Today, we celebrated Psalm Sunday. You may have noticed your organist playing the hymns and liturgy a little more joyously today than on many of the other Sundays in Lent. This is in stark contrast to how the music will sound latter in the week as we remember Christ's suffering and death for our redemption. And of course, nothing will compare to the unbridled joyful noise that will fill our churches on Easter morn!
Since this week provides the perfect opportunity to hear how music is used to support the text, I thought I'd share an article I wrote that discusses this very topic.
God's Word is our crown jewel: it is the most
beautiful thing that we have. It is our treasure, and by
it, we know of our salvation by Christ's death and resurrection.
This is why Lutheran worship is so beautiful.
It is not about what we do or what we can offer to
God; rather, it is about hearing His Word and receiving
the forgiveness of sins that comes through Word and
Sacrament. And so we keep God's Word at the center
of our liturgy and everything else is built around it: the
setting highlights the jewel.
Part of this setting is the music. As an organist,
it is the Word that informs what I play during Divine
Service and how I play it. As you sit in the pew, you
may not be paying attention to the music as you sing.
You may not notice how this stanza is played differently
from that stanza, or why the organist does this or
that when playing the Gloria. I invite you, yes you,
dear brother or sister, to listen to what your organist
plays. Is he or she playing a stanza light and airily?
Does it suddenly seem as if all the voices of the organ
are joining together as one? What are you hearing?
As you begin to pick these things out, notice how they
connect to the text you are singing. Does what you
hear reflect what you speak?
As an example, let us consider together LSB
621 Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. In the first
stanza, when the text says "and with fear and trembling
stand" one might hear a fluttering as the organ
waivers back and forth between two notes. Later, in
the lowest notes, the bass pitches, we might hear
notes descending stepwise as we sing "Christ our God
to earth descending". In stanza two, we might notice
that the aural texture becomes lighter, as the organist
removes stops, or sets of organ pipes, so that we can
contemplate how Christ took on our flesh and blood by
being born as a little babe. Yet in the very next stanza,
we might hear the organ grow in volume and grandeur
as more and more pipes of varying colors get
added to the ensemble, representing the whole host of
heaven. As the stanza progresses and speaks of "the
pow'rs of hell", the organ might become increasingly
dissonant, only to wither away to near silence "as the
darkness clears away." The final stanza is triumphant
as we join our voices with the heavenly host and cry
"Alleluia, Alleluia! Alleluia, Lord Most High!" We might
notice the organist adds bright trumpets and fills out
the voices of the organ to land finally on a major
chord, though this hymn otherwise sounds a bit somber
in its minor key.
These are just a sampling of the techniques
that organists use to highlight the text of hymns and
the liturgy. Now that we've explored some of these
techniques by considering Let All Mortal Flesh Keep
Silence, you are equipped to continue to explore how
an organist aurally supports God's Word. Now go,
rejoice in God's Word, our jewel, by joining your voice
with your brothers and sisters throughout the ages!
