ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that there is a particularly interesting difference between the pattern of secularisation in painting and the pattern in music. The narrative of secularisation in painting is relatively straightforward and unidirectional, but especially clear and dramatic in France and Russia. The art of Henry Moore and Francis Bacon is even more paradoxical since both were atheists and both created works of major religious importance. In MacMillan, the religious and indeed the specifically Christian focus is arguably more marked than in any composer since the era of polyphonic composers such as Morales and Vittoria. MacMillan has been particularly concerned with providing musical material for Catholic liturgical use, including congregational use. The chapter concludes by weaving into the complex skein of connections changes in the relative status of Handel, deployed as a key example of how processes of reception are built into the creation of 'the' aesthetic canon and how these processes relate to nationalism and religion.
