# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 11 26_S54
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

54

influence of the singing come into church. Nor can one say: "If people have sung so hitherto, why should they not go on singing so?" By that reasoning the old rut could never and nowhere be swept out. So, courage, to work!

We have now seen that an improvement of our church singing is necessary; we have also convinced ourselves that it consists quite simply in this, that one sings the chorales as they were originally written, without flourishes, long what is to be long and short what is to be short, not everything, the joyful and the sorrowful, cut over one last, not so sluggish and drowsy that one can scarcely sing two notes in one breath, without interludes. The question now is: Is it possible to sing so, to sing so again now, after people have for at least a hundred years no longer sung so?

That one can sing so is proved first by the circumstance that people formerly really did sing so; that follows incontrovertibly from the old chorale books and hymn books, in which the melodies are still to be found in their original manner; in them they printed them as they really sang them. It was, by the way, not at all so bad to print the melodies into the hymn books; still better, to be sure, is it to print them together separately for everyone's use, understood, only the uppermost voice, the actual melody, and not also the accompanying voices, by which most people would only be confused. It is the most convenient and the most practical; for if the melodies are printed into the hymn book, one can naturally print each melody only once in some one place; but then one does not always have the very melody before one when one needs it, and there is an eternal turning of leaves back and forth. Therefore it is better to have the melodies, printed separately, alongside the hymn book; for a few kreuzers one could print them together so; the 12 of which we spoke are already to be had for one kreuzer (of Pastor Wiener in Kurzenaltheim near Gunzenhausen in Bavaria).

That one can again sing as people formerly sang, appears also from this, that in very many places this good old chorale singing has already been reintroduced. It has gone, the people take delight in it, they sing the old melodies at home and in the field, which with the newfangled, flourished and fancily-turned, lame and tedious ones happened very seldom or never. Naturally; the people like only what is of the people, and the newfangled melodies are not at all of the people, whereas the good old ones are so in a high degree.

But how has it been brought about that people sang the old melodies, how can it be brought about? Will there not be disturbances and inconveniences if one wishes to reintroduce the old chorale singing? Will not very many people first have to listen before they can sing along again? — I can and will not deny any of this; indeed, until a melody goes, the people must listen attentively more than they sing, and moderate themselves in singing, especially the forward shouters (one ought in any case in church to sing neither too weakly nor too loudly, but with a moderately strong voice; we want in church neither a twittering nor a shouting); but I say against all these scruples and difficulties: People do not shrink from the inconveniences and discomforts which it causes when one wishes to restore a church; they do not shrink from the inconveniences and discomforts connected with whitewashing or painting a room, with painting a house, and the like: so ought one also not to shrink from the inconveniences and disturbances which are indeed unavoidable when one wishes to reintroduce the old chorale singing; the good purpose is surely worth such a sacrifice, and it is only a matter of a short time, then everything goes well again, and better than before.

The reformation of singing of which we are speaking must now, by the nature of the case, proceed from the pastors, cantors, and organists. Unfortunately it is to be lamented that these in part cannot or will not. There are pastors who, though really without fault of their own, understand little more of music, even of chorale singing alone, than (as the proverb says) the ass of lute-playing. For whereas otherwise everyone must learn everything he needs for his calling, so hitherto, as a rule, no one has asked whether one who wishes to become a pastor also learns, or has learned, as much music as he needs in his office. Hence it has also come about that so many pastors must put up with everything their cantors and organists do and carry on at the organ; they cannot tell them anything, because they understand nothing of the matter; therefore so many a pastor howls or bellows at the altars instead of singing. Yet that is to become better, as I hear; people mean to concern themselves more than hitherto about the musical training of future pastors; and many an old pastor is not ashamed to become a pupil in singing or music again, and that is right. "What one cannot do, it is no disgrace to learn!" As much as a pastor needs of music can very well be learned afterward with some aptitude and good will, and if one is not already too old; the pastor is surely not to become a finished musician. — Yet I may not and will not complain merely of the musical incapacity of so many pastors; there are also cantors and organists who cannot properly sing and play a single chorale, and who are too old and clumsy to learn it better. Where, then, matters stand so with cantors, organists, and pastors, there is of course nothing to be done for the present, and one must wait for better times. But it is not everywhere so bad; there are enough congregations where things look better in this respect, where the pastors can and will, and cantors and organists at least can. To be sure, with the latter the willing sometimes fails; they are so banned into the old rut, so drowned in the newfangled, worldly music, that they have no sense or taste at all for the old music and the old chorale. Then the pastors should not let the trouble vex them, but should first instruct them in something better; if they then will not, well then they must; for cantors and organists, even if they call themselves, and let themselves be called, choir-directors and music-directors ten times over, stand under the pastor, and in all churchly functions must do not what they will, but what he wills. —

Where, now, the pastor can and will lay hand to the work of the reformation of singing, there he should first explain to the people what the matter is, that the chorale singing must and can become different. People should not be taken by surprise with the matter; it makes the people angry, and does no good; here, as everywhere, one should go to work honestly and openly. This instruction concerning the necessity and possibility of a reformation of singing the pastor should give quite confidently in the church, from the pulpit, in or after the sermon. "But is that fitting in the church and in the pulpit?" O dear people! How long, then, is the pulpit to be a cage in which the pastor is shut up so that he cannot move freely; how long will people still regard the surplice as a straitjacket in which the pastor cannot and shall not do what the present need of his congregation demands, but what the masters of "pulpit eloquence" have hatched out in their studies; how long yet will people force the pastors to march along, one like all, and all like one, on the broad, hard-trodden, dusty highway of this so-called pulpit eloquence, like wire puppets or parade soldiers, or at best like slaves with a gag in the mouth and with chains on hands and feet, unable to say and to do what would be timely at this very moment and place? Nothing at all is excluded from the pulpit that in any way touches the life of the church and of the congregation; everything relating thereto is not against the dignity and decorum of the church and of the pulpit. So the pastor may very well address a word about church singing to the congregation in the church and from the pulpit.

Having done that, he may then practice the chorales with some members of the congregation who have a desire for it, in his own person or with the help of the cantor and organist, so that not only the school children or the choir (who, as a matter of course, must learn the old melodies) may lead the singing, but also other people in the congregation. Experience has proved that people do come to such singing hours, and even come gladly.

In learning the melodies it will be good if the people have notes. Even if they do not learn to sing formally by notes, they see from the notes at least whether it goes up or down, what must be sung longer or shorter. It certainly goes more easily and quickly with notes than without notes.

The melodies must also be practiced quite exactly and punctually, securely and firmly, not superficially and waveringly; wholly, or not at all.

When one has come so far that one thinks it advisable to have a newly practiced melody sung at divine service, one will have to have hymns sung to one and the same melody for a considerable time. That is, to be sure, for the