Currently viewing the tag: "church music"
It is irresponsible to claim that Luther used tunes from secular loves songs for his hymns and compare it to today’s situation.
If there is one argument in defense of bringing secular musical forms into the church that I’ve heard more than any other, it is certainly one that insists that Luther used [...]
Continue Reading →There were many composers, writers, and organizations during the nineteenth century that objected to the current condition of American church music and encouraged reform. Yet none had as lasting influence as the Boston Handel and Haydn Society, Thomas Hastings, and Lowell Mason.
Boston Handel and Haydn Society
The Handel and Haydn Society was formed in 1815 in Boston [...]
Continue Reading →I have suggested that the 19th century in America was a time in which three forms of culture began to emerge distinct from one another: cultivated, communal, and commercial culture. There exists some disagreement amongst scholars, however, over whether this division between folk, popular, and cultivated music was really a distinction between American music and European [...]
Continue Reading →Church music in nineteenth century America can be summarized very simply with one word: reform. In many ways, the influential writers and composers of the nineteenth century were bent upon rejecting the new music of eighteenth century American composers and returning to more established classical traditions. In order to understand their motivation, however, one must consider both the changes [...]
Continue Reading →The development of American church music during the nineteenth century has important implications for the philosophy and practice of church music in the twentieth century and beyond. Indeed, “it would be difficult to overstate the impact that antebellum sacred music reforms had on subsequent musical developments in America, and many scholars identify this period as [...]
Continue Reading →In my handful of posts this month, I want to give some anecdotes from church history to inform us as to how missionaries, attempting to plant indigenous church, should approach the issue of music in the culture in which they minister. My posts will not always touch on music per se, but instead explore the [...]
Continue Reading →The dethroning of the Church by Reason and the creation of pop culture left the Church in an awkward position. Its cultural influence was non-existent. As the culture around it plunged into sanitized paganism, the Church’s traditional forms became foreign. The Church was in Babylon, yet it was free to worship as it pleased. So [...]
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