When Dr. Hoelty-Nickel asked me to present this paper to the Valparaiso Music Conference of 1947, he did it not with any expectation that I would add to the sum total of human knowledge on the subject of music. In that he certainly will not be disappointed. He asked me rather to speak as one of the practicing musicians of the Church to give my views, based upon the day-to-day work of music in one of our Lutheran parishes, on the status of music in the Church and the direction in which we are going.

I make no apologies for speaking, not as an historian of music, but as a practical church musician, because the business of the practical church musician is the thing for which such history exists. It is the duty and privilege of the church musician to provide a setting for the Gospel and to lead God’s people in song. It involves a tremendous responsibility, which therefore must not be taken lightly and requires the utmost of anyone in preparation and consecration.

I am sure that I am speaking the mind of all the practicing musicians who are here today when I say that we are very grateful to Valparaiso University for having instituted this series of conferences. They have been of great benefit to us. The Valparaiso conferences on Church Music have rendered many valuable services. They have furnished us with some historical facts, well integrated, well related to one another, so that we have gained a better understanding of the past, the root ideas and ideals which underlie the music which we use. They have also helped to acquaint us with a great deal of music of which we previously were unaware or which we had not considered carefully enough. Our musical services have grown richer, I am sure, for having attended these meetings at Valparaiso University. These conferences have furthermore given us some sound bases for our judgment of the music which we use. They have sharpened the realization that there are degrees of fitness among the various styles of composition which engage us, and they have helped us to sift the worthy from the unworthy. But by far the most important thing which these Valparaiso conferences have done for us these past years has been to make us think for ourselves about the questions which daily come before us as musicians in the church. No longer, I believe, are we likely to do our work day after day, Sunday after Sunday, without examining our position, without asking ourselves whether we are really doing the right thing for the people in the pew who must listen to us and our choirs every Sunday.

These benefits have come to us through the Valparaiso conferences because these conferences have directed our eyes backward in the history of the Church and in the history of church music. The Church has always looked backward. It has proceeded into the future conservatively on the basis of the past. Whenever a new political “ism” raises its head in the world, it is very likely to go gunning for the Church first, because the Church, rooted as it is in the eternal verities, will always be a stumbling block to any ephemeral doctrine or practice which may develop.

Our own Church has lately been re-examining its roots. Perhaps that examination has been intensified by the fact that we celebrated the centennial of the Saxon Immigration and more recently the centennial of the founding of the Missouri Synod. But I believe that this backward look has antedated even these two occasions. We have searched our own hearts and the acts of our forefathers in order to find out just what constitutes Lutheranism, just what makes us distinctive, just what can be correctly characterized as Lutheran doctrine and practice.

It is not strange, therefore, that the music of our Church should have undergone, and should now be undergoing, such a searching examination also. We want to know just what is good Christian music; more particularly, just what is good Lutheran music. What makes the music of our Church distinctive among the churches of the world? What makes the music of Lutheranism different from the music of Catholicism and the music of the sectarian churches? This search has led us to some very important results.

First of all we have realized that there is a very definite and apparent connection between the doctrine which any church teaches and the music which it sings. One cannot listen long to the music of Palestrina without realizing that here speaks the mysticism, the withdrawal from earth, of the Catholic Church. It is the perfect music for a religion which hides some of the majesty and some of the glory and some of the mystery of God behind a mediating priesthood. Similarly, one cannot listen long to the music of Bach without realizing that here speaks a voice that is absolutely sure, the voice of a vigorous Christianity, which stands boldly before God and calls Him “Friend.” It is as if all the people in a great fugue were speaking unanimously of the great facts of God, of faith, of life, and of eternity.

We have learned, in the second place, something about the basic nature of Lutheran doctrine and music. We have learned that Lutheran doctrine and the music which gives it expression are founded squarely on Sacred Scripture. They are centered in the Gospel, and you can’t understand the music unless you understand the Gospel. We have learned also that the music of Lutheranism is in the language of its people. When Luther, attempting to give his people a voice in song, began to look about for sources of material, he looked to the people. He drew on the folk song, religious and secular, of the German people. He drew also upon the heritage which he and the people knew from their association with the Catholic Church. Gregorian elements are very noticeable in the music of the Reformation era. We have also recognized that Lutheran music is very straightforward. There is a sure-footedness and bluntness about it which sometimes offends people who would rather be a little less definite about their faith.

We have discovered also in looking backward upon the early beginnings of our Church that the genius of Lutheran music is creativeness. Luther, the founder of the Lutheran Church, was a creative genius in many fields, not the least of which was music. Luther saw that if his people were to have the kind of faith which he was trying to awaken in them, they would require means for expressing that faith, and so, as before stated, he insisted that they have hymns. He created those hymns for them out of their own language, musical and literary, and out of their own spiritual experiences.

Finally, since we have taken time to re-examine the roots of our Lutheran faith and of our Lutheran musical practice, we have been able to achieve unity of purpose and practice and a new focus for our musical efforts—not that we have already attained a unity which is absolute (which would not even be desirable), but certainly we understand a good deal more about music in the Lutheran Church and about the bases of such music. Moreover, I am certain that our practice in the congregations from one end of the country to another has been benefited by the fact that we have been looking backward.

Obviously, however, a mere backward look carries with it some dangers. In our reinteresting ourselves in the music of the Reformation, we may easily forget or may even have already forgotten some things that are very important for our own time and for the people whom we serve. I think that it is very important, for one thing, to remember that the music of a past era is an expression of the ideals of that era and not the ideals themselves. We may become blinded to the fact that music, even when it serves the Gospel, does not have the timelessness of the Gospel. We certainly do not assert that the works of Luther or Walther are inerrant like the Gospel. Nor can we insist that our people must accept the music of the Reformation era as they accept the Gospel.

We must also guard against the danger of using the past merely for the past’s sake. It is possible to resurrect some things better left buried. When scientists exhume an ancient civilization, they have to dig through tons and tons of dirt before they find the things which they wish to put into their museums. We must be careful that we don’t use things simply because they are old. Furthermore, we must be careful that when we present even the best music of our heritage, we present it not from the standpoint that it is good because it is traditional. We must present it for only one reason: This music has meaning for the souls whom God has entrusted to us. If the music means nothing for them today, then it shouldn’t be presented. It should be put into a museum. If mere antiquarianism moves us to resurrect the music of the Reformation, it is certainly a false motive.

We must further guard against the danger of becoming so interested in one era of the history of music that we are unable and unwilling to see anything in any other music. We should then be in the position of a man who has built himself a house so strong that no one can get into it and he himself can’t get out. The very thing which we love can become our prison. Let us rather follow the example of Luther and Bach. When he was casting about for music for his church, Luther drew on the music of the Catholic Church and on the popular music of his day, the folk songs. Bach incorporated into his style all that he had learned from all the musicians of the world in the many days and nights in which he had copied their works. He was strongly influenced, as we know, by the Italian Catholic organists and composers. We on our part must not become so parochial and limited that we are unable any longer to use or even to listen to music other than that of our heritage.

Furthermore, let us not deceive ourselves at this point. We are in danger of presenting too difficult selections from the heritage or of presenting even the best of the heritage in such a manner that the presentation or the composition is completely beyond the grasp of the people for whom it is intended. As well might our pastors learnedly discourse to their people in Latin. If we wish to impress our people with our erudition or with our ability as players and singers, then, of course, the sky is the limit as far as the difficulty of the music is concerned. But if, on the other hand, we are interested in getting across to the people a message which they may understand, which may awaken an echo in their hearts, we must be careful in the use of the heritage, no matter how beautiful it is, no matter how wonderful we may think it to be. I am not advocating that we discard the use of the heritage because people may sometimes not understand. I am advocating that we carefully prepare our people by using a spiritual approach to this spiritual music so that they may understand it when it is used. But until they have reached a point where they can understand it, let us be very circumspect in its use.

Finally, I should like to mention another thing. Interest in the past may very easily become veneration of the past, the sort of blind, unreasoning veneration which some people who become immersed in a certain era of history reserve for their specialty. Veneration of the past may, in turn, lead to stultifying oneself by condemning any new expression which may arise. It is a very simple thing to do. You are interested in a certain type of music, and you say that this music has such and such characteristics. Someone comes forward with another kind of music, whether new or old, and you say: “No, that music is no good. That music cannot be used. It does not have the characteristics of the music which I like and which I have proved by long and weighty arguments to be the only kind of music which it is fitting to use.” If we wish to stop all new expression, then let us set up a list of technical considerations and characteristics which every new expression in music must meet in order to be considered good and useful for the Church. You will not get any new expression, at least for a time. That’s what the Roman Catholic Popes have attempted to do on various occasions, and they were moderately successful. Of course, you must expect that the people eventually will say what they want to, anyhow. At this point a reformation sets in, as history proves.

We are all keenly interested in the future of music in our Lutheran Church. That’s why we come here. We come here in order to live with others who have similar interests, to learn with them about the things that have happened in the past so that we may more wisely live for the future. But what shall we do in the future with regard to the heritage?

In the first place, I don’t believe any of us should attempt to turn the clock back musically in our churches just simply to see the hands run backward. That may be a very entrancing sight to some, but I think we can be sure that it will pretty largely escape the interest of our people. We must avoid presenting the music of the heritage simply because it is the music of the heritage. A purely technical and mechanistic presentation and judgment of music, however fine that music may be, carries with it the seeds of death. The music of the Reformation must be presented as a living expression. It must be presented as an expression of a faith which lives on in our own hearts and in the hearts of our people. We must present not the heritage. We must present the ideals of the heritage, the faith of the heritage, the spirit of the heritage. If we wish to do our best for the music of the Lutheran Church in our lifetime and for the future as long as the Lutheran Church may stand, we can do no better than to rededicate ourselves to the principles of the Reformation. Earlier I pointed out several of these principles as they relate to music. I think we can all see that they will apply very well to the future.

1. The music of the Reformation era was Gospel-founded. That means for us that we must be immersed in the Gospel. It is not enough for us as Christians, and particularly as Lutheran musicians, simply to acquiesce with our minds and with our words in the truths of the Gospel. We must be completely integrated with the Gospel. Our lives must be a complete expression of the Gospel. We must delete everything from our lives which is incompatible with the Gospel. We must live for the Gospel. We must be so completely absorbed in the Gospel that nothing else has more than relative significance for us. We must permit God to speak to us.

2. Following Luther, we must consider the people whom God has sent us to serve. It seems to me that in many of the discussions which I have heard among Lutheran musicians in recent years, I have heard a great deal about the history of music in the Lutheran Church and about the glories of this Lutheran music, and I agree with it. But I have heard very, very little talk about how we can best use this music for the spiritual benefit of our people. I have felt that we often were using an antiquarian’s approach. It is as if a painter delighted in painting abstract paintings which nobody but himself understood. Such a person may gain considerable notoriety for himself, but it will usually and, I think, only be the notoriety of a freak because he serves no one but himself. We must, like Luther, remember that the songs which we give the people to sing must be an expression of their own hearts. Unless those songs are such an expression, they will not sing them except under pressure; and if pressed to sing songs which they do not care to sing, they will certainly not sing them in a way which will be pleasing to their heavenly Father. I am not pleading here for abandonment of the music of the heritage. That would, of course, be utter folly, because it would be a denial of the very roots from which we sprang. It would be a denial of the greatest art which the world has produced, which God has given the world through the medium of the Lutheran Church. What I am asking for is that we make sure before we use this music that we have so well prepared the hearts and minds of our people that they can worship with it. Spiritual revival must precede musical revival.

3. We must become creative. In the days of the Reformation the glory of the doctrine which Luther had reopened before the eyes of the German people and the people of the world, and the great love which Luther himself and his gifted followers felt for the people who had flocked around Luther’s banner, gave rise to a new song. We have far more than the example of Luther, however, to urge us on in this direction. God has said that His mercies are new to us every day, and every one of us knows that this is true. God’s mercies have been new to me every day, every week, every year of my life, and they have been new to you in that same manner. The mercies He has shown to me are not the same mercies in every case which He has shown to you, and the mercies He has shown to our generation are not in all respects the same mercies He has shown to other generations.

God has also told us that, reflecting these old mercies which are ever new, we should sing a new song. He has told us very little about the kind of music that we ought to use in His worship. He speaks in very general terms, but one word He did use. He said “new.” It should be new. And so, building upon an eternal faith, we must go into the future with a creative aim. Each of us must, by his very life and every act, seek to sing his own new song of gratitude and devotion to the Almighty.

When one looks at it carefully, one can realize that this is the only way in which we really can keep the heritage, if by keeping the heritage we mean more than merely pushing down the same keys which were pushed down by Bach, more than recreating in our churches the technical, physical characteristics of a sixteenth-century worship service in the Lutheran Church. If, instead, we want to recreate in our own hearts and in the hearts of our own people the spirit of the Reformation, the ideals of the Reformation, the faith of the Reformation, then we must relate the music which is used in our churches to the life and faith which is in the people. Otherwise the music is the corpse of a spirit which has fled. This can be done, I am confident, not merely by using the music of the Reformation. This can be done only if we are so caught up by the glory of the Gospel, if we are so inflamed with a zeal for souls, that we will use music for its meaning, for its spirit, and not for its archaic value. This will mean also that there will come among us a creative expression, an expression of the joy we feel in God, an expression of the thankfulness we have toward Him for all the things that He has given us. Only when we have become completely imbued with the spirit of the Gospel; only when we have been so filled with love for the people whom God has sent us to serve; and only when we have in song expressed our own thankfulness to God for His great mercies, will we have really and completely preserved the heritage. It is not enough in preserving the heritage to recreate what has been done before. We must get at the spirit of the heritage, and that spirit must become ours, and that spirit must find a new expression in our lives and in our music. When this end has been achieved, then truly we shall have preserved the heritage.

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.