[Magdalen] Hymnals and Perspective.o

[John Robison]

Some of the reason, I'm told, comes from that noted shabby thinker Dietrich
Bonhoeffer:

"The essence of all congregational singing on this earth is the purity of
unison singing – untouched by the unrelated motives of musical excess – the
clarity unclouded by the dark desire to lend musicality and autonomy of its
own apart from the words; it is the simplicity and unpretentiousness, the
humanness and warmth, of this style of singing….There are several elements
hostile to unison singing, which in the community ought to be very
rigorously weeded out. There is no place in the worship service where
vanity and bad taste can so assert themselves as in the singing. First,
there is the improvised second part that one encounters almost everywhere
people are supposed to sing together…There are the bass or the alto voices
that must call everybody’s attention to their astonishing range and
therefore sing every hymn an octave lower. There is the solo voice that
drowns out everything else, bellowing and quavering at the top of its
lungs, reveling in the glory of its own fine organ. There are the less
dangerous foes of congregational singing, the ‘unmusical’ who cannot sing,
of whom there are far fewer than we are led to believe. Finally there are
often those who will not join in the singing because they are particularly
moody or nursing hurt feelings; and thus they disturb the community." ~ Life
Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, vol. 5, Minneapolis, Fortress Press,
p. 67

As I recall, he's got a line about it in Discipleship and Sanctorum
Communio.

On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 2:38 AM, Roger Stokes <roger.stokes65 at btinternet.com
> wrote:

> On 14/10/2015 01:47, Grace Cangialosi wrote:
>
>> SE&B??
>>
> Probably Sung Evensong and Bebediction.
>
> Roger
>



-- 
John Robison Asc. Episcopal Carmel St Teresa

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