Early Romantic liturgical music

[eschiss1]

The mention of liturgical music recently in another topic brought to mind -- one or several topics that I've had to think about while scrutinizing published scores of early- (and middle-, sometimes late-) Romantic church music published in Europe, especially that published by specialized outfits (e.g. Verlag (Friedrich) Pustet of Regensburg from 1826 to 1900 (described on IMSLP as, indeed, "specialising in liturgical books and church music."; others).  One thing I notice immediately is that some of these sets of parts were notated in choral clefs; am I mistaken or was it very rare to use the soprano, alto, clef for those respective parts in the 19th century? In all in fact I notice what seems, as I recall, in some of these publications,- I'll check, but I think so- a decided reactionary, not conservative but reactionary, back-several-centuries, look to the presentation (big K first letter to the Kyrie, etc., too...), if not always necessarily to the sound of the music. This seems to be a tradition reaching back, in a different way, into the Classical era (and especially though not only in their liturgical music), as Alfred Einstein recounts in some detail in a book on Mozart, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were a connection - coincidence, tradition, or (in the case of Catholic music) actual canon law? Wouldn't know...

I know some (quite a few, really) people will know a lot more about this than I do, to the extent that I've been at all clear above...

[MusFerd]

Dear "eschiss",
Due to the fact that liturgical music of the 19th century is my daily bread, I can give yiu some information that might be useful for you:
First of all, the use of the Soprano-, Alto- ant Tenore-clefs in church music is nothing special, it was common until the late 19th century, in some places even longer. Almost all the sources for church music, be it handwritten or printed, made use of it. That's also true for such famous people as Haydn, Beethoven and Bruckner.
But the editions you have mentioned (Pustet etc.) are connected to the reform movements in Catholic music and liturgy, above all Caecilianism. The reformers wanted to restore an ideal liturgical music without the theatrical, "profane" pomp of the Baroque, Clasical and Romantic era. They found their ideal in Palestrina and the music of his era - and in Gregorian chant. Regensburg with its "Schule für Kirchenmusik" was THE centre of Caecilianism (together with Brixen, Tyrol). No wonder that Pustet published not only compositions of the Renaissance masters (often in obscure romantic versions), but also thousands of works by the leading reformers, e. g. Witt, Mitterer, Renner, Deschermeier, Tresch and so on. These composers tried to imitate Palestrina, which most of them just couldn't do successfully, omitted the romantic orchestra and wrote pamphletes against the "profanisation" of church music, which they found in almost all music after 1600, including Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Bruckner... Most of the "Caecilian" compositions are dull and musically not very interesting, archaic and not very challenging in harmony. 

[eschiss1]

Brings vaguely to mind something (or things) Alfred Einstein wrote in his biography of Mozart, at that (things happening during his life but also reviews of his church music from just after he died,  e.g. ...) - hrm. Thanks!