Info on Sacred Music sources
  • AdteBeateJoseph3
    Posts: 29
    Pax!
    I was wondering if any of you could recommend books, articles, etc., on the topic or history of Sacred Music. Besides my own research paper from high school on the history Gregorian chant, I haven’t had the chance to read in depth on this topic. Thanks in advance!
  • smvanroodesmvanroode
    Posts: 1,010
    Some titles about the history of sacred music, that might be helpful as a start:

    Christopher Page, The Christian West and its Singers. The First Thousand Years (Yale University Press, 2010) [highly recommended!]

    Rebecca Maloy, Inside the Offertory. Aspects of Chronology and Transmission (Oxford University Press, 2010) [quit specialized]

    James McKinnon, Music in Early Christian Literature (Cambridge University Press, 1987)

    Joseph Gelineau, Chant et musique dans le culte chrétien (Éditions Fleurus, 1962) [a bit outdated]

    Jason J. McFarland, Announcing the Feast. The Entrance Song in the Mass of the Roman Rite (Liturgical Press, 2011) [Especially Chapter1 and 2]

    Pierre Combe, The Restoration of Gregorian Chant (The Catholic University of America Press, 2003) [a bit outdated]
    Thanked by 5irishtenor CHGiffen Chant_Supremacist M. Jackson Osborn CantorCole
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,497
    For an overview of the whole field from the third to mid-twentieth century The History of Catholic Church Music by Karl Gustav Fellerer. (1949 with additional notes up to De musica sacra et sacra liturgia, September 1958.)
    Thanked by 1Chant_Supremacist
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 53
    The History of Catholic Church Music, available on Amazon for only $1,800 CAD.

    CCWatershed offers it here: https://archive.ccwatershed.org/media/pdfs/13/07/11/18-01-31_0.pdf
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,104
    The definitive book on the history of Church polyphony has yet to be written, though chant has been covered quite well.

    Collegiate music history textbooks do a fairly decent job of describing church music before 1600, if only because that's what there was. It's very much a Great Works approach; you can get an idea of music at princely establishments, but not of some small-town church. After 1600, opera and instrumental music become the main cultural drivers, and if sacred music gets mentioned, it's only Great Works (Handel, Haydn-not-Michael, etc.) and/or works for the concert hall.

    I would love to see a Catholic Grout: a Church-centric vision of all of music history, which would be used for a 3-semester survey course. This would of necessity minimize much of what's concentrated on in standard historiographies. What if opera were discussed in terms of oratorio instead of vice-versa?

    There have been books oriented to a single semester survey. Susan Treacy's The Music of Christendom (Ignatius Press 2021) looks fun, but I haven't read it. I have Edward Schaefer's Catholic Music Through the Ages (Chicago: Hillenbrand, 2008), and it's definitely worth reading, but it's focused on the musical teachings of the church more than the actual music; if composers always perfectly embodied Church teaching, there would have been less Church teaching, yes? If you want a deep dive into teachings, Robert Hayburn's Papal Legislation on Sacred Music (Harrison NY: Roman Catholic Books, n.d.; first published 1979).

    There are several books dealing with the postconciliar period. Ken Canedo's Keep the Fire Burning: The Folk Mass Revolution (Pastoral Press, 2009, out of print) is excellent, though definitely "History written by the victors". Francis P. Schmitt's Church Music Transgressed: Reflections on "Reform" (Seabury Press 1977, pop) is "History written by the vanquished" and not for the faint of heart.
    Thanked by 4Chant_Supremacist CHGiffen smvanroode DavidOLGC
  • CantorCole
    Posts: 79
    @smvanroode

    The introduction to the Offertory book has me almost willing to drop 100 bucks for a copy. I love going down those technical/historical rabbit holes!
  • CGM
    Posts: 711
    Christoph Tietze has written a scholarly work on the history of the Introit.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,884
    The Papal Legislation on Sacred Music

    https://www.amazon.com/Papal-Legislation-Sacred-Music-1977/dp/1929291787

    When the late Monsignor Robert F. Hayburn's Papal Legislation on Sacred Music: 95 A.D. to 1977 A.D. first appeared, reviewer Michael Callaghan stated in Clergy Review:

    "To my knowledge no more complete documentation of papal legislation on sacred music exists than...in this superb...volume."

    Common today are guitar Masses...hymns with banal music and even more banal lyrics...music "performances" during the Consecration. But what is the Church's traditional thinking and its rules on sacred music? This important book, first published nearly 30 years ago, answers these questions definitively. In fact, we will go so far as to say: You can't talk intelligently about Church music without it.

    Monsignor Hayburn was well qualified to put together this massive 600-plus page history of papal documents on sacred music. Noted as a scholar of liturgical music, he was an organist, composer, and parish priest. From 1957 to 1979 he was director of music for the archdiocese of San Francisco. Over the years he taught at the University of San Francisco, the College of the Holy Names, and Catholic University of America. "The purpose of this work," he tells us in his Preface, "was to locate, translate, and place in historical context the documents of papal legislation on Church music."

    “Church musicians, musicologists, and historians should be profoundly grateful for this splendid, well-organized fund of knowledge. Librarians should welcome Papal Legislation and make it available to Church musicians everywhere. We pray that this fruit of patient research will meet with a very wide and grateful acceptance.”-Worship

    "To my knowledge no more complete documentation of papal legislation on sacred music exists than is contained in this superb, recently published volume by Msgr. Hayburn of California....To the church musician and liturgist this book will read like a novel, for the characteristics of each era reveal the social conditions obtaining at the time.

    Documentation and original correspondence abound, the result of lengthy research by the author in the Vatican Library and at the Abbey of Solesmes. The numerous appendices categorize all decrees on sacred music made by the Congregation of Sacred Rites and stress their binding force. It is hard to understand the apparent present-day disregard of this legislation.”—Clergy Review

    “Unique, as far as I know, in the English language. It is a tool for scholars interested in church music as well as the part the Church has played through this legislation in shaping the development of the art of music in general.”—Sacred Music

    Appendices and special features12 pages of "historically noteworthy" (Worship) photos
    Classification of Papal documents
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