Finding Their Voices - Amherst College

Upon Mason’s arrival in Boston in 1821 he immediately applied to be a member of the
Handel and Haydn Society, and was promptly accepted. While there he became more
involved with the musical reform movement, giving lectures by request on his thoughts
on how best to go about improving church music. His ideas boiled down to six main
points, as summarized by his biographer, Carol A. Pemberton:
1. Church music must be simple, chaste, correct, and free of ostentation.
2. The text must be handled with as much care as the music; each enhancing the
other.
3. Congregational singing must be promoted.
4. Capable choirs and judiciously used instruments, particularly the organ, are
indispensible aids to services.
5. A solid music education for children is the only means of genuine reform in
church music.
6. Instrumental musicianship must be subordinate to facilitating vocal worship;
virtuosity for its own sake has no place in the church. 201
One of Mason’s Boston lectures, which covered his above points at length, was
printed and distributed all throughout New England, going through two editions. 202 All
but two of the above points were already generally accepted in the reform movement.
Ideas four and five, however, were new. Although a few liberal Protestant and Catholic
churches had already introduced organs to their services, the efforts of Mason and the
reformers he inspired resulted in the use of organs becoming accepted in mainstream
religious practice. American churches acquired organs all throughout the nineteenth
century, much the same as Amherst did. This widespread inclusion of organs would
come to have a positive effect on the quality of music in worship. Utilizing the
instrument required the employment of skilled organists, which opened up new
opportunities for professional musicians in churches throughout the nation. Very often
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201 Ibid., 40-41.
202 Lowell Mason, Address on Church Music: Delivered by Request, on the Evening of Saturday, October
7, 1826, in the Vestry of Hanover Church, and on the Evening of Monday Following in the Third Baptist
Church, Boston (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, Little, & Watkins, 1826; rev. 1827).
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