Celestial Music? Some Masterpieces of European Religious Music by Wilfrid MellersReview by: Christopher HatchNotes, Second Series, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Jun., 2003), pp. 907-909Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27669802 .

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Book Reviews 907

tions are on the same page as the text re

lated to them, but sometimes they are

many pages removed. Smith's discussion of

rosettes (pp. 87-89) would have been con

siderably enhanced by references to figure 10 (p. 24) or to the color plates following

page 94. Occasionally the musical examples are not specifically mentioned anywhere in

the text itself (e.g., p. 148 ex. 18). The list

of music examples (p. 365) is of little use, for it gives no more information on origi nal sources than citations for the examples themselves. One citation (p. 255 n. 32) even refers the reader to an engraving re

produced in ajournai article, ignoring the

fact that the same engraving has been re

produced at the bottom of the page itself!

Clearly, Smith was writing his text without

any awareness of which illustrations and

musical examples would be included. This

is perhaps understandable, but surely one

might reasonably expect better final copy

editing and coordination between text and

illustrative material than that found here.

Another more detrimental editorial deci

sion is the omission of parallel tablature

with the musical examples. There are a few

well chosen facsimiles, but it is quite disap

pointing to find so little tablature in a book

about the lute. (Surely this is not an indica

tion that we are retreating to an era of

scholarship when tablature was regarded as

a nuisance!) Far too much information is

shown in the original that cannot be con

veyed in staff notation. For example, Smith's

references to "rapid string changes" in the

music of Joan Ambrosio Dalza (p. 114) could be much more clearly shown?even to someone without ability to read tablature

?with the tablature itself. Another exam

ple (p. 177 ex. 26) purports to show, in

part, the use of the upper positions of the

instrument, but this is hardly evident from

the staff notation. While parallel transcrip tions would have added bulk to this already substantial volume, they were a most useful

feature of Matthew Spring's recent The Lute

in Britain: A History of the Instrument and Its

Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2001). This reader would have preferred that pitch names be given without the com

mon, but distracting, elision of hexachord

syllables ("G sol re ut" rather than

"Gsolreut," as on page 153). None of this should detract from the very

real value of the work and the fine prose

Smith brings to it, for this book is a must

for any library collection dealing with early music or serving the needs of lutenists or

classical guitarists. While it is not the last

word in lute research, it will serve as a wor

thy foundation for future study. As the au

thor aptly states, "Like musicians of the

Renaissance, today's lutenists look to music

of the distant past for inspiration. There is a vast repertory of lute music to inspire, and despite all the modern studies and edi

tions, still more to discover" (p. 307).

Gary R. Boye

Appalachian State University

Celestial Music? Some Masterpieces of

European Religious Music. By Wilfrid

Meilers. Woodbridge, Suffolk, U.K.:

Boydell Press, 2002. [xv, 320 p. ISBN 0

851-15844-7. $50.] Music examples, index.

In 1936 Wilfrid Meilers started publish

ing his thoughts on musical matters, and

today a partial list of his writings contains

well over 150 items. In fact, his latest book, on religious music, profits from being "a

retrospect of material produced over . . .

sixty or more years" (p. ix). Reshaping what

he has drawn from this ample stockpile, Meilers has based Celestial Music? on some

powerful arguments that spring from a

deep familiarity with the masterpieces of

Western music combined with an amazing breadth of learning.

He wisely begins by asking "What Is

Religious Music?" and in this prologue ex

plains that it is quite separable from liturgi cal or sacred music. In one of his earliest

books a certain piece of vocal church music

by Fran?ois Couperin is said to produce "a

'celestial' radiance" (Fran?ois Couperin and

the French Classical Tradition [London: Denis

Dobson, 1950], 157). But such spirituality can shine forth even from purely instru

mental concert music, and for Meilers the

late quartets and piano sonatas of Beetho ven exemplify this (p. xii). Though cap tured in sound, the transcendent immateri

ality of these works connects, albeit

circuitously, with concepts such as music of

the spheres (pp. 308-9). In short, the nu

minous moments speak of things beyond the simply musical or earthly realms.

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908 Notes, June 2003

The bulk of the book follows a chrono

logical course through a thousand years of European music?from Hildegard of

Bingen to Arvo Part, and concludes with

Aaron Copland. The series of twenty-eight

chapters is broken into five groups that sug

gest the religious temper of the changing times. At the outset, when organum was a

cutting-edge genre, religion firmly bound

the community together, though increased

self-consciousness made itself felt as early as

Guillaume Du Fay's Ave regina caelorum III

where an insertion made by the composer names him as a suppliant for God's mercy. Then the second set of chapters shows how, with operatic narrative techniques at hand, an age of more humanistic self-assurance was reached. The best exemplar here is

George Frideric Handel's Messiah, in which

"it is difficult to perceive any distinction be

tween Glory to Man, and Glory to God, in

the Highest" (p. 93). In the third group we

see that sonata form principles in music

and varied religious beliefs, or lack of

them, moved composers to write highly in

dividualized treatments of sacred texts. The

period features orthodox Christians such as

Joseph Haydn and Anton Bruckner as well as agnostics such as Gabriel Faur? and

Johannes Brahms. The last two groups deal

with music of the twentieth century and

represent conflicting tendencies in the

sphere of religious convictions during those years. While the fourth section fo

cuses on British composers from Edward

Elgar to Benjamin Britten, the fifth brings forward both English and continental

works in which a return to ritual and other

forms of impersonalization may be dis

cerned (e.g., in Olivier Messiaen, Igor

Stravinsky, Arvo Part, and John Tavener). Within this grand historical scheme a re

curring plan offers a welcome fixity. That is

to say, each and every chapter examines in

detail a single work or, at most, a handful

of them. Not surprisingly, Meilers discusses a number of Masses, including (1) settings of the Mass Ordinary by Guillaume de

Machaut, Franz Schubert, and, of course,

Johann Sebastian Bach (Mass in B Minor) and Ludwig van Beethoven (Missa solemnis) and (2) settings of the Requiem Mass by

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Hector Berlioz, and Giuseppe Verdi. Other liturgical or

biblical texts come into play for such pieces as Thomas Tallis's Lamentations of Jeremiah,

Claudio Monteverdi's Vespers (Vespro dette

Beata Vergine), Heinrich Sch?tz's St.

Matthew Passion, Sergey Rachmaninoff's

Vespers op. 37, William Byrd's Lullaby, My Swete Eitel Baby, Handel's Saul, and Haydn's Creation. If at a few points Meilers goes into

music that seems extraneous to his topic, he does argue strongly for the relevance of

Frederick Delius's Mass of Life, Stravinsky's

Oedipus Rex, and Copland's Twelve Poems of

Emily Dickinson. Only one entirely instru

mental piece, Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps, is addressed. All told, the musical

inclusiveness is extraordinary, despite an undeniable tendency to favor British

composers. Viewed singly, the chapters have the sta

tus of critical essays that carry descriptive musical analyses at their core. Mellers's

expository gifts allow him to verbalize the

impressions a certain passage makes while

at the same time objectifying the music

through the use of technical, theoretical terms. But no educated music-loving reader

will feel burdened by arcane minutiae.

Moreover, the descriptions seldom lose

sight of the book's larger questions, and

each is environed by pertinent biographical and historical as well as socio-religious com

mentary. Especially distinctive are the brief

excursions into myth and mysticism along with passing remarks on non-Western musi

cal subjects. From one point of view these

constitute nonpareil examples of program notes. That Meilers recognizes this aspect of his project is indicated by his advising readers to have the pertinent scores at

hand and by all but requiring them to lis

ten to recordings of the pieces. The music

examples in each chapter are far too few in

number to be substantially helpful to the

reader.

Mellers's musical readings show him rec

ognizing some intrinsic or quasi-intrinsic

meanings found in the harmonic and

melodic usages of the Western tradition.

Not only does the give-and-take of conso

nance and dissonance have for him an ex

pressive dimension, but he also attributes

fairly definite emotional coloration to spe cific major and minor keys. The stable

character of these meanings can support a

significant kinship between pieces whose

styles are quite different.

Even more broadly, Mellers's agile mind

seems to delight in discovering similarities

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Book Reviews 909

hidden by the march of time or by the walls

that separate artistic media. Thus an or

ganum by P?rotin is likened to the improvi sations of John Coltrane and Omette

Coleman (p. 12) and in a moment from

Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, Machaut is

heard (p. 262). Bracketing a composer and a writer, Meilers finds Edward Elgar and Rudyard Kipling to be twins of a sort

(p. 174). Similarly, he sees Olivier Messiaen

creating a tonal perspective analogous to

the visual perspective employed by

Hieronymus Bosch (p. 235). Yet whereas Celestial Music? occasionally

discovers subtle parallels, it is dichotomous

thinking that permeates the volume. It op erates on the highest thematic levels where, for example, humanism is set against reli

giousness, and it is behind countless state

ments such as "Brahms's trigger to creation was a duality between . . . romantic spon

taneity and a rage for order" (p. 164). Antitheses also emerge amid the musical

analyses, as when a "God-fugue" is described as balancing a "man-fugue" (pp. 262-64).

Furthermore, other forms of categorical

conceptualization are spread throughout the book, fostering such epigrammatic

phrases as: "Schubert was a composer of

Friendship as Bach was a composer of the

Church and Handel a composer of the

State" (p. 125). The prevailing orderliness, realized in arresting and flexible prose,

helps to govern Meilers's far-reaching and

diverse subject matter. For this reason

among many, Celestial Music? is a remark

able book, in which the author has skillfully marshaled his keen knowledge of how

music works and put it at the service of ever

venturesome ideas.

Christopher Hatch

Dorset, Vermont

Salons, Singers and Songs: A Back

ground to Romantic French Song, 1830-1870. By David Tunley. Alder

shot, Hants, England: Ashgate, 2002.

[xii, 283 p. ISBN 0-754-60491-8.

$79.95.] Music examples, bibliogra

phy, index.

Few aspects of French cultural life have

been as misunderstood or maligned as the

salons. Today, the expression "salon music"

carries connotations of superficiality and

sentimentality, while that of "salon com

poser" serves as a slight, if not an outright insult. Yet these epithets are more than

demeaning?they perpetuate the myth that

salons were just elitist entertainments

where innocuous trifles accompanied pleas ant conversation.

Fortunately, this inequity is being re

dressed. C?cile Tardif ("Faur? and the

Salons," in Regarding Faur?, ed. Tom

Gordon [Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach,

1999], 1-14) andjeanice Brooks ("Nadia

Boulanger and the Salon of the Princesse

de Polignac," in Journal of the American

Musicological Society 46 [1993]: 415-68),

among others, have demonstrated that the

late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Parisian gatherings fostered some of the

era's most distinguished music and artists.

Of course, not all of the pieces played or

sung at the salons had such high aspira tions. But failure to distinguish between

high art and divertissement is to be both

unfair and ignorant of the facts.

While we now have a better grasp of its

relatively recent past, salon culture of the

mid-nineteenth century remains rather

nebulous. Although further removed, this

social scene still matters much, as it set the

stage for the later artistic efflorescence and

fostered much creativity of its own, particu

larly in the form of the romance. Indeed, not since Frits Noske's French Song from Berlioz to Duparc, 2d ed. (trans. Rita Benton

[New York: Dover, 1970]) has the vocal mu

sic of that period attracted much serious

scholarship. Thus, David Tunley's Salons, Singers and

Songs: A Background to Romantic French Song, 1830-1870 offers welcome illumination of a

hazily known age. Complementing the au

thor's facsimile anthology of the epoch's vocal literature (Romantic French Song with

Translations and Commentaries, 6 vols. [New York: Garland, 1994-95]), this book offers

essential historical, social, and aesthetic

context for understanding that elegant and

musically enthusiastic period. Nine chapters, each a self-contained essay,

constitute its substance. Chapter 1, "Musical

Paris," portrays the French capitol in the

1830s, when music was, in the quoted words

of Jules Janin, "the great pleasure of this

city" (p. 1). In addition to opera and theater, Parisians enjoyed several professional

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