Augustine, Luther, and the National Guard

I went to see the film "Avatar" the other day. (As an aside: It was quite good, though I found it to paint quite a bleak picture of humanity.) Before the movie, though, there was a fascinating ad from the National Guard.

In many ways, it was the typical military recruitment sequence: men and women in various inspiring situations, from climbing mountains to crawling through mud, from flying planes to working at a computer. What I found fascinating was the background music. It was neither a military march nor a patriotic tune. It was a large orchestral and choral work that could only summon the opening strains of Carmina Burana to my mind. It gave the message a unique power to capture my attention during previews I would typically ignore. Yet the incongruence of the music and the images unsettled me and made me marvel at the choice.

The issue of that contrast reminded me of the contrasting philosophies of church music of Augustine and Luther. Augustine largely argued against music in church, viewing it as a distraction from the theological message. In his "Confessions," he wrote, "Yet when it happens to me that the music movesme more than the subject of the song, I confess myself to commit a sin deserving punishment, and then I would prefer not to have heard the singer." By contrast, Luther said "Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us."

They both have a point. Music is powerful, and that power can be used to enhance a message, but it can sometimes distract us from a true understanding. It's always good to be reminded of the true purpose of worship and music, even when the source is an unorthodox reminder.

Luther and hymns

Most Lutherans love to sing the hymn "A Mighty Fortress is Our God." It is certainly Luther's best known contribution to church music. But Luther was a prolific writer of texts as well as tunes. He was an acclaimed singer. Most of all, he was an enthusiastic supporter of the importance of congregational singing.

This was in marked contrast to a thousand years of precendent before his time. In the 4th century, the Laodicean Council made this argument: "If laymen are forbidden to preach and interpret the Scriptures, much more are they forbidden to sing publicly in church."

Martin Luther's stance was the diametric opposite. "Let God speak to His people through the Scriptures; let His people respond with the singing of hymns," he wrote. Furthermore, he held music in such high esteem that he remarked, "Next to theology, I give the first and highest honor to music."

Luther's music was an important tool in shaping the Reformation and winning adherents to his cause. Joyful hymns should continue to be a highlight of our services. As Kenneth Osbeck wrote in his book Singing with Understanding, "Atheism has its arguments but no songs...the entertainment world introduces thousands of new lyrics and melodies each year, but few meet the heart-felt needs of the human soul and thereby survive the test of time."

Our Lutheran legacy and theology are encapsulated in the ELW - sing it loud and proud, knowing how valuable those hymns are!

Reformation hymns

This Sunday we'll continue our build-up to Reformation Sunday at the end of the month. Pastor's sermon series is providing the perfect reason to play variations on "A Mighty Fortress" at various points in the service each week, including this week's meditative prelude. Ever since Luther first wrote the hymn, composers have found inspiration in the hymn and have written countless arrangements and interpretations of the tune.

The process of building upon past tunes and musical ideas is part of the total experience of music. Music is about patterns, and our ears learn to hear and even expect certain chord progressions and melodies. I've heard it suggested that the reason we sometimes dislike music (even to extreme cases like the riot that occurred at the premiere of "Rite of Spring") is because we cannot recognize the patterns within the music.

From that point of view, some of the best church music is endowed with its meaning and structure from its incorporation of meaningful motifs. Like a Wagnerian opera where each character has its own leitmotif, a prelude that incorporates "Ein Feste Burg" inevitably provokes thoughts of Luther while "Lasst Uns Erfreuen" conjures up Easter memories. This October, I hope your prayers and meditations consistently include that confident phrase from Psalm 46 that God is our refuge and strength, a truly "mighty fortress."

This week we'll also be singing the great hymn "Thy Strong Word," and the choir will change gears from the classical sound of Bach to a romantic melody by Brahms. We hope you enjoy listening and joining in with us in worship and praise.

Happy Labor Day!

I hope everyone is enjoying the long holiday weekend. The lateness of the holiday this year simply seems to be providing a chance to catch my breath after one week of school. I miss the many past years that I spent this weekend "up at the lake" with my grandparents in Minnesota. It was a family tradition to spend the long weekend running, biking, swimming, skiing, and of course, having s'mores around an evening campfire. Simple things are sometimes the greatest experiences and memories.

Perhaps it was the relative simplicity of the tunes in church this past Sunday that has caused me to to continue humming them to myself as my weekend "sountrack." For one thing, didn't the choir sound great on a familiar hymn? Cassie has some great selections for the coming weeks, too, and you're always welcome to join us on Wednesday nights at 7:30.

I also want to compliment the congregation on how great everyone sounded on "This is the Feast." In an earlier post, I encouraged you all to "sin boldly," which actually drew two emails pointing out that perhaps it was a typo. Did I mean "sing boldly?" I realized that many of my readers are not familiar with my choir-directing mantra to "sin boldly," meaning to go right ahead and sing wrong notes loud and proud while you're learning new music. I'm indebted to a former choir director (Dr. Bob) at St. Olaf College, who would use the phrase as well. Part of the joy that I find in Lutheranism is that salvation by grace and faith can grant us the freedom to sin, sing, and live boldly, acting with "bound conscience" to live in a way that matches our understanding of scripture.

At any rate, I think setting two of the liturgy has officially become a part of our basic, familiar repertoire, and it's exciting to hear the congregation embrace the new tunes. Incidentally, for my non-Bethany readers, I'd love to hear about your experiences with other music from the ELW and your own favorite liturgical settings. So many congregations are still exploring and learning; we should be sharing those experiences!

Llanfair and Truro and Bohm (oh my!)

The Easter celebration continues! One of the great things about Easter is that we don't have to hear our greatest hymns corrupted by pop singers, Muzak, and even barking dogs for weeks and weeks prior to the holiday, so we can instead continue to sing them with gusto and glee for several Sundays.

Llanfair is the tune of the hymn "Christ the Lord is Risen Today; Alleluia!" (ELW 369), which we'll be singing and which you can also hear in the postlude. It's a perrenial favorite, and in the best tradition of Easter hymns it includes plenty of Alleluias. We have to make up for Lent, after all. So as always I encourage everyone to sing it loud and proud - even if you don't think you have a "great voice," follow Luther's advice and sin boldly. Wrong notes are awfully minor sins.

Truro is another great Easter hymn. You'll hear phrases from it in the prelude. The prelude is a musical rendition of both Good Friday and Easter. Echoes of "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded" at the beginning remind us of the confusion and fear that surrounded Holy Week, but the piece resolves in a joyous ending of another familiar Easter hymn.

Finally, Bohm is the composer of the second prelude. He was a 17th century precursor to Bach, and I'll be playing one of his arrangements of the Lord's Prayer. (Incidentally, that spot in our service could really use a name - is it the second prelude, the short prelude, contemplation music? Leave a suggestion in the comments!)

Durch Adams Fall (Wed night's prelude)

Through Adam's fall human nature

And character is completely corrupted...

Just as another's guilt has brought us

Shame in Adam,

So another's grace in Christ has brought

Us all reconciliation;

And just as for me through Adam's fall

Everything perished eternally in death,

So God through Christ's death

Has renewed what was ruined.

(Hymn's full text available here)

We're nearing the end of Lent. The week before Holy Week is always a busy time of preparing music, and it can make me feel bipolar to rehearse for the last Lenten service and Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter. There is such a contrast and variety of musical styles and moods involved in the Passion story that follows the celebration of Palm Sunday.

Before that story unfolds in scripture, music, and worship, however, the prelude this Wednesday hearkens back to Ash Wednesday and the necessity of Christ's sacrifice. The prelude will be a trio setting of the hymn "Durch Adams Fall" by Wilhelm Friedrich Bach (grandson of J.S. Bach). The hymn no longer appears in many modern hymnals, but it has a long and notable history in the Lutheran and musical traditions.

Luther quotes the hymn in the Book of Concord when discussing original sin. The hymn begins with the reminder that we are sinners in need of forgiveness, dust of the earth, as we confessed on Ash Wednesday. But the text goes on to speak of redemption: Christ, as another Adam, has redeemed us all.

The music for the hymn can be found in church books as far back as 1529, and it inspired multiple arrangements, fugues, and chorales from many notable composers, including J.S. Bach, Pachelbel, Buxtehude, and Telemann. It's a shame that we don't sing or know this hymn any longer because it negates the meaning of the melody. This Wednesday night, though, I hope you listen to the music and meditate on the transition from Lent to Holy Week.

More WTC and Dies Sind

This Sunday's preludes both hail from the root of our Lutheran musical traditions. First, I'm continuing with my Lenten presentation of selections from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, this time the c minor from his second book. I'll be playing it on the piano instead of the harpsichord, and I'm hopeful that it will make the fugue structure even clearer.

Second, I'll be playing a setting of Luther's hymn of the 10 commandments. Most of you will know that we're singing it on Wednesday nights, and I'll be echoing that melody in the prelude on Sunday morning. The hymn may be unfamiliar now, but it will be returned to its rightful place in our congregation's musical canon by our repetition of it this spring.

Incidentally, I read a brief snippet this week that claimed Bach's later career was "Christianity's gain but...music's loss." The author lamented that Bach was not free to explore all of the musical forms and instruments that were becoming known in his later years. I can't help but disagree and argue that a man who wrote "Soli deo gloria" on so many manuscripts was too devout ever to view his years as a church musician as negative for his musical career.

How do you feel about Bach and his music in the church today? Should we hear more of it? Should we move on to a more contemporary sound? Should we strive for balance? I tend to fall into the latter camp, and I hope you're enjoying the WTC series for Lent!