From Priestly Liturgy to Congregational Song
The Reformation produced a revolution in music as it did in theology, church ceremony, morals and art.
The forms of worship and prayer in the Roman Catholic church were aristocratic in character, made up of elaborate and splendid rituals performed according to an inviolable tradition, and in many respects, such as language, vestments and decoration, symbols and signs, and music, they stood above the understanding of ordinary people. In that setting the clergy regarded themselves as the embodiment of the church and saw the people as a flock that they had to tend, leading it toward morality and eternal salvation with the aid of myth, legend, sermons, drama and the various arts. Within that spirit the performance of the Mass was one of the sacraments through which a miraculous bond was established between priest and God, and the Mass was therefore sung in church by the priest and a choir of men standing in a place apart from the worshippers.
During the Reformation the middle classes proved their worth and themselves, instead of the clergy, became the embodiment of the church; the clergy turned into advisers and administrators of religious services. Now the language of the church had to be the local and national tongue rather than Latin, its music had to suit the understanding and taste of the common people, and in carrying out the service the congregation had to take an active part and finally even a leading role.
Luther and the Hymnal
Luther loved music and liked the principle of polyphony and the art of counterpoint. In 1538 he wrote with enthusiasm:
When natural music is adorned and polished by human art, one sees with wonder the perfect and boundless wisdom of God, who created this marvelous gift. How beautiful it is when one voice sings a simple tune and around it three, four or even five other voices leap, circle and ornament that main melody, as if dancing a round dance in the heavens. Whoever does not regard music as an inexpressible miracle of God is truly no more than a clod and does not deserve to be counted among men.
At the same time Luther wanted a kind of religious music that, by fusing song with faith, could stir the listener's soul. In 1524, working with Johann Walter, choirmaster of Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, he produced the first Protestant hymnal, which was later expanded and corrected through repeated editions. Its words came in varying proportions from Catholic hymns, the songs of the Meistersingers, the semi-poetic output of Luther's own pen, and folk songs turned into religious themes. On borrowing from folk songs, Luther said: "The devil has no right to keep all the pleasant tunes for himself." The music of the collection was in part composed by Luther and in part by Walter, and some was adapted from tunes used in Catholic services.
The Lutheran churches continued performing polyphonic masses for almost a century after the Reformation began. But gradually Latin gave way to each nation's vernacular, the importance of the mass declined, the congregation's participation in singing became more common, and the contrapuntal form of choral song yielded to a simpler harmony in which music had no purpose but to follow moods and interpret the meaning of the words. From the choral music Luther and his colleagues arranged to accompany the Gospel narratives, the splendid music of the Protestant church of the eighteenth century arose, reaching its peak of perfection and beauty in works such as the oratorios of Handel and the masses, oratorios and choral works of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Zwingli, Calvin and the Huguenot Psalms
Not all the founders of Protestantism showed music as kind a face as Luther did. Zwingli, though himself a musician, banned musical performance entirely during prayer and religious ceremony, and Calvin ordered that nothing be played in church except the unison singing of the congregation. He did, however, allow polyphonic singing in homes, and it must be said that his French followers, the Huguenots, owed a large share of their strength and courage to singing these hymns and psalms in family gatherings.
When Clement Marot rendered the Psalms into French verse, Calvin was so pleased with the result that he overlooked the fault of Claude Goudimel in composing polyphonic settings for those psalms; and the fact that this composer was killed in the St. Bartholomew massacre only doubled the sacred value of his psalter. A hundred years after Marot a Catholic bishop openly expressed his envy of the great role these translations and their music had played in the growth of the Reformation in France: "Among the Huguenots, knowing these psalms by heart is a sign of unity and fellowship, and in towns where their number is fairly large these tunes are heard from the mouths of craftsmen, and in villages from the mouths of farmers." Making church music the property of all marked the lands of the Reformation and made up for the gloom of the faith with the liberating joy of song.