Are Popular Styles Appropriate Contrafacta? Part 1

Are Popular Styles Appropriate Contrafacta? Part 1

          As the reader can now see the discussion of the kind or kinds of music the Wesleys and Martin Luther utilized with their sacred music has been going on for several years among modern writers od church music.  The casual reader may not have had the time or have recognized the need to check out the validity of these written assertions about Luther’s (and the Wesley’s) sacred music.  It should be pointed out that even if John Wesley, Charles Wesley, or Martin Luther were advocates of using bawdy music, which they were not; their use of this music would not have constituted Divine approval of such music with sacred lyric texts.  Although there is room and justification for the use of a variety of styles of music with sacred lyric texts, it does not take very much musical logic or spiritual discernment to rightly hypothesize that not every style of music or not every tune will make a proper concomitant to the message of the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

          Because the history of contrafuctum (derived from Latin) has become so esoteric in the last one hundred years, its connection to sacred music is misunderstood by many secular and Christian musicians.  Therefore, it is sometimes misrepresented by many writers in church music.  The use of a secular melody with a religious text without substantial change to the music. It may also be correctly defined as music with the absence of contrast between 'secular' and 'sacred' styles of music in the Middle Ages which left no resultant contradistinction between the melodies, harmonies and rhythms of much of sacred and secular music.  For the reasons mentioned above composers, including those who composed their own music as a concomitant to sacred didactic lyric poetry, sometimes borrowed a secular song and used it either in part or whole in their sacred music compositions (contrafacta) .  The concept of contrafactum also included the substitution of one text for another without substantial change to the music.

Quote for the Day

“Does music of rebellion fit the worship of our majestic God? No. It may be useful in expressing angst, or man’s sinful condition, or even the lament or oppression of minorities in some forum, but this forum is not properly a worship service.”  Singing and Making Music by Paul S. Jones, p. 175.