Sacred Music

Our contemporary culture is communicating ever-increasingly through the visual, through film, and through music. This makes it ever more urgent for theologians to explore the resources of art for enriching our understanding and experience of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Annunciations: Sacred Music for the twenty-First Century, edited by George Corbett, answers this need, evaluating the relationship between the sacred and the composition, performance, and appreciation of music. Through the theme of ‘annunciations’, this volume interrogates how, when, why, through and to whom God communicates in the Old and New Testaments. In doing so, it tackles the intimate relationship between Scriptural reflection and musical practice in the past, its present condition, and what the future might hold. Annunciations comprises three parts. Part I sets out flexible theological and compositional frameworks for a constructive relationship between the sacred and music. Part II presents the reflections of theologians and composers involved in collaborating on new pieces of sacred choral music, alongside the six new scores and links to the recordings. Part III considers the reality of programming and performing sacred works today. This volume provides an indispensable resource for scholars and artists working at the interface between theology and the arts, and for those involved in sacred music. However, it will also be of interest to anyone concerned with the ways in which the Divine communicates through word and artistry to humanity.

Every papal document dealing with church music from Saint Clement (92-101) to Paul VI (1963-1978) was sought for this collection. The texts are presented in English translation accompanied by the author's commentary. Also included are decrees from the Council of Trent, the Congregation of Sacred Rites and other bodies dealing with the musical concerns of the Holy See. Much of the volume chronicles the restoration of Gregorian chant after Trent and completed four hundred years later when reforms under Pius X confirmed the work of the Solesmes Benedictines.

Sacred Music in Secular Society is a new and challenging work asking why Christian sacred music is now appealing afresh to a wide and varied audience, both religious and secular. Blending scholarship, theological reflection and interviews with some of the greatest musicians and spiritual leaders of our day, Arnold suggests that the intrinsically theological and spiritual nature of sacred music remains an immense attraction particularly in secular society. This book will appeal to readers interested in contemporary spirituality, Christianity, music, worship, faith and society, whether believers or not, including theologians, musicians and sociologists.

Anthony Ruff, osb has written a brilliant, comprehensive, well-researched book about the treasures of the Church's musical tradition, and about the transformations brought about by liturgical reform. The liturgy constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium stated many revolutionary principles of liturgical reform. Regarding liturgical music, the Council's decrees mandated, on the one hand, the preservation of the inherited treasury of sacred music, and on the other hand, advocated adaptation and expansion of this treasury to meet the changed requirements of the reformed liturgy. In clear, precise language, he retrieves the Council's neglected teachings on the preservation of the inherited music treasury. He clearly shows that this task is not at odds with good pastoral practice, but is rather an integral part of it. The book proposes an alternate hermeneutic for understanding the Second Vatican Council's teachings on worship music.

OUR DEAR YOUNG MEN AND YOUNG WOMEN, we have great confidence in you. You are beloved sons and daughters of God and He is mindful of you. You have come to earth at a time of great opportunities and also of great challenges. The standards in this booklet will help you with the important choices you are making now and will yet make in the future. We promise that as you keep the covenants you have made and these standards, you will be blessed with the companionship of the Holy Ghost, your faith and testimony will grow stronger, and you will enjoy increasing happiness.

Primary text for Professor Carol's multi-media course.This history of early sacred music and the forces that shaped it takes you deep into Old Testament times, ancient Greece and Rome, Medieval kings and conquests, and the establishment of Christianity in the Western World.

Nearly all religious traditions have reserved a special place for sacred music. Whether it is music accompanying a ritual or purely for devotional purposes, music composed for entire congregations or for the trained soloist, or music set to holy words or purely instrumental, in some form or another, music is present. In fact, in some traditions the relation between the music and the ritual is so intimate that to distinguish between them would be inaccurate. The A to Z of Sacred Music covers the most important aspects of the sacred music of Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and other smaller religious groups. It provides useful information on all the significant traditions of this music through the use of a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, appendixes, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on major types of music, composers, key religious figures, specialized positions, genres of composition, technical terms, instruments, fundamental documents and sources, significant places, and important musical compositions.

This piano book, for beginners from children to adults, is the first in a series of piano study books. This series is to teach the student hymns and African-American spirituals. It will cover sight-reading and later will help to incorporate the musical knowledge for playing chordally, or by ear. This book is for Christians and non-Christians alike. Those who are not yet Christians may hopefully be led to the knowledge or further knowledge of Jesus Christ through the teachings of Sacred Music. Brenda A. McGee has over forty-five years of teaching piano as well as music composition experience. She graduated from Fiorello LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and the school of Performing Arts in New York City; Mercy College/Westchester Conservatory of Music in Dobbs Ferry, New York; and the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Valencia, California. While a graduate student at CalArts, Ms. McGee created the piano program at the Watts Towers Arts Center, which is still functioning today with one of her former students as one of the piano instructors. Ms. McGee states, "I pray that this book, and all the other piano books in this series be a launching pad for those piano students whom God may purpose for future church musicians and worship leaders in the Christian Church worldwide, part of the body of Christ. This first book is a small beginning, but an extremely important beginning for a young child. "For the adults that are starting with this first book, you may not have started early in childhood, but it is never too late to start learning hymns for piano, as it is never too late to come to Christ." "O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee." Psalm 63:1a KJV