Celestial Music?: Some Masterpieces of European Religious Music

The late Wilfrid Mellers, who occupies a special place among music critics, described himself as a non-believer
but his preference for music that "displays a sense of the numinous" (in his words) will strike a chord with many who listen to religious music nowadays, and who share his view that music that confronts first and last things is likely to offer more than music that evades them. The essays form five groups, which together offer a survey of religious music from around the first millennium to the beginning of the second, in the context of the difficult issues of what religious music is, and, for good measure, what is religion? The parts are: The Ages of Christian Faith
The Re-birth of a Re-birth: From Renaissance to High Baroque
From Enlightenment to Doubt
From "the Death of God" to "the Unanswered Question"
and The Ancient Law and the Modern Mind. Musical discussion, with copious examples, is conducted throughout the book in a context that is also religious - and indeed philosophical, social, and political, with the open-endedness that such an approach demands in the presentation of ideas about music's most fundamental nature and purposes. COMPOSERS: Hildegard of Bingen
Perotin
Machaut
Dunstable, Dufay
William Corniyshes father and son
Tallis
Byrd
Monteverdi
Schutz
J.S. Bach
Couperin
Handel
Haydn
Mozart
Beethoven
Schubert
Bruckner
Berlioz, Faure
Verdi, Brahms
Elgar, Delius
Holst, Vaughan Williams, Howells
Britten
Janacek
Messiaen, Poulenc
Rachmaninov
Stravinsky
Part, Tavener, Gorecki, Macmillan, Finnissy
Copland.