Music and
Moravians
By CHESTER DAVIS
(No. 10 in a Series)
Of all their traditions the Moravian
love of music is. perhaps, the oldest
and the deepest seated.
In 1501 the Brethren of Bohemia
published the first Protestant Hymnal.
From the very beginning these people
enjoyed song and encouraged congre¬
gational singing.
Here, as in other areas, this small
church has had a marked impact on
Protestantism generally. Martin Lu¬
ther, for example, lifted large chunks
of the Moravian Hymnal of 1501.
John Wesley, the founder of Meth¬
odism. translated many of the Mora¬
vian hymns from German into English
and, in so doing, brought a new warmth
into English hymn singing.
The classical period of music —
the period of Haydn, Mozart and Bee¬
thoven — bracketed the years 1750-
1800. Actually, however, the great
works of those masters came within a
limited period late in the century. But
the groundwork for those few years
was laid throughout the Eighteenth
Century.
The Moravians came to America
out of the heart of that period. Their
musicians knew and worked with the
leading musicians of that time. John
Antes, a Moravian violinist and a com¬
poser, for example, knew Haydn and
played in ensembles with him.
Music was as much a part of the
Moravians’ religious life as prayer.
Children entered life listening to the
wiegenlieder or cradle hymns. And the
final notes of life were those of the
trombones — the “last trumpet" in
the "Going Home" of the Moravians
—played from the belfry' of the church.
In the morning and again in the
evening Moravian families gathered
about the table and recited “the daily
words." They read the daily text, usu¬
ally a Psalm, and then sang the words
of the hymn dedicated to that particu¬
lar day.
THE STATE. September 2. 1961
Muiicions from old Solcm icrvcd in the Confederate Army.
They sang as they worked. There
were hymns for the sisters at their
spinning wheels, for threshers and for
those who plowed the fields. When the
Moravians had “one for the road" they
raised their voices (rather than cups)
in reislieder or traveling hymns.
At harvest time men came into the
fields with horns and oboes to play
hymns of thanksgiving for the bounty
of God. The love feasts were times of
worship, fellowship and song.
In the Moravian towns there was
music from dawn to dusk, and in the
night the watchman made his rounds,
blowing out blasts on his pierced conch
and chanting “The Song of the Hours."
This trait was unusual in Colonial
America, for in the Eighteenth Cen¬
tury the Puritans and the stern doc¬
trines of Calvinism frowned on almost
all forms of musical expression. Where
the Moravians used music to glorify
God, the Puritans suspected that mu¬
sic — particularly instrumental music
— was of the devil.
By 1746 the Moravians in Bethle¬
hem were using an organ to accom¬
pany them in their singing. Most Mo¬
ravian music called for instrumental
accompaniment. These people were
the first to bring instruments in any
quantity and variety to America. They
also were the first to use a variety of
instruments in their church services.
They used trombones much as other
churches used bells. Their trombone
choirs (soprano, tenor, alto and bass)
were unknown elsewhere in America.
The choirs gathered to announce births.
deaths, weddings, the arrival of dis¬
tinguished guests and all manner of
community affairs.
The French horn was another favo¬
rite. In their churches men accom¬
panied the singers on trumpets, flutes,
bassoons, oboes, clarinets and even on
the improbable zink.
The zink. a medieval trumpet with
a mouthpiece of ox-horn, was last used
in some of the compositions of Johann
Sebastian Bach. Yet in 1805, at least
a hundred years after the zink became
extinct elsewhere, the Moravians in
Salem ordered a pair specially made.
Along with the organ the Moravians
in America used the piano, the harp¬
sichord (a piano-like instrument in
which strings arc plucked by quills),
the clavichord (here the strings are
hammered with metal mallets) and the
harp.
They were just as versatile when it
came to stringed instruments, favoring
the "fiholinc." cello and viola.
When the minister broke into song
— and that he often did out of pure
inspiration — the organist was ex¬
pected to pick up the tune thread of
the correct hymn (there were four
hundred or so for the minister to
choose from) and do that in precisely
the correct key.
That sort of antiphonal music is a
Moravian tradition, possibly dating
back to the days when the church choir
was separated, the men singing from
one side of the altar and the women
from the other.
It helps explain how the massed
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