The Way of Beauty: “It is strange that the postconciliar pluralism has created uniformity in one respect at least: it will not tolerate a high standard of expression” (Benedict XVI, A New Song for the Lord, 123).

Rebuilding Catholic Culture: 

Church Music and the Fad of ‘Folk’ Style

By Sr. Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J. 

I will never forget that moment! Flinging off his eyeglasses, he glared at me, “Sister, what have you done to our music!”  I froze.

It was my first year at NYU as a graduate student of musicology, and I was enrolled in Professor Gustave Reese’s course, Medieval and Renaissance Music.  He was the world’s leading authority on these two musical periods.  An American Jew, a Renaissance Man, he loved the sacred music of the pre-conciliar Church.  In a sense, he was its custodian.  For him, musical analysis was de rigueur except for the Ave maris stella, “a honey of a piece.”  When Reese blurted out his question to me, it seemed as if he had been storing it up for years.  How could we have banished its musical culture, the most consequential result of the post-conciliar Church?

Effect of Music on the Human Spirit...

The Decline of Quality...

Benedict XVI and the Decline of Quality...

Musicam Sacram (MS)...

Functional Church Music: the "Folk" Style...

A Closer Look at the ‘Folk’ Style from Music Missal, OCP (2011)...

Prayerlessness in the Liturgy...

Evaluation of the Fad of ‘Folk’ Style...

The Poor-Banished Pipe Organ...

Disintegration: What the ‘Folk’ Style Hath Wrought...

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