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Robert Shaw on Music in Worship

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It is a pleasure to have an office below the archival collection of the American Choral Directors Association. Our ACDA archives are fertile ground for anyone interested in doing research on the choral profession and choral music education (hint, hint to any doctoral students reading this).

In preparation for an address I recently gave to the Church Music Publishers Association, my research led me to a paper presented by Robert Shaw to the Fountain Street Baptist Church in October, 1961. When I gave my address to CMPA, I mistakenly said the church was in Cleveland. Ken Medema was in the audience and was kind to correct me–the church is in Grand Rapids, and Ken enthusiastically told me, “I was there!”

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The following are remarks from Shaw’s address regarding the purpose of music in worship. “Music in Worship” is one of the fourteen Repertoire & Standards (R&S) areas of ACDA’s work.Shaw’s typed address was sixteen single-spaced pages. The following are his conclusions:

“We shall propose concerning our music that nothing but the best is good enough.”

Shaw then offered four criteria in defining “best”:

1) Motivation, or the purity of purpose;

2) Craftsmanship;

3) Historical perspective;

4) The art must embody revelation.

And then his address contains these concluding words:

“Nothing which has stirred the heart and mind of mankind to the consideration and creation of worth-in whatever time or place-can be foreign to worship. Wherever the word has been made flesh-in Beethoven or Shakespeare-it should be made welcome in our worship.

“We propose that music, shall be as worthy an act of worship as the spoken word, our occasional part in it and our response to it.”

“For finally it is our desire to create for a certain period each week, out of worthy things, a wholeness of beauty and truth, an integrity of sound and sight and reason, which shall be its own reason for being and our reason for being there.” (Robert Shaw  1961)

The American Choral Directors Association continues to foster and promote quality choral music in worship. We look forward to sponsoring One Song in October toward this purpose.
 
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  2. "Wherever the word has been made flesh-in Beethoven or Shakespeare-it should be made welcome in our worship."  To the purist, these words may seem ere so inviting and worthy of building a philosophy of worship that is truly inclusive.  And, I’m sure that is what Shaw had in mind.  Unfortunately, the rock-star mentality has invaded much of modern worship with tripe and drivel in "contemporary" worship that leaves one with heartburn instead of heart-felt inspiration.  Oh for the strains of those worthy composers we all studied in our undergraduate muisc history classes who made such great contributions to the repertoire, and not the distorted guitars of the subcultures of the devil!

  3. Tim et al.
     
    The details are fascinating, but "Nothing but the best is good enough" is really all that’s needed.  And that sums up Shaw’s philosophy and his life.
     
    In fact, that was my wife’s argument (without knowing Shaw’s speech at all), when she took over the "children’s" choir at our church, with the parents who told her "All gifts are equal in God’s sight."  And I have to admit that’s a pretty important debate.  But she won them over, and that "children’s choir" grew into a youth choir that took responsibility for the Family Service every Sunday during the school year, with those kids never realizing until much later everything NON-musical that they were learning.
     
    All the best,
    John
     

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