Mormons see themselves as a ‘new Israel’, invested with divine authority and commissioned by angelic messengers to re-establish the Church of Jesus Christ after centuries of apostasy, so that Christ may come again to reign personally upon the earth. Mormon theology is based on the principle of continuous revelation and the restoration of ‘all things’ in the latter days. The Book of Mormon, an account of the ministry of Christ in ancient America, was translated by Smith from ancient records through ‘the gift and power of God’ and is accepted by Mormons as scripture, along with the Bible and other sacred revelations.
The Church, whose headquarters are in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, was formally organized by Joseph Smith in Fayette, New York, in 1830, with important communities at Kirtland, Ohio (1831–8), western Missouri (1831–9) and Nauvoo, Illinois (1839–46), all of which were abandoned because of intense persecution and mob violence. Even before Smith was martyred at Carthage, Illinois, in 1844, Mormon leaders had been searching for a remote place of refuge and in February 1846 began an exodus to the Rocky Mountains, reaching the Valley of the Great Salt Lake in July 1847. Infused by a steady stream of converts, especially from Europe and Great Britain, successful colonies were established throughout the western USA and in Canada and Mexico. Today, the Church is a vital force in Christianity, with a worldwide membership of ten million, including more than four million in the USA and Canada.
From its inception the Church felt the need for hymns that would reflect its unique doctrine and purpose. An early revelation directed Smith’s wife, Emma, to ‘make a selection of sacred hymns’ from the existing Christian repertory, which was to suffice ‘till we are blessed with a copious variety of the songs of Zion’. The result was A Collection of Sacred Hymns, for the Church of the Latter Day Saints, a vest-pocket hymnal containing 90 texts without music, issued in 1835. The next hymnal, A Collection of Sacred Hymns, published in England in 1840, contained some original hymns and was later used in the USA in expanded form; 25 editions had appeared by 1912, the title changing to Sacred Hymns and Spiritual Songs for the 9th and subsequent editions. A new volume, Latter-Day Saint Hymns (Salt Lake City, 1927), was substantially revised and enlarged in 1948 and 1950 under the title Hymns: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The 1985 publication Hymns contains 341 hymns and children’s songs, a quarter of which are either newly composed or hymns previously excluded from the Christian tradition.
The dramatic early history of the Church and its wealth of new and sometimes startling theological principles provided a rich source of materials for poets and composers. Many hymns focussed on ‘restoration’ motifs and the Church’s strong millennial expectations; others dealt with the ‘gathering of Israel’, the building of Zion, and themes of faith and courage through times of hardship and persecution. Notable among these early hymns are The Morning Breaks by Parley P. Pratt (1807–57), perhaps the most skilful writer of this period, High on the Mountain Top, If You Could Hie to Kolob and The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning by William W. Phelps (1792–1872), the much-loved O my Father by Eliza R. Snow (1804–87) and Come, Come Ye Saints by William Clayton (1814–79).
Reflecting a prejudice of many 19th-century Americans, some early Mormons were uneasy about the role of secular music in their society, but Nauvoo, the first Mormon city of consequence, enjoyed an active concert and theatre life, and its short-lived university contained a fledgling music department. European converts in particular aspired to infuse their adopted religion with high musical standards, and some were professionally trained musicians. The rise of Mormonism in the 1820s and 30s coincided almost exactly with the beginnings of the brass-band movement in Europe and America; thus the city’s militia, the Nauvoo Legion, had both a military band (essentially a fife and drum corps) and a brass band, led by British convert William Pitt. Pitt’s band (said to have converted en masse in England) accompanied the pioneer trek west; its multi-talented members were central to the establishment of theatre and orchestral music in 19th-century Utah. In time virtually all pioneer communities had their own bands, many of which were associated with units of the Territorial Militia. These bands played an active and sometimes controversial role in the fractious era before statehood.
Music was especially important in the era of colonization (1849–c1915) that followed the settlement of Salt Lake City. Unwilling to abandon themselves to the crudities of the wilderness, colonists often sacrificed other necessities to accommodate musical instruments (19th-century commentator John Hyde observed that every third Mormon seemed to be a fiddle player). Colonies were established in some of the most rugged and remote regions on earth, which, even today, are terrible in their isolation. Music was a major force in sustaining these communities against the hardships and loneliness of pioneer life. Church buildings served as schoolhouses and social halls, hosting dances and often some form of amateur theatre. An extensive repertory of folksongs and quodlibets has survived from this period. Important collections include A.M. Durham’s Pioneer Songs (1932), Mormon Songs from the Rocky Mountains (1968) edited by T.E. Cheney, and Ballads of the Great West (1970) edited by Austin and Alta Fife.
Choral music, which had flourished in the Midwestern settlements, continued to grace Mormon worship in its new surroundings. Church choirs were ubiquitous, and in towns important enough to have tabernacles, ‘tabernacle choirs’ became prominent. Competition among communities often induced choirmasters to move from town to town, as the more successful choirs vied openly for their talents. Inevitably, the centrality and prestige of the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City elevated its choir above the others. Shortly after the pioneer company reached Salt Lake Valley, a sagebrush Bowery was erected for assembly and worship. There, at a ‘general conference’ of the Church on 22 August 1847, a choir drawn from the mostly male assembly sang for services, an event officially held to be the origin of the Salt Lake Mormon Tabernacle Choir. However, the arrival of a group of Welsh Mormons in 1849, and the appointment of their leader, John Parry, as conductor, can be regarded as the real beginning of the now famous choir. George Careless and Ebenezer Beesley (both professionally trained in England) were outstanding conductors in the 19th century, followed by Evan Stephens (1880–1916), Anthony C. Lund (1916–35), J. Spencer Cornwall (1935–57), Richard P. Condie (1957–74), Jay Welch (1974–5), Jerold Ottley (1975–) and Craig Jessop (1995–). Richard L. Evans was for many years the commentator for the choir’s weekly radio broadcast ‘Music and the Spoken Word’; first heard nationwide on 15 July 1929, this programme became the longest-running network broadcast in the history of radio (it was televised from 1962). In 2000, a new auditorium was inaugurated to accommodate the rapid growth of the Church; however, the Tabernacle continues to house the 320-voice choir, which, through tours, radio and television appearances, numerous recordings (including a 1959 Grammy award for its recording with the Philadelphia Orchestra of The Battle Hymn of the Republic) and the presidential inaugurations of Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan and George Bush, has become one of the most celebrated choirs in the world.
In 1852 the Bowery was replaced by the ‘Old Tabernacle’ (served by a small pipe organ built in Australia by Joseph Ridges and carted by wagon from San Pedro, California, to Salt Lake City in 1857); this building was itself replaced in 1867 by the now familiar, dome-shaped Tabernacle with its remarkable acoustics. The ‘new’ Tabernacle’s first instrument, built by Niels Johnson, Ridges and other pioneer craftsmen between 1867 and 1885, was followed by a Kimball rebuild in 1901 and extensive changes by Austin between 1916 and 1940. This organ was replaced in 1948 by the current, world-renowned instrument, designed in the ‘American Classic’ tradition by G. Donald Harrison of Aeolian-Skinner (op.1075). Additional work completed in 1988 by Schonstein brought the five-manual organ to 147 voices in 206 ranks, with 11,623 pipes in eight divisions. Joseph J. Daynes, the son of English immigrants, was the first organist (1867–1900). Prominent successors in the 20th century have included John J. McClellan (1900–25), Tracy Y. Cannon (1924–30), Edward P. Kimball (1924–37), Frank W. Asper (1924–65), Alexander Schreiner (1924–77), Wade N. Stephens (1933–44), Roy M. Darley (1947–84), Robert Cundick (1965–91), John Longhurst (1977–), Clay Christiansen (1982–) and Richard Elliott (1991–).
Latter-Day Saint worship places little emphasis on liturgy. Services are simple and dignified in conception, but quality varies with the degree of training and committment in local congregations. A typical Sunday service includes an organ prelude and postlude and the singing of several congregational hymns, including a ‘sacrament hymn’ while young men (Mormonism functions with a lay priesthood, to which boys are typically ordained at age 12) prepare the bread and water symbolic of the body and blood of Christ. Each congregation is expected to have a choir for regular services and special occasions, and often a vocal or instrumental soloist may perform. Because all music positions are filled by volunteers, the development of music skills is encouraged in every family, and various programmes exist to train lay musicians. Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah), BYU-Hawaii (Laie) and Ricks College (Rexburg, Idaho) offer accredited college-level music programmes. The Church Music Workshop provides a week-long training session each summer at BYU’s Provo campus. Between 1917 and 1957 the Church maintained the McCune School of Music and Art in Salt Lake City, with conservatory training, as well as a populist outreach that led to a concerted effort to train local musicians under the direction of the General Music Committee by sending qualified professionals into ‘the field’. As this generally successful programme (beginning in 1936) dissipated in the late 1960s owing to rapid growth of the Church outside the Rocky Mountain core, a new programme was initiated whereby musically trained missionaries would teach music fundamentals and keyboard skills to beginners, especially in Third-World countries.
Although there is little demand for art music in the typical worship service, the composition of sacred music continues to thrive, and a substantial body of anthems and hymn arrangements has been produced. The Church also fosters festivals, pageants and musicals of various types. By the turn of the 19th century, aspiring Mormon composers, encouraged by Church leaders, had begun to study at leading music schools in the USA and Europe, with high hopes of creating an indigenous classical tradition in Latter-Day Saint music. Among the most promising, Arthur Shepherd graduated in 1897 from the New England Conservatory but produced nothing overtly Mormon except for an anthem And the Lord shall Bring Again Zion and a reference to a Latter-Day Saint hymn in his orchestral work Horizons (1927). B. Cecil Gates (Brigham Young’s European-trained grandson) achieved temporary success with his oratorio The Restoration (1916), and lasting fame with a highly regarded setting of the Lord’s Prayer. But the quintessential ‘home’ composer was Leroy J. Robertson, who, after study with G.W. Chadwick at the New England Conservatory and, later, with Bloch and Schoenberg, received international recognition for his music incorporating Amerindian as well as Mormon themes; his Oratorio from the Book of Mormon (1953) remains the outstanding work of its kind. Merrill Bradshaw’s The Restoration (1974) and Robert Cundick’s The Redeemer: a Sacred Service in Music (1978) have also received both critical and popular acclaim. Crawford Gates’s impressive score for chorus and orchestra (1956, rev. 1988) for the Hill Cumorah Pageant (a religious epic staged each summer since 1937 at the birthplace of Mormonism near Palmyra, New York) and his musical Promised Valley, commissioned for the centennial observance of the founding of Salt Lake City (1947), are among the most celebrated of Latter-Day Saint works. An increasingly significant group of young composers and arrangers has addressed Latter-Day Saint themes in the later 20th century. Their work is not to be confused with Mormon ‘religious pop’, which, though prolific, is generally undistinguished. Children’s music is also a genre in which Mormon composers have excelled.
E.W. Tullidge: The History of Salt Lake City and its Founders (Salt Lake City, 1883–4), esp. 774ff
J.S. Cornwall: A Century of Singing: the Salt Lake Mormon Tabernacle Choir (Salt Lake City, 1958)
H.H. Macare: The Singing Saints: a Study of the Mormon Hymnal, 1835–1950 (diss., UCLA, 1961) [incl. suppl. ‘A Comprehensive List of All Hymns Appearing in All Mormon Hymnals’]
N.B. Weight: An Historical Study of the Origin and Character of Indigenous Hymn Tunes of the Latter-Day Saints (diss., U. of Southern California, 1961)
J.S. Cornwall: Stories of our Mormon Hymns (Salt Lake City, 1963)
J.L. Slaughter: The Role of Music in the Mormon Church School Life (diss., Indiana U., 1964)
L.M. Durham: ‘On Mormon Music and Musicians’, Dialogue: a Journal of Mormon Thought, iii/2 (1968), 19–40
C.J. Calman: The Mormon Tabernacle Choir (New York, 1979)
G.A. Peterson: More than Music: the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (Provo, UT, 1979)
The Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Salt Lake City, 1981), esp. §25
K.L. Davidson: Our Latter-Day Saint Hymns: the Stories and the Messages (Salt Lake City, 1988)
M. Hicks: Mormonism and Music: a History (Urbana, IL, 1989)
B. Owen: The Mormon Tabernacle Organ: an American Classic (Salt Lake City, 1990)
D. Ludlow, ed.: The Encyclopedia of Mormonism (New York, 1992)
ROGER MILLER