Sacred Music

There are several components of this Latin/Music Appreciation Program. Materials may be purchased individually or in sets, depending on where you purchase them from.

This is a very beautiful, if eclectic recording of Gregorian Chant, Renaissance Polyphony and some miscellaneous "popular" tunes from numerous European countries (ranging from the 11th to the 17th century). Composers include Hildegard of Bingen, William Byrd, Giovanni da Palestrina and Josquin des Prez. An enclosed booklet gives brief biographies of these and other major composers of the time. I think this is a nice place to start for those unfamiliar with early music. Everyone at our house enjoyed the recording very much.

This book consists of a fine selection of favorite hymns, including musical notation, and rather detailed stories about the authors of the text, the composers of the music, giving the student a good idea of how and when the music came about. The author's purpose in writing the book "was to restore attention to some of the finest hymns, in the hope that they might replace the miserable afflictions that keep cropping up in ... "missalettes"...

This is a beautiful hymnal with all the favorite traditional Catholic hymns and the parts and prayers of the Mass in English and Latin. It avoids any use of "feminized" (a.k.a. inclusive) language, which has destroyed so many of the Church's beautiful hymns and even tried to remove the use of "he" or "him" when referring to Jesus. Our family has taken to pulling out this hymnal every morning after prayers and each person picking out their favorite song to sing together before beginning the school day.