Abstrct of the dissertation of Hanna Remes
Hanna Remes: The role of the choir in worship services and mass in light of the 1968 and 2000 church manuals and their background documentation
A dissertation of Arts Study Programme / DocMus Doctoral School, EST publication series 55
The study is part of the Arts Study Programme of the Sibelius Academy of the University of Arts Helsinki on church music. The subject matter of the doctoral degree is liturgical choral music as a support of the religious message in the time of Lent and Easter. The demonstration of proficiency, carried out between 2016 and 2020, consists of the following artistic components: two masses, a worship service, a passion drama, and a concert in the time of Easter.
This study analyses and compares the liturgical role of the choir in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland according to the 1968 and 2000 church manuals and the preparatory and additional materials thereof. The guiding prin¬ciples governing the preparatory work of the aforementioned church manuals are also discussed. The dissertation stands in the study area of liturgy and the history of church music. The methodology includes material-based content analysis and the focus of the study is comparative. The research material comprises documents of the General Synod, church manuals and guidebooks on the implementation of content and execution of the worship services.
Following the introduction, chapter two examines the processes of the writing of the 1968 and 2000 church manuals as well as how the worship service and mass were construed in the working of the church manual committees. This chapter also deals with the definitions of the key concepts used by the 1988 church manual committee (content-oriented approach, dynamic equivalence, contextuality, music to scripture) and how the key concepts guide the sung worship music and the liturgical usage of the choir. In chapter three, the 1968 worship service and the 2000 mass are compared from the point of view of the usage of the choir. Chapter four reflects on the usage of the choir according to the scrutinized liturgies in the liturgical parts of the artistic demonstration of proficiency.
Both of the examined renewals of the worship services strive to find a language of worship that would resonate with the spiritual experience of the congregation. In background materials of the renewals, it is stated that the worship service can, without losing its ultimate message, obtain different forms that conform to local worship practices. This pertains to the music of the worship service as well. During both of the renewals, the existing worship music was regarded as old-fashioned and rigid. In the ideals of the earlier church manual, music was considered ascending from the message, solemn and fitting to the ecclesiastical style. The latter of the renewals emphasised the content-oriented approach to music and limitlessness of the usage of genres.
Both renewals enabled abundant use of music in the worship service. The latter, however, opened more possibilities to the usage of the choir in particular. The central differences from the point of view of the choir in the worship service and mass, concern prelude and postlude of the service, the usage possibilities of psalm and response music and the character of the communion music