Should Church Music ever be sad?

Discussion in 'Liturgy, and Book of Common Prayer' started by Toma, Dec 29, 2012.

  1. Toma

    Toma Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Friends,

    While reading a book written in 1894 entitled Chapters on Church Music, I found an interesting section which deals with the use of sad, depressing, gloomy, sentimental, and minor-mode hymns. The writer completely disagrees with their use, saying that the sole object of music in worship is praise, thanksgiving, joy, and gladness.

    "The best hymns are those of prayer and adoration, and of praise and thanksgiving - those of praise and thanksgiving being the best of all for use in public worship. It is remarkable that mournful and sentimental hymns are more often used, in many churches, than those written in a more cheerful vein. [...] Whilst many modern hymn-writers are full of gloomy sentiment, the Sweet Psalmist of Israel overflows with joyful feeling."

    What do you think about the use of 'sad' hymns? Should church singing and sacred music ever contain sadder strains? Should we not always praise the Lord joyfully for every thing?
     
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  2. Toma

    Toma Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Here is the full section on this topic, in the book, for those who want to read his logic:

    "The best hymns are those of prayer and adoration, and of praise and thanksgiving - those of praise and thanksgiving being the best of all for use in public worship.

    It is remarkable that mournful and sentimental hymns are more often used, in many churches, than those written in a more cheerful vein. The inspired Psalms are always joyful; 'the voice of joy and health' is heard in them all; the thought of praise and thanksgiving is always present, and often appears on the surface. Even those which begin with prayer and supplication generally end with praise and thanksgiving. Whilst many modern hymn-writers are full of gloomy sentiment, the Sweet Psalmist of Israel overflows with joyful feeling.In his own words: 'the Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart hath trusted in Him, and I am helped; therefore my heart danceth for joy, and in my song will I praise Him'. Even when he is at his lowest, and his sin is ever before him, he looks forward to the time when God, of His mercy, will forgive him and strengthen him with His Holy Spirit; and he, delivered from blood-guiltiness shall sing of God's righteousness. 'Thou shalt open my lips, O Lord; and my mouth shall shew thy praise'. to us the psalmist again and again stresses exhortations to praise God in cheerful song. Singing everywhere, in the writers, belongs to the expression of joy and gladness, and, by a figure, even inanimate things are represented as breaking forth into joy and singing (see especially the beautiful passages in Isaiah 35:1, 2, 6, 10... 44:23... 51:3, 11... 52: 8-9... 55:12).

    At the laying of the Earth's foundations 'the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy'. And St. John learned that, when time shall be no more, one of the occupations of the redeemed shall be singing hymns of praise. Sacred music in Bible times seems to have been invariably of the healthy, cheerful kind. 'And David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers... lifting up the voice with joy' (1 Chron. 15:16). Jehoiada restored the worship of God, and caused the burnt offering to be accompanied 'with rejoicing and with singing, as it was ordained by David' (2 Chron. 23:18). 'Hezekiah the king and the princes commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the Lord with the words of David, and of Asaph the seer. And they sang praises with gladness, and they bowed their heads and worshiped' (2 Chron. 29:30). 'They sang together by course in praise and giving thanks unto the Lord' (Ezra 3:11). 'For in the days of David and Asaph of old there were chief of the singers, and songs of praise and thanksgiving unto God' (Nehemiah 12:46). Such, then, was psalmody in Bible times. Church music was cheerful and elevating. The only place - so far as the present writer is aware - in which mention is made of singing mournful songs (though not in the Temple service) is in 2 Chron. 35:25, where we learn that lamentations or funeral dirges for Josiah were chanted in memory of that king.

    When they are in distress, God's people hang up their harps. They cannot sing a song and melody in their heaviness. They cannot sing the Lord's song in a strange land. By the waters of Babylon they sit down and weep; and the songs of Zion are not heard there. In the New Testament, as in the Old, singing is the vehicle f joy and gladness, and not of mournfulness and gloom. 'Is there any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is any merry? Let him sing psalms'. We are told of St. Paul and Silas in the prison, that they prayed and sang praises. It has been remarked that many modern hymns are full of gloomy sentiment. Even the last sufferings of the Man of Sorrows are held to be a fit subject for song. Hymns have been written non the passion, which are truly dreadful. The hymn, 'O, come and mourn', for example, contains passages which are so harrowing to the feelings that one wonders what manner of man he would be who could sing the hymn through. In the beautiful and justly admired hymn, 'When I survey the wondrous cross', the details are omitted, or at least are not put vividly before the singer. It is strange that many people prefer mournful hymns to those of a more cheerful kind. The present writer confesses that he cannot see what useful purpose gloomy hymns can serve. It seems to him that hymns used in Divine service ought almost always to be those of praise and thanksgiving. There is something stirring in a hymn like 'Lord of the worlds above'. And it is hard to believe that anyone could take part in singing such a hymn as this, and not be the better for it." *


    * Footnote: "A writer to the Echo lately gave a story Paxton Hood used to tell: He went as a supply to some country place, where the senior deacon chose and gave out hymns. The worthy brother commenced the service by giving out the hymn, 'My thoughts on awful subjects roll'. Paxton started up, and said, "No, no! My thoughts don't roll on such subjects at all. Let us sing 'Come let us join our cheerful songs with angels round the throne' " - [Paxton was] thus gently rebuking the lovers of doleful psalmody."
     
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  3. Incense

    Incense Active Member

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    This is a very interesting. I will come back with my own thoughts :D
     
  4. Incense

    Incense Active Member

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    So...
    The first verse that came to my mind is from Ecclesiastes 3:1 To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. There are times where we are called to repent, if not everyday, and our sin is ugly and surly we will not be praising God in a heart that is deceitful. Obviously we will have times where we will be mourning or remembering sad events and it is not fitting to fake a rejoicing at these circumstances. This said, we are not people of despair and surly we are hopeless and sad. We know one day will come where Christ will wipe every tear and after that day we will not know what sadness mean and probably we will have a new dictionary because many words such as misery , sin, all those words will disappear. But till them we are on earth, we will have to sing our repentance, we will walk in the valley of death but there we will remember the promises of the Lord and will sing His praises...
    Basically what I am saying is that there are very important moment where sadness and sad music (ipso facto) are a must but they should not come in a spirit of defeat but they are not wrong and sometimes they are as essential and good as joyful happy music... Not negating though the fact that the praise and worship of the Lord in gladness and joy must take a big part of our prayer times and services, in a way we have to put all things aside and just be in His presence and there is no place to mourn...
     
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  5. CatholicAnglican

    CatholicAnglican Active Member

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    There is indeed a time to mourn, our Lord even says we will be blessed for doing it.

    Matthew 5:3-5
    King James Version (KJV)
    3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

    4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

    5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
     
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  6. CatholicAnglican

    CatholicAnglican Active Member

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    In fact "De Profundis" or "Out of the depths" is my favourite Psalm, a psalm of longing for The Lord.

    Psalm 130
    King James Version (KJV)
    130 Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.

    2 Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.

    3 If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?

    4 But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.

    5 I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.

    6 My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.

    7 Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.

    8 And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
     
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  7. Scottish Knight

    Scottish Knight Well-Known Member

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    I do believe there is a place for sad church music but not hopeless music.
     
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  8. Lowly Layman

    Lowly Layman Well-Known Member

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    I think all the responses here were right on the money, with Scottish knight summing it up perfectly. Of course there is a place for sad songs in worship, especially during lent and Advent where we are called to examine the depths of our own sinfulness and our dire, desperate need for a savior. When one looks at psalms 22 & 51, the book of lamentations, and the apocryphal prayer of Manassah, we see how the church has embraced sad songs in order to enrich and foretell the coming of happier times and of the Good News. There should be sad songs as well as happy because that is the range of human experience. There's an old southern gospel song that says " For the God on the mountain is still God in the valley. When things go wrong, He'll make it right. And the God of the goodtimes is still God in the bad times. The God of the day is still God in the night." It's important to remember that and sad songs remind us that others have been down in the valley too and still managed to lift up their voices to God even in their times of dark despair.
     
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  9. Toma

    Toma Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Thanks for all the interesting replies so far! It looks like this touches a sort of cord inside Christian hearts.

    A friend of mine said that the Lord is still weeping over the sins of Israel, the New Israel, even from His throne of glory - for He is an eternal divine person, as well as human: so all things are before Him in one single moment. That means the Resurrection, but also the Agony & Passion, are in His bloodshot eyee. To refuse to celebrate that in "gloomy" hymns would be partly a denial of the Incarnation, for we real fleshly humans cry in music as well as rejoice.

    Perhaps this dear rector of the 1890s was just over-reacting to a gross Victorian penchant for sentimentalism.
     
  10. AnglicanAgnostic

    AnglicanAgnostic Well-Known Member

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    Older writers also had sad music, and yes sacred music can contain sadder strains. Try buying your CD of Thomas Tallis's greatest hits and then try taking the two "Lamentations of Jeremiah" out of them .You will definately feel like you are missing out on something.
     
  11. Toma

    Toma Well-Known Member Anglican

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    It was an interesting book, at the least.

    Also, I dare say this is pretty sad, despite the Ionian mode; in fact, the poignancy of David's mourning over his son Absalom is made even more heart-wrenching by being in the major key

     
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