Voodooism in Music, and Other Essays.

Bookseller Notes

Sir Richard Runciman Terry, organist, choir master and musicologist, was primarily associated with church music (though he did also introduce a collection of sea-shanties) - marking the choice of subject in the lead essay here an unusual, and not very sympathetic, one. Terry considers whether there can be any 'rapport [...] between the divine art of music and a degenerate African cult'; his answer is jazz, which he identifies as a 'menace' (he means to white people) on account of it being 'an important adjunct to certain degenerate cults' (including Voodoo) and a vessel for the advance of paganism that presently threatens Western culture. The book collects Terry's articles for 'Universe', addressed to 'the Layman, the Plain Man and the Choirman' (blurb); the attitude throughout is post-Victorian.Scarce in the dustjacket. From the collection of music critic, Peter Burra, though without mark of ownership (purchased in the sale of his library at Bonham's).