Cburch Music

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume 26, Issue 7, 1 July 1935, Page 1

Cburch Music

A PAPER READ BEFORE THE H.B.C. ASSOCIATION

By Rev. W. T. Drake

The. demand now is not so much for more music, as for better music and a better rendering of it. No parish is considered complete without an attempt, however crude, at a choral service. All this shows a desire m the right direction. I think we are all convinced that the employment of art m religion is a right and good thing. Its message has been "O Worship the Lord m the Beauty of Holiness," and the Church has answered, "we are willing and ready , show us the way." First and foremost among • the arts stands music, and to it a great deal of attention has been given. To say that the efforts to introduce and to maintain choral services m so many directions have been attended with unvarying success would be untrue. The obstacles m the way have been and are many and great. It its not sufficient to decide to introduce a choral service and imagine that it can at once be inaugurated and successfully carried on. "Without beginnings we can have no completions, and we must be thankful for beginnings. But we must face the difficulties, analyse their causes, and tackle the task of removing them. There was a time when people did not want and would not have choral services. That is now past. The present trouble is that the standard of rendering is deplorably low, and to raise this is the work of the present day church musicians. From a musical point of view, Church services may be divided into three distinct types. (1) The Cathedral. (2) The Town. (3) Country Parishes. The Cathedral service stands out as the highest ideal of musical worship. Upon every part of it all available skill is expended. All treasures new and old of our wealth of Church

music are there to be heard, rendered m a manner worthy of the surroundings, worthy of the object of music. Cathedrals m England have, as a general rule, all the resources requisite for carrying out the idea of musical worship m its completeness. In this province there is only one Cathedral, viz., Christchurch, which has resources. In passing it is interesting to note, that the famous authority on Church music, Dr. Nicholson, said that the choir of Christchurch Cathedral compared favourably with the Cathedral Choirs of England. How far should parish Church choirs strive to imitate the Cathedral choir. How far should the choral service of a parish church differ m kind and degree from that of a Cathedral. Here considerable variety of opinion exists. Some would maintain that even where possible, it is not right to attempt a reproduction of the complete choral service m a parish church. The question m reality involves another one, which, we are here obliged to touch upon — congregational singing. Perfect choral worship implies highly trained voices, artistic balance of parts and careful and constant preparation. Congregational singing excludes all these. Its theory would include all voices, whetheir cultivated !or not; balance of parts would be out of the question, preparation unnecessary. Those who seek to raise the artistic level of Church music are told that they are "excluding the people from worship," "defrauding them of their rights," "turning the Church into a concert room," advocating worship by proxy. Assertion is not argument, and abuse is only the sign of a lack of sound reasoning. If the singing of a trained .choir excludes the people from worship, so does the saying of the prayers by the priest alone; if the one is worship by proxy so is the other. In the latter case it would be quite possible for the people to join m with the speaking

voice without committing any obvious breach of good taste, or marring a work of art, for everyone is trained (up to a point) to use the speaking voice by daily practice; but the same does not apply to the singing voice, the proper use of which is confined to a few, and requires special training. For a person with an untrained voice and no knowledge of singing to join m and mar the effect of beautiful music is a thing which, if it be admissible m church, would be tolerated ir. no other place. Having said this we must endeavour to set aside prejudices, and try to see clearly what line we should pursue to make our church music truly edifying; and m the real sense of the word congregational. The reasonable course seems to be to accept the theory that there are three voices properly heard m a musical service, those of the priest, the choir and the people. Throughout, the service is the people's, but m seme parts the priest represents and speaks for them, m others the choir does so m a manner for which they are themselves unprepared, and, m ethers, they join m with their own voices. The worship throughout must be spiritual, and it may fairly be argued, that there is often more true worship from the silent heart than from the worshiping lips. "We will go into His tabernacle and fall low on our knees before His footstool," gives a picture of the highest and truest attitude of worship which it is the mind of the church to foster. We must distinguish between the ideas of congregational worship and congregational singing: the former does not necessarily imply the latter. There are two ways of joining m music, both of which have their place.. Music is an art, the very existence of which depends upon its use, and this use is of two kinds, active and passive, that of the performer and that of the listener. Apart from any question of skill, if we constantly attempted to join m music ■with our voices, we should actully lose most of it; the sound of our

own notes would prevent our hearing what was being done by others, and we should be always missing the combination of sweet sound which gives tc music its value. When poets allude to the power of music it is the listening attitude to which they invariably refer. Shakespeare says: "In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or, hearing, die." and again: "I am never merry, when I hear sweet music." Milton, on hearing church music, says that it can — "Dissolve me into ecstacies, and bring all heaven before mine eyes." Let us bear m mind that it is possible to participate m music by listening, -as truly as by performing, and tbat it is m the first way that the art produces its greatest effects. But, it may be argued that many people m a general congregation have no ear for music; they cannot appreciate its subleties; for them it has no message. True, there are always some such present, though it may be that their number is often exaggerated. But is it these people who confessedly know nothing of, and care nothing for, the art, and are consequently quite unable themselves to execute it, m whose hands you are to place the singing? There is something wrong here. If people are musical they will be able to appreciate music m the usual way; if they are not, they are obviously the last who should attempt to produce it. Congregational singing is a comparatively new departure m worship. We do not find it m the Old Testament. There we read of large and highly-trained bodies of musicians, set apart for conducting the worship, and it was clearly m their hands that the rendering of the music was left. The care of the sacred music Was confided to the hands of the Levites. David and, Solomon not only confined this privilege to the tribe of Levi but considerably increased and extended their musical duties. The Levites had to provide no less than 4000 singers and musicians for the sacred service. In the early church special choirs were set apart, and untrained persons were actually forbidden to raise their voices, as is shown by the decrees of the Council of Laodicea A.D. 863,

•which said that "Only those duly appointed should sing m Christian churches." The Reformation strove ta make public worship a reality for the people, but the point insisted upon was that the people should understand what vas being done and said, which is by no means the same thing as saying that they should be compelled to sing. Congregational singing, as now understood, is a later development since the Reformation, and it originated not with the sixteenth century reformers, but with the Puritans of the seventeenth. If it tends to edification let us use it, but m its proper place, with suitable regulations. The danger to-day seems to be iest it should be allowed to usurp a Salse position m worship m which case it Y<ould stay the development of church music and prevent advance. It requires that all music should be of Ihe simplest description, involving no knowledge, skill, or preparations for its rendering. Should it prevail to the exclusion of other music it would soon bring church music down to the lowest possible level, excluding all lofty artistic aims and ideals. What parts of a service is it practicable for a congregation to join m? The responses, metrical hymns, and all parts that are monotoned. Congregational singing should be m unison. If an attempt is made to introduce part singing the difficulties m the way of making it effective are insuperable. In part singing it is necessary that the parts be correctly taken and properly balanced: the former can very seldom be insured, the latter never. To improve congregational singing three things are necessary: — (1) Thjat thtose interested should possess books of music. (2) That they should meet for an occasional practice. (3) That they should be placed all. together. With regard to the chanting of the Psalms, the obstacles m the way of making it congregational, and, at the same time worthy of worship, are insurmountable. Good chanting is an exceedingly difficult thing to acquire. It is the most difficult thing a choir has to do. The difficulty lies m the fact that no two successive verses are identical m respect of number, grouping, and

accent of syllables, and consequently, tbe music has to be adapted afresh by the singer to each verse. As the method of fitting the syllables to the music varies greatly m different Psalters, it is possible to find any given verse "pointed" by different authorities m half a dozen different ways, each of which may be defended. In such cases, it is quite out of the question for an uninitiated person to guess how the Psalms are going to be sung, and hence arises hopeless confusion and discord. The difficulty is inherent m the nature ■ of the fij,ee rhythm of the Hebrew poetry, which, while possessing a unique beauty of its own, makes a faithful musical rendering a matter of extreme difficulty to the skilful, and an imposibility to the multitude. If the choirs are to be the recognised leaders of worship their attitude must be conformable with their position, and if they are to be the official singers, their singing must be worthy as an offering, and worth hearing as a means of edification. A choir should realise that they come to church for worship and v/orship alone. If this conviction is not always before their minds, their work m worthless, and labour spent m rain. At places with limited means no attempt should be made to imitate the cathedral style. In towns where there are plenty of boys available Usey may reasonably be employed, provided there is some prospect of having them taught the foundation work of voice production and singing. The object should be to attempt little, rvut to do that little as well as possible. In country churches, the difficulties m the way of a musical service are still greater, not only is it often im- • possible to secure a good teacher, but also the material for the selection of voices is limited. As a general rule, the music m a country parish church should be purely congregational, for the obvious reason that anything m the way of a full choral service properly rendered is impossible of attainment. The village choir should lead *and support the congregation, and should be content to aim at doing small things well. . [Ed. W.C.G. — We have very much pleasure m printing the above article, and will be glad to receive comments upon it from our readers-]