The subject we are to discuss implies an element of vital importance to the life and stability of all musical composition in a certain epoch: the unity between the artistic style, its geographic origin, the purpose of composition, the repertory, and the musical education. If the unity exists and is in keeping with the predominant spirit of the time, outstanding achievements of the highest artistic quality usually give the period its lasting distinction. All the great epochs of the history of music betray such a unity. If no full harmony between all these factors comes to pass, contradictions arise, and conflicts of more or less severe nature entangle the individual composer. Although his accomplishments may, despite adverse conditions, still be profound and even unique from an absolute point of value, his historical position will often be distressingly ineffective, if not tragic.

The institution we characterize as typically Protestant, the Kantorei, or rather its history, shows both phases: now that all is inner unity, and the existence of music and musician fully harmonious; now that the unity breaks down, and the Protestant composer comes to be exposed to confusion and conflict.

Since for the time being at least, we do not pursue scholarship for its own sake, since, in other words, we desire to draw the benefits from scholarship which we take to be the guide in what should be done today, the lessons history has in store for us should attentively be studied. And the history of the Protestant Kantorei holds many a lesson it will be wise not to overlook.

The Kantorei entered upon its most glorious epoch when, after 1450, the rise of the Netherlandish School brought about a musical style, various factors of which necessitated the most elaborate form of a choral institution. The new music was essentially religious, since its style took origin in direct relationship to the liturgy, to the Ordinary of the Mass. In contrast to the period prior to 1450, the Netherlandish style was essentially vocal, in place of the previous structural contrast between a predominant vocal part and instrumental accompaniment; it became essentially choral, instead of the soloistic art that preceded; hence its melody was made to be essentially functional; that is, melody derived its character from the function it fulfilled in the polyphonic total.

All these characteristics called for the group as the proper medium of performance, for the choir. The style of the Netherlandish music made the organization of choirs a necessity. The two main characteristics, those of being religious as well as choral in substance, were the very backbone of the Kantorei as the institution which was organized according to the needs of the music composed. For an institution never has, or should never have, and in good times actually did not have, a life of its own apart from the music. On the contrary, the style of music always formed its own appropriate conditions and proper institutions.

The adequate institution of the Netherlandish music was the Kantorei. Since the style of the Netherlanders lasted as an international force for about 150 years, from 1450 to 1600, the age of the Reformation coincided with the age of the Netherlandish music. And the Kantorei existed throughout the period as an international organization.

What, then, is the Kantorei, and what its specifically Protestant form? The term Kantorei, which Luther and the Wittenberg circle of reformers so frequently used, was applied to various types during the sixteenth century and for a short while thereafter, all of them important for the organization of Protestant church music. To enumerate the types in question immediately: there is the Hofkantorei, perhaps to be mentioned first because of the splendor it gained until the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War cut short the story of its fame. Second: there is the Schulkantorei, which functions as church choir; it has a variety of names; next to Schulkantorei we find it to be called Schulchor, Chorus musicus, or Chorus symphoniacus, or Figuralchor, all terms being equally expressive of the choral polyphony they perform; for musica, or symphonia, or chorus, or musica figurata, all is related to the polyphonic form of vocal music. The Kurrende, a special branch of the Kantorei at the school, may merely be mentioned in passing. There is, thirdly, the Kantorei in the narrower sense of the word. It is often called Kantoreigesellschaft if applied to the city, Adjuvantenverein if applied to the village. None of these organizations is an original creation of Protestantism, although the Reformation has worked out the third type, the Kantoreigesellschaft, with characteristics entirely its own.

The Kantorei at the courts fulfilled a function of particular importance, since German princes came to be the chief supporters of the Protestant cause. The singers were appointed and paid by the court. Their duties consisted of providing the music for all activities at the court, religious and otherwise. Since the princes, mainly for reasons of representation, had a keen interest in high qualities of the music, they called musicians of first rank to their courts. Most of them came from Flanders, a land incredibly prolific in turning out musicians, extraordinary not only in genius but also in numbers. The Kantorei of the court antedates the Reformation. It had an estimable tradition at the time when German princes began to turn Protestant. Luther was deeply concerned with the lively continuance of the activities; and if any Hofkantorei was intended to be dissolved for reasons of religious austerity, Luther immediately gave vent to his disapproval in terms characteristic of both his directness and impatience.

The shift of musicians from one court to the other was relatively easier and more frequent than the change from one church to the other, especially if such a change implied the turn from the old religion to the new. The early period of the Reformation displayed a lively interchange in musicianship at princely courts. Above all, the imperial court assembled many Netherlandish musicians. Indeed, under Maximilian I it became the very center of Netherlandish art, which Ferdinand I made successful efforts to keep alive. The leading musicians of the young Protestant Church came nearly all from that school. And many a composer at a Catholic court provided music for the Protestant service. Even Lassus, who worked under one of the severest representatives of the Counter Reformation, Albrecht V, composed several specifically Protestant texts. In 1526 Stoltzer wrote the music to the Lutheran Psalms, commissioned by the Duke Albrecht of Prussia and Queen Mary of Hungary. Arnold von Bruck, priest and court composer of Ferdinand I, contributed works to the Lutheran liturgy. So did Stefan Mahu, perhaps also in the Capella of Ferdinand I. The intimate relationship of Senfl to Luther is too well known to be discussed. Balthasar Resinarius, pupil of Isaac in the imperial Capella, himself became Protestant and one of the better composers in the early years of Protestantism. Without lengthening the list of musicians any further, we may say that the structure of the court Kantorei was fully maintained by the Protestant principalities. At the head of such institutions there were often the best composers of the time. Hence their artistic faculties made the Protestant church music appear from the very outset with compositions of European prominence. We understand fully why Luther insisted on the maintenance of as many Hofkantoreien as tradition had established. There is still another factor worth mentioning: in various cities a mutual interchange of musicians took place between the Kantorei of the town’s church and that of the court. Here and there the singers were the same. On the strength of such an agreement the musical activities presented, indeed, a remarkable picture of artistic uniformity.

The second type of the Protestant Kantorei is as strongly rooted in tradition as is the court choir, yet still closer to the organization of the Lutheran Church: I mean the school choir. Protestantism upheld the medieval ancestor of the school Kantorei, as it did in so many other matters, external and spiritual. But here, too, the most illustrious period began when the Netherlandish composers formulated their musical ideal within the medium of choral polyphony. It is through the organization of the school Kantorei that the Netherlandish music obtained its best vehicle of expression. And the stern discipline with which the institute has been ruled explains the miraculous achievements in the choral art of the cathedral choirs. It is the greatest age of choral singing in all history. Without the Kantorei, Protestant church music would never have become what it was during the century of the Reformation.

In this organization, school and church work side by side. The musical education is entrusted to the school. The results of the education are presented in the church. The cantor of the church is the teacher in the school. His position gives him social distinction. Next to the rector he is second in the faculty. Rector and cantor decide upon the admission of pupils to the school, whereby very often the cantor makes the musical interests bear upon the decision. For the school Kantorei comprises all the students of the school. The singing is compulsory. All pupils have to participate in choral singing.

Bugenhagen, in Luther’s time the chief organizer of liturgy and school for the North of Germany, put music first in the curriculum of study in schools. The compulsory training took place daily, in most schools after lunch from twelve to one; some plans of study give also the reason for this order: the singing should take place daily because it was done in honor of the Lord; and it should be from twelve to one because it was recognized as an efficient prompter of digestion.

Out of the whole student body the best singers of the higher grades from Tertia to Prima, rarely the youngsters, were combined into the school choir to appear chiefly in the services of the church, partly also on festival occasions of the community. The rigid regulations made the outstanding results possible. In the first place, the compulsory singing of all students, regardless of talent or interest, promoted a musical education so widespread and general as to grant music to remain part of man’s life. Musical education was not meant to involve only those who had their minds already set upon music, but to provide as broad and fertile a ground as possible, so that the finest would grow thereon actively to be shared by all. Our school organizations merely take care of the student who is sufficiently interested and satisfactorily talented; they neglect all others; and music as a medium of expressive activity will not be attainable as long as the majority is left aside and given over to merely passive listening and aesthetic pleasure. In the second place, the organization fitted closely the music made by it. The compositions the time produced were almost exclusively of choral nature. The institution to carry them out was organized for and together with them. Since the discipline was strict, the training thorough and comprehensive, the fruits the efforts bore were equal to the compositions themselves. And great was the fame the school and church choirs acquired in the age of the Reformation: Leipzig, Dresden, Schulpforta, Lüneburg, Nuremberg, Halle, Hamburg, Wittenberg, and many another city had, in the course of time, built up a prominent reputation.

The last type, Protestant in a particular way, is of special interest. The Kantoreigesellschaft is to a lesser degree an offspring of tradition. To be sure, it also had certain models from which it developed. The Kantoreigesellschaft of the Protestant period had its predecessor in the so-called Kalandsbrüderschaft, a brotherhood founded for musical and religious purposes to combine both laymen and clergy. It was sometimes named "Society of Choir Singers." But it is significant that these medieval brotherhoods entered upon the state of dying out at the time when Luther came. Hence the link between the Protestant Kantoreigesellschaft and tradition cannot be regarded as particularly strong. It is even more than doubtful—so far as I can ascertain—that the founders of the Kantoreigesellschaften intended to revive the old brotherhoods with new, Protestant ideas. It seems that the societies were founded rather out of the needs and characteristics of Protestantism. For when they began to rise, they were largely without organization, and it is only toward the end of the sixteenth century that they adopted the regular statutes of a society. How were they formed? The burghers of the city, often together with some pupils of the school, had regular gatherings in order to study the music to be sung in the services. The study was usually conducted by the cantor. This was voluntary choral practice for the purpose that members of the congregation should enable themselves to take part in the liturgical music of the service. To quote from an original source: the citizens of the town should meet that "to the honor of the Almighty, on the high feasts and Sundays, they should help in singing the musica figurata to the services of Mass and Vesper so that subsequently youth may be kept in practice and be able to improve upon the art of music." In the days of Luther the burghers of the congregation, high or low in station, gathered to the end that music should be made the form through which the congregation could express itself. Since the Lutheran liturgy is based on the active congregation, the share it has in the musical manifestations is of the utmost importance. But this has often been questioned by scholars, particularly for the early period when the members of the congregation were said to have been unable to sing the compositions taken into the repertory of Protestant church music. Some scholars suggested that possibly the singers of the trained choir were distributed over the church to support the congregational singing. There is a passage in Luther’s works that explains the share of the congregation differently. He tells that it assembled on certain days of the week to practice the music to be sung in the service.* This conforms to a few other documents we have where it is said that in certain cities young people came together in the church for an hour or more in order to prepare themselves for the music; and the documents praise the laudable zeal of the youngsters who thus distinguished themselves from the habitual loafers of the town.

*I am indebted to Professor Roland E. Bainton (Yale University), who is preparing a book on Luther, for having called my attention to this passage in Luther’s Table Talks.

In the early days of the Reformation these Kantoreigesellschaften sprang up according to the needs of the Church. Inasmuch as they were first without strict regulations, they also had something of a democratic character. For burghers of all stations united themselves in view of what the Church needed. The picture was to change toward the end of the century. Burghers of the upper class no longer took part in such musical practice of the congregation. Simultaneously this group of singers became more and more organized as a regular society. The statutes adopted were extremely elaborate, rules being put down for nearly all the society was to undertake. The singers practiced once a week for four or five hours; they met in the school or in the home of one of the members. Luther himself had something of a Kantoreigesellschaft in that on regular days his friends met in his house to practice that music which he made every effort to gain for Protestantism. Due to industrious practice and discipline the period in which these societies came to their best was about 1600 and after, until the Thirty Years’ War ended the custom. Although the societies were revived after the war, they never again became what they originally were.

These three organizations, then, contributed to the realization of Protestant church music: the Kantoreigesellschaft most to the congregational singing, the Hofkantorei most to the artistic development, the school Kantorei most to the advancement of musical education. They all reached their height from about 1550 to 1620 in Protestant regions. They all suffered from the blight the war put upon them. But there were also artistic reasons why they never again came to true life. These reasons will have to be discussed.

And all these institutions were united on the ground of a common repertory. A common style, common forms linked the three together to reach a common end: the organization of the new liturgy by way of music.

It is a striking fact that Protestantism associated itself with the Netherlandish music. The association became, indeed, so close, and the influences, direct and indirect, were so manifold that the ideal of Protestant music and the ideal of Netherlandish composition grew to be one and the same. I do not mean merely the use Protestantism had made of the musical heritage related to the older Church. All such relations, often of external nature only, led to transformations in the sense of the new religion, frequently so far-reaching re-interpretations of the old material that at times we can no longer attach a primary importance to the source of influence. What I mean lies apart from the sphere of external influences. I mean the complete identity that came to exist between two ideals of composition. This, of course, is not only taken for granted on the basis that Luther himself declared Josquin des Prés to be the greatest of all composers and his personal favorite as well. However consequential Luther’s own judgment may have been to the form of a musical liturgy, it is not likely alone to have had sufficient power in producing the identity between Netherlandish and Protestant musical terms. Historically speaking, there is hardly any epoch in German music, the classic period excepted, that presents itself so free from conflict and so fortunate in unity despite the greatest religious rupture that ever had come upon the country. Glareanus, the intimate friend of Erasmus, once described the political picture Germany displayed to the world in the most exasperating terms. There was, in other words, nothing, political and religious, that would even in the slightest resemble a unity. Nevertheless, German music was, either before or after in the baroque, as united as in the century of the Reformation. And in spite of the severest antagonism in matters religious and political, there was continual communication between the Netherlandish and German Protestant circles in music. Surely, this cannot be explained by some sentimental reason that music is an internationally unifying agent. Even the word of Luther, by its own weight and value, could not have produced the astonishing unity. The reasons for all this lie deeper. To give an account of them is all the more important as they provide means of solving an extraordinary puzzle in the history of Protestant music. They cast light upon the fact that Protestant music is united and uniform in the epoch of the Reformation, disunited and full of conflicts in the baroque age.

German polyphonic music during the Middle Ages had at all times been exposed to compositions that came from countries for centuries in the lead of the artistic development. France, Burgundy, and Italy had provided style and repertory which German musicians accepted with profound interest. The student of the history of German music knows that it never was independent or of any importance in the concert of European music. Only relatively very few compositions contained a peculiar character and showed a structure, genuine and native, for which no other country had stylistic parallels. Viewed under European aspects, even this type remained as ineffective as all other polyphonic music of Germany. Nonetheless, the type has decisive bearing on the problem we have raised. Some of the early polyphonic compositions, not produced under outside influence, the works of the Monk of Salzburg in the second half of the fourteenth century and those of Oswald von Wolkenstein in particular († 1445), bring forth the structure of the tenor-cantus firmus Lied in the sphere of secular music. The melody of the Lied is placed in the Tenor, the second part above is set as counterpoint. The Locheim Liederbuch, some compositions of which are extended to three parts, works out this native structure even more significantly in that the cantus firmus is used as Tenor in the middle while two free contrapuntal parts frame the central Lied. To be sure, this Lied maintains the contrast of performance that generally prevailed in all secular songs of the time: one part to be sung, the others to be played; here the Tenor is vocal, the surrounding parts instrumental. It is the structure, however, that counts.

When the Netherlandish school came to birth and the compositions of Ockeghem, its founder, began to appear in increasing numbers after 1450, a style gradually arose to attain European rank which conformed to the native concepts of the German polyphonic song. A cantus firmus was borrowed, arranged as Tenor in free rhythms and long emphatic values, placed in the center of the work, and around this central melody there rotate, as it were, the three free counterpoints with long melismas and in almost endless lines. We immediately think of the wonderful words with which Luther described this very structure, in a manner I believe to be without equal. The character of the cantus firmus that carries the melody distinguishes the Tenor from all other parts: the sustained tones, irregular in the succession of the rhythmical values, give the voice an objective solemnity and structural prominence which has often been acoustically underlined in that an additional Trombone accompanied the voice of the Tenor. Thus all other voices became subordinate to the Tenor. This is the oldest stylistic form of the Netherlandish School and has been maintained, at the side of other forms, throughout the age, by varying degrees of its frequency. Since the form, however, corresponded to the structure of the polyphonic Lied in Germany, it is understandable that the German musicians fully absorbed the Netherlandish art as soon as they came to know it. For they grasped the form on the strength of their own tradition which allowed them to seize upon the Netherlandish compositions most eagerly. Hence, the rapidity with which the new style spread in Germany; hence, also, the obstinacy with which German musicians adhered to the style even at a time when the Netherlandish style had lost its place and influence in all other European countries.

A second reason had definite bearing on prompting an inner coincidence of Netherlandish and German music. The medieval repertory of German polyphonic compositions presents a definite contrast to the style that governed the art of the epoch. It consisted chiefly of sacred works collected by German musicians. Their manuscripts differ essentially from the rest of the continental sources in so far as there is this emphasis on sacred music, whereas the style prevalent in the age had secular connotations. When the new forms emanated from the Netherlands, they came forth with a new sacred message—after centuries past, the first genuinely religious style in polyphonic music. At this point, German tradition that gave preference to sacred compositions even when they were not in fashion, and the new profoundly religious work of the Netherlanders came to reach an inner agreement. Both the artistic structure of the composition and the religious tendency in the music enabled the German musicians to accept the forms that came from the Netherlands with a spontaneous understanding.

There has, of course, been an inner evolution within the Netherlandish style itself, and it is Josquin des Prés who between the most important years of his activities, between about 1490 and 1510, has carried it further than anyone else. In his epoch-making motet Ave Maria, of perhaps 1500, and the Missa Pange Lingua, which came later, Josquin eliminated the structural contrast between the sustained Tenor and the melismatic counterpoints. He invented his own theme for every text phrase to be imitated successively by all the parts in fugal manner. The length of the melodical phrases as well as the entrances of the voices were non-symmetrical, cadences were avoided, rests scarce, and an uninterrupted stream of balanced melismatic lines resulted from such a concept of composition that with reference to the work of Josquin and of Gombert the very learned Spanish theorist Thomas de Sancta Maria said in 1565: entrances and cadences should be treated in such a way that they do not stand out by themselves; for this is a very delicate problem, in fact, the greatest beauty and art possible in music. The third and last phase of evolution in the Netherlandish music is chiefly related to the motets of Roland Lassus, who endeavored to achieve a new style of declamation. But whatever the changes were that came into being, the German musicians kept closely in touch with all of them; indeed, they proceeded in the same pace as did the Netherlanders. Once the contact had been established at the very origin of the style on the basis of an inner relationship, it had been maintained through its phases. This keeping in pace with the Netherlandish development is characteristic of the German music in the century of the Reformation.

These two forms we have tried to describe in brief, that of the Tenor-cantus firmus composition and the imitative structure with or without borrowed melodies, were well established in the choral repertory when the Reformation began to introduce the Netherlandish music into the new service. Just as much as in the work of Josquin himself both types were kept side by side, so the music the young Church took over showed the two phases at once. The early Protestant composers were altogether related to the Netherlandish School, whence they came by birth or by training.

A last factor that linked Protestantism and Netherlandish music tightly together may be mentioned. Luther’s Von Ordnung des Gottesdienstes in der Gemeine, the Formula Missae, both of 1523, and Deutsche Messe und Ordnung des Gottesdienstes of 1526 had shifted the center of gravity away from the Ordinary of the Mass to the Psalms, Responsories, Antiphons, Hymns, Magnificat, hence to the Proprium, to the Officium, and especially to the Vespers, because the texts of these parts were based on the Scriptures. All these chants, if polyphonically arranged, became motets. With the generation of Josquin the Netherlanders had also placed a new artistic emphasis on the motet composition as music of the Proper rather than on the Ordinary of the Mass, on which the Ockeghem School had focused all its interest. Here again Protestantism found the Netherlandish music to be fully adaptable to its own liturgical tendencies.

When Georg Rhaw started an office of music printing at Wittenberg in 1525, the very foundation for a Protestant music was laid. Rhaw followed closely the order Luther had given; and several collections he published were prefaced by Luther himself and Melanchthon. Perhaps less important as a composer, although Thomaskantor in Leipzig in 1519 when the famous dispute between Luther and Eck took place, Rhaw was musical organizer and educator of the first order. It was he who provided the music needed in the service of the young Church. And he, too, brought the traditional institution of choral singing, the school, to a full unity with Protestantism—surely inspired by Luther, but still on the strength of his own genius as an educator. If we study the prefaces to the Wittenberg anthologies, we find hardly any that would neglect to emphasize the necessity of institutional training for the church music. Many collections were dedicated to school and church alike. Rhaw united Kantorei and church. For he related the music of the service first to the one and only adequate institute of musical training; second, he provided the material for which to train. In his strictly liturgical consideration he showed himself to be the equal to Luther’s genius and an educator in the truest sense. Contrary to our own days, where educators often waste their time with trying to invent the most elaborate systems of methods according to which one should teach, with scarcely any solicitude about what to teach, Rhaw, truer to the task of education, took care, above all, of the material, that is, the subject of education. The method of training was derived from the subject. The material being of choral nature, the Kantorei was by necessity to carry out the education. Since the musical repertory of the Kantorei and of the church were one and the same, Rhaw performed his duties in the office of liturgy as much as in the service of education. Hence his systematic publications of liturgical collections, particularly comprehensive during the years from 1538 to 1545. The Proprium de Tempore is represented in the Hymns, the Officium, as Vespers, through the Antiphonae dominicales et feriales, as well as the Magnificat, and furthermore Rhaw’s special Officia for Easter and Christmas. All this comes forth in the form of the motet, which, therefore, grows to be the most important strictly liturgical polyphonic composition of the service: as music of the Officium, and as de Tempore composition in accordance with the Epistle and the Gospel of the day. Of the 778 compositions Rhaw published in the course of seven years, about 550 are liturgical motets. And there are only ten compositions of the Ordinary of the Mass. Obviously, the liturgical ideas of the men at Wittenberg manifest themselves in this order of the Protestant repertory. The Protestant musician, the Cantor, becomes a motet composer. The majority of these strictly liturgical compositions, however, is still the work of Netherlanders: of Josquin des Pres, Isaac, Pipelare, Brumel, and of Senfl, Stoltzer, Finck, Arnold von Bruck, Sixt Dietrich, Balthasar Resinarius. The Catholic Netherlander and the Protestant German work hand in hand. The Netherlandish repertory becomes the repertory of the Lutheran Kantorei.

This character is maintained with all its intensity throughout the sixteenth century, or through 1620. To be sure, the output of specifically Protestant composers grew in size considerably. But the picture did not change. Protestant composers continued to write in the manner of the established style. The ideal of polyphonic composition the Protestant musician adhered to remained identical with that of the Netherlandish polyphony. And together with this indissoluble unity between purpose of composition, style, repertory, and education, the Protestant Kantorei passed through its most glorious history.

The unity broke into pieces in the new century, which brought about a complete change in the historical situation. The creative center shifted to Italy; the Netherlanders died out; so did their choral polyphony. The new repertory was organized by secular forms: the opera and cantata. The soloistic style required new schools of musical training, schools in which the solo style was to be acquired. All this, as everyone knows, took place in Italy, from where the new music advanced to become the baroque style of Europe.

When, around 1620, the Protestant Kantorei entered its first phase of crisis, it was not only the great war that became the cause of all the calamities that were recorded. Surely, the war brought destruction and enormous material damage to the institute of the Kantorei. But when the organization was to be restored, the music the Kantorei once cultivated had passed by forever. Heinrich Schütz was among the first to foresee the immense difficulties that would arise if the Kantorei would not be reorganized from within through the new forms of the music itself. And he made it the task of his life to eliminate the wide discrepancy that came to exist between the Protestant German tradition and. the new style of Italian music. For the leading style was no longer sacred; nor was it choral. There came upon the German musician the inescapable alternative either to transform the Kantorei entirely to make it an adequate medium for the new forms or to remain hopelessly backward and to fall completely apart with the musical ideas of his own time. For his own work Schütz finally succeeded in eliminating the gulf that had opened up because of the rise of the baroque music. With regard to the education of Protestant musicians he failed and, as he himself admitted, failed totally. The organization of the Kantorei did not change. Instead of renewing its repertory and style, it adhered to the old works of the past, which became more and more obsolete. Since it was no longer fed by new works in the old fashion, the quality of the Kantorei rapidly declined and became inadequate even in its own field. When a man of genius, such as Schütz, at the end of his life must admit that the German musicians did not really understand what he set out to do, that they only had lost their craftsmanship in composition, that he at last must beg of them to compose rather in the sixteenth century form, and that—he curses the day when he turned to music as his profession, the full tragic implications of the discrepancy between the artistic style and musical education, should it ever come to pass, are clearly apparent.

The Protestant baroque music in Germany never achieved a fully adequate institution in which to train musicians for a church music that was in keeping with the time. The Protestant Cantor ceased to fulfill his most distinguished function as motet composer for the liturgy. Motets were sung, but works completely outdated. Even the performance of motets was of no concern to him; it was done by the prefect, or precentor, and often by a special choir. The repertory of motets was by the time Bach acted as Thomaskantor 150 years old. What made Schütz suffer, still affected Bach. To make the cantata a profoundly liturgical work in place of the motet, Bach’s task, has been understood by the Germans no better than the work of Schütz. And the bitterness of old Bach sprang from the same cause as the despair Schütz felt when old: from the complete rupture between religious composition and musical education which both men saw to be a catastrophe of Protestant church music.

The lesson we must learn from this is self-explanatory. The character, the style, the form of composition must always be related to the function the work has to fulfill within the liturgy, or else the performance of music in the church becomes an arbitrary and at times even regrettable accident. Second: The educational institution entrusted with the performance of the service must be in full harmony with the style of music. Third: Since our contemporary music does not seem to fulfill either of the two conditions, Protestant church music of the past when it was greatest, when it was truest, should be first in being considered for the repertory of the church music. If so, the institution must be conformed to the music to be cultivated. Perhaps an Institute exclusively dedicated to the task is the only answer.

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

For personal use only.