A comprehensive and definitive study of Protestant church music has been awaited for almost three decades, since Friedrich Blume wrote a short, initial exploration of the subject. This greatly expanded version, newly translated from the German, serves to trace the historical developments of the music in the various Protestant services from both the musical and theological points of view. In addition, the author examines that large body of religious music which does not properly appertain to any specific liturgy, but does belong in a study of this dimension. The author has enlisted the aid of specialists in several fields to provide the expertise necessary to encompass so vast a subject. Dr. Ludwig Finscher revised the chapter on the Reformation and brought it up to date, while the author himself extended the chapter on Confessionalism which follows. Dr. Georg Feder, head of the Haydn Institute in Cologne, has written on the developments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; and the late professor Adam Adrio of Berlin concerned himself with the twentieth. Dr. Walter Blankenburg has provided fascinating information on the Bohemian Brethren as well as other interesting denominations in the Reformed areas of Europe. For this English-language edition, new chapters were specially written by Torben Schousboe on Scandinavian music, by Robert Stevenson on Protestant music in America, and by Watkins Shaw on church music in England from the Reformation to the present day. With these additions, the present volume becomes the definitive reference work on Protestant church music.