During the Middle Ages And Renaissance.
Explanation:
For centuries and centuries, music has played a role of fundamental importance in the context of the church. From the earliest days, still in the so-called “early church,” music has been used by Christians in their formal and informal gatherings and in meetings and liturgies, so that its importance is shown throughout the history of the so-called Christian people. To know the history of music in the church is to know part of the history of the Christian people themselves and is therefore an extremely important task.
During the Middle Ages, vocal music was extremely strong. Cantochon, motets and various other genres were developed during this period. Arrangements of two, three or even four voices were performed and choirs were the main grouping used, as the instruments were much more used in so-called profane music. At first, the instruments were used in the church as substitutes for singers - if any singer was missing, the organ, for example, could replace him in that voice he made. And so, mixed groups (instruments and singers) were composed, even if it was a composition for singers. And it was in this way that, little by little, the instruments were inserted in the ecclesiastical context, and later used as accompaniment. It is noteworthy that musical practice was entrusted only to clerics (monks, priests, bishops, etc.), as the congregation did not actively participate in liturgies in the Roman Church, so that musical knowledge was restricted to members of the clergy.
But it was in the Renaissance that something that would forever mark the history of the church happened: the Protestant Reformation. Monk Martin Luther (known to us as "Luther") was largely responsible for bringing together all those Christians who disagreed with the spurious and sinful practices of the Church of Rome, thus leaving the Church of the Empire to live a more ecclesiastical reality. Scripture, since it believed it to be the north of all Christian practice. And Luther himself, also a musician, and married to musician Katharina von Bora, was extremely important for the development of music in the church. In addition to composing many pieces of music, Luther brought back to the congregation active participation in the service. The old Mass, in which only the clerics performed and whose music was restricted to them, was completely replaced by an active and participatory worship, in which men and women sang songs of worship to the Lord in their own language, and no longer in Latin, language of the Roman Church. And so, if we sing today in our churches, this man played a key role in making that happen. From then on, with the church divided, its music also became so, having great exponents and representatives on both sides throughout history to the present day.
