The Times Literary Supplement, 3 March 1966

It has been observed that contemporary composers have made much use of religious subjects, either by setting sacred texts to music or by using words or subject matter that are religious or have religious implications. This is somewhat surprising when we consider that we live in a secular age, and that only a minority adheres to any fixed belief or practises any form of institutional religion. The reason for it may partly lie in the fact that music has had such strong ties with religion in the past. Indeed, the beginnings of western music are indissolubly linked with the Church, and it may well be that present-day composers feel a kind of nostalgia for the Christian spirituality that inspired so many of their predecessors, if only because they have found nothing but a rather vague humanism to put in its place.

A great part of our early music was church music, and it was of a quality that still influences us today. Any musician who has heard Benedictine monks sing the office would be bound to feel the impact of a musical, as well as a spiritual, experience. No music has ever been more deeply religious than the plainsong chants – single melodic lines of magnificent shape and subtle expressiveness that seem eternal in their restrained yet unpredictable contours.