Isaac Watts actually was composing in a style pioneered by Martin Luther, but rather in his case he simply didn’t have good connections - William Byrd and Thomas Tallis were far more innovative English connections whose settings of the Anglican liturgy was extremely popular in the Chapel Royal, to the extent that Queen Elizabeth overlooked the fact that both men were actually Roman Catholics, which was technically illegal.
But there is a huge difference between the reverent hymns of Watts, Wesley and Luther, and praise and worship music, and that difference boils down to the fact that the music the hymns were set to, the various Chorales, as they are known, which are simple compositions falling four part harmony, and simple tonality, with names separate from the hymns set to them, and by different composers, with the exception of a few recent hymns such as “I Serve A Risen Savior” which in my youth was my favorite Paschal hymn, were composed for use as sacred music, and were not based on contemporary styles of popular music.
What I specifically object to is the taking of popular music, as opposed to classical music, which is unrefined to begin with, and in many cases extremely emotionally manipulative, with the predominant theme of most popular music being sex, with violence also popular with hard rock and heavy metal, and switching out the lyrics to what amount to mostly trite and unedifying nominally Christian lyrics, which lack the rich doctrinal content of both traditional recent hymns and also the exquisite ancient hymns and canticles of the early church, still used by the Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans and in traditional Catholic masses (but a disappointing number of Roman Catholic and Maronite Catholic parishes use dreadful praise and worship music, although fortunately the Bishop of Pere Marquette banned it, and introduced a diocesan hymnal, and indeed according to a bull issued by Pope St. Pius X and the acts of the Second Vatican Council, Gregorian Chant should be the predominant form of music in Roman Catholic churches, whereas traditional Maronite Chant, which is closely related to Syriac Orthodox Chant and includes compositions by the likes of St. Ephrem the Syrian, St. Severus of Antioch and more likely than not at least some of the metrical homilies of St. Jacob of Sarugh, as well as other compositions in a similar style).
I would also say that on the whole, A Capella Exclusive Psalmody provides a certain safety, in that it guarantees edification and a lack of heretical music, although the idea that we are only allowed to sing the Psalms according to scripture held by the denominations that practice, who refuse sing other Scriptural Canticles like the three Evangelical canticles from the Gospel According to St. Luke ( the Benedictus, Magnificat and Omni Opera), is erroneous, as St. Paul does not say to sing Psalms exclusively, but rather Psalms, hymns and canticles, and thus if we look at the music used by the church in the fifth century, that gives us a good idea as to the correct meaning. But in Anglicanism, where A Capella Exclusive Psalmody was predominant, there were also the Canticles in Mattins and Evensong, composed by Tallis, Byrd and other excellent English composers, and later still anthems by the likes of Handel, Samuel Sebastian Wesley (a great nephew of John and Charles Wesley) and more recent composers like George Dyson, T. Tertius Noble, Herbert Howells, Healey Willan (also the greatest Canadian composer of classical music), Robert Vaughan Williams, Francis Jackson, who died last year at the age of 104, memory eternal, and several who are still alive including a recent composer whose name I forget, but who shows great promise. So it is not as though we are talking about a dead tradition. In like manner, the traditional music of the Catholic, Lutheran and Orthodox churches continues to be enriched as well, by composers such as the Estonian Orthodox maestro Avro Part, who is probably the most distinguished composer of sacred music alive today, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic composer Roman Hurko, who has composed two settings of the Divine Liturgy and one of Vespers in Church Slavonic, and an additional setting in English, as well as a Pannikhida (Orthodox requiem) for Chernobyl, and a Matins for Good Friday. And those are only two of a great many composers I could mention. Indeed if I were to even try to enumerate all of the very talented church music composers active at present, this post would be 50 pages long.
And what is more, their music is simple; a choir of four can perform Roman Hurko’s settings of the liturgy, and most others, a capella, with no instruments required. But for churches that do have a working organ, there is a wealth of material, ancient and modern, for that as well. And the organ along with certain percussive instruments used in some Middle Eastern churches and in the Ethiopian church, represents the entirety of what I want to hear musically, since it represents the entirety of what is traditionally used in the church, except at certain special liturgies where there might be a full orchestra present.
