Gott ist nicht tot. The sacred in post WW2 music.

[Louis]

I suspect one reason for the "sacred music" trend, which is indeed huge in music since 1945 and particularly from the 1970s on:

It's absurdly hard for composers to come up with new music which is dialectial and profound from its own structure and form.

A lot of modern music sounds simply "meditative"

So why not take a meditative piece of music and try to make it more profound by saying it's about faith and god.

[Mandryka]

I suspect one reason for the "sacred music" trend, which is indeed huge in music since 1945 and particularly from the 1970s on:

It's absurdly hard for composers to come up with new music which is dialectial and profound from its own structure and form.

A lot of modern music sounds simply "meditative"

So why not take a meditative piece of music and try to make it more profound by saying it's about faith and god.

I urge you to go through the examples posted here so far, because I don't think any of them are "simply "meditative" with the possible exception of the Part. On the contrary.

There may be some truth in what you say, but I doubt it's the heart of the matter. 

But it is strange, that in music there should be such a theological trend but not, as far as I know, in  any other art.   Maybe it's partly a question of sponsorship.

[Mandryka]

Schoenberg's setting of the Hebrew text of Psalm 130 was written after the war - 1950. Very prayerful performance here

[Mandryka]

Wilhelm Killmayer's Missa Brevis - very impressive and distinctive this one, though I should say that I always like Killmayer's music. An early piece, he was under 30 when he wrote it I think. Streaming.

[Mandryka]

Georg Rochberg's Songs in Praise of Krishna - very nicely made songs, this could turn out to be my favourite Rochberg music. Neva Pilgrim singing and the composer on the piano. Atonal, lyrical, beautiful tunes.  Streaming.

[AnotherSpin]

Georg Rochberg's Songs in Praise of Krishna - very nicely made songs, this could turn out to be my favourite Rochberg music. Neva Pilgrim singing and the composer on the piano. Atonal, lyrical, beautiful tunes.  Streaming.

Almost like a character out of Hesse's Die Morgenlandfahrt, a devotee of all things Indian, I could hardly resist when I stumbled upon a mention of hymns to Krishna. The result, alas, was less than inspiring, and what puzzled me most was what Krishna had to do with it at all. Krishna's music is devotion, not design; no mind, no atonality, just the heart keeping time. Rooted in bhakti, it flows through simple chanting, bhajans, kirtans, far from the cerebral experiments of modern composition.

To restore some sense of balance, I turned instead to an old favourite, 1971 album of Krishna bhajans featuring George Harrison, recorded by the London branch of the Hare Krishna movement and produced by Harrison himself.

[Mandryka]

Almost like a character out of Hesse's Die Morgenlandfahrt, a devotee of all things Indian, I could hardly resist when I stumbled upon a mention of hymns to Krishna. The result, alas, was less than inspiring, and what puzzled me most was what Krishna had to do with it at all. Krishna's music is devotion, not design; no mind, no atonality, just the heart keeping time. Rooted in bhakti, it flows through simple chanting, bhajans, kirtans, far from the cerebral experiments of modern composition.

To restore some sense of balance, I turned instead to an old favourite, 1971 album of Krishna bhajans featuring George Harrison, recorded by the London branch of the Hare Krishna movement and produced by Harrison himself.

As you know I like the Rochberg, but as so often with him it outstays its welcome - it's too long.

[Mandryka]

Arvo Pärt is a complex composer, and anyone who is only aquatinted with early music like the Credo, or with later music like the In Memoriam BB or the a cappella choral music like the Kanon Pokajanen will be meeting something new with his (I think fabulous) setting of excerpts from psalms in Como cierva sedienta. The music is full of events, not at all static or repetitive, and by no means consonant.

[Mandryka]

Noah Creshevsky's setting of the 23rd psalm