The Miserere by Italian composer Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652) is one of the most popular, oft performed and recorded choral pieces of late Renaissance/early Baroque music. Yet the piece known today bears little resemblanceto Allegri's original or to the piece as it was performed before 1870. The Miserere attributed to the Italian composer Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652) is one of the most popular, often performed and recorded choral pieces of late Renaissance/early Baroque music. It was composed during the reign of Pope Urban VIII in the 1630s, for the exclusive use of the Papal Choir in the Sistine Chapel during Holy Week, the last of thirteen surviving Misereres sung at the services of Tenebrae since 1514. When the young Mozart visited Rome, so the story goes, he transcribed it from memory, risking excommunication but helping posterity to reclaim the piece. Yet the Miserere known today bears little resemblance to Allegri's original or to its method of performance before 1900. This book is the first detailed account of this iconic work's performance history in the Sistine Chapel, in particular focussing on its heyday in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Rather than looking at the Miserere as a work on paper, the key to its genesis - as this book reveals - can only be found in a performance context. The book includes consideration both of the implications of that context in recreating it for performance, and of the history and practice of the "English Miserere" - the version commonly heard today. Appendices present key source transcriptions and two performance editions.

Victorian-era divas who were better paid than some corporate chairmen, the boy soprano who grew up to give Bing Crosby a run for his money, music directors who were literally killed by the job-the plot of a Broadway show or a dime-store novel? No, the unique and colorful history of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Since its inception more than 125 years ago, the Cathedral Choir has been considered the gold standard of liturgical music-an example of artistic excellence that has garnered worldwide renown. Yet behind this stately facade lies an intriguing mix of New York history, star secrets, and high-level office politics that has made the choir not only a source of prime musical entertainment but also fodder for tabloids and periodicals across the nation. In this unique and engaging book, readers are treated to a treasure trove of vibrant characters, from opera stars from around the world to the thousands of volunteer singers who brought their own hopes and dreams-and widely varying musical abilities-to the fabled choir. As the city's preeminent Catholic institution, St. Patrick's Cathedral has served one of the most dynamic and diverse communities in the world for well over a century. It has been intimately entwined with the history of New York: a major center of culture in the nation's cultural capital. The Cathedral Choir provides an extraordinary and largely overlooked insight into this history, and in Salvatore Basile's pitch-perfect exploration it becomes a microcosm for the larger trends, upheavals, and events that have made up the history of the city, the nation, and even the world. Basile also illuminates the choir's important role in New Yorkers' responses to some of the most momentous events of the past one hundred years, from world wars to world's fairs, from the sinking of the Titanic to 9/11, as well as its central role in the rituals and celebrations that have made life in the city more joyful-and bearable-for millions of people over the decades. While the phrase "church choir" usually evokes the image of a dowdy group of amateurs, the phrase "Choir of St. Patrick's Cathedral" has always meant something quite different. Salvatore Basile's splendid history shows just how different, and just how spectacular, the music of St. Patrick's is.

Present-day music studies conspicuously evade the question of religion in contemporary music. Although many composers address the issue in their work, as yet there have been few attempts to think through the structure of religious music as we hear it. On the basis of a careful analysis of Olivier Messiaen's work, this book argues for a renewal of our thinking about religious music. Addressing his notion of a hyper-religiousmusic of sounds and colors, it aims to show that Messiaen has broken new ground. His reinvention of religious music makes us again aware of the fact that religious music, if taken in its proper radical sense, belongs to the foremost of musical adventures.The work of Olivier Messiaen is well known for its inclusion of religious themes and gestures. These alone, however, do not seem enough to account for the religious status of the work. Arguing for a breakthrough toward the beyondon the basis of the synaesthetic experience of music, Messiaen invites a confrontation with contemporary theologians and post-secular thinkers. How to account for a religious breakthrough that is produced by a work of art?Starting from an analysis of his 1960s oratorio La Transfiguration de Notre-Seigneur Jsus-Christ, this book arranges a moderated dialogue between Messiaen and the music theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, the phenomenology of revelation of Jean-Luc Marion, the rethinking of religion and technics in Jacques Derrida and Bernard Stiegler, and the Augustinian ruminations of Sren Kierkegaard and Jean-Franois Lyotard. Ultimately, this confrontation underscores the challenging yet deeply affirmative nature of Messiaen's music.

Cori Spezzati deals with polychoral church music from its beginnings in the first few decades of the sixteenth century to its climax in the work of Giovanni Gabrieli and Heinrich Schutz. In polychoral music the singers, sometimes with instrumentalists also, were split into two (or more) groups that often engaged in lively dialogue and joined in majestic tutti climaxes. The book draws on contemporary descriptions of the idiom, especially from the writings of Vicentino and Zarlino, but concentrates in the main on musical analysis, showing how antiphonal chanting (such as that of the psalms), dialogue and canon influenced the phenomenon. Polychoral music has often been considered synonymous not only with Venetian music, but with impressive pomp. Anthony Carver's study shows that it was cultivated by many composers outside Venice - in Rome, all over northern Italy, in Catholic and Protestant areas of Germany, in Spain and the New World - and that it was as capable of quiet devotion or mannerist expressionism as of outgoing pomp. Perhaps most important, music by several major composers about which there is still surprisingly little in the literature is treated in depth: the Gabrielis, Lasso, Palestrina, Victoria, and several German masters. The book is illustrated with many musical examples. A companion volume offers an anthology of seventeen complete pieces, most of which are analysed in the text of Volume I.

Cori Spezzati deals with polychoral church music from its beginnings in the first few decades of the sixteenth century to its climax in the work of Giovanni Gabrieli and Heinrich Schiitz. In polychoral music the singers, sometimes with instrumentalists also, were split into two (or more) groups which often engaged in lively dialogue and joined in majestic tutti climaxes. The first volume draws on contemporary descriptions of the idiom, especially from the writings of Vicentino and Zarlino, but concentrates in the main on musical analysis, showing how antiphonal chanting (such as that of the psalms), dialogue and canon influenced the phenomenon. Polychoral music often has been considered synonymous not only with Venetian music but with impressive pomp. Anthony Carver's study shows that it was cultivated by many composers outside Venice - in Rome, all over northern Italy, in Catholic and Protestant areas of Germany, in Spain and the New World - and that it was as capable of quiet devotion or mannerist expressionism as of outgoing pomp. Perhaps most important, music by several major composers about which there is still surprisingly little in the literature is treated in depth: the Gabrielis, Lasso, Palestrina, Victoria, and several German masters. Volume I is illustrated with many musical examples. This companion volume offers an anthology of seventeen complete pieces, most of which are analysed in the text of volume I.

In the Middle Ages, relic cults provoked rich expressions of devotion not only in hagiographic literature and visual art but also in liturgical music and ritual. Despite the long-recognized inter-play between these diverse media, historians of the period rarely integrate analysis of sacred music into their research on other modes of worship espoused by relic cults. Holy Treasure and Sacred Song situates this oft-neglected yet critical domain of religious life at the center of an examination of relic cults in medieval Tuscany. Long recognized as a center of artistic innovation during the Renaissance, this region also boasted the rich and well documented veneration of holy bishops and martyrs buried in the cathedrals and suburban shrines of its principal cities. Author Benjamin Brand reveals that the music composed to honor these local saints - no fewer than ninety chants for the Mass and Divine Office - were essential components of larger devotional campaigns that included the recording of their life stories and the building and decoration of their shrines. Furthermore, the local Tuscan clerics who assumed control of these campaigns with the intent of gaining both temporal and spiritual power drew on influential global models - literary, architectural, musical, and ritual - from preeminent European powers, Rome and the Carolingian Empire. By integrating detailed analyses of plainsong and sacred ritual into this rich panorama, Brand traces the dialectic between local, regional, and pan-European trends, revealing the centrality of the liturgy in the development of medieval relic cults and, in a broader sense, medieval European culture and politics. Offering a rich topography of music, liturgy, and devotion through an interdisciplinary approach ideal for the multifaceted nature of medieval relic cults, Holy Treasure and Sacred Song will find a broad audience amongst musicologists and medievalists alike.

Male-centered theology, a dearth of men in the pews, and an overrepresentation of queer males in music ministry: these elements coexist within the spaces of historically black Protestant churches, creating an atmosphere where simultaneous heteropatriarchy and "real" masculinity anxieties, archetypes of the "alpha-male preacher", the "effeminate choir director" and homo-antagonism, are all in play. The "flamboyant" male vocalists formed in the black Pentecostal music ministry tradition, through their vocal styles, gestures, and attire in church services, display a spectrum of gender performances - from "hyper-masculine" to feminine masculine - to their fellow worshippers, subtly protesting and critiquing the otherwise heteronormative theology in which the service is entrenched. And while the performativity of these men is characterized by cynics as "flaming," a similar musicalized "fire" - that of the Holy Spirit - moves through the bodies of Pentecostal worshippers, endowing them religio-culturally, physically, and spiritually like "fire shut up in their bones". Using the lenses of ethnomusicology, musicology, anthropology, men's studies, queer studies, and theology, Flaming?: The Peculiar Theo-Politics of Fire and Desire in Black Male Gospel Performance observes how male vocalists traverse their tightly-knit social networks and negotiate their identities through and beyond the worship experience. Author Alisha Jones ultimately addresses the ways in which gospel music and performance can afford African American men not only greater visibility, but also an affirmation of their fitness to minister through speech and song.

52 CCM faves in a value-priced songbook: All to You * Be Near * Breathe * Come On Back to Me * Deeper * Faithful to Me * I Wanna Sing * King * Maker of All Things * Oceans from the Rain * Pray * Song of Love * These Hands * This Is Your Life * Wisdom * more.

Joni Mitchell is one of the foremost singer-songwriters of the late twentieth century. Yet despite her reputation, influence, and cultural importance, a detailed appraisal of her musical achievement is still lacking. Whitesell presents a through exploration of Mitchell's musical style, sound, and structure in order to evaluate her songs from a musicological perspective. His analyses are conceived within a holistic framework that takes account of poetic nuance, cultural reference, and stylistic evolution over a long, adventurous career.
Mitchell's songs represent a complex, meticulously crafted body of work. The Music of Joni Mitchell offers a comprehensive survey of her output, with many discussions of individual songs, organized by topic rather than chronology. Individual chapters each explore a different aspect of her craft, such as poetic voice, harmony, melody, and large-scale form. A separate chapter is devoted to the central theme of personal freedom, as expressed through diverse symbolic registers of the journey quest, bohemianism, creative license, and spiritual liberation.
Previous accounts of Mitchell's songwriting have tended to favor her poetic vision, expansive verse structures, and riveting vocal delivery. Whitesell fills out this account with special attention to musical technique, showing how such traits as complex or conflicting sonorities, dualities of harmonic mode, dialectical tensions of texture and register, intricately layered instrumental figuration, and a variable vocal persona are all essential to her distinctive identity as a songwriter. The Music of Joni Mitchell develops a set of conceptual tools geared specifically to Mitchell's songs, in order todemonstrate the extent of her technical innovation in the pop song genre, to give an account of the formal sophistication and rhetorical power characterizing her work as a whole, and to provide grounds for the recognition of her intellectual stature as a composer within her chosen field.

The fourth-century Christian thinker, Gregory of Nyssa, has been the subject of a huge variety of interpretations over the past fifty years, from historians, theologians, philosophers, and others. In this highly original study, Morwenna Ludlow analyses these recent readings of Gregory of Nyssa and asks: What do they reveal about modern and postmodern interpretations of the Christian past? What do they say about the nature of Gregory's writing? Working thematically through studies of recent Trinitarian theology, Christology, spirituality, feminism, and postmodern hermeneutics, Ludlow develops an approach to reading the Church Fathers which combines the benefits of traditional scholarship on the early Church with reception-history and theology.

The Faber Music Christmas Piano Anthology is an essential collection of the greatest Christmas songs and carols, specially arranged for solo piano, for the intermediate pianist. The perfect gift for Christmas, this beautiful anthology includes favourites such as O Holy Night, Sleigh Ride and It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas alongside arrangements of Winter (from the Four Seasons), Troika (from Lieutenant Kije), and more.

A new method of music theory education for undergraduate music students, Harmony, Counterpoint, Partimento is grounded in schema theory and partimento, and takes an integrated, hands-on approach to the teaching of harmony and counterpoint in today's classrooms and studios. A textbook in three parts, the package includes: * the hardcopy text, providing essential stylistic and technical information and repertoire discussion; * an online workbook with a full range of exercises, including partimenti by Fenaroli, Sala, and others, along with arrangements of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century compositions; * an online instructor's manual providing additional information and realizations of all exercises. Linking theoretical knowledge with aural perception and aesthetic experience, the exercises encompass various activities, such as singing, playing, improvising, and notation, which challenge and develop the student's harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic imagination. Covering the common-practice period (Corelli to Brahms), Harmony, Counterpoint, Partimento is a core component of practice-oriented training of musicianship skills, in conjunction with solfeggio, analysis, and modal or tonal counterpoint.

A historical and theological re-evaluation of the polemical writings of Athanasius of Alexandria (bishop 328-73), who would become known to later Christian generations as a saint and a champion of orthodoxy, and as the defender of the original Nicene Creed of 325 against the `Arian heresy'. For much of his own lifetime, however, Athanasius was an extremely controversial figure, and his writings, although highly influential on modern interpretations of the fourth-century Church and the so-called `Arian Controversy', display bias and distortion. David M. Gwynn examines Athanasius' polemic in detail, and in particular his construction of those he condemns as `Arian' as a single `heretical party', 'the Eusebians'. Gwynn argues that Athanasius' image of the Church polarized between his own `orthodoxy' and the `Arianism' of the `Eusebians' is a polemical construct, which has seriously impaired our knowledge of the development of Christianity in the crucial period in which the Later Roman Empire became ever increasingly a Christian empire.

Includes CD with 40 selections of music and chants. See Table of Contents for CD track playlist.

This innovative book explores religion through music, one of the most universally recognized forms of human experience. The only art form named after a divinity, music has been documented from prehistory to the present age in virtually all known cultures. For many, music is a vehicle for spiritual growth and community empowerment, whether it's understood as a gift of the gods or simply a practice for achieving mental states conducive to enlightenment.

Traditionally, when religious scholars talk about music, it's as a kind of aesthetic supplement to the important spiritual content of a religion, analogous to stained-glass windows or temple paintings. In contrast, "Sacred Sound: Experiencing Music in World Religions" acknowledges the critical role of musical activity in religious life. Music, including chant and vocal utterance, is not incidental in religious practice but a sacred treasure that is central to the growth and sustenance of religions throughout the world. Musical sound is sacred in most religions because it embodies the divine and can be shared by all participants, enduring among diverse communities of people despite theological differences.

Covering six of the major world religionsJudaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism--the book is accompanied by a CD of forty selections of music and chant. Contributors are respected scholars in religious studies and musicology and provide insight from both disciplines. The first book of its kind, "Sacred Sound" is a milestone in the growing cross-disciplinary study of religion and music.

Can humans know God? Can created beings approach the Uncreated? The concept of God and questions about our ability to know him are central to this book. Eastern Orthodox theology distinguishes between knowing God as he is (his divine essence) and as he presents himself (through his energies), and thus it both negates and affirms the basic question: man cannot know God in his essence, but may know him through his energies. Henny Fiska Hagg investigates this earliest stage of Christian negative (apophatic) theology, as well as the beginnings of the distinction between essence and energies, focusing on Clement of Alexandria in the late second century. Clement's theological, social, religious, and philosophical milieu is also considered, as is his indebtedness to Middle Platonism and its concept of God.

Bach's cantatas are among the highest achievements of Western musical art, yet studies of the individual cantatas that are both illuminating and detailed are quite few. In this book, Eric Chafe combines theological, historical, analytical, and interpretive approaches to the cantatas to offer readers and listeners alike the richest possible experience of these works--that is, given the composer's intentions as well as the enduring and universal qualities of the music itself. Concentrating on a small number of representative cantatas, mostly from the Leipzig cycles of 1723-24 and 1724-25, and in particular on Cantata 77, Chafe illustrates how Bach strove to mirror both the dogma and the mystery of religious experience in musical allegory.

Fiddled out of Reason is a study of several poems spanning the life and career of Joseph Addison, who, along with John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Ambrose Philips, Isaac Watts, and many British poets of the turn of the eighteenth century, helped to cultivate a broad new current of nonliturgical "hymnic" verse that became immensely popular across that century, though it has eluded critical notice until now. The texts the book examines-Addison's St. Cecilia's Day odes (1692, 1699), his libretto for the opera Rosamond (1707), and a sequence of five hymnic works in The Spectator (1712)-precede by twenty-five years John Wesley's publication of the first hymnal for use in the Church of England. The book argues that "secular" hymnic works such as Addison's emerged alongside religio-political controversies and anxieties about British national identity, morality, and expressions of "enthusiastic" passions. Church and Tory interests largely rejected hymnic verse, claiming it would only "fiddle" unwitting readers "out of their reason" and reignite the dangerous fervor of Revolution-era Nonconformity and Dissent. As is evident from his poetry, Addison, a moderate Whig, ardently opposed this view, arguing that the hymnic could in fact be a portal to national and individual amelioration. After an introductory chapter exploring period conceptions of hymnic poetry and the highly contested term "hymn" itself, the argument proceeds through three sections to trace the hymnic's upward trajectory through Addison's early, mid-period, and mature verse. The book devotes the lion's share of its attention to the last of these three, which includes the five-poem Spectator sequence (a poem from the sequence, "The Spacious Firmament on High," will be familiar to many readers). Indeed, in addition to offering new readings of hymnic works by Dryden and Pope, Fiddled out of Reason provides the first extended critical treatment of these five important poems. Publication of the book coincides with the 300th anniversary of Addison's death and with the appearance of a new Oxford edition of Addison's nonperiodical writings.

Iain Fenlon explores how music was an 'instrument' of those in power in late Renaissance Italy. Focusing on major urban centres - Mantua, Milan, Rome, Florence, and Venice - he argues that, far from losing its vigour after 1530, Italian culture was in fact transformed, as both individuals and institutions reacted to new political, economic, and religious circumstances.

In the 1960s, Jewish music in America began to evolve. Traditional liturgical tunes developed into a blend of secular and sacred sound that became known in the 1980s as "American Nusach." Chief among these developments was the growth of feminist Jewish songwriting. In this lively study, Sarah M. Ross brings together scholarship on Jewish liturgy, U.S. history, and musical ethnology to describe the multiple roots and development of feminist Jewish music in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Focusing on the work of prolific songwriters such as Debbie Friedman, Rabbi Geela Rayzel Raphael, Rabbi Hanna Tiferet Siegel, and Linda Hirschhorn, this volume illuminates the biographies and oeuvres of innovators in the field, and shows how this new musical form arose from the rich contexts of feminism, identity politics, folk music, and Judaism. In addition to providing deep content analysis of individual songs, Ross examines the feminist Jewish music scene across the United States, the reception of this music, challenges to disseminating the music beyond informal settings, and the state of Jewish music publishing. Rounding out the picture of the transformation of Jewish music, the volume contains appendixes of songs and songwriters a selection of musical transcriptions of feminist Jewish songs, and a comprehensive discography. This book will interest scholars and students in the fields of American Jewish history, women's studies, feminism, ethnomusicology, and contemporary popular and folk music.

Features 10 spirituals as interpreted by acclaimed conductor and arranger Moses Hogan: Deep River * Never Said a Mumblin' Word (Crucifixion) * Give Me Jesus * He's Got the Whole World in His Hands * Let Us Break Bread Together * My Good Lord's Done Been Here * Somebody's Knockin' at Yo' Door * Sometimes I Feel like a Motherless Child * Walk Together Children * Were You There?. Includes a biography of Hogan and a foreword on the history of the spiritual. "Moses Hogan provides a new voice for spirituals in America. His arrangements are exciting treatments that do not obscure the traditional essence of this music. His artistry as conductor, arranger and pianist is world-class!" - Craig Jessop, Director, Mormon Tabernacle Choir

The Bach cantatas are among the highest achievements of Western musical art; yet studies of individual Bach cantatas that are both illuminating and detailed are few in number. In Analysing Bach Cantatas, Eric Chafe combines theological, historical, analytical, and interpretive approaches to the cantatas to offer the reader and listener the richest possible experience of the works, in the light of the composer's intentions and of the enduring and universal qualities of the works. Concentrating on a small number of representative cantatas, mostly from the Leipzig cycles of 1723-24 and 1724-25, and in particular on Cantata 77, Chafe illustrates how Bach strove to mirror both the dogma and the mystery of religious exerience in musical allegory.

This is the first book-length study of the Orgelbüchlein, the masterly collection of organ chorales by J. S. Bach. This 'Little Organ Book' is regarded by Bach scholars as one of the composer's most important achievements and by organ scholars as a milestone in the development of the chorale. Russell Stinson, himself an organist, examines the collection from a range of historical and analytical perspectives in a way that will resonate with not only organists and scholars but the average concert-goer or CD-buyer.

Why do people sing hymns? Are hymns poetry? What makes a good hymn? The author discusses the nature of hymns and their particular appeal, examines the English hymn as a literary form, and systematically describes its development through four centuries, from the Reformation to the mid-twentieth century.