The Laudi Spirituali in the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries

Extract

The historians of music, in so far as they have discussed the relations of the art with the rites and doctrines of the Christian churches, have expatiated chiefly upon the works of such composers as Palestrina and J. S. Bach—to name two instances only: I mean those composers about whose greatness there can be no dispute, and whose claim to that reputation is based principally if not entirely upon works of an ecclesiastical character. If in the survey of any particular period it becomes necessary to mention composers of sacred music whose works are of a definitely inferior quality, that inferiority is generally ascribed to a want of true religious feeling either in the composers as individuals or in the age or the country in which they happened to live. It is the natural temptation of the musical historian to view these matters from a standpoint that is mainly aesthetic; but there is another aspect of the subject which must not be left out of account. If we turn to the ecclesiastical writers, we shall find that aesthetic and artistic considerations receive a very different treatment. The subject of music finds frequent mention in the early Christian Fathers, and although they recognize to the full the powerful influence which music may have upon the human mind, they are preoccupied with two aspects which to the pure musician have little significance. One of those aspects is the alleged moral danger of the art when not under the strict control of authority, and the other is its undoubted practical utility.