A European student of Church Music visiting America for the first time is bewildered by the confusion he finds in the music of the Protestant Church in this country. He finds all types of music represented—different styles and forms in which manifold spiritual ideas are expressed which seem to have no relation to Christian faith and life.

Unfortunately it is true that many Protestant churches will accept everything and anything so long as it pleases, so long as it meets the immediate requirements of a particular congregation or a group within the congregation. Some feel that the Church should arrange its musical service to fit certain tendencies of our time. They have broken with the culture of the past and neglected the treasure of song and prayer that have been handed down to us. They have promoted the idea that our religious form should coincide with that of the language and music of our day.

It is therefore not surprising that our friends and colleagues from Europe accuse us of a lack of knowledge concerning the true essence of Church music. There was a time, however—not so long ago—when these men were confronted by the same problem we are trying to solve here in America. The thoughts and ideas expressed in this essay were developed by and for European church musicians as problems confronting Protestant churches in Europe some twenty years ago.*

* The reader’s attention is directed to the scholarly publications of the Baerenreiter Verlag, Kassel, Germany, and, in particular, to the journal Musik und Kirche, from which the writer obtained his material for this essay. All Baerenreiter publications may be ordered through Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Missouri.

In Europe these ideas have borne fruit as anyone familiar with Protestant church music in Germany can testify. Here in America we are only now beginning to bring about a sweeping reform in our entire church music program.

Unfortunately the conception of music and its production has for many years been under the complete domination of pure intellectualism. We have become victims of the machine age with its devastating effects on our cultural life, on the fine arts, and on music in particular.

Tendencies toward mechanization play a greater part in directing our current presentation of music than we, perhaps, realize. Pure intellectualism, unconcerned with the life-giving qualities of spiritual forces, has found its symbol and instrument in the machine. The spirit of the machine has permeated even the very heart of music. Many have permitted singing, the original form of musical expression, to fall into disuse, and have shown a preference for instruments. The use of instruments, particularly those with keyboards, introduces an element of danger: the automatic tone, or the production of music without the expression of personal emotion. Thus the piano is often played as a release from boredom. There would be much more singing in our homes if inspiration still motivated the individual.

Singing itself has not escaped the influence of the spirit of mechanization. Our choirs, and, unfortunately, our church choirs as well, are often reduced to lifeless instruments when their selections, which are often far too difficult, are drummed into them in many grueling hours of practice. A sensitivity for music is rare in most church choirs. The members are willing to sing anything at all, because they have no idea that music ought to be the expression of their individual lives; they sing without true feeling. In this respect they are often in the same situation as the entire congregation. The lack of spirit with which the hymns are sung in many congregations indicates that spiritual life is almost extinct and that this singing is purely mechanical. For that reason this kind of hymn singing carries no appeal, nor can it awaken new life in others. We offer unmistakable proof of the living fire within us by our very singing.

The music of our times is of two types: that which has a spiritual quality, and that which has not. This becomes apparent when we consider the composers of our day, many of whom are stimulated to creative activity by logical speculation upon theories, not by an instinctive need to create out of a wealth of emotional experience. It is apparent, too, in the reproduction of music, in the presentation of musical works. It is not difficult to state for which type of music we, as church musicians, must declare ourselves. Without question we can take our stand only with music of the spirit. This means, in practice, that we must begin any revitalization of our Church’s music with singing, the most primitive language of the heart; that we must conquer the spirit of the instrument as such, so that song, the true expression of a heart aroused, arises even from the instrument.

We who look for all this in music are faced today by numerous problems. One of them becomes apparent if we contrast the so-called Gospel Song with the Chorale of Luther.

The circles from which the majority of these Gospel Songs emanate were indeed conscious of religious values; but it is unfortunate that so many of the composers of the Gospel Songs recognized as an expression of their experience just that type of music which we must decline to accept. As a result, their songs stand in no relation to the Chorale of Luther’s time.

It is certainly true that music is a form of expression; but not every form of expression is at the same time art, particularly not religious art. We are dealing here with subjective and objective equations. The creation of true art depends upon the voluntary subordination of the individual human ego to a Higher Being. That which is no more than the expression of the individual is thereby molded into a definite form which has a meaning far wider than the original personal one. Of religious music in particular we must make this demand, for it becomes thereby the symbol of our relationship to God. The Chorale of Luther took on form in exactly this way. In contrast to it the modern Gospel Song is no more than the expression of a subjective, egocentric experience. Completely missing is a consciousness of the disparity between the level of our ego and that of the Godhead. We must be unwilling to be restricted to egocentric expression. We must use the objective spirit of the early church music as our model, for the problem facing us today is that we must not stagnate in subjectivity, but acquire the attitude of subordination which made possible the spirit of that earlier art.

We arrive, then, too, at the point of condemning the mechanistic tendencies of the concert so general in our times. Presenting music in concert-hall style is typical for the period of the cult of the individual (Prima Donnaism). Along with subjectivity, the striving for accomplishment by the individual has entered into music. Technical skill has been further developed, and the emphasis placed on the individual conception and interpretation. The emphasis is no longer on that which is common to all, but on that which differentiates one from the other. This concert-hall attitude has determined the understanding of music with only too much success from Bach’s time until the present. It is still with us today, unfortunately, also in the music of the Church. We need not even mention actual concerts in the church in this connection. Music in the very church service is too often regarded as if the choir were performing in a concert inserted into the service. But the choirs are not alone in holding this view; the congregation often has it, too. Many an organist and choir director chooses difficult, pretentious works, not only to show off his mastery, but also to meet the demands of the congregation, which would probably believe that there had been no real industry shown if a straightforward and fairly easy hymn, a simple chorale perhaps, were to ring out on occasion. Our congregations show this attitude not only toward the music in the service, but in many cases also toward the entire service. They consider themselves very often nothing but an audience, participants in a pleasurable passivity, as if they were at a concert or a performance. They do not consider themselves active worshipers.

If we now abandon the subjective attitude towards this art, de-emphasize the personal element, and approach it as the expression of the impersonal which unifies through its superiority to the personal, then the music of the Church will again serve the purposes of religion.

If the Church accepts this approach, it will rediscover the polyphonic art, in which will be presented a picture of true impersonal unity. In it we see each perfectly constructed pattern of music fused without loss of vitality into a larger pattern of more abiding value. Each part is granted recognition, but is qualified and shaped by the requirements of the whole. That the individual should appear prominent, that is, that the separate patterns of the music should appear to have been formed to achieve separate effects, is scarcely possible in a polyphonic artistic production. The larger unity is supreme. For that reason polyphony actually reflects the spirit of true unity of purpose and must continue to be the type of church music which we choose before all others. The highest peak of achievement in music has been reached by polyphonic form, which has appeared in connection with each fruitful period in the Church’s history; the continuity of this relationship has never been broken. And it is the form which all the great masters of church music have adopted.

A renewed understanding of the musician’s art as service must replace the concert-hall attitude. That this must come about seems obvious from the above. If art is a vital expression, then it is most intimately connected with our personal life, and is created to serve that life. The aesthetic conception of art—art for art’s sake—is consequently abandoned. From the role which the hymn has played in the Church’s history it is perfectly clear that songs were never sung for the purpose of creating beauty, but in order to express the emotions of the soul.

From our other premise, however, that in presenting music we ought not thrust our own personalities into the foreground, it follows that our duty in producing music is to make ourselves its servants. This very attitude, this subordination of our personalities to a work of art, guarantees that our presentation of music will be more than a passing intoxication. Hence it follows that for us who are church musicians the presentation of music should be the service of God, before all else, and that all music in the church service (which very term means service to God) must be offered up like prayer. This attitude implies our turning all attention heavenward to God, forgetting ourselves and what we have merited. A presentation in this spirit becomes a service to the congregation as a matter of course—not in the sense that we intend to give it a delightful musical treat, but that by our music we open a path by which God’s Word can reach the congregation.

In connection with this we must, however, demand that the attitude of passive listening to music be abandoned. Attempts to give the congregation a clearer understanding of musical affairs in the Church by all manner of explanations and references should be abandoned. They testify to a rationalistic attitude which we have not yet overcome. Understanding is not the important thing in the presentation of music; it is something much more profound. Through the agency of music the congregation ought to perceive to some extent the active operations of the world of higher concepts, and ought to gain strength to join the choir in song raised like a prayer.

Great works of art continue to have value throughout the ages; they have a message for all eras. Our evangelical church music came to being in times of emergency, in the midst of heated battles for religious freedom. It sprang from the hearts of pious men. It is in every sense great. In this particular category the evangelical chorale and all music derived from it stand first.

During the difficult days which lie before us, it is our duty to lead our congregations to an ever deeper acquaintance with the genuine spirit of Luther, as it is particularly well expressed in the hymns of that period. God grant that we gain a true appreciation of this duty.

From The Musical Heritage of the Church, Volume IV (St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House, 1954). Copyright Concordia Publishing House. Printed by permission. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Concordia Publishing House.