To the "World of Music " series Messrs. Max Parrish have added Sacred Music (7s. 6d.), in which Alec Robertson gives a conspectus of "the great contributors to liturgical sacred music " throughout the ages.
He notes that " today in the Roman liturgy the Ordinary of the Mass, which belongs by right to the congregation, is all too rarely sung by them." This is due not to " prohibition " but " rather to a large measure of clerical indifference and congregational apathy."
The charming illustrations, which include four colour plates, are mostly from medieval and later sources. Some are but vaguely connected with the subject, and might have been replaced by photographs of such early choir arrangements as survive.