Catholic Church Music in Ireland, 1878-1903: The Cecilian Reform Movement by Kieran Anthony Daly (review)

book reviews489 CathoUcs living in England, whether for private prayer or in assisting at Mass or Benediction." She notes that "those extra-liturgical forms which came to be practised with increasing regularity were devotions which had also been favourites in the recusant tradition" (p. 138). Heimann insists that CathoUcs in England "remained as English as the Scots remained Scottish," but adds that "in their holy aspiration to accept one another as CathoUcs first, despite class, ethnic , and political differences, they had also become more cathoUc in the other sense," and finaUy that "this CathoUc world within England was not an outpost of Rome but remained both an English and a Catholic community" (p. 173). The book is a fine one.The very complexity ofits subject matter should incite other scholars to further research and dialogue. RJ. Schiefen University ofSt. Thomas, Houston Catholic Church Music in Ireland, 1878-1903: The Cecilian Reform Movement . By Kieran Anthony Daly. (DubUn: Four Courts Press. Distributed by International Specialized Book Services, Inc., Portland, Oregon. 1995. Pp. vU, 189. $30.00.) WhUe this concise book is primarily a study of the Irish Cecilian movement over the twenty-five-year period that preceded the promulgation ofPius X's famous sacred music motuproprio of 1903, it also provides a European and a tantaUzingly briefAmerican perspective on an interesting cultural phenomenon in the history of late nineteenth-century CathoUcism. Founded on the liturgical imperative of ridding the sacred rites of a musical style which its proponents considered had enfeebled the liturgy by its incorporation of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century secular elements, the CecUians vigorously sought a return to what they considered to be the ideal church music, namely, Gregorian chant, classical polyphony, and their modern Imitators. Yet contemporary compositions had to comply strictly with the modal/diatonic harmonic language requirements of CecUian ideology if they were to be accepted as kosher. NaturaUy true creative talent could not and would not submit to such curbs on artistic freedom, and so part of the tragedy of this movement is that nonentities were elevated as paragons of compositional virtue whUe real compositional giants such as Bruckner (who as a devout Catholic leant over backwards in his efforts to comply with Cecilian requirements) were treated with some disdain. Indeed, as an indication of the zeal of the Cecilian mind, Daly recounts how in 1877, the archbishop of Dublin, whUe presiding at a festive Mass in a city church, on hearing the Kyrie of Beethoven's Mass in C . . . sent up word to the choir to have the performance ofBeethoven's Mass discontinued, and some other listed work which was free from conditions and independent ofinstruments substituted. 490BOOK REVIEWS This account (as is much of the source material In this book) is taken from the Lyra Ecclesiastica, the journal of the CecUian movement Ui Ireland, which flourished for fifteen years between 1878 and 1893 This periodical published Usts of approved music called the white list (which clearly impUed the existence of a black list), and kept strong tabs on the music programs (and their manner of execution) of liturgical celebrations throughout the country. Central to Daly's work are studies of the three clerical leaders of the international movement's Irish section: the German, Heinrich Bewerunge, a priest of the Diocese ofPaderborn, who came to Ireland in 1888 as Maynooth's first professor of sacred music, a position he was to hold until his death m 1923:WUUam Walsh, the musicianly president of Maynooth who became archbishop of Dublin Ln 1885 and reigned until 1921,lending the considerable weight ofhis office to the implementation ofCeciUan ideals in the Uturgy; and then there wasWalsh's auxLUary Nicholas DonneUy cold, aloof, but imbued with a deep love and knowledge of CeciUan music which was developed and sustained through his annual visits to thefons et origo of the movement, Regensburg, and to other continental centers of CeciUan endeavor, and through his friendship and association with such CecUian stalwarts as F. X. Haberl, Franz Witt, and Michael Haller. As this was primarily a southern German movement in origin and organization , it is not surprising that the CeciUan society took root Ln the United States Ui the Midwest where...