1. SACRED MUSIC

 

Lucien Diess, Visions of Liturgy and Music for a New Century, trans. Jane M.A. Burton (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1996).

Jeremy Begbie and Stephen R. Guthrie, eds., Resonant Witnesses: Conversations between Music and Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011) hardcover, $34. NEW.

Christopher Boyd Brown, Singing the Gospel: Lutheran Hymns and the Success of the Reformation, Harvard Historical Studies (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005).

J. Peter Burkholder, Donald Jay Grout, Claude V. Palisca, A History of Western Music, 8th ed. (New York: Norton, 2009).  The classic textbook survey, and while, by no means limited to religious music, there is much here that is of relevance to understanding the history of music in the Christian church.

Dom Pierre Combe, The Restoration of Gregorian Chant: Solesmes and the Vatican Edition, trans. Theodore Marier and William Skinner (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008).

Edward Foley, Foundations of Christian Music: The Music of Pre-Constantinian Christianity, American Essay in Liturgy (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1996).

Edward Foley, A Concise Dictionary of Worship Music (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000).

Paul Hillier, Arvo Pärt, Oxford Studies of Composers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).  Part, an Estonian composer, is arguably the finest living composer of religious music, having just celebrated his 75th birthday.  Hillier is one of Part's finest interpreters and is especially suited to analyze his music.  Needs updating since Part has written so much new material in the last decade.

Jan Michael Joncas, From Sacred Song to Ritual Music (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1997). 

Robin A. Leaver and Joyce Ann Zimmerman, Liturgy and Music: Lifetime Learning (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998).

Mary E. McGann, Exploring Music as Worship and Theology: An Interdisciplinary Method for Studying Liturgical Practice, American Essays in Liturgy (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2002).

J. McKinnon, ed., Music in Early Christian Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

Christopher Page, The Christian West and Its Singers: The First Thousand Years (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010) hardcover, $45.  NEW.

Anthony Ruff, Sacred Music and Liturgical Reform: Treasures and Transformations (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 2007).

Andrew Shenton, ed., Messiaen the Theologian (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010) hardcover, $115. NEW.

Paul Westermeyer, Te Deum: The Church and Music (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998).

Jonathan Willis, Church Music and Protestantism in Post-Reformation England: Discourses, Sites, and Identities (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010) hardcover, $100. NEW.

Robert Wuthnow, All in Sync: How Music and Art Are Revitalizing American Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).

 

 2. CHRISTIAN ART & ARCHITECTURE

 

Robin Margaret Jensen, Understanding Early Christian Art (New York: Routledge, 2000).  A valuable introduction to the world of early Christian art and architecture, written with a sensitivity to the underlying theologies at work.

 

Allan Doig, Liturgy and Architecture: From the Early Church to the Middle Ages, Liturgy, Worship & Society series (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008).

Michael E. DeSanctis, Building from Belief: Advance, Retreat, and Compromise in the Remaking of Catholic Church Architecture (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2002).

Michael Downey, The Cathedral at the Heart of Los Angeles (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2002).

J.R. Elsner, Imperial Rome & Christian Triumph; The Art of the Roman Empire AD 100-450 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).

Everett Ferguson, ed., Art, Archaeology and Architecture of Early Christianity, Studies in Early Christianity, vol. 18 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1993).

Paul Finney, The Invisible God: The Earliest Christians on Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).

Richard Keickhefer, Theology in Stone: Church Architecture from Byzantium to Berkeley (New York:Oxford University Press, 2004).

John Lowden, Early Christian and Byzantine Art (London: Phaidon, 1997).

Neil MacGregor & Erika Langmuir, Seeing Salvation: Images of Christ in Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).

Rowland J. Mainstone, Hagia Sophia: Architecture, Structure, and Liturgy in Justinian’s Main Church (London: Thames & Hudson, 2002).

Marchita B. Mauck, Shaping a House for the Church (Chicago: Liturgical Training Resources, 1990).

Marchita B. Mauck, Places for Worship: A Guide to Building and Renovating, American Essays in Liturgy (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995).

Robert Milburn, Early Christian Art & Architecture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).

Peter Murray & Linda Murray, eds., The Oxford Companion to Christian Art and Architecture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).

Albert Rouet, Liturgy and the Arts, trans. Paul Philibert (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1997).

Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Senuous Worship: The Jesuits and the Art of the Early Catholic Reformation in Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).

L. Michael White, Building God’s House in the Roman World: Architectural Adaptation among Pagans, Jews, and Christians (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1990).

Nigel Yates, Liturgical Space: Christian Worship and Church Buildings in Western Europe 1500-2000, series: Liturgy, Worship & Society (Ashgate, 2008).

Mahmoud Zibawi, Eastern Christian Worlds (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1996).

 

 3. THE LITURGICAL YEAR

 

Adolf Adam, The Liturgical Year (New York: Pueblo, 1981).

Adolf Adam, The Key to Faith: Meditations on the Liturgical Year, trans. Patrick Madigan (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1998).

Paul F. Bradshaw and Maxwell E. Johnson, The Origin of Feasts, Fasts, and Seasons in Early Christianity (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2011) paperback, $30.  NEW.

Aiden A. Mosshammer, The Easter Computus and the Origins of the Christian Era, Oxford Early Christian Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).

Daniel A. Smith, Revisiting the Empty Tomb: The Early History of Easter (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010) paperback, $29.  NEW.

Thomas J. Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year (New York: Pueblo, 1986 / Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press).

Thomas J. Talley, “The Origin of Lent at Alexandria,” Studia Patristica 17 (1982) 594-612.

 

 4. THE LITURGY OF THE HOURS

 

Paul F. Bradshaw, Daily Prayer in the Early Church: A Study of the Origin and Early Development of the Divine Office (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).

Eamon Duffy, Marking the Hours: English People and Their Prayers, 1240-1570 (Yale University Press, 2006).

Margot E. Fassler & Rebecca A. Baltzer, eds., The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

Robert F. Taft, The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West: The Origins of the Divine Office and Its Meaning Today, 2nd rev. ed. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1985).

Gregory Woolfenden, Daily Liturgical Prayer: Origins and Theology, Liturgy, Worship, and Society (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004).

 

 

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Revised: August 21, 2011 

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  William Harmless, SJ