James MacMillan writes
Far from being a spent force, religion has proved to be a vibrant, animating principle in modern music and continues to promise much for the future. It could even be said that any discussion of modernity’s mainstream in music would be incomplete without a serious reflection on the spiritual values, belief and practice at work in composers’ minds.
Much more in his brilliant essay here.
I was in the audience when JM delivered this speech (the Hinkle [Foundation] Distinguished Lecture) during the (still underway!) Oregon Bach Festival on 30th June; wonderful event, although I expect the unalloyed Catholic-ness of MacMillan's perspective had a few in the audience rather nervous. One gentleman asked, afterward, how JM squares the early, Marxist MacMillan with the present one: the gist of the answer was, 'well, one grows up'.