Among Protestant churches, the Lutheran tradition has the richest heritage of music for worship. It is based on the assumption that music is a profound means by which we enter God’s presence and render our liturgy of thanksgiving to God. Bringing together insights first developed by Martin Luther and practices that have grown out of almost 500 years of Lutheran worship, this article describes why and how music is used in Lutheran worship.
The public worship of God’s people is only rarely what we know it can or should be. A lack of understanding on the part of pastors, church musicians, and laity alike as to what Lutheran worship really is or might be is all too common. Inadequate experience and education in living the liturgy in colleges, seminaries, and in the local congregation has resulted in confusion and misunderstanding about worship, worship forms, and worship practices on the part of the clergy, laity, and church musicians alike. In large part, this confusion is the result of being cut off from the basic understandings that enabled Lutheran worship and church music to achieve such a glorious history.
As more people in our congregations reflect backgrounds, traditions, and practices other than Lutheran, it is increasingly important that basic guidelines be set out that reflect Lutheranism’s understanding of its worship, and particularly the role of music in that worship tradition.
Lutheranism has a distinct point of view in matters of worship and church music. It is hoped that this affirmation will help focus attention on this point of view for pastors, church musicians, and laity alike. In this way may it help in fostering a parish practice that is both faithful to Lutheran traditions and, in returning to Lutheranism’s roots, help to realize a more vital worship practice in our parishes.
Worship and Music
What place does music have in a Lutheran understanding and tradition of worship?
The answer to that question is rooted in how Lutherans have seen themselves throughout their history. While the sixteenth century ultimately saw a separation of Lutherans from the catholic church of its day, Martin Luther and those who followed him did not see themselves primarily as a new church, but rather as a distinctive confessional movement within a larger Christianity. That understanding is a key one as Lutherans approach the matter of worship—how they see themselves in relation to the larger Christian tradition, and how they view music and its role in their corporate praise and prayer.
The Lutheran church is a worshiping church. Lutherans concern themselves seriously with all aspects of the church’s worship life. Particular emphasis, however, is given to corporate, congregational worship, where Christians gather to hear the Word and to share the sacrament. For Lutherans, corporate worship is not simply a pleasant option; it is the indispensable and central work of the gathered Christian community from which all other facets of the church’s life and mission, including one’s individual worship life, derive their strength, purpose, and direction.
The Lutheran church is a liturgical church. With much of Christianity, it shares a concern for ordered worship. Its worship is characterized neither by eccentricity nor faddishness. Lutheran worship underscores the elements of stability and continuity with worship forms and practices that place Lutherans in the long line of worshipers from the New Testament to the Parousia. They worship not in subjective isolation, but “with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven,” in concert with Christian believers of all times and places.
Lutheran worship offers a richness and variety of forms and practices that give fullness to the celebration of corporate worship. As Lutherans worship with the recurring cycles of the church year, as they hear the Word proclaimed through ordered readings and preaching that recount the full council of God, and as they celebrate the sacraments, Lutherans are united with Christians of other times and places and receive strength for their task in the world.
Lutherans receive their heritage of worship forms and practices with thanksgiving and appreciation. Lutherans understand that their heritage is a meaningful source of continuity with their own past as well as with that of the whole church catholic. Yet Lutherans do not deify, ossify, or accept their heritage uncritically. Lutherans also see their heritage as a basis for moving toward the future. Thus Lutheran worship is simultaneously conservative and open to the future.
As the music in Lutheran worship builds on these understandings, as it helps to nourish the faith, as it works to the glory of God and the edification of the neighbor, it has always had a welcome and important role among Lutheran Christians. Where it has fallen short of these understandings, where it has substituted other goals, where it has become man-centered rather than God-centered, to that extent it has ceased to be Lutheran in motivation, realization, and result.
Music in Lutheran worship—whether the music of congregation, choir, pastor, organ, solo voice, or instruments—finds its most natural and comfortable place in the context of the liturgy. It is in the liturgy, in all its fullness and completeness, that music in Lutheran worship finds its highest goal and achieves its greatest fulfillment. At its best, Lutheranism upholds this priority. When Lutheran worship forsakes its roots in the liturgy, as it substitutes other priorities, or as it seeks to imitate sectarian practices, it loses its orientation and perverts the role of both music and worship.
For Luther, music was next in importance to theology, a living voice of the Gospel (viva vox evangelii), a gift of God to be used in all its fullness in Christian praise and prayer. As the implications of these concepts begin to permeate our understanding and our practice, music in Lutheran worship will move ever closer to a fuller realization of its potential in the hearts and lives of worshipers everywhere.
Luther’s View of Music in Worship
Martin Luther, alone among the reformers of the sixteenth century, welcomed music into the worship and praise of God with open arms. For Luther, music was a “noble, wholesome, and joyful creation,” a gift of God. For Luther, music was a part of God’s creation with the power to praise its Creator, and it found its greatest fulfillment in the proclamation of the Word.
Therefore accustom yourself to see in this creation your Creator and to praise him through it.
If any would not sing and talk of what Christ has wrought for us, he shows thereby that he does not really believe.… (quoted in Walter E. Buszin, Luther on Music [n.p.: Lutheran Society for Worship, Music, and the Arts, 1958])
For Luther, to “say and sing” was a single concept resulting from the inevitable eruption of joyful song in the heart of the redeemed. In contrast to some other reformers who saw music as always potentially troublesome and in need of careful control and direction, Luther, in the freedom of the Gospel, could exult in the power of music to proclaim the Word and to touch the heart and mind of man.
In emphasizing music as God’s—not man’s—creation and as God’s gift to man to be used in his praise and proclamation, and in stressing particularly the royal priesthood of all believers, Luther laid the foundation for the involvement of every Christian—congregation, choir, composer, instrumentalist—in corporate praise at the highest level of ability. In seeing all of music as under God’s redemptive hand, Luther underscored the freedom of the Christian to use all of music in the proclamation of the Gospel. The music that developed in this tradition is eloquent testimony to the fact that the church’s musicians and its people found that Luther’s views provided a healthy and wholesome context in which to work, to sing, and to make music in praise of God.
Luther encouraged the most sophisticated forms of the music of his day—Gregorian chant and classical polyphony—to be taught to the young and sung in church together with the simpler congregational chorales. In contrast to both the Latin tradition and that of the Calvinist reformation, it was the Lutheran reformers’ understanding of music as a gift of God that successfully encouraged the reciprocal interaction of simple congregational song and art music of the most sophisticated kind. A flourishing tradition of church music was the happy result.
A Lutheran View of Tradition
Because it views itself as part of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, Lutheranism looks to the experience of the church at worship throughout its history as an important source of its way of worship. Its use of forms and practices with which the church has prayed and praised for centuries—forms that have been tested, tried, and found nourishing through the experience of countless Christians—affirms Lutheranism’s continuity with the whole church. In its life of worship, Lutheranism gives such forms and practices a central place. Luther’s view, which sought to retain from the past all that was useful, rejecting only what could not be retained in good conscience, was no flight into a wistful nostalgia; it was rather a pastorally responsible attempt to demonstrate the continuity and unity of Lutheranism with all of Christendom.
Lutheranism, on the other hand, does not hesitate to critically examine its heritage from the past, subjecting it to sound theological, psychological, and sociological examination for its meaning and usefulness for our own time. In doing so, Lutheranism is reminded that a sentimental return to any earlier age, ignoring later history, is no more adequate an answer than to suggest that each age must start anew to fashion structures of worship and prayer.
For Lutherans, the word tradition—in the sense of the gathered experience of the church at worship throughout its history—is an important working concept. For Lutherans, their worship tradition is always a living tradition, continuously developing and living in vital parish practice. Building on the experience of the past, the church moves confidently into the future.
In some places, tradition is misunderstood to mean merely conventional practices that may have developed in someplace and have no relation to the experience of the whole church. Often it means no more than “what we in this parish are used to” or “how we did it last year.” More often than not such “traditions” merely reflect sectarian fads that have become conventional through repetition.
It is a Lutheran conviction that the needs of people at worship are most effectively met by forms and structures of prayer that draw on the collective experience of the whole church at worship. For some, such structures and practices—when used for the first time—will be new and, perhaps, disconcerting. Once they become a normal part of the life of worship, however, their richness, strength, diversity, the power to nourish faith and life, and their ability to help Christians praise God and enjoy him forever soon become apparent.
The Music of the Congregation
The chief musical reform of the Lutheran church in the sixteenth century was the establishment of congregational singing as a vital ingredient in corporate worship. It was not enough for Luther that people merely be present at worship—their faith should erupt in song: “God has made our hearts and spirits happy through His dear Son.… He who believes this sincerely and earnestly cannot help but be happy; he must cheerfully sing” (Buszin, Luther on Music). Thus what was only tolerated in the medieval church—and then only on infrequent occasion—became a central feature of worship in the church of the Lutheran Reformation.
Congregational singing, then as now, centers on the hymnody of the people, particularly in the Lutheran chorale. This unique body of words and melodies, which took shape in the early years of the Reformation, was drawn from the chants of the medieval church, from the many popular pre-Reformation “Kyrie songs,” from nonliturgical Latin and Latin-German songs of pre-Reformation times, from secular melodies to which sacred words were adapted, and from newly written texts and melodies. The Lutheran chorale texts spoke clearly of sin and salvation, of death and resurrection; they recounted the story of man’s fall into sin and his redemption won through Christ’s victory over death and the devil. Its melodies—sung by the congregation in unison and without accompaniment—were vigorous, rhythmic, and truly popular.
The chorale spread rapidly and achieved remarkable popularity wherever Lutheranism took root. The words and tunes of the chorale have continued to provide strength and comfort to worshipers wherever they have been used, and they have served as the basis for an ever-growing body of church music by composers since that time. There is hardly a Christian hymnbook that has not been enriched through the inclusion of Lutheran chorales, just as Lutheran hymnals have been enriched by the hymnody of others.
This unique wedding of words and melody which is the Lutheran chorale gave rise to the uniquely Lutheran custom of singing hymns in alternation between the congregation, choir, and organ. Alternating stanza for stanza throughout the entire hymn, this manner of singing offered not only variety in the musical presentation of the hymn, but also provided an opportunity for meditation on the words of the stanzas presented by the alternating groups. Each musical entity had a place in the singing of the chorale; at the heart and center, however, was the congregation.
The uniqueness of Lutheran hymnody lies in the fact that from the very beginning it has been an important part of the liturgy, not—as in most other traditions—a general Christian song loosely attached to worship. It was and continues to be the vehicle for congregational song.
Luther himself led the way in encouraging the creation of new texts and melodies through which the congregation could give voice to its faith in corporate song. The result has been the incorporation into Lutheran worship of a large body of hymnody reflecting a wide diversity of origins and musical styles.
For worshiping Lutherans, congregational song centers on the singing of hymns of proclamation and praise, prayer, and adoration. And wherever a Lutheran understanding of worship and congregational song prevails, the chorale—among all the many jewels in the treasury of the church’s song—continues to hold a place of special prominence.
In more recent history, Lutherans have also encouraged congregational singing of such other portions of the liturgy as the great prose songs of the mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Agnus Dei), various canticles (Venite, Magnificat, Nunc dimittis), together with a variety of shorter responses in the liturgy. Most of the early ventures in this development consisted of not too successful adaptations for congregations of music originally intended for choral performance. Only in very recent years has the attempt been made to fashion music for the liturgy that is truly congregational in its conception and realization.
Whatever its characteristics may be, true congregational song operates within the musical limitations of largely amateur singers, yet has musical integrity and character distinctly its own. True congregational song is neither simplistic, undistinguished melody whose only purpose is functional; neither is it essentially choir music simplified for the purposes of group singing. True congregational song is a genre all its own, and its prototype and model—in terms of an accessible unison melody with rhythmic life and variety—is the Lutheran chorale.
The Music of the Choir
In the Lutheran tradition of worship the choir functions liturgically as a helper and servant to the congregation, enlivening and enriching the worship of the entire assembly. It does this in three ways. In order of importance they are
1. The choir supports and enriches the congregational singing of hymns and of the liturgy.
2. The choir brings richness and variety to congregational worship by singing the portions of the liturgy entrusted to it.
3. The choir enriches congregational worship by presenting attendant music as appropriate and possible.
1. The choir supports and enriches the congregational singing of hymns: by regularly devoting time in rehearsals to practicing the hymns to be sung in the various services, thus establishing a nucleus of singers who can confidently lead the singing; by helping to enlarge the congregation’s repertoire through learning new hymns of worth and introducing them appropriately to the congregation; and by participating with the congregation in the regular festive presentation of the Hymn of the Day.
The choir supports and enriches the congregational singing of the liturgy: by devoting time, on a regular basis, to rehearsing the liturgy, so that the choir can lead the congregation most effectively; by teaching and introducing to the congregation the portions of the liturgy that have not yet been learned, or learned only incompletely; by helping the congregation enlarge the dimensions of its participation through learning new musical settings of the liturgy or portions of the liturgy as appropriate. By helping the congregation, of which the choir is a part, sing the services it already knows more effectively, and by introducing—over a period of time—several different musical settings of the service that the congregation can use with the changing moods of the church year, the choir will be assuming more fully its role of a leader in the liturgical worship of the congregation.
The uniquely Lutheran tradition of the “hymn mass,” while not suggested as a norm, might well be used as occasionally appropriate to substitute for the prose texts of the major songs of the service.
2. The choir also adds variety to congregational worship by singing the portions of the liturgy that have been entrusted to it by the congregation. In the singing of the liturgy, certain texts, because of their unique appropriateness to the Sunday, festival, or season of the church year, change from week to week. Thus these texts are more suitable for singing by a group that meets regularly for rehearsal. At different times in the church’s history these texts have been assigned to various groups; their use, however, is crucially important since they provide part of the variety that is important to liturgical worship.
This rich selection of texts provides the basis for the participation of the choir in the varying portions of the liturgy, participation for which the choir is uniquely suited and through which it can make a contribution of major significance. In certain newer liturgies, some of these texts occur in slightly different contexts. They remain, however, the basic texts to which the choir must address itself as it prepares for its participation in the varying portions of the liturgy.
3. The choir also enriches congregational worship by presenting attendant music as appropriate and as possible. The term attendant music refers to that entire spectrum of motets, anthems, passions, cantatas, and other music not covered in the preceding discussion. As attendant music is planned for use in worship, three considerations are crucial:
a. Attendant music should be liturgically appropriate to the Sunday, festival, or season of the church year.
b. Attendant music should be appropriately placed in the liturgy. (Here special emphasis should be given the traditional Lutheran practice of music sub-communion—during the distribution of Holy Communion.)
c. Attendant music should always be within the musical limitations of the choir.
In preparing attendant music, care must always be taken that the time and effort involved does not displace preparation for those other functions of the choir in worship that have a prior claim in liturgical worship.
The choir has a unique and significant place in Lutheran worship. It can fill that role with music ranging from the simplest to the most complex, but complexity is never a criterion of liturgical suitability. What is important and crucial is that choirmaster and singers together—as well as the pastor and congregation—understand what the real function of the choir in liturgical worship is, and that, understanding their priorities, they work toward carrying them out in interesting, effective, and meaningful ways that will contribute to the worship of the whole congregation.
A Note on the Soloist
The use of the solo voice in Christian worship finds its roots in the Jewish cantorial tradition and the continuation of elements of that practice in the use of solo voices in the Christian chant of the medieval church. In Lutheran worship, that practice was continued, and the music of Lutheranism from Luther to Bach, in particular, reflects the continued development of that tradition.
The soloist in Lutheran worship always functions liturgically. Where a solo voice is used in the service, for example at times when a choir is not available, a Lutheran understanding of corporate worship assumes that the soloist—in reality, a “one-person” choir—will provide the liturgical music necessary for the particular service. Then, when possible and desirable, the soloist may present additional attendant music according to his or her ability. The liturgy offers many opportunities for participation by the solo voice in ways—characterized by a spirit of modesty and restraint—that give richness, variety, and greater meaning to liturgical worship.
As a particular matter, soloists drawn from the ranks of choirs where the singing of appropriate liturgical music is the norm will usually see their function as soloists in a liturgical context more readily than will soloists who see their role to be exclusively that of presenting “special” music.
The Music of the Presiding and Assisting Ministers
The corporate worship of Lutheran Christians has traditionally been sung. This is true also of the parts of the liturgy that are the unique province of those leading the service. The singing of the liturgy by those leading in worship and people together adds beauty and solemnity not possible in any other way. It elevates the doing of the liturgy to a place that moves beyond the personalistic and idiosyncratic to that of the truly corporate song.
Certain portions of the liturgy are essentially a liturgical conversation between pastor and people. Such familiar exchanges as “The Lord be with you—And also with you,” “Lift up your hearts—We lift them up to the Lord,” “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God—It is right to give him thanks and praise” naturally call for singing by both participants in the dialogue. In many other places in the various orders of worship, this kind of liturgical conversation is important. When such liturgical conversation occurs, it is the most natural and desirable practice that both portions of the dialogue be sung.
Other parts of the liturgy given to those leading in worship are essentially a kind of monologue. Examples include the Scripture lessons, the collect, and the words of institution. These portions of the liturgy are usually sung in one tone with simple inflections. Luther himself took care to provide such simple recitation formulas for use in these instances. Most musical settings of the liturgy provide such simple recitation formulas, and congregations should encourage their ministers to use them when the rest of the service is sung by the congregation.
Many pastors already sing certain parts of the liturgy. This is a most commendable practice. Pastors and other worship leaders should be encouraged by their congregations—wherever they may be hesitant—to assume their fuller role in the singing of the complete liturgical service whenever the rest of the service is sung by the congregation and choir.
The Music of the Organ
The organ has played a significant role in Lutheran worship since Reformation times, even though various aspects of its role have changed since that time. In its unique way the organ, too, can be the “living voice of the Gospel” and its use in Lutheran worship has demonstrated that possibility.
The Lutheran organist is a liturgical organist. This means that the way the organist functions in the service is determined by the movement and requirements of the liturgical action. It is not the function of the organist to entertain, to provide meaningless meanderings at the keyboard, or to fill every quiet moment with music. It is the function of the liturgical organist to lead the congregation in the singing of the hymns and chorales, to accompany, as appropriate, other portions of the liturgy sung by the congregation or choir, and to present other liturgical and attendant music alone or in ensemble.
The most important role of the organist is that of introducing and leading the congregational singing of the hymns and the liturgy. The practice of using the organ to accompany congregational singing was unknown at Luther’s time when the chorales were sung unaccompanied and in unison. But today the common practice is for the organist to accompany most, if not all, the stanzas of the hymns. Effective leadership here can do much to make worship the exciting adventure it is at its best. Through the use of effective introductions, careful choice of tempos, rhythmic playing, appropriate registration, judicious use of varied accompaniments, the occasional singing of a hymn stanza without the organ, and especially through the use of alternation between the congregation, organ, and choir, the organist sets the spirit and carries the momentum of hymn singing from the introduction through to the final stanza. When the organ accompanies other portions of the liturgy sung by the congregation it should do so with forthrightness and vigor appropriate to the circumstances. In all situations the organ leads the congregational singing; it does not merely provide a bland and lifeless accompaniment.
It is customary in many places that the organ play at the beginning of worship, during the gathering of the gifts, and as the congregation disperses at the close of worship. It is most helpful and meaningful if the organ music at these times is based on the hymns or chorales sung in the service. At the least such music should clearly reflect the spirit of the particular celebration.
In general, the Lutheran organist plays less rather than more. When the organist does play it should be liturgically, functionally, and practically to the point. When the organ has no particular liturgical function it should remain silent. While the liturgical organist seeks to avoid a self-centered flamboyance and pretension in his playing, at the same time he uses all his skills in highlighting the inherent drama of the liturgical celebration. Only in this way will the organ’s role as a liturgical instrument be more readily apparent.
The Music of Instruments
At its best, the Lutheran church has always welcomed the use of a variety of instruments as a particularly festive way of expressing the celebrative aspects of joyful worship. Luther encouraged all Christian musicians to “let their singing and playing to the praise of the Father of all grace sound forth with joy from their organs and whatever other beloved musical instruments there are” (from E. M. Plass, What Luther Says [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959], 982).
The organ has always had a place of special prominence in Lutheran worship. Lutherans have also used a great variety of instruments of all kinds in praise of God. Brass instruments, stringed instruments, woodwinds, bells, percussion—all these and more have been used in Lutheran worship, some of these even being preferred over the organ in the early Reformation era.
A rich treasury of music, intended for use in Lutheran worship using instruments, developed in the centuries after the Reformation. This music includes instrumental pieces intended as preludes, postludes, and interludes, both chorale-based and free compositions for organ and one or more solo instruments, and countless large- and small-scale concerted works for voices and instruments together. Special attention has been given in more recent times to providing a variety of solo and concerted music for small numbers of instruments with organ, or in concert with voices, that can be performed by instrumentalists of modest ability.
Instruments can play an important part in corporate worship, helping us to sing and dance our faith, helping us to express more fully and clearly the changing moods of Christian worship, from the leanness and spareness of such seasons as Advent and Lent to the more exuberant character of the Easter and Christmas seasons. Instruments can help foster communion with God and with our fellow worshipers and can serve as an extension of the human voice in sounding the special joy in the heart of the Christian as—through faith in his Lord—he affirms the totality of God’s creation.
The Pastor and the Church Musician
It is only when pastors, church musicians, and people work together toward the accomplishment of these goals that a truly living and vital parish worship practice in the Lutheran tradition can result. Each participant plays his own distinctive role, yet each complements and reinforces the others.
Regular planning sessions are an important part of this mutual preparation for worship. Pastors and church musicians, especially, need to meet often to exchange ideas and to discuss plans for future services and the role each will play. But whatever the vehicle for planning, pastor and church musician need to work carefully together. Only in that way will worship be the best we can offer and God’s people be truly inspired and edified.