To Play or Not to Play, part I

One of our Old Worship New readers sent me a note on Facebook this week raising two great issues.  She writes:

I'm debating whether or not it'd be appropriate / acceptable to use a song for prelude that is also a hymn that will be sung later in the service […]. Basically I'm working on the organ music for Sunday and there's a powerful arrangement of Battle Hymn of the Republic that I'd love to use for prelude (and did use Memorial Day Sunday last year). However, that's the last hymn so I'm not so sure it'd be good to use the song for prelude too. We're singing it a capella in the cemetery so it'd also be different that way, but still I'm unsure.

Also with this, I'm struggling with discerning between the influence of "what's fun for me to play" versus "what's best for worship."

The two issues (which I’ll tackle in two separate posts) are 1) whether to duplicate hymn tunes in prelude/postlude music and 2) “what’s fun to play” vs. “what’s best for worship.”

Personally, I like the opportunities to reinforce hymn tunes in the prelude/postlude music.  I think they provide ways to cue the congregation in to what they’ll be singing later in the service, it helps provide some musical cohesion to otherwise disparate parts of the service, and, in the case of a postlude, it’s an opportunity to leave people with the melody stuck in their heads as they leave the building.  This is particularly useful if organists/keyboardists plan enough in advance that titles/composers can be listed in the bulletin—this lets the congregation know that such reinforcement isn’t merely coincidence or that the organist somehow forgot we were singing that hymn and accidently played it for prelude; rather, it’s intentionally planned that way.

Other musicians, please chime in with your own take on this issue.  Do you like “recycling” the hymn tune into your prelude/postlude or offertory music, or do you prefer to use those moments for music that won’t be heard/sung elsewhere in the service?  Are there times and places for both approaches, or is this simply personal preference?