Twentieth-century Music
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Though it appears as I write (8 April 2026) that a cease-fire in Iran may have allowed for some deferral of escalation in that part of the world, I have been reflecting on power and threat in the same week that the Church has been celebrating the resurrection. Doing so reminded me that the composer… Read more
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Last year for Holy Week I did a set of posts commenting on Marcel Dupré’s Chemin de la Croix one at a time. This year I am afraid I have not had time to prepare additional posts, but for the regular Wednesday post during Holy Week I am thinking about another set of musical Stations… Read more
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This weeks post concerns a piece by a composer once described as ‘half monk half naughty boy’ – Francis Poulenc. Presented as the first of his ‘four motets for a time of penitence’, though composed last, in early 1939 (I will leave it to readers to decide whether I’m thinking of it in March 2026… Read more
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In the week which began with the observance of Candlemas, or the commemoration of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, what better to reflect on than a nunc dimittis. That said, the particular example I’m thinking of is not really a nunc, simply because it is not in Latin but rather in Church Slavonic,… Read more
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Yesterday was Armistice day, and although there are a number of pieces of music that could be selected to mark that occasion. For me, inevitably, the first to come to mind is the work commissioned by André Malraux, Minister of Cultural Affairs in France, from Olivier Messiaen in 1963 as a sacred work to commemorate… Read more
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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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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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Music which sets Biblical texts can hardly help but be theological, in some sense at least; although it is sadly true that composers often overlook scholarship on the Bible as such when considering their musical depictions. A relatively recent book that I have read suggests that the book of Job is more comedic than the… Read more
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Back to the theologically rich sound-world of the organ in twentieth-century Paris, but not straight back to Messiaen – some readers may be glad to know – but rather to another protégée of Marcel Dupré, the brilliant and virtuosic organist Jeanne Demessieux, introduced to the world by Dupré only for a personal rift of some… Read more
Theology in Music 