The Music of Christendom: A History by Susan Treacy

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Music of Christendom: A History by Susan Treacy Alexis K. Kutarna Susan Treacy The Music of Christendom: A History Greenwood Village, CO: Augustine Institute / San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2021 235 pages. Paperback. $16.95. In this compelling history of music, Susan Treacy weaves together a story of faith and the Western tradition of classical music, following major figures and their works as signposts along the way. Every college music history student is familiar with the standard texts which divide Western music into a timeline, covering the major periods, and a survey of music. Even the standard music appreciation texts follow this same format. Uniquely crafted as a story, in a concise paperback, Treacy writes a captivating tale of historical events and the lives of composers. Her narrative provides an accessible entry point for the non-musician to discover the spiritual orientation of music from a Catholic approach, even in secular genres of music. The Music of Christendom consists of 28 chapters focusing on a wide variety of music in the Western tradition. As any serious study of Western music begins, the first section introduces ancient Greek philosophy of music. Even Greek philosophy is influential over the development of music in the West, although the name [End Page 98] Pythagoras may seem surprising for the casual reader to discover in a musical context (6). Pythagorean ideals of music in the cosmos and the harmony of the soul are essential to understanding the influence of music on the moral life, as found for instance in Plato's Timaeus (8). Treacy highlights the importance of Boethius' contribution to the corpus of philosophical writings about music in his instruction, De institutione musica (10). The bold statement that "Gregorian chant is the foundation of all Western music" (13) is strongly supported in the following sections of her work. After an overview of the place of chant in the liturgy, Treacy provides several examples for the reader's listening guide. In fact, several Gregorian chants make it on to her "top 100" list, to be found at the back of the book. Moving through the story of Hildegard to early polyphony, she also makes note of the development of secular song and its relationship to the story of Christendom. Her tales take us through architectural descriptions of Notre-Dame de Paris, the heroic life of Joan of Arc, to Josquin des Prez; all referring back to the liturgical chant in the Church in the West. One strength (among many!) of Treacy's work is how she intertwines the lives of composers as they influence each other: Palestrina would have likely known Victoria, and perhaps even taught him (66). Treacy's commentary extends beyond a list of compositions and simple biographical details, for example exploring the influence of Victoria not only in Spain but teaching music to German seminarians and the spread of his music to Mexico (66-67). She manages to move seamlessly yet efficiently around the globe, and from one composer to another, without the narrative becoming disjunct or cumbersome. The book treats all of the major composers from Vivaldi to Bach to Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms. While avoiding becoming bogged down with too much detail, Treacy chooses those moments of interest wisely. For instance, she shares that the fifth movement of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony, while based on a Christian hymn about the resurrection of the body, omits the remaining stanzas and the word "Hallelujah," opting instead to [End Page 99] insert his own ecstatic poetry, which in the end completely ignores the Christian teaching on final judgment (171). I found the final sections to contain delightful references to pieces from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including some unexpected inclusions. In 1900, Edward Elgar composed a lengthy setting of John Henry Newman's meditative poem The Dream of Gerontius, which Treacy describes in compelling detail (198-201). There is also a section with the music of Gershwin and Copland—two composers that would not necessarily be on a list of specifically Catholic works but, as she writes, even Porgy and Bess contains Catholic influences (230). Finally, she spends the last pages on the work of, among others, Scottish composer James...