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For the post within the octave of All Saints’ Day I have been thinking about Ernest Bullock’s setting of Isaac Watts’ text Give us the wings of faith to rise: Give us the wings of faith to risewithin the veil, and seethe saints above, how great their joys,how bright their glories be. We ask them Read more
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Another whole repertoire of theological music that this blog has not yet explored is the evening service, the staples of Anglican choral music: settings of the Magnificat and the Nunc dimittis for Evensong. Of so many options for selection setting these well-known texts, with which shall we start? During the second world war a music Read more
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In 1631 a Franciscan priest in the ‘Viceroyalty of Peru’ published a liturgical manual setting out Catholic rituals explained in both Spanish and the indigenous language of the area he was working in, Quechua. This book includes what is generally considered to be the earliest work of vocal polyphonic music printed in the New World, Read more
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There is a popular myth – no less mythical for its popularity – that Palestrina composed his Missa Papae Marcelli to address concerns that polyphonic music obscured the import of religious texts, thereby ‘saving’ artistic music in Catholic liturgy after the Catholic Reformation associated principally with the council of Trent. Hans Pfitzner’s operatic retelling of Read more
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In 1892 the director of the Paris Conservatoire is supposed to have said of a dangerously modern candidate for that institution’s professorship of composition ‘Never! If he’s appointed, I resign.’ In 1896 that same candidate took up the professorship under a different director, and in 1905 became director himself in turn. Many years before, while Read more
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This week saw Michaelmas, not only the start of a traditional academic year (in at least some ancient universities), but the feast of St Michael and All Angels. It seemed obvious to me, therefore, that this instalment of the blog should consider some musical evocation of angels. Though there are several one might have chosen, Read more
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In 1866 one Samuel Stone, curate at Windsor, published Lyra Fidelium, twelve hymns on the articles of the Apostle’s Creed, usually understood to have been in response to dissention in the Church of South Africa about the teachings of a Bishop J W Colenso. Of this set, the most famous and most often still sung Read more
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In the nineteenth century one, and only one, woman was made a professor of the Paris Conservatoire. Professor of piano, Louise Farrenc – née Jeanne-Louise Dumont (her husband had been a flautist, but settled down to become a music publisher, and Éditions Farrenc had significant success). She, herself, developed from a child prodigy of an Read more
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I have only recently been introduced to the less secular music of the composer probably best known musically for his scores for the early carry-on films, and arguably even better known as a detective writer under his pen name of Edmund Crispin. R. Bruce Montgomery was, however, a former Oxford organ scholar, and wrote church Read more
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I have, occasionally, been accused of various sorts of musical snobbery – and anyone who has read much of this blog will understand that it is written by someone with taste tending usually towards the high-brow. So, to go counter to type, let us consider John Rutter and his anthem ‘The Lord bless you and Read more
Theology in Music 