The Musical Heritage of the Church Volume V Edited by Theodore Hoelty-Nickel Valparaiso, Indiana The Musical Heritage of the Lutheran Church Volume V Table of Contents Editor’s Preface Foreword O. A. Dorn Introduction Theo. Hoelty-Nickel Liturgy and Theology Regin Prenter Martin Luther’s Concept of Worship Vilmos Vajta The Character of Christian Worship Martin J. Naumann The Life and Work of Samuel Scheidt Walter E. Buszin Michael Praetorius Creuzburgensis: Church Musician and Scholar L. B. Spiess Heinrich Schütz: Composer of the Bible Willem Mudde Nicolaus Bruhns Richard C. Fosse Vocal Leisen Settings in the Baroque Era Johannes Riedel The Choral Music of the Lutheran Kantorei Leo Schrade Johann Pachelbel’s Contribution to Pre-Bach Organ Literature Walter E. Buszin The Attaignant Organ Books M. Alfred Bichsel The Congregational Hymn as the Living Voice of the Gospel Richard R. Caemmerer From The Musical Heritage of the Lutheran Church, Volume V (Valparaiso, Ind.: Valparaiso University, 1945). Reprinted by permission of Valparaiso University. For personal use only. The Musical Heritage of the Lutheran Church Volume V Editor’s Preface The essays contained in this volume were presented at the Valparaiso University Church Music Seminar during its annual sessions from 1953 to 1957. They are published as Volume V of the Musical Heritage Series. It has been our policy to publish this material as it was presented at our conferences. The opinions expressed are those of the essayists and do not necessarily reflect our point of view. The editor wishes to extend his appreciation to the Aid Association for Lutherans of Appleton, Wisconsin, for the continuous interest in our program of studies in the field of church music and for making possible a wider distribution of this volume. The editor also wishes to extend his appreciation to Prof. E. Foelber and the editorial department of Concordia Publishing House for many suggestions. Theo. Hoelty-Nickel Valparaiso University February 3, 1959 Foreword Concordia Publishing House is pleased to make available Volume V of The Musical Heritage of the Lutheran Church. The essays in this volume as well as those in the previous volumes were presented at the Church Music Seminars conducted by Valparaiso University under the scholarly leadership of Dr. Theo. Hoelty-Nickel, head of the Department of Music. Those attending these seminars have benefited much, and their work has grown richer as a result. They discovered the creativeness evident in Lutheran music. They also, in some measure, achieved a unity of purpose and practice. The result has without question been a gradual but definite raising of the standards of church music throughout the Lutheran Church. Nor has the effect been evident solely in the Lutheran Church. There is also in other church bodies an evident reawakening in the entire field of church music. Thus the seminars have made a significant contribution to the church. O. A. Dorn From The Musical Heritage of the Lutheran Church, Volume V (Valparaiso, Ind.: Valparaiso University, 1945). Reprinted by permission of Valparaiso University. For personal use only. The Musical Heritage of the Lutheran Church Volume V Introduction The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech; and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. Psalm 19:1–4 a. The whole immense universe of God’s creation is presented to us by the psalmist as the visible and concrete evidence of divine glory to all men, all nations, and all tongues to see and to admire. This grand picture is a communication of the glory of the Creator. No less than five times in these three and one-half verses are terms used which emphasize communication: declare, show, utter, language, speech. It is significant that not in any way is this message given us in human words. Words are only poor substitutes for the eloquent language of beauty. Man has always realized that and has always tried to match in some way his words to the beauty which he sees. Music and all the arts, if properly understood, are the reflection of God’s glory in the heart and voice of man. The appreciation of beauty in this world is therefore a part of that ethos of the Christian life that comes from the realization of the grace of God in creation: and this ethos is, of course, possible only in the life of man who can see this world in the light of redemption. In the constant battle between man as a sinner and a violator of God’s orders, and man as a believer and a happy citizen of God’s cosmos—and this is the battle within man—in this constant battle we can see the debate of our times about the norms of art. The purely subjective feeds on the nature of man, whereas the truly objective tries to correct this. The reaction to the subjective perversions of beauty has led to pietistic and puritan sterility in art. The reaction of natural man to the bonds of Christian ethics has resulted in unnatural revolt to norms and orders of creation. It is our duty to understand the language of the universe as the psalmist speaks of it, as it is our duty to correct and to improve where we see that the language of art transgresses the boundaries of nature’s glory. In the question of the relevancy of art in our time we might ask: Has our time enforced its norms and standards in the music of our day, or has the music of our time maintained its own norms? We realize that the very words “norm” and “standard” are obnoxious to the free artist. These words sound too much like clanking chains and prison doors. An artist can get claustrophobia just hearing the word “norm.” He will say: What power, what society, what being has a right to dictate to me what my art ought to be! It must be clear to us that the true norms of art do not set laws. Yet no artist escapes completely the kind of norm his time and his environment and society sets. Every true artist will differentiate conscientiously between norms as historically evident rules and customs, and norms that are inherent in art itself. The historic norms are like the rules that established monocular perspective in painting at about the same time when music was limited to the major and minor modes. These standards are not valid for all times; they are limited, and they tell of a phase in the development of history. They are relevant to a time or phase. The true norms, however, are free of such relativities. Just as truth in religion cannot be relative, so norms are free and make an artist free. From The Musical Heritage of the Lutheran Church, Volume V (Valparaiso, Ind.: Valparaiso University, 1945). Reprinted by permission of Valparaiso University. For personal use only. The Musical Heritage of the Lutheran Church Volume V In our time and day the relevancy to music, or the relevancy of music to our time, should be evidenced in a democracy dedicated to the expression of the liberated spirit of the artist, free from and, where necessary, in protest against all trends. It is the need of our time and indeed very much of our culture that the artist born and bound at the same time in the true norm learns to express the very essence of things. Genuine norms are to be discovered in the things themselves (in God’s creation). Art, true and honest, deals with an object in the spirit of truth. All this, however, in the relation of things and art to man, that is, to man true to himself. The essence of man is to be human; anything more or less than human is nonhuman. This is an illustration, also, of the norms of true art. True art is bound by the essence of the object. Works of art are greater than any technical product. A hammer is to serve its purposes, or it is no hammer. But in a work of art, the whole man is addressed by the true essence of the object presented. And because art is relevant to man, true art addresses true man, that is, man true to his essence as a human being. This makes it easier for us to see a horizon. The scope of man is wide and far-reaching. No one can estimate the height and depth and width of man, and no one can exhaust the concept of art of man yesterday or today, not to mention the future. But we can and must attempt to say whether or not the ideal is approached in a specific case. Criteria that are helpful in evaluating art are hard to establish. Let us say that in any work of art something spiritual-mental becomes sensible, that is, can be seen or heard. The ideal would be that the thought can be fully apprehended. Wherever this relation is not evident, the work of art loses some of the essential value it ought to have. Sometimes the transfer is completely absent and the claim to being art is ridiculous. This can happen in various ways, and the ignoring of these dangers is characteristic of much of the work done by artists in our day. The essential value of a piece of art is destroyed or at least lessened when, for one thing, certain component parts act or appear independently of the whole of the work.