Temperley (Music, University of Illinois, Urbana, emeritus) has spent his career in search of the music sung and played in Protestant English parish churches. Along with many books on the
subject, he has published several articles which are now reprinted together. The subjects will appeal to social and religions historians as well as specialists in religious music. Temperley
shows how music, starting with unaccompanied psalm singing, developed in newly Protestant England. In the first essays he looks at the social and theological background for the early hymns. The
later essays, on artistic music by trained professionals, are somewhat more technical. The article on the transition from music that was often idiosyncratic to each congregation to uniformity
imposed by church leaders is a humorous portrait of human resistance to change. It is fortunate that these essays on church music as a part of daily life have been recovered. Since Temperley
spent so much of his life recovering this music it is highly appropriate that his work not be lost. Annotation 穢2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
