The following items together make up the short book 'Music and Worship' which the Parish of Chandler's Ford published for me in 2007. The twenty-odd articles (each of 500-600 words) had previously appeared in 'Parish News', usually in alternate months.
Here you'll find them in reverse order, the last one at the top. So you will have to start from the bottom if you want to read the articles in the order in which they were written - sorry.
You may like to visit the Chandler's Ford parish website at http://www.parishofchandlersford.org.uk/ .
Saturday 23 January 2010
Thursday 14 January 2010
Music and Worship: Composers and Composing: Part 2
There are several ways of composing. One is by improvisation – making up music by playing or singing it, before (perhaps) remembering it and then (perhaps) writing it down. This is how most composers of jazz and popular music work, but some ‘classical’ composers, including Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, were fine improvisers too. On a much less ambitious level, many organists improvise, particularly to provide short ‘filling in’ passages in a service, for example as the choir enters.
Some people can hear musical ideas in their heads and then memorise them or capture them in writing. Mozart is said to have been able to conceive complete works in this way. Paul McCartney apparently woke one morning to hear the music and words of ‘Yesterday’ in his head. Are such things the fruits of divine inspiration? God has certainly given prodigious musical gifts to some, but it’s principally the diligent cultivation of these gifts that leads to successful composing. Do you recall Thomas Edison’s remark that genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration (i.e. hard work!)?
Much composition is done on paper, using various rules and shortcuts to make extended pieces out of ideas conceived in the head or through improvisation. Because it’s the sound not the look of the music that really matters, people who compose on paper have to hear what they write – but of course memory gradually helps you associate the symbols on the page with the sounds they represent. Nevertheless composers usually try out what they’ve written on the piano or some other instrument and then make changes and improvements, having heard the ‘real’ sound of what they’ve written.
Finally, a short case-study. The opening of an Agnus Dei (‘Lamb of God’) often sung at St Boniface in Ordinary Time came to me straight off when I decided to set these words.
[Original article had Sibelius graphic at this point. The book ‘Music and Worship’ printed the whole piece.]
It wasn’t inspiration – more a kind of subconscious mixing up in my head of lots of similar simple melodies heard before. I wanted a kind of gentle flow (almost like plainsong), so all notes were of equal length. How should I follow this? ‘Have mercy on us’ suggests humility, lowliness. So I used melody notes low in the range, all at the same pitch – with little energy or vigour.
The words of the Agnus Dei are in three sections, the second exactly the same as the first. To reuse the music of the first section in the second is labour-saving and easier for singers, but perhaps a little unenterprising. Why not, then, go up slightly higher on the second ‘Have mercy on us’, as if there were now greater hope that mercy might be granted? The third section begins with the same words as the first and second. By now the opening melody needs change; I gave it a lift at the end to prepare us for the closing petition ‘Grant us peace’. How greatly we need peace – in the world, perhaps in our neighbourhood, at work, in our homes or inside us – so why not ask God for it more than once, insistently, each time to a similar but slightly different phrase?
[This ends the final article from 'Music and Worship' (2007).]
Some people can hear musical ideas in their heads and then memorise them or capture them in writing. Mozart is said to have been able to conceive complete works in this way. Paul McCartney apparently woke one morning to hear the music and words of ‘Yesterday’ in his head. Are such things the fruits of divine inspiration? God has certainly given prodigious musical gifts to some, but it’s principally the diligent cultivation of these gifts that leads to successful composing. Do you recall Thomas Edison’s remark that genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration (i.e. hard work!)?
Much composition is done on paper, using various rules and shortcuts to make extended pieces out of ideas conceived in the head or through improvisation. Because it’s the sound not the look of the music that really matters, people who compose on paper have to hear what they write – but of course memory gradually helps you associate the symbols on the page with the sounds they represent. Nevertheless composers usually try out what they’ve written on the piano or some other instrument and then make changes and improvements, having heard the ‘real’ sound of what they’ve written.
Finally, a short case-study. The opening of an Agnus Dei (‘Lamb of God’) often sung at St Boniface in Ordinary Time came to me straight off when I decided to set these words.
[Original article had Sibelius graphic at this point. The book ‘Music and Worship’ printed the whole piece.]
It wasn’t inspiration – more a kind of subconscious mixing up in my head of lots of similar simple melodies heard before. I wanted a kind of gentle flow (almost like plainsong), so all notes were of equal length. How should I follow this? ‘Have mercy on us’ suggests humility, lowliness. So I used melody notes low in the range, all at the same pitch – with little energy or vigour.
The words of the Agnus Dei are in three sections, the second exactly the same as the first. To reuse the music of the first section in the second is labour-saving and easier for singers, but perhaps a little unenterprising. Why not, then, go up slightly higher on the second ‘Have mercy on us’, as if there were now greater hope that mercy might be granted? The third section begins with the same words as the first and second. By now the opening melody needs change; I gave it a lift at the end to prepare us for the closing petition ‘Grant us peace’. How greatly we need peace – in the world, perhaps in our neighbourhood, at work, in our homes or inside us – so why not ask God for it more than once, insistently, each time to a similar but slightly different phrase?
[This ends the final article from 'Music and Worship' (2007).]
Wednesday 13 January 2010
Music and Worship: Composers and Composing, Part 1
Everyone studying GCSE or A level Music these days has to be competent in three activities considered central to the subject – performing, listening, and composing.
All very reasonable, but slightly puzzling if you were brought up to think of composing (literally ‘putting together’) music as beyond the reach of all but a few geniuses.
This article and the next provide a few insights into composers and composing. They’re mostly about church music, but remember that there’s nothing essentially different in composing for church and composing for the theatre, the pop charts or the concert hall.
Look at any music edition of a hymn book, and it usually tells you who composed each tune. For example, the tune for Anglican Hymns Old and New (AH) 6 (‘Abide with me, fast falls the eventide’), appropriately called ‘Eventide’, is by W. H. Monk (1823–1889). Monk, an organist, music teacher, and one of the musical editors of Hymns Ancient and Modern, wrote other well-known tunes, including ‘All things bright and beautiful’ (AH 26), a favourite at baptisms and weddings.
But if we look at AH 4 (‘A new commandment’) things are less straightforward, because we don’t know who composed the tune. Was its composer too modest to acknowledge his work? Was the piece produced by a whole community or by several individuals? Whatever the answer, the music given for AH 4 is arranged by Andrew Moore, who has created a version readily performable with unison voices plus piano, organ and/or guitar(s). Anonymous music is not that rare – think, for example, of the melody for ‘Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire’ (AH 123), which, like all plainsong, is centuries old and of obscure origin. The tune of ‘Morning has broken’ (AH 510) is one of several folk melodies sung in church, and as with most folk music we don’t know who composed it.
The tune of AH 244 ‘God is our strength’ is a simplified version of a melody composed by Martin Luther (1483–1546), which originally went to his own German words. But the harmony (the parts added to the tune and played instrumentally and/or sung by altos, tenors and basses) is not Luther’s. It’s in the style of (but probably not actually by) J. S. Bach (1685–1750).
Our church music is largely by modern writers of worship songs such as Graham Kendrick (b. 1950), and by minor ‘classical’ composers like Monk, or J. B. Dykes who wrote ‘Gerontius’ (see a previous article in this series). But we sometimes go further afield, making contact for instance with Bach, George Frideric Handel (1685–1759), Edward Elgar (1857–1934), or Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958). All four have featured in recent [2007] services – for example. Elgar’s ‘Land of hope and glory’ and ‘Nimrod’ were played on 3 June 2007 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
On the other hand we sometimes draw on local resources – for example, the fine tune ‘St Martin in the Wood’ is by John Caldwell, former churchwarden.
But how do composers go about creating music? Is it by picking out melodies on a piano or guitar? By hearing it in their heads? By writing it down, using complicated rules?
All very reasonable, but slightly puzzling if you were brought up to think of composing (literally ‘putting together’) music as beyond the reach of all but a few geniuses.
This article and the next provide a few insights into composers and composing. They’re mostly about church music, but remember that there’s nothing essentially different in composing for church and composing for the theatre, the pop charts or the concert hall.
Look at any music edition of a hymn book, and it usually tells you who composed each tune. For example, the tune for Anglican Hymns Old and New (AH) 6 (‘Abide with me, fast falls the eventide’), appropriately called ‘Eventide’, is by W. H. Monk (1823–1889). Monk, an organist, music teacher, and one of the musical editors of Hymns Ancient and Modern, wrote other well-known tunes, including ‘All things bright and beautiful’ (AH 26), a favourite at baptisms and weddings.
But if we look at AH 4 (‘A new commandment’) things are less straightforward, because we don’t know who composed the tune. Was its composer too modest to acknowledge his work? Was the piece produced by a whole community or by several individuals? Whatever the answer, the music given for AH 4 is arranged by Andrew Moore, who has created a version readily performable with unison voices plus piano, organ and/or guitar(s). Anonymous music is not that rare – think, for example, of the melody for ‘Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire’ (AH 123), which, like all plainsong, is centuries old and of obscure origin. The tune of ‘Morning has broken’ (AH 510) is one of several folk melodies sung in church, and as with most folk music we don’t know who composed it.
The tune of AH 244 ‘God is our strength’ is a simplified version of a melody composed by Martin Luther (1483–1546), which originally went to his own German words. But the harmony (the parts added to the tune and played instrumentally and/or sung by altos, tenors and basses) is not Luther’s. It’s in the style of (but probably not actually by) J. S. Bach (1685–1750).
Our church music is largely by modern writers of worship songs such as Graham Kendrick (b. 1950), and by minor ‘classical’ composers like Monk, or J. B. Dykes who wrote ‘Gerontius’ (see a previous article in this series). But we sometimes go further afield, making contact for instance with Bach, George Frideric Handel (1685–1759), Edward Elgar (1857–1934), or Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958). All four have featured in recent [2007] services – for example. Elgar’s ‘Land of hope and glory’ and ‘Nimrod’ were played on 3 June 2007 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
On the other hand we sometimes draw on local resources – for example, the fine tune ‘St Martin in the Wood’ is by John Caldwell, former churchwarden.
But how do composers go about creating music? Is it by picking out melodies on a piano or guitar? By hearing it in their heads? By writing it down, using complicated rules?
Music and Worship: Strictly Voluntary
The organ pieces before and after many church services are known as voluntaries. One explanation is that they’re voluntary not compulsory – the organist needn’t play them, and the congregation needn’t listen!
But the word voluntary, first used in the sixteenth century, seems to have meant originally a piece that was freely composed – that is, not based on a plainsong melody. The earliest organ music (from the middle ages) had been chiefly founded on plainsong, the most widely used church music at that time.
Most organ music since the sixteenth century has been freely composed, but some composers, especially in Germany, have written pieces based on hymn tunes. These pieces are usually known as organ chorales or chorale preludes (a chorale, pronounced ‘korAHL’, is a German hymn). J. S. Bach (1685–1750) is still the best known (and best) writer of such pieces. One of these is based on the so-called Passion chorale, the tune still sung in Holy Week for ‘O sacred head’. You can hear the melody clearly in the treble, despite the addition of a few ornamental notes.
Another composer who deserves special mention at this time [2007], because it’s exactly 300 years since his death, is Dieterich Buxtehude (born c. 1637). He was organist for many years at Lübeck in North Germany. (A condition of appointment was that he married his predecessor’s daughter – a common thing in Germany at the time, and, where the daughter was less than attractive, a possible reason for local difficulties with recruitment!) Buxtehude must have been a busy man, as he was church secretary, treasurer and business manager as well as organist.
Buxtehude’s music was much admired by Bach, who travelled 200 miles or more to hear him (on foot, it’s thought). Quite a few of Buxtehude’s chorale preludes are heard at St Boniface before a service – typically the hymn melody is played in the right hand and is so much ornamented that even if you did know the original tune you’d find it quite hard to identify.
Buxtehude wrote also some larger-scale and more showy pieces, not based on chorales. These include toccatas and preludes, both of which include passages in fugue style. Bach was the most important composer of fugues, and it’s not uncommon to hear one of these at the end of a service.
A fugue is based on a ‘subject’ played at the beginning on its own, as a single string of notes without accompaniment. The musical texture then builds as the subject enters in one part (layer) of the music after another. The subject continues to appear from time to time throughout the piece, often with a big climactic presentation near the end. One of the best-known organ fugues is Bach’s ‘St Anne’, so called because, by chance, the subject resembles the English tune ‘St Anne’ (sung to ‘O God, our help in ages past’). There are better grounds for an alternative name – the ‘Trinity’ fugue – because the piece is literally three-in-one (three distinct fugue sections making up one piece).
Fugues are sometimes thought of as serious, learned, academic – and therefore boring. Some are not easy listening, but perhaps they don’t need to be. Music is wonderfully able to stimulate the senses, the body (as in dancing) and the soul (in worship), but maybe occasionally it can offer a little exercise for the brain as well.
But the word voluntary, first used in the sixteenth century, seems to have meant originally a piece that was freely composed – that is, not based on a plainsong melody. The earliest organ music (from the middle ages) had been chiefly founded on plainsong, the most widely used church music at that time.
Most organ music since the sixteenth century has been freely composed, but some composers, especially in Germany, have written pieces based on hymn tunes. These pieces are usually known as organ chorales or chorale preludes (a chorale, pronounced ‘korAHL’, is a German hymn). J. S. Bach (1685–1750) is still the best known (and best) writer of such pieces. One of these is based on the so-called Passion chorale, the tune still sung in Holy Week for ‘O sacred head’. You can hear the melody clearly in the treble, despite the addition of a few ornamental notes.
Another composer who deserves special mention at this time [2007], because it’s exactly 300 years since his death, is Dieterich Buxtehude (born c. 1637). He was organist for many years at Lübeck in North Germany. (A condition of appointment was that he married his predecessor’s daughter – a common thing in Germany at the time, and, where the daughter was less than attractive, a possible reason for local difficulties with recruitment!) Buxtehude must have been a busy man, as he was church secretary, treasurer and business manager as well as organist.
Buxtehude’s music was much admired by Bach, who travelled 200 miles or more to hear him (on foot, it’s thought). Quite a few of Buxtehude’s chorale preludes are heard at St Boniface before a service – typically the hymn melody is played in the right hand and is so much ornamented that even if you did know the original tune you’d find it quite hard to identify.
Buxtehude wrote also some larger-scale and more showy pieces, not based on chorales. These include toccatas and preludes, both of which include passages in fugue style. Bach was the most important composer of fugues, and it’s not uncommon to hear one of these at the end of a service.
A fugue is based on a ‘subject’ played at the beginning on its own, as a single string of notes without accompaniment. The musical texture then builds as the subject enters in one part (layer) of the music after another. The subject continues to appear from time to time throughout the piece, often with a big climactic presentation near the end. One of the best-known organ fugues is Bach’s ‘St Anne’, so called because, by chance, the subject resembles the English tune ‘St Anne’ (sung to ‘O God, our help in ages past’). There are better grounds for an alternative name – the ‘Trinity’ fugue – because the piece is literally three-in-one (three distinct fugue sections making up one piece).
Fugues are sometimes thought of as serious, learned, academic – and therefore boring. Some are not easy listening, but perhaps they don’t need to be. Music is wonderfully able to stimulate the senses, the body (as in dancing) and the soul (in worship), but maybe occasionally it can offer a little exercise for the brain as well.
Tuesday 12 January 2010
Music and Worship: Mary and Simeon – Evensong: Part 2
Central to Evensong are two very different figures – Mary, the young mother of Jesus, and the elderly man Simeon.
After the first reading at Evensong, we sing Mary’s song from Luke, chapter 1, verses 46–55, often called the Magnificat after the old Latin version of the song. Mary uttered these words when she visited her relative Elisabeth. Both women were pregnant (middle-aged Elisabeth with John the Baptist, young Mary with Jesus). Mary’s song of praise owes much to Hannah’s song of thanks for her young son Samuel (1 Samuel, chapter 2).
The Magnificat starts with a note of joy, familiar to many people from the paraphrase by Timothy Dudley-Smith, ‘Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord’ (tune ‘Woodlands’). Later the mood changes, and we are reminded of a Gospel paradox: God overthrows the mighty, and raises up ordinary people; he feeds the poor but sends away empty those who are rich in their own eyes.
The Magnificat is followed by a New Testament reading, often from one of the Gospels. Next comes the song of Simeon from Luke 2: 29–32 (called Nunc Dimittis after the opening of the Latin version). As Simeon takes the infant Jesus in his arms in the Temple, he gives praise that he has lived to see God’s all-encompassing salvation – both ‘a light to lighten the Gentiles, and…the glory of…Israel’. The opening words ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace’ imply that Simeon was elderly, content to die after seeing his lifelong hopes fulfilled.
Simeon’s song is followed by the Apostles’ Creed, a statement of Christian belief broadly similar to the Nicene Creed said at Communion services, but shorter. The Lord’s Prayer and a sung dialogue between minister and congregation follows, and then there are three set prayers or ‘collects’. The first is for the day, the second for peace,* the third for aid against all perils. Evensong ended here in the first (1549) Book of Common Prayer.
The 1662 Book of Common Prayer has additional set prayers, but we now have intercessions after the third collect (similar to those in Communion services). An anthem is sometimes sung by the choir, and everyone joins in a hymn. A sermon follows, and there is another hymn, a blessing and a concluding piece of organ music.
Evensong is an important part of our worship in Chandler’s Ford, but there are two dangers. The first is that regular attenders can be lulled into over-familiarity and inattention simply because some items appear every time (including the songs of Mary and Simeon). But the second is perhaps greater – that people will be put off by the slightly unusual language and miss out on a lot of valuable insights. Evensong is very much a Bible-based service, and its fairly gentle pace offers valuable opportunities for reflection in a busy world.
*O God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed; give unto thy servants that peace which the world cannot give…
After the first reading at Evensong, we sing Mary’s song from Luke, chapter 1, verses 46–55, often called the Magnificat after the old Latin version of the song. Mary uttered these words when she visited her relative Elisabeth. Both women were pregnant (middle-aged Elisabeth with John the Baptist, young Mary with Jesus). Mary’s song of praise owes much to Hannah’s song of thanks for her young son Samuel (1 Samuel, chapter 2).
The Magnificat starts with a note of joy, familiar to many people from the paraphrase by Timothy Dudley-Smith, ‘Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord’ (tune ‘Woodlands’). Later the mood changes, and we are reminded of a Gospel paradox: God overthrows the mighty, and raises up ordinary people; he feeds the poor but sends away empty those who are rich in their own eyes.
The Magnificat is followed by a New Testament reading, often from one of the Gospels. Next comes the song of Simeon from Luke 2: 29–32 (called Nunc Dimittis after the opening of the Latin version). As Simeon takes the infant Jesus in his arms in the Temple, he gives praise that he has lived to see God’s all-encompassing salvation – both ‘a light to lighten the Gentiles, and…the glory of…Israel’. The opening words ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace’ imply that Simeon was elderly, content to die after seeing his lifelong hopes fulfilled.
Simeon’s song is followed by the Apostles’ Creed, a statement of Christian belief broadly similar to the Nicene Creed said at Communion services, but shorter. The Lord’s Prayer and a sung dialogue between minister and congregation follows, and then there are three set prayers or ‘collects’. The first is for the day, the second for peace,* the third for aid against all perils. Evensong ended here in the first (1549) Book of Common Prayer.
The 1662 Book of Common Prayer has additional set prayers, but we now have intercessions after the third collect (similar to those in Communion services). An anthem is sometimes sung by the choir, and everyone joins in a hymn. A sermon follows, and there is another hymn, a blessing and a concluding piece of organ music.
Evensong is an important part of our worship in Chandler’s Ford, but there are two dangers. The first is that regular attenders can be lulled into over-familiarity and inattention simply because some items appear every time (including the songs of Mary and Simeon). But the second is perhaps greater – that people will be put off by the slightly unusual language and miss out on a lot of valuable insights. Evensong is very much a Bible-based service, and its fairly gentle pace offers valuable opportunities for reflection in a busy world.
*O God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed; give unto thy servants that peace which the world cannot give…
Music and Worship: Welcome to Evensong, Part 1
Chandler’s Ford is one of few parishes in its area with Evensong on most Sunday evenings. Older readers will know that Evensong was once widely offered and well attended – we can speculate why the change has taken place, but might also note that attendances for Evensong have increased at some cathedrals in recent years.
Evensong can present ‘problems’ because it’s based on the Book of Common Prayer with ‘thees’ and ‘thous’ and other old-fashioned language. (The earliest Book of Common Prayer dates from 1549, about 50 years before Shakespeare wrote his plays. The style of language in the 1662 Book, as now used, is the same.) There are powerful commonsense arguments against archaic language in worship. But on the other hand, the distancing effect of old language can cause us to examine what we hear in a new way.
What happens at Evensong? Before the service the organist plays, to try to create an atmosphere in which it’s possible for people to reflect, pray, prepare in some other way, or just listen. The choir enters, a short welcome is given, and then an opening hymn is sung. Hymns are [starting in 2009] from Anglican Hymns Old and New, the book that we use at morning Eucharists, although we stick to the more traditional hymns at Evensong.
After the hymn there is a prayer of confession, and a declaration of God’s forgiveness. The confession raises two important issues. First, we say that we are ‘miserable offenders’, an expression that can seem grovelling and at odds with twentieth-century concepts of self-worth – can it tell us anything about ourselves and our relationship with God? Secondly, we say this quite long prayer week after week. Does it become just a meaningless flow of words (however beautifully constructed the sentences)? If so, does that tell us something about all liturgies or something about ourselves?
A short sung dialogue between minister and congregation follows. It begins ‘O Lord, open thou our lips’ with the reply ‘And our mouth shall show forth thy praise’. These words are based on Psalm 51, verse 15.
After the dialogue we sing together a complete psalm or part of a psalm. The psalms together formed the nearest that the ancient church (and the Jewish synagogue) had to a hymn book. For the people who wrote the psalms no holds were barred. They were prepared to shout at God, to give ecstatic praises, to pour out their woes – and so on. Perhaps we can identify still with some of their thoughts, beliefs and emotions, or at least learn from them more about the human condition.
The psalm is followed by a reading from the Old Testament. You might almost say that scripture is at the centre of Evensong, and the centre of Evensong (from the psalm through to the song after the second reading) is scripture.
Why not sample Evensong for yourself if you haven’t done so before or for ages? Has it something unique to say to us? To you?
Evensong can present ‘problems’ because it’s based on the Book of Common Prayer with ‘thees’ and ‘thous’ and other old-fashioned language. (The earliest Book of Common Prayer dates from 1549, about 50 years before Shakespeare wrote his plays. The style of language in the 1662 Book, as now used, is the same.) There are powerful commonsense arguments against archaic language in worship. But on the other hand, the distancing effect of old language can cause us to examine what we hear in a new way.
What happens at Evensong? Before the service the organist plays, to try to create an atmosphere in which it’s possible for people to reflect, pray, prepare in some other way, or just listen. The choir enters, a short welcome is given, and then an opening hymn is sung. Hymns are [starting in 2009] from Anglican Hymns Old and New, the book that we use at morning Eucharists, although we stick to the more traditional hymns at Evensong.
After the hymn there is a prayer of confession, and a declaration of God’s forgiveness. The confession raises two important issues. First, we say that we are ‘miserable offenders’, an expression that can seem grovelling and at odds with twentieth-century concepts of self-worth – can it tell us anything about ourselves and our relationship with God? Secondly, we say this quite long prayer week after week. Does it become just a meaningless flow of words (however beautifully constructed the sentences)? If so, does that tell us something about all liturgies or something about ourselves?
A short sung dialogue between minister and congregation follows. It begins ‘O Lord, open thou our lips’ with the reply ‘And our mouth shall show forth thy praise’. These words are based on Psalm 51, verse 15.
After the dialogue we sing together a complete psalm or part of a psalm. The psalms together formed the nearest that the ancient church (and the Jewish synagogue) had to a hymn book. For the people who wrote the psalms no holds were barred. They were prepared to shout at God, to give ecstatic praises, to pour out their woes – and so on. Perhaps we can identify still with some of their thoughts, beliefs and emotions, or at least learn from them more about the human condition.
The psalm is followed by a reading from the Old Testament. You might almost say that scripture is at the centre of Evensong, and the centre of Evensong (from the psalm through to the song after the second reading) is scripture.
Why not sample Evensong for yourself if you haven’t done so before or for ages? Has it something unique to say to us? To you?
Music and Worship: Love Divine, All Loves Excelling
Charles Wesley was one of the most powerful Christian poets of all time. A lecturer for my English course at Southampton University made a similar point to the amusement of the class (including myself) who considered the ‘hymn = poetry/literature’ equation pretty crazy.
Charles Wesley (1707–1788) was brother of John Wesley, and himself a founding father of Methodism. But several of his poems have taken root in almost every Christian tradition.
‘And can it be’, based on Wesley’s conversion experience, has a fair bit of theological jargon, but otherwise the language is straightforward and, if you have a grounding in the Christian faith, as clear as when written more than 200 years ago. But for some it may be very puzzling. What’s this in verse 1 about ‘an interest in the Saviour’s blood’? How can I have ‘pursued’ the Saviour to death? Wesley acknowledges the central mystery in verse 2: ‘The Immortal dies’ – someone who can’t die (‘immortal’ = ‘non-mortal’) does die.
‘Jesu, lover of my soul’, on the other hand, begins like a love song. Was Wesley thinking of the Song of Solomon, a love poem seen as an allegory of Christ as the (male) lover of the (female) believer/soul/church? ‘Hark! the herald-angels sing’, one of the most widely sung of all carols, is partly by Wesley, partly by others.
But probably the best known of all Charles Wesley’s hymns is ‘Love divine, all loves excelling’. The opening verse unfolds slowly. It’s only in line 5 that it becomes totally clear that the divine love which surpasses all other loves is Jesus. In fact this is the only time that the name Jesus appears. But other phrases refer to him, including ‘almighty to deliver’ and ‘end of faith, as its beginning’ (an unusual form of address!). Essentially the whole poem is a hymn to Jesus – God the Father is not mentioned. Some hymnbooks have four eight-line verses. Others omit the second (‘Breathe, O breathe’) even though the reference to the Holy Spirit is pretty vital to the meaning of the poem and to our Christian experience.
‘Love divine’ has never quite settled in with any one tune. It’s said that Wesley himself had in mind a tune by the seventeenth-century composer Henry Purcell (‘Fairest Isle’ – Venus’s Song from King Arthur, a semi-opera). It fits nicely, but hasn’t caught on. Some people nowadays like the tune ‘Love divine’ by Sir John Stainer (1840–1901). This has four phrases, so the four eight-line verses referred to above become eight four-line verses. A bit repetitive, but the tune itself is good. Many people now prefer the eight-phrase tune ‘Blaenwern’, perhaps thinking it more modern, although the composer W.P. Rowlands was actually only 20 years younger than Stainer. ‘Blaenwern’ is in a lilting three-four time. Having started low, it builds to a wonderful climax at ‘pure unbounded love thou art; visit us…’. It can sound immensely effective, as at a recent All Souls service [2006] when about 200 people really made something of the final verse ‘Finish then Thy new creation’.
Other tunes will fit. Sir Charles Stanford, contemporary of Stainer and Rowland, and a better composer than either, wrote ‘Airedale’, but I’ve never heard this used and am not tempted. ‘Hyfrydol’ by R.H. Prichard (1811–1887) and ‘Thornbury’ by Basil Harwood (1859–1949) are among other tunes that fit well. Perhaps they should have their turn occasionally?
Charles Wesley (1707–1788) was brother of John Wesley, and himself a founding father of Methodism. But several of his poems have taken root in almost every Christian tradition.
‘And can it be’, based on Wesley’s conversion experience, has a fair bit of theological jargon, but otherwise the language is straightforward and, if you have a grounding in the Christian faith, as clear as when written more than 200 years ago. But for some it may be very puzzling. What’s this in verse 1 about ‘an interest in the Saviour’s blood’? How can I have ‘pursued’ the Saviour to death? Wesley acknowledges the central mystery in verse 2: ‘The Immortal dies’ – someone who can’t die (‘immortal’ = ‘non-mortal’) does die.
‘Jesu, lover of my soul’, on the other hand, begins like a love song. Was Wesley thinking of the Song of Solomon, a love poem seen as an allegory of Christ as the (male) lover of the (female) believer/soul/church? ‘Hark! the herald-angels sing’, one of the most widely sung of all carols, is partly by Wesley, partly by others.
But probably the best known of all Charles Wesley’s hymns is ‘Love divine, all loves excelling’. The opening verse unfolds slowly. It’s only in line 5 that it becomes totally clear that the divine love which surpasses all other loves is Jesus. In fact this is the only time that the name Jesus appears. But other phrases refer to him, including ‘almighty to deliver’ and ‘end of faith, as its beginning’ (an unusual form of address!). Essentially the whole poem is a hymn to Jesus – God the Father is not mentioned. Some hymnbooks have four eight-line verses. Others omit the second (‘Breathe, O breathe’) even though the reference to the Holy Spirit is pretty vital to the meaning of the poem and to our Christian experience.
‘Love divine’ has never quite settled in with any one tune. It’s said that Wesley himself had in mind a tune by the seventeenth-century composer Henry Purcell (‘Fairest Isle’ – Venus’s Song from King Arthur, a semi-opera). It fits nicely, but hasn’t caught on. Some people nowadays like the tune ‘Love divine’ by Sir John Stainer (1840–1901). This has four phrases, so the four eight-line verses referred to above become eight four-line verses. A bit repetitive, but the tune itself is good. Many people now prefer the eight-phrase tune ‘Blaenwern’, perhaps thinking it more modern, although the composer W.P. Rowlands was actually only 20 years younger than Stainer. ‘Blaenwern’ is in a lilting three-four time. Having started low, it builds to a wonderful climax at ‘pure unbounded love thou art; visit us…’. It can sound immensely effective, as at a recent All Souls service [2006] when about 200 people really made something of the final verse ‘Finish then Thy new creation’.
Other tunes will fit. Sir Charles Stanford, contemporary of Stainer and Rowland, and a better composer than either, wrote ‘Airedale’, but I’ve never heard this used and am not tempted. ‘Hyfrydol’ by R.H. Prichard (1811–1887) and ‘Thornbury’ by Basil Harwood (1859–1949) are among other tunes that fit well. Perhaps they should have their turn occasionally?
Monday 11 January 2010
Music and Worship: Nothing New under the Sun? Big Changes No Novelty!
Since the 1960s there have been big changes in our services, not least in the music we sing, and some of these have not been easy for everyone. I found myself reflecting on this recently when researching the composer Christopher Tye (c. 1505–1572/3). He and his contemporaries faced the most massive religious and musical changes which may help to put recent developments into perspective.
In the 1530s Tye was in the choir of King’s College, Cambridge. The services were complicated and entirely in Latin. Most music was plainsong – think of ‘Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire’ but with Latin words and without organ accompaniment. Occasionally lengthy and complex pieces of choral music were sung, beside which most modern anthems are positively short and straightforward. The liturgy was Catholic with much elaborate ceremonial.
By the early 1550s there had been far-reaching changes. The first English prayer book was introduced in 1549, a more Protestant one in 1552. Everything was simpler and clearer – for example, the priest said the eucharistic prayer aloud in English instead of silently in Latin. Composers accustomed to elaborate Latin anthems were now instructed to set English words very simply so that everyone could hear and understand them – part of a new emphasis on ‘the word’. Tye was among the first to write simple English anthems, and one or two of these are still sometimes sung in our churches today.
Did Tye welcome the new clarity and simplicity – or consider that his skill was now under-used? Did he just do what was expedient in an age when doing anything else could be extremely dangerous?
Under Mary I (1553–1558), almost everything was reversed, and the Catholic Latin services were restored. How did Tye react? He sang at the queen’s coronation, and apparently composed some more Latin church music, so he seems to have conformed at least outwardly.
A third revolution took place under Elizabeth I. The English Prayer Book of 1552 was restored with some changes – this new 1559 book was very similar to the Prayer Book of 1662 from which some of our services are still taken. Tye, at this time choirmaster and organist at Ely Cathedral, remained in post for a year or two, but then, following ordination, he resigned to become rector of several parishes in Cambridgeshire.
He lived through difficult and often intolerant times. The sculptures in the Lady Chapel at Ely were systematically vandalised in the 1540s in the name of religion by convinced Protestants. Far worse, some people who opposed Mary’s restoration of Catholicism were barbarously put to death. English Christians today are not driven to such excesses – but there is still intolerance both here and abroad. On the other hand, are we ever tempted to tolerate the intolerable?
In the 1530s Tye was in the choir of King’s College, Cambridge. The services were complicated and entirely in Latin. Most music was plainsong – think of ‘Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire’ but with Latin words and without organ accompaniment. Occasionally lengthy and complex pieces of choral music were sung, beside which most modern anthems are positively short and straightforward. The liturgy was Catholic with much elaborate ceremonial.
By the early 1550s there had been far-reaching changes. The first English prayer book was introduced in 1549, a more Protestant one in 1552. Everything was simpler and clearer – for example, the priest said the eucharistic prayer aloud in English instead of silently in Latin. Composers accustomed to elaborate Latin anthems were now instructed to set English words very simply so that everyone could hear and understand them – part of a new emphasis on ‘the word’. Tye was among the first to write simple English anthems, and one or two of these are still sometimes sung in our churches today.
Did Tye welcome the new clarity and simplicity – or consider that his skill was now under-used? Did he just do what was expedient in an age when doing anything else could be extremely dangerous?
Under Mary I (1553–1558), almost everything was reversed, and the Catholic Latin services were restored. How did Tye react? He sang at the queen’s coronation, and apparently composed some more Latin church music, so he seems to have conformed at least outwardly.
A third revolution took place under Elizabeth I. The English Prayer Book of 1552 was restored with some changes – this new 1559 book was very similar to the Prayer Book of 1662 from which some of our services are still taken. Tye, at this time choirmaster and organist at Ely Cathedral, remained in post for a year or two, but then, following ordination, he resigned to become rector of several parishes in Cambridgeshire.
He lived through difficult and often intolerant times. The sculptures in the Lady Chapel at Ely were systematically vandalised in the 1540s in the name of religion by convinced Protestants. Far worse, some people who opposed Mary’s restoration of Catholicism were barbarously put to death. English Christians today are not driven to such excesses – but there is still intolerance both here and abroad. On the other hand, are we ever tempted to tolerate the intolerable?
Sunday 10 January 2010
Music and Worship: The Music of Taizé
The religious community at Taizé, near Cluny in Burgundy, France was founded in 1940 by Brother Roger Schutz (1915–2005). The community is ecumenical and international, and people from all over the world, including many young people, spend time there and find peace and fulfilment.
Like most Christians, members of the Taizé community believe that singing is a vital part of worship. What makes Taizé songs distinctive is brevity, simplicity and repetitiveness. Typically a short song is repeated several times, sometimes with varied improvised accompaniments, often at a time of prayer.
Brevity, simplicity and repetition ensure that each piece can be sung by everyone and that its message is direct and easily understood. Although the Taizé songs that most people know were composed in the 1970s, the musical style will probably strike us as more ancient than modern – there is sometimes a debt to the eighteenth and previous centuries, and no obvious resemblance to late twentieth-century popular-style worship songs. Limited parallels might, perhaps, be drawn between Taizé songs and some post-modern, minimalist music. But ultimately there’s a timeless quality about Taizé music, which is probably one reason why it speaks to so many people worldwide.
The preface to the publication Chants de Taizé (Taizé, 2001) states that ‘nothing fosters a communion with God more than a meditative prayer with others, with singing that goes on and on and that continues afterwards in the silence of one’s heart’.
Originally the Taizé brothers composed much of the music themselves, but Jacques Berthier (1923–1994), later organist of the Jesuit church of St Ignace in Paris, began to compose for them in 1955. Of the hundreds of songs by Berthier we have probably used a dozen or more in Chandler’s Ford, including ‘O Lord, hear my prayer’, ‘Jesus, remember me’, ‘Veni, Sancte Spiritus’ and ‘Ubi caritas’. Taizé songs have in recent years featured particularly in our Holy Week services, but we sometimes use them at other times, for example during the distribution of communion.
Some songs have Latin words – even today Latin has some claim to be a universal language. Many can be sung in various languages – Chants de Taizé gives plenty of examples. Music from Taizé is widely available in printed form and as recordings. Christian bookshops should be able to provide details.
‘Sing praises to the Lord. Alleluia, alleluia! Sing in joy and gladness.’
‘Wait for the Lord. whose day is near. Wait for the Lord: keep watch, take heart!’
Like most Christians, members of the Taizé community believe that singing is a vital part of worship. What makes Taizé songs distinctive is brevity, simplicity and repetitiveness. Typically a short song is repeated several times, sometimes with varied improvised accompaniments, often at a time of prayer.
Brevity, simplicity and repetition ensure that each piece can be sung by everyone and that its message is direct and easily understood. Although the Taizé songs that most people know were composed in the 1970s, the musical style will probably strike us as more ancient than modern – there is sometimes a debt to the eighteenth and previous centuries, and no obvious resemblance to late twentieth-century popular-style worship songs. Limited parallels might, perhaps, be drawn between Taizé songs and some post-modern, minimalist music. But ultimately there’s a timeless quality about Taizé music, which is probably one reason why it speaks to so many people worldwide.
The preface to the publication Chants de Taizé (Taizé, 2001) states that ‘nothing fosters a communion with God more than a meditative prayer with others, with singing that goes on and on and that continues afterwards in the silence of one’s heart’.
Originally the Taizé brothers composed much of the music themselves, but Jacques Berthier (1923–1994), later organist of the Jesuit church of St Ignace in Paris, began to compose for them in 1955. Of the hundreds of songs by Berthier we have probably used a dozen or more in Chandler’s Ford, including ‘O Lord, hear my prayer’, ‘Jesus, remember me’, ‘Veni, Sancte Spiritus’ and ‘Ubi caritas’. Taizé songs have in recent years featured particularly in our Holy Week services, but we sometimes use them at other times, for example during the distribution of communion.
Some songs have Latin words – even today Latin has some claim to be a universal language. Many can be sung in various languages – Chants de Taizé gives plenty of examples. Music from Taizé is widely available in printed form and as recordings. Christian bookshops should be able to provide details.
‘Sing praises to the Lord. Alleluia, alleluia! Sing in joy and gladness.’
‘Wait for the Lord. whose day is near. Wait for the Lord: keep watch, take heart!’
Music and Worship: Two Good Tunes Compared
Let’s now look more closely at Dykes’s tune ‘Gerontius’ and compare it with something from a different tradition – Chris Bowater’s ‘Jesus shall take the highest honour’.
Dykes wrote his tune for a choir in four-part harmony (sopranos, altos, tenors and basses) plus congregation in unison, with organ doubling what the choir sings. In Bowater’s piece everyone sings in unison, and the accompaniment can be adapted for organ, piano, guitars, or whoever or whatever is available.
But the biggest difference is that Dykes composed ‘Gerontius’ for words already in existence, while Bowater wrote both words and music himself. Dykes provides the same music (14 bars long) for all seven verses of Newman’s hymn. This is convenient for the congregation – but there’s a risk that a tune which sets verse 1 excellently won’t set all the other verses quite so effectively. For example, in verse 1 Dykes puts the highest note of the melody on ‘height’ and the lowest on ‘depths’. What happens at the corresponding points in verses 2 and 6?
Bowater’s song has 28 bars of music which provide a setting for all the words. You can sing these 28 bars once, or can repeat them all a second (or third) time. Whereas each of Dykes’s 14 bars is different (the repetition being from verse to verse), Bowater builds some repetition into his 28 bars. Repetition is fundamental to almost all music – without it we find things rather shapeless. Bowater begins with an eight-bar section, and then, to new words, has a slightly varied repeat. He keeps all the same chords, but bends the tune slightly so that it fits the new words more easily – and also won’t sound too square or predictable. His chorus (the last 12 bars) also contains some repetition, but the climactic moment near the end on ‘Jesus Christ’ comes once only.
Bowater’s tune starts rather narrowly – the first two bars use only four different pitches, all quite low. A disappointing start? After all, Dykes begins with a quite athletic, powerful first four bars, ranging much more widely. Bowater, however, is looking for a gradual build-up which will achieve its goal in the chorus. And his almost meditative opening does already point towards its future growth – listen to how the first three rising notes in the bass part help the music to take off.
Dykes’s harmony is more varied than Bowater’s, with chords changing frequently (in the manner of most traditional hymns). The rhythm is straightforward, and the whole effect is very purposeful, with a no-nonsense confidence typical of much in mid-Victorian Christianity. Bowater is much more ‘laid back’ (typical of much in 1980s Christianity?). His rhythms are often syncopated, with many notes coming off the beat – this, like the luscious opening chord, points clearly to the music’s roots in late twentieth-century popular music.
Dykes wrote his tune for a choir in four-part harmony (sopranos, altos, tenors and basses) plus congregation in unison, with organ doubling what the choir sings. In Bowater’s piece everyone sings in unison, and the accompaniment can be adapted for organ, piano, guitars, or whoever or whatever is available.
But the biggest difference is that Dykes composed ‘Gerontius’ for words already in existence, while Bowater wrote both words and music himself. Dykes provides the same music (14 bars long) for all seven verses of Newman’s hymn. This is convenient for the congregation – but there’s a risk that a tune which sets verse 1 excellently won’t set all the other verses quite so effectively. For example, in verse 1 Dykes puts the highest note of the melody on ‘height’ and the lowest on ‘depths’. What happens at the corresponding points in verses 2 and 6?
Bowater’s song has 28 bars of music which provide a setting for all the words. You can sing these 28 bars once, or can repeat them all a second (or third) time. Whereas each of Dykes’s 14 bars is different (the repetition being from verse to verse), Bowater builds some repetition into his 28 bars. Repetition is fundamental to almost all music – without it we find things rather shapeless. Bowater begins with an eight-bar section, and then, to new words, has a slightly varied repeat. He keeps all the same chords, but bends the tune slightly so that it fits the new words more easily – and also won’t sound too square or predictable. His chorus (the last 12 bars) also contains some repetition, but the climactic moment near the end on ‘Jesus Christ’ comes once only.
Bowater’s tune starts rather narrowly – the first two bars use only four different pitches, all quite low. A disappointing start? After all, Dykes begins with a quite athletic, powerful first four bars, ranging much more widely. Bowater, however, is looking for a gradual build-up which will achieve its goal in the chorus. And his almost meditative opening does already point towards its future growth – listen to how the first three rising notes in the bass part help the music to take off.
Dykes’s harmony is more varied than Bowater’s, with chords changing frequently (in the manner of most traditional hymns). The rhythm is straightforward, and the whole effect is very purposeful, with a no-nonsense confidence typical of much in mid-Victorian Christianity. Bowater is much more ‘laid back’ (typical of much in 1980s Christianity?). His rhythms are often syncopated, with many notes coming off the beat – this, like the luscious opening chord, points clearly to the music’s roots in late twentieth-century popular music.
Music and Worship: Praise to the Holiest in the Height
On Palm Sunday 2006 we sang ‘Praise to the Holiest in the height’, surely one of the most uplifting of all hymns.
The words are part of a long poem written in the 1860s by John Henry Newman (1801–1890). Newman began his career as an Anglican clergyman (he was prominent in the early nineteenth-century high-church Oxford movement), but converted to Roman Catholicism in the 1840s, later becoming a Cardinal. His poem, entitled ‘The Dream of Gerontius’, concerns the death of an old man and his first experiences of the afterlife.
Five groups of ‘angelicals’ (angelic beings) in turn sing the words we now know as verse 1 of the hymn. The first four groups continue with verses not found in our hymnbooks. The fifth group sing the words we know, but without, as we do, repeating the first verse at the end.
Verses 2–6 of the hymn sum up the whole story of salvation. The first Adam sinned. The second Adam (Jesus Christ) ‘str[o]ve afresh against the foe [Satan]’ and prevailed. It was the wisdom and love of God which ordained this.
Verse 5 is the hardest to understand. What does Newman mean by the ‘double agony’? Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor believes that Newman ‘was referring to that mystery which is at the heart both of our human existence and one of the deepest questions to which it gives rise. That is – the consequence of sin, namely suffering and death’. An alternative view has been that the double agony is Christ’s private agony in the garden of Gethsemane and the public agony of the crucifixion. What do you think?
The most widely used tune for ‘Praise to the Holiest’ is ‘Gerontius’ by John Bacchus Dykes (1823–1876). It appears that this tune was composed specially for Newman’s verses, hence its name. Dykes was a high-church Anglican clergyman, who worked mainly in Durham. He was highly talented musically, and became an assistant organist at about the age of 10. He had a gift for writing singable hymn melodies with effective harmonies: among his other tunes are ‘Dominus regit me’ (for ‘The King of love my Shepherd is’) and ‘Melita’ (‘Eternal Father, strong to save’). In ‘Gerontius’, notice how Dykes has a high note for ‘height’, and then brings the melody much lower for ‘in the depths’.
The words of ‘Praise to the Holiest’ were later set to much more ambitious music in the oratorio ‘The Dream of Gerontius’ by Sir Edward Elgar. (The words of the hymn ‘Firmly I believe and truly’ also come from Newman’s ‘The Dream of Gerontius’.)
The words are part of a long poem written in the 1860s by John Henry Newman (1801–1890). Newman began his career as an Anglican clergyman (he was prominent in the early nineteenth-century high-church Oxford movement), but converted to Roman Catholicism in the 1840s, later becoming a Cardinal. His poem, entitled ‘The Dream of Gerontius’, concerns the death of an old man and his first experiences of the afterlife.
Five groups of ‘angelicals’ (angelic beings) in turn sing the words we now know as verse 1 of the hymn. The first four groups continue with verses not found in our hymnbooks. The fifth group sing the words we know, but without, as we do, repeating the first verse at the end.
Verses 2–6 of the hymn sum up the whole story of salvation. The first Adam sinned. The second Adam (Jesus Christ) ‘str[o]ve afresh against the foe [Satan]’ and prevailed. It was the wisdom and love of God which ordained this.
Verse 5 is the hardest to understand. What does Newman mean by the ‘double agony’? Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor believes that Newman ‘was referring to that mystery which is at the heart both of our human existence and one of the deepest questions to which it gives rise. That is – the consequence of sin, namely suffering and death’. An alternative view has been that the double agony is Christ’s private agony in the garden of Gethsemane and the public agony of the crucifixion. What do you think?
The most widely used tune for ‘Praise to the Holiest’ is ‘Gerontius’ by John Bacchus Dykes (1823–1876). It appears that this tune was composed specially for Newman’s verses, hence its name. Dykes was a high-church Anglican clergyman, who worked mainly in Durham. He was highly talented musically, and became an assistant organist at about the age of 10. He had a gift for writing singable hymn melodies with effective harmonies: among his other tunes are ‘Dominus regit me’ (for ‘The King of love my Shepherd is’) and ‘Melita’ (‘Eternal Father, strong to save’). In ‘Gerontius’, notice how Dykes has a high note for ‘height’, and then brings the melody much lower for ‘in the depths’.
The words of ‘Praise to the Holiest’ were later set to much more ambitious music in the oratorio ‘The Dream of Gerontius’ by Sir Edward Elgar. (The words of the hymn ‘Firmly I believe and truly’ also come from Newman’s ‘The Dream of Gerontius’.)
Music and Worship: Mozart, born 1756
27 January 2006 saw the 250th anniversary of the birth of the composer Mozart. He is known generally today as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (remember the play Amadeus?), but was baptized Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Gottlieb Mozart.
Mozart’s music is famous for its classical elegance and spontaneity. The aim was usually to please rather than to disturb the audience, although below the surface simplicity there is great profundity and originality. Mozart, who began composing when he was about 5 years old, was probably the most gifted musician ever.
Mozart is known above all for his operas, in which he showed a special genius for characterisation through music. He also wrote piano concertos, sonatas, symphonies, chamber music and church music – well over 600 works, despite his living only to the age of 35!
Almost everyone has heard parts of his serenade Eine kleine Nachtsmusik (as used for the signature tune of Radio 4’s Brain of Britain), and his piano piece ‘Alla Turca’. If you’ve ever learned the piano, violin, clarinet or other ‘classical’ instrument, you’ll almost certainly have played one or two of Mozart’s pieces.
We don’t hear much of Mozart’s music in church in Chandler’s Ford. In fact, over the past few years I can recall our using only two pieces that bear his name – a hymn tune for the words ‘Take my life and let it be’, and the anthem ‘Ave verum corpus’.
The hymn tune for ‘Take my life’, entitled ‘Nottingham’, was not written for the words we sing to it, which date from the mid-nineteenth century (by Frances Ridley Havergal). It was apparently adapted from a Mass attributed to Mozart – in other words, it may not be by him at all.
‘Ave verum corpus’, although short, is one of Mozart’s very finest pieces. It was composed only a few months before his death in 1791. Mozart, who was a Roman Catholic, set its Latin words as a eucharistic devotion. In English translation they begin ‘Hail, true Body, born of the Virgin Mary.’
Most of Mozart’s other church music is unsuitable for use in parish churches, on grounds of length or difficulty in performance. Also the style of music has struck some people, including many in the Roman Catholic church, as too ‘secular’, for Mozart’s music is heavily indebted to opera and other non-church styles. Nevertheless Sir John Tavener, one of today’s leading composers of church music, has spoken enthusiastically of a spirituality in Mozart’s music that for him is unrivalled. Listen, and see what you are able to hear. There are literally hundreds of recordings of Mozart’s music, and it is regularly broadcast on Classic FM and Radio 3.
Mozart’s music is famous for its classical elegance and spontaneity. The aim was usually to please rather than to disturb the audience, although below the surface simplicity there is great profundity and originality. Mozart, who began composing when he was about 5 years old, was probably the most gifted musician ever.
Mozart is known above all for his operas, in which he showed a special genius for characterisation through music. He also wrote piano concertos, sonatas, symphonies, chamber music and church music – well over 600 works, despite his living only to the age of 35!
Almost everyone has heard parts of his serenade Eine kleine Nachtsmusik (as used for the signature tune of Radio 4’s Brain of Britain), and his piano piece ‘Alla Turca’. If you’ve ever learned the piano, violin, clarinet or other ‘classical’ instrument, you’ll almost certainly have played one or two of Mozart’s pieces.
We don’t hear much of Mozart’s music in church in Chandler’s Ford. In fact, over the past few years I can recall our using only two pieces that bear his name – a hymn tune for the words ‘Take my life and let it be’, and the anthem ‘Ave verum corpus’.
The hymn tune for ‘Take my life’, entitled ‘Nottingham’, was not written for the words we sing to it, which date from the mid-nineteenth century (by Frances Ridley Havergal). It was apparently adapted from a Mass attributed to Mozart – in other words, it may not be by him at all.
‘Ave verum corpus’, although short, is one of Mozart’s very finest pieces. It was composed only a few months before his death in 1791. Mozart, who was a Roman Catholic, set its Latin words as a eucharistic devotion. In English translation they begin ‘Hail, true Body, born of the Virgin Mary.’
Most of Mozart’s other church music is unsuitable for use in parish churches, on grounds of length or difficulty in performance. Also the style of music has struck some people, including many in the Roman Catholic church, as too ‘secular’, for Mozart’s music is heavily indebted to opera and other non-church styles. Nevertheless Sir John Tavener, one of today’s leading composers of church music, has spoken enthusiastically of a spirituality in Mozart’s music that for him is unrivalled. Listen, and see what you are able to hear. There are literally hundreds of recordings of Mozart’s music, and it is regularly broadcast on Classic FM and Radio 3.
Music and Worship: In Our Choicest Psalmody
‘Angel-voices, ever singing…’: a glance at anthems, psalms, and organ voluntaries
Anthems are the only items in church services that are sung by the choir alone. We don’t hear them every week, not least because they take a lot of preparation. The occasional anthem not only helps to motivate and challenge a choir, but gives those listening a chance to pause and reflect.
Among the best-known anthems are some excellent pieces of music, including Bach’s ‘Jesu, joy of man’s desiring’, and the Latin anthem (or motet) ‘Locus iste’ by Bruckner. Anton Bruckner (1824–1896), a devout Roman Catholic and writer of massive symphonies, wrote his piece in 1869 for the dedication of a votive chapel at Linz cathedral in Austria.
The psalms, sung in Latin, formed the backbone of many medieval services. They were continued, in English, when the Book of Common Prayer was authorised in 1549. A scheme was devised whereby the whole book of psalms could be read each month. We regularly sing a psalm (or an extract from one) at Evensong, still using the time-honoured system of Anglican chanting.
However, the psalms touch our worship in other ways. For example, several well-known hymns, including ‘The King of love my Shepherd is’, ‘O God, our help in ages past’ and ‘O worship the King, all glorious above’ are versified paraphrases of psalms.
‘The King of love’ is based on Psalm 23, but with a eucharistic reference in verse 5 that the original writer, King David, could not have written! ‘O God, our help in ages past’ is based on Psalm 90 (presumably one of the very oldest in view of its attribution to Moses). ‘O worship the King’ is among our longer hymns, but is a much abbreviated version of Psalm 104, which has more than 30 verses. (Why not try reading the original psalms and the hymns based on them, to find out in detail how they compare?)
Organ music precedes and follows most sung services. The pieces played are often known as voluntaries. Normally something voluntary is done freely and willingly, not compulsorily. The musical meaning is connected, but not very obviously. The term ‘voluntary’, which dates from about 1550, originally meant a piece that was not bound to a plainsong theme as most organ pieces had been up to that time, but instead was a free composition.
The word ‘voluntary’ was applied also to what we now call extemporisation – where a musician composes a piece as he or she plays, rather than playing something previously composed and written down. We still sometimes hear this kind of voluntary when the choir enters and leaves, and as the Gospel procession returns before the sermon. The music may not be very original, but it can sometimes be specially tailored to the nature of the occasion – and can be made to fill up as much or as little time as necessary!
Anthems are the only items in church services that are sung by the choir alone. We don’t hear them every week, not least because they take a lot of preparation. The occasional anthem not only helps to motivate and challenge a choir, but gives those listening a chance to pause and reflect.
Among the best-known anthems are some excellent pieces of music, including Bach’s ‘Jesu, joy of man’s desiring’, and the Latin anthem (or motet) ‘Locus iste’ by Bruckner. Anton Bruckner (1824–1896), a devout Roman Catholic and writer of massive symphonies, wrote his piece in 1869 for the dedication of a votive chapel at Linz cathedral in Austria.
The psalms, sung in Latin, formed the backbone of many medieval services. They were continued, in English, when the Book of Common Prayer was authorised in 1549. A scheme was devised whereby the whole book of psalms could be read each month. We regularly sing a psalm (or an extract from one) at Evensong, still using the time-honoured system of Anglican chanting.
However, the psalms touch our worship in other ways. For example, several well-known hymns, including ‘The King of love my Shepherd is’, ‘O God, our help in ages past’ and ‘O worship the King, all glorious above’ are versified paraphrases of psalms.
‘The King of love’ is based on Psalm 23, but with a eucharistic reference in verse 5 that the original writer, King David, could not have written! ‘O God, our help in ages past’ is based on Psalm 90 (presumably one of the very oldest in view of its attribution to Moses). ‘O worship the King’ is among our longer hymns, but is a much abbreviated version of Psalm 104, which has more than 30 verses. (Why not try reading the original psalms and the hymns based on them, to find out in detail how they compare?)
Organ music precedes and follows most sung services. The pieces played are often known as voluntaries. Normally something voluntary is done freely and willingly, not compulsorily. The musical meaning is connected, but not very obviously. The term ‘voluntary’, which dates from about 1550, originally meant a piece that was not bound to a plainsong theme as most organ pieces had been up to that time, but instead was a free composition.
The word ‘voluntary’ was applied also to what we now call extemporisation – where a musician composes a piece as he or she plays, rather than playing something previously composed and written down. We still sometimes hear this kind of voluntary when the choir enters and leaves, and as the Gospel procession returns before the sermon. The music may not be very original, but it can sometimes be specially tailored to the nature of the occasion – and can be made to fill up as much or as little time as necessary!
Saturday 9 January 2010
Music and Worship: Glory to God in the Highest!
In terms of music, it’s usually the hymns and worship songs that people remember most from a service. But in our services we use other forms of music as well – organ voluntaries, anthems, psalms, etc.
At the Eucharist we usually sing musical settings of three very ancient texts ‘Glory to God in the highest’, ‘Holy, holy, holy’ and ‘Lamb of God’, and in this article I’ll say a little about these and some of the music currently used for them. To begin with, do you know the significance of the words?
The opening of ‘Glory to God in the highest’ (often referred to by the first word of the Latin title, ‘Gloria’) is based on the song of the angels in Luke 2: 14. The ‘Holy, holy, holy’ (often termed ‘Sanctus’, Latin for ‘holy’) is sung just before the main part of the Eucharistic Prayer, and begins by echoing the words of the angels in Isaiah 6: 3. The words of the second part may be found in Matthew 21: 9 as part of the Palm Sunday story. ‘Lamb of God’ (or ‘Agnus Dei’) echoes the words of John the Baptist about Jesus in John 1: 29.
The musical settings of these three items at present most widely used in the parish were composed some years ago by Peter Gilks, currently [2010] Vicar of North Baddesley. At St Boniface we use them between Christmas and Trinity Sunday, the half of the year with all the most important feasts. In Lent and Advent the Gloria is omitted, but the Sanctus and Agnus are sung to ‘The Norfolk Service’ by Martin How (b. 1931) – these more contemplative settings seem to fit well the penitential seasons.
In Ordinary Time (the rest of the year) we often use the ‘New Wine Gloria’ at St Boniface. This was composed, probably in the 1990s, by David Ogden, with accompaniment by Esther Jones, and has a bouncy refrain. For the Sanctus we use a recent arrangement by Marcia Pruner and John Campbell of the American traditional melody ‘Land of Rest’. The Agnus is sung to a quiet tune composed specially for us in about 2002.
So as you can see we try to make the choice of music reflect the seasons of the church’s year. Over a period of time some of this music will need a rest, and new settings will have to be found – just as we have used and discarded other music in the past.
All the music is designed to be singable not only by choirs but by the congregations as well. Do join your voice to those of the angels.
At the Eucharist we usually sing musical settings of three very ancient texts ‘Glory to God in the highest’, ‘Holy, holy, holy’ and ‘Lamb of God’, and in this article I’ll say a little about these and some of the music currently used for them. To begin with, do you know the significance of the words?
The opening of ‘Glory to God in the highest’ (often referred to by the first word of the Latin title, ‘Gloria’) is based on the song of the angels in Luke 2: 14. The ‘Holy, holy, holy’ (often termed ‘Sanctus’, Latin for ‘holy’) is sung just before the main part of the Eucharistic Prayer, and begins by echoing the words of the angels in Isaiah 6: 3. The words of the second part may be found in Matthew 21: 9 as part of the Palm Sunday story. ‘Lamb of God’ (or ‘Agnus Dei’) echoes the words of John the Baptist about Jesus in John 1: 29.
The musical settings of these three items at present most widely used in the parish were composed some years ago by Peter Gilks, currently [2010] Vicar of North Baddesley. At St Boniface we use them between Christmas and Trinity Sunday, the half of the year with all the most important feasts. In Lent and Advent the Gloria is omitted, but the Sanctus and Agnus are sung to ‘The Norfolk Service’ by Martin How (b. 1931) – these more contemplative settings seem to fit well the penitential seasons.
In Ordinary Time (the rest of the year) we often use the ‘New Wine Gloria’ at St Boniface. This was composed, probably in the 1990s, by David Ogden, with accompaniment by Esther Jones, and has a bouncy refrain. For the Sanctus we use a recent arrangement by Marcia Pruner and John Campbell of the American traditional melody ‘Land of Rest’. The Agnus is sung to a quiet tune composed specially for us in about 2002.
So as you can see we try to make the choice of music reflect the seasons of the church’s year. Over a period of time some of this music will need a rest, and new settings will have to be found – just as we have used and discarded other music in the past.
All the music is designed to be singable not only by choirs but by the congregations as well. Do join your voice to those of the angels.
Music and Worship: Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the greatest musical geniuses of all time, was born into a family of musicians in 1685 – over 70 musicians surnamed Bach worked in Germany in the 1600s and 1700s. Two of his 20(!) children, Carl Philipp Emanuel and Johann Christian, became important composers themselves.
J. S. Bach was sometimes dismissed as hopelessly old-fashioned in his later years – but it was not long after his death in 1750 that the full worth of his music came to be recognised. He was in fact a model musician: nothing that he wrote was second-rate or shoddy. Composing music did not come effortlessly to him, but through sheer dedication and hard work.
One of Bach’s best-known pieces is ‘Jesu, joy of man’s desiring’. Although it is sometimes sung as an anthem, it was originally part of a longer work with German text, Cantata No. 147. In all, Bach wrote over 200 church cantatas for performance at Leipzig, where he was musical director.
Today we sometimes hear ‘Jesu, joy’ sung by a choir with organ accompaniment, but the original had an orchestra, with oboes and violins playing the opening melody. The piece has also been arranged as an organ voluntary.
More than 250 years after his death, Bach remains the finest and probably the favourite composer for the organ. His skill as a player was legendary, and he had a phenomenal gift for improvising music.
Bach was a most devout believer, and much of his greatest music was his response to the Christian message – and indeed it is a means by which our response to this message can still be heightened. We occasionally sing his arrangements of old German chorales – one is ‘All glory, laud and honour’, another ‘O sacred head, surrounded’ – and perhaps at such times we feel something of the conviction and the power of his music. ‘O sacred head’ comes from his dramatic setting of St Matthew’s account of the Passion (the St Matthew Passion).
The early eighteenth-century mind-set was very different from ours. So we may, for example, find Bach’s love of symbolism and numerology rather quaint. In some of his music he spelled out his own name B A C H in the notes B flat A C B natural (Germans refer to B flat as B and B natural as H). The number ‘14’ fascinated him (B = 2, A = 1, C = 3, H = 8; so BACH = 14). In one of his Easter organ pieces, every phrase starts with a rising interval to bring alive to us the power of the Resurrection.
J. S. Bach was sometimes dismissed as hopelessly old-fashioned in his later years – but it was not long after his death in 1750 that the full worth of his music came to be recognised. He was in fact a model musician: nothing that he wrote was second-rate or shoddy. Composing music did not come effortlessly to him, but through sheer dedication and hard work.
One of Bach’s best-known pieces is ‘Jesu, joy of man’s desiring’. Although it is sometimes sung as an anthem, it was originally part of a longer work with German text, Cantata No. 147. In all, Bach wrote over 200 church cantatas for performance at Leipzig, where he was musical director.
Today we sometimes hear ‘Jesu, joy’ sung by a choir with organ accompaniment, but the original had an orchestra, with oboes and violins playing the opening melody. The piece has also been arranged as an organ voluntary.
More than 250 years after his death, Bach remains the finest and probably the favourite composer for the organ. His skill as a player was legendary, and he had a phenomenal gift for improvising music.
Bach was a most devout believer, and much of his greatest music was his response to the Christian message – and indeed it is a means by which our response to this message can still be heightened. We occasionally sing his arrangements of old German chorales – one is ‘All glory, laud and honour’, another ‘O sacred head, surrounded’ – and perhaps at such times we feel something of the conviction and the power of his music. ‘O sacred head’ comes from his dramatic setting of St Matthew’s account of the Passion (the St Matthew Passion).
The early eighteenth-century mind-set was very different from ours. So we may, for example, find Bach’s love of symbolism and numerology rather quaint. In some of his music he spelled out his own name B A C H in the notes B flat A C B natural (Germans refer to B flat as B and B natural as H). The number ‘14’ fascinated him (B = 2, A = 1, C = 3, H = 8; so BACH = 14). In one of his Easter organ pieces, every phrase starts with a rising interval to bring alive to us the power of the Resurrection.
Music and Worship: Organs and Organ-playing: Part 2
A church organist’s principal role is to engage the worshipping community in the shared experience of hymns and songs – however important, enjoyable and even uplifting voluntaries and anthems may be. As well as playing at many Sunday services, organists are often privileged to take part in baptism, wedding and funeral services.
A hymn or song begins with a partial play-over to announce the tune, and establish speed and character. A hymn of praise like ‘Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation’ must be more vigorous than a reflective piece like ‘Such love, pure as the whitest snow’. The introduction can be short if a sense of urgency is appropriate, or quite long; the congregation and choir won’t always know in advance. So it’s good if people stand when the introduction starts!
Ideally, every verse should be played with a different sound quality. Even most small organs have two keyboards for the hands (manuals), each with several stops of different characters, plus a third mammoth-sized keyboard for the feet (the pedals). On the piano, if you press down one key you get one sound. On the organ, by drawing several stops you get several sounds from a single key. Some of these don’t even sound at the expected pitch: if you play middle C you can, with the appropriate stops, produce higher and lower Cs as well. Changes of volume are achieved by adding or subtracting stops – pressing the keys harder, as on a piano, won’t produce a louder sound. Special swell pedals can also increase or decrease volume.
Some organ stops sound like woodwind instruments, especially flutes; others, known as reeds, resemble brass. The most important ones are the diapasons, the organist’s equivalent of violins and other orchestral strings. Often the diapasons predominate, as strings sometimes do in an orchestra, but a final verse may have, for example, additional reeds. Not all final verses need be loud, of course: it works quite well to make verse 4 of ‘Lord of all hopefulness’ the quietest. Look at the words and see why.
There are opportunities in many hymns for illustrating the words, for example the ‘loud organs’ in verse 3 of ‘O praise ye the Lord’. The penultimate verse of ‘Praise to the Holiest in the height’, with its references to suffering and death, is effective when sung quietly – or the organ can rest altogether if congregation and choir are on good form.
Solo organ pieces (voluntaries) may help prepare the congregation for worship, provide a sense of completion and release at the end, or underline a seasonal theme. Many organists are especially fond of voluntaries by Johann Sebastian Bach…
A hymn or song begins with a partial play-over to announce the tune, and establish speed and character. A hymn of praise like ‘Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation’ must be more vigorous than a reflective piece like ‘Such love, pure as the whitest snow’. The introduction can be short if a sense of urgency is appropriate, or quite long; the congregation and choir won’t always know in advance. So it’s good if people stand when the introduction starts!
Ideally, every verse should be played with a different sound quality. Even most small organs have two keyboards for the hands (manuals), each with several stops of different characters, plus a third mammoth-sized keyboard for the feet (the pedals). On the piano, if you press down one key you get one sound. On the organ, by drawing several stops you get several sounds from a single key. Some of these don’t even sound at the expected pitch: if you play middle C you can, with the appropriate stops, produce higher and lower Cs as well. Changes of volume are achieved by adding or subtracting stops – pressing the keys harder, as on a piano, won’t produce a louder sound. Special swell pedals can also increase or decrease volume.
Some organ stops sound like woodwind instruments, especially flutes; others, known as reeds, resemble brass. The most important ones are the diapasons, the organist’s equivalent of violins and other orchestral strings. Often the diapasons predominate, as strings sometimes do in an orchestra, but a final verse may have, for example, additional reeds. Not all final verses need be loud, of course: it works quite well to make verse 4 of ‘Lord of all hopefulness’ the quietest. Look at the words and see why.
There are opportunities in many hymns for illustrating the words, for example the ‘loud organs’ in verse 3 of ‘O praise ye the Lord’. The penultimate verse of ‘Praise to the Holiest in the height’, with its references to suffering and death, is effective when sung quietly – or the organ can rest altogether if congregation and choir are on good form.
Solo organ pieces (voluntaries) may help prepare the congregation for worship, provide a sense of completion and release at the end, or underline a seasonal theme. Many organists are especially fond of voluntaries by Johann Sebastian Bach…
Friday 8 January 2010
Music and Worship: Organs and Organ-playing, Part 1
Until a few years ago, the only instrument normally heard in church services was the organ (unless you go right back to the old church and chapel bands of the nineteenth century).
The history of the organ began well before these West Gallery bands. The ancient Greeks had a type of organ known as the hydraulis, operated by hydraulic pressure provided by hand pumps. The sound was apparently more noisy than musical. The Romans also used the hydraulis in events such as gladiatorial shows, and the emperor Nero is said to have been a player.
Organs, no longer operated hydraulically, eventually came to be accepted in Christian worship. In the tenth century Winchester Cathedral had a monster instrument with 400 pipes, operated according to the monk Wulstan by 70 strong men working very hard at more than 20 sets of bellows. Needless to say, the sound was extremely loud at close quarters. Long before aircraft and traffic noise, it must also have been heard for miles around on a still day. Such an instrument was just as much at the technological leading edge in the tenth century as some computer applications are today.
The organs on which J. S. Bach, the greatest of all composers for the organ, played in the early 1700s were the result of centuries of experiment and refinement. They will always be regarded as models of clarity and beauty of sound, but were still pumped by hand (as the old pipe organ at St Boniface Church, Chandler’s Ford was when first installed in the early 20th century). Today, although pipe organs such as the present one at Winchester Cathedral have all kinds of electrical and mechanical aids, the tuning of each pipe continues to need regular checking, an expensive and labour-intensive task. Increasingly churches favour low-maintenance electronic organs without pipes.
Of course, almost all organists will say that the sound of a pipe organ is much preferable to that of an electronic organ. For example, the sound is spread around the building better, because instead of a handful of electrical speakers each of the many pipes can speak. But in terms of the overall mission of churches such as St Boniface and St Martin in the Wood, could we have justified installing very expensive smallish pipe organs rather than more economical electronic ones with larger ranges of sounds?
The electronic organ at St Boniface was installed by Allen Organs in the late 1980s, about 10 years before the St Martin’s organ was bought. Neither needs tuning, and both are likely to be trouble-free for many years. Siting of speakers is vital, and has recently been the subject of experiment at St Martin’s. At St Boniface we re-sited three of the four speakers higher up in the chancel in 2009, and this has helped greatly with the projection of the sound.
The history of the organ began well before these West Gallery bands. The ancient Greeks had a type of organ known as the hydraulis, operated by hydraulic pressure provided by hand pumps. The sound was apparently more noisy than musical. The Romans also used the hydraulis in events such as gladiatorial shows, and the emperor Nero is said to have been a player.
Organs, no longer operated hydraulically, eventually came to be accepted in Christian worship. In the tenth century Winchester Cathedral had a monster instrument with 400 pipes, operated according to the monk Wulstan by 70 strong men working very hard at more than 20 sets of bellows. Needless to say, the sound was extremely loud at close quarters. Long before aircraft and traffic noise, it must also have been heard for miles around on a still day. Such an instrument was just as much at the technological leading edge in the tenth century as some computer applications are today.
The organs on which J. S. Bach, the greatest of all composers for the organ, played in the early 1700s were the result of centuries of experiment and refinement. They will always be regarded as models of clarity and beauty of sound, but were still pumped by hand (as the old pipe organ at St Boniface Church, Chandler’s Ford was when first installed in the early 20th century). Today, although pipe organs such as the present one at Winchester Cathedral have all kinds of electrical and mechanical aids, the tuning of each pipe continues to need regular checking, an expensive and labour-intensive task. Increasingly churches favour low-maintenance electronic organs without pipes.
Of course, almost all organists will say that the sound of a pipe organ is much preferable to that of an electronic organ. For example, the sound is spread around the building better, because instead of a handful of electrical speakers each of the many pipes can speak. But in terms of the overall mission of churches such as St Boniface and St Martin in the Wood, could we have justified installing very expensive smallish pipe organs rather than more economical electronic ones with larger ranges of sounds?
The electronic organ at St Boniface was installed by Allen Organs in the late 1980s, about 10 years before the St Martin’s organ was bought. Neither needs tuning, and both are likely to be trouble-free for many years. Siting of speakers is vital, and has recently been the subject of experiment at St Martin’s. At St Boniface we re-sited three of the four speakers higher up in the chancel in 2009, and this has helped greatly with the projection of the sound.
Thursday 7 January 2010
Music and Worship: Choosing the Hymns
The content of church services is largely laid down by Common Worship (2000) or the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. But one area always left to local choice is music, not least because the abilities and tastes of congregations and choirs vary so greatly. The choice of hymns and songs always requires careful thought.
A principal aim in Chandler’s Ford is to link the hymns with the liturgical season (Epiphany, Lent, etc.) where possible. The bible readings can suggest other choices. For example, on Sunday 13 February 2005 the Epistle (Romans 5: 12–19) had several references to grace, a theme touched on in the Gradual hymn sung at St Boniface, Mission Praise 774 (‘With joy we meditate the grace...’).
It is important to have suitable kinds of hymn at particular points in the service. Thus we often sing one of the most uplifting items at the end, and in the Eucharist have a longish hymn to cover the Offertory. A Gradual hymn may refer to the Epistle that it follows (as we saw above) or to the Gospel that it precedes.
In recent years, we have to some extent matched particular types of hymns or songs with different types of service. This is probably preferable to trying to please everyone all the time. Family Eucharists and Praise and Prayer services usually rely strongly on recent songs and have few or no traditional hymns. At Evensong, on the other hand, things have changed fairly little since Hymns Ancient and Modern Revised was adopted in the early 1970s.
However, there is a mixture of styles at the 10.00am Holy Eucharist at St Boniface, to reflect the ‘mixed’ congregation (and to avoid too much narrowness either for younger or older worshippers at the principal Sunday service). Mission Praise [as used in Chandler’s Ford for about 10 years until 2008] is useful for this as it contains a good deal of ‘old’ material from many traditions plus plenty of newer favourites.
Who chooses the hymns? Currently [2007] at St Boniface the vicar drafts three-monthly lists and shows them to me to agree, change or adjust – although for Family Eucharists and Praise and Prayer the choice usually rests with the people devising these services. Each three-monthly list, which can undergo last-minute fine tuning, rarely includes any hymn more than once. So, given 10 hymns or songs per Sunday, regular worshippers at the Holy Eucharist and Evensong will be singing over 100 different items in a three-month period.
As well as variety, we hope for some freshness, while avoiding a disconcerting amount of novelty. Inevitably there are disappointments and less than successful choices. More suggestions from the congregation and choir would be welcome, particularly if backed up by some interesting explanation. Plenty of notice is appreciated, and for practical reasons most items for the Holy Eucharist and for Evensong need to be available in the books regularly used for these services.
What might you choose, for what occasion, and why?
A principal aim in Chandler’s Ford is to link the hymns with the liturgical season (Epiphany, Lent, etc.) where possible. The bible readings can suggest other choices. For example, on Sunday 13 February 2005 the Epistle (Romans 5: 12–19) had several references to grace, a theme touched on in the Gradual hymn sung at St Boniface, Mission Praise 774 (‘With joy we meditate the grace...’).
It is important to have suitable kinds of hymn at particular points in the service. Thus we often sing one of the most uplifting items at the end, and in the Eucharist have a longish hymn to cover the Offertory. A Gradual hymn may refer to the Epistle that it follows (as we saw above) or to the Gospel that it precedes.
In recent years, we have to some extent matched particular types of hymns or songs with different types of service. This is probably preferable to trying to please everyone all the time. Family Eucharists and Praise and Prayer services usually rely strongly on recent songs and have few or no traditional hymns. At Evensong, on the other hand, things have changed fairly little since Hymns Ancient and Modern Revised was adopted in the early 1970s.
However, there is a mixture of styles at the 10.00am Holy Eucharist at St Boniface, to reflect the ‘mixed’ congregation (and to avoid too much narrowness either for younger or older worshippers at the principal Sunday service). Mission Praise [as used in Chandler’s Ford for about 10 years until 2008] is useful for this as it contains a good deal of ‘old’ material from many traditions plus plenty of newer favourites.
Who chooses the hymns? Currently [2007] at St Boniface the vicar drafts three-monthly lists and shows them to me to agree, change or adjust – although for Family Eucharists and Praise and Prayer the choice usually rests with the people devising these services. Each three-monthly list, which can undergo last-minute fine tuning, rarely includes any hymn more than once. So, given 10 hymns or songs per Sunday, regular worshippers at the Holy Eucharist and Evensong will be singing over 100 different items in a three-month period.
As well as variety, we hope for some freshness, while avoiding a disconcerting amount of novelty. Inevitably there are disappointments and less than successful choices. More suggestions from the congregation and choir would be welcome, particularly if backed up by some interesting explanation. Plenty of notice is appreciated, and for practical reasons most items for the Holy Eucharist and for Evensong need to be available in the books regularly used for these services.
What might you choose, for what occasion, and why?
Wednesday 6 January 2010
Music and Worship: Common Ground - a Song Book for All the Churches
Nowadays there are probably more collections of hymns and worship songs available than at any previous time. Common Ground is one of several with an ecumenical flavour. St Boniface Choir has music copies and sometimes a song from this collection has been used on a Sunday morning, especially during communion.
Hymns provided common ground between Christian denominations for years before relations became as comparatively close as they are today. Church of England congregations have long sung, for example, hymns both by Isaac Watts, an eighteenth-century nonconformist, and John Henry Newman, a nineteenth-century convert to Roman Catholicism. But all this was a kind of accidental ecumenism.
The songbook Common Ground, on the other hand, was a deliberate collaboration between different Christian traditions in Scotland. Not surprisingly there is a Scottish bias: nearly half of the 150 songs are Scottish, including some with Iona connections, including the now fairly familiar ‘A touching place’ and ‘Will you come and follow me’. Among other Scottish items are very evocative settings of the Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei by James MacMillan (b. 1959).
Items headed ‘England’ form the second largest group: there are about 30, including a few (such as ‘Shine, Jesus, shine’ and ‘Be still’) familiar from other sources. ‘Comes Mary to the grave’ has a beautiful Eastertide text by Michael Perry, and a lovely tune by David Iliff which manages to be minor but not sad. The handful of older items includes George Herbert’s ‘Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life’, with music arranged from one of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Five Mystical Songs.
A small number of songs come from Africa, Asia and South America, including ‘Sent by the Lord am I’ from Chile, ‘Thuma Mina’ from South Africa, and the ‘Peruvian Gloria’, all of which we have sung over the years at family services.
The contents of Common Ground employ many poetic metres and musical styles. Not all are easy to sing or immediately attractive, but there is a genuine breadth and a readiness to experiment both in terms of music and words. It is good to find a number of substantial, well-crafted lyrics, for these are quite rare in some recent collections. There is not enough in Common Ground to make it more than a secondary or supplementary resource, but it can have considerable value in broadening and deepening the musical and theological experience of a worshipping community.
Christ, you lead and we shall follow,
stumbling though our steps may be,
One with you in joy and sorrow,
we the river, you the sea,
we the river, you the sea.
Words from Tree of Life by Marty Haugen. Copyright 1984, GIA Publications Inc. Reprinted in ‘Music and Worship’ by permission of Calamus, Oak House, 70 High Street, Brandon, Suffolk, IP27 0AU.
Hymns provided common ground between Christian denominations for years before relations became as comparatively close as they are today. Church of England congregations have long sung, for example, hymns both by Isaac Watts, an eighteenth-century nonconformist, and John Henry Newman, a nineteenth-century convert to Roman Catholicism. But all this was a kind of accidental ecumenism.
The songbook Common Ground, on the other hand, was a deliberate collaboration between different Christian traditions in Scotland. Not surprisingly there is a Scottish bias: nearly half of the 150 songs are Scottish, including some with Iona connections, including the now fairly familiar ‘A touching place’ and ‘Will you come and follow me’. Among other Scottish items are very evocative settings of the Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei by James MacMillan (b. 1959).
Items headed ‘England’ form the second largest group: there are about 30, including a few (such as ‘Shine, Jesus, shine’ and ‘Be still’) familiar from other sources. ‘Comes Mary to the grave’ has a beautiful Eastertide text by Michael Perry, and a lovely tune by David Iliff which manages to be minor but not sad. The handful of older items includes George Herbert’s ‘Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life’, with music arranged from one of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Five Mystical Songs.
A small number of songs come from Africa, Asia and South America, including ‘Sent by the Lord am I’ from Chile, ‘Thuma Mina’ from South Africa, and the ‘Peruvian Gloria’, all of which we have sung over the years at family services.
The contents of Common Ground employ many poetic metres and musical styles. Not all are easy to sing or immediately attractive, but there is a genuine breadth and a readiness to experiment both in terms of music and words. It is good to find a number of substantial, well-crafted lyrics, for these are quite rare in some recent collections. There is not enough in Common Ground to make it more than a secondary or supplementary resource, but it can have considerable value in broadening and deepening the musical and theological experience of a worshipping community.
Christ, you lead and we shall follow,
stumbling though our steps may be,
One with you in joy and sorrow,
we the river, you the sea,
we the river, you the sea.
Words from Tree of Life by Marty Haugen. Copyright 1984, GIA Publications Inc. Reprinted in ‘Music and Worship’ by permission of Calamus, Oak House, 70 High Street, Brandon, Suffolk, IP27 0AU.
Tuesday 5 January 2010
Music and Worship: Choirs
The two Anglican churches in Chandler’s Ford, St Boniface and St Martin in the Wood, are fortunate to have had flourishing church choirs for many years. But what are choirs for and why do we need them? (Things have changed since ancient times: the Greek word choros from which our word choir comes, could refer to a group of dancers!)
Present-day church choirs are there to help lead their fellow-worshippers in hymns and songs and in some spoken parts of the service. I do mean ‘lead’ rather than dominate or monopolise, because today everyone expects wide congregational participation in parish worship. Of course this doesn’t mean that the choir can never perform music that a congregation wouldn’t be able to sing. Choirs enjoy singing anthems, for example, and the few minutes that an anthem takes can give everyone else valuable space for thought and reflection.
In the 1970s and 80s choirs were often among the most diverse organisations within the church. By this time women and girls usually had a place alongside men and boys, and it was often genuinely ‘all-age worship’ with singers from eight to over 80. Today few boys belong to church choirs except where a strong cathedral-style choral tradition exists. And also there are relatively few young girl singers. Both St Boniface and St Martin’s would welcome more junior singers.
Choirs also need a sizeable number of young and youngish adults to avoid even the most vigorous group becoming tired, less able to hit the high notes, resistant to change, etc. So could you perhaps help (in Chandler’s Ford if you live there, or elsewhere if you don’t)? What is required?
You must be able to sing in tune, but you needn’t have passed any exams or have had singing lessons. You needn’t read music, but especially if you’re an alto, tenor or bass, you’ll find it helps if you can. Reading music is probably no harder (it may even be easier) than GCSE Maths or driving a car.
You need to make a commitment of time. The hard-line days of ‘twice every Sunday and every choir practice without fail’ have gone – but one service every now and then is not an option.
You must like music and be open to what’s new to you (whether that’s a song from Mission Praise, an unfamiliar anthem, or a traditional piece from Hymns Ancient and Modern Revised).
What will you gain? Perhaps the hymn writer Fred Pratt Green has an answer:
When, in our music, God is glorified,
and adoration leaves no room for pride,
it is as though the whole creation cried:
Alleluia!
How often, making music, we have found
a new dimension in the world of sound,
as worship moved us to a more profound
Alleluia!
Fred Pratt Green (1903–2000)
Included in H. Benham, Music and Worship (Chandler’s Ford, 2007), where it was reproduced from Partners in Creation by permission of Stainer & Bell Ltd,
London, England.
Present-day church choirs are there to help lead their fellow-worshippers in hymns and songs and in some spoken parts of the service. I do mean ‘lead’ rather than dominate or monopolise, because today everyone expects wide congregational participation in parish worship. Of course this doesn’t mean that the choir can never perform music that a congregation wouldn’t be able to sing. Choirs enjoy singing anthems, for example, and the few minutes that an anthem takes can give everyone else valuable space for thought and reflection.
In the 1970s and 80s choirs were often among the most diverse organisations within the church. By this time women and girls usually had a place alongside men and boys, and it was often genuinely ‘all-age worship’ with singers from eight to over 80. Today few boys belong to church choirs except where a strong cathedral-style choral tradition exists. And also there are relatively few young girl singers. Both St Boniface and St Martin’s would welcome more junior singers.
Choirs also need a sizeable number of young and youngish adults to avoid even the most vigorous group becoming tired, less able to hit the high notes, resistant to change, etc. So could you perhaps help (in Chandler’s Ford if you live there, or elsewhere if you don’t)? What is required?
You must be able to sing in tune, but you needn’t have passed any exams or have had singing lessons. You needn’t read music, but especially if you’re an alto, tenor or bass, you’ll find it helps if you can. Reading music is probably no harder (it may even be easier) than GCSE Maths or driving a car.
You need to make a commitment of time. The hard-line days of ‘twice every Sunday and every choir practice without fail’ have gone – but one service every now and then is not an option.
You must like music and be open to what’s new to you (whether that’s a song from Mission Praise, an unfamiliar anthem, or a traditional piece from Hymns Ancient and Modern Revised).
What will you gain? Perhaps the hymn writer Fred Pratt Green has an answer:
When, in our music, God is glorified,
and adoration leaves no room for pride,
it is as though the whole creation cried:
Alleluia!
How often, making music, we have found
a new dimension in the world of sound,
as worship moved us to a more profound
Alleluia!
Fred Pratt Green (1903–2000)
Included in H. Benham, Music and Worship (Chandler’s Ford, 2007), where it was reproduced from Partners in Creation by permission of Stainer & Bell Ltd,
London, England.
Monday 4 January 2010
Music and Worship: Words and Music
What makes a good fit between the words of a hymn and its music? A good answer might be: when people can sing the words to the given tune easily, and when the tune in some way underlines the character and meaning of the words (or at least does not work against them).
One of the finest poems in English is ‘When I survey the wondrous Cross’ by Isaac Watts (1674–1748). It neither sentimentalises the Crucifixion nor indulges in extended graphic and gory description. It focuses on the individual worshipper’s response (not merely on a generalised or collective response), and ends by asserting that ‘Love so amazing, so divine / Demands my soul, my life, my all’. ‘Rockingham’ by Edward Miller (1731–1807) is a good tune: it fits the words easily, and is never fussy or awkward. It is not, however, as remarkable musically as the words are remarkable poetically, and might appropriately fit other hymns in long metre. So the match is good, but perhaps not outstandingly good.
In ‘I am the Bread of Life’ Suzanne Toolan’s words closely paraphrase various biblical verses (how many can you identify?). In order to keep as close as possible to scripture, she isn’t concerned to make each stanza scan as verse. This is all well and good, but it’s not until the refrain that there is the easy unity between voice and verse which we take for granted in ‘When I survey’. Congregations sometimes struggle to fit Toolan’s words to her own fine, vigorous tune – for example, the first bar of the melody carries five syllables in verse 1, only two in verse 3 – and something of the power of the words can be lost in the process.
Graham Kendrick has shown that ‘modern’ tunes and words can go together to create something greater than the sum of the parts. Congregations rarely fail to get a lift from ‘Shine, Jesus, shine’, for example. Sometimes the combination of new words and an old tune works brilliantly (look in Mission Praise at Timothy Dudley-Smith’s ‘Jesus, Prince and Saviour’, which is paired with Sir Arthur Sullivan’s ‘St Gertrude’, familiar as the tune for ‘Onward, Christian soldiers’).
If you want to hear how a modern composer can enhance a wonderful old hymn, listen out for Ken Naylor’s ‘Coe Fen’, which goes to ‘How shall I sing that majesty’ by John Mason (c. 1645–1694). The words are full of wonderful imagery, and Naylor has clothed them with a melody that is easily picked up yet has a great sense of life, liberty and adventure.
Here is Mason’s stirring final stanza:
How great a being, Lord, is thine,
Which doth all beings keep!
Thy knowledge is the only line
To sound so vast a deep.
Thou art a sea without a shore,
A sun without a sphere;
Thy time is now and evermore,
Thy place is everywhere.
One of the finest poems in English is ‘When I survey the wondrous Cross’ by Isaac Watts (1674–1748). It neither sentimentalises the Crucifixion nor indulges in extended graphic and gory description. It focuses on the individual worshipper’s response (not merely on a generalised or collective response), and ends by asserting that ‘Love so amazing, so divine / Demands my soul, my life, my all’. ‘Rockingham’ by Edward Miller (1731–1807) is a good tune: it fits the words easily, and is never fussy or awkward. It is not, however, as remarkable musically as the words are remarkable poetically, and might appropriately fit other hymns in long metre. So the match is good, but perhaps not outstandingly good.
In ‘I am the Bread of Life’ Suzanne Toolan’s words closely paraphrase various biblical verses (how many can you identify?). In order to keep as close as possible to scripture, she isn’t concerned to make each stanza scan as verse. This is all well and good, but it’s not until the refrain that there is the easy unity between voice and verse which we take for granted in ‘When I survey’. Congregations sometimes struggle to fit Toolan’s words to her own fine, vigorous tune – for example, the first bar of the melody carries five syllables in verse 1, only two in verse 3 – and something of the power of the words can be lost in the process.
Graham Kendrick has shown that ‘modern’ tunes and words can go together to create something greater than the sum of the parts. Congregations rarely fail to get a lift from ‘Shine, Jesus, shine’, for example. Sometimes the combination of new words and an old tune works brilliantly (look in Mission Praise at Timothy Dudley-Smith’s ‘Jesus, Prince and Saviour’, which is paired with Sir Arthur Sullivan’s ‘St Gertrude’, familiar as the tune for ‘Onward, Christian soldiers’).
If you want to hear how a modern composer can enhance a wonderful old hymn, listen out for Ken Naylor’s ‘Coe Fen’, which goes to ‘How shall I sing that majesty’ by John Mason (c. 1645–1694). The words are full of wonderful imagery, and Naylor has clothed them with a melody that is easily picked up yet has a great sense of life, liberty and adventure.
Here is Mason’s stirring final stanza:
How great a being, Lord, is thine,
Which doth all beings keep!
Thy knowledge is the only line
To sound so vast a deep.
Thou art a sea without a shore,
A sun without a sphere;
Thy time is now and evermore,
Thy place is everywhere.
Sunday 3 January 2010
Music and Worship: What's New
At one time it was so straightforward – all church music was dignified and sounded like church music. It had few close similarities to other types of music, although one or two ‘classical’ tunes were sung, including Haydn’s ‘Austria’ for ‘Glorious things of thee are spoken’. And the great composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958), musical editor of The English Hymnal, understood the power of folk music: it was he who arranged ‘Kingsfold’, a tune often sung to ‘I heard the voice of Jesus say’.
As long ago as the late 1950s and the 1960s things began to change, as a powerful new popular culture developed. ‘Hatherop Castle’, the ‘modern’ tune for ‘O Jesus I have promised’, was at first considered quite daring. And soon afterwards some Chandler’s Ford folk were probably taken aback when a piece of light music, Patrick Appleford’s Mass of Five Melodies, was introduced at the Family Communion.
We have now come to accept (and expect) a wider selection of musical styles. Mission Praise, first introduced in our churches in the 1990s, has plenty of newish popular-style songs, such as those by Graham Kendrick. On the other hand, really old tunes like ‘Lyngham’ and ‘Sagina’ (‘O for a thousand tongues to sing’ and ‘And can it be’) are also included – tunes perhaps once considered a bit too jaunty or too suggestive of nonconformity.
From time to time we sing items from Common Ground, an international and ecumenical selection of hymns and songs whose words often have a strong bias to the disadvantaged and underprivileged. And occasionally we dip into The Source, a book broadly similar to Mission Praise but with fewer old hymns and with additional, often more recent, popular-style songs.
Sensibly, we have are very far from having thrown out everything traditional. Many hymns that were mainstays of the 1960s and 70s and earlier are still going strong. The choirs continue to sing anthems from time to time, some of them established favourites, although others are among the newest music we hear.
To sum up, most would agree that our broadening tastes in church music have led to more effective worship and have involved slightly more diverse congregations. But do we still sometimes take fright when there’s an unfamiliar tune? And is our musical diet really that varied? Why, for example, don’t we sing more music from Taizé? More plainsong? More very recent songs? More traditional hymns that are unfamiliar to us?
Whatever happens, the most vital question must remain: does all that we sing both honour God and build us up?
As long ago as the late 1950s and the 1960s things began to change, as a powerful new popular culture developed. ‘Hatherop Castle’, the ‘modern’ tune for ‘O Jesus I have promised’, was at first considered quite daring. And soon afterwards some Chandler’s Ford folk were probably taken aback when a piece of light music, Patrick Appleford’s Mass of Five Melodies, was introduced at the Family Communion.
We have now come to accept (and expect) a wider selection of musical styles. Mission Praise, first introduced in our churches in the 1990s, has plenty of newish popular-style songs, such as those by Graham Kendrick. On the other hand, really old tunes like ‘Lyngham’ and ‘Sagina’ (‘O for a thousand tongues to sing’ and ‘And can it be’) are also included – tunes perhaps once considered a bit too jaunty or too suggestive of nonconformity.
From time to time we sing items from Common Ground, an international and ecumenical selection of hymns and songs whose words often have a strong bias to the disadvantaged and underprivileged. And occasionally we dip into The Source, a book broadly similar to Mission Praise but with fewer old hymns and with additional, often more recent, popular-style songs.
Sensibly, we have are very far from having thrown out everything traditional. Many hymns that were mainstays of the 1960s and 70s and earlier are still going strong. The choirs continue to sing anthems from time to time, some of them established favourites, although others are among the newest music we hear.
To sum up, most would agree that our broadening tastes in church music have led to more effective worship and have involved slightly more diverse congregations. But do we still sometimes take fright when there’s an unfamiliar tune? And is our musical diet really that varied? Why, for example, don’t we sing more music from Taizé? More plainsong? More very recent songs? More traditional hymns that are unfamiliar to us?
Whatever happens, the most vital question must remain: does all that we sing both honour God and build us up?
Saturday 2 January 2010
Music and Worship
What do you find sticks in your mind most after a church service? If there has been music, a hymn or a song may make the most lasting impression.
People have addressed God through music since Old Testament times, and there are several important references to music in the New Testament as well. For example, Paul wrote to the church at Colossae: ‘With gratitude in your hearts sing psalms and hymns and inspired songs to God.’ And there’s no doubt that music can be a very effective and important part of our worship today.
In this and later articles, I hope to look at some of the issues involved in the partnership between music and the worship of God. I’ll begin by posing a number of questions. There usually aren’t simple answers – each point is meant to stimulate thought and discussion.
Should there be special types of music reserved for church, or were such people as Martin Luther and the Salvation Army’s founder William Booth right when they imported well-loved secular (‘worldly’) tunes or styles?
Should we welcome a diversity of instruments and voices in our services, or can we sympathise with Pope Pius X when in 1903 he banned the piano and all ‘noisy and irreverent’ percussion instruments and forbade the participation of women in church choirs?
How do we respond to the music we hear, especially if it’s new or different? Also, would we mind if a traditional hymn such as ‘Praise, my soul, the King of heaven’ were sung to something other than its ‘normal’ tune? How would we feel if a late twentieth-century worship song like ‘Shine, Jesus, shine’ were set to new music? Should we welcome all new styles, or consider that only some are suitable?
Does the music we use enhance the words, or does it limit, even detract from, them? Are there even some hymns that would be better read than sung, perhaps because the tune takes too much attention at the expense of the writer’s meaning? Should there be a place for purely instrumental music before, after or even within our services?
To what extent should hymns and worship songs merely please and entertain us as human beings? Could music help to attract those not presently involved in the church?
Finally, could we sincerely agree with the great twentieth-century composer Stravinsky who is reported to have said that we commit fewer musical sins in church than elsewhere? Are we ever content to accept for ourselves, and offer to God, performances and compositions that are less than the best we’re capable of?
People have addressed God through music since Old Testament times, and there are several important references to music in the New Testament as well. For example, Paul wrote to the church at Colossae: ‘With gratitude in your hearts sing psalms and hymns and inspired songs to God.’ And there’s no doubt that music can be a very effective and important part of our worship today.
In this and later articles, I hope to look at some of the issues involved in the partnership between music and the worship of God. I’ll begin by posing a number of questions. There usually aren’t simple answers – each point is meant to stimulate thought and discussion.
Should there be special types of music reserved for church, or were such people as Martin Luther and the Salvation Army’s founder William Booth right when they imported well-loved secular (‘worldly’) tunes or styles?
Should we welcome a diversity of instruments and voices in our services, or can we sympathise with Pope Pius X when in 1903 he banned the piano and all ‘noisy and irreverent’ percussion instruments and forbade the participation of women in church choirs?
How do we respond to the music we hear, especially if it’s new or different? Also, would we mind if a traditional hymn such as ‘Praise, my soul, the King of heaven’ were sung to something other than its ‘normal’ tune? How would we feel if a late twentieth-century worship song like ‘Shine, Jesus, shine’ were set to new music? Should we welcome all new styles, or consider that only some are suitable?
Does the music we use enhance the words, or does it limit, even detract from, them? Are there even some hymns that would be better read than sung, perhaps because the tune takes too much attention at the expense of the writer’s meaning? Should there be a place for purely instrumental music before, after or even within our services?
To what extent should hymns and worship songs merely please and entertain us as human beings? Could music help to attract those not presently involved in the church?
Finally, could we sincerely agree with the great twentieth-century composer Stravinsky who is reported to have said that we commit fewer musical sins in church than elsewhere? Are we ever content to accept for ourselves, and offer to God, performances and compositions that are less than the best we’re capable of?
Music and Worship: introduction
MUSIC and WORSHIP…
…was the title of a 52-page book published by the Parish of Chandler’s Ford in 2007. The 23 articles appeared first in Parish News, the monthly magazine of the parish of Chandler’s Ford and its churches of St Boniface and St Martin in the Wood, beginning in 2004. See the parish website http://www.parishofchandlersford.org.uk/.
The articles centre on the music and worship of a large and mostly well-to-do suburban parish in Southern Hampshire during these years. Church music (wherever it falls on the scale that extends from formal/traditional to happy-clappy) can easily become inward-looking and self-satisfied. So it was good to take some time to think about why we in Chandler’s Ford were worshipping and making music in the ways that we were. The readership was mainly members of the Chandler’s Ford congregations, and the idea was to write material that would be easily accessible rather than specialist or academic.
The original articles have been edited slightly for posting online.
I should like to thank Christine Clark and Nigel Barker for their support and encouragement when the original book was published in 2007. Profits went to support the work of St Anne’s Hospital, Liuli, Tanzania.
…was the title of a 52-page book published by the Parish of Chandler’s Ford in 2007. The 23 articles appeared first in Parish News, the monthly magazine of the parish of Chandler’s Ford and its churches of St Boniface and St Martin in the Wood, beginning in 2004. See the parish website http://www.parishofchandlersford.org.uk/.
The articles centre on the music and worship of a large and mostly well-to-do suburban parish in Southern Hampshire during these years. Church music (wherever it falls on the scale that extends from formal/traditional to happy-clappy) can easily become inward-looking and self-satisfied. So it was good to take some time to think about why we in Chandler’s Ford were worshipping and making music in the ways that we were. The readership was mainly members of the Chandler’s Ford congregations, and the idea was to write material that would be easily accessible rather than specialist or academic.
The original articles have been edited slightly for posting online.
I should like to thank Christine Clark and Nigel Barker for their support and encouragement when the original book was published in 2007. Profits went to support the work of St Anne’s Hospital, Liuli, Tanzania.
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