Luther and Music

[Nick Baty]

The first 10 mins of Darmuid McCulloch's A History of Christianity shows a German congregation singing Luther in a way never quite heard in England. Rather impressive!

[Calum Cille]

The music is at 5.42 of the programme.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Luthe ... ythmic.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGVXZePjmis

[mcb]

The music is at 5.42 of the programme.

Here.

[NorthernTenor]

The first 10 mins of Darmuid McCulloch's A History of Christianity shows a German congregation singing Luther in a way never quite heard in England. Rather impressive!

A wonderful sound. Without contesting Nick's underlying point, I used to hear this style of hymn-singing at St. Anne & St. Agnes, Gresham Street (London), which the Diocese of London has let to a Lutheran congregation for many years*. I used to sing there once a month when Peter Lea-Cox was Cantor. He had immersed himself in Lutheran liturgy & music, and that's how he did hymns. I hope they still do.

* Note to the Bishop of London: it's a shame you weren't so generous with the Ordinariat.

[Mithras]

Lutherans also have much more respect for their organists; on holiday in Denmark and Sweden a few years ago I attended a couple of Lutheran services (and got to play a couple of fine organs too); the custom was to have a "middle voluntary" between the gospel and sermon (not just a trackless meandering across the keyboards but a piece of existing music such as a Bach chorale prelude) which was seen as an integral part of worship. And nobody moved or spoke until the last note of the concluding voluntary - often a substantial piece of 5 or 6 minutes plus - has been played. I was once organist in the Finnish Church in London. What a difference there was in playing for the Catholic Mass in the morning where I might as well have been playing Three Blind Mice, and the thoughtfulness with which my voluntary at the Finnish liturgy was received.

I know this has been discussed on at least one other thread; it's not just Greek and Hebrew that our seperated bretheren are better at that we, it is good manners!

Rant over

M

[HallamPhil]

Years ago when i was Director of Music at the German Catholic Church in London's Aldgate east they had similar traditions of improvised preludes to hymns which often had Lutheran origins. I'll never forget the Easter night trumpeter's sounding out over London a fanfare on 'Christ ist erstanden', followed by an organ improvisation and the singing of the hymn. It was really dramatic but then the German organ and acoustic helped!

Earlier this month i was in Blackburn Cathedral and at the service to close a Music Day folk were asked to wait while the organist played Dubois' Toccata. He played it very well and the point was made that both composer and organist had spent time preparing it and the least we might do is spare a few minutes to listen!

Increasingly now I find myself picking up something from the sermon in a song before we move into the Creed. It was something I did frequently in my Stamford Hill days when the late Kevin Donovan was PP. In fact he would sometimes ask for a brief song in the middle of his sermon! The Lutherans did something similar and organists and other musicians might consider this place for something short which enables reflection to continue.

[Southern Comfort]

I was once organist in the Finnish Church in London.

Nice little organ there.

[Mithras]

I was once organist in the Finnish Church in London.

Nice little organ there.

SC, PM sent on this.

M