An innovative study of the ways in which theological themes related to earthly and heavenly 'treasures' and Bach's own apparent attentiveness to the spiritual values related to money intertwined in his sacred music. In Johann Sebastian Bach's Lutheran church setting, various biblical ideas were communicated through sermons and songs to encourage parishioners to emulate Christian doctrine in their own lives. Such narratives are based on an understanding that one's lifetime on earth is a temporal passageway to eternity after death, where souls are sent either to heaven or hell based on one's belief or unbelief. Throughout J. S. Bach's Material and Spiritual Treasures, Bach scholar Noelle M. Heber explores theological themes related to earthly and heavenly 'treasures' in Bach's sacred music through an examination of selected texts from Bach's personal theological library. The book's storyline is organised around biblical concepts that are accented in Lutheran thought and in Bach's church compositions, such as the poverty and treasure of Christ and parables that contrast material and spiritual riches. While focused primarily on the greater theological framework, Heber presents an updated survey of Bach's own financial situation and considers his apparent attentiveness to spiritual values related to money. This multifaceted study investigates intertwining biblical ideologies and practical everyday matters in a way that features both Bach's religious context and his humanity. This book will appeal to musicologists, theologians, musicians, students, and Bach enthusiasts.

A unique tribute to often overlooked women who have left an indelible mark on Gospel Music-powerful talents who overcame racism and sexism to define the genre, establish its sound, and set the standard for good sangin' for generations. Nothing in the world soothes the soul better than Gospel music. From the foot-stomping, hand-clapping melodies of yesterday to the head-bobbing, bass-thumping hits of today, Gospel music ignites the spirit and delivers the inspiration that takes us from the rough side of the mountain to the peak of God's love and grace. That feeling of joy, peace, love, and contentment is amplified when it's ringing through the voice of a sister who can SANG, Cheryl Wills reminds us. The remedy for a tough day at work can be alleviated with Mary Mary's uplifting jam Shackles, the answer to your heart's desires can be found in the harmonies of The Clark Sisters Name It, Claim It, and if you need a reminder of God's love, there is nothing more timeless that Aretha Franklin's stirring rendition of Amazing Grace. Some talented performers, like Sister Rosetta Tharpe have faded from history, while singers like Yolanda Adams are at the top of her game. During the twentieth century, Willie Mae Ford spent most of her life encouraging and uplifting Christians both in church and on stage and composed more than 100 Gospel songs, yet it was men like her co-writer, Thomas A. Dorsey, who received the accolades and fame. Many women in the Gospel music industry go unnoticed, unpaid, and under-appreciated for their contributions, yet it is these women who are often the bedrock for songwriting, arranging, directing, and developing singers. Cheryl Wills, the granddaughter of a Gospel singer, at last shines a spotlight on these spectacular women of song. The only book of its kind, Isn't Her Grace Amazing! showcase the talents, gifts, and skills of women in the Gospel music industry. It celebrates these heroines, chronicles their journeys from the choir loft to the world's largest stages, and reveals how they revolutionized this sacred music that is beloved worldwide. From the matriarchs of this movement to today's chart-topping divas, Wills offers in-depth portraits of twenty-five amazing women of Gospel music-based on interviews and extensive research-behind-the-scenes stories of favorite gospel hits, and illuminates what makes each of them shine.

Whether you're in a band yourself or part of a ministry involved with teams, this book can help you on your journey. For thirty years, musician, songwriter, and worshipper Tom Lane has worked in the Christian worship music industry and alongside churches, ministries, and movements around the world associated with worship. In this collection of articles, Tom encourages honesty and clear communication from all sides while aiming for the right thing - to be a band that worships, first and foremost. Spiritual, relational, professional, and practical issues relevant for individuals and groups in worship ministry of any kind are addressed head on. Historically, bands have helped lead revolutions, crusades, campaigns, churches, rallies, and entire nations. The role bands play in worship, though important, is not the pinnacle of the calling or mandate according to Jesus. While it's okay to have a good rock band and want to go places, many creatively gifted Christians miss the mark entirely and are derailed by their own quests for something other than God. Likewise, worship teams sometimes miss the mark by placing too much emphasis on performance and not enough on relationships. This book will help lay the foundation for a healthier pursuit of creative dreams and a closer walk with God. The book includes a Top 10 Must-Do List for Bands, with quotes from an A-list of musicians and worship leaders, including Paul Baloche, Matt Redman, Tim Hughes, Daniel, Brenton Brown, Vinnie Colaiuta, Carl Albrecht, Mia Fieldes, Kathryn Scott, Lincoln Brewster, and more!

This essay collection celebrates the richness of Christian musical tradition across its two thousand year history and across the globe. Opening with a consideration of the fourth-century lamp-lighting hymn Phos hilaron and closing with reflections on contemporary efforts of Ghanaian composers to create Christian worship music in African idioms, the ten contributors engage with a broad ecumenical array of sacred music. Topics encompass Roman Catholic sacred music in medieval and Renaissance Europe, German Lutheran song in the eighteenth century, English hymnody in colonial America, Methodist hymnody adopted by Southern Baptists in the nineteenth century, and Genevan psalmody adapted to respond to the post-war tribulations of the Hungarian Reformed Church. The scope of the volume is further diversified by the inclusion of contemporary Christian topics that address the evangelical methods of a unique Orthodox Christian composer's language, the shared aims and methods of African-American preaching and gospel music, and the affective didactic power of American evangelical "praise and worship" music. New material on several key composers, including Jacob Obrecht, J.S. Bach, George Philipp Telemann, C.P.E. Bach, Zoltan Kodaly, and Arvo Part, appears within the book. Taken together, these essays embrace a stimulating variety of interdisciplinary analytical and methodological approaches, drawing on cultural, literary critical, theological, ritual, ethnographical, and media studies. The collection contributes to discussions of spirituality in music and, in particular, to the unifying aspects of Christian sacred music across time, space, and faith traditions. This collection celebrates the fifteenth anniversary of the Society for Christian Scholarship in Music.

A diverse collection of seasonal organ music for manuals only, covering the church's year from Advent to Epiphany. The pieces are drawn internationally from across the centuries and include a mixture of established repertoire, attractive new arrangements, and four newly commissioned pieces. The collection is technically accessible and provides approachable repertoire for all church musicians, making it an attractive companion to The Oxford Book of Christmas Organ Music.

Musical culture in Jewish communities in early modern Italy was much more diverse than researchers originally thought. An interdisciplinary reassessment, Music and Jewish Culture in Early Modern Italy evaluates the social, cultural, political, economic, and religious circumstances that shaped this community, especially in light of the need to recognize individual experiences within minority populations. Contributors draw from rich materials, topics, and approaches as they explore the inherently diverse understandings of music in daily life, the many ways that Jewish communities conceived of music, and the reception of and responses to Jewish musical culture. Highlighting the multifaceted experience of music within Jewish communities, Music and Jewish Culture in Early Modern Italy sheds new light on the place of music in complex, previously misunderstood environments.

This is the first study to provide a systematic and thorough investigation of continuo realization styles appropriate to Restoration sacred music, an area of performance practice that has never previously been properly assessed. Rebecca Herissone undertakes detailed analysis of a group of organ books closely associated with the major Restoration composers Purcell, Blow and Humfrey, and the London institutions where they spent their professional lives. By investigating the relationship between the organ books' two-stave arrangements and full scores of the same pieces, Herissone demonstrates that the books are subtle sources of information to the accompanist, not just short or skeleton scores. Using this evidence, she formulates a model for continuo realization of this repertory based on the doubling of vocal parts, an approach that differs significantly from that adopted by most modern editors, and which throws into question much of the accepted continuo practice in modern performance of this repertory.

The Oxford Book of Easy Flexible Anthems caters for church choirs of all types and sizes, enabling them to have at their fingertips easy music for every occasion. The collection presents flexibility of scoring in a constructive and realistic way, with particular provision for unison or two-part singing, while not forgetting SATB choirs, and a focus on ease of learning and performance. With complete coverage of the Church's year, and a fabulous range of accessible, quality material, this is a vital resource for all church choirs. Also available as a spiral-bound paperback.

The Oxford Book of Easy Flexible Anthems caters for church choirs of all types and sizes, enabling them to have at their fingertips easy music for every occasion. The collection presents flexibility of scoring in a constructive and realistic way, with particular provision for unison or two-part singing, while not forgetting SATB choirs, and a focus on ease of learning and performance. With complete coverage of the Church's year, and a fabulous range of accessible, quality material, this is a vital resource for all church choirs.

Taking up questions and issues in early chant studies, this volume of essays addresses some of the topics raised in James McKinnon's The Advent Project: The Later Seventh-Century Creation of the Roman Mass, the last book before his untimely death in February 1999. A distinguished group of chant scholars examine the formation of the liturgy, issues of theory and notation, and Carolingian and post-Carolingian chant. Special studies include the origins of musical notations, nuances of early chant performance (with accompanying downloadable resources), musical style and liturgical structure in the early Divine Office, and new sources for Old-Roman chant. Western Plainchant in the First Millenium offers new information and new insights about a period of crucial importance in the growth of the liturgy and music of the Western Church.

Stephen Bonta's research on seventeenth-century Italian music, particularly for strings, spans more than 30 years. Included in this selection of his published articles is his seminal study of the early history of the bass violin which proved to be the foundation for his subsequent articles on the early history of the violoncello. In addition to the discussions of secular instrumental music, the volume features essays that explore Italian sacred music of the period, including Monteverdi's Marian Vespers.

Classics of seventeenth-century Italian sacred music set in modern notation, this second part of Vesper and Compline Music for Multiple Choirs features works by Francesco Cavalli, Giovanni Legrenzi, Natale Monferrato, Agostino Steffani, Lorenzo Penna, Giovanni Paolo Colonna and Lodovico Viadana.

Celebrating the diversity of indigenous nations, cultures and religions, the essays which comprise this volume discuss the musics performed by a wide variety of peoples as an integral part of their cultural traditions. These include examinations of the various styles of Maori, Inuit and Australian Aboriginal musics, and the role of music in Korean Shaman rituals. Indeed, music forms a key component of many such rituals and belief systems and examples of these are explored amongst the peoples of Uganda, Amazonia and Africa. Through analysis of these rituals and the part music plays in them, the essays also open up further themes including social groupings and gender divisions, and engage with issues and debates on how we define and approach the study of indigeneity, religiosity and music. With downloadable resources featuring some of the music discussed in the book and further information on other available recordings, this is a book which gives readers the opportunity to gain a richer experience of the lived realities of indigenous religious musics.

The long-awaited third installment

In 2003, Robert Morgan released what would become a future classic for over a million readers, a unique book entitled "Then Sings My Soul. "This collection of the world's greatest hymns and the stories behind them stirred an entire generation to better understand the heritage of our faith through song.

Now, in the long-awaited third volume of this series, Morgan expands his material to include the great history of worship, the first biblical hymns, biographical sketches of the most interesting composers, and almost 60 generations of hymn singing. The new book also includes a collection of the greatest hymns you've never heard, with lead-sheets included.

All of this is in addition to even more standard hymns and the stories of the composers behind them.

Morgan's conclusion guides the reader into enjoying all of God's music, blending the old and the new into a symphony of praise that keeps the worship alive for a new generation.

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Coronations are the grandest of all state occasions. This is the first comprehensive in-depth study of the music that was performed at British coronations from 1603 to the present, encompassing the sixteen coronations that have taken place in Westminster Abbey and the last two Scottish coronations. Range describes how music played a crucial role at the coronations and how the practical requirements of the ceremonial proceedings affected its structure and performance. The programme of music at each coronation is reconstructed, accompanied by a wealth of transcriptions of newly discovered primary source material, revealing findings that lead to fresh conclusions about performance practices. The coronation ceremonies are placed in their historical context, including the political background and the concept of invented traditions. The study is an invaluable resource not only for musicologists and historians, but also for performers, providing a fascinating insight into the greatest of all Royal events.

As one of the foremost composers, conductors, and pianists of the nineteenth century, Felix Mendelssohn played a fundamental role in the shaping of modern musical tastes through his contributions to the early music revival and the formation of the Austro-German musical canon. His career allows for a remarkable meeting point for critical engagement with a host of crucial issues in the last two centuries of music history, including the relation between musical meaning and social function, programmatic and absolute music, notions of classicism and Romanticism, modernism and historicism. It also serves as a pertinent case-study of the roles political ideology, racism, and musical ignorance may play in creating and perpetuating a composer's posthumous reception. Fittingly, Rethinking Mendelssohn focuses on critical engagement with the composer's music and aesthetics, and on the interpretation of his works in relation to contemporaneous culture. Building on the renaissance in Mendelssohn scholarship of the last two decades, Rethinking Mendelssohn sets a fresh and exciting tone for research on the composer. Opening new ways of understanding Mendelssohn and setting the future direction of Mendelssohn studies, the contributing scholars pay particular attention to Mendelssohn's contested views on the relationship between art and religion, analysis of Mendelssohn's instrumental music in the wake of recent controversies in Formenlehre, and the burgeoning interest in his previously neglected contribution to the German song.

Sacred and Secular Intersections in Music of the Long Nineteenth Century: Church, Stage, and Concert Hall explores interconnections of the sacred and the secular in music and aesthetic debates of the long nineteenth century. The essays in this volume view the category of the sacred not as a monolithic attribute that applies only to music written for and performed in a religious ritual. Rather, the "sacred" is viewed as a functional as well as a topical category that enhances the discourse of cross-pollination of musical vocabularies between sacred and secular compositions, church and concert music. Using a variety of methodological approaches, the contributors articulate how sacred and religious identities coalesce, reconcile, fuse, or intersect in works from the long nineteenth century that traverse an array of genres and compositional styles.

This volume brings together 79 sacred tunes by two Connecticut composers: Eliakim Doolittle, who wrote psalm and fuging tunes in an unpretentious, familiar idiom, and Timothy Olmsted, who wrote psalm tunes in a more sophisticated, florid musical style. This final edition in the Music of the New American Nation series includes a comprehensive index of tune names and first lines for all fifteen volumes.

This is the first comprehensive study of William Byrd's life (1540-1623) and works to appear for sixty years, and fully takes into consideration recent scholarship. The biographical section includes many newly discovered facts about Byrd and his family, while in the chapters dealing with his music an attempt is made for the first time to outline the chronology of all his compositions. The book begins with a detailed account of Byrd's life, based on a completely fresh examination of original documents, which are quoted extensively. Several previously known documents have now been identified as being in Byrd's hand, and some fresh holographs have been discovered. A number of questions such as his parentage and date of birth have been conclusively settled. The book continues with a survey of Byrd's music which pays particular attention to its chronological development, and links it where possible to the events and background of his life. A series of appendices includes additional texts of important documents, and a summary catalogue of works. A bibliography and index complete the book. Besides musical illustrations there is a series of plates illustrating documents and places associated with Byrd.

The articles here deal with liturgical music. Two topics receive special attention: the curiously negative role that musical instruments play in ancient cult music and the development of ecclesiastical song in early Christianity. The first series of articles treats classical Greek ethical notions of instruments, the status of instruments in Temple and Synagogue, and the absence of instruments from early Christian and medieval church music. The next parts trace the psalmody and hymnody of the Christian tradition, from its roots in Judaism to the origins of Gregorian chant in 7th-century Rome. Throughout, the writings of the Christian Church fathers such as Augustine, Ambrose, Basil and John Chrysostom underpin the author's analysis and presentation.

Everyone loves a Christmas carol - in the end, even Scrooge. They have the power to summon up a special kind of midwinter mood, like the aroma of mince pies and mulled wine and the twinkle of lights on a tree. It's a kind of magic. But how did they get that magic? In Christmas Carols Andrew Gant tells the story of some twenty carols, each accompanied by lyrics and music, unravelling a captivating - and often surprising - tale of great musicians and thinkers, saints and pagans, shepherd boys, choirboys, monks and drunks. We delve into the history of such favourites as 'Good King Wenceslas', 'Away in a Manger' and 'The Twelve Days of Christmas', discovering along the way how 'Hark, the Herald angels sing' came to replace 'Hark, how all the welkin ring' and how Ralph Vaughan Williams bolted the tune of an English folk song about a dead ox to a poem by a nineteenth-century American pilgrim to make 'O little town of Bethlehem'. Christmas Carols brims with anecdote, expert knowledge and Christmas spirit. It is a fittingly joyous account of one of our best-loved musical traditions.

Originally published in 1948 and updated with a new introduction in 1970 this book is a classic study on the musical life of a Bantu people in Mozambique. It discusses the poetry on which the music and dances are based and provides, both in original and translation, 50 Chopi songs which are related to the social setting of Chopi life. It analyses some of the musical compositions and their structure with illustrations and transcriptions in score and describes the method of manufacture of the instruments. One chapter is devoted to full descriptions of the elaborate orchestral dances. The book is illustrated by numerous photographs and maps, and contains a glossary of musical terms, and extracts from early Portuguese accounts of the Chopi people and their music.