Bad = U2 (is phony Bono a real Catholic?)
Good = Mozart
If you do not get it after listening to his Requiem and understand the Latin words then you will never get it.
Mozart, Bach, Foure’. There’s plenty of great liturgical music available. I just rarely, if ever, hear any of it at Mass.
Mozart’s good. I’ve heard his Requiem live, in a church. But Bach is better. To me, Bach is the ulimate sacred music.
The parish we are currently attending seems to be in love with all the Protestant hymns in the OCP book. When the pianist (no organ setting on her keyboard, I guess) plays an interlude it’s straight out of the Enya “Orinoco Flow” song book. :o(
Um, not after about 1777. He went freemason and his opera flourished, but the sacred went really profane. His early sacred literature is far more devout. The Ave Verum done right is one of the most moving pieces ever written.
If you do not get it after listening to his Requiem and understand the Latin words then you will never get it.
To really get it, listen to Faure's Requiem and Bruckner motets. As a classical vocalist, the Mozart Requiem is a blast to perform, but parts of it (the Lacrymosa, in particular) are downright mocking. Same thing with later Haydn.
Re Mozart — We went to a concert last week. The conductor/ performer had done research in London re the concerts Myra Hess did in London during the blitzkrieg to keep morale up. They talked about the transcendence of music, that the citizens were lifted up out of the dark days and into Transcendent Reality by the wonderful music.
THIS is the difference between the ‘modern,’ atonal, banal, existential music currently being written, whether church ditties or modern composers celebrating their own intellects. NONE of the current music would have been played during a siege to lift the citizens up and encourage them in dark times.