Lutheran Music Culture

Ideals and Practices

Mattias Lundberg, Maria Schildt, Jonas Lundblad, Mattias Lundberg, Maria Schildt, Jonas Lundblad

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9783110681062
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Christianity

This volume presents a novel and distinct contribution to previous research on the rich Lutheran heritage of music. It builds upon a current surge of interest in the field, which resonates with a wider interest in connections between music and religion, as well as with cultural and aesthetic dimensions of faith at large. The book situates the topic in relation to recent developments within historical and cultural studies that have developed a more nuanced and positive view of the interplay between theologians and other cultural agents in the evolution of Western modernity during post Reformation processes of 'confessionalization'. It combines conceptual discussions of key terms relevant to the study of the development and significance of an Early Modern Lutheran Music Culture with theological readings of central texts on music, analytic approaches to historical repertoires and material perspectives on its dissemination.

Lutheran Music Culture – A Reflection

John Butt

The Reformation celebrations of 2017 provided an ideal opportunity to explore the last five hundred years of Reformation history in Christian cultures and specifically to regenerate the relationship between Lutheranism and music. Unfair though it may be, mainstream music historiography has tended to see the musical side of Lutheranism as a worthy but relatively parochial area – even dull, perhaps – particularly if it is compared with the obvious splendours of the many centuries of Roman Catholic culture. Indeed, religion itself is commonly sidestepped, especially in the study of the secularised spirituality of “classical music” culture, which for many years has privileged a works-based canon. With this, the history of great musical works has gained something of the aura of literary canons – not least that of Scripture itself – and the insights of composers are often attributed to some form of divine inspiration. But, within the high “classical” works-based mind-set, the music of Bach – one of the seminal figures in the Western tradition – is often considered great in spite of his Lutheranism rather than because of it; the music seemingly transcends its text and contexts and enriches us through its autonomous harmonic trajectory. The music of Schütz often becomes an area of excellence only for those specifically interested in the more local aspects of early modern German musical culture; here, the music is so saturated with its religious texts that it is difficult to appreciate it as “absolute music”.

Another aspect of the factors rendering Lutheran music culture a niche interest relates to the style of scholarship that has grown up around it. Much of the work on Lutheran music over the last century is certainly very distinguished – even if it has often been beholden to a relatively simplistic hermeneutic model, which has been employed to discern some quite complex theological concepts within the rhetorical figures and compositional techniques of key Lutheran composers. While anything beyond the simplest symbolism is all but impossible to verify, many of the ways in which music has been read over the last century to express theology (“as if it were a preacher in its own right” – is the sentiment that pervades many writings) can be quite compelling. Indeed, it is quite possible that the historical Luther and Bach would have both been delighted that their ideas and music have been read in this way, even if the precision of theological expression had never fully been intended.

Nevertheless, whatever the merits of such theological decoding of the music, this does not generally tell us much about the qualities of the music, thus automatically distancing it from the aesthetic concerns of (Romantic-Modernist) classical music culture. It does not even tell us much about how this is specifically Lutheran music, and instead seems to suggest that the musical language of any particular period constitutes a ready “box of tricks” that can be manipulated into a viable theological discourse. Once the exegetical function has been performed, the music seemingly falls away, perhaps put back into that box for later recycling, but essentially no longer of much intrinsic value. But what the exegetical approach to Lutheran music has seldom really grasped is what must surely be a crucial development in early modern Western culture, one for which Lutheranism was a vital element: the cultivation of listening as an active process, and the gauging of the ranges of effect that music might have on a broad range of listeners. In other words, the Lutheran contribution to listening practices in general, and to music in particular, could persuasively be claimed as an area of central importance in the development of Western culture as a larger entity (and relevant to much of the broader world that shares something of a modern mind-set).

The current collection is undoubtedly encouraging in relating Lutheranism to a much broader range of historiographical categories than has customarily been the case. Indeed, the net result may well be that Luther emerges as far more than a localised reforming figure (merely the one who just happened “to get there first”, when it came to the Reformation). Although his statements on music are clearly fragmentary and unsystematic, they fell on cultural ground that was very fertile for developing concepts of music and musical experience. Moreover, his broader thinking surely constitutes a significant milestone in the development of what we experience as the modern world: subject-centred responsibility for faith and community-centred solidarity of expression; verbal text as encapsulating the essence of meaning, albeit a sense of meaning that continues to unfold in sound, and across time. By forging a direct bond between the choirs of heaven and those of earth, Luther essentially made the experience of music something that went well beyond the imperfect representation of unheard cosmic harmony, based upon mathematical proportions. Music at last became its own “real presence”, interacting with the very structure of human nature, together with its mental and physical embodiments. In recognising the real-time experience of music as essential to its power (just as might be the case for sacred text, too), Lutheranism helped to inaugurate a culture of aural attention that stretches well beyond the specific theological issues involved. The view of music as a foundational human activity, the Lutheran conception of music as comprising vibrations in actual air as analogous to the diffusion of Spirit, and the relation of music to movement and the expression of affect – especially joy – all together take us into the here and now of our lived experience. If, for the Lutheran, the living air of music brought with it the living word (it brought “words to life”), from a secular point of view the empirical recognition of musical expression meant that it could gain the potential to express its own sense of spiritual depth. This “post verbal” conception of music became essential to the culture of absolute music that began to emerge during the early nineteenth century.

During the Reformation era, little of this type of thinking was possible, at least initially, in other confessions, even those that also regarded music highly. The Catholic Church in particular continued to see music as an offering of beauty to God, and it tended to keep the medieval objectivizing concept of the “music of the spheres” in the background. Luther’s unsystematic approach opened up a reversal of this type thinking – instead of music being sent outward to an approving God, God’s spirit is sent towards us and becomes palpable to our bodies and minds. Although the history of Lutheran musical culture is by no means consistent and unbroken, it is easy to see its association with music emerge at various points: e. g. the Lutheran revivals in the twentieth century, or the Prussian ecumenical movement and attempted musical revival of church music in the early nineteenth century.

With the greater understanding of early Lutheran congregational practices, and particularly the greater involvement of the clergy in leading them, we can reconceptualise the chorale as something more vital and immediate, seemingly integrating the entire congregation into an active preaching environment. One area that perhaps deserves more exploration in the future is the genealogy of congregational participation in Lutheranism and beyond, and its relation to the ingress of popular and traditional musics, together with non-Western elements, into new forms of Christian participatory practice. Indeed, the very solidarity of massed singing – undoubtedly an aspect of work and community practices across human history – was to some extent reconceptualised and solidified by the Lutheran innovation, and surely influenced secular massed performance too, given its obvious effectiveness in church practice. It is perhaps no surprise that amateur choral culture flourished initially in Lutheran areas (and Lutheran-influenced countries, such as England) during the eighteenth century. It was in the rich choral culture of the nineteenth century that many saw an opportunity for encouraging genuine democratic participation; the concept of the large chorus could be couched in terms of a sort of polity that might unite and elevate diverse peoples. In other words, just as the powerful polyphony of music can unite people in faith and even actualise a sense of mysterious concepts such as the Trinity, it can work equally well in the social and political spheres.

One conclusion emerging from the present collection of essays is the tremendous contribution that Lutheran practice and thought has made to the development of the culture of art music in the West (and indeed its adoption in other areas of the world). The individuality and integrity of individually honed pieces of music became increasingly prized within this culture as “musical works” took over something of the moral imperatives of the individual human subject, responsible for fulfilling its individual potential, continually recharging its spirit, but also harmonising with the rest of the community and its universal laws. It was against this co-option of religion by secular culture that some twentieth-century Lutheran leaders, such as Oskar Söhngen, were reacting when they enthusiastically advocated the return of religious music from concert hall to church. But it is almost certainly too late to return the most striking examples of Lutheran music exclusively to their original environment; they have in a very real sense become a cultural resource for the broader secular world, albeit as part of an art-music culture that is itself increasingly contested. Perhaps it might not be an exaggeration to suggest, with obvious verbal irony, that a Lutheran culture of faith generation did more for developing the concept of the “musical work” than did the “works-based” approach of the Roman Catholic Church.

Appendix 1: Martin Luther’s 1538 draft to the Encomion musices

Martin Luther’s 1538 draft to the Encomion musices, published as preface to Wolfgang Figulus: Cantionem Sacrarum […] primi tomi decas prima (Frankfurt an der Oder: Eichhorn, 1575). (“Cum praefatione germanica […] Martini Lutheri ante non impressa”: “With a German preface by Martin Luther never published before”). RISM A/I F 721

Translation by Robin A. Leaver, reprinted with permission from Luther’s Liturgical Music: Principles and Implications (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017), 314 – 319. (Originally in Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007).

Allen liebhabern der freien Kunst Musica / wünsch ich Doctor Martinus Luther, Genad und Fried von Gott dem Vater und unserm HERRN Christo etc.	To all lovers of the free Art of Music, I Doctor Luther wish grace and peace from God the Father and our Lord Christ, etc.
Ich wolt warlich das alle Christen den theuren / warden hohen schatz / die lieben Musicam meine ich / so Gott uns Menschen gegeben / ja lieb und werdt hielten / den es ist ein solch / herlich Kleinot / das ich nicht weis wo ichs nemen soll / Davon / wie sichs gebüret zu reden.	I would certainly have all Christians value and treasure my beloved music, that God has given to humans, yes, to love and retain it for it is such an excellent treasure, though I do not know how to speak about it adequately.
Ist doch nichts auff Erden / das nicht seinen klang hat / und seine zal / ja auch die Lufft / so doch unsichtbar und unbegreifflich ist / wenn man darein schlegt mit einem stabe / so klinget sie.	There is nothing on earth that is without its sound and its harmony, yes even the air, which is invisible and imperceptible, makes sound when a stick is truck through it.
Das also diese edle Kunst in allen Creaturen ihr bildnus hat. Ach wie eine herrliche Musica ists / damit der Allmechtige HERR im Himel seinen Sangmeister / die liebe Nachtigal / sampt jren jungen Schülern / und so viel tausand mal vögel in der Lufft / begnadet hat / do ein jedes geschlecht seine eigene ahrt und Melode...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Framing Lutheran Music Culture
• The Word of God and Music in Luther: Re-Reading Luther’s 1538 Rhau Preface
• “Musicam semper amavi”: What is Remarkable about Luther’s Views on Music?
• Did the Choir Introduce German Hymns to the Wittenberg Congregations?
• Liturgical Foundations from the Court of Maximilian I and the Hope of Salvation
• Johann Reusch’s Zehen deudscher Psalm Davids (1551) and the Circulation of German Psalm Motets in Northern Europe
• Luther, Mattheson, and the Joy of Music
• Reading Belief through Compositional Unity: J. S. Bach’s Response to a Lutheran Theology of Proportions
• J. S. Bach, the Fuga Contraria, and the Lutheran Concept of Umkehr
• “Defenders of music” as a Topos of Collective Self-Fashioning in Lutheran Writings from Early Modern Sweden
• Luther in Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s Hymn of Praise
• The “Lutheran Style”: Aesthetics, Theology and Politics in Oskar Söhngen’s Writings
• Beyond “Church-dividing” Differences: Music and New Ecumenical Perspectives on Justification
• Lutheran Music Culture – A Reflection
• Appendix 1: Martin Luther’s 1538 draft to the Encomion musices
• Appendix 2: Preface by Johannes Bugenhagen to Balthasar Resinarius: Responsorium numero octoginta de tempore, 1544
• Appendix 3: Preface by Philipp Melanchthon to Johann Reusch: Zehen deudscher Psalm Davids, 1551
• Person Index