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Music

Why Church music is back in vogue - and squeaky-gate music has had its day

Peter Phillips is interested to see even arch-modernist Harrison Birtwistle turning to tonality in his latest work for the Merton Choirbook

6 December 2014

9:00 AM

6 December 2014

9:00 AM

One of the growth areas of contemporary music is in setting sacred texts. It might be thought that I had a special interest in claiming this, but in fact what I am about to describe represents a sea change in recent practice. Where there was once ‘squeaky gate’ (or ‘dripping tap’) music — as very dissonant writing used to be called — many leading composers are now writing in a style that is at least tonal and can occasionally seem almost naïve.

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