Polyphony and organs
This week we deal with perhaps the tradition that we are likely to know best, and therefore what follows is only a very brief summary of the intimate relationship between Christian faith and liturgy, and the classical music of Western Europe.
There are two main changes which must occur before chant can mutate into the music typical of this tradition: harmony (polyphony = many voices at the same time) and instrumental accompaniment, notably the organ. Another more subtle change was the development of musical notation in the early eleventh century.
The development of polyphony from the seventh century onwards was often not well received by the church. Firstly because it meant that the performance of such music necessarily became the province of trained musicians only, and secondly because the text was likely to be obscured, if not submerged, by the complex music. The first examples merely had parallel versions of the same tune – a fourth or fifth apart (sorry for such technicalities!) – interestingly the tri-tone (augmented third) was banned as the diabolus in musica (the devil in music). If you hear or try to sing a tri-tone today it still grates on the ears. Rhythm too was theologically determined: music was in waltz time (3 beats to the bar) because of the Holy Trinity. Eventually (and ubiquitously in popular music) 4 and 2 beats to the bar would become much more common, but initially it was seen as diabolical! The first known polyphonic composers date from the 13th century – the first English composer we know of was a local lad: John of Dunstable (d1453).
The peak of unaccompanied polyphonic music with the emergence of the standard four part choir of Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass, was in the Renaissance. Its highpoints included the masses and motets of the sixteenth century counter-Reformation. As was true of literature, the possibility of a European musical culture, was decisively enhanced by the invention of the printing press – musical notation was reproducible from the early C16th. Here we begin to encounter household names: Gabrieli, Palestrina, and in England, Tallis and Byrd (fascinating, but beyond this brief paper, is the way the ‘oscillating’ Reformation in England affected the fortunes and output of these composers).
The organ spread slowly from the Byzantine empire from the 10th century onwards. Generally used to accompany singers, they began to have a ‘life of their own’ in the Chorale preludes of the German Reformation. Still today in these churches an organist is judged on their ability to improvise on a hymn tune before the congregation begin to sing it. Other Reformers, notably in England, banned the organ, and until the mid-C19th most English churches lacked organs. It may come as a surprise (see Thomas Hardy for proof) but a worship band (situated in the West gallery) led the music in most English parish churches until this time. The emergence of recent worship bands is simply a return to this tradition. ‘Organ culture’ developed in very divergent ways across Europe, notably the German, English and French traditions are all very different.
The Reformation
It is lucky that the man who started the Reformation, Martin Luther, was a performer, fan and writer of church music (notably the wonderful hymn: Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott: A mighty fortress is our God). He had no truck with the puritan suspicion of music that developed elsewhere. Importantly he was happy to adopt and utilise Roman Catholic music as long as it was not doctrinally objectionable. Luther’s impetus led to a great feast of musical developments all over Northern Europe, firstly in hymn singing, but also Mass settings, cantatas, and later oratorios. A Lutheran service was often a feast of music, lasting for up to 5 hours! One interesting footnote was the debt of one particular instrument to the distinctive Moravian musical tradition: in 1764 the Moravian church decided that only one instrument was fit for worship: the trombone. Trombone ensembles flourished, somewhat oddly, in the Moravian church – it is where the tradition of church brass bands developed from.
The towering genius of classical church music, if not classical music (only Mozart and Beethoven approach him) is J S Bach (1685-1750). Born in Eisenach, (the nearby Wartburg Castle is where Luther hid and translated the New Testament), he famously walked to Lübeck to hear Buxtehude play the organ. He subsequently held posts in Arnstadt, Mühlhausen, Köthen, and finally, and most famously, as Cantor of St Thomas, Leipzig. Here he wrote a cantata for every Sunday of the church year – an enormous achievement. He also composed enormous amounts of organ and instrumental music, as well as the massive (but odd for a Lutheran) B minor Mass. However perhaps his most enduring legacy in church music were the four oratorio length settings of the gospel passion accounts, the most famous of which are those of St Matthew and St John. Bach was obscure in his lifetime, and when he died immediately forgotten, his music dismissed as old-fashioned. It was left to Mozart, Beethoven and Mendelssohn to revive his legacy.
Born in the same year, and from the same region of Germany, Handel settled in England, and in his oratorios and anthems, particularly Messiah, he is Bach’s closest rival. Apart from Messiah, and a couple of other greatest hits, his music was also largely forgotten after his death, and much of it has been revived comparatively recently.
Anglicanism
In the prayer book of the Elizabethan settlement (1559), the musically rich possibilities of the Anglican liturgy were apparent, though the famous rubric ‘in quires and places where they sing here followeth the anthem’ was not present until 1662. There is no space to do more than list the greats of Anglican music: Gibbons, Byrd, Tallis, Weelkes, Tomkins (nearly all associated with the Chapel Royal); following the Restoration: Purcell, Croft, Boyce. In turn followed by Samuel Wesley, Attwood, Stainer (of Crucifixion fame: unkind detractors peddle the joke: ‘What do you think of Stainer’s Crucifixion? Musically speaking he deserves it.’), Stanford, Howells, brings us to the contemporary age of Lloyd-Webber (William, of course, father of Julian and the other one), Willcocks and Rutter.
The Viennese tradition and beyond
Nearly all the great composers from Haydn and Mozart onwards have in some way been connected with Vienna. The most important musical forms in this Catholic city were the Mass, and its near relative The Requiem Mass. Perhaps the greatest of these are Haydn’s six last masses, and those of Mozart – the Coronation Mass, Mass in C minor and the incomplete Requiem. Later on Beethoven, who produced little specifically religious music, did produce one such masterpiece the Missa Solemnis.
In the Romantic age that begins musically with Beethoven, we see the start of the rift between the Romantic tradition and Christianity, in particular Roman Catholicism, which sees church music increasingly confined to a minority of composers’ output. However Rossini’s (ironically titled) Petite Messe Solennelle and Schubert’s masses are masterpieces of this period. It was also the case that composers now favoured such large-scale works that even if they had liturgical subjects and texts the music could not possibly be performed in worship (often it could hardly be performed at all! – Berlioz’ Requiem requires 1000+ performers including five orchestras and 16 timpani – though notably only one tenor soloist: tenors can be quite loud). Mendelssohn helped to revive Bach’s Passions, and composed two oratorios himself, St Paul and Elijah. Liszt, Verdi, Bruckner, Brahms (German Requiem), even Wagner (the unfinished and slightly bizarre Jesus of Nazereth), Fauré (Requiem), Elgar (Dream of Gerontius)produced religious works.
The relationship between classical music in the C20th has been fragmented. Composers have continued to write for the church, and others have used religious themes and texts in a variety of secular settings. Again a list will have to suffice: Kodály, Rachmaninov (Vespers), Stravinsky, Bernstein (Chichester Psalms), Poulenc, Messiaen, Britten (War Requiem – written for the consecration of the New Coventry Cathedral and setting poems of Wilfred Owen alongside the Requiem Mass – courageously Britten chose Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as the baritone soloist), Vaughan-Williams, Walton , Tippett, Tavener.