Does Anyone Actually Play Music?
Does it Matter to the Church?
by Albert Mohler
Posted: Friday, December 02, 2005 at 2:58 am ET


Charles Rosen, an influential music critic, reviews Robert Philip's new book, Performing Music in the Age of Recording in The New York Review of Books. The article raises a number of important questions and issues. [Read Rosen's article, "Playing Music: The Lost Freedom."]

Before 1900 in Europe and America, it was at home that music was most often experienced, by family members who played some instrument or sang, and by, willingly or unwillingly, the rest of the family and friends. (In Western society among the lower middle class and upward, most music was made by women, who were generally expected to learn to cook, sew, and play the piano. The majority of professional musicians may have been male, like the majority of professional cooks, but most of the cooking and piano play-ing was the lot of women. Music, like breakfast and dinner, was part of life at home.) More exceptionally, music could be heard in some public places--concert hall, opera house, or church. The public realm was essentially a complement to the private. It set standards and added glamour.

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