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Preface

Of the many books for which I have been responsible over the last fifty years, the writing of In Tuneful Accord has given me the greatest pleasure. I entered upon the task with some hesitation but, now completed, I hand it over to my publisher with the sadness that attends parting from a valued friend.

It might be argued, and I am ready to concede the point, that a survey of the development of church music during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries should have preceded a trilogy on bishops, deans and canons. After all, the musicians have a deeper, wider, and usually longer-lasting influence than all but a handful of church leaders. Music is more attractive to most churchgoers than even the most eloquent of sermons, though both have their place. The personalities of musicians can also be interesting and I have included something about the most important of them in my period.

During these early years of a new millennium music is everywhere. Never before has so much music, and in such a variety of forms of music, been created, performed and heard by so many people. The development of broadcasting and sound recording is largely responsible for this, and it is difficult to withhold sympathy from the man who sought to have a quiet drink in his local pub and offered to pay for a short period of relief from the rowdy jukebox. But of course the music explosion of the last half-century has also given joy, inspiration, illumination and consolation to millions.

Music is the most spiritual of the arts. When words fail, music often speaks. When men and women seek closer communion with the Divine, music is most likely to open the door to transcendence. For those in the depths of sadness and despair, music may, more than anything else, offer rays of light and hope.

This is true of all music wherever it is performed and heard. But the church is bound to have, and indeed has always had from its earliest days, a special concern to link music to its primary task of offering worship to God. It is no accident therefore that some of the greatest advances in the music of the West, and some of the most sublime compositions, have emerged from within the life of Christian communities.

The Church of England – I have not dared to look far beyond its boundaries – has played a significant part in this great human endeavour, not least in the nurturing and conserving of a distinctive choral tradition. Hence the responsibility of every generation to ensure that this tradition is not broken or compromised.

It is always hazardous to suggest that a turning point has been reached in any enterprise, but at the conclusion of this survey I have felt drawn to highlight three particular challenges, the response to which could well determine, for better or for worse, the future of something fundamental to the life of the church.

In doing this, as in the writing of the book itself, I have been deeply conscious of my amateur status in the field of church music and also of my aim to engage with other amateurs and general readers. There is nothing here about ‘E minor triads’ or ‘fourths’ or even ‘pentatonic scales’. But, over the course of a long ministry in the Church of England, I have experienced church music in a considerable variety of settings – a Durham coal-mining village, a Teesside new housing area, St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square, a Hertfordshire market town, Westminster Abbey, Winchester Cathedral, and now Romsey Abbey and five small Hampshire villages.

During this time I have been fortunate enough to accumulate a large number of friends and former colleagues who are among the leading practitioners in the field and on another page I express my indebtedness to them for their most generous assistance and encouragement. They must of course be exonerated from any responsibility for the use I have made of their guidance.

Once again Kathleen James has worked wonders with a much-amended, often barely decipherable, handwritten script, and Fiona Mather has lent an invaluable hand with the research. My best thanks to them for their contributions.

Romsey

TB

Trinity Sunday 2009