel. It
was not unworthy of the place it held in the society of
poetry and music, with which it combined to form that
composite art which filled so high a station in Greek
culture in the golden age.

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 im-
portant 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 ex-
pressed their joy according to the universal fashion of
the age; and especially on those occasions which, as

8

PRIMITIVE AND ANCIENT RELIGIOUS MUSIC

for instance Christmas, were adaptations of old pagan
festivals, they naturally imitated many of the time-
honored observances. The Christian dance, however,
finally degenerated; certain features, such as the noc-
turnal festivities, gave rise to scandal; the church
authorities began to condemn them, and the rising spirit
of asceticism drove them into disfavor. The dance was
a dangerous reminder of the heathen worship with all
its abominations ; and since many pagan beliefs and cus-
toms, with attendant immoralities, lingered for centuries
as a seductive snare to the weaker brethren, the Church
bestirred itself to eliminate all perilous associations from
religious ceremony and to arouse a love for an absorbed
and spiritual worship. During the Middle Age, and
even in comparatively recent times in Spain and Spanish
America, we find survivals of the ancient religious
dance in the Christian Church, but in the more enlight-
ened countries it has practically ceased to exist. The
Christian religion is more truly joyful than the Greek;
yet the Christian devotee, even in his most confident
moments, no longer feels inclined to give vent to his
happiness in physical movements, for there is mingled
with his rapture a sentiment of awe and submission
which bids him adore but be still. Religious proces-
sions are frequent in Christian countries, but the par-
ticipants do not, like the Egyptians and Greeks, dance
as they go. We find even in ancient times isolated
opinions that public dancing is indecorous. Only in a
naive and childlike stage of society will dancing as a
feature of worship seem appropriate and innocent. As
reflection increases, the unrestrained and conspicuous

9

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

manifestation of feeling in shouts and violent bodily
movements is deemed unworthy; a more spiritual con-
ception of the nature of the heavenly power and man's
relation to it requires that forms of worship should
become more refined and moderate. Even the secular
dance has lost much of its ancient dignity from some-
what similar reasons, partly also because the differentia-
tion and high development of music, taking the place
of dancing as a social art, has relegated the latter to the
realm of things outgrown, which no longer minister to
man's intellectual necessities.

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 re-
sponsive 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

10

PRIMITIVE AND ANCIENT RELIGIOUS MUSIC

the ceremonies of demon worship among savages and
barbarians are accompanied by harsh-sounding instru-
ments ; that tortures, executions, and human sacrifices,
such as those of the ancient Phoenicians and Mexicans,
were attended by the clamor of drums, trumpets, and
cymbals. Even in the Hebrew temple service the blasts
of horns and trumpets could have had no other purpose
than that of intensifying emotions of awe and dread.

Still another office of music in ancient ceremony,
perhaps still more valued, was that of suggesting defi-
nite ideas by means of an associated symbolism. In
certain occult observances, such as those of the Egyp-
tians and Hindus, relationships were imagined between
instruments or melodies and religious or moral concep-
tions, so that the melody or random tone of the instru-
ment 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

XI

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCll

Nineveh are collections of hymns, prayers, and peniten-
tial psalms, addressed to the Assyrian deities, designed,
as expressly stated, for public worship, and which Pro-
fessor Sayce compares to the English Book of Common
Prayer. On the Assyrian monuments are carved reliefs
of instrumental players, sometimes single, sometimes in
groups of considerable numbers. Allusions in the
Bible indicate that the Assyrians employed music on
festal occasions, that hymns to the gods were sung at
banquets and dirges at funerals. The kings main-
tained bands at their courts, and provided a considerable
variety of instruments for use in the idol worship.^

There is abundant evidence that music was an im-
portant factor in the religious rites of Egypt. The tes-
timony of carved and painted walls of tombs and
temples, the papyrus records, the accounts of visitors,
inform us that music was in Egypt preeminently 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 musical science, knowledge
of the divisions of the monochord, systems of keys,
notation, etc., the Egyptians were probably in advance

1 A full account of ancient Assyrian music, so far as known, may be
found in Engel's Music of the Most Ancient Nations.

2 " Long ago they [the Egyptians] appear to have recognized the prin-
ciple that their young citizens must be habituated to forms and strains of
virtue. These they fixed, and exhibited the patterns of them in their
temples ; and no painter or artist is allowed to innovate upon them, or to
leave the traditional forms and invent new ones. To this day no altera-
tion is allowed either in these arts, or in music at all." — Plato, Laws,
Book II., Jowett's translation.

_^12

PRIMITIVE AND ANCIENT RELIGIOUS MUSIC

of all other nations. The Greeks certainly derived
much of their musical practice from the dwellers on the
Nile. They possessed an extensive variety of instru-
ments, from the little tinkling sistrum up to the pro-
fusely ornamented harp of twelve or thirteen strings,
which towered above the performer. From such an
instrument as the latter it would seem as though some
kind of harmony must have been produced, especially
since the player is represented as using both hands.
But if such were the case, the harmony could not have
been reduced to a scientific system, since otherwise a
usage so remarkable would not have escaped the atten-
tion of the Greek musicians who derived so much of
their art from Egypt. Music never failed at public or
private festivity, religious ceremony, or funeral rite.
As in all ancient religions, processions to the temples,
carrying images of the gods and offerings, were attended
by dances and vocal and instrumental performances.
Lyrical poems, containing the praises of gods and
heroes, were sung at public ceremonies; hymns were
addressed to the rising and setting sun, to Ammon and
the other gods. According to Chappell, the custom of
carolling or singing without words, like birds, to the
gods existed among the Egyptians, — a practice which
was imitated by the Greeks, from whom the custom was
transferred to the Western Church.^ The chief instru-
ment of the temple worship was the sistrum, and con-
nected with all the temples in the time of the New
Empire were companies of female sistrum players who
stood in symbolic relations to the god as inmates of his

1 Chappell, History of Music.
13

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

harem^ holding various degrees of rank. These women
received high honors, often of a political nature.^

In spite of the simplicity and frequent coarseness of
ancient music, the older nations ascribed to it an influ-
ence 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 edu-
cation 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 blas-
phemous " 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

1 Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, translated by Tirard.

u

PRIMITIVE AND ANCIENT RELIGIOUS MUSIC

and rhythms as would turn the plastic mind toward
virtue. Plutarch, in his discourse concerning music
in his Morals^ says: "The ancient Greeks deemed it
requisite by the assistance of music to form and com-
pose the minds of youth to what was decent, sober, and
virtuous ; believing the use of music beneficially effica-
cious to incite to all serious actions." He even goes
so far as to say that " the right moulding of ingenuous
manners and civil conduct lies in a well-grounded musi-
cal education." Assumptions of direct moral, intellec-
tual, and even pathological action on the part of music,
as distinct from an aesthetic appeal, are so abundant in
ancient writings that we cannot dismiss them as mere
fanciful hyperbole, but must admit that music really
possessed a power over the emotions and volitions which
has been lost in its later evolution. The explanation of
this apparent anomaly probably lies, first, in the fact
that music in antiquity was not a free independent art,
and that when the philosophers speak of music they
think of it in its associations with poetry, religious and
patriotic observances, moral and legal precepts, historic
relations, etc. Music, on its vocal side, was mere em-
phasized speech inflection ; it was a slave to poetry ; it
had no rhythmical laws of its own. The melody did not
convey aesthetic charm in itself alone, but simply height-
ened the sensuous effect of measured speech and vivi-
fied the thought. Mr. Spencer's well-known expression
that " cadence is the comment of the emotion upon the
propositions of the intellect" would apply very accu-
rately to the musical theories of the ancients. Certain
modes (that is, keys), on account of convenience of

15

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

pitch, were employed for certain kinds of poetical ex-
pression; and as a poem was always chanted in the mode
that was first assigned to it, particular classes of ideas
would come to be identified with particular modes.
Associations of race character would lead to similar
interpretation. The Dorian mode would seem to partake
of the sternness and vigor of the warlike Dorian Spar-
tans; the Lydian mode and its melodies would hint of
Lydian effeminacy.^ Instrumental music also was
equally restricted to definite meanings through associa-
tion. It was an accompaniment to poetry, bound up
with the symbolic dance, subordinated to formal social
observances; it produced not the artistic effect of
melody, harmony, and form, but the nervous stimulation
of crude unorganized tone, acting upon recipients who
had never learned to consider music as anything but a
direct emotional excitant or an intensifier of previously
conceived ideas.

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 concep-
tion 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

1 See Plato, Republic, book iii.

16

PRIMITIVE AND ANCIENT RELlGiOVS MUSIC

art form. Music, the more it rises into an art, tiie
more it exerts a purely aesthetic effect through its action
upon intelligences that delight in form, organization,
and ideal motion, loses in equal proportion the emotional
definiteness that exists in simple and spontaneous tone
inflections. The earliest reasoning on the rationale of
musical effects always takes for granted that music's
purpose is to convey exact ideas, or at least express
definite emotion. Music did not advance so far among
the ancients that they were able to escape from this
naturalistic conception. They could conceive of no
higher purpose in music than to move the mind in defi-
nite directions, and so they maintained that it always
did so. Even in modern life numberless instances prove
that the music which exerts the greatest effect over the
impulses is not the mature and complex art of the mas-
ters, but the simple strains which emanate from the
people and bring up recollections which in themselves
alone have power to stir the heart. The song that melts
a congregation to tears, the patriotic air that fires the
enthusiasm of an assembly on the eve of a political
crisis, the strain that nerves an army to desperate
endeavor, is not an elaborate work of art, but a simple
and obvious tune, which finds its real force in associa-
tion. All this is especially true of music employed for
religious ends, and we find in such facts a reason why
it could make no progress in ancient times, certainly
none where it was under the control of an organized
social caste. For the priestly order is always conserva-
tive, and in antiquity this conservatism petrified melody,
at the same time with the rites to which it adhered, into
2 17

MUSIC iJSr THE WESTERN CHURCH

stereotyped formulas. Where music is bound up with
a ritual, innovation in the one is discountenanced as
tending to loosen the traditional strictness of the other.

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 develop-
ment 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 absorp-
tion 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 every-
where 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

18

PRIMITIVE AND ANCIENT RELIGIOUS MUSIC

has been generally believed, is, however, not probable.
In view of the fact that the Egyptians possessed harps
over six feet in height, having twelve or thirteen strings,
and played with both hands, and that the monuments of
Assyria and Egypt and the records of musical practice
among the Hebrews, Greeks, and other nations show us
a large variety of instruments grouped in bands of con-
siderable size, we are justified in supposing that com-
binations of different sounds were often produced. But
the absence from the ancient treatises of any but the
most vague and obscure allusions to the production of
accordant tones, and the conclusive evidence in respect
to the general lack of freedom and development in musi-
cal art, is proof positive that, whatever concords of
sounds may have been occasionally produced, nothing
comparable to our present contrapuntal and harmonic
system existed. The music so extravagantly praised in
antiquity was, vocally, chant, or recitative, ordinarily in
a single part; instrumental music was rude and unsys-
tematized sound, partly a mechanical aid to the voice
and the dance step, partly a means of nervous exhilara-
tion. The modern conception of music as a free, self-
assertive art, subject only to its own laws, lifting the
soul into regions of pure contemplation, where all tem-
poral relations are lost in a tide of self-forgetful rap-
ture, — this was a conception unknown to the mind of
antiquity.

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 Chris-

19

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

tian, 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."^ Many
modern writers have assumed a high degree of perfection
in ancient Hebrew music, but only on sentimental
grounds, not because there is any evidence to support
such an opinion. There is no reason to suppose that
music was further developed among the Hebrews than
among the most cultivated of their neighbors. Their
music, like that of the ancient nations generally, was
entirely subsidiary to poetic recitation and dancing; it
was unharmonic, simple, and inclined to be coarse and
noisy. Although in general use, music never attained
so great honor among them as it did among the Greeks.
We find in the Scriptures no praises of music as a nour-
isher of morality, rarely a trace of an ascription of
magical properties. Although it had a place in mili-
tary operations and at feasts, private merry-makings,
etc., its chief value lay in its availability for religious
purposes. To the Hebrews the arts obtained signifi-
cance only as they could be used to adorn the courts of
Jehovah, or could be employed in the ascription of
praise to him. Music was to them an efficient agent to
excite emotions of awe, or to carry more directly to the
heart the rhapsodies and searching admonitions of psalm-
ists and prophets.

No authentic melodies have come down to us from the
time of the Israelitish residence in Palestine. No trea-
tise on Hebrew musical theory or practice, if any such

1 Ambros, Geschichte der Musik.

20

PRIMITIVE AND ANCIENT RELIGIOUS MUSIC

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 suffi-
ciently 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 in-
vented a musical instrument. Not one in use among
them but had its equivalent among nations older in civi-
lization. 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 Egyp-
tians ; 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 Gen. iv. 21, where Jubal is spoken of as
"the father of all such as handle the Jcinnor and ugah "
(translated in the revised version "harp and pipe").
The word hinnor appears frequently in the later books,
and is applied to the instrument used by David. This

21

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

hinnor of David and the psalmists was a small portable
instrument and might properly be called a lyre. Stringed
instruments are usually the last to be developed by
primitive peoples, and the use of the hinnor implies a
considerable degree of musical advancement among the
remote ancestors of the Hebrew race in their primeval
Chaldean home. The word ugah may signify either a
single tube like the flute or oboe, or a connected series
of pipes like the Pan's pipes or syrinx of the Greeks.
There is only one other mention of instruments before
the Exodus, viz.^ in connection with the episode of
Laban and Jacob, where the former asks his son-in-law
reproachfully, " Wherefore didst thou flee secretly, and
steal away from me ; and didst not tell me, that I might
have sent thee away with mirth and with songs, with
toph and kinnorf"'^ — the toph being a sort of small
hand drum or tambourine.

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, ^ and to whose
sound the walls of Jericho were overthrown ; ^ the hazo^
zerah, or long silver tube, used in the desert for an-
nouncing the time for breaking camp,* and employed
later by the priests in religious service,^ popular gather-
ings, and sometimes in war.^ The nehel was either a
harp somewhat larger than the kinnor, or possibly a sort
of guitar. The chalil, translated in the English version

1 Gen. xxxi. 27.

4 Num. X. 2-8.

2 Ex. xix.

5 2 Chron. v. 12, 13 ; xxix. 26-28.

3 Jos. vi.

6 2 Chron. xiii. 12, 14.

22

PRIMITIVE ARD ANCIENT RELIGIOUS MUSIC

"pipe," may have been a sort of oboe or flageolet. The
band of prophets met by Saul advanced to the sound of
nehel^ toph^ chalil, and kinnor.^ The word "psaltery,"
vrhich frequently appears in the English version of the
psalms, is sometimes the nebel, sometimes the kinnor^
sometimes the asor^ which was a species of neheL The
" instrument of ten strings " was also the nehel or asor.
Percussion instruments, such as the drum, cymbals,
bell, and the Egyptian sistrum (which consisted of a
small frame of bronze into which three or four metal
bars were loosely inserted, producing a jingling noise
when shaken), were also in common use. In the Old
Testament there are about thirteen instruments men-
tioned as known to the Hebrews, not including those
mentioned in Dan. iii., whose names, according to
Chappell, are not derived from Hebrew roots. ^ All of
these were simple and rude, yet considerably varied in
character, representing the three classes into which
instruments, the world over, are divided, viz., stringed
instruments, wind instruments, and instruments of
percussion. 3 ^

Although instruments of music had a prominent place
in public festivities, social gatherings, and private
recreation, far more important was their use in connec-
tion with religious ceremony. As the Hebrew nation
increased in power, and as their conquests became per-
manently secured, so the arts of peace developed in

1 1 Sam. X. 5.

2 Chappell, History of Music, Introduction.

8 For extended descriptions of ancient musical instruments the reader
is referred to Chappell, History of Music ; Engel, The Music of the Most
Ancient Nations ; and Stainer, The Music of the Bible.

23

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

greater profusion and refinement, and with them the
embellishments of the liturgical worship became more
highly organized. With the capture of Jerusalem and
the establishment of the royal residence within its ram-
parts, the worship of Jehovah increased in splendor; the
love of pomp and display, which was characteristic of
David, and still more of his luxurious son Solomon, was
manifest in the imposing rites and ceremonies that were
organized to the honor of the people's God. The epoch
of these two rulers was that in which the national force
was in the flower of its youthful vigor, the national
pride had been stimulated by continual triumphs, the
long period of struggle and fear had been succeeded by
glorious peace. The barbaric splendor of religious ser-
vice and festal pageant was the natural expression of
popular joy and self-confidence. In all these ebullitions
of national feeling, choral and instrumental music on
the most brilliant and massive scale held a conspicuous
place. The description of the long series of public re-
joicings, culminating in the dedication of Solomon's
temple, begins with the transportation of the ark of
the Lord from Gibeah, when " David and all the house
of Israel played before the Lord with all manner of
instruments made of fir-wood, and with harps (kinnor),
and with psalteries (nehel)^ and with timbrels (topK)^
with castanets (sistrum^^ and with cymbals (tzeltzelirn).'^ ^
And again, when the ark was brought from the house of
Obed-edom into the city of David, the king danced
"with all his might," and the ark was brought up " with
shouting and with the sound of a trumpet. "^ Singers

1 2 Sam. Ti. 5. ^2 Sam. vi. 14, 15.

24

PRIMITIVE AND ANCIENT RELIGIOUS MUSIC

were marshalled under leaders and supported by bands
of instruments. The ode ascribed to David was given
to Asaph as chief of the choir of Levites ; Asaph beat
the time with cymbals, and the royal paean was chanted
by masses of chosen singers to the accompaniment of
harps, lyres, and trumpets. ^ In the organization of the
temple service no detail received more careful attention
than the vocal and instrumental music. We read that
four thousand Levites were appointed to praise the Lord
with instruments. 2 There were also two hundred and
eighty-eight skilled singers who sang to instrumental
accompaniment beside the altar.^

The function performed by instruments in the temple
service is also indicated in the account of the reestab-
lishment of the worship of Jehovah by Hezekiah accord-
ing 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 re-
turn from the Babylonian exile, the liturgical service
was restored, although not with its pristine magnifi-
cence. Ezra narrates : " When the builders laid the

1 1 Chron. xvi. 5, 6.

2 1 Chron. xxiii. 5.

8 1 Chron. xxv, ; 2 Chron. v. 12. See also 2 Chron. v. 11-14.
* 2 Chron. xxix. 25-30.

2q

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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."^ And at the dedication of the
wall of Jerusalem, as recorded by Nehemiah, instru-
mentalists and singers assembled in large numbers, to
lead the multitude in rendering praise and thanks to
Jehovah. 2 Instruments were evidently employed in
independent flourishes and signals, as well as in accom-
panying the singers. The trumpets were used only in
the interludes; the pipes and stringed instruments
strengthened the voice parts ; the cymbals were used by
the leader of the chorus to mark the rhythm.

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 com-
positions as the Book of Job and the Song of Songs.
No complete epic has come down to us, but certain allu-
sions in the Pentateuch, such as the mention in Num-
bers xxi. 14 of the "book of the wars of Jehovah,"
would tend to show that this people possessed a collec-
tion of ballads which, taken together, would properly
constitute a national epic. But whether lyric, epic, or
dramatic, the Hebrew poetry was delivered, according
to the universal custom of ancient nations, not in the
speaking voice, but in musical tone. The minstrel poet,

1 Ezra iii. 10, 11. 2 jfeh, xii.

26

PRIMITIVE AND ANCIENT RELIGIOUS MUSIC

it has been said, was the type of the race. Lyric poetry
may be divided into two classes : first, that which is the
expression of individual, subjective feeling, the poet
communing with himself alone, imparting to his
thought a color derived solely from his personal inward
experience; and second, that which utters sentiments
that are shared by an organization, community, or race,
the poet serving as the mouthpiece of a mass actuated
by common experiences and motives. The second class
is more characteristic of a people in the earlier stages
of culture, when the individual is lost in the community,
before the tendency towards specialization of interests
gives rise to an expression that is distinctly personal.
In all the world's literature the Hebrew psalms are the
most splendid examples of this second order of lyric
poetry; and although we find in them many instances
in which an isolated, purely subjective experience finds
a voice, yet in all of them the same view of the uni-
verse, the same conception of the relation of man to his
Creator, the same broad and distinctively national con-
sciousness, control their thought and their diction. And
there are very few even of the first class which a Hebrew
of earnest piety, searching his own heart, could not adopt
as the fitting declaration of his need and assurance.

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 thei/

27

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

thought and their technical structure. A text most
appropriate for musical rendering must be free from all
subtleties of meaning and over-refinements of phrase-
ology ; it must be forcible in movement, its metaphors
those that touch upon general observation, its ideas
those that appeal to the common consciousness and
sympathy. These qualities the psalms possess in the
highest degree, and in addition they have a sublimity of
thought, a magnificence of imagery, a majesty and
strength of movement, that evoke the loftiest energies
of a musical genius that ventures to ally itself with
them. In every nation of Christendom they have been
made the foundation of the musical service of the
Church ; and although many of the greatest masters of
the harmonic art have lavished upon them the richest
treasures of their invention, they have but skimmed the
surface of their unfathomable suggestion.

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 con-
trasted 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 rhythni

2S

PRIMITIVE AND ANCIENT RELIGIOUS MUSIC

of thought, an assonance of feeling. This parallelism
is more frequently double, sometimes triple. We find
this peculiar structure as far back as the address of
Lamech to his wives in Gen. iv. 23, 24, in Moses' song
after the passage of the Red Sea, in the triumphal ode
of Deborah and Barak, in the greeting of the Israel-
itish women to Saul and David returning from the
slaughter of the Philistines, in the Book of Job, in a
large proportion of the rhythmical imaginative utter-
ances of the psalmists and prophets. The Oriental
Christians sang the psalms responsively ; this method
was passed on to Milan in the fourth century, to Rome
very soon afterward, and has been perpetuated in the
liturgical churches of modern Christendom. Whether,
in the ancient temple service, this twofold utterance was
divided between separate portions of the choir, or be-
tween a precentor and the whole singing body, there are
no grounds for stating, — both methods have been
employed in modern times. It is not even certain that
the psalms were sung in alternate half-verses, for in the
Jewish Church at the present day the more frequent
usage is to divide at the end of a verse. It is evident
that the singing was not congregational, and that the
share of the people, where they participated at all, was
confined to short responses, as in the Christian Church
in the time next succeeding the apostolic age. The
female voice, although much prized in secular music,
according to the Talmud was not permitted in the
temple service. There is nothing in the Old Testa-
ment that contradicts this except, as some suppose, the
reference to the three daughters of Heman in 1 Chron.

29

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

XXV. 5, where we read: "And God gave to Heman
fourteen sons and three daughters;" and in verse 6:
"All these were under the hands of their father for
song in the house of the Lord." It is probable, how-
ever, that the mention of the daughters is incidental,
not intended as an assertion that they were actual mem-
bers of the temple chorus, for we cannot conceive why
an exception should have been made in their behalf.
Certainly the whole implication from the descriptions of
the temple service and the enumeration of the singers
and players is to the effect that only the male voice was
utilized in the liturgical worship. There are many
allusions to " women singers " in the Scriptures, but
they plainly apply only to domestic song, or to proces-
sions and celebrations outside the sacred enclosure. It
is certainly noteworthy that the exclusion of the female
voice, which has obtained in the Catholic Church
throughout the Middle Age, in the Eastern Church, in
the German Protestant Church, and in the cathedral
service of the Anglican Church, was also enforced in
the temple worship of Israel. The conviction has widely
prevailed among the stricter custodians of religious
ceremony in all ages that there is something sensuous
and passionate (I use these words in their simpler
original meaning) in the female voice — something at
variance with the austerity of ideal which should prevail
in the music of worship. Perhaps, also, the association
of men and women in the sympathy of so emotional an
office as that of song is felt to be prejudicial to the
complete absorption of the mind which the sacred func-
tion demands. Both these reasons have undoubtedly

30

PRIMITIVE AND ANCIENT RELIGIOUS MUSIC

combined in so many historic epochs to keep all the
offices of ministry in the house of God in the hands of
the male sex. On the other hand, . in the more sensu-
ous cults of paganism no such prohibition has existed.

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 melo-
dious 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 inscrip-
tions 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
Ps. xxii. the inscription, "After the song beginning.
Hind of the Dawn." Ps. Ivi. has, "After the song.
The silent Dove in far-off Lands." Others have,
"After lilies " (Ps. xlv. and Ixix.), and "Destroy not "
(Ps. Ivii.-lix.). We cannot on a priori principles reject
the supposition that many psalms were sung to secular
melodies, for we shall find, as we trace the history of
music in the Christian era, that musicians have over
and over again borrowed profane airs for the hymns of
the Church. In fact, there is hardly a branch of the
Christian Church that has not at some time done so,

31

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

and even the rigid Jews in modern times have employed
the same means to increase their store of religious
melodies.

That the psalms were sung with the help of instru-
ments seems indicated by superscriptions, such as
"With stringed instruments," and "To the flutes,"
although objections have been raised to these transla-
tions. No such indications are needed, however, to
prove the point, for the descriptions of worship con-
tained in the Old Testament seem explicit. The in-
struments 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 defi-
nitely 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 con-
quest 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

1 Synagogue Music, by F. L. Cohen, in Papers read at the Anglo-Jewish
Historical Exhibition, London, 1887,

PRIMITIVE AND ANCIENT RELIGIOUS MUSIC

cohorts of priests and Levites. The sorrowing exiles
who hung their harps on the willows of Babylon and
refused to sing the songs of Zion in a strange land cer-
tainly never forgot the airs consecrated by such sweet
and bitter memories ; but in the course of centuries they
became lost among the strange peoples with whom the
scattered Israelites found their home. Many were for a
time preserved in the synagogues, which, in the later
years of Jewish residence in Palestine, were estab-
lished in large numbers in all the towns and villages.
The service of the synagogue was a liturgical service,
consisting of benedictions, chanting of psalms and other
Scripture passages, with responses by the people, les-
sons from the law and the prophets, and sermons. The
instrumental music of the temple and the first syna-
gogues eventually disappeared, and the greater part, if
not the whole, of the ancient psalm melodies vanished
also with the dispersion of the Levites, who were their
especial curators. Many details of ancient ritual and
custom must have survived in spite of vicissitude, but
the final catastrophe, which drove a desolate, heart-
broken remnant of the children of Judah into alien lands,
must inevitably have destroyed all but the merest frag-
ment of the fair residue of national art by sweeping
away all the conditions by which a national art can live.
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 ^^mp or
3 33

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

in the temple court, may survive in the synagogue
to-day, a splinter from a mighty edifice which has been
submerged by the tide of centuries. As would be pre-
sumed of a people so tenacious of time-honored usages,
the voice of tradition declares that the intonations of
the ritual chant used in the synagogue are survivals of
forms employed in the temple at Jerusalem. These
intonations are certainly Oriental in character and very
ancient, but that they date back to the time of David
cannot be proved or disproved. A style of singing like
the well-known " cantillation " might easily be pre-
served, a complete melody possibly, but the presumption
is against an antiquity so great as the Jews, with par-
donable pride, claim for some of their weird, archaic
strains.

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 vehe-
mence, 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 hon-

34

PRIMITIVE AND ANCIENT RELIGIOUS MUSIC

ored, its efficacy as an agent in arousing the heart to the
most ardent spiritual experiences was never more con-
vincingly demonstrated, than when the seers and psalm-
ists of Israel found in it an indispensable auxiliary of
those appeals, confessions, praises, and pious raptures in
which the whole after-world has seen the highest attain-
ment of language under the impulse of religious ecstasy.
Taking "the harp the monarch minstrel swept" as a
symbol of Hebrew devotional song at large, Byron's
words are true:

" 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 privi-
lege, — 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.

9^

CHAPTER II

RITUAL AND SONG IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH
A.D. 50-600

The epoch of the apostles and their immediate suc-
cessors is that around which the most vigorous contro-
versies 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 partici-
pation 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 organi-
zation which became matured and consolidated under
the Western popes and Eastern patriarchs. Associated

H

RITUAL AND SONG IN THE EARLY CHURCH

with this administrative development and related in its
causes, an elaborate system of rites and ceremonies arose,
partly an evolution from within, partly an inheritance
of ancient habits and predispositions, which at last
became formulated into unvarying types of devotional
expression. Music participated in this ritualistic
movement; it rapidly became liturgical and clerical,
the laity ceased to share in the worship of song and
resigned this office to a chorus drawn from the minor
clergy, and a highly organized body of chants, applied
to every moment of the service, became almost the entire
substance of worship music, and remained so for a
thousand years.

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 resur-
rection 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 reli-
gion was, therefore, emphatically one of joy, — a joy so

37

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

absorbing, so completely satisfying, so founded on the
loftiest hopes that the human mind is able to entertain,
that even the ecstatic worship of Apollo or Dionysus
seems melancholy and hopeless in comparison. Yet it
was not a joy that was prone to expend itself in noisy
demonstrations. It was mingled with such a profound
sense of personal unworthiness and the most solemn
responsibilities, tempered with sentiments of awe and
wonder in the presence of unfathomable mysteries, that
the manifestations of it must be subdued to moderation,
expressed in forms that could appropriately typify spirit-
ual and eternal relationships. And so, as sculpture
was the art which most adequately embodied the human-
istic conceptions of Greek theology, poetry and music
became the arts in which Christianity found a vehicle of
expression most suited to her genius. These two arts,
therefore, when acted upon by ideas so sublime and
penetrating as those of the Gospel, must at last become
transformed, and exhibit signs of a renewed and aspiring
activity. The very essence of the divine revelation in
Jesus Christ must strike a more thrilling note than tone
and emotional speech had ever sounded before. The
genius of Christianity, opening up new soul depths, and
quickening, as no other religion could, the higher possi-
bilities of holiness in man, was especially adapted to
evoke larger manifestations of musical invention. The
religion of Jesus revealed God in the universality of his
fatherhood, and his omnipresence in nature and in the
human conscience. God must be worshipped in spirit
and in truth, as one who draws men into communion
with him by his immediate action upon the heart. This

36

RITUAL AND SONG IN THE EARLY CHURCH

religion made an appeal that could only be met by the
purification of the heart, and by reconciliation and
union with God through the merits of the crucified Son.
The believer felt the possibility of direct and loving
communion with the Infinite Power as the stirring of
the very bases of his being. This new consciousness
must declare itself in forms of expression hardly
glimpsed by antiquity, and literature and art undergo
re-birth. Music particularly, the art which seems pecul-
iarly capable of reflecting the most urgent longings of
the spirit, felt the animating force of Christianity as the
power which was to emancipate it from its ancient thral-
dom and lead it forth into a boundless sphere of action.
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 sym-
bolism 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 preexisting as demands for expres-
sion 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 al-
though Christian music must be a development and not

39

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

the sudden product of an exceptional inspiration, yet we
must not suppose that the early Church was compelled
to work out its melodies from those crude elements
in which anthropology discovers the first stage of musi-
cal progress in primitive man. The Christian fathers,
like the founders of every historic system of religious
music, drew their suggestion and perhaps some of their
actual material from both religious and secular sources.
The principle of ancient music, to which the early Chris-
tian music conformed, was that of the subordination of
music to poetry and the dance-figure. Harmony was
virtually unknown in antiquity, and without a knowl-
edge of part-writing no independent art of music is pos-
sible. The song of antiquity was the most restricted of
all melodic styles, viz.^ the chant or recitative. The
essential feature of both chant and recitative is that the
tones are made to conform to the metre and accent of
the text, the words of which are never repeated or
prosodically modified out of deference to melodic phrases
and periods. In true song, on the contrary, the words
are subordinated to the exigencies of musical laws of
structure, and the musical phrase, not the word, is the
ruling power. The principle adopted by the Christian
fathers was that of the chant, and Christian music could
not begin to move in the direction of modern artistic
attainment until, in the course of time, a new technical
principle, and a new conception of the relation between
music and poetry, could be introduced.

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*

40

RITUAL AND SONG IN THE EARLY CHURCH

Christian antiquity. The relative proportion contrib-
uted 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; wor-
ship 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 dis-
ciples, when the chief liturgical rite of the Church was
instituted, the company sang a hymn which was un-
questionably the "great Hallel " of the Jewish Passover
celebration. 1 The Jewish Christians clung with an
inherited reverence to the venerable forms of their
fathers' worship; they observed the Sabbath, the three
daily hours of prayer, and much of the Mosaic ritual.
In respect to musical usages, the most distinct intima-
tion in early records of the continuation of ancient forms
is found in the occasional reference to the habit of
antiphonal or responsive chanting of the psalms. Fixed
forms of prayer were also used in the apostolic Church,
which were to a considerable extent modelled upon the
psalms and the benedictions of the synagogue ritual.
That the Hebrew melodies were borrowed at the same
time cannot be demonstrated, but it may be assumed as
a necessary inference.

1 Ps. cxiii-cxviii.

41

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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 attach-
ment, 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 govern-
ment 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 char-
acteristic 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,

42

RITUAL AND SONG IN THE EARLY CHURCH

and spiritual songs." ^ To be sure lie is not specifically
alluding to public worship in these exhortations (in the
first instance "speaking to yourselves" and "singing
and making melody in your hearts," in the second
"teaching and admonishing one another"), but it is
hardly to be supposed that the spiritual exercise of
which he speaks would be excluded from the religious
services which at that time were of daily observance.
The injunction to teach and admonish by means of
songs also agrees with other evidences that a prime
motive for hymn singing in many of the churches was
instruction in the doctrines of the faith. It would
appear that among the early Christians, as with the
Greeks and other ancient nations, moral precepts and
instruction in religious mysteries were often thrown into
poetic and musical form, as being by this means more
impressive and more easiJy remembered.

It is to be noticed that St. Paul, in each of the pas-
sages cited above, alludes to religious songs under three
distinct terms, viz, : yjraX/jLOL, v/jlvoi, and wSal TrvevfiartKai,
The usual supposition is that the terms are not synony-
mous, 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

1 Eph. V. 19; Col.iii. 16.

43

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

points us to the birth time of Christian hymnody. The
lyric inspiration, which has never failed from that day
to this, began to move the instant the proselyting work
of the Church began. In the freedom and informality
of the religious assembly as it existed among the Hel-
lenic Christians, it became the practice for the believers
to contribute impassioned outbursts, which might be
called songs in a rudimentary state. In moments ol
highly charged devotional ecstasy this spontaneous
utterance took the form of broken, incoherent, unintel-
ligible ejaculations, probably in cadenced, half -rhythmic
tone, expressive of rapture and mystical illumination.
This was the " glossolalia, " or "gift of tongues " alluded
to by St. Paul in the first epistle to the Corinthians as a
practice to be approved, under certain limitations, as
edifying to the believers.^

Dr. Schaff defines the gift of tongues as " an utter-
ance proceeding from a state of unconscious ecstasy in
the speaker, and unintelligible to the hearer unless
interpreted. The speaking with tongues is an involun-
tary, 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 instru-
ment on which the Spirit plays his heavenl}- melodies."
"It is emotional rather than intellectual, the language
of excited imagination, not of cool reflection. "^ St.
Paul was himself an adept in this singular form of
worship, as he himself declares in 1 Cor. xiv. 18 ; but
with his habitual coolness of judgment he warns the

1 1 Cor. xii. and xiv.

2 Schaff, Historfj of the Christian Church, I. p. 234 f. ; p. 435.

44

RITUAL AND SONG IN THE EARLY CHURCH

excitable Corinthian Christians that sober instruction is
more profitable, that the proper end of all utterance in
common public worship is edification, and enjoins as an
effective restraint that "if any man speaketh in a
tongue, let one interpret ; but if there be no interpreter,
let him keep silence in the Church ; and let him speak
to himself and to God."^ With the regulation, of the
worship in stated liturgic form this extemporaneous
ebullition of feeling was done away, but if it was analo-
gous, as it probably was, to the practice so common in
Oriental vocal music, both ancient and modern, of de-
livering long wordless tonal flourishes as an expression
of joy, then it has in a certain sense survived in the
" jubilations '* of the Catholic liturgical chant, which in
the early Middle Age were more extended than now.
Chappell finds traces of a practice somewhat similar to
the " jubilations " existing in ancient Egypt. " This
practice of carolling or singing without words, like
birds, to the gods, was copied by the Greeks, who seem
to have carolled on four vowels. The vowels had prob-
ably, in both cases, some recognized meaning attached
to them, as substitutes for certain words of praise — as
was the case when the custom was transferred to the
Western Church." ^ This may or may not throw light
upon the obscure nature of the giossolalia, but it is not
to be supposed that the Corinthian Christians invented
this custom, since we find traces of it in the worship of
the ancient pagan nations; and so far as it was the
unrestrained outburst of emotion, it must have been to

1 1 Cor. XIV. 27, 28.

2 Chappell, History of Music.

45

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

some extent musical, and only needed regulation and
the application of a definite key-system to become, like
the mediaeval Sequence under somewhat similar condi-
tions, an established order of sacred song.

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 be-
lievers 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. 1 The magnificent description of the
worship of God and the Lamb in the Apocalypse has
been supposed by some to have been suggested by the
manner of worship, already become liturgical, in the

^ Among such supposed quotations are: Eph. v. 14 ; 1 Tim. iii. 16 ; 2
Tim. ii. 11; Rev. iv. 11; v. 9-13; xi. 15-18; xv. 3,4.

46

RITUAL AND SONG IN THE EARLY CHURCH

Eastern churches. Certainly there is a manifest resem-
blance between the picture of one sitting upon the
throne with the twenty-four elders and a multitude of
angels surrounding him, as set forth in the Apocalypse,
and the account given in the second book of the Consti-
tutions of the Apostles of the throne of the bishop in the
middle of the church edifice, with the presbyters and
deacons on each side and the laity beyond. In this
second book of the Constitutions, belonging, of course,
to a later date than the apostolic period, there is no
mention of hymn singing. The share of the people is
confined to responses at the end of the verses of the
psalms, which are sung by some one appointed to this
office.^ The sacerdotal and liturgical movement had
already excluded from the chief acts of worship the
independent song of the people. Those who assume
that the office of song in the early Church was freely
committed to the general body of believers have some
ground for their assumption ; but if we are able to dis-
tinguish between the private and public worship, and
could know how early it was that set forms and litur-
gies were adopted, it would appear that at the longest
the time was very brief when the laity were allowed a
share in any but the subordinate offices. The earliest
testimony that can be called definite is contained in the
celebrated letter of the younger Pliny from Bithynia
to the Emperor Trajan, in the year 112, in which the
Christians are described as coming together before
daylight and singing hymns alternately (invicem) to
Christ. This may with some reason be held to refer

1 Comtitutions of the Apostles, book. ii. chap. 57.
47

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

to responsive or antiphonal singing, similar to that
described by Philo in his account of the worship of the
Jewish sect of the Therapeutse in the first century.
The tradition was long preserved in the Church that
Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in the second century, intro-
duced antiphonal chanting into the churches of that
city, having been moved thereto by a vision of angels
singing in that manner. But we have only to go back
to the worship of the ancient Hebrews for the suggestion
of this practice. This alternate singing appears to have
been most prevalent in the Syrian churches, and was
carried thence to Milan and Rome, and through the
usage in these cities was established in the permanent
habit of the Western Church.

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

48

RITUAL AND SONG IN THE EARLY CHURCti

liturgies, such as those which bear the names of St.
James and St. Mark, if not yet fully formulated and
committed to writing, were in all essentials complete
and adopted as the substance of the public worship.
The principal service was divided into two parts, from
the second of which, the eucharistic service proper, the
catechumens and penitents were excluded. The prayers,
readings^ and chanted sentences, of which the liturgy
mainly consisted, were delivered by priests, deacons,
and an officially constituted choir of singers, the con-
gregation uniting only in a few responses and ejacula-
tions. In the liturgy of St. Mark, which was the
Alexandrian, used in Egypt and neighboring countries,
we find allotted to the people a number of responses :
"Amen," "Kyrie eleison," "And to thy spirit" (in
response to the priest's "Peace be to all"); "We lift
them up to the Lord " (in response to the priest's " Let
us lift up our hearts"); and "In the name of the Lord;
Holy God, holy mighty, holy immortal," after the
Trisagion; "And from the Holy Spirit was he made
flesh," after the prayer of oblation; "Holy, holy, holy
Lord," before the consecration; "Our Father, who art
in heaven," etc. ; before the communion, "One Father
holy, one Son holy, one Spirit holy, in the unity of the
Holy Spirit, Amen ; " at the dismissal, " Amen, blessed
be the name of the Lord."

In the liturgy of St. James, the liturgy of the Jeru-
salem 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.
4 49

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

Mark's liturgy, is given by the people; besides the
"Allelulia," the hymn to the Virgin Mother, "O taste
and see that the Lord is good," and "The Holy Ghost
shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest
shall overshadow thee."

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 congrega-
tional song of the Protestant Church can be found.
Still earlier than this final issue of the ritualistic move-
ment the singing of the people was limited to psalmsi
and canticles, a restriction justified and perhaps occa-
sioned 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 persua-
sive 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 num-
bers 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

50

RITUAL AND SONG IN THE EARLY CHURCH

between 343 and 381) decreed in its 13th Canon: "Be-
sides the appointed singers, who mount the ambo and
sing from the book, others shall not sing in the church." ^
The exact meaning of this prohibition has not been
determined, for the participation of the people in the
church song did not entirely cease at this time. How
generally representative this council was, or how exten-
sive its authority, is not known ; but the importance of
this decree has been exaggerated by historians of music,
for, at most, it serves only as a register of a fact which
was an inevitable consequence of the universal hier-
archical and ritualistic tendencies of the time.

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 per-
suaded 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. Atha-
nasius, which was "more like speaking than singing,"'
was an example of the practice of the Oriental and
Roman churches generally, and that the later chant

^ Hefele, History of the Councils of the Church, translated by Oxenham
2 St. Augustine, Confessions.

51

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

developed out of this vague song-speech. Others, like
Kiesewetter, exaggerating the antipathy of the Chris-
tians to everything identified with Judaism and pagan-
ism, conceive the primitive Christian melodies as entirely
an original invention, a true Christian folk-song.^ None
of these suppositions, however, could have more than a
local and temporary application ; the Jewish Christian
congregations in Jerusalem and neighboring cities
doubtless transferred a few of their ancestral melodies
to the new worship; a prejudice against highly devel-
oped tune as suggesting the sensuous cults of paganism
may have existed among the more austere; here and
there new melodies may have sprung up to clothe the
extemporized lyrics that became perpetuated in the
Church. But the weight of evidence and analogy in-
clines to the belief that the liturgic song of the Church,
both of the East and West, was drawn partly in form
and almost wholly in spirit and complexion from the
Greek and Greco-Roman musical practice.

But scanty knowledge of Christian archaeology and
liturgies is necessary to show that much of form, cere-
mony, 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,

1 Kiesewetter, Geschichte der europaisch-abendlUndischen Musik.

52 .

RITUAL AND SONG IN THE EARLY CHURCH

indeed, in some of its phases, in decadence at this
period. It had gained nothing in purity by passing into
the hands of Roman voluptuaries. The age of the
virtuosos, aiming at brilliancy and sensationalism, had
succeeded to the classic traditions of austerity and
reserve. This change was felt, however, in instru-
mental music chiefly, and this the Christian churches
disdained to touch. It was the residue of what was
pure and reverend, drawn from the tradition of
Apollo's temple and the Athenian tragic theatre; it
was the form of vocalism which austere philosophers
like Plutarch praised that was drafted into the service
of the Gospel. Perhaps even this was reduced to simple
terms in the Christian practice; certainly the oldest
chants that can be traced are the plainest, and the
earliest scale system of the Italian Church would appear
to allow but a very narrow compass to melody. We
can form our most accurate notion of the nature of the
early Christian music, therefore, by studying the
records of Greek practice and Greek views of music's
nature and function in the time of the flowering of
Greek poetry, for certainly the Christian fathers did
not attempt to go beyond that; and perhaps, in their
zeal to avoid all that was meretricious in tonal art, they
adopted as their standard those phases which could
most easily be made to coalesce with the inward and
humble type of piety inculcated by the faith of the
Gospel. This hypothesis does not imply a note-for-
note borrowing of Greek and Roman melodies, but only
their adaptation. As Luther and the other founders
of the music of the German Protestant Church took

53

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

melodies from the Catholic chant and the German and
Bohemian religious and secular folk-song, and recast
them to fit the metres of their hymns, so the early
Christian choristers would naturally be moved to do
with the melodies which they desired to transplant.
Much modification was necessary, for while the Greek
and Roman songs were metrical, the Christian psalms,
antiphons, prayers, responses, etc., were unmetrical;
and while the pagan melodies were always sung to an
instrumental accompaniment, the church chant was
exclusively vocal. Through the influence of this
double change of technical and aesthetic basis, the litur-
gic song was at once more free, aspiring, and varied than
its prototype, taking on that rhythmic flexibility and
delicate shading in which also the unique charm of the
Catholic chant of the present day so largely consists.

In view of the controversies over the use of instru-
mental 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 some-
times 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

54

RITUAL AND SONG IN THE EARLY CHURCH

do we use, viz.^ the word of peace wherewith we honor
God, no longer the old psaltery, trumpet, drum, and
flute." Chrysostom exclaims: "David formerly sang
in psalms, also we sing to-day with him ; he had a lyre
^^'ith lifeless strings, the Church has a lyre with living
strings. Our tongues are the strings of the lyre, with
a different tone, indeed, but with a more accordant
piety." St. Ambrose expresses his scorn for those who
would play the lyre and psaltery instead of singing
hymns and psalms; and St. Augustine adjures believ-
ers not to turn their hearts to theatrical instruments.
The religious guides of the early Christians felt that
there would be an incongruity, and even profanity, in
the use of the sensuous nerve-exciting effects of in-
strumental sound in their mystical, spiritual worship.
Their high religious and moral enthusiasm needed no
aid from external stimulus; the pure vocal utterance
was the more proper expression of their faith. This
prejudice against instrumental music, which was drawn
from the very nature of its aesthetic impression, was
fortiiied by the associations of instruments with super-
stitious pagan rites, and especially with the corrupting
scenes habitually represented in the degenerate theatre
and circus. "A Christian maiden," says St. Jerome,
"ought not even to know what a lyre or a flute is,
or what it is used for." No further justification for
such prohibitions is needed than the shameless per-
formances common upon the stage in the time of
the Roman empire, as portrayed in the pages of
Apuleius and other delineators of the manners of the
time. Those who assumed the guardianship of the

55

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

morals of the little Christian communities were com-
pelled to employ the strictest measures to prevent their
charges from breathing the moral pestilence which cir-
culated without check in the places of public amusement;
most of all must they insist that every reminder of these
corruptions, be it an otherwise innocent harp or flute,
should be excluded from the common acts of religion. '
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 dis-
tinction 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 par-
ticipation in all but the prescribed responses. On the
other hand, as ceremonies multiplied and festivals in-
creased in number, hymnody was stimulated, and lyric
songs for private and social edification, for the hours of
prayer, and for use in processions, pilgrimages, dedica-
tions, and other occasional celebrations, were rapidly
produced. As has been shown, the Christians had
their hymns from the very beginning, but with the ex-
ception 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

56

RITUAL AND SONG IN THE EARLY CHURCH

divided into two schools — the Syrian and the Greek.
Of the group of Syrian poets the most celebrated are
Synesius, born about 375, and Ephraem, who died at
Edessa in 378. Ephraem was the greatest teacher of
his time in the Syrian Church, and her most prolific and
able hymnist. He is best remembered as the opponent
of the followers of Bardasanes and Harmonius, who had
beguiled many into their Gnostic errors by the charm of
their hymns and melodies, Ephraem met these schis-
matics on their own ground, and composed a large
number of songs in the spirit of orthodoxy, which he
gave to choirs of his followers to be sung on Sundays
and festal days. The hymns of Ephraem were greatly
beloved by the Syrian Church, and are still valued by
the Maronite Christians. The Syrian school of hymnody
died out in the fifth century, and poetic inspiration in
the Eastern Church found its channel in the Greek tongue.
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

57

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

Christe eleison is said to have been made by Gregory
the Great. The Gloria in excelsis, the "greater dox-
ology, " with the possible exception of the Te Deum the
noblest of the early Christian hymns, is the angelic song
given in Luke ii. 14, with additions which were made
not later than the fourth century. " Begun in heaven,
finished on earth." It was first used in the Eastern
Church as a morning hymn. The Te Deum laudamus
has often been given a Western origin, St. Ambrose
and St. Augustine, according to a popular legend, hav-
ing been inspired to improvise it in alternate verses at
the baptism of St. Augustine by the bishop of Milan.
Another tradition ascribes the authorship to St. Hilary
in the fourth century. Its original form is unknown,
but it is generally believed to have been formed by
accretions upon a Greek original. Certain phrases
contained in it are also in the earlier liturgies. The
present form of the hymn is probably as old as the fifth
century.i

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,
f^" And of the celestial

Sacred and blessed

1 For an exhaustive discussion of the history of the Te Deum see
Julian's Dictionary of HymnoJogy.

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RITUAL AND SONG IN THE EARLY CHURCH

Jesus, our Saviour I

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 1 "

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 grad-
ually 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 mean-
ing, heaping up epithet upon epithet, tricking out

commonplaces in diction more and more gorgeous, till

59

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

sense and simplicity are alike sought in vain; 820-
1400." 1

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 hym-
nists 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 temp-
tations and perils, in a profound sense of sin, a con-
sciousness of the necessity of penitential discipline for
the attainment of salvation, and a certain fearful look-
ing-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
Irse of St. Thomas of Celano.

The Catholic hymnody, so far at least as concerns
the usage of the ritual, belongs properly to a later

1 Hymns of the Eastern Church, translated, with notes and an intro
duction by J. M. Neale, D.D.

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RITUAL AND SONG IN THE EARLY CHURCH

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 in-
sidious apathy which seems to dwell in the very atmos-
phere 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, stag-
nation. It was only among the nations that were to
rear a new civilization in Western Europe on the foun-
dations 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

61

MUSIC IN THE WESTFAIN CHURCH

convention, could issue in a prophetic artistic progress.
The attempted reconciliation of Christian ideas and
traditional pagan method formed the basis of Chris-
tian art, but the new insight into spiritual things, and
the profounder emotions that resulted, demanded new
ideals and principles as well as new subjects. The
nature and destiny of the soul, the beauty and signifi-
cance that lie in secret self-scrutiny and aspiration
kindled by a new hope, this, rather than the loveliness
of outward shape, became the object of contemplation
and the endless theme of art. Architecture and sculp-
ture became symbolic, painting the presentation of
ideas designed to stimulate new life in the soul, poetry
and music the direct witness and the immediate mani-
festation of the soul itself.

With the edicts of Constantine early in the fourth
century, which practically made Christianity the domi-
nant 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 devel-
opments 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

62

RITUAL AND SONG IN THE EARLY CHURCH

empire, in the readjustment of political and social con-
ditions all over Europe, with the convulsions and fre-
quent triumphs of savagery that inevitably attended
them, it was necessary that the Church, as the sole
champion and preserver of civilization and righteous-
ness, should concentrate all her forces, and become in
doctrine, worship, and government a single, compact,
unified, spiritual state. The dogmas of the Church
must be formulated, preserved, and guarded by an
official class, and the ignorant and fickle mass of the
common people must be taught to yield a reverent,
unquestioning obedience to the rule of their spiritual
lords. The exposition of theology, the doctrine of
the ever-renewed sacrifice of Christ upon the altar, the
theory of the sacraments generally, all involved the con-
ception of a mediatorial priesthood deriving its authority
by direct transmission from the apostles. Out of such
conditions and tendencies proceeded also the elaborate
and awe-inspiring rites, the fixed liturgies embalming
the central dogmas of the faith, and the whole ma-
chinery of a worship which was itself viewed as of an
objective efficacy, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and
designed both for the edification of the believer and
as an offering of the Church to its Redeemer. In the
development of the outward observances of worship,
with their elaborate symbolic ceremonialism, the student
is often struck with surprise to see how lavishly the
Church drew its forms and decorations from paganism
and Judaism. But there is nothing in this that need
excite wonder, nothing that was not inevitable under
the conditions of the times. Says Lanciani: **In

63

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

accepting rites and customs which were not offensive
to her principles and morality, the Church showed
equal tact and foresight, and contributed to the peace-
ful accomplishment of the transformation. "^ The
pagan or Jewish convert was not obliged to part with
all his ancestral notions of the nature of worship. He
found his love of pomp and splendor gratified by the
ceremonies of a religion which knew how to make
many of the fair features of earthly life accessory to
the inculcation of spiritual truth. And so it was that
symbolism and the appeal to the senses aided in com-
mending Christianity to a world which was not yet
prepared for a faith which should require only a silent,
unobtrusive experience. Instruction must come to the
populace in forms which would satisfy their inherited
predispositions. The Church, therefore, establishing
itself amidst heathenism, adopted a large number of
rites and customs from classical antiquity; and in the
externals of its worship, as well as of its government,
assumed forms which were contributions from without,
as well as evolutions from within. These acquisitions,
however, did not by any means remain a meaningless
or incongruous residuum of dead superstitions. An
instructive symbolism was imparted to them ; they
were moulded with marvellous art into the whole ves-
ture with which the Church clothed herself for her
temporal and spiritual office, and were made to become
conscious witnesses to the truth and beauty of the new
faith.

The commemoration of martyrs and confessors passed

^ Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome.

^64

RITUAL AND SONG IN THE EARLY CHURCH

into invocations for their aid as intercessors with Christ.
They became the patron saints of individuals and or-
ders, 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 Chris-
tian 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 East-
ern 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 inter-
action 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 cen-
tury 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
5 66

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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. Am-
brose, 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, re-
tained from then till now, is imitated by many — yea,
by almost all of thy congregations throughout the rest
of the world. "1

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 interest-
ing passage in the tenth book of the Confessions^ in
which he analyzes the effect upon himself of the music

1 St. Augustine, Confessions, book ix. chap. 7.
6ff

RITUAL AND SONG IN THE EARLY CHURCH

of the Church, fearing lest its charm had beguiled him
from pious absorption in the sacred words into a purely
aesthetic gratification. He did not fail, however, to
render the just meed of honor to the music that so
touched him: "How I wept at thy hymns and can-
ticles, pierced to the quick by the voices of thy melo-
dious Church ! Those voices flowed into my ears, and
the truth distilled into my heart, and thence there
streamed forth a devout emotion, and my tears ran
down, and happy was I therein." ^

Antiphonal psalmody, after the pattern of that em-
ployed 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 com-
munity of monks to be especially devoted to the service
of the canonical hours. In the year 580 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

1 St. Augustine, Confessions, book ix. chap. 6.

67

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

other branches. This school received pupils from the
wealthiest and most distinguished families, and a num-
ber of the early popes, including Gregory II. and Paul
I., received instruction within its walls.

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 Greg-
ory 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 prin-
ciple of which all the worship music of modern Chris-

68

RITUAL AND SONG IN THE EARLY CHURCH

tendom is the natural fruit. More vital still than these
special forms and principles, comprehending and neces-
sitating them, was the true ideal of music, proclaimed
once for all by the fathers of the liturgy. This ideal
is found in the distinction of the church style from the
secular style, the expression of the universal mood of
prayer, rather than the expression of individual, fluc-
tuating, passionate emotion with which secular music
deals — that rapt, pervasive, exalted tone which makes
no attempt at detailed painting of events or superficial
mental states, but seems rather to symbolize the fun-
damental sentiments of humility, awe, hope, and love
which mingle all particular experiences in the com-
mon offering that surges upward from the heart of the
Church to its Lord and Master. In this avoidance of
an impassioned emphasis of details in favor of an ex-
pression drawn from the large spirit of worship, church
music evades the peril of introducing an alien dramatic
element into the holy ceremony, and asserts its nobler
power of creating an atmosphere from which all worldly
custom and association disappear. This grand concep-
tion was early injected into the mind of the Church,
and has been the parent of all that has been most noble
and edifying in the creations of ecclesiastical music.

69

CHAPTER III

THE LITURGY OP THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

There is no derogation of the honor due to the
Catholic Church in the assertion that a large element
in the extraordinary spell which she has always exer-
cised 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 accus-
tomed range of thought, borne by a spiritual tide that
sets toward regions unexplored. The music which
pervades the mj^stic 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

70

THE LITURGY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

stage in the aid it derives from accessories and poetic
association. The music is such a vital constituent of
the whole act of devotion that the impressions drawn
from the liturgy, ceremony, architecture, decoration,
and the sublime memories of a venerable past are all
insensibly invoked to lend to the tones of priest and
choir and organ a grandeur not their own. This is the
reason why Catholic music, even when it is tawdry and
sensational, or indifferently performed, has a certain air
of nobility. The ceremony is always imposing, and the
music which enfolds the act of worship like an atmos-
phere must inevitably absorb somewhat of the dignity
of the rite to which it ministers. And when the music
in itself is the product of the highest genius and is
rendered with reverence and skill, the effect upon a
sensitive mind is more solemnizing than that obtained
from any other variety of musical experience.

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 suscep-
tibility to ideas of beauty and grandeur and mystery as

71

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

embodied in sound and form. The union of the arts
for the sake of an immediate and undivided effect, of
which we have heard so much in recent years, was
achieved by the Catholic Church centuries ago. She
rears the most sumptuous edifices, decorates their walls
with masterpieces of painting, fills every sightly nook
with sculptures in wood and stone, devises a ritual of
ingenious variety and lavish splendor, pours over this
ritual music that alternately subdues and excites, ad-
justs all these means so that each shall heighten the
effect of the others and seize upon the perceptions at
the same moment. In employing these artistic agencies
the Church has taken cognizance of every degree of
enlightenment and variety of temper. For the vulgar
she has garish display, for the superstitious wonder and
concealment; for the refined and reflective she clothes
her doctrines in the fairest guise and makes worship an
aesthetic delight. Her worship centres in a mystery —
the Real Presence — and this mystery she embellishes
with every allurement that can startle, delight, and
enthrall.

Symbolism and artistic decoration — in the use of
which the Catholic Church has exceeded all other reli:„
gious 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 per-
vades her culture and her worship. Minds that need
no external quickening, but love to rise above cere-
monial observances and seek immediate contact with the

72

THE LITURGY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

divine source of life, are comparatively rare. Mysti-
cism is not for the multitude ; the majority of mankind
require that spiritual influences shall come to them in
the guise of that which is tangible ; a certain nervous
thrill is needed to shock them out of their accustomed
material habitudes. Recognizing this fact, and having
taken up into her system a vast number of ideas which
inevitably require objective representation in order that
they may be realized and operative, the Catholic Church
has even incurred the charge of idolatry on account of
the extreme use she has made of images and symbols.
But it may be that in this she has shown greater wis-
dom than those who censure her. She knows that the
externals of religious observance must be endowed with
a large measure of sensuous charm if they would seize
hold upon the affections of the bulk of mankind. She
knows that spiritual aspiration and the excitement of
the senses can never be entirely separated in actual
public worship, and she would run the risk of subordi-
nating the first to the second rather than offer a service
of bare intellectuality empty of those persuasions which
artistic genius offers, and which are so potent to bend
the heart in reverence and submission.

In the study of the Catholic system of rites and cere-
monies, 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

73

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

offered to her the choicest of its achievements. And
not for decoration merely, not simply to subjugate the
spirit by fascinating the senses, but rather impelled by
an inner necessity which has effected a logical alliance
of the special powers of art with the aims and needs of
the Church. Whatever may be the attitude toward the
claims of this great institution, no one of sensibility can
deny that the world has never seen, and is never likely
to see, anything fairer or more majestic than that sub-
lime structure, compounded of architecture, sculpture,
and painting, and informed by poetry and music, which
the Church created in the Middle Age, and fixed in
enduring mould for the wondering admiration of all
succeeding time. Every one who studies it with a
view to searching its motive is compelled to admit that
it was a work of sincere conviction. It came from no
" vain or shallow thought ; " it testifies to something in
the heart of Catholicism that has never failed to stir
the most passionate affection, and call forth the lofti-
est efforts of artistic skill. This marvellous product of
Catholic art, immeasurable in its variety, has gathered
around the rites and ordinances of the Church, and taken
from them its spirit, its forms, and its tendencies; —
architecture to erect a suitable enclosure for worship,
and to symbolize the conception of the visible kingdom
of Christ in time and of the eternal kingdom of Christ
in heaven ; sculpture to adorn this sanctuary, and stand-
ing like the sacred edifice itself in closest relation to
the centre of churchly life and deriving from that its
purpose and norm ; painting performing a like function,
and also more definitely acting for instruction, vividly

74

tlin LITURGY OF THE CATHOLIC ChURCH

illustrating the doctrines and traditions of the faith,
directing the thought of the believer more intently to
their moral purport and ideal beauty ; poetry and music,
the very breath of the liturgy itself, acting immediately
upon the heart, kindling the latent sentiment of rever-
ence into lively emotions of joy and love. In the em-
ployment of rites and ceremonies with their sumptuous
artistic setting, in the large stress that is laid upon
prescribed forms and external acts of worship, the
Catholio Church has been actuated by a conviction
from which she has never for an instant swerved. This
conviction is twofold: first, that the believer is aided
thereby in the offering of an absorbed, fervent, and
sincere worship ; and second, that it is not only fitting,
but a duty, that all that is most precious, the product
of the highest development of the powers that God has
given to man, should be offered as a witness of man's
love and adoration, — that the expenditure of wealth in
the erection and decoration of God's sanctuaries, and
the tribute of the highest artistic skill in the creation
of forms of beauty, are worthy of his immeasurable
glory and of ourselves as his dependent children. Says
Cardinal Gibbons : " The ceremonies of the Church not
only render the divine service more solemn, but they
also rivet and captivate our attention and lift it up to
God. Our mind is so active, so volatile, and full of
distractions, our imagination is so fickle, that we have
need of some external objects on which to fix our
thoughts. True devotion must be interior and come
from the heart; but we are not to infer that exterior
worship is to be condemned because interior worship is

75

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHUUCH

prescribed as essential. On the contrary, the rites and
ceremonies which are enjoined in the worship of God
and in the administration of the sacraments are dic-
tated by right reason, and are sanctioned by Almighty
God in the old law, and by Christ and his apostles in
the new."^ "Not by the human understanding," says
a writer in the Ccecilien Kalendar^ "was the ritual
devised, man knows not whence it came. Its origin
lies outside the inventions of man, like the ideas which
it presents. The liturgy arose with the faith, as speech
Avith thought. What the body is for the soul, such is
the liturgy for religion. Everything in the uses of the
Church, from the mysterious ceremonies of the Mass
and of Good Friday, to the summons of the evening
bell to prayer, is nothing else than the eloquent expres-
sion of the content of the redemption of the Son of
God." 2

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 Wise-
man, "I make no reference whatever to outward dis-
play ; and I choose that epithet for the reason that the
poverty of language affords me no other for my mean-
ing. The object and power of dramatic poetry consist

1 Gibbons, The Faith of our Fathers, chap, 24.
''' Ccecilien Kalendar (Regensburg), 1879.

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THE LITURGY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

in its being not merely descriptive but representative.
Its character is to bear away the imagination and soul
to the view of what others witnessed, and excite in us,
through their words, such impressions as we might
have felt on the occasion. The service of the Church
is eminently poetical, the dramatic power runs through
the service in a most marked manner, and must be kept
in view for its right understanding. Thus, for example,
the entire service for the dead, office, exequies, and
Mass, refers to the moment of death, and bears the
imagination to the awful crisis of separation of soul
and body." " In like manner the Church prepares us
during Advent for the commemoration of our dear
Redeemer's birth, as though it were really yet to take
place. As the festival approaches, the same ideal re-
turn to the very moment and circumstances of our
divine Redeemer's birth is expressed ; all the glories
of the day are represented to the soul as if actually
occurring." "This principle, which will be found to
animate the church service of every other season, rules
most remarkably that of Holy Week, and gives it life
and soul. It is not intended to be merely commemora-
tive or historical ; it is, strictly speaking, representa-
tive." 1 " The traditions and rules of church art," says
Jakob, " are by no means arbitrary, they are not an
external accretion, but they proceed from within out-
ward, they have grown organically from the guiding
spirit of the Church, out of the requirements of her
worship. Therein lies the justification of symbolism

1 Wiseman, Four Lectures on the Offices and Ceremonies of Holy
Week us performed in the Papal Chapels, delivered in Rome, 1837.

77

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

and symbolic representation in ecclesiastical art. The
church of stone must be a speaking image of the living
Church and her mysteries ; the pictures on the walls
and on the altars are not mere ornament for the eye,
but for the heart a book full of instruction, a sermon
full of truth. And thereby is art raised to be a partici-
pant in the work of edifying the believers ; it becomes
a profound teacher of thousands, a bearer and preserver
of great ideas for the centuries." ^ " Our Holy Church,"
says a German priest, "which completely understands
the nature and the needs of humanity, presents to us
divine truth and grace in sensible form, in order that
by this means they may be more easily grasped and
more securely appropriated by us. The law of sense
perception, which constitutes so important a factor in
human education, forms also a fundamental law in the
action of Holy Church, whereby she seeks to raise us
out of this earthly material life into the supernatural
life of grace. She therefore confers upon us redemp-
tive grace in the holy sacraments in connection with
external signs, through which the inner grace is
shadowed forth and accomplished, as for instance the
inward washing of the soul from sin in baptism through
the outward washing of the body. In like manner the
eye of the instructed Catholic sees in the symbolic
ceremonies of the holy sacrifice of the Mass the thrill-
ing representation of the fall of man, our redemption,
and finally our glorification at the second coming of
our Lord. Out of this ground law of presentation to
the senses has arisen the whole liturgy of the Church,

1 Jakob^ Die Kunst im Dienste der Kirche.
78

THE LITURGY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

i. e,, the sum of all religious actions and prayers to
the honor of God and the communication of his grace
to us, and this whole expressive liturgy forms at once
the solemn ceremonial in the sanctuary of the Heavenly
King, in which he receives our adoration and bestows
upon us the most plentiful tokens of his favor." ^

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 in-
struction and edification of the believer, but it is evi-
dent 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 church-
men 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 em-
ployed traditional subjects out of habit or policy, find-
ing 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 for-
malism, but not enough to endanger the faith, morals,

1 Sermon by Dr. Leonhard Kuhn, published in the Kirchenmusikalisches
Jahrbuch (Regensburg), 1892.

79

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

or loyalty of the flock. He therefore who would know
the spirit of Catholicism must give a large portion of
his study to its art. From the central genius of this
institution, displayed not merely in its doctrines and
traditions, but also in its sublime faith in its own divine
ordination and guidance, and in its ideals of holiness,
have issued its liturgy, its ceremonial, and the infinitely
varied manifestations of its symbolic, historic, and devo-
tional art. The Catholic Church has aimed to rear on
earth a visible type of the spiritual kingdom of God,
and to build for her disciples a home, suggestive in its
splendor of the glory prepared for those who keep the
faith.

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 deter-
mination of individual artists, but from conceptions and
models that have become traditional and canonical.
These traditional laws and forms have developed organ-
ically 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

80

THE LITURGY OP THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

ceremonial functions attending it must be based all
study of the system of artistic expression officially sanc-
tioned 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 ex-
pressed 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 com-
pleted 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 innu-
merable 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 sur-
prising, therefore, that devout Catholics have come to
6 81

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CilURCti

consider this liturgy as divinely inspired, raised above
all mere human speech, the language of saints and
angels, a truly celestial poem ; and that Catholic writers
have well-nigh exhausted the vocabulary of enthusiasm
in expounding its spiritual significance.

The insistence upon the use of one unvarying lan-
guage 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 lan-
guages imply national churches; the adoption of the
vernacular would be the first step toward disintegration.
The Catholic, into whatever strange land he may wan-
der, 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 ceremo-
nies, 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 misun-
derstanding of refined points of doctrine or observance
will creep in through alteration in the connotation
of words. Latin is the original language of the Cath-
olic 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 wiitings of the fathers of the
Church, ancient conciliar decrees, etc. The only excep-
tions to the rule which prescribes Latin as the liturgical
speech are to be found among certain Oriental congre-
gations, where, for local reasons, other languages are

82

THE LITURGY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

permitted, viz.^ Greek, Syriac, Chaldaic, Slavonic, Wal-
lachian, Armenian, Coptic, and Ethiopic. In each of
these instances, however, the liturgic speech is not the
vernacular, but the ancient form which has passed out
of use in other relations. ^

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 atone-
ment 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 par-
takes through repentance and faith in the benefits con-
ferred by that transcendent act; but to the Catholic
this sacrifice is repeated whenever the eucharistic ele-
ments 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

1 O'Brien, History of the Mass.

83

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

Christ. It is in this way that the Catholic Church liter-
ally interprets the words of Jesus : " This is my body ;
this is my blood ; whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my
blood hath eternal life." When the miraculous transfor-
mation has taken place at the repetition by the priest of
Christ's words of institution, the consecrated host and
chalice are offered to God by the priest in the name and
for the sake of the believers, both present and absent,
for whom prayer is made and who share through faith in
the benefits of this sacrificial act. " The sacrifice of the
Mass," says Cardinal Gibbons, '* is identical with that of
the cross, both having the same victim and high priest
— Jesus Christ. The only difference consists in the
manner of the oblation. Christ was offered upon the
cross in a bloody manner ; in the Mass he is offered up
in an unbloody manner. On the cross he purchased our
ransom, and in the eucharistic sacrifice the price of that
ransom is applied to our souls." ^ This conception
is the keystone of the whole structure of Catholic
faith, the super-essential dogma, repeated from century
to century in declarations of prelates, theologians, and
synods, reasserted once for all in terms of binding defi-
nition by the Council of Trent. All, therefore, who
assist in this mystic ceremony, either as celebrants and
ministers or as indirect participants through faith, share
in its supernatural efficacy. It is to them a sacrifice of
praise, of supplication, and of propitiation.

The whole elaborate ceremony of the Mass, which is
fluch an enigma to the uninstructed, is nowhere vain or
repetitious. Every word has its fitting relation to the

1 Gibbons, The Faith of our Fathers.
84

THE LITURGY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

whole ; every gesture and genuflection, every change of
vestments, has its symbolic significance. All the ele-
ments 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 de-
signed 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 impres-
sion 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

85

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

of voice and in the manner of ordinary speech, the
usual marks of solemnity being dispensed with ; there
is no chanting and no choir music. The High Mass is
given in musical tones throughout by celebrant and
choir. The Solemn High Mass is performed with still
greater ritualistic display, and with deacon, sub-deacon,
and a full corps of inferior ministers.

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, Com-
munions, 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 con-
fessor.i Mass may be celebrated on any day of the year
except Good Friday, the great mourning day of the
Church.

1 The musical composition commonly called a Mass — such, for instance
as the Imperial Mass of Haydn, the Mass in C by Beethoven, the St.
Cecilia Mass by Gounod — is a musical setting of those portions of the
office of the Mass that are invariable and that are sung by a choir. These
portions are the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Benedictus, and Agnus
Dei, The musical composition called Requiem, or Mass for the Dead, con-
sists of the Introit — Requiem seternam and Te decet hymnus, Kyrie
eleison, Dies Irae, Offertory (Domine Jesu Christe), Communion — Lux
asterna, and sometimes with the addition of Libera me Domine. These
choral Masses must always be distinguished from the larger oflBce of the
Mass of which they form a part.

86

THE LITURGY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

The outline of the Mass ceremony tKat follows
relates to the High Mass, which may be taken as the
t3^pe 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 Kjrrie 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 ap*

87

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

propriate 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 re-
cited 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 Nicsea 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 cere-
monial 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,

88

THE LITURGY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

is the cherubic hymn heard by Isaiah in vision, as de-
scribed in Is. vi. 3. The Benedictus is the shout of
acclamation by the concourse who met Christ on his
entry into Jerusalem. There is a poetic significance
in the union of these two passages. The blessed one,
who Cometh in the name of the Lord, is the Lord him-
self, the God of Sabaoth, of whose glory heaven and
earth are full.

The Canon of the Mass now opens with prayers that
the holy sacrifice may be accepted of God, and may re-
dound to the benefit of those present. The act of con-
secration 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 com-
mitted to the acceptance of God with the most impres-
sive vows and invocations.^

1 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, call-
ing to mind the blessed passion of the same Christ thy Son our Lord, his
resurrection from the dead, and admirable ascension into heaven, offer
nnto 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 counte-
nance, 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 sacri-
fice 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."

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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 cele-
brant's hands the consecrated wafer. The Post-Commu-
nion, which is a brief prayer for protection and grace,
the dismissal ^ and benediction, and the reading of the
first fourteen verses of the Gospel according to St.
John close the ceremony.

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 complex-
ity 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 lan-
guage, 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 per-
formed for them and in their name by a priesthood,

1 It is worthy of note, as a singular instance of the exaltation of a
comparatively unimportant word, that the word Mass, Lat. Missa, is taken
txova. the ancient formula of dismissal, Ite, missa est.

90

THE LITURGY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

whose function is that of representing the Church in
its mediatorial capacity. The Mass is not simply a
prayer, but also a semi-dramatic action, — an action
which possesses in itself an efficacy ex opere operato.
This idea renders it unnecessary that the worship-
ers should follow the office in detail; it is enough
that they cooperate with the celebrant in faith and
pious sympathy. High authorities declare that the
most profitable reception of the rite consists in simply
watching the action of the officiating priest at the altar,
and yielding the spirit unreservedly to the holy emo-
tions which are excited by a complete self-abandonment
to the contemplation of the adorable mystery. The
sacramental theory of the Mass as a vehicle by which
grace is communicated from above to the believing re-
cipient, also leaves him free to carry on private devo-
tion during the progress of the ceremony. When the
worshipers are seen kneeling in the pews or before an
altar at the side wall, fingering rosaries or with eyes
intent upon prayer-books, it is not the words of the
Mass that they are repeating. The Mass is the prayer
of the Church at large, but it does not emanate from
the congregation. The theory of the Mass does not
even require the presence of the laity, and as a matter
of practice private and solitary Masses, although rare,
are in no way contrary to the discipline of the Catholic
Church.

91

CHAPTER IV

THE RITUAL CHANT OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

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 cere-
monies appropriated to them. For the Catholic liturgy
is in conception and history a musical liturgy; word
and tone are inseparably bound together. The imme-
diate 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

THE CATHOLIC RITUAL CHANT

with three comprehensive ideas of musical expression
which have succeeded each other chronologically, and
which divide the whole history of modern music into
clearly marked epochs. These epochs are those (1) of
the unison chant, (2) of unaccompanied chorus music,
and (3) of mixed solo and chorus with instrumental
accompaniment.

(1) The period in which the unison chant was the
only form of church music extends from the found-
ing 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 au-
thority 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 seculariza-
tion of art. It was taken up by the Catholic, Lutheran,
dnd Anglican Churches, and was moulded into its

93

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

present types under the influence of new demands upon
musical expression which had already brought forth the
dramatic and concert styles.

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 suf-
ferance, — 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 disso-
lution is possible even in thought. There is no ques-
tion that the chant melodies as they exist to-day are
only modifications, in most cases but slight modifi-
cations, 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

94

THE CATHOLIC RITUAL CHANT

service with contributions from without, and imparting
to them a quahty drawn from the composer's personal
feeling and artistic methods. It is rather a sort of
religious folk-song, proceeding from the inner shrine
of religion. It is abstract, impersonal; its style is
strictly ecclesiastical, both in its inherent solemnity
and its ancient association, and it bears, like the
ritual itself, the sanction of unimpeachable authority.
The reverence paid by the Church to the liturgic chant
as a peculiarly sacred form of utterance is plainly
indicated by the fact that while there is no restraint
upon the license of choice on the part of the choir, no
other form of song has ever been heard, or can ever
be permitted to be heard, from the priest in the per-
formance of his ministrations at the altar.

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 extem-
porizes 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 syl-
lable. Sometimes the priest sings alone, without re-
95

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

sponse or accompaniment; sometimes his utterances
are answered by a choir of boys in the chancel or a
mixed choir in the gallery ; in certain portions of the
service the organ supports the chant with harmonies
which seem to be based on a different principle of key
and scale from that which ordinarily obtains in modern
chord progression. In its freedom of rhythm it bears
some resemblance to dramatic recitative, yet it is far
less dramatic or characteristic in color and expression,
and at the same time both more severe and more flex-
ible. To one who understands the whole conception
and spirit of the Catholic worship there is a singular
appropriateness in the employment of this manner of
utterance, and when properly rendered it blends most
efficiently with the architectural splendors of altar and
sanctuary, with incense, Hghts, vestments, ceremonial
action, and all the embellishments that lend distinction
and solemnity to the Catholic ritual. This is the cele-
brated liturgic chant, also called Gregorian chant. Plain
Song, or Choral, and is the special and peculiar form
of song in which the Catholic Church has clothed its
liturgy for certainly fifteen hundred years.

This peculiar and solemn form of song is the musi-
cal 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 unrhyth-
mical; 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

96

THE CATHOLIC RITUAL CHANT

heightened form of speech, a musical declamation, hav-
ing for its object the intensifying of the emotional
powers of ordinary spoken language. It stands to true
song or tune in much the same relation as prose to
verse, less impassioned, more reflective, yet capable of
moving the heart like eloquence.

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 struct-
ure 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
7 97

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

Song sj^stem, particularly in the richer melodies of the
Mass, would seem at first thought to contradict this
principle ; in these florid melodic phrases the singer
would appear to abandon himself to a sort of inspired
rapture, giving vent to the emotions aroused in him by
the sacred words. Here musical utterance seems for
the moment to be set free from dependence upon word
and symbol and to assert its own special prerogatives
of expression, adopting the conception that underlies
modern figurate music. These occasional ebullitions of
feeling permitted in the chant are, however, only mo-
mentary; they relieve what would otherwise be an
unvaried austerity not contemplated in the spirit of
Catholic art ; they do not violate the general principle
of universality and objectiveness as opposed to indi-
vidual subjective expression, — subordination to word
and rite rather than purely musical self-assertion, —
which is the theoretic basis of the liturgic chant system.
Chant is speech-song, probably the earliest form of
vocal music ; it proceeds from the modulations of im-
passioned speech ; it results from the need of regulating
and perpetuating these modulations when certain exi-
gencies require a common and impressive form of utter-
ance, as in religious rites, public rejoicing or mourning,
etc. The necessity of filling large spaces almost inevi-
tably 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

98

THE CATHOLIC RITUAL CHANT

system, and are imposed upon all whose office it is to
administer the public ceremonies of worship. This is
the origin of the liturgic chant of ancient peoples, and
also, by historic continuation, of the Gregorian melody.
The Catholic chant is a projection into modern art of
the altar song of Greece, Judaea, and Egypt, and
through these nations reaches back to that epoch of
unknown remoteness when mankind first began to con-
ceive of invisible powers to be invoked or appeased.
A large measure of the impressiveness of the liturgic
chant, therefore, is due to its historic religious associ-
ations. It forms a connecting link between ancient
religion and the Christian, and perpetuates to our own
day an ideal of sacred music which is as old as religious
music itself. It is a striking fact that only within the
last six hundred or seven hundred years, and only
within the bounds of Christendom, has an artificial form
of worship music arisen in which musical forms have
become emancipated from subjection to the rhetorical
laws of speech, and been built up under the shaping force
of inherent musical laws, gaining a more or less free
play for the creative impulses of an independent art.
The conception which is realized in the Gregorian chant,
and which exclusively prevailed until the rise of the
modern polyphonic system, is that of music in subjec-
tion to rite and liturgy, its own charms merged and, so
far as conscious intention goes, lost in the paramount
significance of text and action. It is for this reason,
together with the historic relation of chant and liturgy,
that the rulers of the Catholic Church have always
labored so strenuously for uniformity in the liturgic

99

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

chant as well as for its perpetuity. There are even
churchmen at the present time who urge the abandon-
ment of all the modern forms of harmonized music and
the restoration of the unison chant to every detail of the
service. A notion so ascetic and monastic can never
prevail, but one who has fully entered into the- spirit of
the Plain Song melodies can at least sympathize with
the reverence which such a reactionary attitude implies.
There is a solemn unearthly sweetness in these tones
which appeals irresistibly to those who have become
habituated to them. They have maintained for cen-
turies the inevitable comparison with every other form
of melody, religious and secular, and there is reason to
believe that they will continue to sustain all possible
rivalry, until they at last outlive every other form of
music now existing.

No one can obtain any proper conception of this mag-
nificent 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 mediae-
val 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 can-

100

THE CATHOLIC RITUAL CHANT

tides. When properly delivered, and supported by an
organist who knows the secret of accompanying them,
they are exceedingly beautiful. They are but a hint,
however, of the rich store of melodies, some of them
very elaborate and highly organized, which the chant-
books contain, and which are known only to special
students. To this great compendium belong the chants
anciently assigned to those portions of the liturgy which
are now usually sung in modern settings, — the Kyrie,
Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei, and the
variable portions of the Mass, such as the Introits,
Graduals, Prefaces, Offertories, Sequences, etc., besides
the hymns sung at Vespers and the other canonical
hours. Few have ever explored the bulky volumes
which contain this unique bequest of the Middle Age ;
but one who has even made a beginning of such study,
or who has heard the florid chants worthily performed
in the traditional style, can easily understand the en-
thusiasm which these strains arouse in the minds of those
who love to penetrate to the innermost shrines of
Catholic devotional expression.

Example op Gregorian Tones. First Tone with its Endings.

^ ;uj_j=^^ EE Ui^^j^^-^'-d^-fl

ty

Ma - gni - ficat anima me - a Do - mi - num.

^ ^ J^^^ IMi — j-g j:^^ ^~^\J J_5^

Et ex " ulta - vit Spi - ritus me " ua ]
101

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

^E^EE^^m

tMi

-■^ Z^

in Deo salu

ta - ri me

i

i^ T^r^m

R^

Anima

me - a Do - minum.

^

1 I I

t

Wt

-^ 2? 1^-

Anima

me - a Do - mi

^m

^tt

-^ s ) "g-

Anima

me - a Domi - num . .

^=-=^= ^i

EE5

H^

t5» fj — ^g-

^s^-— :s^-

Anima

- a Domi - num.

Example of a Florid Chant.

i^g g^

t*

a

■•-^-~&

:^z3t

-?^iy

Ky

lei

i

(S) — 1=2 (S) G> ^

5^=t

m

:t=t=t:

I I "., -gb ^

Chri - ste

lei

K7 - ri - 6 e - lei - • - son.

102

THE CATHOLIC RITUAL CHANT

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 sub-
ject 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 mono-
tone. 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

103

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

a decided approach to regularity of form through the
recurrence of certain definite melodic figures. " In the
Middle Age," says P. Wagner, " nothing was known of
an accompaniment ; there was not the slightest need of
one. The substance of the musical content, which we
to-day commit to interpretation through harmony, the
old musicians laid upon melody. The latter accom-
plished in itself the complete utterance of the artisti-
cally aroused fantasy. In this particular the melismas,
which carry the extensions of the tones of the melody,
are a necessary means of presentation in mediaeval art ;
they proceed logically out of the principle of the unison
melody." " Text repetition is virtually unknown in
the unison music of the Middle Age. While modern
singers repeat an especially emphatic thought or word,
the old melodists repeat a melody or phrase which ex-
presses the ground mood of the text in a striking
manner. And they not only repeat it, but they make
it unfold, and draw out of it new tones of melody.
This method is certainly not less artistic than the later
text repetition; it comes nearer, also, to the natural
expression of the devotionally inspired heart." ^

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 sub-
ject. The first desideratum is an accurate pronun-
ciation of the Latin, and a facile and distinct articula-
tion. The notes have no fixed and measurable value,

1 Wagner, Einfuhrung in die Gregorianischen Melodien.
104

THE CATHOLIC RITUAL CHANT

and are not intended to give the duration of the tones,
but only to guide the modulation of the voice. The
length of each tone is determined only by the proper
length of the syllable. In this principle lies the very
essence of Gregorian chant, and it is the point at which
it stands in exact contradiction to the theory of modern
measured music. The divisions of the chant are given
solely by the text. The rhythm, therefore, is that of
speech, of the prose text to which the chant tones are
set. The rhythm is a natural rhythm, a succession of
syllables combined into expressive groups by means of
accent, varied pitch, and prolongations of tone. The
fundamental rule for chanting is : " Sing the words
with notes as you would speak them without notes."
This does not imply that the utterance is stiff and
mechanical as in ordinary conversation; there is a
heightening of the natural inflection and a grouping of
notes, as in impassioned speech or the most refined
declamation. Like the notes and divisions, the pauses
also are unequal and immeasurable, and are determined
only by the sense of the words and the necessity of
taking breath.

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 sim-
ply 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

105

MUSIC m THE WESTERN CHURCH

thought with which they are connected ; " they make
the soul in singing fathom the deeper sense of the
words, and to taste of the mysteries hidden within
them."^ The particular figures must be kept apart
and distinguished from each other, and brought into
union with each other, like the words, clauses, and sen-
tences of an oration. Even these florid passages are
dependent upon the influence of the words and their
character of prayer.

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 senti-
ments. 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 char-
acter 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 " Gre-
gorian." Throughout the Middle Age and down to

1 Saater, Choral und Liturgie.
106

THE CATHOLIC RITUAL CHANT

our own day nothing in history has been more generally
received as beyond question than that the Catholic
chant is entitled to this appellation from the work per-
formed in its behalf by Pope Gregory I., called the
Great. This eminent man, who reigned from 590
to 604, was the ablest of the succession of early pontiffs
who formulated the line of policy which converted
the barbarians of the North and West, brought about
the spiritual and political autonomy of the Roman See,
and confirmed its supremacy over all the churches of
the West.

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.

107

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN 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 impor-
tant work of sifting, arranging, and noting the liturgic
melodies become strong as soon as they are impartially
examined. In Gregory's very voluminous correspond-
ence, 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 asser-
tions of John the Deacon are not confirmed by any
anterior document. No epitaph of Gregory, no con-
temporary records, no ancient panegyrics of the pope,
touch upon the question. Isidor of Seville, a contem-
porary 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 cal-
endar 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

108

THE CATHOLIC RITUAL CHANT

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 prac-
tised in the private and social life of the Romans in
the time of the empire, and which were brought j 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 Chris-
tian 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

109

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

given to the accompaniment of the kithara, the special
style of music cultivated in private life. The most
ancient monuments of the liturgic chant go back to
the boundary of the fourth and fifth centuries, when
the forms of worship began to be arrested in their
present shape. Like the Latin language, the Greco-
•Roman music entered in like manner into the Catholic
Church. Vocabulary and syntax are the same with the
pagan Symmachus and his contemporary St. Ambrose ;
modes and rules of musical composition are identical
in the hymns which Mesomedes addresses to the divini-
ties of paganism and in the cantilenas of the Christian
singers." " The compilation and composition of the
liturgic songs, which was traditionally ascribed to St.
Gregory I., is in truth a work of the Hellenic popes at
the end of the seventh and the beginning of the eighth
centuries. The Antiphonarium Missarum received its
definitive form between 682 and T15; the Antiphona-
rium Officii was already fixed under Pope Agathon
(678-681)." In the fourth century, according to
Gevaert, antiphons were already known in the East.
St. Ambrose is said to have transplanted them into the
West. Pope Celestine I. (422-472) has been called
the founder of the antiphonal song in the Roman
Church. Leo the Great (440-461) gave the song per-
manence by the establishment of a singing school in the
neighborhood of St. Peter's. Thus from the fifth cen-
tury to the latter part of the seventh grew the treasure
of melody, together with the unfolding of the liturgy.
The four authentic modes were adaptations of four
modes employed by the Greeks. The oldest chants

110

THE CATHOLIC RITUAL CHANT

are the simplest, and of those now in existence the
antiphons of the Divine Office can be traced farthest
back to the transition point from the Greco-Roman
practice to that of the Christian Church. The florid
chants were of later introduction, and were probably
the contribution of the Greek and Syrian Churches.^

The Christian chants were, however, no mere repro-
ductions of profane melodies. The groundwork of the
chant is alhed 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 unac-
companied, 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 litur-
gic 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 com-
pletely made out his case. The impossibility of verify-
ing the exact primitive form of the oldest chants, and
the almost complete disappearance of the Greco-Roman

1 Gevaert first announced his conclusions in a discourse pronounced at
a public session of the class in fine arts of the Academy of Belgium at
Brussels, and which was published in 1 890, under the title of Les Origines
du Chant Uturc/ique de V^glise latine. This essav was amplified five
years later into a volume of 446 pages, entitled La Me/ope'e antique dans
le Chant de V^glise latine. These works are published by Ad. JBoste
Ghent.

Ill

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

melodies which are supposed to be the antecedent or the
suggestion of the early Christian tone formulas, make
a positive demonstration in such a case out of the
question. Gevaert seems to rely mainly upon the iden-
tity of modes or kej^s which exists between the most
ancient church melodies and those most in use in the
kithara song. Other explanations, more or less plaus-
ible, have been advanced, and it is not impossible that
the simpler melodies may have arisen in an idealization
of the natural speech accent, with a view to procuring
measured and agreeable cadences. Both methods —
actual adaptations of older tunes and the spontaneous
enunciation of more obvious melodic formulas — may
have been alUed in the production of the earlier liturgic
chants. The laws that have been found valid in the
development of all art would make the derivation of
the ecclesiastical melodies from elements existing in the
environment of the early Church a logical and reason-
able supposition, even in the absence of documentary
evidence.

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 melo-
dies to the text of the office, composed by aid of their
memories, and their melodies were transmitted by mem-
ory, although probably with the help of arbitrary mne-
monic 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

112

THE CATHOLIC RITUAL CHANT

of the sixth century the Church became a sanctuary of
refuge from the evils of the time. With the revival
of religious zeal and the accession of strength the
Church flourished, basilicas and convents were multi-
plied, solemnities increased in number and splendor,
and with other liturgic elements the chant expanded.
A number of popes in the seventh century were enthusi-
astic lovers of Church music, and gave it the full bene-
fit of their authority. Among these were Gregory II.
and Gregory III., one of whom may have inadvertently
given his name to the chant.

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
8 vll3

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

same in the two modes. The modes are sometimes
transposed a fifth lower or a fourth higher by means
of flatting the B. During the epoch of the foundation
of the liturgic chant only the first eight modes (four
authentic and four plagal) were in use. The first four
authentic modes were popularly attributed to St. Am-
brose, bishop of Milan in the fourth century, and the
first four plagal to St. Gregory, but there is no historic
basis for this tradition. The last two modes are a later
addition to the system. The Greek names are those
by which the modes are popularly known, and indicate
a hypothetical connection with the ancient Greek scale
system.

Authentic Modes. Plagal Modes.

I. Dorian. II. Hypo-dorian.

i

a . -^^^

I^ ^ ^ '

g

III. Phrygian. IV. Hypo-phrygian.

iil^ZS

V. Lydian. VI. Hypo-lydian.

I

I

-^5h

i=E=^

-&-

P

VII. Mixo-lydian. VIII. Hvpo-mixo-lydian.

^^

114

THE CATHOLIC RITUAL CHANT

Later Additions.
IX. ^olian. X. Hypo-seolian.

i

y,. . ■ ■ - -^

-rr-^-^

XI. Ionian. XII. Hypo-ionian.

i

1 1 = ^ ii

Ez— -^^=^

^ ^ ^ ^

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 uni-
versal usage in the Middle Age. No privilege was more
freely accorded to the mediseval 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 ItaHan 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 mediseval Church, and which
may have come down, for anything we know to the
contrary, from remote antiquity. In fact, the require-
ment of singing the notes exactly as they are written
is a modem idea; no such rule was recognized as in-
variably binding until well into the nineteenth century.
It was no uncommon thing in Handel'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

115

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

vocal adroitness by which they were able to sprinkle the
plain notes of the chant with improvised embellish-
ments. " Moreover, there existed in the liturgic text
a certain number of words upon which the singers had
the liberty of dilating according to their fancy. Ac-
cording to an ancient Christian tradition, certain chants
were followed by a number of notes sung upon meaning-
less vowels ; these notes, called neumes ovjuhili^ rendered,
in accordance with a poetic thought, the faith and ado-
ration of the worshipers who appeared to be unable to
find words that could express their sentiments. These
vocalizations or embroideries were sometimes longer than
the chants themselves, and many authors complained
of the importance given to these vocal fantasies." ^
Among the mnemonic signs which, before the invention
of the staff and notation system, indicated the changes
of pitch to be observed by the singer, there were
many that unmistakably point to the traditional flour-
ishes which had become an integral element in the
Plain Song system. Many of these survived and were
carried over into secular music after the method of
chanting became more simple and severe. Similar li-
cense was also practised in the later period of part
singing, and not only in the rude early counterpoint
of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but even
in the highly developed and specialized chorus music
of the sixteenth century, the embellishments which
were reduced to a system and handed down by tradition,
gave to this art a style and effect the nature of which
has now fallen from the knowledge of men.

1 Lemaire, Le Chanty ses principes et son histoire.
116

THE CATHOLIC RITUAL CHANT

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. No-
where 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 con-
cert the strains of the litany of their church." ^ And
although the broad-minded Gregory instructed Augustine
not to insist upon supplanting witli the Roman use the
liturgy already employed in the older British churches if
such an attempt would create hostility, yet the Roman
chant was adopted both at Canterbury and York.

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. Famiharity 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

1 Green, Short History of the English People.
117

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

districts in order to learn it. Every monastery founded
in the savage forests of Germany, Gaul, or Britain became
at once a singing school, and day and night the holy
strains went up in unison with the melodies of the far
distant sacred city. The Anglo-Saxon monk Winfrid,
afterward known as Boniface, the famous missionary to
the Germans, planted the Roman liturgy in Thuringia
and Hesse, and devoted untiring efforts to teaching the
Gregorian song to his barbarous proselytes. In Spain,
Ildefonso, about 600, is enrolled among the zealous
promoters of sacred song according to the use of Rome.
Most eminent and most successful of all who labored for
the exclusive authority of the Roman chant as against
the Milanese, Galilean, and other rival forms was Charle-
magne, king of the Franks from 768 to 814, whose per-
sistent efforts to implant the Gregorian song in every
church and school in his wide dominions was an impor-
tant detail of his labor in the interest of liturgic unifor-
mity according to the Roman model.

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
m 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 learn-
ing, 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

118

THE CATHOLIC RITUAL CHANT

One of them, Romanus, was received and entertained by
the monks of St. Gall, and was persuaded to remain with
them as teacher of church song according to the Antiph-
onary which he had brought with him from Rome.
St. Gall soon became famous as a place where the pur-
est traditions of the Roman chant were taught and
practised. Schubiger, in his extremely interesting work,
Die Scingerschule St. G-allens vom VIIL-XIL Jahr-
hundert, has given an extended account of the methods
of devotional song in use at St. Gall, which may serve
as an illustration of the general practice among the
pious monks of the Middle Age :

" 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 re-
sounded daily in manifold and precisely ordered responses ;
^,t the midnight hour the sound of the Invitatorium, Venite
exuitamus Domino, opened the service of the nocturnal
vigils ; the prolonged, almost mournful tones of the re-
sponses 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 reechoed
the exalted strains of the Ambrosian hymn of praise (Te
Deum laudamus) ; at the first dawn of day began the morn-
ing adoration, with psalms and antiphons, hymr i and

119

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

prayers ; to these succeeded in due order the remaining
offices of the diurnal hours. The people were daily in-
vited by the Introit to participate in the holy mysteries ;
they heard in solemn stillness the tones of the Kyrie im-
ploring 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 after-
ward 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 perform-
ing 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 ofiice 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

120

THE CATHOLIC RITUAL CHANT

not permitted to take part. Distinctness, precise con-
formity 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 Ekke-
hard 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 litur-
gical hymns called Sequences, which includes some of
the finest examples of medigeval hymnody. At a very
earl}^ 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

121

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

form by the occasional repetition of a melodic strain.
He preserved a loose connection with the Alleluia by
retaining the mode and the first few tones. These ex-
periments found great favor in the eyes of the brethren
of St. Gall ; others followed Notker's example, and the
Sequence melodies were given honored places in the rit-
ual on festal days and various solemn occasions. The
custom spread ; Pope Nicholas I. in 860 permitted the
adoption of the new style of hymn into the liturgy.
The early Sequences were in rhythmic prose, but in the
hands of the ecclesiastical poets of the few centuries
following they were written in rhymed verse. The Se-
quence was therefore distinguished from other Latin
hymns only by its adoption into the office of the Mass
as a regular member of the liturgy on certain festal days.
The number increased to such large proportions that a
sifting process was deemed necessary, and upon the oc-
casion of the reform of the Missal through Pius V. after
the Council of Trent only five were retained, viz.^ Vic-
timae paschali, sung on Easter Sunday; Veni Sancte
Spiritus, appointed for Whit-Sunday; Lauda Sion, for
Corpus Christi ; Stabat Mater dolorosa, for Friday of
Passion Week; and Dies Irae, which forms a portion
of the Mass for the Dead.

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 Herv^,
iii the sixth century, who, blind from his birth, be-
came the inspirer and teacher of his brethren by

m

THE CATHOLIC RITUAL CHANT

means of his improvised songs, and the patron of
mendicant singers, who still chant his legend in
Breton verse. His mother, so one story goes, went
one day to visit him in the cloister, and, as she was ap-
proaching, said : " I see a procession of monks advancing,
and I hear the voice of my son. God be with you, my
son ! When, with the help of God, I get to heaven, you
shall be warned of it, you shall hear the angels sing."
The same evening she died, and her son, while at prayer
in his cell, heard the singing of the angels as they
welcomed her soul in heaven.^ According to another
legend, told by Gregory of Tours, a mother had taken
her only son to a monastery near Lake Geneva, where
he became a monk, and especially skiKul in chanting the
Hturgic service. " He fell sick and died ; his mother
in despair came to bury him, and returned every night
to weep and lament over his tomb. One night she saw
St. Maurice in a dream attempting to console her, but
she answered him, 'No, no; as long as I live I shall
always weep for my son, my only child I* *But,' an-
swered the saint, ' he must not be wept for as if he were
dead; he is with us, he rejoices in eternal life, and to-
morrow, at Matins, in the monastery, thou shalt hear his
voice among the choir of the monks ; and not to-morrow
only, but every day as long as thou livest.' The mother
immediately arose, and waited with impatience the first
sound of the bell for Matins, to hasten to the church of
the monks. The precentor having intoned the response,
when the monks in full choir took up the antiphon, the
mother immediately recognized the voice of her child.

1 Montalembert, The Monks of the West, vol. ii.
123

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

She gave thanks to God ; and every day for the rest of
her life, the moment she approached the choir she heard
the voice of her well-beloved son mingle in the sweet
and holy melody of the Uturgic chant." ^

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 recollect-
ing all that he saw ; and after he awoke a dove appeared,
who dictated to him the chants which are ascribed to
him. 2 Ambros quotes a mediaeval Latin chronicler,
Aurelian Reomensis, who relates that a blind man
named Victor, sitting one day before an altar in the Pan-
theon at Rome, by direct divine inspiration composed the
response Gaude Maria, and by a second miracle imme-
diately received his sight. Another story from the same
source tells how a monk of the convent of St. Victor,
while upon a neighboring mountain, heard angels sing-
ing the response Gives Apostolorum, and after his return
to Rome he taught the song to his brethren as he had
heard it.^

1 Montalembert, The Monks of the West, vol. ii.

2 Hid,

8 Ambros, Geschichte der Musik, vol. ii.

124

THE CATHOLIC RITUAL CHANT

In order to explain the feeling toward the liturgic
chant which is indicated by these legends and the rap-
turous 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, Hke
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-Cathohc as well as
Catholic may reverence it as a direct creation and a

^25

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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 considera-
tions 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 fasci-
nations 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 defer-
ence 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 cul-

126

THE CATHOLIC RITUAL CHANT

ture of the Gregorian chant. The tendency toward
sensationalism in church music has now begun to sub-
side. The true ideal is seen to be in the past. Together
with the new appreciation of Palestrina, Bach, and
the older Anglican Church composers, the Catholic
chant is coming to its rights, and an enlightened modern
taste is beginning to reahze the melodious beauty, the
liturgic appropriateness, and the edifying power that lie
in the ancient unison song. This movement is even now
only in its inception ; in the majority of church centres
there is still apathy, and in consequence corruption of
the old forms, crudity and coldness in execution. Much
has, however, been already achieved, and in the patient
and acute scholarship applied in the field of textual
criticism by the monks of Solesmes and the church
musicians of Paris, Brussels, and Regensburg, in the en-
thusiastic zeal shown in many churches and seminaries
of Europe and America for the attainment of a pure and
expressive style of delivery, and in the restoration of the
Plain Song to portions of the ritual from which it has
long been banished, we see evidences of a movement
which promises to be fruitful, not only in this special
sphere, but also, as a direct consequence, in other domains
of church music which have been too long neglected.

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

127

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

influence drawn from its peculiarly solemn and elevated
quality has begun to penetrate the chorus work of the
best Catholic composers of the recent time. Protestant
church musicians are also beginning to find advantage
in the study of the melody, the rhythm, the expression,
and even the tonality of the Gregorian song. And
every lover of church music will find a new pleasure
and uplift in listening to its noble strains. He must,
however, listen sympathetically, expelling from his mind
all comparison with the modern styles to which he is
accustomed, holding in clear view its historic relations
and liturgic function. To one who so attunes his mind
to its peculiar spirit and purport, the Gregorian Plain
Song will seem worthy of the exalted place it holds in
the veneration of the most august ecclesiastical institu-
tion in history.

ia»

CHAPTER V

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MEDIEVAL CHOKTJS MUSIC

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 Knes, 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 instru-
mental 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

1 The offices, chiefly conventual, in which the chant is employed
throughout are exceptions to the general rule.
S 129

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

runs its course, and if no new principle had been added
to this antique melodic method, European music would
have become petrified or else have gone on copying itself
indefinitely. But about the eleventh century a new
conception made its appearance, in which lay the assur-
ance of the whole magnificent art of modern music.
This new principle was that of harmony, the combina-
tion of two or more simultaneous and mutually depen-
dent parts. The importance of this discovery needs no
emphasis. It not only introduced an artistic agency
that is practically unlimited in scope and variety, but it
made music for the first time a free art, with its laws of
rhythm and structure no longer identical with those of
language, but drawn from the powers that lie inherent
in its own nature. Out of the impulse to combine two
or more parts together in complete freedom from the
constraints of verbal accent and prosody sprang the
second great school of church music, which, likewise
independent of instrumental accompaniment, developed
along purely vocal lines, and issued in the contrapuntal
chorus music which attained its maturity in the last half
of the sixteenth century.

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

130

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

in which are mingled echoes of worldly allurements,
it is not the chastened tone of pious assurance and self-
abnegation. The choral song developed in the ages of
faith is pervaded by the accents of that calm ecstasy
of trust and celestial anticipation which give to mediaeval
art that exquisite charm of naivete and sincerity never
again to be realized through the same medium, because
it is the unconscious expression of an unquestioning
simplicity of conviction which seems to have passed
away forever from the higher manifestations of the
human creative intellect.

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 me-
digeval architecture and plastic art ; yet he would prob-
ably 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 archi-
tecture, 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 Couutries, Paris, Rome, and Venice, who clothed

131

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

every prayer, hymn, and Scripture lesson with strains of
unique beauty and tenderness, are only names, if indeed
their names are known to him at all. Yet in sheer bulk
their works would doubtless be found to equal the whole
amount of the muSc of every kind that has been written
in the three centuries following their era ; while in
technical mastery and adaptation to its special end this
school is not unworthy of comparison with the more
brilliant and versatile art of the present day.

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 print-
ing 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
estabhshment 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 oper-
atic 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 pa-
trons, but this was only an incidental deflection from
their more serious duties as ritual composers. In qual-

132

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

ity as well as quantity the mediaeval chorus music was
not unworthy of comparison with the architectural,
sculptural, pictorial, and textile products which were
created in the same epoch and under the same auspices.
The world has never witnessed a more absorbed devotion
to a single artistic idea, neither has there existed since
the golden age of Greek sculpture another art form so
lofty in expression and so perfect in workmanship as the
polyphonic church chorus in the years of its maturity.
That style of musical art which was brought to fruition
by such men as Josquin des Pres, Orlandus Lassus,
Willaert, Palestrina, Vittoria, the Anerios, the Gabrielis,
and Lotti is not unworthy to be compared with the Gothic
cathedrals in whose epoch it arose and with the later tri-
umphs of Renaissance painting with which it culminated.
Of this remarkable achievement of genius the edu-
cated 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 admira-
tion 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 mod-
ern 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 per-
formed, and the difficulty and expense of musical per-
formance insure, as a general rule, the neglect of compo-
sitions 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

133

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

novelty and to neglect the antiquated. The revolution
in musical taste and practice which occurred early in the
seventeenth century — a revolution so complete that it
metamorphosed the whole conception of the nature and
purpose of music — swept all musical production off
into new directions, and the complex austere art of the
mediaeval Church was forgotten under the fascination of
the new Italian melody and the vivid rhythm and tone-
color of the orchestra. Since then the tide of invention
has never paused long enough to enable the world at
large to turn its thought to the forsaken treasures of the
past. Moreover, only a comparatively minute part of
this multitude of old works has ever been printed, much
of it has been lost, the greater portion lies buried in the
dust of libraries ; whatever is accessible must be released
from an abstruse and obsolete system of notation, and
the methods of performance, which conditioned a large
measure of its effect, must be restored under the uncer-
tain guidance of tradition. The usages of chorus singing
in the present era do not prepare singers to cope with
the peculiar difficulties of the a eapella style ; a special
education and an unwonted mode of feeling are required
for an appreciation of its appropriateness and beauty.
Nevertheless, such is its inherent vitality, so magical is
its attraction to one who has come into complete har-
mony with its spirit, so true is it as an exponent of the
mystical submissive type of piety which always tends to
reassert itself in a rationalistic age like the present, that
the minds of churchmen are gradually returning to it,
and scholars and musical directors are tempting it forth
from its seclusion. Societies are founded for its study,

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

choirs in some of the most influential church centres are
adding mediaeval works to their repertories, journals and
schools are laboring in its interest, and its influence is
insinuating itself into the modern mass and anthem,
lending to the modern forms a more elevated and spirit-
ual quality. Little by little the world of culture is
becoming enlightened in respect to the unique beauty
and refinement of this form of art ; and the more intelli-
gent study of the Middle Age, which has now taken the
place of the former prejudiced misinterpretation, is form-
ing an attitude of mind that is capable of a sympathetic
response to this most exquisite and characteristic of all
the products of mediaeval genius.

In order to seize the full significance of this school of
Catholic music in its mature stage in the sixteenth cen-
tury, 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 to-
day 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

135

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

melody, rhythmically controlled by prose accent and
measure, was incapable of further development, and it
was impossible that music should remain at a standstill
while all the other arts were undergoing the pains of
growth. The movement which elicited the art of choral
song from the latent powers of the liturgic chant was
identical with the tendency which evolved Gothic and
Renaissance architecture, sculpture, and painting out of
Roman and Byzantine art. Melody unsupported soon
runs its course ; harmony, music in parts, with contrast
of consonance and dissonance, dynamics, and light and
shade, must supplement melody, adding more opulent
resources to the simple charm of tone and rhythm. The
science of harmony, at least in the modern sense, was
unknown in antiquity, and the Gregorian chant was but
the projection of the antique usage into the modern
world. The history of modern European music, there-
fore, begins with the first authentic instances of sing-
ing in two or more semi-independent parts, these parts
being subjected to a definite proportional notation.

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 dis-
tinct account, with rules for performance, of a diver-
gence 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

136

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

oblique, and sometimes contrary. The author of this
manuscript makes no claim to the invention of this
manner of singing, but alludes to it as something already
well known. Much speculation has been expended
upon the question of the origin and purpose of the first
form of this barbarous organum or diaphony, as it was
called. Some conjecture that it was suggested by the
sound of the ancient Keltic stringed instrument crowth
or crotta, which was tuned in fifths and had a flat
finger-board ; others find in it an imitation of the early
organ with its several rows of pipes sounding fifths
like a modern mixture stop ; while others suppose,
with some reason, that it was a survival of a fashion
practised among the Greeks and Romans. The impor-
tance of the organum in music history has, however,
been greatly overrated, for properly speaking it was not
harmony or part singing at all, but only another kind of
unison. Even the second form of organum was but
little nearer the final goal, for the attendant note series
was not free enough to be called an organic element in
a harmonic structure. As soon, however, as the accom-
panying part was allowed ever so little unconstrained
life of its own, the first steps in genuine part writing were
taken, and a new epoch in musical history had begun.

Example of Organum or Diaphony, First Species.

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137

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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Example of Organum or Diaphony, Second Species.

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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 harmonj^- and counterpoint, was slowly estab-
lished. It must be borne in mind, as the clue to all
mediseval music, that the practice of tone combination
involved no idea whatever of chords, as modern theory
conceives them. The characteristic principle of the vastly

138

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

preponderating portion of the music of 'the last three
centuries is harmony, technically so called, i. e., chords,
solid or distributed, out of which melody is primarily
evolved. Homophony, monody — one part sustaining
the tune while all others serve as the support and, so to
speak, the coloring material also — is now the ruling
postulate. The chorus music of Europe down to the
seventeenth century was, on the other hand, based on
melody; the composer never thought of his combination
as chords, but worked, we might say, horizontally, weav-
ing together several semi-independent melodies into a
flexible and accordant tissue.^

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 bor-
rowed, 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

1 This distinction between harmony and counterpoint is fundamental,
but no space can be given here to its further elucidation. The point will
easily be made clear by comparing an ordinary modern hymn tune with
the first section of a fugue.

139

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHtfUCH

results at first childishly awkward, but with growing
ease and smoothness. Free invention of the accompany-

EXAMPLE OF DiSCANT IN ThREE PaRTS WITH DIFFERENT

Words (Twelfth Century).

From Cousseraaker, Histoire de Vharmonie au moyen age. Translated
into modern notation.

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140

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

i

g^^jgEpte^E^ II

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tu

ing parts took the place of the custom of borrowing
the entire melodic framework, for while two borrowed
themes might fit each other, it was practically impossible
to find three that would do so without almost complete
alteration. As a scientific method of writing developed,
with the combination of parallel and contrary motion,
the term discant gave way to counterpoint (Liit. punctus
contra punctum). But there was never any thought of
inventing the cantus firmus ; this was invariably taken
from a ritual book or a popular tune, and the whole art
of composition consisted in fabricating melodic figures
that would unite with it in an agreeable synthesis.
These contrapuntal devices, at first simple and often
harsh, under the inevitable law of evolution became
more free and mellifluous at the same time that they
became more complex. The primitive discant was one
note against one note ; later the accompanying part was
allowed to sing several notes against one of the cantus
firmus. Another early form consisted of notes inter-
rupted by rests. In the twelfth century such progress
had been made that thirds and sixths were abundantly
admitted, dissonant intervals ^ere made to resolve upon

141

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

consonances, consecutive fifths were avoided, passing
notes and embellishments were used in the accompany-
ing voices, and the beginnings of double counterpoint
and imitation appeared. Little advance was made in the
thirteenth century ; music was still chiefly a matter of
scholastic theory, a mechanical handicraft. Considerable
dexterity had been attained in the handling of three
simultaneous, independent parts. Contrary and parallel
motion alternating for variety's sake, contrast of con-
sonance and dissonance, a system of notation by which
time values as well as differences of pitch could be indi-
cated, together with a recognition of the importance of
rhythm as an ingredient in musical effect, — all this
foreshadowed the time when the material of tonal art
would be plastic in the composer's hand, and he would
be able to mould it into forms of fluent grace, pregnant
with meaning. This final goal was still far away ; the
dull, plodding round of apprenticeship must go on
through the fourteenth century also, and the whole
conscious aim of effort must be directed to the in-
vention of scientific combinations which might ulti-
mately provide a vehicle for the freer action of the
imagination.

The period from the eleventh to the fifteenth centu-
ries 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

142

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

varied, rich, and euphonious pattern. Any one of these
parts might for the moment hold the place of the lead-
ing part which the others were constrained to follow
through the mazes of the design. Hence the term poly-
phonic, i. e., many-voiced. Although each voice part
was as important as any other in this hving musical
texture, yet each section took its cue from a single mel-
ody — a fragment of a Gregorian chant or a folk-tune
and called the cantus firmus, and also known as the
tenor, from teyieo, to hold — and the voice that gave out
this melody came to be called the tenor voice. In the
later phases of this art the first utterance of the theme
was assigned indifferently to any one of the voice parts.

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 secur-
ing 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 approxi-
mate 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 net-
work of parts thus revealing itself as a coherent organism
rather than a fortuitous conjunction of notes, the com-
poser'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

143

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

the exclusive regime of the unison chant, there was
gradually developed a system of square-headed notes,
together with a staff of lines and spaces. But instead
of simplicity a bewildering complexity reigned for cen-
turies. Many clefs were used, shifting their place on
the staff in order to keep the notes within the lines ;
subtleties, many and deep, were introduced, and the
matter of rhythm, key relations, contrapuntal structure,
and method of singing became a thing abstruse and re-
condite. Composition was more like algebraic calcula-
tion than free art ; symbolisms of trinity and unity, of
perfect and imperfect, were entangled in the notation, to
the delight of the ingenious monkish intellect and the
despair of the neophyte and the modern student of medi-
aeval manuscripts. Progress was slowest at the begin-
ning. It seemed an interminable task to learn to put a
number of parts together with any degree of ease, and
for many generations after it was first attempted the
results were harsh and uncouth.

Even taking into account the obstacles to rapid de-
velopment which exist in the very nature of music as
the most abstract of the arts, it seems difficult to under-
stand 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 expres-
sive melody in the song and instrumental play of the
common people. But the monkish musicians and chor-
isters 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

144

MEDIAEVAL CHORUS MtJSIC

their pride. They had become infatuated with the for-
mal 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 clois-
tered 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 over-
come a smile at the futility of their devices. Practice and
theory did not always work amiably together. In study-
ing 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 accoid.-
ing to their good pleasure. These adornments were
sometimes carefully thought out, incorporated into the
stated method of delivery, and handed down as tradi-
tions.^ But it is evident that in the earlier days of
counterpoint these variations were often extemporized
on the spur of the moment. The result of this habit on
the part of singers who were ignorant of the laws of
musical consonance and proportion, and whose ears were
as dull as their understandings, could easily be conceived
even if we did not have before us the indignant testi-

1 Mendelssohn, in his letter to Zelter describing the music of the Six-
tine Chapel, is enthusiastic over the beautiful effect of the abellimenti i¥
Allegri's Miserere.

)0 .145

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

mony of many musicians and churchmen of the period.
Jean Cotton, in the eleventh century, says that he could
only compare the singers with drunken men, who indeed
find their way home, but do not know how they get
there. The learned theorist, Jean de Muris, of the
fourteenth century, exclaims : " How can men have the
face to sing discant who know nothing of the combina-
tion of sounds! Their voices roam around the cantus
firmus without regard to any rule; they throw their
tones out by luck, just as an unskilful thrower hurls a
stone, hitting the mark once in a hundred casts." As
he broods over the abuse his wrath increases. " O
roughness, O bestiality ! taking an ass for a man, a kid
for a lion, a sheep for a fish. They cannot tell a conso-
nance from a dissonance. They are like a blind man
trying to strike a dog." Another censor apostrophizes
the singers thus : " Does such oxen bellowing belong in
the Church ? Is it believed that God can be graciously
inclined by such an uproar?" Oelred, the Scottish
abbot of Riverby in the twelfth century, rails at the
singers for jumbhng the tones together in every kind of
distoi'tion, for imitating the whinnying of horses, or
(worst of all in his eyes) sharpening their voices like
those of women. He tells how the singers bring in the
aid of absurd gestures to enhance the effect of their pre-
posterous strains, swaying their bodies, twisting their
lips, rolling their eyes, and bending their fingers, with
each note. A number of popes, notably John XXH.,
tried to suppress these offences, but the extemporized
discant was too fascinating a pla}i;hing to be dropped,
and ridicule and pontifical rebuke were alike powerless.

146

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

Such abuses were, of course, not universal, perhaps
not general, — as to that we cannot tell ; but they illus-
trate 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 every-
thing 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 musi-
cians was addressed to the enrichment of the church ser-
vice, 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 origi-
nated 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

147

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

(eleventh century), who discarded his well-beloved wife
at the command of Pope Gregory V. because she was
his second cousin, who held himseK pure and magnani-
mous in the midst of a fierce and corrupt age, and who
composed many beautiful hymns, including (as is gen-
erally agreed) the exquisite Sequence, Veni Sancte
Spiritus. He was accustomed to lead the choir in 'his
chapel by voice and gesture. He carried on all his jour-
neys a little prayer chamber in the form of a tent, in
which he sang at the stated daily hours to the praise of
God. Louis IX. also, worthily canonized for the holi-
ness of his life, made the cultivation of church song one
of the most urgent of his duties. Every day he heard
two Masses, sometimes three or four. At the canonical
hours hymns and prayers were chanted by his chapel
choir, and even on his crusades his choristers went
before him on the march, singing the office for the day,
and the king, a priest by his side, sang in a low voice
after them. Rulers of a precisely opposite character,
the craftiest and most violent in a guileful and brutal
age, were zealous patrons of church music. Even dur-
ing that era of slaughter and misery when the French
kingship was striding to supremacy over the bodies of
the great vassals, and struggling with England for very
existence in the One Hundred Years' War, the art of
music steadily advanced, and the royal and ducal chapels
flourished. Amid such conditions and under such patron-
age accomplished musicians were nurtured in France
and the Low Countries, and thence they went forth to
teach all Europe the noble art of counterpoint.

About the year 1350 church music had cast off its

148

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

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 cen-
tury. 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 Netherland-
ers." With limitless patience and cunning, the French
and Netherland musical artificers applied themselves
to the problems of counterpoint, producing works enor-
mous 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 circum-

U9

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

stances ; a highly sophisticated symbolism was invented,
known as " riddle canons," by which adepts were enabled
to improvise accompanying parts to the cantus firmus;
and counterpoint, single and double, augmented and
diminished, direct, inverted, and retrograde, became at
once the end and the means of musical endeavor.
Rhythm was obscured and the words almost hopelessly
I lost in the web of crossing parts. The cantus firmus^
' often extended into notes of portentous length, lost all
expressive quality, and was treated only as a thread
upon which this closely woven fabric was strung. Com-
posers occupied themselves by preference with the me-
chanical side of music ; quite unimaginative, they were
absorbed in solving technical problems ; and so they
went on piling up difficulties for their fellow-craftsmen
to match, making music for the eye rather than for the
ear, for the logical faculty rather than for the fancy or
the emotion.

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 adjust-
ment of phrases into bolder and more symmetrical pat-
terns. Even among the master fabricators of musical
labyrinths we find glimpses of a recognition of the true

150

MEDIAEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

final aim of music, a soul dwelling in the tangled skeins
of their polyphony, a grace and inwardness of expression
comparable to the poetic suggestiveness which shines
through the naive and often rude forms of Gothic
sculpture. The growing fondness on the part of the
austere church musicians for the setting of secular
poems — madrigals, chansons, villanellas, and the like
— in polyphonic style gradually brought in a simpler
construction, more obvious melody, and a more char-
acteristic and pertinent expression, which reacted upon
the mass and motet in the promotion of a more direct
and flexible manner of treatment. The stile famigliare,
in which the song moves note against note, syllable
against syllable, suggesting modern chord progression,
is no invention of Palestrina, with whose name it is
commonly associated, but appears in many episodes
in the works of his Netherland masters.

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 devotignal expression. Palestrina was more
than a flawless artist, more than an Andrea del Sarto ;
he was so representative of that inner spirit which has

151

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

Tittered itself in the most sincere works of Catholic art
that the very heart of the institution to which he de-
voted 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 ser-
vice 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 includ-
ing 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 Pales-
trina. 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 his-
toric 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 com-
position — the Mass of Pope Marcellus — was per-
formed before a commission of cardinals, and that its
beauty and refinement so impressed the judges that
polyphonic music was saved and Palestrina's style pro-

152

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

claimed as the most perfect model of artistic music.
This tale has undergone gradual reduction until it has
been found that the Council of Trent contented itself
with simply recommending to the bishops that they
exclude from the churches *' all musical compositions in
which anything impure or lascivious is mingled," yet
not attempting to define what was meant by " impure "
and " lascivious." The commission of cardinals had
jurisdiction only over some minor questions of discipline
in the papal choir, and if Palestrina had the mass in
question sung before them (which is doubtful) it had
certainly been composed a number of years earlier.

Certain abuses that called for correction there doubt-
less were in church music in this period. The preva-
lent practice of borrowing themes from secular songs
for the cantus Jirmus, 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 stand-
point of propriety, although the intention was never
profane, and the impression received was not sacrilegious.
Moreover, the song of the Church had at times be-
come 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

153

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

form of music, setting the reception of the sacred text
so far above the pleasure of the sense that all artistic
embellishment seems to them profanation. This class
was represented at the Council of Trent, but it was
never in the majority, and never strenuous for the total
abolition of figured music. No reform was instituted
but such as would have come about inevitably from the
ever-increasing refinement of the art and the assertion
of the nobler traditions of the Church in the Counter-
Reformation. An elevation of the ideal of church music
there doubtless was at this time, and the genius of
Palestrina was one of the most potent factors in its pro-
motion; but it was a natural growth, not a violent
turning of direction.

The dissipation of the halo of special beatification
which certain early worshipers of Palestrina have
attempted to throw about the Mass of Pope Mar-
cellus 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 Pres, Orlandus
Lassus, Goudimel, and many others had written music
in the same style, just as chaste and subdued, with the

154

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

same ideal in mind, and almost as perfectly beautiful.
It is not a simple work, letting the text stand forth in
clear and obvious relief, as the legend would require.
It is a masterpiece of construction, abounding in techni-
cal subtleties, differing from the purest work of the
Netherlanders only in being even more delicately tinted
and sweet in melody than the best of them could attain.
It was in the quality of melodious grace that Palestrina
soared above his Netherland masters. Melody, as we
know, is the peculiar endowment of the Italians, and
Palestrina, a typical son of Italy, crowned the Nether-
land science with an ethereal grace of movement which
completed once for all the four hundred years' striving
of contrapuntal art, and made it stand forth among
the artistic creations of the Middle Age perhaps the
most divinely radiant of them all.

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 Cath-
olic Church was under condemnation, not only by its
enemies, but also by many of its grieving friends, for its
pohtical 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 pohtical and
intellectual turmoil. That a reform " in head and mem-

155

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

bers " was indeed needed is established not by the accusa-
tions of hostile witnesses alone, but by the demands of
many of the staunchest prelates of the time and the admis-
sions of unimpeachable Catholic historians. But, as the
sequel proved, it was the head far more than the mem-
bers that required surgery. The lust for sensual enjoy-
ments, personal and family aggrandizement, and the
pomp and luxury of worldly power, which had made the
papacy of the fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth
centuries a byword in Europe, the decline of faith in
the early ideals of the Church, the excesses of physical
and emotional indulgence which came in with the Re-
naissance as a natural reaction against mediaeval repres-
sion, — all this had produced a moral degeneracy in
Rome and its dependencies which can hardly be exag-
gerated. But the assertion that the Catholic Church at
large, or even in Rome, was wholly given over to cor-
ruption and formalism is sufficiently refuted by the sub-
lime manifestation of moral force which issued in the
Catholic Reaction and the Counter-Reformation, the de-
crees of the Council of Trent, and the deeds of such
moral heroes as Carlo Borromeo, Phillip Neri, Ignatius
Loyola, Francis Xavier, Theresa of Jesus, Francis de
Sales, Vincent de Paul, and the founders and leaders of
the Capuchins, Theatines, Ursulines, and other benefi-
cent religious orders, whose lives and achievements are
the glory not only of Catholicism, but of the human race.
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

156

MEDIAEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

his compeers. These men were nurtured in the cloisters
and choirs. The Church was their sole patron, and no
higher privilege could be conceived by them than that
of lending their powers to the service of that sublime
institution into which their lives were absorbed. They
were not agitated by the political and doctrinal ferment
of the day. No sphere of activity could more completely
remove a man from mundane influences than the em-
ployment of a church musician of that period. The
abstract nature of music as an art, together with the en-
grossing routine of a liturgic office, kept these men, as it
were, close to the inner sanctuary of their religion, where
the ecclesiastical traditions were strongest and purest.
The music of the Church in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries was unaffected by the influences which had
done so much to make other forms of Italian art min-
isters to pride and sensual gratification. Music, through
its very Hmitations, possessed no means of flattering the
appetites of an Alexander VI., the luxurious tastes of a
Leo X., or the inordinate pride of a Julius II. It was
perforce allowed to develop unconstrained along the line
of austere tradition. Art forms seem often to be under
the control of a law which requires that when once set
in motion they must run their course independently of
changes in their environment. These two factors, there-
fore, — the compulsion of an advancing art demanding
completion, and the uncontaminated springs of piety
whence the liturgy and its musical setting drew their
life, — will explain the splendid achievements of religious
music in the hands of the Catholic composers of the
sixteenth century amid conditions which would at first

157

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

thought seem unfavorable to the nurture of an art so
pure and austere.

Under such influences, impelled by a zeal for the
glory of God and the honor of his Church, the poly-
phony of the Netherland school put forth its consum-
mate 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 sohdity 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 blend-
ing 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
mediseval 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 jone key to another by
means of the introduction of notes that do not exist in
the first, give opportunities for effect which are not ob-
tainable in music based upon the Gregorian modes, for
the reason that these modes do not differ ih the notes
employed (since they include only the notes repre-
sented 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 conception
of music based on the latter system is, strictly speaking,

158

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

melodic, not harmonic in the modem technical sense,
and the resulting combinations of sounds are not con-
ceived as chords built upon a certain tone taken as a
fundamental, but rather as consequences of the conjunc-
tion of horizontally moving series of single notes. The
harmony, therefore, seems both vague and monotonous
to the ear trained in accordance with the laws of modern
music, because, in addition to being almost purely dia-
tonic, it lacks the stable pivotal points which give sym-
metry, contrast, and cohesion to modern tone structure.
The old system admits chromatic changes but sparingly,
chiefly in order to provide a leading tone in a cadence,
or to obviate an objectionable melodic interval. Conse-
quently there is little of what we should call variety or
positive color quahty. There is no pronounced leading
melody to which the other parts are subordinate. The
theme consists of a few chant-like notes, speedily taken
up by one voice after another under control of the prin-
ciple of " imitation." For the same reasons the succes-
sion of phrases, periods, and sections which constitutes
the architectonic principle of form in modern music does
not appear. Even in the " familiar style," in which the
parts move together like blocks of chords of equal
length, the impHed principle is melodic in all the voices,
not tune above and accompaniment beneath ; and the
progression is not guided by the necessity of revolving
about mutually supporting tone-centres.

In this " familiar style " which we may trace back-
ward 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,

U9

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

caught perhaps from the popular music with which
the most scientific composers of the fifteenth and six-
teenth centuries always kept closely in touch, is some-
times evident for brief moments, but never carried out
systematically to the end. This plain style is employed in
hymns and short sentences, in connection with texts of
an especially mournful or pleading expression, as, for
instance, the Improperia and the Miserere, or, for con-
trast's sake, in the more tranquil passages of masses or
motets. It is a style that is peculiarly tender and gra-
cious, and may be found reflected in the sweetest of
modem Latin and English hymn-tunes. In the absence
of chromatic changes it is the most serene form of music
in existence, and is suggestive of the confidence and re-
pose of spirit which is the most refined essence of the
devotional mood.

ExAHFLB OF THE SiMPLE Style {stUe famigliare). Palestbinjl.
Soprano. ^-— ^

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Mt:

l-l^H

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O bo - ne Je - su!
Alto.

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3:

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160

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

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161

re- de

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sti

nos

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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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 he in one voice while the others act as accom-
paniment, 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 cross-
ing each other, each melody apparently quite regardless
of its mates in respect to the time of beginning, culmi-
nating, 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 move-

162

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

ment is like a series of waves ; no sooner is the mind
fixed upon one than it is lost in the ordered confusion of
those that follow. The music seems also to have no ;^'
definite rhythm. Each single voice part is indeed
rhythmical, as a sentence of prose may be rhythmical,
but since the melodic constituents come in upon differ-
ent parts of the measure, one culminating at one moment,
another at another, the parts often crossing each other,
so that while the mind may be fixed upon one melody
which seems to lead, another, which has been coming up
from below, strikes in across the field, — the result of all
this is that the attention is constantly being dislodged
from one tonal centre and shifted to another, and the
whole scheme of design seems without form, a fluctu-
ating mass swayed hither and thither without coherent
plan. The music does not lack dynamic change or
alteration of speed, but these contrasts are often so •
subtly graded that it is not apparent where they begin
or end. The whole effect is measured, subdued, solemn.
We are never startled, there is nothing that sets the
nerves throbbing. But as we hear this music again and
again, analyzing its properties, shutting out all precon-
ceptions, little by little there steal! over us sensations of ^
surprise, then of wonder, then of admiration. These
delicately shaded harmonies develop unimagined beau-
ties. Without sharp contrast of dissonance and conso-
nance they are yet full of shifting lights and hues, like
a meadow under breeze and sunshine, which to the care-
less eye seems only a mass of unvarying green^but
which reveals to the keener sense infinite modulation of
the scale of color. No melody lies conspicuous upon

163

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

the surface, but the whole harmonic substance is full of
undulating melody, each voice pursuing its confident,
unfettered motion amid the ingenious complexity of
which it is a constituent part.

Fragment of Kyrie, from the Mass of Pope Marcellus. No-
VELLo's Edition. Palestrina.

i

Soprano I.

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Ky - rie e - lei
Soprano II.

son, . . Ky -

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Ky - rie e - lei
Alto I.

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Ky

rie e - lei

Alto II. & Tenor.

Ky .

Bass I.

m^

Bass II.

s:

Ky

164

ne e

lei -

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC \

In considering further the technical methods and the
final aims of this marvellous style, we find in its cul-
minating period that the crown of the mediaeval contra-
puntal art upon its aesthetic side lies in the attainment
of beauty of tone effect in and of itself — the gratifica-
tion of the sensuous ear, rich and subtly modulated
sound quality, not in the individual boys' and men's

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165

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

voices, but in the distribution and combination of voices
of different timbre. That mastery toward which orches-
tral composers have been striving during the past one
hundred years — the union and contrast of stringed and
wind instruments for the production of impressions
upon the ear analogous to those produced upon the eye
by the color of a Rembrandt or a Titian — this was also
sought, and, so far as the slender means went, achieved
in a wonderful degree by the tone-masters of the Roman

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son, Ky -

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Ky

rie 6 - lei

166

- son,

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

and Venetian schools. The chorus, we must remind
ourselves, was not dependent upon an accompaniment,
and sensuous beauty of tone must, therefore, result not
merely from the individual quality of the voices, but
still more from the manner in which the notes were
grouped. The distribution of the components of a chord
in order to produce the greatest sonority ; the alternation
of the lower voices mth the higher ; the eUmination of
voices as a section approached its close, until the har-
mony was reduced at the last syllable to two higher
voices in pianissimo^ as though the strain were vanishing
into the upper air ; the resolution of tangled polyphony
into a sun-burst of open golden chords ; the subtle in-
trusion of veiled dissonances into the fluent gleaming
concord ; the skiKul blending of the vocal registers for
the production of exquisite contrasts of light and shade,
— these and many other devices were employed for the
attainment of delicate and lustrous sound tints, with
results to which modern chorus writing affords no par-
allel. The culmination of this tendency could not be
reached until the art of interweaving voices according to
regular but flexible patterns had been fully mastered,
and composers had learned to lead their parts with the
confidence with which the engraver traces his lines to
shape them into designs of beauty.

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 in-
ferior to his, — primus inter pares, Orlandus Lassus in

167

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

Munich, Willaert, and the two Gabrielis, Andrea and
Giovanni, and Croce in Venice, the Naninis, Vittoria,
and the Anerios in Rome, Tallis in England, are names
which do not pale when placed beside that of the
" prince of music." Venice, particularly, was a worthy-
rival of Rome in the sphere of church song. The cata-
logue of her musicians who flourished in the sixteenth
and early part of the seventeenth centuries contains the
names of men who were truly sovereigns in their art,
not inferior to Palestrina in science, compensating for a
comparative lack of the super-refined delicacy and trem-
ulous pathos which distinguished the Romans by a
larger emphasis upon contrast, color variety, and char-
acteristic expression. It was as though the splendors
of Venetian painting had been emulated, although in
reduced shades, by these masters of Venetian music.
In admitting into their works contrivances for effect
which anticipated a coming revolution in musical art,
the Venetians, rather than the Romans, form the con-
necting link between mediseval and modern rehgious
music. In the Venetian school we find triumphing
over the ineffable calmness and remote impersonality of
the Romans a more individual quality — a strain almost
of passion and stress, and a far greater sonority and
pomp. Chromatic changes, at first irregular and un-
systematized, come gradually into use as a means of at-
taining greater intensity ; dissonances become more
pronounced, foreshadowing the change of key system
with all its consequences. The contrapuntal leading of
parts, in whose cunning labyrinths the expression of
feeling through melody strove to lose itself, tended

168

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

under the different ideal cherished by the Venetians to
condense into more massive harmonies, with bolder out-
lines and melody rising into more obvious relief. As
far back as the early decades of the sixteenth century
Venice had begun to loosen the bands of mediaeval
choral law, and by a freer use of dissonances to prepare
the ear for a new order of perceptions. The unprece-
dented importance given to the organ by the Venetian
church composers, and the appearance of the beginnings
of an independent organ style, also contributed strongly
to the furtherance of the new tendencies. In this
broader outlook, more individual stamp, and more self-
conscious aim toward brilliancy the music of Venice
simply shared those impulses that manifested themselves
in the gorgeous canvases of her great painters and in
the regal splendors of her public spectacles.

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 embelhsh the
externals of the church solemnities was eagerly adopted.
All the most distinguished members of the line of Vene-
tian 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

169

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

novel effects of contrast and climax by means of antiph-
onal chorus singing. The hint was given to Willaert
by the construction of the church, which contains two
music galleries opposite each other, each with its organ.
The freer use of dissonances, so characteristic of the
adventurous spirit of the Venetian composers, first be-
came a significant trait in the writings of Willaert.

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 Wil-
laert'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 consist-
ing 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 ex-
pression, ' 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,

170

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

nor from a single one entire, but from selected voices
from each choir in full-toned interwoven parts. We
shall not attempt to describe how energetic and fiery the
song, * Let all the people praise thee, O God,' pours forth
from the choirs in alternation ; how tastefully the master
proclaims the words, ' Let the nations be glad and sing
for joy,' through change of measure and limitation to
selected voices from all the choirs ; how the words, * And
God shall bless us,' are uttered in solemn masses of
choral song. Language could give but a feeble sugges-
tion of the magnificence of this music." ^

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 six-
teenth 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 per-
mitted such innovation. So we see the first upspring-
ing 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 po-
tency of a new art. Of these far-sighted experiment-
ers Giovanni Gabrieli was easily chief. Consummate

^ Winterfeld, Johannes Gabrieli und sein Zeitalter.

171

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

master of the ancient forms, he laid the first pier of the
arch which was to connect two epochs ; honoring the
old traditions by his achievements in chorns music,' and
leading his disciples to perceive possibilities of expres-
sion which were to respond to the needs of a new age.
Another composer of the foremost rank demands at-
tention before we take leave of the mediaeval contra-
puntal 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 sub-
ject 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 approach-
ing 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 dra-
matic. 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

172

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

strongly in the learned music of his time. Lassus has
more significance in the development of music than
Palestrina, for the latter's absorption in liturgic duties
kept him within much narrower boundaries. Pales-
trina's music is permeated with the spirit of the liturgic
chant ; that of Lassus with the racier quality of the
folk-song. Lassus, although his rehgious devotion can-
not be questioned, had the temper of a citizen of the
world ; Palestrina that of a man of the cloister. Pales-
trina's music reaches a height of ecstasy which Lassus
never approached; the latter is more instructive in
respect to the tendencies of the time.

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 impres-
sions drawn from its rehgious and historic associations.
Only the devout Catholic can 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
rehgious music — rituahstic rehgious music — identified

173

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

with what is most solemn and suggestive in the tradi-
tions and ordinances of an ancient faith, that this anti-
quated form of art makes its appeal to modern taste.
No other phase of music is so dependent upon its setting.

There can be no question that the Catholic Church
has always endeavored, albeit with a great deal of wav-
ering 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 in-
junctions of popes, prelates, councils, and synods for
century after century have always held the same
tone upon this question. They have earnestly re-
minded 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 locaUties. 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 wliich
the heads of the Catholic Church have maintained in
precept and so often permitted to be ignored in prac-
tice? What have been the causes and the results of
the secularization of religious art, particularly music?

174

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

These questions are of the greatest practical interest
to the student of church music, and the answers to
them will form the centre around which all that I
have to say from this point about Catholic music will
mainly turn.

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. Eccle-
siastical 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

176

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

expositor for thousands, a transmitter and preserver
of great ideas for all the centuries." ^ The Catholic
Church in her art would subject the literal to the
ideal, the particular to the general, the definitive to the
symbolic. " The phrase ' emancipation of the individ-
ual,' " says Jakob again, " is not heard in the Church.
Art history teaches that the Church does not oppose
the individual conception, but simply restrains that
false freedom which would make art the servant of
personal caprice or of fashion."

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 fa-
vorable conditions that it has been strictly enforced.
Whenever art reaches a certain point in development,
individual determination invariably succeeds in break-
ing away from tradition. The attainment of technic,
attended by the inevitable pride in technic, liberates
its possessors. The spirit of the Italian religious paints
ers of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, con-
tent 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 treat-
ment 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 fol-
lowed where pure art has decayed, or where no real
appreciation of art ever existed. The stage of church

1 Jakob^ Die Kunst im Dienste der Kirche.
176

Medieval chorus music

art in its purest and most edifying form is, therefore,
only temporary. It exists in the adolescent period of
an art, before the achievement of technical skill arouses
desire for its unhampered exercise, and when religious
ideas are at the same time dominant and pervasive.
Neither is doubt to be cast upon the sincerity of the
religious motive in this phase of art growth when we
discover that its technical methods are identical with
those of secular art at the same period. In fact, this
general and conventional style which the Church finds
suited to her ends is most truly characteristic when
the artists have virtually no choice in their methods.
The motive of the Gothic cathedral builders was no
less religious because their modes of construction and
decoration were also common to the civic and domestic
arcliitecture of the time. A distinctive ecclesiastical
style has never developed in rivalry with contemporary
tendencies in secular art, but only in unison with them. ,
The historic church styles are also secular styles, car-
ried to the highest practicable degree of refinement and
splendor. These styles persist in the Church after they
have disappeared in the mutations of secular art ; they
become sanctified by time and by the awe which the
claim of supernatural commission inspires, and the
world at last comes to think of them as inherently
rather than conventionally religious.

All these principles must be applied to the sixteenth-
century a capella music. In fact, there is no better illus-
tration; its meaning and effect cannot be otherwise
understood. Growing up under what seem perfectly nat-
ural conditions, patronized by the laity as well as by the
12 177

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

» clergy, this highly organized, severe, and impersonal style
was seen, even before the period of its maturity, to con-
form to the ideal of liturgic art cherished by the Church ;
and now that it has become completely isolated in the
march of musical progress, this conformity appears even
more obvious under contrast. No other form of chorus
music has existed so objective and impersonal, so free from
the stress and stir of passion, so plainly reflecting an
exalted spiritualized state of feeling. This music is
singularly adapted to reinforce the impression of the
^^IjriCatholic mysteries )by reason of its technical form and
its peculiar emotional appeal. The devotional mood that
is especially nurtured by the Cathohc religious exercises
is absorbed and mystical; the devotee strives to with-
draw into a retreat within the inner shrine of rehgious
contemplation, where no echoes of the world reverberate,
and where the soul may be thrilled by the tremulous
ecstasy of half-unveiled heavenly glory. It is the con-
sciousness of the nearness and reality of the unseen
world that lends such a delicate and reserved beauty to
those creations of Catholic genius in which this ideal has
been most directly symboHzed. Of this cloistral mood
the church music of the Palestrina age is the most subtle *
and suggestive embodiment ever realized in art. It is as
far as possible removed from profane suggestion ; in its
ineffable calmness, and an indescribable tone of chastened
exultation, pure from every trace of struggle, with which
it vibrates, it is the most adequate emblem of that eternal
repose toward which the believer yearns.

It is not true, however, as often alleged, that this form
of music altogether lacks characterization, and that the

178

MEDIEVAL CHORUS MUSIC

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 church-
men, and knew how to adapt their somewhat unrespon-
sive 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 hcense in the use of embel-
lishments, more or less florid, upon the written notes,
sometimes improvised, sometimes carefully invented,
taught and handed down as a prescribed code, the tradi-
tion 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 eccle-
siastical art forbade anything like a drastic descriptive
literalism.

This mediaeval polyphonic music, although the most
complete example in art of the perfect Eidaptation 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 admis-
sible 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

179

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

the development of an art of solo singing and its suprem-
acy over the chorus, the substitution of the modern
major and minor transposing scales for the Gregorian
modal system, a homophonic method of harmony for the
mediseval polyphony, accompanied music for the a ca-
pella, secular and dramatic for religious music, the rise
of instrumental music as an independent art, the transfer
of patronage from the Church to the aristocracy and ulti-
mately to the common people. All the modern forms,
both vocal and instrumental, which have come to matur-
ity in recent times suddenly appeared in embryo at the
close of the sixteenth or early in the seventeenth century.
The ancient style of ecclesiastical music did not indeed
come to a standstill. The grand old forms continued to
be cultivated by men who were proud to wear the mantle
of Palestrina; and in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries the traditions of the Roman and Venetian schools
of church music have had sufficient vitality to inspire
works not unworthy of comparison with their venerable
models. The strains of these later disciples, however,
are but scanty reverberations of the multitudinous
voices of the past. The instrumental mass and motet,
embellished with all the newly discovered appliances
of melody, harmony, rhythm, and tone color, led the
art of the Church with flying banners into wider
regions of conquest, and the a capella contrapuntal
chorus was left behind, a stately monument upon the
receding shores of the Middle Age.

[[Note. A very important agent in stimulating a revival of interest in
the mediseval polyphonic school is the St. Cecilia Society, which was
founded at Regensburg in 1 868 by Dr. Franz Xaver Witt, a devoted priest

180

medijEval chorus music

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, J

181

CHAPTER VI

THE MODEKN MUSICAL MASS

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 conse-
quence of some prior invention. But as we pass on-
ward 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 con-
tinuity. 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 poly-
phonic 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

.182

THE MODERN MUSICAL MASS

entirely novel principle of tonality, containing vocal
solos as well as choruses, and supported by a free instru-
mental accompaniment. These two contrasted phases
of religious music seem to have nothing in common so
icir as technical organization is concerned, and it is per-
fectly evident that the younger style could not have
been evolved out of the elder. Hardly less divergent
are they in respect to ideal of expression, the ancient
style never departing from a moderate, unimpassioned
uniformity, the modern abounding in variety and con-
trast, and continually striving after a sort of dramatic
portrayal of moods. To a representative of the old
school, this florid accompanied style would seem like an
intruder from quite an alien sphere of experience, and
the wonder grows when we discover that it sprung from
the same national soil as that in which its predecessor
ripened, and was hkewise cherished by an institution
that has made immutability in all essentials a cardinal
principle. Whence came the impulse that effected so
sweeping a change in a great historic form of art,
where we might expect that liturgic necessities and
ecclesiastical tradition would decree a tenacious con-
servatism ? What new conception had seized upon the
human mind so powerful that it could even revolution-
ize a large share of the musical system of the Catholic
Church? Had there been a long preparation for a
change that seems so sudden ? Were there causes
working under the surface, antecedent stages, such
that the violation of the law of continuity is apparent
only, and not real ? These questions are easily answered
if we abandon the useless attempt to find the parentage

183

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

of the modern church style in the ritual music of the
previous period ; and by surveying all the musical condi-
tions of the age we shall quickly discover that it was an
intrusion into the Church of musical methods that were
fostered under purely secular auspices. The Gregorian
chant and the mediaeval a capella chorus were born and
nurtured within the fold of the Church, growing di-
rectly out of the necessity of adapting musical cadences
to the rhythmical phrases of the liturgy. The modern
sectional and florid style, on the contrary, was an addi-
tion from without, and was not introduced in response
to any liturgic demands whatever. In origin and
affiliations it was a secular style, adopted by the Church
under a necessity which she eventually strove to turn
into a virtue.

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, ab-
sorbed 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 mediseval conception

184

THE MODERN MUSICAL MASS

of melodic combination. The secular songs which
these same composers produced in great numbers, not-
withstanding their greater flexibility and lightness of
touch, were also written for chorus, usually unaccom-
panied, and were theoretically constructed according to
the same system as the church pieces. Nothing like
operas or symphonies existed ; there were no orchestras
worthy of the name ; pianoforte, violin, and organ play-
ing, in the modern sense, had not been dreamed of ; solo
singing was in its helpless infancy. When we consider,
in the light of our present experience, how large a
range of emotion that naturally utters itself in tone was
left unrepresented through this lack of a proper secular
art of music, we can understand the urgency of the
demand which, at the close of the sixteenth century,
broke down the barriers that hemmed in the currents
of musical production and swept music out into the vast
area of universal human interests. The spirit of the
Renaissance had led forth all other art forms to share
in the multifarious activities and joys of modern life at
a time when music was still the satisfied inmate of the
cloister. But it was impossible that music also should
not sooner or later feel the transfiguring touch of the
new human impulse. The placid, austere expression of
the clerical style, the indefinite forms, the Gregorian
modes precluding free dissonance and regulated chro-
matic change, were incapable of rendering more than
one order of ideas. A completely novel system must be
forthcoming, or music must confess its impotence to
enter into the fuller emotional life which had lately
been revealed to mankind.

185

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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, in-
spiration 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 con-
quest 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 im-
portance 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 expres*

136

THE MODERN MUSICAL MASS

sion of the consciousness of man in his relations to the
divine — what was wanted was a means of expressing
the emotions of man in his relations to his fellow-men.
Lyric and dramatic poetry flourished, but no proper lyric
or dramatic music. The Renaissance had done its
mighty work in all other fields of art, but s o far as music
was concerned in the fourteenth and fifteenth_centuries
a Renaissance did not^ exist. Many reasons might be
given why the spirit of the Renaissance had no appre-
ciable effect in the musical world until late in the six-
teenth century. Musical forms are purely subjective in
their conception ; they find no models or even sugges-
tions in the natural world, and the difficulty of choosing
the most satisfactory arrangements of tones out of an al-
most endless number of possible combinations, together
with the necessity of constantly new adjustments of the
mind in order to appreciate the value of the very forms
which itself creates, makes musical development a mat-
ter of peculiar slowness and difficulty. The enthusiasm
for the antique, which gave a definite direction to the
revival of learning and the new ambitions in painting
and sculpture, could have little practical value in musi-
cal invention, since the ancient music, which would
otherwise have been chosen as a guide, had been com-
pletely lost. The craving for a style of solo singing
suited to dramatic purposes tried to find satisfaction By
means that were childishly insufficient. Imitations of
folk-songs, the device of singing one part in a madrigal,
while the other parts were played by instruments, were
some of the futile efforts to solve the problem. The
sense of disappointment broke forth in bitter wrath

187

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

against the church counterpoint, and a violent conflict
raged between the bewildered experimenters and the
adherents of the scholastic methods.

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
s^\^' t^-i^ 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 Mono-
dies of Galilei and the Nuove Musiche of Caccini.
More ambitious schemes followed. Mythological mas-
querades and pastoral comedies, which had held a promi-
nent place in the gorgeous spectacles and pageants of
the Italian court festivals ever since the thirteenth
century, w^ere provided with settings of the new declam-
atory music, or stile reeitativo^ 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

188

THE MODERN MUSICAL MASS

the fetters of counterpoint. Their sole intention was
to make poetry more expressive and emphatic by the
employment of tones that would heighten the natural
inflections of speech, and in which there should be no
repetition or extension of words (as in the contrapuntal
style) involving a subordination of text to musical
form. The ideal of recitative was the^ expression of
feeling by a method that permits the text to follow the ^ c\i^'^
natural accent of declamatory speech, unrestrained by a
particular musical form or tonality, and dependent only
upon the support of the simplest kind of instrumental
accompaniment. In this style of music, said Caccini,
speech is of the first importance, rhythm second, and
tone last of all. These pioneers of dramatic music, as
they declared over and over again, simply desired a form
of music that should allow the words to be distinctly
understood. They condemned counterpoint, not on
musical grounds, but because it allowed the text to be
obscured and the natural rhythm broken. There was no
promise of a new musical era in such an anti-musical
pronunciamento as this. But a relation between music
and poetry in which melody renounces all its inherent
rights could not long be maintained. The genius of
Italy in the seventeenth century was musical, not poetic.
Just so soon as the infinite possibilities of charm that
lie in free melody were once perceived, no theories of
Platonizing pedants could check its progress. The
demands of the new age, reinforced by the special
Italian gift of melody, created an art form in which
absolute music triumphed over the feebler claims of
poetry and rhetoric. The cold, calculated Florentine

189

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

music-drama gave way to the vivacious, impassioned
\^'opera of Venice and Naples. Although the primitive
dry recitative survived, the far more expressive accom-
panied recitative was evolved from it, and the grand
aria burst into radiant life out of the brief lyrical sections
which the Florentines had allowed to creep into their
tedious declamatory scenes. Vocal colorature, which
had already appeared in the dramatic pieces of Caccini,
became the most beloved means of effect. The little
group of simple instruments employed in the first
Florentine music-dramas was gradually merged in the
modern full orchestra. The original notion of making
the poetic and scenic intention paramount was forgotten,
and the opera became cultivated solely as a means for
the display of all the fascinations of vocalism.

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 soHtary
meditation or by situations of dramatic stress and con-
flict. 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 differ-
ent circumstances. The shallowness of the greater part

190

THE MODERN MUSICAL MASS

of the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
is partly due to the difficulty that composers found in
mastering the new forms. A facility in handling the
material must be acquired before there could be any
clear consciousness of the possibilities of expression
which the new forms contained. The fii'st problem in
vocal music was the development of a method of technic ;
and musical taste, fascinated by the new sensation, ran
into an extravagant worship of the human voice. There
appeared in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
the most brilliant group of singers, of both sexes, that
the world has ever seen. The full extent of the morbid,
we might almost say the insane, passion for sensuous,
nerve-exciting tone is sufficiently indicated by the en-
couragement in theatre and church of those outrages
upon nature, the male soprano and alto. A school of
composers of brilliant melodic genius appeared in Italy,
France, and Germany, who supplied these singers with
showy and pathetic music precisely suited to their pecu-
liar powers. Italian melody and Italianr vocalism. be-^
came the reigning sensation in European society, and
the opera easily took the primacy among fashionable
amusements. The Italian grand opera, with its solemn
travesty of antique characters and scenes, its mock
heroics, its stilted conventionalities, its dramatic feeble-
ness and vocal glitter, was a lively reflection of the
taste of this age of " gallant " poetry, rococo decoration,
and social artificiality. The musical element consisted
of a succession of arias and duets stitched together by
a loose thread of secco recitative. The costumes werb
those of contemporary fashion, although the characters

191

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

were named after worthies of ancient Greece and Rome.
The plots were in no sense historic, but consisted of
love tales and conspiracies concocted by the playwright.
Truth to human nature and to locality was left to the
despised comic opera. Yet we must not suppose that
the devotees of this music were conscious of its real
superficiality. They adored it not wholly because it was
sensational, but because they believed it true in expres-
sion ; and indeed it was true to those light and transient
sentiments which the voluptuaries of the theatre mis-
took for the throbs of nature. Tender and pathetic
these airs often were, but it was the affected tenderness
and pathos of fashionable eighteenth-century literature
which they represented. To the profounder insight of
the present they seem to express nothing deeper than
the make-believe emotions of children at their play.

Under such sanctions the Itahan 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 com-
poser and singer. The office of the poet became hardly
less mechanical than that of the costumer or the deco-
rator. 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
anderstood as denying the germ of truth that lay in
this art element contributed by Italy to the modern

192^

THE MODERN MUSICAL MASS

world. Its later results were sublime and beneficent,
for Italian melody has given direction to well-nigh all
the magnificent achievements of secular music in the
past two centuries. I am speaking here of the first
outcome of the infatuation it produced, in tlie breaking
down of the taste for the severe and elevated, and the pro-
duction of a transient, often demoralizing intoxication.

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 aus-
tere 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 text-^ . .^\
ure 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
13 193

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

no longer dependent upon the Church for commissions ;
the opera house and the salon gave them sure means
of subsistence and fame. The functions of church and
theatre composers were often united in a single man.
The convents and cathedral chapels were made training-
schools for the choir and the opera stage on equal
terms. It was in a monk's cell that Bernacchi and
other world-famous opera singers of the eighteenth cen-
tury were educated. Ecclesiastics united with aristo-
cratic laymen in the patronage of the opera ; cardinals
and archbishops owned theatre boxes, and it was not
considered in the least out of character for monks and
priests to write operas and superintend their perform-
ance. Under such conditions it is not strange that
church and theatre reacted upon each other, and that
the sentimental style, beloved in opera house and salon,
should at last be accepted as the ^proper vehicle ^
devotional feeling.

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 concep-
tions 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 naive, emblematic pict-
ures of the fourteenth century, whose main endeavor was
to attract and indoctrinate with delineations that were

194

THE MODERN MUSICAL MASS

symbolic and intended mainly for edification. Painting
was one of the chief means employed by the Church
to impart instruction to a constituency to whom writing
was almost inaccessible. Art, therefore, even when
emancipated from Byzantine formalism, was still essen-
tially hieratic, and the painter willingly assumed a semi-
sacerdotal office as the efficient coadjutor of the preacher
and the confessor. With the fifteenth century came
the inrush of the antique culture, uniting with native
Italian tendencies to sweep art away into a passionate
quest of beauty wherever it might be found. The con-
ventional religious subjects and the traditional modes of
treatment could no longer satisfy those whose eyes had
been opened to the magnificent materials for artistic
treatment that lay in the human form, draped and
undraped, in landscape, atmosphere, color, and light and
shade, and who had been taught by the individualistic
trend of the age that the painter is true to his genius
only as he frees himself from formulas and follows the
leadings of his own instincts. But art could not wholly
renounce its original pious mission. The age was at
least nominally Christian, sincerely so in many of its
elements, and the patronage of the arts was still to a
very large extent in the hands of the clergy. And here
the Church prudently consented to a modification of the
established ideals of treatment of sacred themes. The
native Italian love of elegance of outline, harmony of
form, and splendor of color, directed by the study of the
antique, overcame the earlier austerity and effected a
combination of Christian tradition and pagan sensuous-
uess which, in such work as that of Correggio and the

195

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

great Venetians, and even at times in the pure Raphael
and the stern Michael Angelo, quite belied the purpose
of ecclesiastical art, aiming not to fortify dogma and
elevate the spirit, but to gratify the desire of the eye
and the delight in the display of technical skill. Paint-
ing no longer conformed to a traditional religious type ;
it followed its genius, and that genius was really in-
spired by the splendors of earth, however much it might
persuade itself that it ministered to holiness.

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

NT ^ less than a representation of a Venetian state banquet.

^ ^V SignorelU 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 Ma-
donnas 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

196

THE MODERN MUSICAL MASS

Church. In all this there was no disloyal intentio'n;
art had simply issued its declaration of independence;
its sole aim was henceforth beauty and reality ; the body
as well as the soul seemed worthy of study and adora-
tion; and the Church adopted the new skill into its
service, not seeing that the world was destined to be
the gainer, and not religion.

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 musi-
cal 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 behed 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 rehgious themes with sensuous J^^
charm, and^witiiji treatment inspired by the arbitrary C"'
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 hturgic

197

^^

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

music. A new ideal of devotional expression made in-
evitable 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
n)«^ which the Church had sealed as the proper expression
\ of her attitude toward the divine mysteries, but claimed
\^r^^ the privilege of coloring the text according to the dictates
V^^t 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 experi-
ence 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 individ-
ual 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 Cruci-
fixus does not attempt to portray the grief of an imagi-
nary 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

19a

THE MODERN MUSICAL MASS

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 mirmn
of Berlioz's Requiem. Observe the strong similarity of
style at many points between Verdi's Requiem and his
opera "Aida." In such works as these, which are
fairly typical of the modern school, the composer writes
under an independent impulse, with no thought of sub-
ordinating 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 Beethove n^ Ml^^^ Solemnis,
wliere the composer introduces a strain 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

199

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

meaning of the text and the whole spirit of the liturgy.
The conception of a large amount of modern mass music
seems to be, not that the ritual to which it belongs is
prayer, but rather a splendid spectacle intended to excite
the imagination and fascinate the sense. It is this
altered conception, lying at the very basis of the larger
part of modern church music, that leads such writers as
Jakob to refuse even to notice the modern school in his
sketch of the history of Catholic church music, just as
Rio condemns Titian as the painter who mainly con-
tributed to the decay of religious painting.

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 legaHzed
formulas of his craft. The modern ai'tist 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 founda-
tions, 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 char-
acteristic 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

200

THE MODERN MUSICAL MASS

cadences could occur whenever a sentence came to an
end. The modern forms, on the other hand, consisting
of consecutive and proportional sections, imply the
necessity of contrast, development, and climax — an
arrangement that is not necessitated by any correspond-
ing system in the text. This alone would often result
in a lack of congruence between text and music, and the
composer would easily fall into the way of paying more
heed to the sheer musical working out than to the mean-
ing of the words. Moreover, in the fifteenth and six-
teenth centuries there was no radical conflict between
the church musical style and the secular ; so far as secular
music was cultivated by the professional composers it was
no more than a slight variation from the ecclesiastical
model. Profane music may be said to have been a
branch of religious music. In the modern period this
relationship is reversed ; secular music in opera and in-
strumental forms has remoulded church music, and the
latter is in a sense a branch of the former.

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 foresha<:lowed when composers
became impatient with the placidity and colorlessness
of the modal harmonies and began to introduce un-
expected dissonances for the sake of variety. The

201

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

chromatic changes that occasionally appear in the old
music are scattered about in a hap-hazard fashion ; they
give an impression of helplessness to the modern ear when
the composer seems about to make a modulation and at
once falls back again into the former tonality. It was a
necessity, therefore, as well as a virtue, that the church
music of the old regime should maintain the calm,
equable flow that seems to us so pertinent to its liturgic
intention. For these reasons it may perhaps be replied
to what has been said concerning the devotional ideal
embodied in the calm, severe strains of the old masters,
that they had no choice in the matter. Does it follow,
it may be asked, that these men would not have written
in the modern style if they had had the means ? Some
of them probably would have done so, others almost
certainly would not. Many writers who carried the old
form into the seventeenth century did have the choice
and resisted it; they stanchly defended the traditional
principles and condemned the new methods as destructive
of pure church music. The laws that work in the de-
velopment of ecclesiastical art also seem to require that
music should pass through the same stages as those that
sculpture and painting traversed, — first, the stage of
symbolism, restraint within certain conventions in accord-
ance with ecclesiastical prescription ; afterwards, the
deliverance from the trammels of school formulas, eman-
cipation from all laws but those of the free determination
of individual genius. At this point authority ceases,
dictation gives way to persuasion, and art still ministers
to the higher ends of the Church, not through fear, but
through reverence for the teachings and appeals which

202

The modern musical mas3

the Church sends forth as her contribution to the nobler
influences of the age*

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 lat-
ter 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 influ-
ence 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 cosmo-
politanism. 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

203

Mustc IN THJE Western chVrcB

produced since Palestrina, of which the Church has
most reason to be proud, belong to the nineteenth
century. One of the ultimate results of the modern
license in style and the tendency toward individual ex-
pression is the custom of writing masses as free compo-
sitions rather than for liturgic uses, and of performing
them in public halls or theatres in the same manner as
oratorios. Mozart wrote his Requiem to the order of a
private patron. Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, not being
ready when wanted for a consecration ceremony, outgrew
the dimensions of a service mass altogether, and was
finished without any liturgic purpose in view. Cheru-
bini's mass in D minor and Liszt's Gran Mass were each
composed for a single occasion, and both of them, like
the Requiems of Berlioz and Dvordk, although often
heard in concerts, have but very rarely been performed
in church worship. Masses have even been written by
Protestants, such as Bach, Schumann, Hauptmann,
Richter, and Becker. Masses that are written under the
same impulse as ordinary concert and dramatic works
easily violate the ecclesiastical spirit, and pass into the
category of religious works that are non-churchly, and
it may often seem necessary to class them with cantatas
on account of their semi-dramatic tone. In such pro-
ductions as Bachls B minor Mass, Beethoven's Missa
Solemnis, and Berlioz's Requiem we have works that
constitute a separate phase of art, not masses in the
proper sense, for they do not properly blend with the
Church ceremonial nor contribute to the special devo-
tional mood which the Church aims to promote, while
yet in their general conception they are held by a loose

204

THE MODERN MUSICAL MASS

band to the^ altar. So apart do these mighty creations
stand that they may almost be said to glorify religion
in the abstract rather than the confession of the Catholic
Church.

The changed conditions in respect to patronage have
had the same effect upon the mass as upon other depart-
ments 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 intro-
duce any innovation into the style of religious music
sanctioned by his august masters, the Esterhazys.
Mozar^ wrote all his masses, with the exception of the |/]^ia /
Requiem, for the chapel of the prince archbishop of jVlM
Salzburg. In this^establishment the length of the mass ^^^
was prescribed, the mode of writing_ajid_£erfoimance,
which had become traditional, hindered freedom of de-
velopment, 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

205

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

have felt that they had the sympathy of the Church in
asserting the rights of the artist as against prelatical
conservatism and local usage. The outcome is seen in a
group of works which, whatever the strict censors may
deem their defects in edifying quality, at least indicate
that in the field of musical art there is no necessary con-
flict between Catholicism and the free spirit of the age.

Under these conditions the mass in the modern musi-
cal era has taken a variety of directions and assumed
distinct national and individual complexions. The Nea-
politan 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 har-
mony 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
Belhni. In this school of so-called religious music all
sense of appropriateness was often lost, and a florid, pro-
fane treatment was not only permitted but encouraged.
Perversions which can hardly be called less than blas-
phemous 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

206

THE MODERN MUSICAL MASS

moments of the holy ceremony. Similar testimony has
from time to time come from Italy, and it would appear
that the most lamentable lapses from the pure church
tradition have occurred in some of the very places where
one would expect that the strictest principles would be
loyally maintained. The most celebrated surviving ex-
ample of the consequences to which the virtuoso ten-
dencies in church music must inevitably lead when
unchecked by a truly pious criticism is Rossini's Stabat
Mater. This frivolous work is frequently performed
with great eclat in Catholic places of worship, as though
the clergy were iudifferent to the almost incredible levity
which could clothe the heart-breaking pathos of Jaco-
pone's immortal hymn — a hymn properly honored by
the Church with a place among the five great Sequences
— with strains better suited to the sprightly abandon of
opera buffa.

Another branch of the mass was sent by the Neapoli-
tan 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, Neu-
komm, 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 ^i ::: ; ^

form, scientific correctness, and a conscious propriety of
manner were often more considered than emotional fer-
vor. Certain conventions, such as a florid contrapuntal
treatment of the Kyrie with its slow introduction followed
by an AUegro, the fugues at the Cum Sanctu Spiritu
— "" ' 207

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

and the Et Vitam, the regular alternation of solo and
chorus numbers, give the typical Austrian mass a some-
what rigid, perfunctory air, and in practice produce the
effect which always results when expression becomes
stereotyped and form is exalted over substance. Mozart's
masses, with the exception of the beautiful Requiem
(which was his last work and belongs in a different cate-
gory), were the production of his boyhood, written
before his genius became self-assertive and under condi-
tions distinctly unfavorable to the free exercise of the
imagination.

The masses of Joseph Haydn stand somewhat apart
y^ y\ from the strict Austrian school, for although as a
•r^v rule they conform externally to the local conventions,
they are far more individual and possess a Jreedom
and buoyancy that are decidedly personal. It has be-
come 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
rehgious art which is one of the depressing legacies of
the eighteenth century. Much of this censure is de-
served, 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

208

I-

THE MODERN MtlSlCAL MASS

was primarily instrumental; he was the virtual creator
of the modern symphony and string quartet ; his musical
forms and modes of expression were drawn from two
diverse sources which it was his great mission to con-
ciliate and idealize, viz.^ the Italian aristocratic opera,
and the dance and song of the common people. An ex-
traordinary sense of form and an instinctive sympathy
with whatever is spontaneous, genial, and racy made him
what he was. The joviality of his nature was irrepres-
sible. To write music of a sombre cast was out of his
power. There is not a melancholy strain in all his
works ; pensiveness was as deep a note as he could
strike. He tried to defend the gay tone of his church
music by saying that he had such a sense of the good-
ness of God that he could not be otherwise than joyful
in thinking of him. This explanation was perfectly sin-
cere, but Haydn was not enough of a philosopher to see
the weak spot in this sort of sesthetics. Yet in spite of
the obvious faults of Haydn^s m ass style, looking at It
from a historic point_of_ view, it was a promiaa--of
advance, and not a sign of degeneracy. For it marked
the introduction of genuine, even if misdirected feehng
into worship music, in the place of dull conformity to
routine. Haydn was far indeed from solving the problem
of church music, but he helped to give new life to a form
that showed danger of becoming atrophied.

Two masses of world importance rise above the
mediocrity of the Austrian school, like the towers of ^
some Gothic cathedral above the monotonous tiled roof-S-i/^r^
of a mediseval city, — the Requiem of Mozart and the
Missa Solemnis of Beethoven. The unfinished master-

14 209

MUStC IN THE WESTERN CtiURCti

piece of Mozart outsoars all comparison with the re-
ligious works of his youth, and as his farewell to the
world he could impart to it a tone of pathos and exal-
tation which had hardly been known in the cold, objec-
tive treatment of the usual eighteenth-century mass.
The hand of death was upon Mozart as he penned the
immortal pages of the Requiem, and in this crisis he
could feel that he was free from the dictation of fashion
and precedent This work is perhaps not all that we
might look for in these solemn circumstances. Mozart's
exquisite genius was suited rather to the task, in which
lies his true glory, of raising the old Italian opera to
its highest possibilities of grace and truth to nature.
He had not that depth of feeling and sweep of imagi-
nation which make the works of Bach, Handel, and
Beethoven the sublimest expression of awe in view of
^'^(^ the mysteries of life and death. Yet it is wholly
\^ J f^ee from the fripperies which disfigure the masses of
Haydn, as well as from the dry scholasticism of much
of Mozart's own early religious work. Such move-,
ments as the Confutatis, the Recordare, and the Lac-
rimosa — movements inexpressibly earnest, consoling,
and pathetic — gave evidence that a new and loftier
spirit had entered the music of the Church.

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 theoreti-
cally belongs, and its almost unparalleled difficulty of
execution and the grandeur of its choral climaxes re-
move it beyond the reach of all but the most exceptional

, 210

THE MODERN MUSICAL MASS , j^ .

choirs. It is, therefore, performed only ^ a concerf
work by choral societies with a full orchestral equip-
ment. For these reasons it is not to be classed with
the service masses of the Catholic Church, but may be
placed beside the B minor Mass of Sebastian Bach, both
holding a position outside all ordinary comparisons.
Each of these colossal creations stands on its own soli-
tary eminence, the projection in tones of the religious
conceptions of two gigantic, all-comprehending intel-
lects. For neither of these two works is the Catholic
Church strictly responsible. They do not proceed from
within the Church. Bach was a strict Protestant; Bee-
thoven, although nominally a disciple of the Catholic
Church, had almost no share in her communion, and
his religious belief, so far as the testimony goes, was
a sort of pantheistic mysticism. Both these supreme
artists in the later periods of their careers gave free
rein to their imaginations and not only well-nigh ex-
ceeded all available means of performance, but also
seemed to strive to force musical forms and the powers
of instruments and voices beyond their limits in the
efforts to reahze that which is unrealizable through
any human medium. In this endeavor they went to the
very verge of the sublime, and produced achievements
which excite wonder and awe. These two masses defy
all imitation, and represent no school. The spirit of
individualism in religious music can go no further.

The last masses of international importance produced
on Austrian soil are those of Franz Schjibert. Of his
six Latin masses four are youthful works, pure and
graceful, but not especially significant. In hisJE_flat_^

211 '^

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

and A flat masses, however, he takes a place in the
upper rank of mass composers of this century. The
E flat Mass is weakened by the diffuseness which was
Schubert's besetting sin; the A flat is more terse and
sustained in excellence, and thoroughly available for
practical use. Both of them contain movements of
purest ideal beauty and sincere worshipful spirit, and
often rise to a grandeur that is unmarred by sensation-
alism and wholly in keeping with the tone of awe
which pervades even the most exultant moments of
the liturgy.

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 right-
eous 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

212

THE MODERN MUSICAL MASS

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 ecs-
tatic 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 con-
ditions of musical taste and progress. Not only were
those musicians of France and Italy who were promi-
nent 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 orchestra-
tion, from those contemporary tendencies in dramatic
art which issued in the "historic school" of grand
opera as exemplified in the pretentious works of Spon-
tini and Meyerbeer. They may be said to be the re-
flection 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 un

213

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

swerving sincerity in an age of sham, his uncompro-
mising assertion of his dignity as an artist in an age
of sycophancy, and the solid worth of his achievement
in the midst of shallow aims and mediocre results.
As a church composer he towers so high above his
predecessors of the eighteenth century in respect to
learning and imagination that his masses are not un-
worthy to stand beside Beethoven's Missa Solemnis as
auguries of the loftier aims that were soon to prevail
in the realm of religious music. His Requiem in C
minor, particularly, by reason of its exquisite tender-
ness, breadth of thought, nobility of expression, and
avoidance of all excess either of agitation or of gloom,
must be ranked among the most admirable modem
examples of pure Catholic art.

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 con-
tinued 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 con-
nect 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

2U

THE MODERN MUSICAL MASS

for a Paris journal in 1834, which remains a fragment,
he imagined a new style of religious music which should
" unite in colossal relations theatre and church, which
should be at the same time dramatic and solemn, im-
posing and simple, festive and earnest, fiery and un-
constrained, stormy and reposeful, clear and fervent."
These expressions are too vague to serve as a program
for a new art movement. They imply, however, a
protest against the one-sided operatic tendency of the
day, at the same time indicating the conviction that
the problem is not to be solved in a pedantic reaction
toward the ancient austere ideal, and yet that the old
and new endeavors, liturgic appropriateness and char-
acteristic expression, reverence of mood and recognition
of the claims of contemporary taste, should in some
way be made to harmonize. The man who all his life
conceived the theatre as a means of popular education,
and who strove to realize that conception as court
music director at Weimar, would also lament any aliena-
tion between the church ceremony and the intellectual
and emotional habitudes and inclinations of the people.
A devoted churchman reverencing the ancient ecclesias-
tical tradition, and at the same time a musical artist
of the advanced modern type, Liszt's instincts yearned
more or less blindly towards an alliance between the
sacerdotal conception of religious art and the general
artistic spirit of the age. Some such vision evidently
floated before his mind in the masses, psalms, and
oratorios of his later years, as shown in their frequent
striving after the picturesque, together with an inclina-
tion toward the older ecclesiastical forms. These two

215

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

ideals are probably incompatible ; at any rate Liszt
did not possess the genius to unite them in a convinc-
ing manner.

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 pliable, 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 -con-
sciousness 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

216

THE MODERN MUSICAL MASS

usage is profane. Criticism on the part of all but the
most austere is disarmed by the pure, seraphic beauty
which this complacent art of Gounod often reveals.
The intoxicating sweetness of his melody and harmony
never sinks to a Rossinian flippancy. Of Gounod's
reverence for the Church and for its art ideals, there can
be no question. A man's views of the proper tone of
church music will be controlled largely by his tempera-
ment, and Gounod's temperament was as warm as an
Oriental's. He offered to the Church his best, and as
the Magi brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh to a
babe born among cattle in a stable, so Gounod, with a
consecration equally sincere, clothed his prayers in
strains so ecstatic that compared with them the most
impassioned accents of *' Faust " and " Romeo and
Juliet" are tame. He was a profound student of
Palestrina, Mozart, and Cherubini, and strong traces
of the styles of these masters are apparent in his
works.

Somewhat similar qualities, although far less sensa-
tional, 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 Guil-
mant, Widor, Saint-Saens, Dubois, Gigout is so solidly
based, and their views of religious music so judicious,
that the methods and traditions which they are con-
scientiously engaged in establishing need only the rein-
forcement 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

217

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

musical sons in France. No purer or nobler type of
religious music has appeared in these latter days than is
to be found in the compositions of Cesar Franck (1822-
1890). For the greater part of his life overlooked or
disdained by all save a devoted band of disciples, in
spirit and in learning he was allied to the Palestrinas
and the Bachs, and there are many who place him in
respect to genius among the foremost of the French
musicians of the nineteenth century.

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 com-
binations 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 Man-
zoni 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 unde-
niable suggestion of the dramatic in the Catholic ritual,
and for the natural effect of the Catholic ceremonial

2ia

THE MODERN MUSICAL MASS

and its peculiar atmosphere upon the more ardent, en-
thusiastic 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 Dvofdk. 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 mag-
nificent scores. Inferior to Verdi in variety and gor-
geousness of melody, the Bohemian composer surpasses
the great Italian in massiveness, dignity, and in unfailing
good taste. There can be no question that Dvofdk'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 Dvorak in spite of a ten-
dency 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 de-
velopment 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 Chui'ch
shall be expressed, but the emotions aroused by the
action of sacred ideas upon different temperaments and

219

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

divergent artistic methods. There is no sign that this
principle of individual liberty will be renounced.
Nevertheless, the increasing deference that is paid to
authority, the growing study of the works and ideals of
the past which is so apparent in the culture of the pres-
ent day, will here and there issue in partial reactions.
The mind of the present, having seen the successful
working out of certain modern problems and the barren-
ness of others, is turning eclectic. Nowhere is this
more evident than in the field of musical culture, both
religious and secular. We see that in many influential
circles the question becomes more and more insistent,
what is truth and appropriateness ? — whereas formerly
the demand was for novelty and " effect." Under this
better inspiration many beautiful works are produced
which are marked by dignity, moderation, and an almost
austere reserve, drawing a sharp distinction between the
proper ecclesiastical tone and that suited to concert and
dramatic music, restoring once more the idea of imper-
sonality, expressing in song the conception of the fathers
that the Church is a refuge, a retreat from the tempests
of the world, a place of penitence and restoration to con-
fidence in the near presence of heaven.

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

220

THE MODERN MUSICAL MASS

continue to be produced, and the Church will accept
them, in grateful recognition of the sincere homage
which their creation implies. It is of the nature of the
highest artistic genius that it cannot restrain its own
fierce impulses out of conformity to a type or external
tradition. It will express its own individual emotion or
it will become paralyzed and mute. The religious com-
positions that will humbly yield to a strict liturgic
standard in form and expression will be those of writers
of the third or fourth grade, just as the church hymns
have been, with few exceptions, the production, not of
the great poets, but of men of lesser artistic endowment,
and who were primarily churchmen, and poets only by
second intention. This wiU doubtless be the law for all
time. The Michael Angelos, the Dantes, the Beetho-
vens will forever break over rules, even though they be
the rules of a beloved mother Church.

The time is past, however, when we may fear any de-
generacy like to that which overtook church music one
hundred or more years ago. The principles of such con-
secrated 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 hturgic 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 ap-
propriateness in the music of the Church. The need of
reform in many of the CathoHc churches of this and other

221

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

countries is known to every one. Doubtless one cause
of the frequent indifference of priests to the condition of
the choir music in their churches is the knowledge that the
chorus and organ are after all but accessories ; that the
Church possesses in the Gregorian chant a form of song
that is the legal, universal, and unchangeable foundation
of the musical ceremony, and that any corruption in the
gallery music can never by any possibility extend to the
heart of the system. The Church is indeed fortunate in
the possession of this altar song, the unifying chain
which can never be loosened. All the more reason,
therefore, why this consciousness of unity should per-
vade all portions of the ceremony, and the spirit of the
liturgic chant should blend even with the large freedom
of modern musical experiment.

222

CHAPTER VII

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

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, pre-
scribed, liturgic, unalterable, the other free, spontaneous,
and democratic. In these two forms and ideals we find
reflected the same conceptions which especially charac-
terize the doctrine, worship, and government of these
oppugnant confessions.

The Catholic Church, as we have seen, was consist-
ent 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 offi-

223

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

cially and without exception discountenanced by the
Catholic Church, has never been encouraged, and song,
like prayer, is looked upon as essentially a liturgic
office.

In the Protestant Church the barrier of an interme-
diary 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 admin-
istration 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 Prot-
estant cultus which the Catholic Church has never
sanctioned. The one has promoted and tenaciously
maintained it ; the other as consistently repressed it, — \
not on sesthetic grounds, nor primarily on grounds of
devotional effect, but really through a more or less dis-
tinct 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 Protes-
tantism are thus to be explained. The emancipated lay-
man 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 earl}^ Protestant-
ism has therefore a militant ring. It marks its epoch

224

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

no less significantly than Luther's ninety-five theses
and the Augsburg Confession. It was a sort of spirit-
ual Triumphlied^ proclaiming to the universe that the
day of spiritual emancipation had dawned.

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 ap-
peared since Clement of Alexandria and Ephraem the
Syrian set in motion the tide of Christian song, the
Lutheran hymnody has the greatest interest to the stu-
dent 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 his-
toric 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 experi-
ence ; the Lutheran have a j)lace_in the annals of
politics and doctrinal strifes as well. German Protes-
tant 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 character-
15 225

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

istic tone ; they were among the most efficient agencies
in carrying this principle to the mind of the common
people, and they also contributed powerfully to the en-
thusiasm which enabled the new faith to maintain itself
in the conflicts by which it was tested. The melodies
to which the hymns of Luther and his followers were set
became the foundation of a musical style- which is the
one school worthy to be placed beside the Italian Cath-
olic music of the sixteenth century. This hym.nody
and its music afforded the first adequate outlet for the
poetic and musical genius of the German people, and
established the pregnant democratic traditions of Ger-
man art as against the aristocratic traditions of Italy
and France. As we cannot overestimate the spiritual
and intellectual force which entered the European arena
with Luther and his disciples, so we must also recog-
nize the analogous elements which asserted themselves
at the same moment and under the same inspiration in
the field of art expression, and gave to this movement
a language which helps us in a peculiar way to under-
stand its real import.

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 con-
gregational 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

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THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

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 pre-
existing 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 pre-
vious 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 mis-
conceived by Catholics. It was not new forms, but, a
new spirit, which Luther gave to his Church. He did

227

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

not break with the past, but found in the past a new
standing-ground. He sought truth in the Scriptures, in
the writings of the fathers and the mediaeval theolo-
gians ; he rejected what he deemed false or barren in
the mother Church, adopted and developed what was
true and fruitful, and moulded it into forms whose
style was already familiar to the people. In poetry,
music, and the several details of church worship Luther
recast the old models, and gave them to his followers
with contents purified and adapted to those needs which
he himself had made them to realize. He understood
the character of his people ; he knew where to find the
nourishment suited to their wants ; he knew how to turn
their enthusiasms into practical and progressive direc-
tions. This was Luther's achievement in the sphere of
church art, and if, in recognizing the precise nature of
his work, we seem to question his reputation for crea-
tive genius, we do him better justice by honoring his
practical wisdom.

The singing of religious songs by the common people
in their own language in connection with public wor-
ship 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 Chris-
tianity 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. Wack-
ernagel, in the second volume of his monumental col-
lection of German hymns from the earliest time to the
beginning of the seventeenth century, includes fourteen

228

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMRODY

hundred and forty-eight religious lyrics in the German
tongue composed between the year 868 and 1518.1 This
collection, he says, is as complete as possible, but we
must suppose that a very large number written before
the invention of printing have been lost. About haK
the hymns in this volume are of unknown authorship.
Among the writers whose names are given we find such
notable poets as Walther von der Vogelweide, Gottfried
von Strassburg, Hartmann von Aue, Frauenlob, Rein-
mar der Zweter, Kunrad der Marner, Heinrich von
Loufenberg, Michel Behem, and Hans Sachs, besides
famous churchmen like Eckart and Tauler, who are not
otherwise known as poets. A great number of these
poems are hymns only in a qualified sense, having been
written, not for public use, but for private satisfac-
tion ; but many others are true hymns, and have often
resounded from the mouths of the people in social
religious functions.

Down to the tenth centurj^ 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 oc-
casions. In processions, on pilgrimages, at burials,
greeting of distinguished visitors, consecration of a
church or prelate, in many subordinate liturgic
ofifices, invocations of supernatural aid in times of dis-

1 Wackernagel, Das deutsche Kirchenlied von der dltesten Zeit bis zu
Anfang des XVII. Jahrhunderts.

229

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

tress, on the march, going into battle, — in almost
every social action in which religious sanctions were
involved the people were in duty bound to utter this
phrase, often several hundred times in succession.
The words were often abbreviated into Kyrieles^ Kyrie
eleis^ Kyrielle^ Kerleis, and Kles, and sometimes became
mere inarticulate cries.

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 Se-
quences 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 lengths, 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 produc-
ing 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 awaken-
ing 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

230

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

honor and knightly devotion to woman, the adoration of
the Virgin Mother, long cherished in the bosom of the
Church, burst forth in a multitude of ecstatic lyrics in
her praise. Poetic and musical inspiration was com-
municated by the courtly poets to the clergy and
common people, and the love of singing at religious
observances grew apace. Certain heretics, who made
much stir in this period, also wrote hymns and put
them into the mouths of the populace, thus following
the early example of the Arians and the disciples of
Bardasanes. To resist this perversion of the divine art,
orthodox songs were composed, and, as in the Refor-
mation days, schismatics and Romanists vied with
each other in wielding this powerful proselyting
agent.

Mystics of the fourteenth century — Eckart, Tauler,
and others — wrote hymns of a new tone, an inward
spiritual quality, less objective, more individual, voic-
ing 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 reli-
gious 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 hym-
nody. Hoffmann von Fallersleben has given a vivid
account of the barbaric doings of these bands of
self-tormentors, and it is evident that their sing-

231

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

ing was not the least uncanny feature of their per*
formances.^

In the fourteenth century appeared the device which
played so large a part in the production of the Refor-
mation hymns — that of adapting secular tunes to reli-
gious 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 impor-
tant 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
Nil 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 pre-

1 Hoffmann von Fallersleben, Gescfuchte des deutschen Kirchenliedes bis
Quf Luther's ZeiU

232

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

paring to assert itself. The fifteenth was a century of
stir and inquiry, full of premonitions of the upheaval
soon to follow. The Revival of Learning began to
shake Germany, as well as Southern and Western
Europe, out of its superstition and intellectual sub-
jection. The religious and political movements in
Bohemia and Moravia, set in motion by the preaching
and martyrdom of Hus, produced strong effect in
Germany. Hus struck at some of the same abuses
that aroused the wrath of Luther, notably the traffic in
indulgences. The demand for the use of the vernac-
ular in church worship was even more fundamental
than the similar desire in Germany, and preceded
rather than followed the movement toward reform.
Has was also a prototype of Luther in that he was
virtually the founder of the Bohemian hymnody. He
wrote hymns both in Latin and in Czech, and earnestly
encouraged the use of vernacular songs by the people.
The Utraquists published a song-book in the Czech
language in 1501, and the Unitas Fratrum one, contain-
ing four hundred hymns, in 1505. These two ante-
dated the first Lutheran hymn-book by about twenty
years. The Bohemian reformers, like Luther after
them, based their poetry upon the psalms, the ancient
Latin hymns, and the old vernacular religious songs;
they improved existing texts, and set new hymns in
place of those that contained objectionable doctrinal
features. Their tunes also were derived, like those of
the German reformers, from older religious and secular
melodies.

These achievements of the Bohemians, answering

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MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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 a 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 tti^e saine jgynion
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

234

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

whole, rise to the poetic and spiritual level of the
contemporary Latin hymns of the Church. There is
nothing in them comparable with the Dies Irae,
the Stabat Mater, the Hora Novissima, the Veni
Sancte Spiritus, the Ad Perennis Vitse Fontem, the
Passion Hymns of St. Bernard, or scores that might
be named which make up the golden chaplet of Latin
religious verse from Hilary to Xavier. The latter is
the poetry of the cloister, the work of men separated
from the world, upon whom asceticism and scholastic
philosophizing had worked to refine and subtilize their
conceptions. It is the poetry, not of laymen, but of
priests and monks, the special and peculiar utterance
of a sacerdotal class, wrapt in intercessory functions,
straining ever for glimpses of the Beatific Vision,
whose one absorbing effort was to emancipate the soul
from time and discipline it for eternity. It is poetry
of and for the temple, the sacramental mysteries, the
hours of prayer, for seasons of solitary meditation; it
blends with the dim light sifted through stained cathe-
dral windows, with incense, with majestic music. The
simple layman was not at home in such an atmosphere
as this, and the Latin hymn was not a familiar expres-
sion of his thought. His mental training was of a coarser,
more commonplace order. He must particularize, his
religious feeling must lay hold of something more tan-
gible, something that could serve his childish views of
things, and enter into some practical relation with the
needs of his ordinary mechanical existence.

The religious folk-song, therefore, shows many traits
similar to those found in the secular folk-song, and we

235

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CBURCB

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 instruc-
tion in the Middle Age, is also apparent, and scores of
them are simply narratives of the Nativity, the Cruci-
fixion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension, told over
and over in almost identical language. These German
hj^mns 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 my-
thology 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 sanc-
tioned, but which are natural consequences of the
action of her dogmas upon untrained, superstitious
minds. There are hymns which teach the preexist-
ence of Mary with God before the creation; that in
and through her all things were created. Others, not

236

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

content with the church doctrine of her intercessory
office in heaven, represent her as commanding and
controlling her Son, and even as forgiving sins in her
own right. Hagiolatry, also, is carried to its most
dubious extremity. Power is ascribed to the saints to
save from the pains of hell. In one hymn they are
implored to intercede with God for the sinner, because,
the writer says, God will not deny their prayer. It is
curious to see in some of these poems that the attributes
of love and compassion, which have been removed from
the Father to the Son, and from the Son to the Virgin
Mother, are again transferred to St. Ann, who is im-
plored to intercede with her daughter in behalf of the
suppliant.

All this, and much more of a similar sort, the prod-
uct 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

237

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

Luther and his friends in simplicity and refinement of
language. Ideas common to the hymnody of all ages
are to be found there. One comes to mind in which
there is carried out in the most touching way the
thought of John Newton in his most famous hymn,
where in vision the look of the crucified Christ seems
to charge the arrested sinner with his death. Another
lovely poem expresses the shrinking of the disciple in
consciousness of mortal frailty when summoned by
Christ to take up the cross, and the comfort that he
receives from the Saviour's assurance of his own suffi-
cient grace. A celebrated hymn by Tauler describes a
ship sent from heaven by the Father, containing Jesus,
who comes as our Redeemer, and who asks personal
devotion to himself and a willingness to live and die
with and for him. Others set forth the atoning work
of Christ's death, without mention of any other condi-
tion of salvation. Others implore the direct guidance
and protection of Christ, as in the exquisite cradle
hymn of Heinrich von Loufenberg, which is not sur-
passed in tenderness and beauty by anything in Keble's
Lyra Innocentium, or the child verses of Blake.

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, confes-
sions, translations of psalms, poems to be sung on
pilgrimages, funeral songs, political songs, and many
more which touch upon true relations between man and

238

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

the divine. There is a wonderful pathos in this great
body of national poetry, for it makes us see the dim
but honest striving of the heart of the noble German
people after that which is sure and eternal, and which
could offer assurance of compensation amid the doubt
and turmoil of that age of strife and tyranny. The
true and the false in this poetry were alike the outcome
of the conditions of the time and the authoritative
religious teaching. The fourteenth and fifteenth cen-
turies, in spite of the abuses which made the Reforma-
tion necessary, contained many saintly lives, beneficent
institutions, much philanthropy, and inspired love of
God. All these have their witness in many products
of that era, and we need look no further than the
mediaeval religious poetry to find elements which show
that on the spiritual side the Reformation was not
strictly a moral revolution, restoring a lost religious
feeling, but rather an intellectual process, establishing
a hereditary piety upon reasonable and Scriptural
foundations.

We see, therefore, how far Luther was from being
the founder of German hymnody. In trying to dis-
cover 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 employ-
ment 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.

239

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

The attitude of the Catholic Church to congregational
singing has often been discussed, and is at pres-
ent 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 diffi-
culties, and especially the inflexible insistence upon the
use of Latin in all the offices of worship, virtually con-
fined 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 wor-
shiper 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 con-
ceived as itself possessing a divine sanction. The liturgy
!is not in any sense the creation of the people, but comes

240

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HVMNODY

down to them from a higher source, the gradual produc*
tion of men believed to have been inspired by the Holy
Spirit, and is accepted by the laity as a divinely autho-
rized means in the accomplishment of the supreme sacer-
dotal function. The sacrifice of the Mass is performed
for the people, but not through the people, nor even
necessarily in their presence. And so it has come to
pass that, although the Catholic Church has never offi-
cially recognized the existence of the modern mixed
choir, and does not in its rubrics authorize any manner of
singing except the unison Gregorian chant, nevertheless,
by reason of the expansion and specialization of musical
art, and the increasing veneration of the liturgy as the
very channel of descending sacramental grace, the people
are reduced to a position of passive receptivity.

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 cooperation between the church lan-
guage 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 in-
trusion of heretical or unchurchly ideas.

The whole spirit and implied theory of the Catholic
Church is therefore unfavorable to popular hymnody.
16 241

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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 Gre-
gorian 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 Luth-
eran 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 mediseval 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 im-
petus given to congregational song. Luther set the
national impulse free, and taught the people that in sing-
ing praise they were performing a service that was well
pleasing to God and a necessary part of public com-
munion with him. It was not simply that Luther
charged the popular hymnody with the energy of his

242

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

world-transforming doctrine, — he also gave it a dignity
which it had never possessed before, certainly not since
the apostolic age, as a part of the official liturgic song
of the Church. Both these facts gave the folk-hymn its
wonderful proselyting power in the sixteenth century,
— the latter gives it its importance in the history of
church music.

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 wor-
ship 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 pubUc 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.

243

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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 re-
sounded 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 con-
sidered false and pernicious. This judicious conserva-
tism 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 indi^ddual. 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 con-

244

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

scious 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 composi-
tions 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 em-
bodied in two orders of worship drawn up for the
churches of Wittenberg, viz.^ the Formula Missse 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 vica-
rious 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 per-
formance 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

245

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

praise." The sermon is of the greatest importance as
an ally of the reading of the Word. The office of wor-
ship must be viewed as a means of instruction as well as
a rite contrived as the promoter and expression of
religious emotion ; the believer is in no wise to be con-
sidered as having attained to complete ripeness and
maturity, since if it were so religious worship would be
unnecessary. Such a goal is not to be attained on earth.
The Christian, said Luther, *' needs baptism, the Word,
and the sacrament, not as a perfected Christian, but as a
sinner. "

The Formula Missee of 1523 was only a provisional
office, and may be called an expurgated edition of the
CathoUc 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 Commemora-
tion of the Dead, and everything following the Agnus
Dei except the prayer of thanksgiving and benediction.
That is to say, everything is removed which character-
izes the Mass as a priestly, sacrificial act, or which recog-
nizes 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 Missse.

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

246

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

the preface to the Deutsche Messe of 1526, Luther cites
the Latin Formula Missse as possessing a special value.
" This I will not abandon or have altered ; but as we
have kept it with us heretofore, so must we still be free
to use the same where and when it pleases us or occasion
requires. I will by no means permit the Latin speech
to be dropped out of divine worship, since it is impor-
tant for the youth. And if I were able, and the Greek
and Hebrew languages were as common with us as the
Latin, and had as much music and song as the Latin has,
we should hold Masses, sing and read every Sunday in
all four languages, German, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew."
It is important, he goes on to say, that the youth should
be familiar with more languages than their own, in order
that they may be able to give instruction in the true
doctrine to those not of their own nation, Latin espe-
cially approving itself for this purpose as the common
dialect of cultivated men.

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 famihar and native to them. This form is a still
further simplification, as compared with the Formula
Missse, 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 Ger-
man 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'

247

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

an einen Gott," sung by the people ; next follows the
sermon ; (8) the Lord's Prayer and exhortation prehmi-
nary to the Sacrament, (9) the words of institution and
elevation, (10) distribution of the bread, (11) singing
of the German Sanctus or the hymn " Jesus Christus
unser Heiland," (12) distribution of the wine, (13)
Agnus Dei, a German hymn, or the German Sanctus,
(14) Collect of thanksgiving, (15) Benediction.

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 reiter-
ates, 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 dis-
tricts, 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 per-
petuation 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 wrot^

248

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

to Nicholas Haussmann, pastor at Zwickau : " I would
that we had many German songs which the people
could sing during the Mass. But we lack German
poets and musicians, or they are unknown to us, who
are able to make Christian and spiritual songs, as Paul
calls them, which are of such value that they can be
used daily in the house of God. One can find but few
that have the appropriate spirit." The reason for this
complaint was short-lived ; a crowd of hymnists sprang
up as if by magic, and among them Luther was, as in
all things, chief. His work as a hymn writer began
soon after the completion of his translation of the New
Testament, while he was engaged in translating the
psalms. Then, as Koch says, " the spirit of the psalm-
ists and prophets came over him." Several allusions in
his letters show that he took the psalms as his model ;
that is to say, he did not think of a hymn as designed
for the teaching of dogma, but as the sincere, spon-
taneous outburst of love and reverence to God for his
goodness.

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 remain-
ing hymns of Luther (twelve in number) were printed
in five song-books of different dates, ending with King's
in 1548, Four hymn-books contain prefaces by Luther,

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MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

the first written for Walther's book of 1525, and the
last for one published by Papst in 1545. Luther's
example was contagious. Other hymn writers at once
sprang up, who were filled with Luther's spirit, and
who took his songs as models. Printing presses were
kept busy, song-books were multiplied, until at the time
of Luther's death no less than sixty collections, count-
ing the various editions, had been issued. There was
reason for the sneering remark of a Catholic that the
people were singing themselves into the liUtheran
doctrine. The principles of worship promulgated by
Luther and implied in his liturgic arrangements were
adopted by all the Protestant communities ; whatever
variations there might be in the external forms of wor-
ship, in all of them the congregational hymn held a
prominent place, and it is to be noticed that almost
without exception the chief hymn writers of the Lu-
theran time were theologians and preachers.

Luther certainly wrote thirty-six hymns. A few
others have been ascribed to him without conclusive evi-
dence. 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 para-
phrase, 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

250

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

older compositions. Besides these five many of the tran-
scriptions of psalms and older hymns owe but little to
their models. The chief of these, and the most celebrated
of all Luther's hymns, " Ein' feste Burg," was suggested
by the forty-sixth Psahn, but nothing could be more orig-
inal in spirit and phraseology, more completely character-
istic of the great reformer. The beautiful poems, " Aus
tiefer Noth " (Ps. cxxx.), and " Ach Gott, vom Himmel
sieh' darein " (Ps. xii.), are less bold paraphrases, but
still Luther's own in the sense that their expression is a
natural outgrowth of the more tender and humble side of
his nature.

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 jar-
ring note of fanaticism in them. We even find expres-
sions 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^ d.o 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 —

251

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

they have behind them the great impelling force of the
Reformation. Perhaps the world has shown a correct
instinct in fixing upon " Ein' feste Burg " as the typical
hymn of Luther and of the Reformation. Heine, who
called it " the Marseillaise of the Reformation;" Freder-
ick the Great, who called its melody (not without rever-
ence) " God Almighty's grenadier march ; " Mendelssohn
and Meyerbeer, who chose the same tune to symbolize
aggressive Protestantism ; and Wagner, who wove its
strains into the grand march which celebrates the military
triumphs of united Germany, — all these men had an
accurate feeling for the patriotic and moral fire which
burns in this mighty song. The same spirit is found in
other of Luther's hymns, but often combined with a ten-
derer music, in which emphasis is laid more upon the
inward peace that comes from trust in God, than upon
the fact of outward conflict. A still more exalted mood
is disclosed in such hymns as " Nun freut euch, lieben
Christen g'mein," and " Von Himmel hoch da komm ich
her" — the latter a Christmas song said to have been
written for his little son Hans. The first of these is no-
table for the directness with which it sets forth the
Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone. It is
in this same directness and homely vigor and adaptation
to the pressing needs of the time that we must find tlie
cause of the popular success of Luther's hymns. He
knew what the dumb, blindly yearning German people
had been groping for during so many years, and the
power of his sermons and poems lay in the fact that they
offered a welcome spiritual gift in phrases that went
straight to the popular heart. His speech was that of the

252

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

people — idiomatic, nervous, and penetrating. He had
learned how to talk to them in his early peasant home,
and in his study of the folk-songs. Coarse, almost brutal
at times, we may call him, as in his controversies with
Henry VIII., Erasmus, and others; but it was the
coarseness of a rugged nature, of a son of the soil, a man
tremendously in earnest, blending rehgious zeal with
patriotism, never doubting that the enemies of his faith
were confederates of the devil, who was as real to him
as Duke George or Dr. Eck. No English translation
can quite do justice to the homely vigor of his verse.
Carlyle has succeeded as well as possible in his transla-
tion of "Ein' feste Burg," but even this masterly achieve-
ment does not quite reproduce the jolting abruptness of
the metre, the swing and fire of the movement. The
greater number of Luther's hymns are set to a less stri-
dent pitch, but all alike speak a language which reveals
in every line the ominous spiritual tension of this his-
toric moment.

In philological history these hymns have a signifi-
cance 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

263

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

scholarship Luther dropped the theological style, and
sought among the people for phrases as artless and
simple as those of the Hebrew writers." " The influ-
ence of Luther on German literature cannot be ex-
plained until we have seen how sound and vigorous
and many-sided was the new spirit which he infused
into the language." ^ All this will apply to the hymns
as well as to the Bible translation. Here was one
great element in the popular effect which these hymns
produced. Their simple, home-bred, domestic form of
expression caught the public ear in an instant. Those
who have at all studied the history of popular eloquence
in prose and verse are aware of the electrical effect
that may be produced when ideas of pith and moment
are sent home to the masses in forms of speech that
are their own. Luther's hymns may not be poetry in
the high sense; but they are certainly eloquence, they
are popular oratory in verse, put into the mouths of
the people by one of their own number.

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
h5rmns 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 i

1 Taylor, Studies in German Literature.
254

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

salvation comes not through works or sacraments or
any human mediation, but only through the merits of
Christ and faith in his atoning blood. The whole ma-
chinery of mariolatry, hagiolatry, priestly absolution,
and personal merit, which had so long stood between
the individual soul and Christ, was broken down.
Christ is no longer a stern, hardly appeasable Judge,
but a loving Saviour, yearning over mankind, stretch-
ing out hands of invitation, asking, not a slavish
submission to formal observances, but a free, spontan-
eous offering of the heart. This was the message that
thrilled Germany. And it was through the hymns of
Luther and those modelled upon them that the new
evangel was most widely and quickly disseminated.
The friends as well as the enemies of the Reformation
asserted that the spread of the new doctrines was due
more to Luther's hymns than to his sermons. The
editor of a German hymn-book published in 1565 says :
" I do not doubt that through that one song of Luther,
* Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g'mein,' many hundred
Christians have been brought to the faith who other-
wise would not have heard of Luther." An indignant
Jesuit declared that " Luther's songs have damned
more souls than aU his books and speeches." We
read marvellous stories of the effect of these hymns ;
of Lutheran missionaries entering Catholic churches
during service and drawing away the whole congre-
gation by their singing ; of wandering evangelists
standing at street corners and in the market places,
singing to excited crowds, then distributing the hymns
upon leaflets so that the populace might join in the

255

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

psean, and so winning entire cities to the new faith
almost in a day. This is easily to be believed when
we consider that the progress of events and the drift
of ideas for a century and more had been preparing
the German mind for Luther's message; that as a
people the Germans are extremely susceptible to the
enthusiasms that utter themselves in song; and that
these hymns carried the truths for which their souls
had been thirsting, in language of extraordinary force,
clothed in melodies which they had long known and
loved.

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 repre-
sentative Oi 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.^ He finds in them all one common
feature, — the ground character of objectivity. "They
are genuine church hymns, in which the common faith
is expressed in its universality, without the subjective
feeling of personality." " It is always we, not I, which
is the prevailing word in these songs. The poets of
this period did not, like those of later times, paint
their own individual emotions with all kinds of fiofura-
tive expressions, but, powerfully moved by the truth,
they sang the work of redemption and extolled the
faith in the free, undeserved grace of God in Jesus

1 Koch, Geschichte des Kirchenliedes und Kirchegesanges der christlichen
insbesondere der deutschen evangelischen Kirche.

256

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

Christ, or gave thanks for the newly given pure word
of God in strains of joyful victory, and defied their
foes in firm, godly trust in the divinity of the doctrine
which was so new and yet so old. Therefore they
speak the truths of salvation, not in dry doctrinal tone
and sober reflection, but in the form of testimony or
confession, and although in some of these songs are
contained plain statements of belief, the reason therefor f
is simply in the hunger and thirst after the pure doc-
trine. Hence the speech of these poets is the Bible
speech, and the expression forcible and simple. It is
not art, but faith, which gives these songs their imper-
ishable value."

The hymns of Luther and the other early Reforma-
tion hymnists of Germany are not to be classed with
sacred lyrics Hke those of Vaughan and Keble and New-
man which, however beautiful, are not of that univer-
sality which alone adapts a hymn for use in the public
assembly. In writing their songs Luther and his com-
peers identified themselves with the congregation of
beUevers ; 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 prot-
estations 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
17 257

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

such as the latter are most frequent perhaps in the
paraphrases of the psahns, which the authors apply to
the situation of an infant church encompassed with
enemies. Yet there is no sign of doubt of the justice of
the cause, or of the safety of the flock in the divine
hands.

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 counter-
point. 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-

258

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

maker and the tune-setter, and in the latter part of the
sixteenth centmy the modern method of inventing
melodies took the place of the mediaeval custom of
borrowing and adapting, both in the people's song and
in larger works.

Down to a very recent period it has been universally
believed that Luther was a musician of the latter order
t. ^., 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.^ Even Juhan's
Dictionary of Hymnology, which is supposed to be the
embodiment of the most advanced scholarship in this
department of learning, makes similar statements. But
this is altogether an error. Luther composed no tunes. \
Under the patient investigation of a half-century, the
melodies originally associated with Luther's hymns have
all been traced to their sources. The tune of " Ein' feste
Burg " was the last to yield ; Baumker finds the germ of:
it in a Gregorian melody. Such proof as this is, of course,!
decisive and final. The hymn-tunes, called chorals/
which Luther, Walther, and others provided for the
reformed churches, were drawn from three sources, mz.^
the Latin song of the Catholic Church, the tunes of

1 Bacon and Allen, editors : The Hymns of Martin Luther set to theif
Original Melodies, with an English Version.

259

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

German hjrmns before the Reformation, and the secular
folk-song.

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 Avas not confined to the choral, but, like the founders
of the musical service of the Anglican Church, he estab-
lished 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 Luth-er took in setting notes to the Epistle,
Gospel, and other offices of the service. He intended to
institute a threefold di^^ision 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

260

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

seventeenth century. But, as Helmore says, " the rage
for turning creeds, commandments, psalms, and every-
thiD^ to be sung, into metre, gradually banished the
chant from Protestant communities on the Continent."

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 in the hymn-books of
modern Germany. Melodies of the Bohemian Brethren
were in this manner transferred to the German song-
books.

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 in-
volved 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

261

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

were weeded out. In course of time the old secular
associations were forgotten, and few devout Germans
are now reminded that some of the grand melodies in
which faith and hope find such appropriate utterance
are variations of old love songs and drinking songs.
There is nothing exceptional in this borrowing of the
world's tunes for ecclesiastical uses. We find the same
practice among the French, Dutch, English, and Scotch
Calvinists, the English Wesleyans, and the hymn-book
makers of America. This method is often necessary
when a young and vigorously expanding Church must
be quickly provided with a store of songs, but in its
nature it is only a temporary recourse.
J 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 sus-
tained 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 har-
mony below. This method prepared the development
of a harmony that was more in the nature of modern
chord progressions, and when the choir and congrega-
tion 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,

262

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

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 reli-
gious 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 per-
formance 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

263

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

Luther's hymns by his opponents, they could appre-
ciate 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
jtranslated 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 Yehe, 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 musi-
cal 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
264

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

throughout the sixteenth century and into the seven-
teenth 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

265

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

pious confidence, this unabated poetic glow, found in
Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676) the most fervent and refined
expression that has been reached in German hymnody.

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 Criiger,
J. R. Able, 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 eigh-
teenth 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 effemi-
nacy and sentimentality. False tastes crept into the
Church. The homely vigor and forthrightness of the
Lutheran hymn seemed to the shallow critical spirits of

266

THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN HYMNODY

the day rough, prosaic, and repellant, and they began to
smooth out and polish the old rhymes, and supplant the
choral melodies and harmonies with the prettinesses
and languishing graces of the Italian cantilena. As
the sturdy inventive power of conservative church
musicians was no longer available or desired, recourse
was had, as in old times, to secular material, but not as
formerly to the song of the people, — honest, sincere,
redolent of the soil, — but rather to the light, artificial
strains of the fashionable world, the modish Italian
opera, and the affected pastoral poesy. It is the old
story of the people's song declining as the art-song
flourishes. As the stern temper of the Lutheran era
grew soft in an age of security and indifference, so the
grand old choral was neglected, and its performance
grew perfunctory and cold. An effort has been made
here and there in recent years to restore the old ideals
and practice, but until a revival of spirituality strong \
enough to stir the popular heart breaks out in Germany,
we may not look for any worthy successor to the sono- j
rous proselyting song of the Reformation age. /

267

CHAPTER VIII

RISE OF THE GERMAN CANTATA AND PASSION

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 expres-
sion 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 sud-
den 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 conser-
vative 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,

263

RISE OF THE GERMAN CANTATA AND PASSION

like secular, demanded a more comprehensive and a
more individual style of expression. The Catholic
musicians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
were very clear in their minds as to what they wanted
and how to get it. The brilliant Italian aria was right
at hand in all its glory, and its languishing strains
seemed admirably suited to the appeals which the
aggressive Church was about to make to the heart and
the senses. The powers that ruled in German Protes-
tant worship conceived their aims, consciously or un-
consciously, in a somewhat different spirit. The new
musical movement in German church music was less
self-conlident, it was uncertain of its final direction, at
times restrained by reverence for the ancient forms and
ideals, again wantonly breaking with tradition and throw-
ing itself into the arms of the alluring Italian culture.

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, asso-
ciated 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

26d

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

clung tenaciously to the choral and motet, resisting every
influence that might soften that austere rigor which to
their minds was demanded by historic association and
liturgic fitness. A third group was the party of compro-
mise. Basing their culture upon the old German choir
chorus, organ music, and people's hymn-tune, they
grafted upon this sturdy stock the Italian melody. It
was in the hands of this school that the future of Ger-
man church music lay. They saw that the opportun-
ities for a more varied and characteristic expression could
not be kept out of the Church, for they were based on
the reasonable cravings of human nature. Neither could
they throw away those grand hereditary types of devo-
tional utterance which had become sanctified to German
memory in the period of the Reformation's storm and
stress. They adopted what was soundest and most
suitable for these ends in the art of both countries, and
built up a form of music which strove to preserve the
high traditions of national liturgic song, while at the
same time it was competent to gratify the tastes which
had been stimulated by the recent rapid advance in
musical invention. Out of this movement grew the
Passion music and the cantata of the eighteenth century,
embellished with all the expressive resources of the
Italian vocal solo and the orchestral accompaniment,
solidified by a contrapuntal treatment derived from
organ music, and held unswervingly to the very heart
of the liturgy by means of those choral tunes which had
become identified with special days and occasions in the
church year.

The nature of the change of motive in modern church
._ 270

RISE OF THE GERMAN CANTATA AND PASSION

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 intoler-
ance 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 itseK 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

271

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

Italy offered as a substitute for a style grown cold and
obsolete. But out of this decadence, if we call it
such, came the cantatas and Passions of J. S. Bach, in
which a reflective age hke ours, trained to settle points
of fitness in matters of art, finds the most heart-search-
ing and heart-revealing strains that devotional feeling
has ever inspired. These glorious works could never
have existed if the Church had not sanctioned the new
methods in music which Germany was so gladly receiv-
ing from Italy. Constructed to a large extent out of
secular material, these works grew to full stature under
liturgic auspices, and at last, transcending the bound-
aries of ritual, they became a connecting bond between
the organized life of the Church and the larger religious
intuitions which no ecclesiastical system has ever been
able to monopolize.

Such was the gift to the world of German Protestant-
ism, stimulated by those later impulses of the Renais-
sance 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 to-
gether in brotherly union; Protestantism threw away
art and kept religion. Renaissance rationalism threw
away religion and retained art. In painting and sculp-
ture 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 ap-
parently 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

272

RISE OF THE GERMAN CANTATA AND PASSION

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 can-
tata. 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 can-
tata 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 seven-
teenth century the German Church cantata consisted
usually of an instrumental introduction, a chorus sing-
ing 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 dia-
logue " 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 de-
velopment in the eighteenth century it also incorporated
the recitative and the Italian aria form, and carried to
18 273

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN ChURCH

their full power the chorus, especially the chorus based
on the choral melody, and the organ accompaniment.
By means of the prominent employment of themes taken
from choral tunes appointed for particular days in the
church calendar, especially those days consecrated to
the contemplation of events in the life of our Lord, the
cantata became the most effective medium for the ex-
pression of those emotions called forth in the congre-
gation by their imagined participation in the scenes
which the ritual commemorated. The stanzas of the
hymns which appear in the cantata illustrate the Bibli-
cal texts, applying and commenting upon them in the
light of Protestant conceptions. The words refer to
some single phase of rehgious feeling made conspicuous
in the order for the day. A cantata is, therefore, quite
analogous to the anthem of the Church of England,
although on a larger scale. Unlike an oratorio, it is
neither epic nor dramatic, but renders some mood, more
or less general, of prayer or praise.

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 chant-
ing, 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

274

RISE OF THE GERMAN CANTATA AND PASSION

obscure parts of Europe, was one of a great number of
ecclesiastical dramas, classed as Miracle Plays, Mysteries,
and Moralities, which were performed under the auspices
of the Church for the purpose of impressing the people
in the most vivid way with the reaUty of the Old and
New Testament stories, and the binding force of doctrines
and moral principles.

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 evan-
gelists, 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 Pahn Sunday, Holy Tuesday, Wednesday of
Holy Week, and Good Friday. According to the prim-
itive use, which originated in the period of the suprem-
acy of the Gregorian chant, several officers took part in
the delivery. One cleric intoned the evangelist's narra-
tive, another the words of Christ, and a third those of
Pilate, Peter, and other single personages. The ejacula-
tions 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

275

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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 narra-
tive, words of Christ, Pilate, and all. The large oppor-
timities 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 revo-
lution, heralded by the Florentine monody and con-
firmed 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 des-
tined to attain such dimensions in Germany that it occu-
pied the whole field devoted to this form of art. In the
oratorio Passion, as it may be called, the Italian reci-
tative and aria and the sectional rhythmic chorus took
the place of the unison chant and the ancient polyphony ;
hymns and poetic monologues supplemented and some-
times supplanted the Bible text; and the impassioned

276

RISE OF THE GERMAN CANTATA AND PASSION

vocal style, introducing the new principle of definite
expression of the words, was reinforced by the lately
emancipated art of instrumental music. For a time,
these three forms of Passion music existed side by side,
the latest in an immature state; but the stars in the
firmament of modern music were fighting in their courses
for the mixed oratorio style, and in the early part of the
eighteenth century this latter form attained completion
and stood forth as the most imposing gift bestowed by
Germany upon the world of ecclesiastical art.

The path which German reUgious 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 Schiitz, the greatest
German composer of the seventeenth century, and the
worthy forerunner of Bach and Handel, wrote his " his-
tories " and " sacred symphonies." Bom 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 ten-
dencies 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 transi-
tion 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 discover-
ies in dramatic expression as supplementary, not antag-
onistic, to the old ideal of devotional music. In his
psalms he employed contrasting and combining choral

277

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

masses, reinforced by a band of instruments. In the
Symphonise sacrse are songs for one or more solo voices,
with instrumental obligato, in which the declamatory
recitative style is employed with varied and appropriate
effect. In his dramatic religious works, the " Resurrec-
tion," the "Seven Words of the Redeemer upon the
Cross," the " Conversion of Saul," and the Passions after
the four evangelists, Schiitz uses the vocal solo, the
instrumental accompaniment, and the dramatic chorus
in a tentative manner, attaining at times striking effects
of definite expression quite in accordance with modern
ideas, while anon he falls back upoD the strict impersonal
method identified with the ancient Plain Song and six-
teenth-centur}^ motet. Most advanced in style and rich in
expression is the " Seven Words." A feature character-
istic of the rising school of German Passion music is the
imagined presence of Christian believers, giving utter-
ance in chorus to the emotions aroused by the contem-
plation of the atoning act. In the " Seven Words " the
utterances of Jesus and the other separate personages
are given in arioso recitative, rising at times to pro-
nounced melody. The tone of the whole work is fer-
vent, elevated, and churchly. The evangelist and aU
the persons except Christ sing to an organ bass, — the
words of the Saviour are accompanied by the ethereal
tones of stringed instruments, perhaps intended as an
emblematic equivalent to the aureole in religious paint-
ings. In Schiitz's settings of the Passion, although they
belong to the later years of his life, he returns to the
primitive form, in which the parts of the' evangelist and
the single characters are rendered in the severe " collect

278

RISE OF THE GERMAN CANTATA AND PASSION

tone " of the ancient Plain Song, making no attempt at
exact expression of changing sentiments. Even in these
restrained and lofty works, however, his genius as a com-
poser and his progressive sympathies as a modern artist
uvjoasionally break forth in vivid expression given to the
ejaculations of priests, disciples, and Jewish mob, attain-
ing a quite remarkable warmth and reality of portrayal.
Nevertheless, these isolated attempts at naturalism
hardly bring the Passions of Schutz into the category of
modern works. There is no instrumental accompani-
ment, and, most decisive of all, they are restrained
within the limits of the mediaeval conception by
the ancient Gregorian tonality, which is maintained
throughout almost to the entire exclusion of chromatic
alteration.

The works of Schiitz, 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 Handel. These two giants of the culmi-
nating period apparently owed nothing to Schutz. 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 com-
mon 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 seven-
teenth 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

279

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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 Schiitz we find only the characters
of the Bible story, together with the evangelist's nar-
rative 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 congre-
gation, singing appropriate chorals, and the ideal com-
pany 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 con-
ception of the Passion performance as a liturgic act.

The growth of the Passion music from Schiitz to its
final beauty and pathos under Sebastian Bach was by
no means constant. In certain quarters, particularly

280

RISE OF THE GERMAN CANTATA AND PASSION

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 litur-
gic 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 Ham-
burg, 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 amelio-
rated 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

2H

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

capabilities of each that he should be able by their
amalgamation to create a form of religious music that
should be conformed to the purest conception of
the mission of church song, and at the same time
endowed with those faculties for moving the affections
which were demanded by the tastes of the new age. In
fulness of time this genius appeared. His name was
Johann Sebastian Bach.

CHAPTER IX

THE CULMINATION OF GERMAN PEOTESTANT MUSIC:
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

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 inexhaust-
ible. 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 digres-
sions 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.

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MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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, en-
dowed 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 perma-
nent 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 play-
ing, 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 cen-

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JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

turies were members of the town bands and choruses,
which sustained almost the entire musical culture
among the common people of Germany during that
period. These organizations, combining the public
practice of religious and secular music, were effective
in nourishing both the artistic and the religious spirit
of the time. In Germany in the seventeenth century
there was as yet no opera and concert system to con-
centrate musical activity in the theatre and public hall.
The Church was the nursery of musical culture, and
this culture was in no sense artificial or borrowed, — it
was based on types long known and beloved by the
common people as their peculiar national inheritance,
and associated with much that was stirring and honor-
able in their history.

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 uncon-
taminated by the wide-spread demoralization that fol-
lowed 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.

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MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

Into such a legacy of intelligence, thrift, and pro-
bity 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 accumula-
tion 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 Liineburg, attaining mastership as organist and
contrapuntist at the age of eighteen. He held official
positions at Arnstadt, Muhlhausen, Weimar, and Anhalt-
Cothen, 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 incident^
of romantic interest. But little is known of his tem-
perament 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

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JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

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 pre-
vailing 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 pre-
cious 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, en-
larged them, touched them with the fire of his genius
and his religious passion, and thus produced works of

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MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

art which, intended for German evangelicalism, are
now being adopted by the world as the most compre-
hensive symbols in music of the essential Christian
faith.i

Bach was one of those supreme artists who concen-
trate 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 phenome-
non 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 ser-
vice, 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

1 The performance of Bach's cantatas by the Catholic Schola Cantorum
of Paris is one of many testimonies to the universality of the art of this
sou of Lutheranism.

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JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

puts him among the greatest technicians in the whole
range of art, the prodigality of ideas, depth of feeling,
and a sort of introspective mystical quality which he
was able to impart to the involved and severe diction of
his age.

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 oppor-
tunity 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
19 289

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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 rehgious cere-
mony, 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 estab-
lished 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 pre-
scribed 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 hturgic
connections had come to make its appeal to the wor-

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JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

shipers, not as an artistic decoration, but as an agency
directly adapted to aid in promoting those ends which
the church ceremony had in view. Furthermore, the
dignity and severe intellectuality of this German organ
style, combined with its majesty of sound and strength
of movement, seemed to add distinctly to the biblical
flavor of the liturgy, the uncompromising dogmatism of
the authoritative teaching, and the intense moral earnest-
ness which prevailed in the Church of Luther in its best
estate. It was a form of art which was native to the
organ, implied in the very tone and mechanism of the
instrument ; it was absolutely untouched by the lighter
tendencies already active in secular music. The notion
of making the organ play pretty tunes and tickle the ear
with the imitative sound of fancy stops never entered
the heads of the German church musicians. The
gravity and disciplined intelligence proper to the exer-
cise of an ecclesiastical office must pervade every contri-
bution of the organist. This conception was equally a
matter of course to the mass of the people, and so the
taste of the congregation and the conviction of the clerical
authorities supported the organists in their adherence to
the traditions of their strict and complex art. This
lordly style was no less worthy of reverence in the eyes
of all concerned because it was to all intents a German
art, virtually unknown in other countries, except partially
in the sister land of Holland, and therefore hedged about
with the sanctions of patriotism as well as the universally
admitted canons of religious musical expression.

This form of music was evolved originally under the
suggestion of the mediaeval vocal polyphony, — counter-

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MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

point redistributed and systematized in accordance with
the modern development of rhythm, tonality, and sec-
tional 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 Swe-
linck, Scheldt, Buxtehude, Froberger, and Pachelbel
carried the movement so far as to reveal its full possi-
bihties, 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 varia-
tions. In his fugues he shows perhaps most convinc-
ingly 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 Ued. 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

292

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

was a matter of course with every musical apprentice.
But with Bach, the master, the fugue was not merely
the sign of technical facility ; it was a means of expres-
sion, a supreme manifestation of style. By the telling
force of his subjects, the amazing dexterity and rich
fancy displayed in their treatment, the abihty to cover
the widest range of emotional suggestion, his fugues
appeal to a far deeper sense than wonder at technical
cleverness. Considering that it lies in the very essence
of the contrapuntal style that it should be governed
by certain very rigid laws of design and procedure, we
may apply to Bach's organ works in general a term
that has been given to architecture, and say that they
are "construction beautified." By this is meant that
every feature, however beautiful in itself, finds its final
charm and justification only as a necessary component
in the comprehensive plan. Each detail helps to push
onward the systematic unfolding of the design, it falls
into its place by virtue of the laws of fitness and pro-
portion ; logical and organic, but at the same time deco-
rative and satisfactory to the aesthetic sense. There is
indeed something almost architectonic in these master-
pieces of the great Sebastian. In their superb rolhng
harmonies, their dense involutions, their subtle and
inevitable unfoldings, their long-drawn cadences, and
their thrilhng climaxes, they seem to possess a fit rela-
tion to the vaulted, reverberating ceilings, the massive
pillars, and the half-lighted recesses of the sombre old
buildings in which they had their birth. In both the
architecture and the music we seem to apprehend a
religious earnestness which drew its nourishment from

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MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

the most hidden depths of the soul, and which, even
in its moments of exultation, would not appear to dis-
regard those stern convictions in which it believed that
it found the essentials of its faith.

A form of instrumental music existed in the German
Protestant Church which was pecuhar to that institution,
and which was exceedingly significant as forming a con-
necting link between organ solo playing and the congre-
gational 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 organ-
ist'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 impro-
vise in the strict style upon themes invented by himseK
or borrowed from other sources. Nothing was more
natural than that he should use the choral tunes as his

294

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

quarry, not only on account of their technical suitable-
ness, but still more from the interest that would be
aroused in the congregation, and the unity that would
be established between the office of the organist and
that of the people. The chorals that were appointed
for the day would commonly furnish the player with
his raw material, and the song of the people would
appear again soaring above their heads, adorned by ef-
fective tonal combinations. This method could also
be employed to a more moderate extent in accompany-
ing the congregation as they sang the hymn in unison ;
interludes between the stanzas and even flourishes at
the ends of the lines would give scope to the organist to
exhibit his knowledge and fancy. The long-winded
interlude at last became an abuse, and was reduced or
suppressed; but the free organ prelude on the entire
choral melody grew in favor, and before Bach's day
ability in this line was the chief test of a player's
competence. In Bach's early days choral preludes by
famous masters had found their way into print in large
numbers, and were the objects of his assiduous study.
His own productions in this class surpassed all his
models, and as a free improviser on choral themes he ex-
celled all his contemporaries. " I had supposed," said
the famous Reinken, who at the age of ninety-seven
heard Bach extemporize on "An Wasserfliissen Baby-
lon " at Hamburg, — ''I had supposed that this art was
dead, but I see that it still lives in you." In this species
of playing, the hymn melody is given out with one hand
or upon the pedals, while around it is woven a network
of freely moving parts. The prelude may be brief,

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MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

included within the space limits of the original melody,
or it may be indefinitely extended by increasing the
length of the choral notes and working out interludes
between the lines. The one hundred and thirty choral
preludes which have come down to us from Bach's pen
are samples of the kind of thing that he was extempo-
rizing Sunday after Sunday. In these pieces the ac-
companiment is sometimes fashioned on the basis of a
definite melodic figure which is carried, with modulations
and subtle modifications, all through the stanza, some-
times on figures whose pattern changes with every Hue ;
while beneath or within the sounding arabesques are
heard the long sonorous notes of the choral, holding
the hearer firmly to the ground idea which the player's
art is striving to impress and beautify. This form of
music is something very different from the " theme and
variations," which has played so conspicuous a part
in the modern instrumental school from Haydn down
to the present. In the choral prelude there is no modi-
fication of the theme itself ; the subject in single notes
forms a cantus Jirmus^ on the same principle that ap-
pears in the mediseval vocal polyphony, around which the
freely invented parts, moving laterally, are entwined.
Although these compositions vary greatly in length, a
single presentation of the decorated choral tune suffices
with Bach except in rare instances, such as the prelude
on " O Lamm Gottes unschuldig," in which the melody
is given out three times, with a different scheme of
ornament at each repetition.

That Bach always restricts his choral elaboration to
. the end of illustrating the sentiment of the words with

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JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

which the theme is illustrated would be saying too
much. Certainty he often does so, as in such beautiful
examples as " O Mensch, bewein' dein' Stinde gross,"
" Schmiicke dich, meine liebe Seele," and that touching
setting of " Wenn wir in hochsten Nothen sein " which
Bach dictated upon his deathbed. But the purpose of
the choral prelude in the church worship was not neces-
sarily to reflect and emphasize the thought of the hymn.
This usage having become conventional, and the organ-
ist being allowed much latitude in his treatment, his
pride in his science would lead him to dilate and elabo-
rate 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 instru-
mental 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 inciden-
tal 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 Handel'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

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MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

terms of the organ. Examine one of his contrapuntal
choruses, or even one of his arias with its obligate
accompaniment, and you are instantly reminded of the
mode of facture of his organ pieces. His education
rested upon organ music, and he only yielded to one of
the most potent influences of his time when he made the
organ the dominant factor in his musical expression.
The instrumental genius of Germany had already come
to self-consciousness at the end of the seventeenth cen-
tury, and was as plainly revealing itself in organ music
as it did a century later in the sonata and symphony.
The virtuoso spirit — the just pride in technical skill —
always keeps pace with the development of style ; in the
nature of things these two are mutually dependent ele-
ments in progress. In Bach the love of exercising his
skill as an executant was a part of his very birthright as
a musician. The organ was to him very much what the
pianoforte was to Liszt, and in each the virtuoso instinct
was a fire which must burst forth, or it would consume
the very soul of its possessor. And so we find among
the fugues, fantasies, and toccatas of Bach compositions
whose dazzling magnificence is not exceeded by the
most sensational effusions of the modern pianoforte and
orchestral schools. In all the realm of music there is
nothing more superb than those Niagaras of impetuous
sound which roll through such works as the F major and
D minor toccatas and the G major fantasie, — to select
examples out of scores of equally apt illustrations. Buc
sound and fury are by no means their aim ; Bach's
invention and science are never more resourceful than
when apparently driven by the demon of unrest. In

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JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

order to give the freest sweep to his fancy Bach, the
supreme lord of form, often broke through form's con-
ventionalisms, so that even his fugues sometimes be-
came, as they have been called, fantasies in the form of
fugues, just as Beethoven, under a similar impulse,
wrote sonate quasi fantasie. Witness the E minor fugue
with the " wedge theme." In Bach's day and country
there was no concert stage ; the instrumental virtuoso
was the organist. It is not necessary to suppose, there-
fore, that pieces so exciting to the nerves as those to
which I have alluded were all composed strictly for the
ordinary church worship. There were many occasions,
such as the " opening " of a new organ or a civic festi-
val, when the organist could " let himself go " without
incurring th@in<;harge of introducing a profane or alien
element. .^^id yet, even as church music, these
pieces were not altogether incongruous. We must
always keep in mind that the question of appropriate-
ness in church music depends very much upon associa-
tion and custom. A style that would be execrated as
blasphemous in a Calvinist assembly would be received
as perfectly becoming in a Catholic or Lutheran cere-
mony. A style of music that has grown up in the very
heart of a certain Church, identified for generations with
the peculiar ritual and history of that Church, is proper
ecclesiastical music so far as that particular institution is
concerned. Those who condemn Bach's music — organ
works, cantatas, and Passions — as unchurchly ignore
this vital point. Moreover, the conception of the func-
tion of music in the service of the German Evangelical
Church was never so austere that brilliancy and grandeur

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MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CltURCtl

were deemed incompatible with the theory of religious
ceremony. It may be said that Bach's grandest organ
pieces are conceived as the expression of what may be
called the religious passion — the rapture which may not
unworthily come upon the believer when his soul opens
to the reception of ideas the most penetrating and
sublime.

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 emo-
tions 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 analo-
gous 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 under-
gone 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

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JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

ritual framework than the English anthem, in conse-
quence of the manner in which it has been made to
absorb strictly liturgic forms into its substance. Bach,
in his cantatas, kept the notion of liturgic unity
clearl}^ in mind. He effected this unity largely by
his use of the choral as a conspicuous element in the
cantata, often as its very foundation. He checked the
Italianizing process by working the arioso recitative,
the aria for one or more voices, and the chorus into one
grand musical scheme, in which his intricate organ style
served both as fabric and decoration. By the unexam-
pled prominence which he gave the choral as a mine of
thematic material, he gave the cantata not only a strik-
ing originality, but also an air of unmistakable fitness to
the character and special expression of the confession
which it served. By these means, which are concerned
with its form, and still more by the astonishing variety,
truth, and beauty with which he was able to meet the
needs of each occasion for which a work of this kind was
appointed, he endowed his Church and nation with a
treasure of religious song compared with which, for mag-
nitude, diversit)^, and power, the creative work of any
other church musician that may be named — Palestrina,
Gabrieli, or whoever he may be — sinks into insignifi-
cance.

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

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MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

afford such an astonishing display of versatility that any
proper characterization of them in a single chapter would
be quite out of the question. A considerable number
are available for study in Peters's cheap edition, and the
majority are analyzed with respect to their salient fea-
tures in Spitta's encyclopedic Bach biography. Among
the great diversity of interesting qualities which they
exhibit, the employment of the choral must be especially
emphasized as affording the clue, already indicated, to
Bach's whole conception of the cantata as a species of
religious art. The choral, especially that appointed for
a particular day (Hauptlied), is often used as the guid-
ing thread which weaves the work into the texture of
the whole daily ofiice. In such cases the chosen choral
will appear in the different numbers of the work in frag-
ments or motives, sometimes as subject for voice parts,
or woven into the accompaniment as theme or in obligato
fashion. It is more common for entire lines of the choral
to be treated as canti firmi, forming the subjects on which
elaborate contrapuntal choruses are constructed, follow-
ing precisely the same principle of design that I have
described in the case of the organ choral preludes. In
multitudes of cantata movements lines or verses from two
or more chorals are introduced. There are cantatas,
such as " Wer nur den lieben Gott," in which each num-
ber, whether recitative, aria, or chorus, takes its thematic
material, intact or modified, from a choral. The famous
"Ein' feste Burg " is a notable example of a cantata
in which Bach adheres to a hymn-tune in every number,
treating it line by line, deriving from it the pervading
tone of the work as well as its constructional plan. The

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JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

ways in which Bach applies the store of popular reli-
gious melody to the higher uses of art are legion. A can-
tata of Bach usually ends with a choral in its complete
ordinary form, plainly but richly harmonized in note-for-
note four-part setting as though for congregational sing-
ing. It was not the custom, however, in Bach's day for
the congregation to join in this closing choral. There
are cantatas, such as the renowned "Ich hatte viel Be-
kummerniss," in which the choral melody nowhere ap-
pears. Such cantatas are rare, and the use of the choral
became more prominent and systematic in Bach's work
as time went on.

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 reli-
gious community. The Church is his inspirer and
guide, not his absolute master. The foundation of the
German choral was a religious declaration of indepen-
dence. 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 sug-
gested 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 ac-

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MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

knowledgment of a fundamental principle. Parallel
to this significant privilege was the admission of music
of the largest variety and penetrated at will with
subjective feeling. This conception was carried out
consistently in the cantata as established by Bach, most
liberally, of course, in the arias. The words of the
cantata consisted of Bible texts, stanzas of church
hymns, and religious poems, the whole illustrating
some Scripture theme or referring to some especial
commemoration. The hard and fast metrical schemes
of the German hymns were unsuited to the structure
and rhythm of the aria, and so a form of verse known
as the madrigal, derived from Italy, was used when
rhythmical flexibility was an object. For all these
reasons we have in Bach's arias the widest license of
expression admissible in the school of art which he
represented. The Hamburg composers, in their shal-
low aims, had boldly transferred the Italian concert aria
as it stood into the Church, as a sign of their complete
defiance of ecclesiastical prescription. Not so Bach;
the ancient churchly ideal was to him a thing to be
reverenced, even when he departed from it. He,
therefore, took a middle course. The Italian notion
of an aria — buoyant, tuneful, the voice part sufficient
unto itself — had no place in Bach's method. A melody
to him was usually a detail in a contrapuntal scheme.
And so he wove the voice part into the accompaniment,
a single instrument — a violin, perhaps, or oboe — often
raised into relief, vying with the voice on equal terms,
often soaring above it and carrying the principal theme,
while the voice part serves as an obligato. This

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JOiiANN SEBASTIAN BACtt

method, hardly consistent with a pure vocal system,
often results with Bach, it must be confessed, in some-
thing very mechanical and monotonous to modern ears.
The artifice is apparent ; the author seems more bent on
working out a sort of algebraic formula than interpret-
ing the text to the sensibility. From the traditional
point of view this method is not in itself mal b. propos^
for such a treatment raises the sentiment into that calm
region of abstraction which is the proper refuge of the
devotional mood. But here, as in the organ pieces,
Bach is no slave to his technic. There are many arias
in his cantatas in which the musical expression is not
only beautiful and touching in the highest degree, but
also yields with wonderful truth to every mutation of
feeling in the text. Still more impressively is this
mastery of expression shown in the arioso recitatives.
In their depth and beauty they are unique in religipus
music. Only in very rare moments can Handel pretend
to rival them. Mendelssohn reflects them in his ora-
torios and psalms, — as the moon reflects the sun.

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 Handel's
oratorios. In drawing such a parallel, and observing
the greater variety of style in Handel, we must remem-
ber that Bach's cantatas are church music. Handel's
oratorios are not. Bach's cantata texts are not only
confined to a single sphere of thought, viz.^ the devo-
tional, but they are also strictly lyric. The church
cantata does not admit any suggestion of action or
20 305

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

external picture. The oratorio, on the other hand, is
practically unlimited in scope, and in Handel's choruses
the style and treatment are given almost unrestrained
license in the way of dramatic and epic suggestion.
Within the restrictions imposed upon him, however,
Bach expends upon his choruses a wealth of invention
in design and expression not less wonderful than that
exhibited in his organ works. The motet form, the
free fantasia and the choral fantasia forms are all em-
ployed, and every device known to his art is applied
for the illustration of the text. Grace and tenderness,
when the cheering assurances of the Gospel are the
theme, crushing burdens of gloom when the author's
thought turns to the mysteries of death and judgment,
mournfulness in view of sin, the pleading accents of
contrition, — every manifestation of emotion which a
rigid creed, allied to a racial mysticism which evades
positive conceptions, can call forth is projected in tones
whose strength and fervor were never attained before
in religious music. It is Bach's organ style which is
here in evidence, imparting to the chorus its close-knit
structure and majesty of sound, humanized by a melody
drawn from the choral and from what was most refined
in Italian art.

"One peculiar trait in Bach's nature," says Kretz-
schmar, "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 can-
tatas 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

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JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

never, we believe, does his art work with fuller energy
and abandonment than when his texts express earth-
weariness and the longing for the last hour. The
fervor which then displays itself in ever-varying regis-
ters, in both calm and stormy regions, has in it some-
thing almost demonic. " ^

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 unpol-
ished 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
Nearly 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, interspers-
ing 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 suffer-
ings of Christ in behalf of mankind are portrayed with
all the poignancy of pathos of which Bach was master.

It\iudicious critics have sometimes attempted to set
1^9 a comi^arison between the St. Matthew Passion and
Handel's "Meg^a-h/' questioning which is the greater.
But such captious rivalry is derogatory to both, for
^ley are not to be gauged by the same standard. To

^ Kretzschmar, Fiihrer durch den Concertsaal ; Kirehliche Werke.
307

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

say nothing of the radical differences in style, origin,
and artistic conception, — the one a piece of Lutheran
church music, the other an English concert oratorio of
Italian ancestry, — they are utterly unlike also in poetic
intention. Bach's work deals only with the human in
Christ; it is the narrative of his last interviews with
his disciples, his arrest, trial, and death, together with
comments by imagined personalities contemplating
these events, both in their immediate action upon the
sensibilities and in their doctrinal bearing. It is,
therefore, a work so mixed in style that it is difficult
to classify it, for it is both epic and implicitly dramatic,
while in all its lyric features it is set firmly into the
Evangelical liturgic scheme. The text and musical
construction of the " Messiah " have no connection with
any liturgy ; it is concert music of a universal religious
character, almost devoid of narrative, and with no
dramatic suggestion whatever. Each is a triumph of
genius, but of genius working with quite different
intentions. V

In the formal arrangement of the St. Matthew Pas-
sion 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 con-
gregation " forms another group, singing appropriate
chorals. A third element comprises the company of

308

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

believers and the "daughter of Zion," singing choruses
and arias in comment upon the situations as described
by the evangelist. It must be remembered that these
chorus factors are not indicated by any division of
singers into groups. The work is performed through-
out by the same company of singers, in Bach's day by
the diminutive choir of the Leipsic Church, composed
of boys and young men. Even in the chorals the con-
gregation took no part. The idea of the whole is much
the same as in a series of old Italian chapel frescoes.
The disciple sits with Christ at the last supper, accom-
panies him to the garden of Gethsemane and to the
procurator's hall, witnesses his mockery and condem-
nation, and takes his station at the foot of the cross,
lamenting alternately the sufferings of his Lord and the
sin which demanded such a sacrifice.

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 promi-
nently as in many of his works, and where he finds it
necessary to employ it he subordinates it to tlie expres-
sion of feeling. Yet we cannot hear without amaze-
ment the gigantic opening movement in which the%wful
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 sig-
nificance of the coming scenes. The long chorus Avhich
closes the first part, which is constructed in the form
of a figured choral, is also built upon a scale which

309

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

Bach has seldom exceeded. But the structure of the
work in general is comparatively open, and the expres-
sion direct and clear. An atmosphere of profoundest
gloom pervades the work from beginning to end, ever
growing darker as the scenes of the terrible drama
advance and culminate, yet here and there relieved by
gleams of divine tenderness and human pity. That
Bach was able to carry a single mood, and that a de-
pressing one, through a composition of three hours'
length without falling into monotony at any point is
one of the miracles of musical creation.

The meditative portions of the work in aria, recita-
tive, 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 accom-
panies genius never j^et 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 kUhle 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 person-
ages 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

310

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

the cross, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, " this ethereal
stringed accompaniment is extinguished. What Bach
intended to signify by this change is not certainly
known. This exclamation of Jesus, the only instance
i'l his life when he seemed to lose his certainty of the
divine cooperation, must be distinguished in some way,
Bach probably thought, from all his other utterances.
Additional musical means would be utterly futile, for
neither music nor any other art has any expression for
the mental anguish of that supreme moment. The only
expedient possible was to reduce music at that point,
substituting plain organ chords, and let the words of
Christ stand out in bold relief in all their terrible
significance.

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 voU Blut und Wunden " by Gerhardt after St.
Bernard, which is used five times. These choral melo-
dies 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."

311

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

This wonderful creation closes with a chorus of fare-
well 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 resur-
rection; neither in the Catholic or Lutheran cere-
monies 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 Academic 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 move-
ments 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 iden-

312

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

tified with the Catholic ritual. It must be remembered
that Luther was by no means inclined to break with all
the forms and usages of the mother Church. He had no
quarrel with those features of her rites which did not
embody the doctrines which he disavowed, and most
heartily did he recognize the beauty and edifying power
of Catholic music. We have seen also that he was
in favor of retaining the Latin in communities where
it was understood. Hence it was that not only in
Luther's day, but long after, the Evangelical Church
retained many musical features that had become sacred
in the practice of the ancient Church. The congre-
gations of Leipsic were especially conservative in this
respect. The entire mass in figured form, however,
was not used in the Leipsic service ; on certain special
days a part only would be sung. The Kyrie and
Gloria, known among the Lutheran musicians as the
"short mass," were frequently employed. The B
minor Mass was not composed for the Leipsic ser-
vice, but for the chapel of the king of Saxony in
Bach's honorary capacity of composer to the royal
and electoral court. It was begun in 1735 and finished
in 1738, but was not performed entire in Bach's life-
time. By the time it was completed it had outgrown
the dimensions of a service mass, and it has probably
never been sung in actual church worship. It is so
difficult that its performance is an event worthy of
special commemoration. Its first complete production
in the United States was at Bethlehem, Pa., in the
spring of 1900. It is enough to say of this work
here that all Bach's powers as fabricator of intricate

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MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

design, and as master of all the shades of expression
which the contrapuntal style admits, are forced to their
furthest limit. So vast is it in scale, so majestic in its
movement, so elemental in the grandeur of its climaxes,
that it may well be taken as the loftiest expression in
tones of the prophetic faith of Christendom, unless
Beethoven's Missa Solemnis may dispute the title. It
belongs not to the Catholic communion alone, nor to
the Protestant, but to the Church universal, the Church
visible and invisible, the Church militant and trium-
phant. The greatest master of the sublime in choral
music, Bach in this mass sounded all the depths of his
unrivalled science and his imaginative energy.

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 intellec-
tuality, 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 extravagan-
cies or rash experiments. Mozart and Beethoven failed
in oratorio, Schubert in opera; the Italian operas of
Gluck and Handel have perished. Even in the suc-
cessful work of these men there is a strange inequal-
ity. 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 perfec-

314

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

tion. We know from testimony that this perfection
was the result of thought and unflagging toiL The
file was not the least serviceable tool in his work-
shop. This intellectual restraint, operating upon a
highly intellectualized form of art, often gives Bach's
music an air of severity, a scholastic hardness, which
repels sympathy and makes difficult the path to the
treasures it contains. The musical culture of our age
has been so long based on a different school that no
little discipline is needed to adjust the mind to Bach's
manner of presenting his profound ideas. The diffi-
culty is analogous to that experienced in acquiring
an appreciation of Gothic sculpture and the Floren-
tine painting of the fourteenth century. We are
compelled to learn a new musical language, for it is
only in a qualified sense that the language of music
is universal. We must put ourselves into another
century, face another order of ideas than those of our
own age. We must learn the temper of the Ger-
man mind in the Reformation period and after, its
proud self-assertion, coupled to an aggressive positive-
ness of religious belief, which, after all, was but the
hard shell which enclosed a rare sweetness of piety.

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 per-
sonal temperament. Bach's historic position required
that this spirit, in many ways so modern, should
take shape in forms to which still clung the tech-

315

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

nical methods of an earlier time. His all-encompassing
organ style was Gothic — if we may use such a term
for illustration's sake — not Renaissance. His style
is Teutonic in the widest as well as the most literal
sense. It is based on forms identified with the practice
of the people in church and home. He recognized not
the priestly or the aristocratic element, but the popular.
His significance in the history of German Evangelical
Christianity is great. Protestantism, like Catholicism,
has had its supreme poet. As Dante embodied in an
immortal epic the philosophic conceptions, the hopes
and fears of mediaeval Catholicism, so Bach, less
obviously but no less truly, in his cantatas. Passions,
and choral preludes, lent the illuminating power of
his art to the ideas which brought forth the Reforma-
tion. It is the central demand of Protestantism, the
immediate personal access of man to God, which,
constituting a new motive in German national music,
gave shape and direction to Bach's creative genius.

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 what-
ever communion that feeling has been nurtured. His
music is not the music of a confession, but of human-
ity. 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 com-
mitted to councils or synods, or altogether in a verbal

316

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

revelation supposed to have been vouchsafed at cer-
tain epochs in the past, but in the intuition of the
continued presence of the eternal creative spirit in
the soul of man. This consciousness, of which creeds
and liturgies are but partial and temporar}^ symbols,
can find no adequate artistic expression unless it be
in the art of music. The more clearly this fact is
recognized by the world, the more the fame of Sebas-
tian Bach will increase, for no other musician has
so amply embraced and so deeply penetrated the uni-
versal religious sentiment. It may well be said of
Bach what a French critic says of Albrecht Durer:
" He was an intermediary between the Middle Age and
our modern times. Typical of the former in that he was
primarily a craftsman, laboring with all the sincerity
and unconscious modesty of the good workman who
delights in his labor, he yet felt something of the tor-
mented spiritual unrest of the latter ; and indeed so strik-
ingly reflects what we call the ' modern spirit ' that his
work has to-day more influence upon our own thought
and art than it had upon that of his contemporaries." ^

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 com-
prehended by the mass of his countrymen during his
life, and that outside of Leipsic he exerted little in-
fluence 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

^ Arsene Alexandre, Histoire populaire de la Peinture.
817

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

seem to be true to their better selves, and it often
happens that their greatest men appear in periods of
general moral relaxation, apparently rebuking the un-
worthiness of their fellow citizens instead of exemplify-
ing common traits of character. But later generations
are able to see that, after all, these men are not detached ;
their real bases, although out of sight for the time, are
immovably set in nationality. Milton was no less
representative of permanent elements in English char-
acter when "fallen upon evil days," when the direc-
tion of affairs seemed given over to " sons of Belial,''
w^ho mocked at all he held necessary to social welfare.
Michael Angelo was still a genuine son of Italy when
he mourned in bitterness of soul over her degradation.
And so the spirit that pervaded the life and works of
Bach is a German spirit, — a spirit which Germany has
often seemed to disown, but which in times of need
has often reasserted itself with splendid confidence and
called her back to soberness and sincerity.

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

3ia

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

fashion, or else slighted them altogether in favor of the
new " art song." No composers appeared who were
able or cared to perpetuate the old traditions. This
tendency was inevitable; its causes are perfectly ap-
parent to any one who knows the conditions prevailing
in religion and art in Germany in the last half of the
eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth cen-
turies. Pietism, with all its merits, had thrown a sort
of puritanic wet blanket over art in its protest against
the external and formal in worship. In the orthodox
church circles the enthusiasm n-ecessary to nourish a
wholesome spiritual life and a living church art at the
same time had sadly abated. The inculcation of a dry
utilitarian morality and the cultivation of a dogmatic
pedantry had taken the place of the joyous freedom of
the Gospel. Other more direct causes also entered to
turn public interest away from the music of the Church.
The Italian opera, with its equipment of sensuous fasci-
nations, devoid of serious aims, was at the high tide
of its popularity, patronized by the ruling classes, and
giving the tone to all the musical culture of the time.
A still more obvious impediment to the revival of
popular interest in church music was the rapid forma-
tion throughout Germany of choral societies devoted
to the performance of oratorios. Following the example
of England, these societies took up the works of Handel,
and the enthusiasm excited by Haydn's " Creation " in
1798 gave a still more powerful stimulus to the move-
ment. These choral unions had no connection with the
church choirs of the eighteenth century, but grew out
of private musical associations. The great German

319

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

music festivals date from about 1810, and they absorbed
the interest of those composers whose talent turned
towards works of religious content. The church choirs
were already in decline when the choral societies began
to raise their heads. Cantatas and Passions were no
longer heard in church worship. Their place in public
regard was taken by the concert oratorio. The current
of instrumental music, one of the chief glories of Ger-
man art in the nineteenth century, was absorbing more
and more of the contributions of German genius. The
whole trend of the age was toward secular music. It
would appear that a truly great art of church music
cannot maintain itself beside a rising enthusiasm for
secular music. Either the two styles will be amalga-
mated, and church music be transformed to the measure
of the other, as happened in the case of Catholic music,
or church song will stagnate, as was the case in Protes-
tant Germany.

After the War of Liberation, ending with the down-
fall 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 sym-
phonies 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 de-
nied 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

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JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

and infidelity to a new and higher phase of evangelical
religion effected under the lead of Schleiermacher, the
renewed interest in church history, the effort to bring
the forms of worship into cooperation with a quickened
spiritual hfe, the revival of the study of the great works
of German art as related to national intellectual de-
velopment, — these influences and many more have
strongly stirred the cause of church music both in
composition and performance. Choirs have been en-
larged and strengthened ; the soprano and alto parts
are still exclusively sung by boys, but the tenor
and bass parts are taken by mature and thoroughly
trained men, instead of by raw youths, as in Bach's
time and after. In such choirs as those of the Berlin
cathedral and the Leipsic Thomas church, artistic sing-
ing attains a richness of tone and finish of style hardly
to be surpassed.

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 (evange-
Usche Kirchengesang-Vereine), analogous to the Cathohc
St. Ceciha 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, sfcd 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 feeble-
ness and indefiniteness of the early part of the nineteenth
21 321

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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 re-
cent 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 im-
portant consequences, and perhaps inaugurate a new era
in the history of German church music.

^ Spitta, Zur Musik: Wiederbelebung protestantischer Kirchenmusik
auf geschichtlicher Grundlage.

322

CHAPTER X

THE MUSICAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

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 Handel (whose
few occasional anthems, Te Deums, and miscellaneous
church pieces give him an incidental place in the roll of
EngUsh 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 author-
ity, and the result has been that the English people look
upon their national religious song with a respect such as,

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MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

perhaps, no other school of church music receives in its
own home. The value and purpose of music in worship,
and the manner of performance most conducive to edifi-
cation, have been for centuries the subjects of such
serious discussion that the problems propounded by the
history of English church music are of perennial inter-
est. The dignity, orderliness, tranquillity, and gracious -
ness in outward form and inward spirit which have
come to distinguish the Anglican Establishment are
reflected in its anthems and *' services," its chants and
hymns ; while the simplicity and sturd_f, aggressive sin-
cerity of the non-conformist sects may be felt in the
accents of their psalmody. The clash of liturgic and
non-liturgic opinions, conformity and independence,
Anglicanism and Puritanism, may be plainly heard in
the church musical history of the sixteenth, seventeenth,
and eighteenth centuries, and even to-day the contest has
not everywhere been settled by conciliation and fraternal
sympathy.

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 cori'-

324

THE MUSICAL SYSTEM OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND

tending principles acted upon each other, and what
instruction can be drawn from their colHsion 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 com-
plication 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 rehgious revolution, because in most instances there
was such close alliance between the secular powers and
the papacy that allegiance to the former was not compat-
ible with resistance to the latter.

In England this process was reversed; political sepa-
ration 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 disagree-
ment, but solely for political advantage. In spite of
tokens of spiritual unrest, there was no sign of a dispo-
sition 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 Parlia-
ment decreed that "the king, our sovereign lord, hia

325

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall be taken,
accepted, and reputed the only supreme head in earth of
the Church of England." The English Church became in
a day what it had often shown a desire to become — a
national Church, free from the arbitrary authority of an
Italian overlordship, the king instead of the pope at its
head, with supreme power in all matters of appointment
and discipline, possessing even the prerogative of deciding
what should be the religious behef and manner of wor-
ship in the realm. No doctrinal change was involved in
this proceeding ; there was no implied admission of free-
dom of conscience or religious toleration. The mediaeval
conception of the necessity of religious unanimity among
all the subjects of the state — one single state Church
maintained in every precept and ordinance by the power
of the throne — was rigorously reasserted. The English
Church had simply exchanged one master for another,
and had gained a spiritual tyranny to which were attached
no conceptions of right drawn from ancestral association
or historic tradition.

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 faith-
ful 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 perma-
nently brook a divided loyalty in his kingdom. But
since Henry took occasion to proclaim anew the funda-
mental dogmas of the Catholic Church, with the old
bloody penalties against heresy, it would not be proper

326

THE MUSICAL SYSTEM OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND

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 initia-
tive 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 Ehzabeth

327

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

and their advisers retained so much of external form and
ceremony in the interest of dignity, and fixed so firmly
the pillars of episcopacy in the interest of stabiUty and
order, that the kingdom found itself divided into two
parties, and the brief conflict between nationalism and
Romanism was succeeded by the long struggle between
the Establishment, protected by the throne, and rampant,
all-levelling Puritanism.

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 tradi-
tions 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 doc-
trine 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 subser-
vient, and a modified Lutheranism took possession of the
English Church. The people were taught from the Eng-
lish 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

328

THE MUSICAL SYSTEM OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND

not brought about by popular pressure under the leader-
ship of great tribunes, but were decreed by the rulers of
the state, ratified by Parliament under due process of
law, and enforced by the crown under sanction of the
Act of Supremacy. The revolution was regular, peace-
ful, and legal, and none of the savage conflicts between
Catholics and Protestants which tore Germany, France,
and the Netherlands in pieces and drenched their soil
with blood, ever occurred in England. Amid such con-
ditions reaction was easy. Under Mary (1553-1558)
the old religion and forms were reenacted, and a perse-
cution, memorable for the martyrdoms of Cranmer,
Ridley, Latimer, Hooper, and other leaders of the Prot-
estant party, was carried on with ruthless severity, but
without weakening the cause of the reformed faith.
Elizabeth (1558-1603) had no pronounced religious
convictions, but under the stress of European poUtical
conditions she became of necessity a protector of the
Protestant cause. The reformed service was restored,
and from Elizabeth's day the Church of England has
rested securely upon the constitutions of Edward VI.

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

829

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

was conceived as the successor of the universal institu-
tion which, through her apostasy from the pure doctrine
of the apostles, had abrogated her claims upon the
allegiance of the faithful. Anglicanism contained in
itself a continuation of the tradition delivered to the
fathers, with an open Bible, and the emancipation of the
reason ; it was legitimate heir to what was noblest and
purest in Catholicism. This conception is strikingly
manifest in the liturgy of the Church of England, which
is partly composed of materials furnished by the office-
books of the ancient Church, and in the beginning asso-
ciated with music in no way to be distinguished in style
from the Catholic. The prominence given to vestments,
and to ceremonies calculated to impress the senses, also
points unmistakably to the conservative spirit which
forbade that the reform should in any way take on the
guise of revolution.

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 col-
lects, epistles, and gospels from the Missal, occasional
offices from the Ritual, and the confirmation and ordi-
nation offices from the Pontifical. All these offices, as
compared with the Catholic sources, are greatly modified
and simplified. A vast amount of legendary and un-
historic matter found in the Breviary has disappeared,
litanies to and invocations of the saints and the Virgin

330

THE MUSICAL SYSTEM OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND

Mary have been omitted. The offices proper to saints'
days have disappeared, the seven canonical hours are
compressed to two, the space given to selections from
Holy Scripture greatly extended, and the English lan-
guage takes the place of Latin.

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 convic-
tion that they were purifiers and renovators of the
ancient faith and ceremony, not violent destroyers, seek-
ing 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, par-
ticularly 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 Eng-
land, 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 introduc-
ing the reading of small portions of the Scripture in
English. The Litany was the first of the prayers to
be altered and set in EngUsh, which was done by
Cranmer, who had before him the old litanies of the
English Church, besides the " Consultation " of Her-
mann, archbishop of Cologne (1543).

With the accession of Edward VI. in 1547 the revo

331

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

lution 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 vest-
ments 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

332

THE MUSICAL SYSTEM OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND

short sentences and responses known as versicles. In
addition to the regular morning and evening worship
there are special series of offices for Holy Communion
and for particular occasions, such as ordinations, con-
firmations, the burial service, etc.

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 per-
forming 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 prac-
tice. 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,^ are as follows:

1. The chanting by the minister of the sentences,
exhortations, prayers, and collects throughout the lit-

* Jebb, Choral Service of the United Church of England and Ireland.

333

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

urgy 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 alter-
nated chant or to songs of a more intricate style, re-
sembling 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 min-
ister and choir.

7. The singing of the responses after the command-
ments 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

334

THE MUSICAL SYSTEM OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND

Catholic music and ritual. Since services are held on
week days as well as on Sundays in the cathedrals, and
since there are two full choral services, each involving
an almost unbroken current of song from clergy and
choir, this usage involves a large and thoroughly
trained establishment, which is made possible by the
endowments of the English cathedrals.

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 acces-
sories 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 perform-
ing 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 vari-
ous 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

335

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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 con-
stantly 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 congrega-
tional hymn. In the beginning, however, the method
of chanting exactly followed the Catholic form. Two
kinds of chant were employed, — the simple unaccom-
panied Plain Song of the minister, which is almost mono-
tone; 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 render-

336

THE MUSICAL SYSTEM OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND

ing 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 sim-
plest style, consisting of monotone, employed for the
prayers and the Apostles' Creed, a larger use of modu-
lation 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 mono-
toning the prayers by the minister. The notion of
impersonality which underlies the liturgic conception
of worship everywhere, the merging of the individual

1 An edition of Marbecke's Book of Common Prayer with Notes,
edited by Rimbault, was published by Novello, London, in 1845.
22 337

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

in an abstract, idealized, comprehensive entity — the
Church — is symbolized in this custom. Notwith-
standing the fact that the large majority of congrega-
tional hymns are really prayers, and that in this case
the offering of prayer in metrical form and in musical
strains has always been admitted by all ranks of Chris-
tians as perfectly appropriate, yet there has always
seemed to a large number of English Protestants some-
thing artificial and even irreverent in the delivery of
prayer in an unchanging musical note, in which ex-
pression is lost in the abandonment of the natural
inflections of speech. Here is probably the cause of
the repugnant impression, — not because the utterance
is musical in tone, but because it is monotonous and
unexpressive.

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 pre-
venting 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

338

THE MUSICAL SYSTEM OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND

the delight which Christians have in the law of God.
It bespeaks the cheerfulness of our Christian profes-
sion, as contrasted with that of the Gentiles. It gives
to divine worship a greater dignity by separating it
more from all actions and interlocutions that are com-
mon and familiar. It is more efficacious to awaken the
attention, to stir up the affections, and to edify the
understanding than plain reading." And Dr. Jebb
puts the case still more definitely when he says: "In
the Church of England the lessons are not chanted,
but read. The instinctive good taste of the revisers
of the liturgy taught them that the lessons, being nar-
ratives, orations, records of appeals to men, or writings
of an epistolary character, require that method of
reading which should be, within due bounds, imitative.
But with the prayers the case is far different. These
are uttered by the minister of God, not as an indi-
vidual, but as the instrument and channel of petitions
which are of perpetual obligation, supplications for all
those gifts of God's grace which are needful for all
mankind while this frame of things shall last. The
prayers are not, like the psalms and canticles, the ex-
pression, the imitation, or the record of the hopes and
fears, of the varying sentiments, of the impassioned
thanksgivings, of the meditative musings of inspired
individuals, or of holy companies of men or angels;
they are the unchangeable voice of the Church of God,
seeking through one eternal Redeemer gifts that shall
be for everlasting. And hence the uniformity of tone
in which she seeks them is significant of the unity of
spirit which teaches the Church universal so to pray,

339

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

of the unity of means by which her prayers are made
available, of the perfect unity with God her Father
which shall be her destiny in the world to come."

The word " chant " as used in the English Church (to
be in strictness distinguished from the priestly mono-
toning) 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 pro-
gress, 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 remain-
ing four divisions — recitation, mediation, second reci-
tation, and ending — retained. The Anglican chant is

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THE MUSICAL SYSTEM OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND

of two kinds, single and double. A single chant com-
prises one verse of a psalm; it consists of two melodic
strains, the first including three measures, the second
four. A double chant is twice the length of a single
chant, and includes two verses of a psalm, the first
ending being an incomplete cadence. The double
chant is an English invention; it is unknown in the
Gregorian system. The objections to it are obvious,
since the two verses of a psalm which may be comprised
in the chant often differ in sentiment.

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 sub-
ject 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 composi-
tions may consist of any number of divisions, each
comprising the three-measure and four-measure mem-
bers 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,

Ml

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

and was the inevitable result of the harmonization of
the old chant melodies according to the new system
with its corresponding balancing points of tonic and
dominant. A few of the Anglican chants sung at the
present day go back to the time of the Restoration,
that is, soon after 1660 ; the larger number date from
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The modern
chant, however, has never been able entirely to sup-
plant the ancient Plain Song melody. The "Grego-
rian " movement in the Church of England, one of the
results of the ritualistic reaction inaugurated by the
Oxford Tractarian agitation, although bitterly opposed
both on musical grounds and perhaps still more through
alarm over the tendencies which it symbolizes, has
apparently become firmly established; and even in
quarters where there is little sympathy with the ritual-
istic movement, musical and ecclesiastical conservatism
unites with a natural reverence for the historic past to
preserve in constant use the venerated relics of early
days. Sir John Stainer voiced the sentiment of many
leading English musical churchmen when he said : " I
feel very strongly that the beautiful Plain Song
versicles, responses, inflections, and prefaces to our
prayers and liturgy should not be lightly thrown aside.
These simple and grand specimens of Plain Song, so
suited to their purpose, so reverent in their subdued
emotion, appeal to us for their protection. The Plain
Song of the prefaces of our liturgy as sung now in St.
Paul's cathedral are note for note the same that rang at
least eight hundred years ago through the vaulted roof
of that ancient cathedral which crowned the summit of

342

THE MUSICAL SYSTEM OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND

the fortified hill of old Salisbury. Not a stone remains
of wall or shrine, but the old Sarum office-books have
survived, from which we can draw ancient hymns and
Plain Song as from a pure fount. Those devout monks
rjGorded all their beautiful offices and the music of
these offices, because they were even then venerable and
venerated. Shall we throw them into the fire to make
room for neat and appropriate excogitations, fresh from
the blotting-pad of Mr. A, or Dr. B, or the Reverend
C, or Miss D?"

It must be acknowledged, however, that the Grego-
rian 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 Grego-
rian tones to the English language has resulted in their
modification is not far to seek. The non-accented sys-

343

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

tern suits Latin and French, but not English. Aside
from the instinct for time, and the desire to make a
' tune ' of the chant, which is a part of human nature,
it is a feature of the English language that in speaking
we pass from accent to accent and elide the intervening
syllables. The first attempts to adapt the Gregorian
tones to English use proceeded strictly upon the plan
of one syllable to a note. Of however many notes the
mediation or cadence of the chant consisted, that num-
ber of syllables was marked off from the end of each
half-verse, and the recitation ended when they were
reached." 1 The attempt to sing in this fashion,
Curwen goes on to show, resulted in the greatest
violence to English pronunciation. In order to avoid
this, slurs, which are no part of the Gregorian system
proper, were employed to bring the accented syllables
upon the first of the measure.

Doubtless the fundamental and certainly praise-
worthy motive of those who strongly desire to reintro-
duce 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 intru-
sion 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

1 Curwen, Studies in Worship Music.
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THE MUSICAL SYSTEM OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND

any chant-tune which he chooses to invent or adopt.
Neither is there any authority that has the right to
select any system or body of liturgic song and compel •
its introduction. The Gregorian movement is an
attempt to remedy this palpable defect in the Anglican
musical system. It is evident that this particular solu-
tion of the difficulty can never generally prevail. Any
effort, however, which tends to restrict the number of
chants in use, and establish once for all a store of
liturgic melodies which is preeminently worthy of the
historic associations and the conservative aims of the
Anglican Church, should receive the hearty support of
English musicians and churchmen.

If Marbecke's unison chants were intended as a com-
plete 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 classifica-
tion 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 set-
tings 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 an them- 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

345

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

always sung in antiphonal chant form, and may be said
to correspond to the choral unvarying portions of the
Catholic Mass. The " service " in its fullest form in-
cludes the Venite (Ps. xcv.), Te Deum, Benedicite (Song
of the Three Children, from the Greek continuation of
the book of Daniel), Benedictus (Song of Zacharias),
Jubilate (Ps. c), Kyrie eleison, Nicene Creed, Sanctus,
Gloria in excelsis, Magnificat (Song of Mary), Cantate
Domino (Ps. xcviii.). Nunc dimittis (Song of Simeon), and
the Deus Misereatur (Ps. Ixvii). Of these the Venite,
Benedicite, and the Sanctus have in recent times fallen
out. These psalms and canticles are divided between
the morning and evening worship, and not all of them
are obligatory.

The " service," in respect to musical style, has moved
step by step with the anthem, from the strict contrapun-
tal 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, liturgi-
cally, 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 folio weth the anthem." What the

346

THE MUSICAL SYSTEM OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND

anthem shall be at any particular service is left to the
determination of the choir master, but it is commonly
understood, and in some dioceses is so decreed, that the
words of the anthem shall be taken from the Scripture
or the Book of Common Prayer. This precept, how-
ever, is frequently transgressed, and many anthems have
been written to words of metrical hymns. The restric-
tion of the anthem texts to selections from the Bible
or the liturgy is designed to exclude words that are
unfamiliar to the people or unauthorized by ecclesiastical
authority. Even with these limitations the freedom of
choice on the part of the musical director serves to with-
draw the anthem from that vital organic connection with
the liturgy held by the " service," and it is not infre-
quently omitted from the daily office altogether. The
object of the fathers of the Church of England in admit-
ting so exceptional a musical composition into the ser-
vice was undoubtedly to give the worship more variety,
and to relieve the fatigue that would otherwise result
from a long unbroken series of prayers.

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 Handel, 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.

347

MUStC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

From the motet it derives its broad and artistically con-
structed choruses, while the influence of the cantata is
seen in its solos and instrumental accompaniment. As
the modern anthem is free and ornate, giving practically
unlimited scope for musical invention, it has been culti-
vated with peculiar ardor by the English church com-
posers, and the number of anthems of varying degrees
of merit or demerit which have been produced in Eng-
land would baffle the wildest estimate. This style of
music has been largely adopted in the churches of
America, and American composers have imitated it,
often with brilliant success.

The form of anthem in which the entire body of
singers is employed from beginning to end is techni-
cally known as the " full " anthem. In another form,
called the " verse *' anthem, portions are sung by se-
lected 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 Eng-
land 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 Handel, felt their alle-
giance divided between the claims of religion and the
attractions of the stage. In periods of religious depres-
sion or social frivolity the church anthem has some-
times become weak and shallow, but the ancient austere
traditions have never been quite abrogated. The natu-
ral conservatism of the English people, especially in

348

THE MUSICAL SYSTEM OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND

matters of churchly usage, and their tenacious grasp
upon the proper distinction between religious and pro-
fane art, while acting to the benefit of the anthem and
" service " on the side of dignity and appropriateness in
style, have had a correspondingly unfavorable influence
so far as progress and sheer musical quality are con-
cerned. One who reads through large numbers of Eng-
lish church compositions cannot fail to be impressed
by their marked similarity in style and the rarity of
features that indicate any striking originality. This"
monotony and predominance of conventional common-
place must be largely attributed, of course, to the ab-
sence of real creative force in English music ; but it is
also true that even if such creative genius existed, it
would hardly feel free to take liberties with those strict
canons of taste which have become embedded in the
unwritten laws of Anglican musical procedure. In
spite of these limitations English church music does not
wholly deserve the obloquy that has been cast upon it by
certain impatient critics. That it has not rivalled the
Catholic mass, nor adopted the methods that have trans-
formed secular music in the modern era is not alto-
gether to its discredit. Leaving out the wonderful
productions of Sebastian Bach (which, by the way, are no
longer heard in church service in Germany), the music
of the Church of England is amply worthy of compari-
son with that of the German Evangelical Church ; and in
abundance, musical value, and conformity to the ideals
which have always governed public worship in its noblest
estate, it is entitled to be ranked as one of the four great
historic schools of Christian worship music.

349

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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 Nether-
landers " 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 pre-
eminently stately and solid. Besides the large number
of motets, "services," etc., which he contributed to the
Church, he is now best remembered by the harmonies
added by him to the Plain Song of the old r^gima

350

THE MUSICAL SYSTEM OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND

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 Eliza-
beth, 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 them-
selves 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 soph-
istry on this matter of conformity vs. freedom. Even a
large number of the clergy took the attitude of compli-
ance to authority, and it is often a matter of wonder to
readers of the history of this period to see how compara-
tively 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

351

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

music performed in the new worship, we must remember,
hardly differed in any respect from that in use under
the old system. The organists and choir masters were
not called upon to mingle in theological controversies,
and they had probably learned discretion from the ex-
perience of John Marbecke, who came near to being
burned at the stake for his sympathy with Calvinism.
As in Germany, there was no necessary conflict between
the musical practices of Catholics and Protestants. The
real animosity on the point of liturgies and music was
not between Anglicans and Catholics, but between An-
glicans and Puritans.

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 Eliza-
bethan 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 char-
acter. He was a devotee of music after his fashion ; he
warmly encouraged it in the Royal Chapel, and a number

352

THE MUSICAL SYSTEM OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND

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 Handel'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 accompani-
ments 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, preeminent likewise
in opera, and much of his church music betrays the in-
fluence of the gay atmosphere which he breathed. But
his profound musicianship prevented him from degrading
23 353

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

his art to the level of the prevailing taste of the royal
court, and much of his religious music is reckoned even
at the present day among the choicest treasures of
English art. As a chorus writer he is one of the first of
the moderns, and one who would trace Handel's oratorio
style to its sources must take large account of the church
works of Henry Purcell.

With the opening of the eighteenth century the char-
acteristics 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 Handel, 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

354

THE MUSICAL SYSTEM OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND

enormously swollen accumulation of anthems and " ser-
vices." But in this numerous company we find the
names of such men as Goss, Bennett, Hopkins, Monk,
Barnby, Sullivan, Smart, Tours, Stainer, Garrett, Martin,
Bridge, Stanford, Mackenzie, and others not less worthy,
who have endowed the choral service with richer color
and more varied and appealing expression. This brilliant
advance may be connected with the revival of spirituahty
and zeal in the English Church which early in the nine-
teenth century succeeded to the drowsy indifference of
the eighteenth ; but we must not push such coincidences
too far. The church musician must always draw some
of his inspiration from within the institution which he
serves, but we have seen that while the rehgious folk-
song is stimulated only by deep and widespread enthu-
siasm, the artistic music of the Church is dependent
rather upon the condition of music at large. The later
progress in English church music is identified with the
forward movement in all European music which began
with the symphonies of Beethoven, the operas of Weber
and the French masters, and the songs of Schubert, and
which was continued in Berlioz, Wagner, Schumann,
Mendelssohn, Chopin, and the still more recent na-
tional schools. England has shared this uplift of taste
and creative activity ; her composers are also men of the
new time. English cathedral music enters the world-
current which sets towards a more intense and personal
expression. The austere traditions of the Anglican
Church restrain efforts after the brilliant and emotional
within distinctly marked boundaries. Its music can
never, as the Catholic mass has often done, relapse into

35$

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

the tawdry and sensational; but the English church
composers have recognized that the Church and its art
exist for the people, and that the changing standards of
beauty as they arise in the popular mind must be con-
sidered, while at the same time the serene and elevated
tone which makes church music truly churchly must be
reverently preserved. This, as I understand it, is the
motive, more or less conscious, which actuates the
Church of England composers, organists, and directors
of the present day. They have not yet succeeded in
bringing forth works of decided genius, but they have
certainly laid a foundation so broad, and so compounded
of durable elements, that if the English race is capable
of producing a master of the first rank in religious
music he will not be compelled to take any radical
departure, nor to create the taste by which he will be
appreciated.

English church music has never been in a more satis-
factory 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 eccle-

356

THE MUSICAL SYSTEM OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND

siastical art and ceremony, and have imparted to them
an ideal dignity which is as free from superstition as it
is from vulgarity. The music of the Church of England,
like all church music, must be considered in connection
with its history and its liturgic attachments. It is in-
separably associated with a ritual of singular stateliness
and beauty, and with an architecture in cathedral and
chapel in which the recollections of a heroic and fading
past unite with a grandeur of structure and beauty of
detail to weave an overmastering spell upon the mind.
Church music, I must constantly repeat, is never intended
to produce its impression alone. Before we ever allow
ourselves to call any phase of it dry and uninteresting
let us hear it actually or in imagination amid its native
surroundings. As we mentally connect the Gregorian
chant and the Italian choral music of the sixteenth
century with all the impressive framework of their ritual,
hearing within them the echoes of the prayers of fifteen
hundred years ; as the music of Bach and his contempo-
raries stands forth in only moderate relief from the back-
ground of a Protestantism in which scholasticism and
mj^sticism are strangely blended, — so the Anglican chant
and anthem are venerable with the associations of three
centuries of conflict and holy endeavor. Complex and
solemnizing are the suggestions which strike across the
mind of the student of church history as he hears in a
venerable English cathedral the lofty strains which
might elsewhere seem commonplace, but which in their
ancestral home are felt to be the natural speech of an
institution which has found in such structures its fitting
habitation.

357

CHAPTER XI

CONGREGATIONAL SONG IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

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 be-
tween the antagonistic principles, Ritualism vs. Puritan-
ism, Anglicanism vs. Pi'esbyterianism, 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 tri-
umph of Puritanism.

The antipathy of the Puritan party to everything
formal, ceremonial, and artistic in worship was power-
fully promoted, if not originally instigated by John Cal-
vin, the chief fountain-head of the Puritan doctrine and
polity. The extraordinary personal ascendency of Cal-
vin was shown not only in the adoption of his theolog-
ical system by so large a section of the Protestant world,
but also in the fact that his opinions concerning the

356

TN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

ideal and method of public worship were treated with
almost equal reverence, and in many localities have held
sway down to the present time. Conscious, perhaps to
excess, of certain harmful tendencies in ritualism, he
proclaimed that everything formal and artistic in wor-
ship was an offence to God ; he clung to this belief with
characteristic tenacity and enforced it upon all the con-
gregations under his rule. Instruments of music and
trained choirs were to him abomination, and the only
musical observance permitted in the sanctuary was the
singing by the congregation of metrical translations of
the psalms.

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 exactl}^ 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 desire th 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

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MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

fashion was, however, short-lived, for the theological
doctors of the Sorbonne, those keen heresy hunters,
became suspicious that there was some mysterious con-
nection between Marot's psalms and the detestable Prot-
estant doctrines, and in 1543 the unfortunate poet fled
for safety to Calvin's religious commonwealth at Geneva.
Calvin had already the year before adopted thirty-five of
Marot's psalms for the use of his congregation. Marot,
after his arrival at Geneva, translated twenty more,
which were characteristically dedicated to the ladies of
France. Marot died in 1544, and the task of translating
the remaining psalms was committed by Calvin to Theo-
dore de Beza (or Beze), a man of a different stamp from
Marot, who had become a convert to the reformed doc-
trines and had been appointed professor of Greek in the
new university at Lusanne. In the year 1552 Beza's
work was finished, and the Geneva psalter, now com-
plete, was set to old French tunes which were taken,
like many of the German chorals, from popular secular
songs. The attribution of certain of these melodies,
adopted into modern hymn-books, to Guillaume Franc and
Louis Bourgeois is entirely unauthorized. The most
celebrated of these anonymous tunes is the doxology
in long metre, known in England and America as the
Old Hundredth, although it is set in the Marot-Beza
psalter not to the 100th psalm but to the 134th. These
psalms were at first sung in unison, unharmonized, but
between 1562 and 1565 the melodies were set in four-
part counterpoint, the melody in the tenor according to
the custom of the day. This was the work of Claude
Goudimel, a Netherlander, one of the foremost musi-

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IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

cians of his time, who, coming under suspicion of sym-
pathy with the Huguenot party, perished in the massacre
on St. Bartholomew's night in 1572.

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 tliis custom."

Such was the origin of the Calvinistic psalmody,
which holds so prominent a place in the history of relig-
ious 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
rehgious convictions and impulses in hymns of their
own spontaneous production or choosing was denied
to the followers of Calvin. Our magnificent heritage

361

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

of English hymns was not founded amid the Reforma*
tion 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 responsibiUty for the hard-
ness of temper fostered by the Calvinistic system. The
reason given for the prohibition, viz., that only "in-
spired " words should be used in the service of praise,
betrayed a strange obtuseness to the most urgent de-
mands 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 sub-
sequent history, ascribe an appropriateness to the metri-
cal 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 prin-
ciple than the Lutheran repugnance to physical resist-
ance, 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

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IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

rigid zealots, who looked upon every appeal to the
aesthetic sensibility in worship as an enticement to com-
promise with popery. Before condemning such a posi-
tion 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 prac-
tice was assumed to be a constraining law upon all later
generations. The Scriptures were taken not only as a

363

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

rule of faith and conduct, but also as a law of universal
obligation in the matter of church government and dis-
cipline. The expulsion of organs and the prohibition
of choirs was in no way due to a hostility to music in
itself, but was simply a detail of that sweeping revolution
which, in the attempt to level all artificial distinctions
and restore the offices of worship to a simplicity such
that they could be understood and administered by
the common people, abolished the good of the ancient
system together with the bad, and stripped religion of
those fair adornments which have been found in the
long run efficient to bring her into sympathy with the
inherent human demand for beauty and order.

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 eradica-
tion 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 de-
livered 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 psalm-

364

IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

ody. They vigorously denounced what was known as
" curious music," by which was meant scientific, artistic
music, and also the practice of antiphonal chanting and
the use of organs. Just why organs were looked upon
with especial detestation is not obvious. They had
played but a very incidental part in the Catholic service,
and it would seem that their efficiency as an aid to
psalm singing should have commended them to Puritan
favor. But such was not the case. Even early in
Elizabeth's reign, among certain articles tending to the
further alteration of the liturgy which were presented
to the lower house of Convocation, was one requiring
the removal of organs from the churches, which was
lost by only a single vote. It was a considerable time,
however, before the opposition again mustered such
force. Elizabeth never wavered in her determination
to maintain the solemn musical service of her Church.
Even this was severe enough as compared with its later
expansion, for the multiplication of harmonized chants
and florid anthems belongs to a later date, and the
ancient Plain Song still included a large part of the
service. Neither was Puritanism in the early stages
of the movement by any means an uncompromising
enemy to the graces of art and culture. The Renais-
sance delight in what is fair and joyous, its satisfaction
in the good things of this world, lingered long even in
Puritan households. The young John Milton, gallant,
accomphshed, keenly alive to the charms of poetry and
music, was no less a representative Puritan than when in
later years, " fallen on evil days," he fulminated against
the levities of the time. It was the stress of party

365

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

strife, the hardening of the mental and moral fibre that
often follows the denial of the reasonable demands of
the conscience, that drove the Puritan into bigotry
and intolerance. Gradually episcopacy and ritualism
became to his mind the mark of the beast. Intent upon
knowing the divine will, he exalted his conception of
the dictates of that will above all human ordinances,
until at last his own interpretations of Scripture, which
he made his sole guide in every public and private
relation of life, seemed to him guaranteed by the highest
of all sanctions. He thus became capable of trampling
with a serene conscience upon the rights of those who
maintained opinions different from his own. Fair and
just in matters in which questions of doctrine or polity
were not involved, in affairs of religion the Puritan
became the type and embodiment of all that is unyield-
ing and fanatical. Opposition to the use of the sur-
plice, the sign of the cross in baptism, the posture of
kneeling at the Lord's Supper, and antiphonal chanting,
expanded into uncompromising condemnation of the
whole ritual. Puritanism and Presbyterianism became
amalgamated, and it only wanted the time and oppor-
tunity to pull down episcopacy and liturgy in a common
overthrow. The antipathy of the Puritans to artistic
music and official choirs was, therefore, less a matter of
personal feeling than it was with Calvin. His thought
was more that of the purely religious effect upon the
individual heart; with the Puritan, hatred of cultured
church music was simply a detail in the general animosity
which he felt toward an offensive institution.
The most conspicuous of the agitators during the
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IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

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 tlie Uni-
versity. 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 dis-
cipline 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 under-
taken 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 occa-
sion 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

367

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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 who-
soever were the author, whatsoever the time, whenceso-
ever 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 unseason-
able, who advise men now to suspect that wherewith
the world hath had by their own account twelve hun-
dred 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 con-
cludes : " 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

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IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

contain, allayeth all kind of base and earthly cogita-
tions, banisheth and drive th away those evil secret
suggestions which our invisible enemy is always apt to
minister, watereth the heart to the end it may fructify,
maketh the virtuous in trouble full of magnanimity and
courage, serveth as a most approved remedy against all
doleful and heavy accidents which befall men in this
present life; to conclude, so fitly accordeth with the
apostle's own exhortation, * Speak to yourselves in
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody,
and singing to the Lord in your hearts,' that surely
there is more cause to fear lest the want thereof be a
maim, than the use a blemish to the service of God."^

The just arguments and fervent appeals of Hooker
produced no effect upon the fanatical opponents of the
established Church. Under the exasperating condi>
tions which produced the Great Rebellion and the sub-
stitution 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 pres-
sure 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

1 Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, book v., sees. 38 and 39.
24 369

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

music allowed. "It is the duty of Christians," so
the new rule declares, " to praise God publicly by sing-
ing of psalms, together in the congregation and also
privately in the family. In singing of psalms the voice
is to be tunably and gravely ordered ; but the chief care
is to sing with understanding and with grace in the
heart, making melody unto the Lord. That the whole
congregation may join herein, every one that can read
is to have a psalm-book, and all others not disabled by
age or otherwise are to be exhorted to learn to read.
But for the present, where many in the congregation
cannot read, it is convenient that the minister, or some
fit person appointed by him and the other ruling offi-
cers, do read the psalm line by line before the singing
thereof."'

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

1 It appears from this injunction that the grotesque custom of "lining
out " or " deaconing " the psalm was not original in New England, but
was borrowed, like most of the musical customs of our Puritan fore
fathers, from England.

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IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

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 Anti-
christ 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 sanctu-
aries 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 indig-
nity. 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 like-
wise dispersed, organists, singers, and composers of the
highest ability were deprived of their means of liveli-
hood, and in many cases reduced to the extreme of

371

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

destitution. The beautiful service of the Anglican
Church, thus swept away in a single day, found no
successor but the dull droning psalmody of the Puritan
congregations, and only in a private circle in Oxford,
indirectly protected by Cromwell, was the feeble spark
of artistic religious music kept alive.

The reestablishment 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 temp-
tation 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 seven-
teenth 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 inaccu-
rately 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,

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IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

until, by analysis, he persuaded himself that it was the
sacred words, and not merely the musical tones, which
softened his heart and filled his eyes with tears. As
in all these cases, including that of the Puritans, the
sacrifice of aesthetic pleasure in worship was not merely
a reactionary protest against the excess of ceremonialism
and artistic enjoyment. The Puritan was a precisian.
The love of a highly developed and sensuously beauti-
ful music in worship always implies a certain infusion
of mysticism. The Puritan was no mystic. He de-
manded hard distinct definition in his pious expression
as he did in his argumentation. The vagueness of
musical utterance, its appeal to indefinable emotion,
its effect of submerging the mind and bearing it away
upon a tide of ecstasy were all in exact contradiction to
the Puritan's conviction as to the nature of genuine
edification. These raptures could not harmonize with
his gloomy views of sin, righteousness, and judgment to
come. And so we find the most spiritual of the arts
denied admittance to the sanctuary by those who actu-
ally cherished music as a beloved social and domestic
companion.

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 cooperation
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

373

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

psalms were directly inspired by the Holy Spirit and
contemporary hymns could not be. We know that a
characteristic of the Puritan mind was an intense, an
impassioned reverence for the Holy Scripture, so that
all other forms of human speech seemed trivial and
unworthy in comparison. The fact that the psalms, as
the product of the ante-Christian dispensation, could
have no reference to the Christian scheme except by
far-fetched interpretation as symbolic and prophetic,
did not escape the Puritans, but they consoled them-
selves for the loss in the thought that the earliest
churches, in which they found, or thought they found
their ideal and standard, were confined to a poetic
expression similar to their own. And how far did
they feel this to be a loss ? Was not the temper of the
typical Puritan, after all, thoroughly impregnated with
Hebraism ? The real nature of the spiritual deprivation
which this restriction involved is apparent enough now,
for it barred out a gracious influence which might have
corrected some grave faults in the Puritan character,
faults from which their religious descendants to this
day continue to suffer.

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

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IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

for putting everything into rhyme and metre, which
produced such grotesque results as turning an act of
Parliament into couplets, and paraphrasing "Paradise
Lost" in rhymed stanzas in order, as the writer said,
*'to make Mr. Milton plain," gave aid and comfort to
the peculiar Puritan views. The first complete metri-
cal version of the psalms was the celebrated edition of
Sternhold and Hopkins, the former a gentleman of the
privy chamber to Edward VI., the latter a clergyman
and schoolmaster in Suffolk. This version, published
in 1562, was received with universal satisfaction and
adopted into all the Puritan congregations, maintain-
ing its credit for full two hundred and thirty years,
until it came at last to be considered as almost equally
inspired with the original Hebrew text. So far as
poetic merit is concerned, the term is hardly applicable
to the lucubrations of these honest and prosaic men.
As Fuller said, "their piety was better than their
poetry, and they had drunk more of Jordan than of
Helicon." In fact the same comment would apply to
all the subsequent versifiers of the psalms. It would
seem that the very nature of such work precludes all
real literary success. The sublime thought and irregu-
lar, vivid diction of the Hebrew poets do not permit
themselves to be parcelled out in the cut and dried
patterns of conventional metres. Once only does
Sternhold rise into grandeur — in the two stanzas which
James Russell Lowell so much admired :

The Lord descended from above,
And bowed the heavens most high,

And underneath his feet he cast
The darkness of the sky.
375

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

On cherub and on cherubim

Full royally he rode ;
And on the wings of all the winds

Came flying ail 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 numer-
ous 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 Stori/ of the Psalter, enumerates one
hundred and twenty-three complete versions, the last
being that of Wrangham in 1885. This long list in-
cludes 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

376

IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

entirely independent of contemporary art movements.
It flourishes only in periods of popular religious awaken-
ing, 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 power-
ful promoter of zeal in moments of triumph, and an un-
failing 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." ^ It was their
one outlet of poetic religious feeling, and dry and
prosaic as both words and music seem to us now, we
must believe, since human nature is everywhere moved
by much the same impulses, that these psalms and tunes
were not to those who used them barren and formal
things, and that in the singing of them there was an
undercurrent of rapture which to our minds it seems
almost impossible that they could produce. In every
form of popular expression there is always this invisible
aura, like the supposed imperceptible fluid around an

1 Curwen, Studies in Worship Music.

377

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

electrified body. There are what we may call emotion-
alized reactions, stimulated by social, domestic, or
ancestral associations, producing effects for which the un-
sympathetic critic cannot otherwise account.

Even this inspiration at last seemed to fade away.
When the one hundred years' conflict, of alternate as^
cendency and persecution, came to an end with the
Restoration in 1660, zeal abated with the fires of con-
flict, and apathy, formalism, and dulness, the counter-
parts 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 con-
tracted 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 congre-
gations in the last half of the seventeenth and the first
half of the eighteenth centuries, but they were only the
ultimate consecjuences of ideas and practices which pre-

378

IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

vailed in the mother country. The early Baptists for*
bade singing altogether. The Brownists tried for a
short time to act upon the notion that singing in wor-
ship, like prayer, should be extempore. The practical
results may easily be imagined. About the year 1700
it seemed as though the fair genius of sacred song had
abandoned the English and American non-liturgic sects
in despair.

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 exuber-
ant 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. His-
torians 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

379

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

his published directions concerning congregational sing-
ing, enjoined accuracy in notes and time, heartiness,
moderation, unanimity, and spirituality as with the aim of
pleasing God rather than one's self. He strove to bring
the new hymns and tunes within the means of the poor,
and yet took pains that the music should be of high
quality, and that nothing vulgar or sensational should
obtain currency.

The truly beneficent achievement of the Wesleys in
summoning the aid of the unconfined spirit of poesy in
the revival of spiritual life found a worthy reinforce-
ment in the songs of Isaac Watts (1674-1748). Al-
though 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 obso-
lete, yet a true spiritual and poetic fire bums 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 evangeli-
cal hymnody. The relaxing prejudice against "unin-
spired " 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

380

IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

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.^ No more profitable task could be suggested
to one who deems it his highest duty to expand and
deepen his spiritual nature, than to possess his mind of
the jewels of devotional insight and chastened expres-
sion which are scattered through the writings of such
poets as Charles Wesley, Cowper, Newton, Faber, New-
man, Lyte, Heber, Bonar, Milman, Keble, EUerton,
Montgomery, Ray Palmer, Coxe, Whittier, Holmes, the
Gary sisters, and others equal or hardly inferior to
these, who have performed immortal service to the
divine cause which they revered by disclosing to the
world the infinite beauty and consolation of the Chris-
tian faith. No other nation, not even the German, can
show any parallel to the treasure embedded in English
and American popular religious poetry. This fact is
certainly not known to the majority of church members.
The average church-goer never looks into a hymn-book
except when he stands up to sing in the congregation,
and this performance, whatever else it may do for the
worshiper, gives him very little information in regard to
the artistic, or even the spiritual value of the book which
he holds in his hand. Let him read his hymn-book in
private, as he reads his Tennyson ; and although he
will not be inclined to compare it in point of literary
quality with Palgrave's Golden Treasury or Stedman's

1 This has been done by several writers, but by no other in such ad-
mirable fashion as by Horder in his delightful book. The Hymn Lovei
(London, Curwen, 1889).

38i„

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

Victorian Anthology^ yet he will probably be surprised
at the number of lyrics whose delicacy, fervor, and pathos
will be to him a revelation of the gracious elements that
pervade the minor religious poetry of the English
tongue.

Parallel with the progress of hymnody, and un-
doubtedly 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

382

IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

century by a taste for the florid and ornate which, in
spite of some contributions of a very beautiful and ex-
pressive character, on the whole marked a decline in
favor of the tawdry and sensational. If this tendency
was an indication of an experimenting spirit, its result
was not altogether evil. Earnest and dignified as the
old psalm-tunes were, the Church could not live by
them alone. The lighter style was a transition, and
the purer modern school is the outcome of a process
which strives to unite the breadth and dignity of the
ancient tunes with the warmth and color of those of
the second period. Together with the cultivation of the
florid style we note a wider range of selection. Many
tunes were taken from secular sources (not in itself a
fault, since, as we have seen, many of the best melodies
in the Lutheran and Calvinistic song-books had a
similar origin) ; and the introduction of Catholic tunes,
such as the peerless " Adeste Fideles " and the " Sicil-
ian hymn," together with some of the finest German
chorals, greatly enriched the English tune-books.

In comparatively recent times a new phase of progress
has manifested itself in the presence in the later hymnals
of a large number of musical compositions of novel form
and coloring, entirely the product of our own period.
These tunes are representative of the present school of
Church of England composers, such as Dykes, Barnby,
Smart, Sullivan, Monk, Hopkins, and many others
equally well known, who have contributed a large
quantity of melodies of exceeding beauty, supported by
varied and often striking harmonies, quite unUke the
congregational songs of any other natioiu Composed

383

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

for the noble ceremony of the Anglican Church, these
tunes have made their way into many of the non-liturgic
sects, and the value of their influence in inspiring a
love for that which is purest and most salutary in wor-
ship music has been incalculable. Much has been writ-
ten in praise of these new Anglican tunes, and a good
deal also in depreciation. Many of them are, it must be
confessed, over-sophisticated for the use of the average
congregation, carrying refinements of harmony and
rhythm to such a point that they are more suitable for
the choir than for the congregation. Their real value,
taken collectively, can best be estimated by those who,
having once used them, should imagine themselves
deprived of them. The tunes that served the needs of
former generations will not satisfy ours. Dr. Hanslick
remarks that there is music of which it may correctly be
said that it once was beautiful. It is doubtless so with
hymn-tunes. Church art can never be kept unaffected
by the secular currents of the time, and those who, in
opera house and concert hall, are tiirilled by the impas-
sioned strains of the modern romantic composers, will
inevitably long for something at least remotely analogous
in the songs of the sanctuary. That is to say, the
congregational tune must be appealing, stirring, emo-
tional, as the old music doubtless was to the people of
the old time, but certainly is no longer. This logical
demand the English musicians of the present day and
their American followers assume to gratify — that is, so
far as the canons of pure art and ecclesiastical propriety
will allow — and, in spite of the cavils of purists and re-
actionaries, their melodies seem to have taken a permanent

384

IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

place in the affections of the Protestant English-speaking
world. The success of these melodies is due not merely
to their abstract musical beauty, but perhaps still more
to the subtle sympathy which their style exhibits with
the present-day tendencies in theology and devotional
experience, which are reflected in the peculiarly joyous
and confiding note of recent hymnody. So far as music
has the power to suggest definite conceptions, there
seems to be an apt correspondence between this fervent,
soaring, touching music and the hymns of the faith by
which these melodies were in most instances directly
inspired.

So far as there are movements in progress bringing
into shape a body of congregational song which contains
features that are Ukely to prove a permanent enrich-
ment of the religious anthology, they are more or less
plainly indicated in the hymnals which have been com-
piled 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 rehgious 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
25 385

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

portion of the older hymnody. A finer poetic afflatus
has joined with a more penetrating and intimate vision
of the relationship between the divine and the human ;
and this mental attitude is reflected in the loving trust,
the emotional fervor, and the more delicate and inward
poetic expression which prevail in the new hymnody. It
is inevitable that the theological readjustment, which is
so palpable to every intelligent observer, should color
and deflect those forms of poetic and musical expression
which are instinctively chosen as the utterance of the
worshiping people. Every one at all familiar with the
history of reUgious experience is aware how sensitive
popular song has been as an index of popular feeling.
Nowhere is the power of psychologic suggestion upon
the masses more evident than in the domain of song.
Hardly does a revolutionary religious idea, struck from
the brains of a few leading thinkers and reformers, effect
a lodgment in the hearts of any considerable section of
the common people, tlian it is immediately projected in
hymns and melodies. So far as it is no mere scholastic
formula, but possesses the power to kindle an active life
in the soul, it will quickly clothe itself in figurative
speech and musical cadence, and in many cases it will
filter itself through this medium until all that is crude,
formal, and speculative is drained away, and what is
essential and fruitful is retained as a permanent spiritual
possession.

If we were able to view the present movement in
popular religious verse from a sufficient distance, we
should doubtless again find illustration of this general
law. Far less obviously, of course, than in the cases of

386

IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

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 spon-
taneously uttered themselves in strains which every
shade of rehgious 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 em-
phasizing others, so that their collections take a wider
range, a loftier sweep, and a more joyful, truly evangeli-
cal tone than those of a generation ago. It is more
the inner life of faith which these books so beauti-
fully 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 popu-
lar religious song-books which began with the indepen-
dence of the English Church. The Plymouth Hymnal
and In Excelsis are the ripened issue of that move-
ment whose first official outcome was the quaint psalter
of Sternhold and Hopkins; and the contrast between

mi

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

the old and the new is a striking evidence of the
changes which three and a half centuries have effected
in culture and spiritual emphasis as revealed in popular
song. The early lyrics were prepared as a sort of testi-
mony against formalism and the use of human inven-
tions in the office of worship ; they were the outcome
of a striving after apostolic simplicity, while in their
emotional aspects they served for consolation in trial
and persecution, and as a means of stiffening the reso-
lution in tunes of conflict. The first true hymns, as
distinct from versified psalms, were designed still more
to quicken joy and hope, and yet at the same time a
powerful motive on the part of their authors was to
give instruction in the doctrines of the faith by a means
more direct and persuasive than sermons, and to rein^
force the exhortations of evangelists by an instrument
that should be effective in awaking the consciences of
the unregenerate. It is very evident that the hymnal?
of our day are pervaded by an intention somewhat
different from this, or at least supplementary to it.
The Church, having become stable, and having a some-
what different mission to perform under the changed
conditions of the time, employs its hymns and tunea
not so much as revival machinery, or as a means for
inculcating dogma, as for spiritual nurture. Hymns
have become more subjective, melodies and harmonies
more refined and alluring; the tone has become less
stern and militant; the ideas are more universal and
tender, less mechanical and precise; appeal is made
more to the sensibility than to the intellect, and the
chief stress is laid upon the joy and peace that come

338

IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

from believing. It is impossible to avoid vagueness in
attempting so broad a generalization. But one who
studies the new hymn-books, reads the prefaces of their
editors, and notes the character of the hymns that are
most used in our churches, will realize that now, as it
has always been in the history of the Church, the guid-
ing thought and feeling of the time may be traced in
popular song, more faintly but not less inevitably than
in the instructions of the pulpit. When viewed in
historic sequence one observes the growing prominence
of the mystical and subjective elements, the fading
away of the early fondness for scholastic definition.
Lyric poetry is in its nature mystical and intuitive, and
the hymnody of the future, following the present ten-
dency in theology to direct the thought to the personal,
historic Christ, and to appropriate his example and
message in accordance with the light which advancing
knowledge obtains concerning man's nature, needs, and
destiny, will aim more than ever before to purify and
quicken the higher emotional faculties, and will find a
still larger field in those fundamental convictions which
transcend the bounds of creeds, and which affirm the
brotherhood of all sincere seekers after God.

889

CHAPTER XII

PROBLEMS OF CHURCH MUSIC IN AMERICA

In the foregoing sketch of the rise and growth of
music in the Western Church no account was taken of a
history of church music in America. If by art history
we mean a record of progressive changes, significant
of a persistent impulse which issues in distinctive styles
and schools, the chronicles of ecclesiastical song in
this country hardly come within the scope of history.
No new forms or methods have arisen on this side
of the Atlantic. The styles of composition and the
systems of practice which have existed among us
have simply been transferred from the older countries
across the sea. Every form of church music known in
Europe flourishes in America, but there is no native
school of religious music, just as there is no Ameri-
can 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

390

PROBLEMS OF CHURCH MUSIC IN AMERICA

^fiis art has ever suffered since the founding of Chris-
tianity. It was not possible that this state of affairs
could endure in a community that was constantly
advancing in education and in the embellishments of
life, and a bitter conflict arose between puritanic
tradition and the growing perception of the claims of
fitness and beauty. One who would amuse himself
with the grotesque controversies which raged around
this question among the pious New England colonists,
the acrid disputes between the adherents of the " usual
way " and the " rulable way " of singing psalmody, the
stern resistance to choirs and to organs, and the quaint
annals of the country singing-school, may find rich
gratification in some of the books of Mrs. Earle,
especially The Sabbath in Puritan New England,
The work of such reformers as William Billings in
the eighteenth century and Lowell Mason in the nine-
teenth, the first concerts of the Handel and Haydn
Society, the influx of the German culture shifting all
American music upon new foundations, are all land-
marks which show how rapid and thorough has been
our advance in musical scholarship and taste, but
which also remind us how little of our achievement
has been really indigenous.

In spite of the poverty of original invention which
forbids us to claim that American church music has
in any way contributed to the evolution of the art,
there is no epoch in this art's history which possesses
a more vital interest to the American churchman of
the present day. We have found amid all the fluctu-
ations of ecclesiastical music, mediaeval and modern,

391

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

Catholic and Protestant, one ever-recurring problem,
which is no sooner apparently settled than new con-
ditions arise which force it once more upon the atten-
tion of minister and layman. The choice of a style
of music which shall most completely answer the
needs of worship as the conceptions and methods of
public worship vary among different communities and
in different epochs, and which at the same time shall
not be unworthy of the claims of music as a fine art,
— this is the historic dilemma which is still, as ever,
a fruitful source of perplexity and discord. The Cath-
olic and Episcopal Churches are less disturbed by this
spectre than their non-liturgic brethren. An authori-
tative ritual carries its laws over upon music also ; tra-
dition, thus fortified, holds firm against innovation, and
the liturgic and clerical conception of music gives a
stability to musical usages which no aberrations of
taste can quite unsettle. But in the non-liturgic
churches of America one sees only a confusion of pur-
poses, a lack of agreement, an absence of every shade
of recognized authority. The only tradition is that
of complete freedom of choice. There is no admitted
standard of taste ; the whole musical service is experi-
mental, subject to the preferences, more or less ca-
pricious, of choir-master or music committee. There
is no system in the separate societies that may not be
overthrown by a change of administration. The choir
music is eclectic, drawn indiscriminately from Catholic,
German, and English sources ; or if it is of American
composition it is merely an obvious imitation of one
of these three. The congregational music ranges from

392

PROBLEMS OF CHURCH MUSIC IN AMERICA

the German choral to the " Gospel song," or it may
be an alternation of these two incongruous styles. The
choir is sometimes a chorus, sometimes a solo quartet;
the latter mainly forced to choose its material from
''arrangements," or from works written for chorus.
Anon the choir is dismissed and the congregation,
led by a precentor with voice or cornet, assumes the
whole burden of the office of song. These conditions
are sufficient to explain why a distinct school of Amer-
ican church music does not exist and never can exist.
The great principle of self-determination in doctrine
and ecclesiastical government, which has brought into
existence such a multitude of sects, may well be a
necessity in a composite and democratic nation, but
it is no less certainly a hindrance to the develop-
ment of a uniform type of religious music.

There would be a much nearer approach to a re-
concilement of all these differences, and the cause of
church music would be in a far more promising con-
dition, if there were a closer sympathy between the
standard of music within the Church and that pre-
vailing in educated society outside. There is cer-
tainly 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

393

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

inferior to its rival. In America there is no sucli stim-
ulating interaction between the music of the Church
and that of the concert hall and the social circle as
there has been for centuries in Germany and England.
The Church is not the leader in musical culture. We
are rapidly becoming a musical nation. When one
sees what is going on in the opera houses, concert
halls, colleges, conservatories, public schools, and pri-
vate instruction rooms, contrasting the present situa-
tion with that of fifty years ago, the outcome can
easily be predicted. But the music of the Church,
in spite of gratifying efforts here and there, is not
keeping pace w4th this progress, and the Church must
inevitably suffer in certain very important interests if
this gap is permitted continually to widen.

There are many causes for this state of affairs, some
incidental and avoidable, others lying in the very
nature of music itself and the special service which
the Church requires of it. Perhaps the chief difficulty
in the way of a high artistic development of religious
music is the opinion, which prevails widely among the
most devout, that music when allied to worship must
forego what seems the natural right of all art to pro-
duce 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
394

PROBLEMS OF CHURCH MUSIC IN AMERICA

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 any-
thing 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 reli-

395

MUSIC W THE WESTERN CHURCti

gious 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 ten-
derness 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 reach-
ing 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 expres-
sion, 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,

396,

PROBLEMS OF CHURCH MUSIC IN AMERICA

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 ante-
cedent 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-conscious-
ness 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 por-
tions 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

397

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

not possible or even desirable that the words of a
chorus should be so distinct as to make the prime
impression. Those who demand distinct articulation,
as though the religious effect of church song hung
solely upon that, do not listen musically. At any rate
they see but a little way into the problem, which is
concerned not with the effect of words but of tones.
The text and music reinforce each other when the
words are known to the hearer before the singing
begins, aiding thus to bring about the expectancy of
which I have spoken, and producing that satisfaction
which is felt when musical expression is perceived to
be appropriate to its poetic subject.

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 convic-
tions clear and firm, and with faith in these as con-
necting 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

S98

PROBLEMS OF CHURCH MUSIC IN AMERICA

Jend 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 devo-
tional 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 decora-
tion, which gives to it its peculiar power. To this
searching force of music, its freedom from reminis-
cences 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 absorb-
ing 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 phys-
ical life; it raises the subject into a super-earthly
region; it has for the moment nothing to do with

399

MUSIC W THE WESTERN CHURCH

temporal activities ; it is largely spontaneous and unre-
flective. The absorption of the mind in contemplation,
the sense of inward peace which accompanies emancipa-
tion from the disturbances of ordinary life, those joyous
stirrings of the soul when it seems to catch glimpses
of eternal blessedness, have a striking resemblance to
phases of musical satisfaction where the analytical
faculties are not called into exercise. Hence the
readiness with which music combines with these higher
experiences. Music in its mystic, indefinable action
seems to make the mood of prayer more active, to
interpret it to itself, and by something that seems
celestial in the harmony to make the mood deeper,
stronger, more satisfying than it would be if shut up
within the soul and deprived of this means of deliver-
ance. Music also, by virtue of its universal and
impersonal quality, furnishes the most efficient means
of communication among all the individuals engaged
in a common act; the separate personalities are, we
might say, dissolved in the general tide of rapture
symbolized by the music, and the common sentiment
is again enhanced by the consciousness of sympathy
between mind and mind to which the music testifies,
and which it is so efficient to promote.

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

400

PROBLEMS OP CtiURCH MUSIC IN AMERICA

or thought separable from the special form in which
it is conveyed to us." It may, through its peculiar
power of stimulating the sensibility and conveying
ideas of beauty in the purest, most abstract guise, help
to make the mind receptive to serious impressions;
but in order to excite a specifically religious feeling
it must cooperate with other impressions which act
more definitely upon the understanding. The words
to which the music is sung, being submerged in the
mind of a music-lover by the tide of enchanting sound,
are not sufficient for this purpose unless they are
known and dwelt upon in advance ; and even then they
too need reinforcement out of the environment in
which the musical service is placed. The singing of
the choir must be contrived and felt as a part of the
office of prayer. The spirit and direction of the whole
service for the day must be unified ; the music must be
a vital and organic element in this unit. All parts of
the service must be controlled by the desire for beauty
and fitness. Music, however beautiful, loses something
of its effect if its accompaniments are not in harmony
with it. This desideratum is doubtless most easily
attained in a liturgic service. One great advantage
of an ancient and prescribied form is that its components
work easily to a common impression, and in course of
time the ritual tends to become venerable as well as
dignified and beautiful. The non-liturgic method
may without difficulty borrow this conception of har-
mony and elevation, applying it so far as its own
customs and rules of public worship allow. How this
unity of action in the several factors of a non-liturgio
26 401

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CBVUCtt

service may best be effected is outside the purpose of
this book to discuss. The problem is not a difficult
one when minister, choir leader, and church members
are agreed upon the principle. In every church there
are sanctities of time and place; there are common
habits of mind induced by a common faith; there are
historic traditions, — all contributing to a unity of feel-
ing in the congregation. These may all be cultivated
and enhanced by a skilfully contrived service, devised
and moulded in recognition of the psychologic law that
an art form acts with full power only when the mind is
prepared by anticipation and congenial accessories.

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 sur-
vival of the old Calvinistic fear of everything studied,
formal, and externally beautiful in public worship. In
other communities the church music is simply neg-
lected, as one of the results of the excessive pre-
dominance 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 gen-

402

PROBLEMS OF CHURCH MUSIC IN AMERICA

eral knowledge and taste in music are rapidly growing.
Those churches which, for any reason whatever, keep
their musical standard below the level of that which
prevails in the educated society around them are not
acting for their own advantage, materially or spirit-
ually. President Faunce was right when he told one of
the churches of his denomination : " Your music must
be kept noble and good. If your children hear Wagner
and the other great masters in their schools, they will
not be satisfied with ' Pull for the shore ' in the
church." Those churches, for example, which rely
mainly upon the " Gospel Songs " should soberly con-
sider if it is profitable in the long run to maintain a
standard of religious melody and verse far below that
which prevails in secular music and literature. "The
Church is the art school of the common man," says
Professor Riehl; and while it may be answered that it
is not the business of the Church to teach art, yet the
Church cannot afford to keep its spiritual culture out
of harmony with the higher intellectual movements
of the age. One whose taste is fed by the poetry of
such masters as Milton and Tennyson, by the music of
such as Handel and Beethoven, and whose apprecia-
tions are sharpened by the best examples of perform-
ance in the modern concert hall, cannot drop his taste
and critical habit when he enters the church door.
The same is true in a modified degree in respect to
those who have had less educational advantages. It
is a fallacy to assert that the masses of the people are
responsive only to that which is trivial and sensational.
In any case, what shall be said of a church that is satis-

403

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

fied to leave its votaries upon the same intellectual and
spiritual level upon which it finds them ?

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 begin-
ning 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 incom-
parably the greatest. To set forth the majesty of kings,
his vicegerents in this world, the most gorgeous and rare

404

PROBLEMS OF CHURCH MUSIC IN AMERICA

treasures which the world hath, are procured. We
think belike that he will accept what the meanest of
them would disdain." *

In urging onward the effort after beauty and perfec-
tion 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 pos-
session 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 through-

* Hooker, Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, book r. chap. 15,
405

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

out 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 intelli-
gently. 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 quick-
ening that lies in genuine church music and the mis-
chief in the false, to arouse church members to an
understanding of the injury that attends an obviouB

406

PROBLEMS OF CHURCH MUSIC IN AMERICA

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 main-
tain 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 remu-
neration is too small to make this special study worth
their while. The musical service of the Church is, there-
fore, 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 instruc-
tion, 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

407

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

interest and energy that are left over from a week's
hard labor. There is a host of young musicians to
whom church work is exceedingly attractive. Let the
Church magnify the importance of its musical service,
and raise its salaries in proportion, and an abundant
measure of the rising musical talent and enthusiasm
will be ready at its call.

The musical problem of the non-liturgic Church in
America is, therefore, not one of creation, but of admin-
istration. 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 regener-
ation ; 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 deny-
ing 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 cooperating with these
institutions for the general welfare.

408

PROBLEMS OF CHURCH MUSIC IN AMERICA

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 exempUfy 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 tradi-
tions 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.

409

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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. Phila-
delphia, General Council Publication Board, 190L

♦Bacon and Allen (editors). The Hymns of Martin Luther set to
their Original Melodies, with an English Version. New York,
Scribner, 1883.

Baumker. 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.

element. Histoire generale de la musique religieuse. Paris,
Adrien le Clere, 1861.

C happen. History of Music from the Earliest Records to the Fall
of the Roman Empire. London, Chappell.

Chrysander. Georg Friedrich Haendel, 3 vols, (unfinished). Leip-
zig, Breitkopf & Haertel, 1856-1867.

* Coussemaker. Histoire de I'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.

411

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

♦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. Biographic universelle des Musiciens, 8 vols, with 2 sup-
plementary vols, by Pougin. Paris, Didot.

♦ Gevaert. La Melopee antique dans le Chant de I'Egliae latine.

Gand, Hoste, 1895.
♦Gevaert. Les Origines du Chant liturgique de PEglise 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.
Hauser. 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 Kirchen-

liedes bis auf Luther's Zeit. Hannover, Riimpler, 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.

412

BIBLIOGRAPHY

*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, Kubovits, 1893.

* Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch ; Haberl, editor. Regensburg,

begun in 1886.
Koch. Geschichte des Kirchenliedes und Kirchengesanges, 8 vols.
Stuttgart, Belser, 1866.

* Kbstlin. Geschichte des Christlichen Gottesdienstes. Freiburg,

Mohr, 1887.

* Kretzschmar. Fiihrer durch den Concertsaal : Kirchliche Werke.

Leipzig, Liebeskind, 1888.

* Kiimmerle. Encyclopedie der evangelischen Kirchenmusik, 4

vols. Giitersloh, Bertelsmann, 1888-1895.
Langhans. 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.

See, 1893.

* Oxford History of Music, 6 vols. ; Hadow, editor. Oxford, Clar-

endon Press, now appearing.

* Parry. Evolution of the Art of Music. New York, Appleton,

1896.

413

MUSIC IN THE WESTERN CHURCH

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, Au-

gener ; 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, Triibner, 1885-

1887.
Same, 1 vol.

Schelle. Die Sixtinische Kapelle. Wien, Gotthard, 1872.
Schlecht. Geschichte der Kirchenmusik. Regensburg, Coppen-

rath, 1879.
Schletterer. Geschichte der kirchlichen Dichtung und geistlichen

Musik. Nordlingen, Beck, 1866.
Schletterer. Studien zur Geschichte der franzosischen Musik.

Berlin, Damkohler, 1884-1885.

* Schubiger. Die Sangerschule St. Gallens. Einsiedeln, Benzi-

ger, 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 Aufsatze. Berlin, Paetel, 1894.
Spitta. Zur Musik. Berlin, Paetel, 1892.
*Stainer. The Music of the Bible. London, Cassell, 1882.
Stainer and Barrett. Dictionary of Musical T'^rms. Boston,

Ditson.
Thibaut. Purity in Music, tr. by Broadhouse. London, Reeves.

* Wagner, P. Einfiihrung in die gregorianischen Melodien. Frei-

burg (Schweiz), Veith, 1895.
41i

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Winterfeld. Das evangelische Kirchengesang, 3 vols. Leipzig,
Breitkopf & Haertel, 1845.

Winterfeld. Johannes Gabrieli und sein Zeitalter, 2 vols. Ber-
lin, Schlesinger, 1834.

* Wiseman. Lectures on the Offices and Ceremonies of Holy
Week. Baltimore, Kelly, 1850.

415

INDEX

27

INDEX

Act of Supremacy, 325, 328, 329.

Agathon, pope, 110.

Agnus Dei, 90.

Able, 266.

Ainsworth, psalm-book of, 376.

Altenburg, 266.

Ambrose, St., 58 ; introduces psalm
singing into Milan, 66.

Anerios, the, 133, 168.

Anthem, Anglican, 346; its differ-
ent forms, 348 ; periods and styles,
353.

Aria, Italian, origin of, 190; its
supremacy in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, 191 ;
its introduction into church mu-
sic in Italy, 193, 269; influence
upon German church music,
267, 269, 318; adoption into the
cantata, 273; into the Passion
music, 276, 280.

Art, Catholic conception of reli-
gious, 70, 174; Calvinist and
Puritan hostility to art in con-
nection with worship, 363, 369,
372.

Asor, 23.

Assyrians, religious music among
the, 12.

Attwood, 354.

Augustine, missionary to England,
117.

Augustine, St., quoted, 51, 67 ; tra-
ditional author, with St. Ambrose,
of the Te Deum, 58; effect of
piusic upon, 372.

B

Bach, Johann Sebastian, his relation
to German church music, 282,
287, 289 ; the Bach family, 284 ;
Bach's birth, education, and offi-
cial positions, 286 ; condition of
German music in his early days,
287 ; his organ music, 290, 292 ;
fugues, 292; choral preludes,
295 ; cantatas, 300 ; style of his
arias, 304 ; of his choruses, 305 ;
Passion according to St. Matthew,
307 ; compared with Handel's
" Messiah," 307 ; its formal ar-
rangement and style, 308 ; per-
formance by Mendelssohn, 312;
the Mass in B minor, 204, 211,
312; national and individual
character of Bach's genius, 314;
its universality, 316; decline of
his influence after his death, 317.

Bach Society, New, 322.

Bardi, 188.

Barnby, 355, 383.

Battishill, 354.

Beethoven, his Mass in D, 119, 200,
204, 210.

Behem, 229.

Benedictus, 88.

Bennett, 355.

Berlioz, his Requiem, 199, 200, 204.

Beza, 360.

Bisse, quoted, 338.

Boleyn, Anne, 326.

Bonar, 381.

Boniface, 118.

Bourgeois, 360.

m

INDEX

Boyce, 354.

Brethren of the Common Life, 234.
Bridge, 355.
Buxtehude, 292.
Byrd, 350.

Caccini, 188, 189, 190.

Calvin, his hostility to forms in
worship, 358, 363 ; adopts the
psalms of Marot and Beza, 360.

Canon of the Mass, 89.

Cantata, German church, 270, 272 ;
origin and development, 273.
See also Bach.

Cartwright, his attack upon the
established Church, 367.

Gary sisters, 381.

Cassell, quoted, 45.

Catherine, wife of Henry VIIL.
326.

Celestine I., pope, 110.

Chalil, 22.

Chant, nature of, 40, 97 ; the form
of song in antiquity, 40 ; its
origin in the early Church, 51 ;
its systematic culture in the
Roman Church, sixth century,
67.

Chant, Anglican, 336, 340; Gre-
gorian movement in the Church
of England, 342 ; first harmo-
nized chants, 345.

Chant, Catholic ritual, epoch of,
93 ; liturgic importance, 94, 99,
405 ; general character, 95, 104 ;
different classes, 1 03 ; rhythm,
105; rules of performance, 105;
origin and development, 99, 109;
key system, 113; mediaeval em-
bellishment, 115; extension over
Europe, 117; legends connected
with, 122; later neglect and re-
vived modern study, 126 ; use in
the early Lutheran Church, 260 ;

" Gregorians " in the Churcli of
England, 337, 341.

Charlemagne, his service to the
Roman liturgy and chant, 118.

Charles IL, king of England, his
patronage of church music, 352.

Cherubini, mass music of, 204, 213.

Choral, German, sources of, 260;
at first not harmonized, 262 ;
later rhythmic alterations, 263 ;
its occasional adoption by Catho-
lic churches, 264 ; its condition
in the seventeenth century, 265 ;
decline in the eighteenth century,
266 ; choral tunes in the cantata,
274, 302; in the Passion music,
280; as an element in organ
music, 290, 294; use in Bach's
St. Matthew Passion, 308, 309,
311.

Choral, or Cathedral mode of per-
forming the Anglican service,
333.

Clement of Alexandria, quoted, 54 ;
his song to the Logos, 56.

Clement VII., pope, 326.

Colet, 327.

Common Prayer, Book of, 328, 330 ;
musical setting by Marbecke, 337,
369.

Communion, 90.

Congregational singing, its decline
in the early Church, 48 ; vital
place in Protestant worship, 223 ;
in Germany before the Reforma-
tion, 228 et seq. ; not encouraged
in the Catholic Church, 240 ; in
the Church of Luther, 242;
among the Puritans, 376.

Constantine, edicts of, 62.

Constitutions of the Apostles, 47.

Cosmas, St., 60.

Counterpoint, mediaeval, growth of,
140, 148.

Counter-Reformation, 156, 264.

Cowper, 381, 387.

Coxe, 381.

420

INDEX

Cranmer, 328, 329, 331, 337.

Credo, 88.

Croce, 168.

Cromwell, 369, 371,372.

Crotch, 354.

Criiger, 266.

Curwen, quoted, 343.

Cymbals, 24, 26.

Dance, religious, its prominence
in primitive worship, 3 ; twofold
purpose, 5 ; among the Egyp-
tians, 6 ; among the Greeks, 6 ;
in early Christian worship, 8.

David, his contribution to the He-
brew ritual, 24.

Day's psalter, 345.

Deutsche Messe, Luther's, 245, 247.

Dies Irae, 60.

Discant, first form of mediaeval
part writing, 138.

Dubois, 217.

Durante, 213.

Dvorak, his Requiem, 204, 219;
Stabat Mater, 219.

Dykes, 383.

Eccard, 271.

Eckart, 229, 231.

Edward VI., king of England, 327,

328.
Egyptians, religious music among

the, 12.
" Ein' feste Burg," 251, 252, 253,

259, 264, 302.
Ekkehard V., quoted, 121.
Elizabeth, queen of England, 327,

329, 332, 358.
Ellerton, 381.
Ephraem, 57.
Erasmus, 327.
Eybler, 207.

P

Faber, 381.

Faunce, quoted, 403.

Female voice not employed in
ancient Hebrew worship, 29 ;
similar instances of exclusion in
the modern Church, 30.

Festivals, primitive, 4 ; in the early
Church, 65.

Flagellants, 231.

Folk-song, as possible origin of
some of the ancient psalm mel-
odies, 31 ; German religious, be-
fore the Reformation, 228 et seq. ;
German secular, transformed into
religious, 232 ; folk-tunes as
sources of the Lutheran choral,
261.

Formula Missae, Luther's, 245.

Franc, 360.

Franck, 218.

Frank, 266.

Frauenlob, 229.

Frescobaldi, 292.

Froberger, 292.

Fuller, quoted, 375.

Gabrieli, Giovanni, 170.

Gabrielis, the, 93, 133, 170.

Galilei, 188.

Garrett, 355.

Gerhardt, 266, 311.

Gevaert, works on the origins of

the Gregorian chant, quoted,

109.
Gibbons, 350, 352.
Gibbons, Cardinal, quoted, 75, 84.
Gigout, 217.

Gloria in excelsis, 58, 87.
Glossolalia, 44.
Goss, 355.

Gottfried von Strasaburg, 229.
Goudimel, 154, 360-

421

INDEX

Gounod, mass music of, 199, 200,
213, 216.

Gradual, 88.

Greeks, religious music among the,
14, 19; Greek influence upon
early Christian worship, 42, 63,
65 ; relation of Greek music to
Christian, 52.

Green, quoted, 117.

Greene, 354.

Gregorian Chant, see Chant, Cath-
olic ritual.

Gregory I., pope, his traditional
services to the ritual chant, 107 ;
objections to this tradition, 108.

Gregory II., pope, 113.

Gregory III., pope, 113.

Grell, 212, 321.

Guilmant, 217.

H

Handel, 279, 297, 306, 319, 323, 354 ;
the " Messiah," 307.

Hainmerschmidt, 266.

Harmony, virtually unknown in
ancient music, 18 ; beginnings in
modern music, 130 ; change from
mediaaval to modern, 201.

Hartinann von Aue, 229.

Hasler, 271.

Hauptmann, 321.

Havert, 212.

Haydn, mass music of, 205, 208 ;
" The Creation " stimulates for-
mation of choral societies in Ger-
many, 319.

Hayes, 354.

Hazozerah, 22.

Heber, 381.

Hebrews, did not assign a super-
human source to music, 14 ; their
employment of music, 20 ; nat-
ure and uses of instruments, 21 ;
ritualistic developments under
David and Solomon, 24 ; psalms

and the method of singing them,
27.

Henry VHI., king of England,
declares himself head of the
English Church, 325; not the
originator of the Reformation in
England, 316 ; changes in policy,
328.

Herve, 122.

Hezekiah, restoration of the temple
worship by, 25.

Holmes, 381.

Hooker, author of The Laws of
Ecclesiastical Polity, his defence
of the music and art of the
established Church, 367, 404.

Hooper, 329.

Hopkins, 355, 383.

Horder, author of The Hymn Lover,
381 n.

Hucbald, 136.

Hus, founder of Bohemian hym-
nody, 233.

Hymn-books, early Bohemian, 233 ;
first Lutheran, 249 ; Catholic
German, 264 ; recent American,
385. See also Psalmody.

Hymns, their first appearance in
Christian literature and worship,
42, 46 ; Greek hymns in the
early Christian Church, 56.

Hymns, Bohemian, 233.

Hymns, English and American, 379
et seq. ; '* uninspired " hymns not
permitted by Calvin and the Puri-
tans, 361, 373; hymns of Watts
and the Wesleys, 379; beauty
and range of the later English
and American hymnody, 380.

Hymns, Latin, 60, 235.

Hymns, Lutheran, historic impor-
tance of, 225, 303 ; introduction
into the liturgy, 247 ; first hymn-
books, 249. See also Luther.

Hymns, pre-Reformation German,
their history and character, 228;
not liturgic, 240.

49^

INDEX

Hjmns, Sjrian, 57.
Hymn-tanes, English, 382.
Hymn-tunes, German, see Choral.

Ignatius, St., traditional introduc-
tion of chanting into the Church
by, 48.

Ildefonso, St., 118.

Instruments, how first used in wor-
ship, 3, 10; their use in Egyptian
ceremonies, 12; among the
Greeks, 14; among the Hebrews,
21, 32; not used in the early
Church, 54.

Jakob, quoted, 77, 175.

James, St., liturgy of, 49.

Jean de Muris, quoted, 146.

Jebb, quoted, 333, 335, 339.

Jews, see Hebrews.

John Damascene, St., 60.

John the Deacon, author of a life

of Gregory I., 108.
Jomelli, 213.
Josquin des Pre's, 133, 154.

K

Keble, 376, 381.
Kiel, 212, 321.
Kinnor, 21.

Kretzschmar, quoted, 306.
Kunrad der Marner, 229.
Kyrie eleison, 57, 87 ; popular use
in Germany, 229.

Lanciani, quoted, 63.
Laug, Andrew, quoted, 7.
Laodicea, injunction in regard to
singing by council of, 50, 51.

Lassus, 93, 133, 154, 167, 172.

Latimer, 329.

Lemaire, quoted, 116.

Leo I., pope, 110.

Lesueur, 214.

•• LiiAng out," 370.

Liszt, criticisms upon Paris church
music, 206 ; imagines a new style
of religious music, 214.

Liturgy, Anglican, 329; modes of
rendering, 333 et seq.; intoning
of prayers, 337.

Liturgy, Catholic, origin of, 81, 83;
language of, 82; outline and
components of, 87; a musical
liturgy, 92.

Liturgy, Luther's, see Formula Mis-
sse, and Deutsche Messe.

Liturgy of St. James, 49, 50 ; of St.
Mark, 49.

Longfellow, translation of " glad-
some light," 58,

Lotti, 133.

Louis IX., king of France, 148.

Luther, his service to German
hymnody, 226, 243, 248; his re-
form of the liturgy, 244; his
theory of worship, 245 ; origin of
his hymns, 250 ; their spirit and
literary style, 251 ; nature of his
work for congregational music,
258; Luther not a composer of
tunes, 259 ; quoted, 260.

Lyric poetry, two forms of, 27.

Lyte, 381.

M

Mackenzie, 355.

Marbecke, his musical setting of

the English Prayer Book, 337.
Marot, psalm translations of, 359.
Martin, 355.
Mary, queen of England, reaction

under, 329, 332.

423

INDEX

Mass, theory of, 83, 91, 240; differ-
ent kinds of, 85; in England,
328, 332. See also Liturgy,
Catholic.

Milman, 381.

Milton, 365.

Mixed mode of performing the
Anglican service, 335.

Monk, 355, 383.

Montgomery, 381.

N

Naninis, the, 168.

Neale, quoted on the Greek hymns,

59.
Nebel, 22.

Netherlanders, age of the, 149.
Neukomm, 207.
Newman, 381.
Newton, 381, 387.
Nicholas I., pope, 122.
Notker Balbulus, reputed founder

of the Sequence, 121.

o

Oblation of the Host, 88.

Offertory, 88.

Opera, invention of, 186, 188 ; ideal

and form of early Italian, 190;

opera and church, 193.
Oratorio, its rise in Germany and

effect on church music, 319.
Organ music, its beginnings in

Venice, 169, 171 ; in the German

Protestant Church, 269, 270,

290; Bach's organ works, see

Bach.
Organs, Puritan hatred of, 365,

370 ; destroyed by the Puritans,

371.
Organum, 136.
Osmund, bishop of Salisbury, 331.

Pachelbel, 292.

Palestrina, 93, 133, 151 ; the Mass
of Pope Marcellus, 152, 154 ;
myth of the rescue of church
music by Palestrina, 152; com-
pared with Lassus, 173.

"Palestrina style," 158; tonality,
1 58 ; construction, 1 59 ; tone
color, how produced, 166; aes-
thetic and religious effect, 173,
177; limits of characterization,
178.

Palmer, 381.

Parallelism in Hebrew poetry, 28.

Parochial mode of performing the
Anglican service, 335.

Passion music, German, 270, 272 ;
origin and early development,
274 ; from Schiitz to Bach, Ham-
burg Passions, 280.

Passion play, 274.

Pater, quoted, 400.

Paul, St., his injunction in regard
to song, 42 ; allusion to the glos-
solalia, 44.

Pergolesi, 213.

Philo, 48.

Pietism, its effect on church music,
266, 319.

Plain Song, see Chant, Catholic
ritual ; also Chant, Anglican.

Plato, his opinion of the purpose of
music, 14.

Pliny, his report to Trajan concern-
ing Christian singing, 47.

Plutarch on the function of music,
15.

" Pointing," 341.

Post-Communion, 90.

Prayer Book, see Common Prayer,
Book of.

Preface, 88.

Psalmody, Puritan, 369, 373;
methods of singing, 377, 405.

Psalms, how sung in the ancient

424

INDEX

Hebrew worship, 27 ; adopted by
the Christians, 41 ; antiphonal
psalmody in Milan in the fourth
century, 66 ; in Rome in the fifth
century, 67; in the Church of
England, see Chant, Anglican ;
metrical psalm versions, see
Psalmody.

Psalter, Geneva, origin of, 359.

Psaltery, 23.

Purcell, 347, 352.

Puritanism, 324, 327, 358, 364 et seq.

Puritans, their hostility to artistic
music, 365 et seq. ; their attacks
upon episcopacy and ritualism,
366, 369 ; their ravages in the
churches, 371 ; their tenets and
usages maintained after the Res-
toration, 372 ; Puritan music in
America, 390.

Recitative, 188.

Reformation in England, its nature,
causes, and progress, 325 et seq.

Reinken, 295.

Reinmar der Zweter, 229.

Renaissance, its influence upon
musical development, 185, 187,
272 ; parallel between Renais-
sance religious painting and
Catholic Church music, 194.

Requiem Mass, 85.

Rheinberger, 212.

Richter, 321.

Ridley, 329.

Robert, king of France, 147.

Romanus, 119.

Rossini, religious music of, 207,
213.

Sachs, 229.

§t. Cecilia Society, 180, 212.

St. Gall, conrent of, as a musical
centre, 118.

Saint-Saens, 217.

Sanctus, 88.

Savages, religioua sentiment among,
2 ; methods of religious expres-
sion, 3.

Schaff, quoted, 44.

Scheidt, 292.

Schleiermacher, 321.

Schola Cantorum, 181, 288 n.

Schop, 266.

Schubert, masses of, 199, 200,
211.

Schubiger, quoted, 119.

Schlitz, greatest German composer
before Bach and Handel, 277;
his education and musical meth-
ods, 277 ; Symphoniae sacrae, 278 ;
dramatic religious works, 278;
Passion settings, 278; his isolated
musical position, 279.

Sechter, 207.

Seminaries, theological, and church
music, 406.

Senfl, 264.

Sequence, 88; origin and early
character, 12i.

" Service," Anglican, 345.

Shairp, quoted, 398.

Shophar, 22.

Sistrum, 23.

Six Articles, 328.

Smart, 355, 383.

Spencer, Herbert, quoted, 5, 15.

Speratus, 249,

Spitta, quoted, 322.

Stainer, 355 ; quoted, 342.

Stanford, 355.

Stern hold and Hopkins, psalm ver-
sion of, 375, 377.

Stile famigliare, 151, 158, 159.

Sullivan, 355, 383.

Swelinck, 292.

Symbolism, in ancient music, 11,
14.

Synagogue, worship in the ancieiit,

42^

INDEX

33; modified by the Christians,
41.
Sjnesias, 57.

Tallis, 168, 345, 350.

Tate and Brady, psalm version of,
376.

Tauler, 229, 231, 238.

Taylor, Bayard, quoted, 254.

Te Deum, 58.

Therapeutae, 48.

Thirty Years' War, 264, 265, 285.

Thomas a Kempis, 224.

Tones, Gregorian, 100.

Tones, psalm, see Tones, Grego-
rian.

Toph, 22.

Tours, 355.

Tractus, 88.

u

Ugab, 22.

Van Lann, quoted, 359.
Yehe, 264.

Venice, church music in, 168.
Verdi, his Requiem, 199, 200, 213,

218.
Vittoria. 133. 168.

w

"Wackernagel's collection of Ger-
man pre-Reformation hymns,
228.

Wagner, P., quoted, 104.

Walther, Johann, 249, 259, 260,
264.

Walther von der Vogelweide, 229.

Watts, psalm version of, 376 ;
hymns, 379, 380, 387.

Wesley, Charles, 379, 381.

Wesley, John, 379.

Wesleyan movement, revival of
hymn singing in the, 379.

Whittier, 381.

Wiclif, 327.

Willaert, 133, 168, 169.

Winterfeld, quoted, 170.

Wiseman, quoted, 76.

Witt, founder of St. Cecilia Society
180.

Wrangham, 376.

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Dickinson, Edward

Music in tlie history of the western chur

MUSIC

ML 3000 . D65

Dickinson^ Edvard^ 1853-
1946.

Music In t.he hlet.osry o± -tin
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