My congregation wants to do a Moravian-style lovefeast. What instrumental music is appropriate?
The “lovefeast” is a uniquely Moravian tradition that has been adopted on an occasional basis by congregations in many other denominations. For more on the historical and spiritual background of the lovefeast, see the Moravian Music Foundation website. There is no real standard set of instrumental music for lovefeasts, and musical practice regarding lovefeasts varies widely from congregation to congregation. We have occasionally used an old spiritual, Let Us Break Bread Together (a manuscript arrangement, sorry) or Huss’s Communion Hymn as a lead-in to the lovefeast, and we have often used the lovefeast itself as a time in which we can play something a bit more substantial than your usual two-minute Offertory piece. If you have access to the 1995 Moravian Book of Worship, there is a list of appropriate service hymns on p. 917–most of these can be arranged for instrumental accompaniment or can simply be used as instrumental prelude. The majority of these appear in the Green Book. Here
