Gregory of Nazianzus, a 4th-century bishop of Constantinople, receives relatively little attention from modern Western scholars, yet he is one of the most influential theologians in the history of Christian doctrine. Many modern Christians understand their religious beliefs through ideas originally expounded by Gregory, yet probably would not recognize his name. As an advocate for the conceptual understanding of the Trinity, Gregory set precedents for the way his fellow and future Christians would perceive and worship God. Holding that Jesus was both fully divine and fully human, Gregory added new complexity to Christianitys grasp of the mysterious relationship between the Son and the Father. He also explored the nature of the Holy Spirit by means of scriptural analysis, both in the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. Gregorys enlightening revelations resonate throughout the varied religious landscape of Christian creed, cult, and code. Christopher A. Beeley examines Gregorys doctrine of the Trinity in the full range of his theological and practical vision of the Christian life. Beeley examines and analyzes Gregorys teachings on the purification, illumination, and limitations of the theologian; the saving work of Christ within the context of Gregorys understanding of salvation; the place of the Holy Spirit in the work of the Trinity; and the Trinitarian purpose of pastoral ministry. This book combines expansive coverage of Gregorys works with meticulous close-readings and analyses to impart new interpretations in the areas of Christology, Pneumatology, and Christian ministry.

Sacred music is a universal phenomenon of humanity. Where there is faith, there is music to express it. Every major religious tradition and most minor ones have music and have it in abundance and variety. There is music to accompany ritual and music purely for devotion, music for large congregations and music for trained soloists, music that sets holy words and music without words at all. In some traditions-Islamic and many Native American, to name just two--the relation between music and religious ritual is so intimate that it is inaccurate to speak of the music accompanying the ritual. Rather, to perform the ritual is to sing, and to sing the ritual is to perform it. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Sacred Music contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 800 cross-referenced entries on major types of music, composers, key religious figures, specialized positions, genres of composition, technical terms, instruments, fundamental documents and sources, significant places, and important musical compositions. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about sacred music.

Without any formal training in music composition or even the ability to notate melodies on a musical staff, Irving Berlin took a knack for music and turned it into the most successful songwriting career in American history. Berlin was the first Tin Pan Alley songwriter to go "uptown" to Broadway with a complete musical score (Watch Your Step in 1914); he is the only songwriter to build a theater exclusively for his own work (The Music Box); and his name appears above the title of his Broadway shows and Hollywood films (iIrving Berlin's Holiday Inn), still a rare honor for songwriters. Berlin is also notable due the length of his 90+ year career in American Song; he sold his first song at the age of 8 in 1896, and passed away in 1989 at the age of 101 having outlived several of his own copyrights. Throughout his career, Berlin showed that a popular song which appealed to the masses need not be of a lesser quality than songs informed by the principles of "classical" music composition. Forty years after his last published song many of his songs remain popular and several have even entered folk song status ("White Christmas," "Easter Parade," and "God Bless America"), something no other 20th-century American songwriter can claim. As one of the most seminal figures of twentieth century, both in the world of music and in American culture more generally, and as one of the rare songwriters equally successful with popular songs, Broadway shows, and Hollywood scores, Irving Berlin is the subject of an enormous corpus of writing, scattered throughout countless publications and archives. A noted performer and interpreter of Berlin's works, Benjamin Sears has unprecedented familiarity with these sources and brings together in this Reader a broad range of the most insightful primary and secondary materials. Grouped together according to the chronology of Berlin's life and work, each section and article features a critical introduction to orient the reader and contextualize the materials within the framework of American musical history. Taken as a whole, they provide a new perspective on Berlin that highlights his musical genius in the context of his artistic development through a unique mix of first-hand views of Berlin as an artist, critical assessments of his work, and more general overviews of his life and work.

The purpose of this book is to bring together in one convenient volume some of the best devotional verse the English language affords, and thus to make available to present day Christians a rich spiritual heritage which the greater number of them for various reasons do not now enjoy. I have not hesitated to apply the term "mystical" to the material I have collected here, though I readily admit that fewer than half a dozen of the men and women who would be called true mystics in the strict classical sense will be found here. Such names as Eckhart, Ruysbroeck, John of the Cross, Teresa, Rolle, Tauler, Hilton, Francis of Assisi, for instance, are not represented in this volume at all. On the other hand the frequent appearance of such a man as Watts might cause the reader to lift a questioning eyebrow and ask, "Is Watts also among the mystics?" Well, the answer must be, Of course he is, and so are John Newton and James Montgomery and Reginald Heber and Charles Wesley, as well as many others who might have balked at being called mystics but whose writings, nevertheless, reveal unmistakable traces of purest mysticism and are the better for it. And for that matter the same thing may be said of the inspired writings of such men as Moses and David and Isaiah and Daniel and Paul and John, the works of the latter showing more than traces of the mystical spirit, being indeed charged full with it. Wilder Publications is a green publisher. All of our books are printed to order. This reduces waste and helps us keep prices low while greatly reducing our impact on the environment.

Music, Piety, and Propaganda: The Soundscapes of Counter-Reformation Bavaria explores the nature of sound as a powerful yet ambivalent force in the religious struggles that permeated Germany during the Counter-Reformation. Author Alexander J. Fisher goes beyond a musicological treatment of composers, styles, and genres to examine how music, and more broadly sound itself, shaped the aural landscape of Bavaria as the duchy emerged as a militant Catholic bulwark. Fisher focuses particularly on the ways in which sound-including bell-ringing, gunfire, and popular song, as well as cultivated polyphony-not only was deployed by Catholic secular and clerical elites to shape the religious identities of Bavarian subjects, but also carried the potential to challenge and undermine confessional boundaries. Surviving literature, archival documents, and music illustrate the ways in which Bavarian authorities and their allies in the Catholic clergy and orders deployed sound to underline crucial theological differences with their Protestant antagonists, notably the cults of the Virgin Mary, the Eucharist, and the saints. Official and popular rituals like divine worship, processions, and pilgrimages all featured distinctive sounds and music that shaped and reflected an emerging Catholic identity. Although officials imposed a severe regime of religious surveillance, the Catholic state's dominance of the soundscape was hardly assured. Fisher traces archival sources that show the resilience of Protestant vernacular song in Bavaria, the dissemination and performance of forbidden, anti-Catholic songs, the presence of Lutheran chorales in nominally Catholic church services into the late 16th century, and the persistence of popular "noise" more generally. Music, Piety, and Propaganda thus reveals historical, theological, and cultural issues of the period through the piercing dimension of its sounds, bringing into focus the import of sound as a strategic cultural tool with significant impact on the flow of history.

Holy Chord Within Sacred Walls examines musical culture both inside and outside seventeenth-century Sienese convents. In contrast to earlier studies of Italian convent music, this book draws upon archival sources to reconstruct an ecclesiastical culture that celebrated music internally and shared music freely with the community outside the convent walls. Colleen Reardon argues that cloistered women in Siena enjoyed a significant degree of freedom to engage in musical pursuits. The nuns produced a remarkable body of work including motets, lamentations, theatrical plays and even an opera. As a result, the convent became an important cultural centre in Siena that enjoyed the support and encouragement of its clergy and lay community.

This book represents the most thorough study to date of Handel's compositional procedures in his English oratorios and musical dramas. Exploring the composer's sketches and autograph scores, it offers fresh insights into the creative mind of one of the leading figures in Baroque music.

Among the writers of the Syriac Christian tradition, none is as renowned as St. Ephrem of Nisibis (ca. 307-373), known to much of the later Christian world simply as "the Syrian." The great majority of Ephrem's works are poetry, with the madrase ("teaching songs") especially prominent. This volume presents English translations of four complete madrase cycles of Ephrem: On the Fast, On the Unleavened Bread, On the Crucifixion, and On the Resurrection. These collections include some of the most liturgically oriented songs in Ephrem's corpus, and, as such, provide a window into the celebration of Lent and Easter in the Syriac-speaking churches of northern Mesopotamia in the fourth century. Even more significantly, they represent some of the oldest surviving poetry composed for these liturgical seasons in the entire Christian tradition. Not only are the liturgical occasions of the springtime months a source of colorful imagery in these texts, but Ephrem also employs traditional motifs of warm weather, spring rainstorms, and revived vegetation, which likely reflect Hellenistic literary influences. Like all of Ephrem's poetry, these songs express early Christian theology in language that is symbolic, terse, and vibrant. They are rich with biblical allusions and references, especially to the Exodus and Passion narratives. They also reveal a contested religious environment in which Ephrem strove to promote the Christian Pascha and Christian interpretations of Scripture over and against those of Jewish communities in the region, thus maintaining firm boundaries around the identity and practices of the churches.

The revival of plainchant in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England was a turning point in the history of Anglican and Catholic musical worship. It led in its time to not only the preservation of much-loved melodies, but also to heated controversy. By the middle of the nineteenth-century, plainchant had returned as a central part of traditional liturgy.

This study provides a general introduction to the sources of the plainchant revival in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England.

An eye-opening reexamination of Handel's beloved religious oratorio Every Easter, audiences across the globe thrill to performances of Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus," but they would probably be appalled to learn the full extent of the oratorio's anti-Judaic message. In this pioneering study, respected musicologist Michael Marissen examines Handel's masterwork and uncovers a disturbing message of anti-Judaism buried within its joyous celebration of the divinity of the Christ. Discovering previously unidentified historical source materials enabled the author to investigate the circumstances that led to the creation of the Messiah and expose the hateful sentiments masked by magnificent musical artistry-including the famed "Hallelujah Chorus," which rejoices in the "dashing to pieces" of God's enemies, among them the "people of Israel." Marissen's fascinating, provocative work offers musical scholars and general readers alike an unsettling new appreciation of one of the world's best-loved and most widely performed works of religious music.