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(The Blue Banner, v. 3. #1-2, January/February 1994). Copyright © 1996 The Blue Banner
That singing constituted a part of the worship in the primitive Christian, as in the Jewish Church, admits not of a doubt. But question, perhaps more curious than useful, has arisen as to what is implied in singing "the Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs" to which an Apostle refers; or in the early Christians being accustomed, according to Pliny the younger, to sing a song to Christ as unto God. — [Carmen Christo quasi Deo canere Solitos.] But singing even in its crudest state, implies some modulation of the voice — some set time or measure — to distinguish it from reading or speaking, and also as being susceptible of the harmonious union of a number of voices expressing the same sentiment and the same emotions — accompanied or not be instruments in aid of the voice, and to heighten the effect. There is reason, however, to believe that the singing even in the Temple service, and in the earlier Christian congregations, was very unlike that to which we are now accustomed. We have before us an old volume containing the Posthumous Essays of the learned John Gregory, chaplain of Christ's church, Oxford, published in 1683, in one of which, speaking of the early music in the Christian church, he says:
"About that time, it was amans, and clamans. It had more of the devotion than the voice, sent up with heart enough but for the harmony, much after the rate of their other accommodations; from the simplicity whereof, as unequal time took off, so it added to the grace and glory of it. The church music had these degrees to rise by. The first and rude performance was done plano cantu, by plain song — as the Psalms are most ordinarily read in Cathedrals, or, at the best, but as they are to be sung in parochial churches, where though sometimes the noise may seem to pretend to a dash and sprinkling of art, 'tis most commonly ( and 'tis well if it be no worse) but all in the same time. From plain song they got to discant, and first of all to contrapunctum simpler, a simple kind of counterpoint, and then music was in parts; They sung not all the same time, but by way of consonancy; Yet so as the music answered note for note; as it there stood a minim or sembrief in the upper part, there stood another against it in the lower and inner part; so that this music needed no bars. To this the rare, but intemperate invention of the masters hath added the contrapunctum figuratum, consisting of Feuges, or maintaining of points, alteration of the keys, &c,"
The planus cantus, or plain song, appears to have been used in the original recitation of the Nicene creed, when according to Berno it was ordered to be "decantari" and with "alta voce," and by a canon of the third council of Toledo, it was ordered that it should be passim clara voce decantatum, secundum formam ecclesiarun Orientalium — every where sung with a clear voice according to the form of the Oriental churches.
The question in dispute between our correspondents as to the propriety or impropriety of using the organ in the worship of the sanctuary, we shall leave with them — contenting ourselves merely with such historical notices of its introduction and use as are not ordinarily accessible. From the writings of Aquinas, who was born in 1221, it would appear that in this time no kind of instrumental music was used in the Western churches. His language is, "Ecclesia nostra non assumit instrumenta musica sicut citharas et Psaltaria in divinas laudes, ne vidcatur judaizare." Our church does not employ instrumental music, as harps and psalteries in the divine praise, lest it should seem to judaize. But Durandus mentions them as having been introduced before the close of that century. — Aymon, however, asserts that organs were introduced into France in the reign of Lewis the Godly, or about 400 years earlier than the days of Aquinas. But Marianus Scotus, Martin Polonus, Platina, the annals of France, Aventine and the Pontifical itself, as quoted by Gregory, all agree, that the first organ that was ever seen in the West was sent over into France to King Pepin from the Greek Emperor, Constantinus Copronymus, about the year 766. — Res adhue Germanis et Gallis incognita (says Aventine) instrumentum musicae maximum, Organum appellant, cicutis ex albo plumbo compactum est simul et follibus inflatur, et manuum pedumque digitis pulsatur. From this description it appears that it was an instrument of the largest kind, with pipes, and with bellows and played with the hands and feet, as are the parlor organs of the present time. But there is no evidence, so far as we can learn, that the organ, though thus early introduced, was used in the worship of God, till after the time of Aquinas. From Zonarus (tom 8, p. 127) it appears that the Greek Emperor Michael had an organ of gold, "which was not used to put the church in tune, but to cast a glory upon the court, and to draw foreign admiration upon the Emperor." Gregory also says that he had himself occasion to show an Armenian priest who was on a visit to Oxford, the organ in the Chapel there, and he was entirely ignorant both of its name and use, and yet had lived for fourteen years under two patriarchs, Constantinople and Alexandria — and hence he concluded that they were not then in use in the Oriental churches.
No one will contend that the organs mentioned in the Old Testament bear even a remote resemblance to the instrument which is now called an organ. The organ of Jubal mentioned in Genesis iv: 21, was probably a pipe made of brass or iron. The organ of Job xxi: 12, and xxx: 31 was most likely the psaltery, a musical instrument of a triangular form. And the organs of David, Psalm cl: 4, whatever may have been their form were no doubt very simple instruments, which none in our day, were they to see them, would think of calling them organs. So that the organ, in something of the form which it now bears as an accompaniment of sacred music, had its origin in the dark ages.
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