Philosophy Of Music In Reformed Worship

Although the Reformed tradition has been more restrictive about the use of music in worship than the Lutheran tradition, it nevertheless highly values the role of music in worship. This article describes emphases important in the Reformed tradition, largely in terms of the writings of Reformer John Calvin. The comparison is unavoidable: two great reformers of the sixteenth century with two vastly different approaches to reforming public worship. For Luther, it was the reform of the Mass. For Calvin, whatever his debt to the Mass, it was a new service. For Luther, it was the retention of the full musical resources of the church. For Calvin it was only the voice of the congregation. For Luther it was whatever texts were theologically correct. For Calvin, it was only the words of Scripture. Both Luther's Formula of Mass (1523) and his German Mass (1526), Latin and German Reformation forms of the Roman Catholic Mass, were the stimuli for the writing of numerous musical works for congre…