Through much of the nineteenth century, worship in liturgical churches followed largely low-church convictions. In the mid-nineteenth century and continuing into the twentieth, many of these churches began recovering ancient patterns of worship. In music, this meant the recovery of Gregorian chant in the Catholic church, the return of Lutherans to sixteenth-century liturgy forms, a movement in some Anglican churches away from Puritan-influenced worship to the recovery of catholic forms, and the trend in some free churches from revival-style worship to quasi-liturgical practices.
Worship Forms and Music in Diverse Churches
It has already been noted that, in its frontier culture, early American worship practices were exceedingly primitive. Concurrent with advances in education and in the arts, there was pressure in the older churches for the development and the standardization of worship forms. Following the War for Independence, all Protestant bodies severed their Old World connections. Nevertheless, worship design was frequently influenced by liturgical movements abroad as well as at home. At the same time, this interest in patterned worship came into direct conflict with the repeated outbreaks of revivalism. Through the years, there has been continuing tension between these two forces—formal versus spontaneous worship.
In the twentieth century, we have seen “thesis, antithesis, and synthesis” in the outworking of the struggle. Some groups are clearly “formal” or clearly “spontaneous” in worship habits. In other churches, a new interest in liturgy and liturgical symbolism has been coupled with a concern for Christian fellowship and a desire for spontaneity in worship.
The Liturgical Communions
Roman Catholic. Roman Catholic worship in America is not appreciably different from that in other parts of the world, and it did not change its basic patterns from the Council of Trent (1562) until the Second Vatican Council (1962). Nevertheless, there has been considerable diversity in the music which accompanies the liturgy.
Little is known about Roman Catholic music in the thirteen colonies. In 1787, A Compilation of the Litanies, Vespers, Hymns and Anthems As They Are Sung in the Catholic Church was published in Philadelphia by John Aitken, containing litanies, historic hymns, psalms, anthems, a Mass of the Blessed Trinity, a requiem mass (in plainsong), and a Solemn Mass with musical settings in both Latin and English. In the nineteenth century, new waves of Catholic immigrants came to these shores, mostly from very humble circumstances in Europe. Consequently, their musical expectations were very limited, and in most churches there was no singing at all.
In those that supported choral music, the preference was for nineteenth-century operatic styles, in many instances performed by a quartet choir. In a few dioceses, beginning in the late nineteenth century, the influence of John B. Singenberger (1848–1924) and his Cecilian Society led to musical reform. Like the parent Cecilian movement in Germany, this group espoused the revival of Gregorian chant, a return to a cappella polyphonic forms, and vernacular congregational singing. However, its influence was chiefly felt in the German communities of Cincinnati, Chicago, and Milwaukee. Most Catholics in typical parish churches continued to favor the spoken mass, and singing occurred only in the popular novena services.
Lutheran. Lutherans have brought many different national and regional traditions to this country. Those who found homes in the East lost their ethnic language and identity more quickly than those who settled later in the Midwest. Consequently, Lutheran worship (and especially its hymnody) along the Atlantic seaboard was more Anglo-American than German or Scandinavian. Many adherents had been identified with the pietist movements within European Lutheranism, and in this country that influence was intensified by revivalist activity. In the mid-nineteenth century, a growing disaffection with revival-influenced worship was fed by the sentiments of new European immigrants. The widespread desire to recover their confessional roots resulted in a conference of all Lutheran groups which adopted a Common Service in 1888, based on “the common consent of the pure Lutheran liturgies of the sixteenth century.” Nevertheless, there continued to be considerable variation in Lutheran worship, since conformity was not obligatory. In the late twentieth century, there seems to be a growing preference for a completely vernacular version of Martin Luther’s Formula missae as evidenced in the ecumenical Lutheran Book of Worship (1978).
American Lutherans inherited the European preference for an ante-Communion service. Through the nineteenth century, the full Eucharist was observed only a few times each year. In recent years, Holy Communion has been offered more frequently, and the historic Lutheran Matins service has also been used, perhaps once each month. In the nineteenth century, congregational singing was the musical norm. In the East, Anglo-American hymn traditions prevailed, while the Midwest churches perpetuated their German or Scandinavian hymnody. In recent years, Lutherans countrywide have shown a desire to share their unique ethnic traditions while preserving their common Reformation heritage. In addition, thanks largely to the efforts of Concordia Publishing Company, choirs are using plainsong, as well as polyphonic styles, in singing the “propers” of the liturgy.
Anglican. Established in the colony of Virginia in the early seventeenth century, the Church of England in America was organically united to the bishoprics of Canterbury and York. The church grew rapidly and by the time of the American Revolution was the dominant religious force in this country. After the Declaration of Independence, Anglicans in the United States formed an independent Protestant Episcopal Church, linked only in heritage and in fellowship with the Anglican Communion worldwide. In colonial days, and even much later, Anglicans used the services of morning and evening prayer almost exclusively, with Communion being observed only three or four times a year. The American Book of Common Prayer was derived from Cranmer’s Prayer Book of 1549 (through the Scottish Book of Common Prayer) and was less Calvinistic than the 1552 and 1662 books that were commonly used in England.
According to Leonard Ellinwood, the music of colonial Anglican worship was scarcely different from that of the Puritans in New England and consisted mostly of metrical psalms sung with the aid of a precentor. Anglican chant was introduced during the last two decades of the eighteenth century, and its use became common within a short time. There is further record that organs began to be used in the 1700s, playing a voluntary following the “Psalms of the day” and an offertory for receiving the collection. A few choirs (with boys singing the treble parts) also appeared during the eighteenth century. All of the extant music from that period is related to the services of Matins and Vespers.
In the mid-nineteenth century, the Episcopal church was influenced by the ideas of the Oxford Movement, which brought back much of orthodox theology and liturgy into a number of British churches—reviving the ancient Greek and Latin hymns in English translations, Gregorian chant, and the use of symbolism in vestments, furnishings, and liturgical action. This worship revolution, together with the advent of liberal theology in another group of Anglican churches, eventually resulted in the development of three Anglican parties in England in the late nineteenth century: (1) the Anglo-Catholics, who were closest to Rome in theology and worship practice; (2) the Low churchmen, many of whom were strongly evangelical in emphasis, rejecting the Oxford movement as “popish,” and (3) the Broad churches, who tended to be moderate in the liturgy but liberal in theology, emphasizing social reform rather than personal salvation. In America, Episcopal churches have tended to be high or low in liturgy, but only a few are as evangelical as their British counterparts. Beginning in the late 1970s, however, a significant number of evangelicals from free church traditions have entered the Episcopal church, in some cases influencing parishes in a low-church direction, in others uniting evangelical theology with high liturgical practice.
After 1850, a number of American churches adopted the principles of the Oxford movement, using vested choirs (of boys and men) and substituting plainsong for Anglican chant. However, the quartet-choir was more common—a volunteer group of men and women led by four soloists, which often degenerated into just a quartet, singing mostly romantic services and anthems by European, and later, American composers. The most-used compositions were written by such well-known musicians as Mendelssohn, Gounod, Gaul, Mozart, Boyce, Stainer, Parker, Shelley, Rossini, and Buck, and others who are now forgotten—Hodges, Naumann, Larkin, Bridgewater, Hatton, and Gilbert.
In the early twentieth century, Anglican churches outside the United States experienced a musical renaissance under the influence of such composers as Charles Stanford, Hubert Parry, Charles Wood, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Walford Davies, and the Canada-based Healey Willan. Increasingly, their music (both service music and anthems) has also been favored in American Episcopal churches, along with the works of American composers Leo Sowerby, T. Tertius Noble, David Mck. Williams, Thomas Matthews, and others. During this century, the outstanding leader in Episcopal church music has been Charles Winfred Douglas (1867–1944). An ordained priest in the church, he was long a member of the Episcopal Joint Commission on Church Music and the Hymnal Commission, serving as music editor for the denomination’s hymnals of 1916 and 1940. A frequent lecturer on church music, he founded the Evergreen Conference in Colorado and presided over its annual School of Church Music.
In very recent times, the Episcopal church has adopted a new liturgy which, while retaining its essential Anglican character, has returned to the basic outline of the historic mass. For example, the Gloria in excelsis has been returned to the early part of the service, and much of the evangelical text of the eucharistic prayer has been restored.
Nonliturgical Churches—Revivalist vs. “Pseudo-Liturgical” Worship
Methodism in England resulted from an eighteenth-century schism in the Anglican Church, precipitated by the preaching of John and Charles Wesley. Worship among Methodists varied from group to group, from the low-church style of the Church of England to the unstructured pattern of Baptists. Although many of the Calvinist and Wesleyan groups in Europe and Great Britain followed traditional worship patterns, their American successors—Presbyterian, Methodist, Evangelical, and Reformed—tended to adopt the freedom of the nonliturgical Congregationalists and Baptists. For some this meant a revivalist format; others developed what I choose to call a “pseudo-liturgical” pattern. These two styles are still common in many American churches.
We have already narrated in detail the story of American revival movements and the resultant worship tradition which lingered in many churches. Following is their basic service outline, although the most significant feature was a sense of freedom and spontaneity generated by the leadership of “charismatic” personalities.
• Hymns (a group, often not related to each other or to the sermon, led by a “song leader”)
• Prayer (brief)
• Welcome and announcements
• Special music (choir, solo, or small group)
• Offering
• Solo
• Sermon
• Invitation (Hymn)
• Dismissal (Benediction)
Revivalist free churches in the nineteenth century tended to favor gospel songs for congregational singing, with a sprinkling of traditional hymns from English and American authors. If the choir literature developed beyond those same hymnic boundaries, they tended to use “chorus choir” selections—two-page settings (found in the hymnal or songbook) in the style of extended hymns or abbreviated anthems.
Other free churches evidenced a broader concept of worship, particularly as the influence of revivalism waned and liturgical movements abroad and at home came to their attention. They moved toward a pattern that has some kinship to the ante-Communion service of Lutheranism or the Liturgy of the Word in an Anglican Eucharist.
Choral and solo literature in the early twentieth century tended to fall into the same mold as that of Episcopal (and even Roman Catholic) churches of that period. Congregational singing was often limited to one or two selections in a service and tended to use the standard hymns of British and American authors; gospel hymns were often standard fare on Sunday evening, for Sunday School, and in other informal services. Until later in the twentieth century, organists relied heavily on the music of romantic composers, including transcriptions of popular orchestral works.
Like the liturgical fellowships, free churches tended to use the quartet-choir when their budget permitted it; their choices in literature were also similar. Instrumental music varied according to the size and affluence of the individual group: pipe organs with trained performers for the larger, wealthier congregations and reed organs and amateur organists for the smaller and less prosperous.
As the twentieth century progressed, free churches broadened the scope of their music—congregational, choral, and instrumental—though there is marked variance within both traditional and revivalist groups. Hymnody now includes materials from the entire Christian heritage, American and European. Choral and organ performance covers the entire historic literature, from the Renaissance period through the contemporary. In addition, our century has encouraged the emergence of a large group of “functional” church music composers, who supply materials in every conceivable style for every possible taste. Nowadays only a few evangelical churches employ a quartet of professional singers, partly because of the high musical competence of many members in the congregation. In the early twentieth century, following the example of revivalists of that day, pianos replaced the reed organ in small churches and joined forces with the pipe organ in the larger. With the advent of electronic organs in 1935, many small congregations were financially able to add that sound to their worship experience for the first time. All in all, American churches today have more music activity—with more choirs and instruments, and larger budgets—than those in any other country in the world.