A Question

Why do Keith Getty's hymns sound like Twila Paris ripoffs?

A Place for Choir and Organ in Liturgy

In considering whether organs and choirs have a place in liturgy, you could say that the burden of proof lays with our Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran brother's who've relied on their use for hundreds of years.  Because the Bible doesn't command them, the Calvinist stands on surer ground.  Nevertheless, organ and choral music are useful to enhance congregational singing and lend majesty and splendor to worship which ought to be present.

Nicholas Wolterstorff has written a very honest article articulating the Reformed position on choirs and organ in liturgy.  He seems to assume the Regulative Principal rather than explaining it outright.  His closing point about simplicity is very good and I think acknowledges the flow of redemptive history.  Christ's redemptive work has drawn us nearer to God than rich outward signs of the OT were ever able to do.  Going out on a limb, we might say that "the look" of our worship should mimic (and prepare us for) the glorious scenes in Revelation even more than OT ceremony.

Ethnocentric Church Music

For all that evangelicals say condemning racism, it remains present in contemporary church music.  Grasping at idol of relevance inevitably leads to marginalizing slices of the populace.  Certainly we ignore the covenantal (i.e. multi-generational) aspect of worship when we turn to pop music as a model for worship song.  But perhaps more subtly, a lot of contemporary church music I know tends to appeal to white people, finding its inspiration often in rock or celtic styles.  Church music can and should have its own local flavor, but for the sake of unity, church music should also have broad appeal: "there is one Church, one Lord, one Baptism..."

Old hymns (texts and tunes together), particularly from the 16th century until the Second Great Awakening, remain the best congregational music the church has created.  These hymns teach Biblical truth in a way that is rather easy to sing and sing together as a body of believers; they move the affections while avoiding unhelpful sentimentality.  This style ought to form the model of new worship song.

Congregational Hymn: Sing and the Mystery Declare (Pange lingua)

I arranged this hymn for a congregation looking for something to sing during the Lord's Supper. The Pange lingua chant is an ancient hymn of the church and quite un-Protestant in its original poetry.  This newer version of the text is more useful.  Enjoy!

Hymn: Holy, Holy, Holy

 The four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne…(Revelation 4:8-10 ESV)  

The poet of the text, Reginald Heber, was an Anglican Minister who was appointed Bishop of Calcutta just a few years before an untimely death at the age of 43.  His hymn texts were composed early in his career while yet a parish priest in the west of England.  Among them are the Christmas text “Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning” and the striking and martial “The Son of God Goes Forth to War.”  Paraphrasing portions of Revelation 4, the text for “Holy, Holy, Holy” thoughtfully builds upon God’s triune nature by regularly joining together sets of three complimentary ideas.  These highlight God’s personal attributes (holy, merciful, mighty; power, love, purity), His eternal nature (wert, art, evermore), created beings that praise Him (saints, cherubim, seraphim), and the places wherein God is praised (earth, sky, sea).  

The tune NICAEA, was composed specifically for this text and is aptly named after the Council of Nicea (325 AD), a church council that defended the doctrine of the Trinity.  The Nicene Creed, the most widely utilized confession of the Church, originated with this council.  The tune’s composer, John Dykes, built the melody upon an ascending melodic triad, a three-note chord that musically symbolizes the triune Godhead.  The hymn has become classic due in part to the majestic quality that the tune lends to the text.  Dykes, also an English clergyman, composed texts and music for numerous hymns.  His best-known tunes are found in the hymns “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say,” “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” and “Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee.”

Judging a Bad Hymn

Until rather recently, Westerners believed that pure music is meaningful apart from extra-musical texts, narratives, or images.  Plato and Aristotle had a lot to say about music's meaning and use in affecting society.  The early Church Fathers, taking up the baton, condemned pagan musical practice using the logic they inherited from the philosophers and combining it with sound Biblical reasoning.  Throughout its history, the Church has maintained that music is meaningful and thus ought to be closely regulated.  It is only in the last couple of centuries that Western opinion has become skeptical of the idea of musical meaning.

In our present situation the Church is at best reluctant to make musical judgements.  At worst, the Church is unable to make such judgements at all.  One of the primary areas in which we've abdicated judging musical meaning is how we match texts and tunes inappropriately.

For example, the following text represents the direst spiritual situation any human could experience: 

Out of my bondage, sorrow, and night,
Jesus, I come!
Into Thy freedom, gladness, and light,
Jesus, I come to Thee!
Out of my sickness into Thy health,
Out of my want and into Thy wealth,
Out of my sin and into Thyself,
Jesus, I come to Thee! 

This is a beloved hymn text and for good reason: it describes the sinner's lost condition apart from the Savior and does so with clear imagery.  Yet when it comes the music, the hymn fails.  This is because the tune has nothing to do with bondage, sorrow, night, sickness, want, or sin.  The tune is breezy, and carefree.  Combined with this text, the hymn is flippant and makes light of a grand and serious subject.  This is not to say that their isn't happiness in the text--the text IS happy, but there is a difference between flippant happiness and the happiness of relief from hardship.  The tune sounds like carousel music from a really old one.  There's nothing wrong with music like that or feeling nostalgic listening to it.  It simply fails to convey the text in an accurate and meaningful way and in that sense the hymn fails.  

God calls us to real abundant human life in Christ.  Our hymns--text and music together--ought to portray our life accurately and sincerely.

Puritans and Church Music

I have recently been reading Percy Scholes's Puritans and Music (OUP, 1934), a work that examine's the Puritan attitude toward music--an attitude that by no means condemned music in general, but rather served to elevate secular music as a noble pursuit.  Through a series of essay-like chapters, Scholes convincingly makes a case for a high view of music and the arts among the English Puritans.  Time and time again Scholes reiterates Puritan disapproval of instrumental and polyphonic music in church and in one chapter devoted entirely to the subject, he outlines various manifestations of this point of view in and outside of English Puritanism.  

Iconoclasm is useful in church history to purge abuses of the arts but I think it ought to be the exception and not the rule, namely because it can tend to misplace our priorities.  The worship of God is our highest calling as men and the character and setting of our worship reflects the greatness of God's glory.  If secular music is the "best" and most cultivated music, then church music essentially lies about the character of God.  Obviously there is a lot to be qualified in these statements, but simply put, plain worship poorly represents the great God it seeks to serve.

Funny quote--Haydn's The Seasons

From Jacobs's Choral Music, page 169: "The Seasons (1801), Haydn's last major work, does not stand up to complete performance, partly because the recitatives grow wearisome as one's indifference to the fate of Jane, Lucas, and Simon increases."

A Problem with Contemporary Worship Music

While trying to be relevant and contemporary-sounding, praise music falls sadly behind the pack of cultural progress and becomes irrelevant.  New trends and fashions change continuously and are difficult to keep up with.  Some may claim they are not trying to be cutting edge but are rather trying to do music in a style that the culture understands.  But what does the culture understand and what sort of music has broad appeal that church people young , old, black, white, life-longers, new converts, and seekers can all appreciate?  I suggest that contemporary worship music can't do what its proponents say it can.

A problem that plagues all art is the reality of context; that a work of art is tied to a point in time, and has particular audience in mind.  The context of worship song is the worship service itself, while the context of contemporary praise music is popular music which is in constant change.  For all its merits, this video to the writer sounds like post-grunge music that appealed to young white people back in the mid-1990s .  (I may be hearing a trace of The Wall Flowers?)  In such a case, how does invoking this music actually side track and distract from authentic worship?  I say we must consider our music choices carefully, keeping the special character of worship in view.  God does not share His glory with a competing god, and we must take care to make sure this doesn't happen when our music suggests something other than God's glory.

Hymn: O Love, How Deep, How Broad, How High

...have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge… Eph. 3:17-19

These verses form the basis of the first stanza of this hymn. The remaining stanzas describe the magnitude of Christ’s love in His life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and in sending of the Holy Spirit.  Although it is primarily about Christ, it acknowledges the full, Triune nature of God as it closes with a paraphrase of the Gloria Patri (“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was…”).  The hymn text, in its original Latin, is often ascribed to Thomas à Kempis, author of the devotional book The Imitation of Christ.

The exuberant tune, DEO GRACIAS, was composed shortly around 1415 when the English defeated the French at Agincourt in Normandy.  The music was originally set to another text thanking God for England’s victory.  The film score to Lawrence Olivier’s Henry V, which retells the famous battle, quotes this tune to stunning effect.

As you sing this rousing hymn, enjoy the jaunty, dance-like rhythms of the music.  The music is a fitting match for the lofty, celebratory, Christ-centered text.

Psalm 119:103-4

Here's another setting I recently completed of a couple verses from Psalm 119.  Enjoy!

Setting of the Magnificat

Here's a new Magnificat setting I composed last summer.  We've used it at our church with some success.  Give it a whirl and let me know what you think.

Genevan Psalm 124

Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

(Psalm 124:8, ESV)

One of the great benefits of the Reformation of the sixteenth century was the recovery of congregational singing.  Luther, Reformer both of church doctrine and worship practice, believed the pursuit of music was secondary only to the study of theology.  Thus music flourished in Lutheran circles and set a faithful precedent for other protestant churches.  Calvinistic congregations took to singing metrical psalms: psalms poetically paraphrased into the native tongue of the local church.  In the centuries following the Reformation, Reformed churches sang only psalms, without harmony or accompaniment.  Yet, the simple and unadorned music that originated in Calvin’s church in Geneva saw widespread popularity throughout Europe.  (Elizabeth I of England supposedly nicknamed the jaunty tunes “Geneva Jigs.”)

The music of the Genevan Psalter was composed and edited largely by Loys (Louis) Bourgeois, composer of the tune ‘Old Hundredth’ (TH 1), commonly sung to the Doxology text “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”  Within a few years, the Genevan Psalter was the official hymnal of the Genevan church and was so highly regarded that the Bourgeois himself was later arrested for altering the tunes.  Unfortunately, this event forced him to turn his back on the Genevan church and leave the city.

‘Old 124^th’, another of Bourgeois’s tunes, was composed early in the development of the Genevan Psalter and was carried to England and Scotland by the returning exiles that had earlier fled the persecutions of Mary Tudor.  Scottish Presbyterians in particular seem to have latched on to this stirring psalm setting.

"Come Ye Thankful People, Come"

Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. (Ps. 126:6 ESV)

The phrase “Harvest Home” describes the act of gathering grain from the fields into the village for storage and refers a time of celebration and thanksgiving.  Scripture often connects harvest with rejoicing.  In Ps. 126, for example, sowing seed is a mournful deed in comparison to the peals of joy that accompany the reaping of grain.  Men rejoice at harvest, relieved from the summer’s heat, the weeds and pests, and from anxiously praying for rain.

Recalling the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares in Mt. 13, the hymn writer uses the grain harvest as a metaphor for the harvest of the redeemed that shall yet occur in history.  The wholesome wheat and troublesome tares grow up together in the same field, but at the harvest God separates the plants for storage or destruction.  Harvest is a day of rejoicing because the grain is gathered into storage and the weeds have been eradicated for all time.

The hymn’s tune, ST. GEORGE’S, WINDSOR, is a majestic, almost regal melody.  The tune appropriately matches this text of Christian experience: it is at once joyous, thankful, and respectful of hardship that has been long endured.  The name of the tune derives from the London church where George Elvey was employed as organist.  The tune is easy to sing and remember because of recurring rhythmic and melodic elements.  Whereas it would be easy for these motives to become tediously repetitive, Elvey has incorporated enough variation to make the tune at once both memorable and interesting.

The High Call to Worship

I lament an obvious lack of experience in music and singing in our culture. Nowhere is this lack more troubling than in our institutions of higher ed. It is shocking and appalling that college students in very good music programs read music so poorly. I sing in a college choral ensemble and our director recently commented to me on how poorly some of the students read notes.

The problem is not necessarily the fault of the singers themselves. They just simply haven't been taught to read notes. Again, the problem here is cultural. Our culture's pragmatism and desire for instant gratification have allowed the next generation of pro musicians and teachers to go without basic musicianship training. As mentioned before, part of this problem simply stems from worship. In worship we make a joyful noise unto God through song and this is something we do regularly and with purpose. Pragmatism has spoiled communal music-making in the schools, turning an exercise that in itself is worthwhile into concert preparation: "kids, we've got to learn these 8 songs for our holiday concert in December. Ready,...altos..." The kids learn their notes by rote and learn very little about personal responsibility and skill. On the other had, weekly worship is a performance before the Almighty, not a rehearsal, and the purpose and object of worship is worthy and true. So the church's music making is better than the world's, because 1. we have more "concerts" and, 2. our goal is divine.

But do we in the church think of worship as a performance, and what are we doing to prepare ourselves and our kids for hearty praise each Sunday? If nothing, we are no better than the heathen who do what they have to do prepare for the concert.

The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing. (Psalm 65:13)

This verse supports the medieval notion that creation is ordered much like a piece of music. The order and harmony of the earth itself sings God’s praise. In Paul’s language, God’s invisible attributes are known from the things made. Our songs then should reflect the harmony of the Godhead, the wisdom of God in creation, and strive remind us of God’s manifold attributes.

Problems that Face Reforming Singing in Worship

In our church community in Moscow, Idaho we speak a lot about the importance of hearty singing in worship. The way I've said it is that in many churches singing is one of the few really active things the congregation does in the service. It thus behooves us to sing well. Yet in our culture there are many obstacles to this goal. We live in a narcissistic age when comfort, ease, and pleasure seem to be man's "chief end." To the evangelical and world-ling alike the reality of sensuous entertainment in our lives has made us a culture of spectators, a right that in past ages belonged only to those of the highest social cast. We sit around like a bunch of nobles with our courtly entertainers parading before us in sensational splendor. In a sense we have more power than they of old, because we have electronic buttons and dials. In a digital age everything is tidy: no booing is necessary.

Instantaneous entertainment has made us flabby. Robust singing in worship would have not been a stretch to our lower and middle-class forefathers because it was simply part of their culture. Singing was a form of entertainment and a way of easing the drudgery of hard labor. In our time we let others do the singing for us in our leisure time and over the radio while we paint the trim. So if we would sing well in worship, we must first sing everywhere else.

Didactic Singing

It has been said that preaching should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Music in God's worship ideally will do a similar thing. As we sing God's praises we are reminded of the protection and Fatherly care we receive from God (Psalm 91) as well the seriousness of sin (Psalm 51) and importance of righteousness (Psalm 15). From the references in Ephesians and Colossians we know that singing is a means of teaching and correcting one another. This is consistent with the view that the book of Psalms in addition to being "the prayers of David" are a microcosm of the entire canon of scripture: we learn the Bible as we sing the psalms and therefore teach each other through singing.

Just what form this takes requires study and reflection and will inevitably lead to some liturgical reform. The fact is that the metrical psalms we sing in our Reformed churches aren't set up well for "teaching and admonishing one another," for in Hebrew poetry the natural dialogue that occurs structurally is downplayed in metrical settings. The didactic element of singing Paul talks about is likely the physical and spacial performance of the parallel phrase structure in the psalms. Early Christians would have been familiar with this method of singing from what was done in Jewish worship. In singing to each other (i.e. Dec. and Can.) we tangibly "discern the body" similarly as when taking the Supper.

Review
Singing and Making Music
Paul S. Jones
Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2006

Paul Jones’s Singing and Making Music published by P&R is a diverse collection of essays on church music. Various topics Jones considers are payment of church musicians, the role and qualifications of church musicians, church music in small churches, the role of the accompanist in worship; ascriptions in the psalms, hymn writing, congregational singing, children’s music programs, and Martin Luther and Bar songs, to name just a few. Although this book doesn’t strive to be a comprehensive theology of music it examines a lot of the practical out-workings of a solidly Biblical foundation for music.

Jones is the music director at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, James Montgomery Boice’s former congregation. When Boice was still living he and Jones collaborated in composing a new collection of hymns which were published under the title, Hymns for a Modern Reformation. These hymns elaborate on the classic doctrines of the Reformed faith and the famous solas. Jones has gone on to complete other hymns with Eric J. Alexander. Jones is an organist, choir director, as well as a composer. His credentials render him a musician worth listening to in these days of confusion in worship.

In Singing and Making Music Jones writes many helpful insights into music making in the church. One such insight is found in the essay on accompanying congregational singing. Jones mentions that the pianist or organist must be careful to introduce a hymn at the speed the congregation is to sing throughout the hymn that follows. Jones recommends he not slow down too much or at all at the end of the introduction so that speed is lost and confusion ensues when the first stanza begins. Moreover, Jones encourages the organist to mind the meaning of the text being sung. Punctuation should not be ignored; registration and articulation should be explored to help the music match the meaning of the text. A congregationally-minded accompanist will pay heed to such advice. This essay alone should be read by all church accompanists, especially those new to the job. It is examples such as these that make Jones book indispensable advice for the church.

For those that are looking for an in-depth theological discussion of church music Jones’s book is likely to disappoint and certainly that sort of book was not his goal. Nevertheless, professional and volunteer church musicians, as well as pastors and elders would benefit from reading this book and considering Jones’s helpful insights.

Cantus Christi in Recordings, II

Another recording I recently discovered that contains selections also found in the Cantus Christi is a recording of Genevan Psalms sung in Japanese (of all things), performed by Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan. I just got this in the mail yesterday and my wife and I listened to this as we were drifting off to sleep last night.

It's a really great CD. It contains versions of Genevan Psalms harmonized in four parts by Goudimel, in viruostic solo settings for recorder by van Eyck, in variation settings for organ by Sweelinck, and lute settings by Vallet. Many of the psalms are sung in unison accompanied from the organ by Masaaki Suzuki, the founder and conductor of the BCJ. (Suzuki is a member of the Tokyo-oncho Reformed Church.) I presume that Suzuki provides many of these wonderful arrangements himself.

For those unfamiliar with the BCJ they are a group of the highest merit and performance quality. I have a couple of their recordings of Baroque sacred music, one of which is their recording of Messiah. Their Messiah recording has received high marks and I agree that it is wonderfully performed. The BCJ is known for its recordings of Bach's Church Cantatas on the BIS label. These are also fantastic.

High-points on the Psalm disc are the elaborate and moving exploration of Psalm 36, the rustic and energetic rendition of Psalm 47, complete with hand clapping, and the awesome variation on Psalm 118 for solo recorder. This disc is well worth the money for anyone familiar with the Genevan Psalms. The fact that the pieces are sung in Japanese should not scare anyone off. Other recordings I've mentioned are sung in French,...so?

Of the fifteen Psalms on the disc ten are also found in the Cantus Christi. Cantus singers are encouraged get copies of it.

Enjoy!