The chorale was Martin Luther’s important contribution to church music. Featuring strong rhythmic tunes and vernacular texts, the early chorales were songs for all worshiping people to sing. Since the Reformation, a long line of hymn writers, especially in Germany and Scandinavia, has contributed to this genre, leaving behind one of the richest bodies of music in the Christian church.
The very word hymn comes from the Greek hymnos, which means a song of praise to a god or hero. Adapting this pagan practice for their own use, early Christians wrote many hymns that have become models for hymn writers over the centuries. The hymns of both early Greek and Latin Christians are represented in the most recent American hymnals by the inclusion of five to eighty selections. These hymns reflect the faith and thought of many of the most well-known early Christian leaders and theologians.
The trend toward a return to primal traditions in theology and worship practice was intensified in the mid-twentieth century, partly due to the influence of the “New Reformation.” Along with a return to biblical authority, we have seen a revival of Reformation worship forms and practice, including even neo-baroque organ design. The total result is a blend that includes three traditions: the apostolic heritage, historic medieval contributions, and Reformation distinctives.
Through much of the nineteenth century, worship in liturgical churches followed largely low-church convictions. In the mid-nineteenth century and continuing into the twentieth, many of these churches began recovering ancient patterns of worship. In music, this meant the recovery of Gregorian chant in the Catholic church, the return of Lutherans to sixteenth-century liturgy forms, a movement in some Anglican churches away from Puritan-influenced worship to the recovery of catholic forms, and the trend in some free churches from revival-style worship to quasi-liturgical practices.
One of the richest contributions to church music in America has undoubtedly come from the heritage of the African-Americans who came to America as slaves. Their hymns and spirituals, which are sung today across the world, give evidence of both the extreme hardships and the fervent faith that was a part of their experience in America.
The preceding article traced the outlines of the revivalist music tradition in both Europe and America. The following article looks more closely at the church music in the period of American colonization and revolution. Church music during this period was based on European models, especially the Psalm singing of the Calvinists. Later, the rise of singing schools and the presence of groups such as the Moravians and Shakers produced church music that was distinctively American.
The revivalist tradition is rooted in pietist hymnody. It is characterized by an emphasis on the relationship of Christ (the bridegroom) to the church and to the individual believer (the bride). It is commonly held that Isaac Watts combined most successfully the expression of worship with that of human devotional experience. The Wesleys developed what we know today as “invitation” songs. When transported to America, this tradition gave rise to the modern revival movement.
Music in early Christian worship consisted of melody only. Toward the end of the Middle Ages, more complex music, featuring the simultaneous singing of more than one melodic line, was composed for use in worship. For several centuries, this complex—or polyphonic—music was composed by many of Europe’s most famous and skilled composers.
The Middle Ages in the West saw the gradual dominance of the Roman rite over the local rites that had developed before the ninth and tenth centuries. Musically this entailed the spread of Gregorian chant. Later centuries saw the development of polyphony. In the late Middle Ages, the preaching service of Prone became the model for Reformed worship.