Anthony Ruff, OSB
Anthony Ruff investigates the tension between the liturgical reforms mandated by Vatican II and its endorsement of a treasury of sacred music from the past, then offers a well-nuanced pathway through the tension that is liturgical in its foundation, scholarly in its argument, and pastoral in its application. His study provides a balanced answer to the ongoing debate about the place of the music of the past in the liturgy of the present. This book is a must for all involved in the debate, be they professors or practitioners of liturgical music.
—Kathleen Harmon, SNDdeN, PhD
Director of Music Programs
Institute for Liturgical Ministry
Sacred Music and Liturgical Reform is a high-level study of liturgical music in the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Anthony Ruff, a pre-eminent scholar of liturgical music, proposes a hermeneutic for understanding the Second Vatican Council’s teachings on worship music: a certain balanced inconsistency rather than absolutist and rationalistic coherence. Ruff’s focus in this study is on preservation and renewal, arising from the Council’s decrees mandating, on the one hand, the preservation of the inherited treasury of sacred music (the thesaurus musicae sacrae), and on the other hand, the adaptation and expansion of this treasury to meet the changed requirements of the reformed liturgy. Sacred Music and Liturgical Reform, with an extensive index essential for any student of liturgical music, also explores controversies surrounding liturgical music and provides a historical context for the musical changes in the Church. Drawing on the musical and liturgical history that led up to and informed the statements of the Council, Ruff offers a centrist interpretation of Vatican It's teachings on worship music, an interpretation that lacked scholarly statement, and in the process fills a gap by seeking to reclaim and redefine the centre.
This is an essential text for all professors and students of liturgical music, as well as music directors.
Hardcover, 6 x 9, 704 pages.
Anthony Ruff, OSB, is a member of the Music Subcommittee of the Bishops’ Committee on Liturgy and has numerous articles published in, among others, Antiphon, The Hymn, and Pastoral Music. Ruff is currently an Associate Professor of Theology and Liturgical Music at St. John’s University.
Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops
MPN: HSM-LR0
ISBN: 9781595250216
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