Music in Anglican liturgy

This is the first in a series of three lead articles I’m going to be writing covering the three basic areas of music in Anglican liturgy: organ music, choral music, and congregational song. This article will discuss the history and place of organ music in our liturgies.

The organ is one of the most ancient of instruments and has existed in one form or another going all the way back to at least the third century BC in Greece. Organs started making their way into Christian churches and Cathedrals in the early Middle Ages, and by the twelfth century, their presence was well established. One of the earliest direct accounts of organs during this time comes to us from the year 951, when the Bishop of Winchester had an organ built in his cathedral which had four hundred pipes (tiny by today’s standard by huge for the time). This organ included twenty-six pairs of bellows to produce the air, which are said to have taken seventy strong men to operate. According to contemporary accounts this organ could be heard throughout the entire city of Winchester when it was played. Organs continued to expand in size and complexity over the centuries, and by the 1600s the instrument had pretty well reached the full level of development it would see prior to the advent of electricity, which in the nineteenth century opened up brand new frontiers for growth. Even today organs continue to evolve as technology marches forward.

There are several practical reasons why the organ became the favored instrument for Christian worship services. First, in the time before electronic amplification, it was one of the few instruments capable of producing enough volume to fill a large space. Second, and perhaps even more importantly, the organ’s ability to sustain its pitch (unlike say, a piano or harpsichord) provides an exceptionally strong undergirding for accompanying congregational singing. Organs have also remained a favorite instrument of the church due to their unusually large musical range, which allows them to evoke the full spectrum of emotions encountered in the worship experience, from contemplative intimacy to the most awe-inspiring power and grandeur.

Typically, services in the Anglican tradition are bookended with what we call organ “voluntaries.” Most other denominations just refer to these as preludes and postludes, terms which we also sometimes use and are pretty much interchangeable. The use of the term “voluntary” in this context can be traced back to 16^th century England, where it had referred to an organ composition written in a free style; a piece designed to capture the character of an improvisation. The usage stuck and eventually came to refer to any music, of whatever style, played before or after a worship service.

Like all the other musical components in worship, organ music is selected to complement the overall tone of the liturgical season and lectionary readings, and to help bring the service together into a unified whole.