For as long as people have worshipped together?? music has played a key role in church life. With O Sing unto the Lord?? Andrew Gant offers a fascinating history of English church music?? from the Latin chant of late antiquity to the great proliferation of styles seen in contemporary repertoires.

The ornate complexity of pre-Reformation Catholic liturgies revealed the exclusive nature of this form of worship. By contrast?? simple English psalms?? set to well-known folk songs?? summed up the aims of the Reformation with its musi