The Politics of Plainchant in fin-de-siecle France

'It is not often that a musicological text reads like a mystery novel, yet the plot of this 'detective investigation of unforeseen complexity and obsessive grip' (p. xi) could make for bestselling fiction... The Politics of Plainchant is a pleasant surprise in another respect, too. In no more than 150 pages this 'extended essay' (p. xi) deals adroitly with issues as diverse (yet interconnected) as French nationalism and protectionism; international diplomacy; relations between Church and State; labour history; the European publishing industry; plainchant revival; and gender relations between monks and nuns... its unexpectedly wide range defies recent charges of insularity in French music scholarship... this monograph constitutes a breakthrough in research on plainchant reform at the fin de siecle and opens up numerous avenues for future inquiry... the text will appeal not only to specialists but to anyone with an interest in French political and religious histories at the turn of the twentieth century.' Music and Letters 'Katherine Ellis's monograph on the fraught history of plainchant in late nineteenth-century France is a densely woven tale which rewards sustained and attentive reading. Part institutional, part political history, part biography, The Politics of Plainchant in fin-de-siecle France takes a new approach to the history of plainchant in a period when the ancient music of the Roman church was at a flashpoint ... Ellis's achievement ... is to enrich and complicate that story in ways which situate much of what has become received knowledge about Solesmes and the plainchant restoration in new and illuminating perspectives'. Plainsong and Medieval Music 'Through expert archival work, the connexions between politics and plainchant, and the deep seated, necessary changes in perspective on the reform of chant at the turn of the century, are elegantly and unambiguously presented. ... Ellis demonstrates a firm and influential hold on the histo