Music and the Quest to Rediscover the Sacred

James MacMillan writes

Far from being a spent force, religion has proved to be a vibrant, animating principle in modern music and continues to promise much for the future. It could even be said that any discussion of modernity’s mainstream in music would be incomplete without a serious reflection on the spiritual values, belief and practice at work in composers’ minds.

Much more in his brilliant essay here.

One Reply to “Music and the Quest to Rediscover the Sacred”

  1. I was in the audience when JM delivered this speech (the Hinkle [Foundation] Distinguished Lecture) during the (still underway!) Oregon Bach Festival on 30th June; wonderful event, although I expect the unalloyed Catholic-ness of MacMillan's perspective had a few in the audience rather nervous. One gentleman asked, afterward, how JM squares the early, Marxist MacMillan with the present one: the gist of the answer was, 'well, one grows up'.

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