Music in the History of the Western Church: With an Introduction on Religious Music Among Primitive and Ancient PeoplesDickinson, Edward
History
Music in the History of the Western Church: With an Introduction on Religious Music Among Primitive and Ancient Peoples
Dickinson, Edward
Church music
genuine church music and the mischief in the false, to arouse church
members to an understanding of the injury that attends an obvious
incongruity between the character of the music and the spirit of prayer
which it is the purpose of the established offices of worship to create,
and to show how all portions of the service may act in harmony.
The general growth in musical culture, which is so marked a feature of
our time, should everywhere be made to contribute to the benefit of the
Church. The teaching of music in the public schools should be a means of
supplying the churches with efficient chorus singers. The Church must
also offer larger inducements to musicians and musical students. Here we
touch upon a most vital point. If the Church wants music that is worthy
of her dignity, and which will help her to maintain the place she seeks
to occupy in modern life, she must pay for it. The reason why so few
students of talent are preparing themselves for work in the Church as
organists and choir leaders is that the prospect of remuneration is too
small to make this special study worth their while. The musical service
of the Church is, therefore, in the vast majority of cases, in the hands
either of amateurs or of musicians who are devoting themselves through
the entire week to work which has nothing to do with the Church. A man
who is trained wholly or chiefly as a pianist, and who gives his strength
and time for six days to piano study and teaching, or a singer whose
energy is mainly expended in private vocal instruction, can contribute
little to the higher needs of Church music. It is not his fault; he must
seek his income where he can find it. The service of the Church is a side
issue, and receives the benefit which any cause must expect when it is
given only the remnants of interest and energy that are left over from a
week’s hard labor. There is a host of young musicians to whom church work
is exceedingly attractive. Let the Church magnify the importance of its
musical service, and raise its salaries in proportion, and an abundant
measure of the rising musical talent and enthusiasm will be ready at its
call.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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