Alternative Hymn Settings

(Btw, my apologies on the long delay between posts. Turns out that Seminary requires a great deal of my time.)

In my last post, I mentioned Taize as a possible alternative to throwing out the baby with the bathwater of traditional worship. Another possibility is changing the accompaniment of hymns. Let's explore both the upsides and downsides to this.

Upsides
1) Historical Precedent: Alternative hymn settings are about as old as hymns themselves, especially Lutheran hymns. Take, for example, A Mighty Fortress. There are settings by Johann Walther, Michael Prætorius, Heinrich Schütz, J.S. Bach, Felix Mendelssohn, etc, etc, etc. Each one of these settings puts Martin Luther's great hymn in a "contemporary" light, without losing the character of the original.
2) No doctrinal worries: Since the hymns will be found in the Church's hymnal already (LSB, for example), there will be no need to do an in-depth search of each text, since that will already have been done by the Church/Denomination.
3) Keeps the traditional folks happy: All those old, beloved hymns are still on the table. "Thee Will I Love, My Strength, My Tower?" No problem! All we need to do is find a setting.
4) Makes the "Contemporary" folks happy: Okay, they won't be overjoyed, but most folks are willing to compromise some things. The organ is an outlandish instrument for virtually every genre of music (save the best!) and merely changing the instrumentation can be enough for some.

Downsides
1) Finding settings: While the LSB has a guitar-chord edition, it almost requires some skill and knowledge in music. After that, it's merely up to chance whether or not a suitable harmonization is to be found, and if it's not been "adopted" by American "evangelicals," good luck!
2) Not traditional enough: For those that like everything done as traditionally as possible, the change of accompaniment will be too much. Furthermore, it might heighten the suspicions of said folks, that something nasty is a-brewing.
3) Not "contemporary" enough: For those that love novelty, merely changing accompaniment will be about as different as watching Scrubs on ABC instead of NBC. For church-hoppers and those that listen to "Christian" radio, not hearing the songs might be an issue.

Like Taize, it's not a flawless solution and it won't get rid of every complaint. But it can be a small enough variation that might be just the thing for some congregation.

Now, for some examples:

1) For percussion. "Il est né, le divin enfant" or in English, "He is born, the divine Christ-child"

2) For a band (electric guitar, electric bass, etc.) "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing"

3) According to one source, Heinz Werner Zimmermann believed that a congregation needed only a bass for accompaniment and wrote compositions to prove it. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any such compositions, but he might be another option.

Next time, we'll consider alternative hymn arrangements.