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?