Five hundred years ago a monk nailed his theses to a church gate in Wittenberg. The sound of
Luther's mythical hammer however was by no means the only aural manifestation of the
religious Reformations. This book describes the birth of Lutheran Chorales and Calvinist
Psalmody of how music was practised by Catholic nuns Lutheran schoolchildren battling
Huguenots missionaries and martyrs cardinals at Trent and heretics in hiding at a time when
Palestrina Lasso and Tallis were composing their masterpieces and forbidden songs were
concealed smuggled and sung in taverns and princely courts alike. Music expressed faith in the
Evangelicals' emerging worships and in the Catholics' ancient rites through it new beliefs
were spread and heresy countered analysed by humanist theorists it comforted and consoled
miners housewives and persecuted preachers it was both the symbol of new conflicting
identities and the only surviving trace of a lost unity of faith. The music of the Reformations
thus was music reformed music reforming and the reform of music: this book shows what the
Reformations sounded like and how music became one of the protagonists in the religious
conflicts of the sixteenth century.
