The influences of Martin Luther, Jean Calvin and Thomas Cramner on the Music of the Anglican Church in Sydney before and after 1828.
Neil Cameron
Introduction
The connection between Martin Luther, Jean Calvin and Thomas Cranmer and the Anglican Church in Sydney, to a person not familiar with Anglican Church history and the development of music in Anglican Churches, may seem tenuous, if not non-existent. The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that there is such a connection, to examine how it arose and what it was.
Before the founding of the first settlement in Australia, some English people visited Australia. Captain James Cook and Sir Joseph Banks are notable examples and, no doubt, the crews of their ships included members of the Church of England and possibly members of other Christian denominations. However, if one assumes that the arrival in a country of a Christian denomination is marked by the arrival of a minister of the denomination, then the Church of England arrived in Australia in January1788 with the first fleet and its chaplain the Revd Richard Johnson.1 When the colony of New South Wales was founded, the Church of England in New South Wales was considered to be the established church of the colony but, by 1836, by some undefined process, that had changed and the church had the same status under the laws of New South Wales as the other religious denominations.2 Nevertheless, members of the Church of England in New South Wales (the Anglican Church), until 1 January 1962, considered themselves to be members of the Church of England in England (the Church of England).3 The nexus was not treated lightly.4
The Privy Council ruled, in several cases arising from a situation in South Africa, that the rules of the Church of England applied in the English colonies with limited exceptions.5 A literal compliance with all of the rules of the Church of England was impossible in Australia because of the prevailing conditions. This lead to doubts as to which rules fell within the exceptions and which did not. However, there was never any doubt that the rules as to the liturgy and the conduct of church services, applied in Sydney as they did in England and that those rules could not be ignored or changed in Sydney without grave risk.6 These rules were to be found mainly in the Act of Uniformity of 1662 (a statute of the English Parliament) and in the Canons of 1603-4. The 1662 Act was not the first statute of the English Parliament on this subject. The first was passed in 1549 during the reign of Edward VI. It imposed an English language prayer book in substitution for all pre-existing liturgical forms. The book, called The Book of Common Prayer, was drafted by Thomas Cranmer. Between 1549 and 1662 the text was amended in some respects but differences between the editions were relatively minor.
Thomas Cranmer was well aware of and had sympathy for, albeit to varying extents, the writings of Martin Luther and Jean Calvin.
Martin Luther
Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) was a singer, a composer and an admirer of Josquin des Prez and his contemporaries. Luther believed in the educational and ethical power of music and wanted all the members of the church congregations to take part in the music of the services.7 He considered music to be the excellent gift of God.8 Luther, and his followers, permitted the use of a wide range of vocal, organ and instrumental music in worship.9
The most important musical innovation of Luther was the congregation hymn called, in English, a chorale.10 Originally, the chorale consisted of two elements, a poem and a tune. The first chorales were intended for congregational singing without harmonization or accompaniment. The notes were of uniform length, except that the last note of each phrase was longer. Particular attention was given to the association of words and melody. There was no equivalent in the Latin Mass of the time. Beginning in 1523, Luther, and his colleagues, began writing, revising and composing chorales for people to sing and, in 1524, four collections of chorales were published.11
The singing of chorales gave rise to practical problems. Chorale books were expensive and could not be afforded by all. There was the problem of maintaining the pitch as there is natural tendency, over time, for unaccompanied singing by people with untrained voices to drop in pitch. Nevertheless, the singing of chorales enjoyed considerable popularity and this gave rise to as demand for new texts and melodies.
The texts generally were a poetical expression of a Biblical truth or a commentary on a Biblical event. This opened the possibility of error or other misrepresentation of the truth or of the significance of the relevant event.
Some melodies were expressly composed for use in chorale singing.12 But the shortage was such that some secular tunes were used.13
In consequence, some (including Calvin and Cramner) had distinct reservations about the Lutheran chorale. Nevertheless, in the view of Nicholas Temperley:
(The) takeover of popular singing into the Lutheran church was an almost effortless process, and was entirely successful. It was the beginning of a musical tradition that was to prove both fruitful and popular for more than two hundred years.14
Jean Calvin
Jean Calvin (1509 – 1564), like Luther, was convinced of the power of music to affect human behavior although, unlike Luther, he may not have any particular musical ability.15
Calvin followed reformers more radical than Luther. Some would not include anything in a church service that did not have the express authority of the bible. Zwingli, for example, although an accomplished musician, sought to ban all music from the service. In 1525, in Zurich, he ordered all organs to be destroyed and all choirs to be disbanded. Martin Bucer sought a compromise between the Luther’s and Zwingli positions and found this in the singing of metrical psalms.16 Bucer established a pattern of worship in Strasburg of unison congregational singing of metrical psalms as the only music in the service.17
Calvin supported the compromise. Unlike Zwingili, he did not dismiss congregational singing in worship. He excluded instrumental music from church, believing that it belonged to the Old Testament, and believed that any kind of polyphony was distracting to the congregation.18
He disliked hymns modeled on elements of the Latin Mass and he was concerned about possible doctrinal errors. These would be avoided by the use of the psalms and the few poetical passages from other parts of the Old and New Testaments. He wrote:
Look where we may, we will never find songs better, not more suited to the purpose, than the Psalms of David: which the Holy Ghost himself composed. And so, when we sing them, we are certain that God puts the words in our mouth, as if he himself sang in us to magnify his praise.19
Calvin’s wish to adhere strictly to the biblical texts gave rise to two problems.
The first was that the Psalms were in Hebrew. Thus, to be sung by Europeans, the words had to be translated into the local language. This introduced the possibility of error in translation.
The second was that, at least in translation, the biblical texts were in prose. Nobody knew how the biblical texts were sung in the original language or in biblical times, and it was believed that they could not be sung in prose by an untutored congregation. Since metrical songs were the kind of music then mostly sung, the reformers had no alternative but to adopt this form. This, in turn, meant that, to the prose translation of the original text, words had to be added and words omitted for the text to become a metrical poem.20
In 1537, Calvin was expelled from Geneva for his efforts to ban adopted non-biblical hymns, settled in Strasburg, and there met Clément Marot, a court poet who had begun to convert selected biblical texts to metrical forms.21 Calvin recognized the high quality of Marot’s verse and used it.
The melodies used for these metical psalms were mostly taken from Gregorian melodies. Some were modeled on secular chansons. Melodies associated with inappropriate texts were avoided. These results were highly successful and had a variety of meter and rhythm, phrase structure and melodic pattern.22
Calvin did not allow harmonized versions of the tunes in church and the songs were sung unaccompanied.
In 1562, the complete psalter, called the Genevan Psalter or Huguenot Psalter, with 125 tunes, was published simultaneously in Geneva, Paris Lyons and elsewhere.23
Thomas Cranmer
According to MacCulloch,24 about 1532, Thomas Cranmer (1489 – 1556) changed from a taciturn diplomat of conventional piety and distaste for Luther to a man with a burning hatred for the papacy and a keen interest in the message of the Continental reformers. In 1533, he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.
It seems he had even less knowledge of or interest in music than Calvin. He disliked anything other than the simplest of traditional church music of the time. He wrote that:
some decent and solemn note …. will much excite and stir the hearts of all men into devotion and godliness: but in mine opinion, the song that shall be made there would not be full of notes, but, as near as may be, for every syllable, a note.25
MacCulloch writes of Cranmer’s musical preferences:
Cranmer thus envisaged the most basic plainsong possible as most as suitable for the Church’s use citing in his letter normal unadorned choir usage in the offices and the mass. Polyphony …..was beyond his concern altogether: he wanted a plainsong which would be functional, comprehensible to and even performable by any persevering member of the congregation. This would be the solution be adopted in 1550 for the Prayer Book.26
On 7 October 1544, Cranmer wrote to Henry setting out his principles for church music in the venacular:
In mine opinion, the song that shall be made thereunto would not be full of notes, but, as near as may be, for every syllable a note; so that it may be sung distinctly and devoutly, as be in matins and evensong Venite, the hymns Te Deum, Benedictus, Magnificat, Nunc dimittis, and all the psalms and versicles; and in the mass Gloria in excelsis, Gloria patri, the creed, the preface, the Pater noster and some of the Sanctus and Agnus.27
Services in the vernacular were not possible while Henry VIII was alive. The enormous popularity of hymn singing among the Lutherans could not have failed to come to the attention of Henry who, to his dying day, considered himself a member of the Western Church and an opponent of Luther. But on his death, all changed.
Developments after the death of Henry VIII
Edward VI succeeded Henry and, during his reign, the first Act of Uniformity, that of 1549 imposed an English language prayer book in substitution for all pre-existing forms.
While the first Book of Common Prayer and the subsequent versions included provision for congregational singing, they made no provision for the singing of Lutheran chorales or Calvin’s metrical psalms. There seems to be several reasons for this. By this stage, Cranmer’s theological leaning moved from Luther to Calvin. The poems of the Lutheran chorales were not necessarily soundly based on scripture. This was Calvin’s objection. Moreover, even the metrical psalms accepted by Calvin were not an exact version of scripture due to the modifications needed to provide a standard meter. Cranmer’s solution, in The Book of Common Prayer was to look to the un-metrical translations of the psalms, of the New Testament poems, such as Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, and of old , but sound, Latin hymns, such as Te Deum. There may have been another reason. MacCulloch believes that Cranmer was cautious in orchestrating the pace of change.28 He asserts that Cranmer may have thought that the introduction of hymns, which would have allowed Lutheran chorales and Calvinist metrical psalms, may have given rise to unnecessary opposition to his prayer book from conservative English.
In 1549, Thomas Hopkins compiled a book of metrical psalms in English. The book, after revision, became known as Sternhold and Hopkins and marked the beginning of Anglican hymnology.29
In 1559, Elizabeth I issued Injunctions or Advertisements which contained the following provision:
And that there may be a modest song, so used in all parts of the common prayers in the church, that the same may be plainly understood, as if it were read without singing, and yet, nevertheless, for the comforting of such that delight in music, it may be permitted that in the beginning, or in the end of the common prayers, either at morning or evening, there may be sung an hymn, or such like song, to the praise of Almighty God, in the best sort of melody and music that may be conveniently devised, having respect that the sentence of the hymn may be understood and perceived.30
Strictly speaking, what happened before or after a service was not part of the service. Nevertheless, questions were soon raised as to whether Elizabeth had power to issue such a direction which was regarded by many as contrary to the Act of Uniformity.
In 1662, a new Act of Uniformity imposed a new prayer book. The new prayer book made no allowance for hymns, for metrical psalms or for Elizabeth’s direction.
Long considers that the changes brought about in sacred music by the English Reformation were marked both in the home and in the Protestant churches. He writes:
somewhere about 1547-48 a new and simple although strongly Protestant, form of sacred music was introduced – metrical psalmody, modeled on the metrical psalms published by the Calvinists in Geneva.31
However, there was a significant difference. The Calvinists intended their psalm translations to be used in corporate worship whereas in England they were limited to private use in the home.
In the second half of the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, there was a revival in the Church of England and some of its clergy ignored the embargo. Other clergy allowed hymns and metrical psalms to be sung before and after the service – following the suggestion in Elizabeth’s Advertisements. The more conservative clergy refused to allow hymns and metrical psalms to be sung at any time in connection with a service in a church building.32
In Sydney, the Revd William Cowper and the Revd Samuel Marsden, two clergy of the Anglican Church ignored the embargo. Cowper was minister of St Philip’s, Sydney. On 21 August 1814, Goode’s Book of Psalms33 was used in St Philip’s, Sydney. Governor Macquarie was present. His Excellency was not pleased for, the next day, he directed his secretary, to write to Cowper in the following terms:
His Excellency alike from duty and inclination to preserve uniformity and consistency with the legally established Rules and Ceremonies of the Church of England, with which any unauthorized version of the Psalms must militate, desires to be informed by you, in writing, by what authority you have acted in thus venturing to depart from the old-established ceremonies of the Church, and unless in this communication you shall be enabled to shew that this new version of the Psalms by Dr Goode is ordered to be sung in Churches by the authority of the Supreme Head of that Church, it is His Excellency’s desire that you shall not in future use it in public celebration of Divine Service, such innovation being neither justified by necessity nor by that obedience to the religious establishment of this Colony, which it is alike, his and your duty to uphold.34
The issue as to the use of hymns in England came to a head in relation to a collection of psalms and hymns compiled in 1820 by Thomas Cotterill, the minister of St Paul’s Church, Sheffield.35 Cotterill used hymns from his own collection in his church.36 Some parishioners took proceedings against him.37 The Vicar General of the Chancery Court of York concluded, on 6 July 1820, that neither hymns nor metrical psalms were an authorized part of the liturgy but both were authorized for use before and after the service. The decision and the practice of hymn singing in church were endorsed by the Archbishop of York and, notwithstanding opposition from some bishops of the Church of England, the floodgates opened.38
In Australia, the first official hymn book of the Anglican Church was published in 1828 by the NSW Government printer. This book was based on Tate and Brady but included hymns for holy days and festivals such as Christmas and Easter. The book was replaced by hymnals containing translated Lutheran chorales (in translation), metrical psalms and English hymns of the eighteenth century. These supplemented Cranmer’s prose psalms and canticles. Thus, by the middle of the nineteenth century, the congregational music in Anglican Churches retained its origins in the Lutheran chorales, the metrical psalms and the chanted psalms and canticles of Cranmer.
Conclusion
Notwithstanding the elapse of 250 years between the time when the forms of congregational singing in protestant churches and the arrival of the Church of England in Australia, the patterns settled in the sixteenth century in Europe were repeated here until the early nineteenth century when the Church of England and the Anglican Church happily accepted all three forms.
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1 C.M.H. Clark, A History of Australia, Vol. 1, Melbourne University Press, 1962, 85. Vol. 1,
2 Wylde v Attorney General (1948) 67 CLR 224.
3 On this date the nexus was severed by Acts of the Parliaments of each of the Australian states and territories which established the organization currently known as The Anglican Church of Australia.
4 For example, in the course of a meeting of the second Sydney Synod, the bishop of Sydney stated: “This union between us and the Church of England will, I trust, ever be preserved….” Similar sentiments were expressed by church members on many occasions.
5 Bishop of Natal v Gladstone, LR 3 Eq. 1 at 774.
6 In the South African cases, it was held, in effect that those who adopted and followed different rules had ceased to be part of the Church of England in South Africa and had, in effect, established and become members of a new denomination.
7 Donald Jay Grout, and Claude V. Palisca, A History of Western Music, Fifth edition, W. W. Norton & Company, 1996, 239.
8 Robin A. Leaver, “Luther Martin” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vol.15, Macmillan Publishers Limited, London, 2001, 366.
9 Robin A Leaver, “Luther, Martin, 374.
10 Grout and Palista, A History, 240.
11 Robin A. Leaver, “Luther, Martin”, 366.
12 One of the best known, Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott was composed by Luther. Others, still in use, include:
Christe du Lamm Gottes
Lobet den Herren
Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g’mein
Vater unser im Himmelreich
Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her
13 For example, the tune for the chorale which, in its English version, begins O sacred head sore wounded and relates to the crucifixion of Christ was originally a love song which, in English, began with the words My peace of mind is shattered by a tender maiden’s dreams.
14 Nicholas Temperley, The Music of the English Parish Church, Vol. 1, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1979, 20.
15 Albert Denning, “Calvin, Jean”, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vol.4, Macmillan Publishers Limited, London, 2001, 845.
16 Temperley, The Music of the English Parish Church, 20.
17 Albert Denning, “Calvin, Jean”, 845.
18 Albert Denning, “Calvin, Jean”, 845.
19 Temperley, The Music of the English Parish Church, 20.
20 Temperley, The Music of the English Parish Church, 21.
21 Temperley, The Music of the English Parish Church, 21.
22 Temperley, The Music of the English Parish Church, 22.
23 Albert Denning, “Clavin, Jean”, 845.
24 Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation, Europe’s House Divided 1490 – 1700, Penguin Books, London, 2004, 199.
25 Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer, A Life, Yale University press, New Haven and London, 1996, 330.
26 Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer, 330.
27 Quoted by Temperley, The Music of the English Parish Church, 12.
28 Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer, 257
29 Temperley, Music of the English Parish Church, 54 and 55.
30 Thomas K. McCart, The Matter and Manner of Praise: The Controversial Evolution of Hymnody in the Church of England 1760-1820, (Langam, U.S.A. The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1998) 9. Also quoted by Nicholas Temperley, The Music of the English Parish Church, vol.1, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 39.
31 Long, The Music of the English Church, 59.
32 McCart, Praise, outlines different positions taken by clergy and bishops in Chapter 3, 75 and following.
33 The book is likely to have been An Entire New Version of the Book of Psalms; in which an attempt is made to accommodate them to the Worship of the Christian Church, in a variety of measures now in general use; with Original preface and Notes, critical and explanatory: a collection complied by William Goode in two volumes and published in London by W. Wilson in 1811.
34 The incident is described at length by Andrew Houison, A Short History of St Philip’s Church, Sydney, (Sydney, n.p., 1910), 18.
35 Temperley, Music of the English Parish Church, 218 and McCart, Praise, 93.
36 The hymns came from the eighth edition of a collection called Selection ofHymns for Public and Private Use, McCart, Praise, 93.
37 Cotterill v Holy and Ward. The nature of the proceedings, the arguments advanced and the result are described in detail in McCart, Praise, 93 and following.
38 McCart, Praise, 103, describes the negative attitude of the Bishop of Peterborough. The Bishop of Peterborough relied on the Act of Uniformity to justify his position. Other bishops objected on different grounds. For example, McCart describes, at 109, the opposition of the Bishops of Oxford and Durham which, evidently, was based on a dislike of evangelicals and since evangelicals and hymnody were associated, the bishops objected to the singing of hymns. However, the objections of these and like-minded prelates did not prevail although, in some churches, the clergy, particularly high churchmen, refused to allow hymns to be sung in their churches. See Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, 1, 2 nd ed. (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1972) 67.