Music

While I was growing up, my father had a vinyl collection he rotated through. It seemed as though he had music for every occasion. The music was primarily classical or opera, with some jazz big band music thrown in. The best times were on the weekends when company would come over and my parents would cook all day in the kitchen with music playing. I don't think I truly appreciated the music until I moved out for college. Growing up life had a soundtrack and now there was no music. Modern music was no substitute. Eventually, when I was married and started having people over for dinner, I tried to recreate the experience. I looked up the recipes they cooked and turned on the music sourced on Spotify, though the electric recordings never quite reached the nostalgia of the vinyl records.

     Music is important. The familiar songs contain memories. When it comes to sacred music we use in the Church, these hymns and settings are also important. On the one hand, the settings we sing contain the memories of singing them throughout our childhood, or for as long as we can remember. This sacred music is important because not only is it beautiful but also because it contains so much theology. Just as the Psalms were the theology of Israel in music form, so the mass propers and hymns we sing are our theology. We cannot substitute these historic settings and hymns for something not part of our Tradition.

     I am not saying that contemporary music is not nice or uplifting for people to sing to in their cars even on the way to Church. However, sacred music is very different than simply Christian music. Sacred music has been tried and tested, it is as we sing, we also participate with the Church that has gone before us, it is the best we have to offer. All music is new at some point, I get it. Even the Mass setting used here at All Saints was composed by Healey Willan only in the 1920's. Unfortunately, some Anglicans go through their entire life without knowing the richness of Anglican music even within the service music. Those of us here at All Saints who know the importance and richness of Anglicanism need to help others who walk through our doors to experience the great music tradition that we have been handed down.

     This brings me to the question of how can we, here at All Saints, experience the fullness of Anglican music. Liz, Natalie, and the Choir do a fantastic job of this and I can't speak highly enough of all their work. A simple way to incorporate the richness of Anglican music is to sing the Merbecke setting for Advent and Lent. For those who are not familiar with John Merbecke, he was the composer who originally noted the first Book of Common Prayer in 1550. This was the music that Thomas Cramner would have heard the service sung to. Merbecke was not a revolutionary. Instead, he took the English prayerbook and put it to the musical tones and melodies that extend back to the Medieval Church or the Ancient Church.

     Just as when I was a child and my father would play different music for different settings, music helps us to experience and process what is going on around us. As Anglicans, we believe what we do matters, and the setting and context in which we worship form us too. Traditional Anglican music like Merbecke and Willan helps us to worship. The Merbecke setting is slightly shorter and simpler and it adds to both the beauty of the service, while still providing a solemness. This also means that when Christmas or Easter comes around it makes the Willan setting even more glorious!

I am not taking our Willan setting away, I love the Willan setting, perhaps even more than the Merbecke; however, both are important parts of our Anglican heritage and can add to our liturgical experience throughout the Christian year. Our liturgy remains the historic liturgy of the Church, words are not changed, merely the musical settings for the word given to us in our Prayerbook. Let us know both settings so that we can introduce those who enter through our doors to the richness of Anglican choral music and allow it to bring them further into the life of the Church.

     To help us be able to jump right in when Advent comes, the choir has been rehearsing for a while now to help lead us into the use of Merbecke. We are worshiping the God and Creator of all things; our worship should be orderly and beautiful. It may take a week or two to get used to the settings. One way you can prepare is to look at the Merbecke setting in the 1940 hymnal; it is listed as the primary setting for Holy Communion on page 743. I also encourage you to go to YouTube and listen to the Merbecke setting. There is a video put out by St John's in Detroit that does a good job, but as has been the custom here, the Creed is said and there is no Gloria during Advent. 

[link here:  Angus Podcast 3 FINAL 16x9]

Pax Christi,

Fr. Aaron