21 February 2023

Last week, in discussing what sort of music programme might encourage people into a relationship with the Church and thus with Jesus, I concentrated on a particularly rarefied mode of doing church music – the professional or semi-professional choir. Most parishes do not have the financial resources to fund professional singers, even if they wished to do so. Many, however, will seek to employ one musician, often an organist, as Director of Music.

One of the most important staffing decisions a vicar can make is the appointment of a capable Director of Music. A good organist or other music professional who has the capacity to encourage and build up the musical life of the congregation is pure gold. As well as making it all happen, they set the tone.

Many decades ago, long before ordination, I sang in one of the better choirs in Melbourne which led weekly worship with mass settings, anthems etc. Whilst there were a small number of rather token bursaries for music students, everyone else except the Director of Music and the assistant organist were volunteers – we sang because we wanted to. And we generally wanted to for one or more of three reasons: the opportunity to make good music under an outstanding conductor, the open and generous fellowship of the choir group, and the fact that we were all part of something much bigger – which included a congregation that was one of the most musically engaged in the city. The High Mass choir at St Peter’s Eastern Hill in the 1980s used to sing (usually short) choral mass settings and anthems, but the congregation sang more than any I have encountered before or since: four hymns, the asperges, the gloria (most weeks), the Psalm response, the creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and sundry acclamations. And they sang with gusto! There was a very strong sense of the choir and the congregation being part of the same enterprise. It was extraordinary, and visitors to the church invariably commented on the quality and strength of the congregational singing even more often than they commented on the choir.

Two of the reasons for this gusto were, first, that the various organists at St Peter’s were all fine accompanists, and second, that rather than just concentrating on their own repertoire the choir took seriously their role of leading the congregational singing. This helped me to form a view I have held ever since: that the primary role both of instrumentalists and leading vocalists in the Eucharist is to assist the wider congregation to make music, rather than reserving the music making to themselves.

In a parish of which I am very fond, an organist and small volunteer choir lead congregational mass settings, psalmody and hymns, and sing an anthem during communion – the sort of pattern once familiar in many suburban churches. The director of music in that parish is deeply committed to encouraging broad musical participation by all present, but also to quality. I have particularly fond memories of both choir and congregation singing Richard Proulx’s simple arrangement of Schubert’s German Mass in four-part harmony, sensitively accompanied on the organ. It that context, as several decades earlier at St Peter’s, there was no need for a group of paid singers to make the music special. It was rarely “recording quality”, but it was always liturgically appropriate and often uplifting.

So many of our congregations have forgotten how to sing – and if our liturgies are to regain a sense of excitement and joyful solemnity then we need to find a way for them to re-engage. To my mind this involves investment not so much in singers “who can do it for us” as in those who can lead and encourage others – both choirs and congregations – in their singing. We need to raise up, train, encourage and resource such people – choral conductors, organists and other instrumentalists – or it will only be a matter of time before strong congregational singing becomes as rare as having a professional choir.

Next week: Parish music on a shoestring budget (or no budget at all…)