O Sing Unto the Lord: A History of English Church Music

Gant (Christmas Carols), lecturer at St. Peter’s College at the University of Oxford, shows readers that church music in England has always reflected larger theological, political, and social contexts, and explores how church music reaches deep into collective folk memory. Accessible to the general reader yet suited to those with a particular interest in music history or the history of England, the book examines the arguments that weave their way in and out of the history of English church music: Who gets to sing, the priests or the congregation? Should popular music be allowed to influence church music? What, fundamentally, is the function of church music, and why have clerical authorities often been suspicious of how much attention music receives? Gant engages these questions in intelligent, energetic prose. He sweeps from the Gregorian plainsong from the very earliest years of the church in England, through the complexities of the pre-Reformation Catholic liturgies, the drastic (and lasting) changes wrought by the Reformation, the moderation of Elizabethans, and the accessibility of Puritan songs, to the church music still being sung today. Yet because he focuses on representative composers and works, Gant’s work feels more intimate than broad. It’s a book about people and the songs that many of us don’t even know that we know. (Apr.)