By way of introduction to this discussion of the music of the Common Service and the Minor Offices as we find them in the 1941 edition of the Hymnal of the Synodical Conference, there are a number of general observations concerning liturgy that must be made, so that a clear understanding of our position and aims might be reached as objectively as possible.

A group of church musicians for the second time has gathered for the purpose of deliberating on the heritage of the Church at this second Church Music Conference. That such meetings should be guided by the loving spirit of Christ and that they should be motivated by an earnest desire to seek the truth goes without saying. Such a spirit will prevent us from saying or doing anything except that which comes from such a zealous desire. What is to be offered in this review is offered not with a desire to ridicule the hard labor and honest work of earnest Christian men, but rather to offer suggestions and constructive criticism, so that future editions will eliminate that which is inferior and add that which is more in keeping with the spirit of Lutheranism.

In the first place, it must be remembered at all times that liturgy belongs to the field of adiaphora, and once that principle is established, you open the doors for a flood of diverging opinions and varying viewpoints. Allow me to state the problem in a very logical way.

The Third Commandment has an entirely different significance for us than it had for the Children of Israel, who were under the Old Testament Dispensation. For them Ex. 21:8 meant the rigid observance of a Sabbath, of prescribed festivals, of keeping certain fasts—in short, it meant the observance of the entire Ceremonial Law down to the most minute and most exacting detail. For us who have been freed from the law of fear and born anew to the law of love, it means constant worship and praise of God with no specified forms, times, or seasons.

Under the New Testament Dispensation there are only three specific commandments given by our Lord Jesus Christ concerning the public proclamation of God’s Word and the administration of his Holy Sacraments, namely:

Concerning the first injunction, or command (i.e., of preaching the Gospel to every creature), there is no specified cultus, ritual, or ceremony. It may be done in various ways. What are Sunday school classes but the preaching of that Gospel to the young? What would you consider catechetical instructions but the preaching of the Gospel to those who are about to be confirmed in the faith? What else but the preaching of the Gospel would you call Bible classes? What are the religion courses that we offer on this very campus but the preaching of the Gospel? In essence, the very life that the Christian leads should be a preaching of that Gospel to the world of unbelievers.

As far as the second command is concerned, namely, Baptism, there are more specific instructions—two, to be exact. The first instruction is one that is inherent in the word itself, "baptize," which means merely the application of water; and the second is that such application of water is to be done in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

Concerning the third injunction (the celebration of our Lord’s Holy Supper), even more specific instructions were definitely given by our Lord. There are, for example, definite instructions by inference as to the elements that were to be used for the celebration. Following our Lord’s example, the elements were to be blessed, and the elements were to be consumed. Finally, the Sacrament is to be celebrated frequently, a fact too often neglected by many Christians today.

Now, if the foregoing meager Scriptural injunctions are true, and they no doubt are, then it must logically follow that all forms of worship and all liturgy are superfluous and that ceremony is unnecessary. Basically that is true, but we must not jump to such a conclusion too swiftly. That public worship is commanded by our Lord is quite obvious. This we can see from the foregoing discussion and from the fact that He has promised to bless such a public service by His presence: "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. 18:20). St. Paul has recorded the fact that the early Christians did just that, and on many occasions Paul himself preached to them. Likewise according to St. Paul we learn that all things are to be done decently and in order. It is the opinion of some that on these last two words—decently and in order—we have the starting point and the authority for set forms and prescribed methods of worship, and that they form the basis for the entire liturgical development of the Church.

There may still be some who insist that as long as these set forms are matters of indifference and hence not necessary to salvation, it would be a good thing if they were all dropped entirely and that a simple service should be substituted. This they claim without apparently realizing that no matter how simple or how complex a service might be, you still have a set form that will be followed regularly. Any attempt to go beyond this will result in the danger of falling into the error of the religious enthusiasts who band themselves together and sit in silence until one of their group feels that he has a direct revelation from God—they do this trusting in a direct operation of the Holy Spirit. Such a type of service is entirely contrary to Scripture. As far as we are concerned, we are told that the Holy Spirit acts upon unregenerate man through the preaching of the Law, then the Gospel, then further He acts upon man when he is regenerated through the Sacraments.

Concerning the complexity or simplicity of a service, there is this to say: You are quite at liberty to throw out all liturgy, since it is a matter of indifference, but then at the same time you can no longer call yourself Lutheran, for Luther was definitely a man of liturgical persuasion, and the Lutheran Church is recognized the world over as being a liturgical Church, in fact the true liturgical Church as opposed to other liturgical bodies such as the Church of Rome, the Church of the East, and the Anglican Church. Luther’s principle of liturgical reformation was definitely one of purification and not of iconoclasm, as were the principles of the reformers of south Germany and Switzerland.

If we are truly desirous of recapturing and preserving the heritage of our Church, the liturgy must of necessity go with it, for to try this almost superhuman task by throwing out the liturgy would be somewhat like the surgeon who tries to save a man’s life by removing a diseased heart.

If we are to follow the principle of Luther, it is the duty of all pastors, teachers, organists, and choirmasters to adopt an attitude similar to his (that is, one of purification and not iconoclasm) and sincerely to try to preserve that which has been given us of our liturgical heritage and to recapture that which has been lost through ignorance, neglect, and indifference.

There is no necessity for going into the history and development of the Common Service and the Minor Offices as we know them today; it is to be taken for granted that all of us know, or at least should know, these facts. The problem that confronts us at the present time is the adequacy or inadequacy of the present musical settings as they are given in the liturgical portion of the Synodical Conference Hymnal of 1941. A number of congregations have been slow in adopting the book, and some have adopted it against their better judgment. While sometimes their reasons for hesitation are without foundation, it must nevertheless be conceded that the liturgical portion of this book as well as its several predecessors offers a number of serious questions dealing with the unity of rendition and the unity of style in the musical settings.

All of us will concede that the gem of spiritual expression of the Lutheran Church is the chorale—first, in its simplicity as the ideal vehicle for congregational expression, then, secondly, as the mother of the many art forms to which it has given birth, such as the chorale prelude, the chorale fantasy, the chorale cantata, etc. There is nothing more foreign, therefore, to the spiritual implications of the chorale, and that also means its musical ideology and style, than is the Anglican chant of the 19th century, Yet the bulk and weight of the liturgical settings that we find in this present edition draws most liberally from those dubious sources. Picture to yourself, for example, how much at odds are the styles of the Kyrie Eleison on pages 7 and 17, and the accompanying Gloria in Excelsis, with its ugly barred cadences, thumps, and bumps. I submit to you in its place the Gloria in Excelsis from the Strassburger Kirchenordnung which has been edited in English for this publication. I should also like to submit the chorale Allein Gott in der Hoeh’ sei Ehr’, which derives its origin from the plainsong Paschal Gloria.

This destruction of the unity of style is found all too often in the musical settings of our Common Service and the Minor Offices. Other examples will be found in the Gospel responses Gloria Tibi and Laus Tibi. We suggest in its place a monotone response or some similar simple response which would fit better the style of the Choral Service, especially if Luther’s Gospel tones are used on special occasions.

The next startling and unexpected jolt that we receive is the present setting of the Sanctus—where a complete Choral Service is used, the Agenda gives the old traditional tones for the introductory dialog to the Preface (Dominus Vobiscum, Sursum Corda) and for the Preface itself. All goes well until the congregation is to sing the Sanctus, and then we have something which is quite foreign to the style of everything that has preceded it. As another suggestion permit me to submit the Sanctus of Lucas Lassius in the Psalmodia Sacra of 1533.

The mixing of styles is further brought out in the contrast offered by the Lord’s Prayer when chanted by the pastor to the ancient tones, also indicated in the present Agenda, and the doxology given to the congregation. We suggest either the omission of the doxology, since it is not actually a part of the prayer, whereupon the congregation may conclude with a sung Amen—or if the doxology is preferred, we should like to suggest a setting such as the one found in the Braunschweigsche Kirchenordnung (1528–1531).

Among other settings for the Nunc Dimittis it might be stated here that the setting for Vespers on page 43, while poorly pointed, is far better in style and spirit than is the one in current use in the post-Communion portion of the service.

No settings for the Creed are suggested at this time, for they are easily obtainable in various settings, as, for example, those edited by Charles Winifred Douglas and others. At this point, however, we would like to urge a more widespread use of the chorale Credo of Luther—the so-called Grosse Glaube—No. 251—the second melody rather than the first.

Before entering upon a discussion of the unity of rendition, a word or two concerning the Minor Offices must be spoken. It seems that we have all but lost the ancient use and purpose of these offices. This also means that we have departed from Luther’s conception of Matins and Vespers. He viewed these devotional services with the highest regard and urged their retention for daily use as well as for use on Sundays. The only apparent changes that he advocated were the reduction of the usual five Psalms to three and the introduction of a preaching office in connection with both Matins and Vespers. For the daily offices he suggested a homily on the Lesson, and on Sundays a preaching office on the Epistle for Matins and on the Old Testament Lesson for Vespers. Thus a Christian who attended all three services had an opportunity of hearing sermons on all the pericopes, for the sermon at the Mass was to be based on the Gospel. Today we have all but forsaken the Psalter in deed as well as in spirit, for in Matins we use, at the most, two Psalms, the first of which, the Venite, part of Psalm 95, is used at all Matins and is given on page 33 in a particularly bad Anglican setting. The second Matin Psalm is read responsively by officiant and congregation. At Vespers it is very rare that we ever have more than one Psalm, which, too, is read responsively by officiant and congregation. That is why I say that we have all but forsaken the Psalter in deed as well as in spirit. That so few Psalms are used at these offices gives evidence of this as well as the fact that we read them rather than sing them. We sing all manner of uninspired hymns, some of which are of dubious sentiment, especially some from the English and American heritage written and composed by mortal men, yet we are perfectly content to read God’s own hymnbook in a sort of halfhearted, weak, monotonous mumble.

Our present settings for the Minor Offices, too, are a queer mixture of plainsong and Anglican barred chants. The contrast is even more apparent in the opening portion of both Matins and Vespers, for almost in one breath we chant a simple "Make haste to help me, O Lord" and quickly follow it up with a barred Gloria Patri. In Matins the same contrast is immediately repeated as we go through the Ferial Invitatory, a simple chant, and then follow it up with an Anglican Venite. The greatest tragedy of our Matin settings, however, are the Canticles, for the Te Deum in its present Anglican setting is really unfortunate. Is it not possible to urge one of our musical scholars to give us an English edition of the German Te Deum? A good metrical translation of the Te Deum is needed in chorale form taken from the Pikardisches Gesangbuch of 1539. The Benedictus, too, is most unfortunate, for it reiterates the melody of the previously mentioned Gloria Patri. An English metrical translation of the chorale Benedictus by Koepfl (1537) would be a most welcome change from the present Anglican setting.

What has been said concerning the opening section of Matins is also applicable to Vespers. The melodies for Labia and Adjutorium are adequate enough, but the unity is again shaken by the melody of the Gloria Patri. Reference has already been made to the neglect of the Psalter or its distorted use where it is in use at all.

The Vesper canticles fare much better than the Matin canticles, for though they are not well pointed, they make use of material which is far superior to the barred chants and more in the spirit of the chorale, hence of Lutheranism.

The matter of the unity of rendition is one of local and individual difficulty rather than one that comes as the result of specific publications. However, it can trace its source to a definite lack of specific training of the clergy in their seminary days and to a lack of precept of their older brethren in the office.

While many have never given the problem much thought, or while many have never considered it a problem, there are many of us who feel that a fifty-fifty spoken and sung service lacks the unity that would make for an adequate Choral Service. This does not necessarily mean that the entire service is to be chanted, but that at least the parts that belong together as a dialog between pastor and congregation should either be one thing or the other, and not a mixture of speaking and chanting. For a pastor to say "The Lord be with you" to his congregation and for them to reply by singing "And with thy spirit" seems almost as pointless as for us to use that method of exchanging greetings in everyday life.

It is a matter of constant wonder to many of us that in bilingual congregations a pastor chants his German liturgy, but uses this fifty-fifty system for his English service. Upon inquiry the usual answers that one receives are that the German people are used to the Choral Service and like it, and that the English are not used to the Choral Service and do not care for it, or that these pastors cannot chant in English, or that German chanting sounds better than English chanting. Many pastors give for an excuse the fact that they cannot chant at all or that they cannot chant like Pastor X at Trinity Church. If they would pursue the same line of reasoning about their sermonizing, those pastors would also omit their sermons, because only a vainglorious braggart would consider his preaching better than someone else’s. On the basis of such an excuse a pastor would also stop his catechetical instruction simply because he feels that Pastor X is a much better teacher than he is, or again he would stop visiting his sick just because he has heard that his neighboring brother’s bedside manner is ever so much better than his own. In this matter, as in everything else, the pastor must use whatever gifts God has given him to the best of his ability, and he must never be deterred by the fact that his neighbor may have a better voice than he has. It is absolutely unnecessary to have a good singing voice in order to develop a good chanting voice. As a matter of fact, a good voice is often a detriment rather than a help, for the man with the good voice is always in danger of overdoing his chanting and will often permit it to become dramatic and operatic. We maintain and insist that any pastor can chant or can be taught to chant, for the chant is nothing more than choral speech. The beginning, however, must be made in the early training of the pastor—in the seminary—and his speaking voice will be all the better because of such training.

In concluding and recapitulating, it should be stated that the chief purpose of this presentation is to point out that it was a definite mistake to publish the liturgical portion of the hymnal with only one setting for each portion of the various services, for it may tend to create a false impression among the people that these are the only settings possible and that they must be used without fail. This endangers our point of view that liturgy is an adiaphoron. Several settings would enable a congregation to use the ones that best suit their needs, even if they be the present inferior Anglican settings.

The fact that the inclusion of other settings would have given us a larger and more expensive hymnal is of little importance, even if our publishing house were to realize little or no profit at all from the venture, for the publishing house is there for the purpose of serving the Church, not of making money from the Church in order to give it to the Church, and what greater service could the publishing house render to the Church than to give it a good hymnal?

Finally, it should also be pointed out that these few pages that you have received may be totally inadequate and even poorly done, but they were given you in sincerity to point out that something can be done even by those with very little ability. This work is to be done by our eminent music scholars who have the gift and the experience. May they be urged and constrained to render this most needful service to our Church, so that the future will profit by the mistakes of the present and the past.

From The Musical Heritage of the Church, Volume II (Valparaiso, Ind.: Valparaiso University, 1946). Reprinted by permission of Valparaiso University.

For personal use only.