Debate over “Sacred Music, Sacred Time” at the Musica Sacra blog

My essay “Sacred Music, Sacred Time” in the November issue of First Things stirred up a hornets’ nest at the MusicaSacra Forum. I joined the discussion and the hornets reverted to a discourse that, at the conclusion, was almost amiable. The issue of contention was my passing comment that the Solesmes version of Gregorian chant was a 19th century invention rather than the reconstruction of a medieval original (as it happens, this is the standard and correct musicological view). I did not argue that the Church should not use Solesmes chant if it so chose; the chant revival was part of the “Romantic” effort to recreate a medieval Christendom that never existed in quite that way.