**6. Conclusions**

The implication of this study is that organ alternatim did not fall out of favor because it failed to carry out the job it was given in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but because it could not do the new job is was given in the sixteenth century. Organ alternatim made sense in a world that included gothic architecture, stained glass, symbolic vestments and gestures ([15], p. 133; [33], pp. 82–83, 132–33). Under the influence of renaissance humanism, its job-description changed23. In summary, there are four things we can say about the sixteenth-century Dominicans and their judgement on the liturgical use of the organ. First, they accepted it. This sets them apart from Aquinas, who believed that instruments were not apt for use in worship, "for fear of seeming to imitate the Jews" (II-II, 91, 2, obj. 4; [20], p. 165). Second, they restated a centuries-old aversion to secular music in worship, but did so with a more intense protectiveness of the purity of worship. It is as though the organ is a Trojan horse that might conceal within its belly a host of distractions and worldly temptations. Third, when trying to grasp the "meaning" of organ music, they did not employ the essentialism of the Platonic-Pythagorean tradition, but assumed a more extrinsic view: that the meaning of a melody or rhythm is determined by the associations it brings with it, its familiar lyrics and former uses. This shifts the focus somewhat from the music *in itself* to the music *as it is known*  by listeners, and it makes music's meaning unpredictable and fluid. Fourth, in the light of this indeterminacy, the Dominicans sought to police the meaning of organ music by requiring that it be hand-cuffed to text—by the remedial use of what I have called dialogue intertitles. As I said at the outset, the focus of this paper is a particular way of thinking about organ music, not the actual and varied practices of organists. The extent to which performance practice was actually modified in the light of these instructions is beyond the scope of this study. Nevertheless, the repetition of certain instructions, and the evidence of published sources, suggest that a stubborn gap remained between the ideal, enshrined in laws and exhortations, and the practice.

This cluster of ideas finds echoes today: organ alternatim has modern heirs in the practice of organists to improvise on well-known hymn tunes, or of instrumental ensembles to continue playing variations on a song after all the verses have been sung. The concessions also continue: certain electronic and percussion instruments are used to draw young people into church who would, it is argued, otherwise stay away. The tactic I have described as intertitles also endures, in various contexts: at Anglican Evensong, the officiant will introduce the choral anthem by title and composer, and read at least the first few lines of its text, especially if it is to be sung in Latin; in many churches, printed worship aids are provided with all the words of the service, to aid participation; and the organ blessing cited at the beginning of this article gives the clearest example of instrumental music being charged with conveying verbal meaning. All such announcements, titles, and

<sup>23</sup> For relevant discussion and theological analysis of the broader context, see [34], especially chapter 2. For modern discussions of musical meaning, see [35,36], and [37], chapter 3.

explanations have to be handled with great care if they are not to break the ritual flow or capsize the liturgy ([38], pp. 152–53).

For most critics of organ alternatim, and instrumental music more generally, its crime is that it obscures the words. Defenders of instrumental music seldom rebut this accusation: judged on the criterion of verbal intelligibility, instrumental music will always fall short. Instead, instrumental music is defended for its own non-verbal eloquence, a properly musical eloquence, which is able to offer something that complements verbal intelligibility: sonorous beauty, ritual solemnity, emotional appeal, and its own unique means of shaping a disparate crowd of people into a worshipping assembly.
