A New Song for an Old World: Musical Thought in the Early Church is as much an account of the primitive and early church as it is a history of Christian music in the first centuries of the Faith. So engaging a teacher is the author, that a reader with no special interest in music, but seeking an introduction to the world of late antiquity and the writings and personalities of several Church fathers (principally Clement, Tertullian, St. Ambrose, St. John Chrysostom, and St. Augustine), would find Calvin Stapert’s new book informative and highly readable.

One of the pleasures and strengths of this book is the author’s skillful combination of patristic writings with modern commentary. In spite of the disparate attitudes to the pre-Christian inheritance of the church fathers highlighted, Stapert emphasizes that they all understood the extraordinary power that music has on the listener, for good or ill. With good reason then, early church leaders urged believers to reject the pagan music of the Roman world and instead cultivate the singing of psalms and hymns as instructed by the Apostle Paul: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” Colossians 3:16 (KJV).

A New Song for an Old World is essentially a pastoral, not a musicological book. The author’s principal goal is to encourage modern Christians to consider their own music in light of the practices of the early believers. What will disappoint some readers is the absence from inquiry of the ancient chant repertoires that have come down to us, such as the Old Roman, Ambrosian, and Beneventan. Nor is Stapert interested in the degree to which living liturgical traditions, such as Byzantine, Syrian, Armenian, and Gregorian provide us with a direct link to the chants of the ancient church.

In the final chapter, “What can the Early Church Teach Us about Music,” Stapert urges the reader to submit the music of our time to the same aesthetic and moral scrutiny that writers like Tertullian submitted the music of theirs. Stapert quotes T.S. Eliot, whose admonition about literature is equally applicable to music in a post-Christian age: “In ages like our own… [it is] necessary for Christian readers to scrutinize their reading, especially works of imagination, with explicit ethical and theological standards.” On the final page, Stapert quotes from Exposition of the Psalms, in which Augustine explains what Paul meant in the words to the Colossians quoted above: “What does he mean by sing in your hearts? Do not let your songs be inspired by the place where you are now, by Babylon; but sing from where your hearts are, sing as from your habitation on high.”

(Published in Catholic Library World, September 2007) ( )