RPW & Music In The Wider Culture

[Jared]

I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out the disparity between Puritan worship in the 17th century and the particular evolutionary stage of popular music of the same era. My suspicion is that there was not as great of a difference between acapella singing and popular music then as there would be now.

This is not to say that rejecting EP is wrong simply based on this observation, but it might account for the widespread use of instruments in the church.

 

[Christusregnat]

I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out the disparity between Puritan worship in the 17th century and the particular evolutionary stage of popular music of the same era. My suspicion is that there was not as great of a difference between acapella singing and popular music then as there would be now.

This is not to say that rejecting EP is wrong simply based on this observation, but it might account for the widespread use of instruments in the church.

"Secular" music flourished during the era of Cromwell. This puzzles historians, but the reality is that Puritans loved music in both church, and in the other parts of their lives. The tunes resemble each other, but are different in subject matter.

Cheers,

Adam

 

[VictorBravo]

Don't forget developments in Germany, France, and Italy, none of which were under a regulative principle. In Germany, the Lutheran church adopted music early, and by the end of the 17th century (and into the 18th) organ music in church had reached a peak in the works of Bach. Simultaneously, Scarlatti, Couperin, and many others were developing "sacred" and secular music, and the distinction often is quite blurred. Composers were gaining fame and passing music back and forth in a way never before seen.

It seems that "cutting edge" churches in England were interested in adopting some of these things, not unlike the "cutting edge" churches of today.

And, of course, Handel in England was becoming a sensation, adopting the styles of all the best of Europe. "The Messiah", is it a sacred work or a secular work? Also, by his time (late 17th century--18th century), the organ was well established in the Anglican church.

 

[JBaldwin]

Interesting thoughts. The puritan movement was relatively small in comparison to the larger protestant movement in Europe. Though I had never given it much thought, I have wondered how well composers like Bach and Telemann would have been received in the Puritan church.

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Interesting thoughts. The puritan movement was relatively small in comparison to the larger protestant movement in Europe. Though I had never given it much thought, I have wondered how well composers like Bach and Telemann would have been received in the Puritan church.

Bach, owner of the Calov Bible, was Lutheran, and so was Telemann, if I am not mistaken. Being Lutheran, Bach did not adhere to the RPW. However, the Brandenburg Concertoes, for example, were a direct product of his exposure to the RPW. For the story on that, see this older post.

 

[JBaldwin]

Was it even called the RPW back then? I thought that term was coined much later.

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Was it even called the RPW back then? I thought that term was coined much later.

I believe the term was coined by John Murray in connection with the 1946 OPC minority report on psalmody.

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Horton Davies, The Worship of the English Puritans, Appendix B, "Art and Music in Puritan Worship," pp. 268-272:

Macaulay has popularized a grave misrepresentation of the Puritans as fanatical Philistines, apostles of gloom, utterly antagonistic to the arts and music.
...
This charge would make all Puritans tone-deaf and colour-blind iconoclasts. Its untruth has been fully and finally rebutted Dr Percy Scholes in The Puritans and Music (1934).
...
The Puritan did not object to the arts as such: indeed, the Puritans numbered amongst their adherents such poets as Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, John Milton and Andrew Marvell. The typical attitude is that of John Cotton, who declares that whilst instrumental music is banned in the worship of the Church,

Nor do we forbid the private use of any instrument of musick there-withal.

The Puritans only objected to elaborate church music which did not edify the congregations and, indeed, the very complexities of such music made it impossible for the common people to sing the praises of God.
...
In conclusion, the Puritans must bear their share of the blame for the wholesale destruction of many beautiful monuments at the hands of such iconoclasts as William Dowsing. But their aim was not Philistinism. It might have been misguided, but it was nevertheless sincere. They thus hoped to uproot all idolatrous practices which God had not required in his worship. Their motto, to which they held inflexibly, was: 'Quod non jubet, vetat'. But if beauty was forced to abdicate from the churches, she was accorded a coronation in their homes. The Puritans objected to Sunday dancing, to the use of instrumental music in the worship of the Church, and to ecclesiastical representations of the Trinity and the Saints. But it is utterly untrue to affirm that therefore music, dancing and art were banished from the Commonwealth. Dancing was encouraged by Cromwell, celebrated by Milton in L'Allegro; it was an essential part of the education of Colonel Hutchinson's family, and it was at the height of the Puritan regime that Playford published his English Dancing Master (1651). As to the private encouragement of music, it will suffice to remember that 'Opera, so far as Britain is concerned, was actually an importation of Puritan times'. A group of people who produced Milton, and who popularized the Psalms, are unfairly described as Philistines. Privately they encouraged the arts and, if they objected to the use of the arts in the service of the Church, their conviction was not aesthetic but religious in basis. It was not that they disliked art, but that they loved religion more.