Music and Theology - Scarecrow Press

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Music and theology: in his scholarly work and in his teaching Robin A. Leaver has spent much of his life bringing these two disciplines together. His work as a musicologist consistently places sacred music in its various liturgical contexts, thereby enriching our understanding of why these repertories were created, how they functioned, and what they signified to those who listened. As a theologian, Robin has written cogently about music as theology— about church music playing its part in theological proclamation. Thus, he brings to the study of sacred music repertories, and indeed to the practice of church music, a connection to theology that grounds this music in its larger contexts. Robin was trained in theology at Trinity College, Bristol, graduating in 1964 and being ordained into the ministry of the Church of England in the same year. He served various parishes in England for the next twenty years. By 1971 he was publishing articles and reviews on a wide variety of music and church historical topics, and in that same year, supported by a Winston Churchill Fellowship, he was able to travel to the United States in order to investigate Johann Sebastian Bach’s own copy of the Abraham Calov Deutsche Bibel, held by the library of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. This work would lead eventually to Robin’s 1983 monograph Bachs theologische Bibliothek (Neuhausen-Stuttgart: Hänssler-Verlag), a foundational work in theological Bach studies. But Robin’s first monograph was a theological treatise published eight years earlier, Luther on Justification (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1975). Thus, relatively early in his career Robin had begun his work on Luther and on Bach, topics that continue to absorb his scholarly attention today (with a major monograph, Luther’s Liturgical Music: Principles v Preface
vi Preface and Implications, forthcoming in 2006). Luther, of course, was a brilliant theologian but also an informed musician, a person who loved music and considered it a gift of God. Similarly, Bach, the extraordinary composer and consummate Lutheran cantor, who went to considerable effort and expense to build a personal library of Orthodox Lutheran theological writings, was well informed as a theologian, his musical work being shaped in part by his understanding of Lutheran theology. It is, of course, no coincidence that Robin—theologian and musician—has devoted much of his scholarly energy to investigating the work of these two towering figures, who were themselves each immersed in theology and music. In 1977 Robin was appointed to a position at Latimer House, Oxford, in which he was expected to “research, write, lecture, and publish in the crossdisciplinary areas of theology, liturgy, hymnology, and church music.” A glance at the chronological list of his writings in this volume reveals that he has been doing precisely that ever since. Ten years later—in 1987—he earned the doctorate in theology at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, the Netherlands. His dissertation, “‘Goostly Psalmes and Spirituall Songes’: English and Dutch Metrical Psalms from Coverdale to Utenhove 1535–1566” was subsequently revised for publication as a monograph by Clarendon Press (1991), a work that illustrates yet another strain of Robin’s work—the history of psalmody and hymnody, including that of his native country. As a teacher of church music at Westminster Choir College (since 1984), as a faculty member of the Liturgical Studies program of the Graduate School of Drew University, and as a member of the graduate faculty at The Juilliard School, Robin has trained numerous church musicians and liturgical scholars, providing them a rich background in theology, liturgy, hymnology, and the history and practice of church music. He has also served as president of two organizations that, each in their own way, focus on music and theology—the Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Hymnologie and the American Bach Society. Robin has invested considerable time in founding and editing three monographic series devoted to theology, liturgy, and music: Studies in Liturgical Musicology, Drew Studies in Liturgy, and Contextual Bach Studies (all three series published by Scarecrow Press). While some of these monographs relate to Robin’s teaching in the Liturgical Studies program at Drew University, others come from his knowledge of research in progress and his encouragement of scholars who share his love for the study of music and theology. Characteristic of Robin is his generosity in sharing his time and in providing encouragement and sound advice to other scholars. I think it safe to say that everyone connected with this volume has benefited at one time or another from Robin’s scholarly assistance and encouragement, and that we all relish
Page 1 and 2: Music and Theology Essays in Honor
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Music and Theology - Scarecrow Press

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