Gordon Giles

Subtitled "A Musical Tour of Sacred Choral Works," this 150-page book discusses 30 religious choral works by 30 different composers, and is accompanied by a CD where the works are performed by the Gloriae Dei Cantores choir.

For each work, author Gordon Giles, a musician and vicar in the Church of England, provides the text (and a translation for those not in English - most are in Latin, some in German, Russian, and Old Church Slavonic), its source, and the name of the music's composer.  show more He follows this with some explanation about the text and its source(s), some background on the composer, and historical context and liturgical uses of the piece.  Each three-to-four-page discussion ends with a paragraph or two on the spiritual meaning of the piece, followed by a brief prayer.

In the first two pages of the book, Giles explains that the book can be used for personal or small group devotion (with suggestions on how to do so), or for a four-session group study course (with more detail on that at the end of the book).  There's also a 20-page introduction about music in worship.

Many of the pieces involved polyphony (multiple melodies, sometimes as many as eight), which can be hard to follow in another language.  I did like various parts of the sung Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benidictus, Agnus Dei), easily recognizing the Latin from my childhood. show less