History of Christianity Commons^™

Secular Formations Of Sacred Music: Schleiermacher, Romanticism, And Devotional Media In Germany, Desmond Sheehan

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Theologians and musicologists alike have often disregarded the material and technical facets of devotional scenes such as the one meticulously described in Schleiermacher’s Christmas Eve Celebration: A Dialogue (1806). More recent musicologists have highlighted more concealed technologies that helped to facilitate Romantic aesthetic experiences – a form of methodological unmasking that at once denies and reclaims a Schillerian notion of disenchantment. This essay argues that both types of studies perpetuate secularization narratives that displace a Christian religiosity into public artforms and social practices in Romanticism, and secular modernity by extension. As a proposed alternative, a media history of sacred music …

(Special Section) Translating Race: Mission Hymns And The Challenge Of Christian Identity, Philip Burnett

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

“Ye seed of Israel’s chosen race,” “The race that long in darkness pined,” “To heal and save a race undone,” and “Sanctify a ransomed race” are a few examples of many references to “race” that exist in English-language hymnody. Throughout the nineteenth-century, hymns containing lines such as these, were exported from Britain into mission fields where translators had to find new ways to conceptualize notions of race and, in effect, created new group identities. This requires asking critical questions about the implications of what happened when ideas of race, in the Christian sense, interacted with non-religious notions of race in …

Vatican Ii, Liberation Theology, And Vernacular Masses For The Family Of God In Central America, Bernard J. Gordillo

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

The Second Vatican Council (1962–65) instituted reforms in the Catholic Church that included changes in language and music employed in the liturgy, inspiring a proliferation of sung vernacular masses throughout Latin America. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research undertaken in Nicaragua and the United States, this article examines three Central American vernacular masses—Misa típica panameña de San Miguelito (1967), Misa popular nicaragüense (1969), and Misa campesina nicaragüense (1975). Each mass emanated from communities founded as part of the transnational Familia de Dios (Family of God) movement, which established programs of religious education, leadership training, and community building among impoverished …

Early Modern Scottish Metrical Psalmody: Origins And Practice, Timothy Duguid

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Non-literate societies are often dependent on music for transmitting news and ideas because of music’s ability to enhance memory. Sixteenth-century reformers were aware of this, but they had to compete with secular and Roman Catholic music that often contradicted Reformed doctrine. Highly influenced by the Strasbourg-based Martin Bucer and the writings of Saint Augustine, John Calvin insisted that Biblical Psalms, set in vernacular poetry, were most appropriate for both corporate worship and private devotion. The result was a series of metrical psalters that were intended to be performable by everyone. Some editions had explicitly liturgical designs, but most were intended …

“That Hart May Sing In Corde:” Defense Of Church Music In The Psalm Paraphrases Of Matthew Parker, Sonja G. Wermager

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Translation of sacred texts is always a dangerous act. In the sixteenth century, translators of the Bible into vernacular languages faced persecution and even execution for their perceived heresy. Nevertheless, when Archbishop of Canterbury Matthew Parker (1504-1575) published his poetic paraphrases of the biblical psalms, for which Thomas Tallis wrote the corresponding psalm tunes, Parker joined a growing number of scholars and clerics risking the translation of scripture under the aegis of the Protestant Reformation. In his paraphrases Parker carefully negotiated between strict translation and poetic interpretation of the text, particularly in regards to musical themes. I argue that in …

Listening To Early Modern Catholicism: Perspectives From Musicology, Aaron James

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

A book review is presented for Daniele V. Filippi and Michael Noone, eds. Listening to Early Modern Catholicism: Perspectives from Musicology (Leiden: Brill, 2017).

Singing As English Protestants: The Whole Booke Of Psalmes’ Theology Of Music, Samantha Arten

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

The Whole Booke of Psalmes, first published in 1562, became the most visible symbol of English Protestant music-making through its immense popularity and its perceived Protestant authority and monarchical authorization, and the psalter was directly responsible for the formation of the Church of England’s musical culture. Through close reading of the hymnal’s words about music—the versified texts of the psalms themselves, particularly the paraphrases of those psalms that speak directly about music, singing, worship, and instruments, and also other material including the versified hymns and prefatory matter—I argue that the WBP promoted a particular theology of music in Reformation …

Syriac Chant And The Limits Of Modality, Sarah Bakker Kellogg

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

A book review is presented for Sense and Sadness: Syriac Chant in Aleppo, by Tala Jarjour. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. 250 pp. ISBN: 978-0-190-63525-1.

Glimpses Into The Music And Worship Life Of A Victorian Colonial Cathedral: The Anglican Cathedral Of St Michael And St George In 1900 (Grahamstown, South Africa), Andrew-John Bethke

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This article documents one year (1900) in the musical life of a colonial Anglican cathedral in Grahamstown (Cape Colony, South Africa), during the British colonial period. The source material for the music-lists is drawn mainly from the Saturday editions of two local newspapers: Grocott’s Penny Mail and the Grahamstown Journal. The author analyses the musical trends of the cathedral by exploring the content of the cathedral’s musical repertoire and relating it to the choir’s size and competency; commenting on the preference for certain composers and what this might imply about local musical taste; examining the precentor’s hymn choices and …

Whitefield's Music: Moorfields Tabernacle, The Divine Musical Miscellany (1754), And The Fashioning Of Early Evangelical Sacred Song, Stephen A. Marini

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Evangelical hymnody was the most significant form of popular sacred song in eighteenth-century Anglo-America. John and Charles Wesley built their Methodist movement on it, but little is known about the music of their great collaborator and eventual rival, George Whitefield (1714-1770). The essential sources of Whitefield's music are the development of ritual song at his Moorfields Tabernacle in London, his Collection of Hymns for Social Worship (1753) prepared for that congregation, and a little-known tunebook called The Divine Musical Miscellany (1754) that contains the first and definitive repertory of music known to be sung at Moorfields. This essay recovers Whitefield's …

Psalms, Islam, And Music: Dialogues And Divergence About David In Christian-Muslim Encounters Of The Seventeenth Century, David R. M. Irving

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

David (Daud) is revered in the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam variously as a king, prophet, and musician, providing the inspiration for what can be called the “Davidic tradition,” expressed in text, sound, ideology, and image. The scriptures associated with David are central to this tradition: within Judaism and Christianity they are the Psalms, human praises or entreaties to God; within Islam, the Zabūr is revered as a divine prophecy revealed to the prophet Daud, according to the Qurʾān. David’s musicianship and the identity of his instruments are understood differently in Jewish-Christian and Islamic traditions, and are interpreted …

Music In The South African Anglican Diocese Of Cape Town From 1900 To The Present: Toward A History Of Anglican Music In The Anglican Church Of Southern Africa, Andrew-John Bethke

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This article provides a succinct history of Anglican cathedral and parish music in the Western Cape Province and the city of Cape Town. Within these parameters the author explores the musical trends in different strands of Anglicanism (Anglo-Catholic, Broad Church and Evangelical), documents the development of choirs and music groups and gauges the musical consciousness of South African Anglicans. The article begins at the turn of the twentieth century and extends to 2010. The earliest history (from 1750 - 1900) has been documented in a previous article by the same author.

Singing The Sermon: Where Musicology Meets Homiletics, Emmett G. Price Iii

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

From the beginning of the Christian Church, singing and preaching have served as major tools of communication. In fact, they remain the most utilized methods of articulating and explicating personal and communal theologies across the diverse and expansive expressions of Christianity.

From the life, ministry, and legacy of Jesus Christ through the teachings of the Apostle Paul, the roles and functions of singing and preaching are well known but not well studied as a unit. From the foundational writings of the early Church Fathers through the various theses of the reformers, the acts of singing and preaching have been studied …

Preaching And The Power Of Music: A Dialogue Between The Pulpit And Choir Loft In 1689, Markus Rathey

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

During the ecclesiastical year 1689-90 the Lutheran superintendent in Leipzig, Johann Benedict Carpzov, and his cantor, the composer Johann Schelle, embarked on a collaboration of unusual scale. In the previous year, Carpzov had preached a cycle of sermons based on well-known hymns from the Lutheran tradition. In 1689-90 Carpzov gave a short summary of the earlier hymn sermons, while Schelle composed for each Sunday a cantata based on the very same hymn. The result is a unique collaboration between preacher and musician, pulpit and choir loft. Only a few of Schelle’s compositions have survived; however, the extant cantatas together with …

Preaching About Pipes And Praise: Lutheran Organ Sermons Of The Seventeenth Century, Joyce L. Irwin

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

The seventeenth century was a grand era for organ building, and as new organs were installed in Lutheran churches in Germany, there were services of dedication at which a sermon was preached to explain the theological basis for using organ music in worship and to extol the value of instrumental worship for the praise of God. In some respects these sermons were all alike: scriptural passages, predominantly from the Old Testament, were cited to remind the congregation of ancient musical practices; opponents of church organs from Zwingli through Calvin to Voetius and Grossgebauer were chastised as misguided or worse; the …

The Reformation Of Preaching: Transformations Of Worship Soundscapes In Early Modern Germany And Switzerland, Barbara Pitkin

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

The evangelical sermon was the Protestant Reformation’s central ritual event and the catalyst for a host of other changes, ranging from the abolition of the Mass to acts of violent iconoclasm. In promoting the sermon, reformers in Germany and Switzerland were in continuity with trends in medieval preaching, but at the same time the new centrality given to the preached word fundamentally altered the worship experience, particularly the aural experience. The present investigation traces the contours of the preaching landscape in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, outlines the innovations in sermonizing in Reformation Switzerland and Germany, and, by …

Restoration Or Invention? Archbishop Cisneros And The Mozarabic Rite In Toledo, Susan Boynton

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

As archbishop of Toledo from 1495 to 1517, Francisco Ximénez de Cisneros carried out a multifaceted campaign of support for the Mozarabic rite, which had been preserved in the Middle Ages by Christians living in Toledo under Muslim rule. Although the Roman rite was introduced into the cathedral in 1086, the Toledan Mozarabs had continued to follow their ancient liturgy in their parishes. By the end of the Middle Ages, however, the rite was rarely celebrated. Fearing that it might become obsolete, in 1501 Cisneros endowed a chapel in his cathedral for the Mozarabic rite and established a clergy of …