TEACHING THROUGH EAR

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1053, 18 August 1930, Page 14

TEACHING THROUGH EAR

IMPORTANCE OF MUSIC IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP INSTRUMENTAL ONCE BANNED “Denominations everywhere recognise the value of music in worship as a means for teaching through the ear, but many fail strangely to appreciate that worship should appeal to the eye as well, and that ceremonial no less should play its part.” This was the remark of the Rev. Cecil Watson, vicar of St. Paul’s Church, City, in an address last evening on “Church Music.” In tracing the influence of music in worship since the dawn of Christian worship, Mr. Watson said that in the early days of the Church instrumental music was actually frowned upon by Christian people, because it was so much a part of pagan rites. Singing, however, was an important aspect of the worship of the Church. Pliny had reported: “On certain days they (Christian people) will gather before sunrise to sing antiphonally the praise of their God.” Just as instrumental music was barred so was incense, both being regarded as pagan. Today, however, instrumental music was a feature, quite properly, of Church worship, so why not other means of teaching and of praise? The late Archbishop of Canterbury had appointed a committee to report on the whole subject of Church music, continued the vicar. The finding had been principally that and organs were not to supplant con gregational singing, but simply to lead. Further, much weak and sentimental subjective stuff was to be eliminated. TOO MUCH FIRST PERSON By “subjective” was meant those hymns in which “1” so frequently occurred, and which centred round the emotions of one's self. The “Glory Song,” which people had roared at the recent Church rally principally for its rousing tune, was a good example. “Ob, That Will Be Glory For Me!” was the burden of it. But what about Glory for tfod? Gradually a more virile book of hymns, the “English Hymnal,” whose poetry was strong and less abundant in sentiment was forcing its way into the Church of England. The music also was of a higher quality than that of the present “Ancient And Modern.” Quoting from the preface to a work on oratorios, Mr. Watson read the following as expressing the ideal of music in churches:—“Music forms a wondrous and yet only partially understood factor in the symmetry of the universe—the order which is Heaven’s first law. In that old book of sacred writ. Job, we read that when the Almighty laid the foundations of the earth the ‘morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.’ Allowing for poetic imagery the idea of a burst of glorified sound from things animate and inanimate at the dawn of creation seems to associate music from the start with all that is great, powerful and divine—the palpable demonstration of existence, movement and even of life itself. “The association of music with the revolution of the heavenly bodies is a very old belief, and held sway among all the great nations of antiquity, the ancient Egyptians, Hebrews and Chinese in particular. Music as the outward expression of worship—the looking upward of an inferior to a superior being—found doubtless its first outlet in nature, through the songs of birds before man himself came into existence. What more likely than the human race, in moments of exultation, should pour forth with the singing voice its sense of obligation and thanksgiving?”