Protestant Church Music

In the Wesley family of the second and third generations -- John Mason Neale and tractarian hymnody -- Ira D. Sankey and the growth of "gospel hymnody" -- Twentieth-century papal pronouncements on music : the impact of papal teaching in the United States -- The Jewish Union hymnal.

'Church Music and Protestantism in Post-Reformation England' breaks new ground in the religious history of Elizabethan England, through a closely focused study of the relationship between the practice of religious music and the complex process of Protestant identity formation. Hearing was of vital importance in the early modern period, and music was one of the most prominent, powerful and emotive elements of religious worship. But in large part, traditional historical narratives of the English Reformation have been distinctly tone deaf. Recent scholarship has begun to take increasing notice of some elements of Reformed musical practice, such as the congregational singing of psalms in meter. This book marks a significant advance in that area, combining an understanding of theory as expressed in contemporary religious and musical discourse, with a detailed study of the practice of church music in key sites of religious worship. Divided into three sections - 'Discourses', 'Sites', and 'Identities' - the book begins with an exploration of the classical and religious discourses which underpinned sixteenth-century understandings of music, and its use in religious worship. It then moves on to an investigation of the actual practice of church music in parish and cathedral churches, before shifting its attention to the people of Elizabethan England, and the ways in which music both served and shaped the difficult process of Protestantisation. Through an exploration of these issues, and by reintegrating music back into the Elizabethan church, we gain an expanded and enriched understanding of the complex evolution of religious identities, and of what it actually meant to be Protestant in post-Reformation England.

A comprehensive and definitive study of Protestant church music has been awaited for almost three decades, since Friedrich Blume wrote a short, initial exploration of the subject. This greatly expanded version, newly translated from the German, serves to trace the historical developments of the music in the various Protestant services from both the musical and theological points of view. In addition, the author examines that large body of religious music which does not properly appertain to any specific liturgy, but does belong in a study of this dimension. The author has enlisted the aid of specialists in several fields to provide the expertise necessary to encompass so vast a subject. Dr. Ludwig Finscher revised the chapter on the Reformation and brought it up to date, while the author himself extended the chapter on Confessionalism which follows. Dr. Georg Feder, head of the Haydn Institute in Cologne, has written on the developments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; and the late professor Adam Adrio of Berlin concerned himself with the twentieth. Dr. Walter Blankenburg has provided fascinating information on the Bohemian Brethren as well as other interesting denominations in the Reformed areas of Europe. For this English-language edition, new chapters were specially written by Torben Schousboe on Scandinavian music, by Robert Stevenson on Protestant music in America, and by Watkins Shaw on church music in England from the Reformation to the present day. With these additions, the present volume becomes the definitive reference work on Protestant church music.

This book is about the culture of American Christianity and what it does to our understanding of God, self, and community as reflected in the way Christians worship.