Congregational singing in the German Lutheran Church, 1523--1780

The transition from a choral to a congregational service in German Lutheran churches was a gradual one, occurring over a period of about two hundred fifty years. The emphasis on congregational singing as an essential part of the liturgy, frequently ascribed to Luther, was actually more representative of the Reformed in Switzerland and southern Germany and to the Pietists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries than to sixteenth-century Lutherans. In many places congregations, far from enthusiastically supporting Luther's reforms with their singing voices, chose instead to remain silent in church, or mostly so, for many decades after the Reformation was introduced. It was only in the eighteenth century, with the introduction of organ accompaniment and official congregational hymnals, that the song of the people came to resemble what is familiar to churchgoers today.;Sources used for the study include several hundred church orders and agendas, minutes of ecclesiastical visitations, hymnals, hymn-based musical compositions, tutorials and method books for teaching music (especially church music), sermons on music, theoretical and polemical works by pastors and church musicians addressing the issues of the day and, in the eighteenth century, journal articles and book reviews. Chapters deal with Luther and congregational singing, the Lutheran liturgy and its relationship to the pre-Reformation liturgy, liturgical provisions in the church orders, reports from ecclesiastical visitations, hymnal use by the congregation, conflict between choral music and congregational singing, organ accompaniment of singing, and issues of performance practice. Appendixes contain translations of important writings, lists of hymns mentioned in contemporary liturgical sources, and summaries of mass liturgies from the church orders.