by Fred Moleck
The History of American Church Music
Last Friday and Saturday, I attended the initial meeting of a group of church music professors hosted by the Calvin Institute at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.Dr. Victor Gebauer invited us to participate in a consultation on the status and future of the history of American church music.
Dr. Gebauer is a Lutheran pastor, retired professor, musician, writer, and a master of convening and facilitating. He shepherded us through a very productive and enjoyable twenty-four hours of fruitful discussions.
I must admit I had a little trepidation that the direction we would take would not be inclusive of worship music of the Hispanic, African-American, and Asian-American populations of the United States, let alone Canada, Mexico, and South America.
That fear dissolved when I saw at the table Melva Costen, the icon of African-American church music, and Maria Chow, who has done an important study on the diversity of music in the Chinese-American population.
The other members of the group were like a who’s who in university church music departments. Needless to say, I felt somewhat peripheral.
All of us shared a concern that there is no definitive or even a semidefinitive book on the history of American church music. The books we have used in our classes are outdated and hopelessly noninclusive.
We were set into motion by a recorded presentation by Dr. Robin Leaver of Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey.
He listed four problem areas and told us why they are problematic.
1.
Historiography. The focus is chronologically centered on composers and not on the whole picture of the development of music. For example, Josquin eclipses all other composers of his time; someone like Johann Walter, Martin Luther’s music advisor, is ignored, as well as the vast liturgical music of the newly reformed churches.
2.
Geography. The study of American church music has always been centered on the New England Anglo-Saxon colonies. There is no recognition of the sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century developments in New Spain (Mexico), New France (Canada) and New Netherlands (New York). African-American music is limited to a few spirituals.
3.
Immigration. The nineteenth- and twentieth-century deluge of Western and Eastern Europeans and their religious and music traditions cannot be found in extant music history sources today. The Mennonite foundations are an exception.
4.
Migration. Within the immigration, music practices migrate within the various communities as they adopt and adapt both repertory and music performance.
It is this last point that really fascinated me. Perhaps it is because it is the phenomenon that occurred right after the Second Vatican Council.
An example of postconciliar music making is how Catholics appropriated a large amount of the hymnody from Protestant traditions ranging from high-church to low-church styles.
During this period, countless Catholic organists continued the tradition of playing hymns at a lethally slow tempo—just how they played the benediction and novena hymns. If they played them in a vigorous manner, they were accused of playing like a Protestant!
The lines between Catholic and Protestant hymn texts and practice since then have blurred. The process is still going on. A sign of its success is how traditional Protestant hymns make up a significant part of the mainstream Catholic parish repertory.
“Amazing Grace” is a good example. In fact, it’s listed as one of the “Catholic classics” on the GIA recording CD-376.
The hymn has gained international recognition; it’s even now a staple in funeral bagpipe music. Forty years ago, the hymn was known only in some Protestant traditions and was rarely heard played on the bagpipes.
I wonder if the masterminds of Vatican II had ever heard of “Amazing Grace,” let alone heard it played on the bagpipes at funeral liturgies.
I wonder if they had ever heard bagpipes.
Another form of this crossover of styles happens when the contemporary ensemble listens to the most recent “hot” music item on a CD, which is frequently overproduced.
They try to replicate the style with two guitars and a set of bongo drums.
It doesn’t work, but it does generate a hybrid musical style that could very well evolve into another distinct performance practice.
There are no directives from Vatican offices nor NPM workshops on how to transfer musical styles and practices into the mainstream of American church music.
It happens and it will continue to happen as long as human musicians encounter other musicians in their playing and singing together. When that moment happens, it is life changing and grace filled.
How amazing this grace that causes us to ask, “How can I keep from singing?”
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@earthlink.net