I have found this discussion of music interesting, as it is one i
have had casually with several people. But I find it curious the way
church music is denigrated. One might, of course, argue (with some
justification) that church music is almost a form of popular music, but
that is not always the case. The result of the focus on church music in
Britain is the vitality of the Anglican musical tradition - which has
been borrowed from by many other churches.
It seems to me that there are two ways of approaching this
question: one is to ask the question as "why there is no musical
genious", and the other would be to ask why the talented composers who
did write in Britain chose to write primarily for churches. I'd suggest
we focus on the second, which is likely to be the more illuminating
historically. Obviously, within musicology
there is a hierarchy that privileges chamber and concert music; but I don't
know why we need to buy into it. One might note, too, that in terms of
access, church and popular music had much wider audiences.
Susan Amussen