CHAPTER XXVIII
CHURCH AND ORGAN MUSIC
184. Confused Tendencies in Catholic Music.—The drift toward
demoralization in sacred music which was notable before 1800
became more conspicuous later. The general musical world
was but slightly concerned with church music in any form, except
as a necessity in liturgical routine, and there was no controlling
standard of taste regarding it. In different localities
it was treated in diverse and even capricious ways. At Rome
and occasionally elsewhere in Italy there were some who sought
to hold to the lofty purism of the old 16th-century style, though
usually with concessions on the side of accompaniments. But
generally in Italy and also in France came a marked increase
of the theatric style, bringing over into the church whatever of
sensuous charm and sumptuous splendor had proved popular
in the opera. Apart from the Italians the most striking group
of writers was that of Vienna, who tended to apply to sacred
music the energetic form and brilliant instrumentation of the
Viennese school of concert music. In this group, as in that of
the Italians, the degree of independence and warm sincerity
varied greatly, many composers having only a superficial sense
of the sacred music problem, while a few entered into it with
real sympathy. Here and there single composers made significant
attempts to utilize all the resources of modern methods in
a spirit fully analogous to that of the best early contrapuntists.
Of these the most notable was the cosmopolitan and many-sided
Cherubini, whose dignified nobility of expression went
far toward offsetting the tawdry sensationalism of Rossini and
his imitators.
Luigi Cherubini (d. 1842), already mentioned as an opera-writer (see sec.
154), had his early training at Milan under Sarti wholly in the strictest sort
of church music. But from 1780 for 30 years he then gave himself up to
opera-writing. Not till 1809 and still more after 1816, when he became
royal choirmaster and head of the Conservatoire, did he resume the serious
