How do individuals navigate issues of personal expression within a polarised society? Bacciagaluppi considers the divide between Protestant and Roman Catholic musical composition, performance and curation in the Old Swiss Confederation in the latter half of the seventeenth century. Relying on documentary evidence in the form of church and city records, as well as musical inventories of churches, monasteries and musical societies, this work reveals that there was a significant overlap between the non-liturgical musical repertories curated by Roman Catholics in locations such as St Gallen and Lucerne and those curated by Protestants – or Reformed individuals (Bacciagaluppi's term) – in cities such as Berne and Zurich.

Bacciagaluppi's exploration of cross-confessional musical curation begins with an introduction to the Reformation in the Swiss cantons and the ways in which both Protestant and Roman Catholic ideologies evolved through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the second chapter, discussion turns to the context of music-making and its effects on the repertories that were collected in seventeenth-century Switzerland, exploring the impacts of personal conversions and the introduction and reintroduction (in the case of organs) of various musical instruments. Chapter iii examines the pathways of musical transmission, noting that Reformed and Catholic musicians had distinct supply chains but that local printers and booksellers frequently implemented ‘commercial ecumenism’ (p.51). That is, they maximised their clientele by printing content from both sides of the confessional divide. Turning to the repertories of Swiss collegia musica, chapter iv considers the free expression that was permitted in Reformed collegia and how that allowed members to perform ‘Catholic music’ alongside ‘Reformed music’.

Bacciagaluppi has undertaken a significant amount of research into a variety of primary sources to consider the question of cross-confessional musical integration. However, both the scope and the writing style detract from what is otherwise an impressive amount of work. The decision to focus on the German-speaking portions of Switzerland was an unfortunate one, particularly because it silences the significant influences that came from the Italian-speaking areas (Catholics) and the French-speaking areas (Calvinists) of the country. The latter exclusion is particularly troubling because the collegia musica could arguably be tied to the Genevan song schools that were used to teach children how to sing the metrical Psalms so that they could lead the musical portions of the worship service. Moreover, Calvin's perceptions of the distinction between liturgical and extra-liturgical music, and the repertories that could be used in each, would bring significant insight to these discussions. In terms of writing style, this work would have benefited from a closer editorial hand. For instance, on p.115, the following statement appears: ‘It is significant that Bodmer should deal in Catholic music, given the prominent role he played as a religious nonconformist, successful soldier, and unfortunate politician.’ But, why ‘unfortunate’? Was he socially awkward? Did his political career lead to his demise?

Editorial and stylistic issues aside, this work could have given closer attention to defining terms. In particular, the binary of ‘Catholic music’ versus ‘Reformed music’ is problematic, given that the Reformed and Catholic confessions promoted similar versions of the Bible. Bacciagaluppi does identify, in the first chapter, three characteristics that add confessional significance to music: text, musical instruments and venues and performance occasions (p.51), but the remainder of his discussions rarely refer back to these. In some instances the distinction between Reformed and Catholic music is clearly made, such as when the Basel-based Reformed printer Johann Jacob Decker admitted to printing Catholic music (pp.119–23). In the same way, statements such as, ‘Because of the interest of Reformed amateur musicians in Catholic sacred vocal repertoire, any reservations about its confessional character were set aside’ (p.157), would seem to indicate that some sort of theological ‘toleration’ was being exercised. However, Bacciagaluppi frequently labels musical collections as being Catholic or Reformed without outlining a methodology for determining the categorisations or listing some of the key musical titles that have led to the categorisations (pp.115, 148, 150–2). The reader is therefore left wondering whether something is deemed Catholic or Reformed simply because it was composed for a particular confession's worship service or because it promoted some theological doctrine. Chapter iii offers one of the few instances in which Bacciagaluppi does give a list of compositions, and this is within a conversation about the repertories collected by a Benedictine monastery and by the pre-1813 Zurich music societies (pp.110–11). However, it is difficult to understand which Catholic tenets would have been violated in performing Johann Christian Bach's Gloria in E-flat major, or which portion of Gaetano Piazza's Kyrie in F major would have offended Reformed theology. After all, ‘Glory to God in the highest’ and ‘Lord have mercy’ are statements that would have been promoted by both. One therefore wonders why natural overlaps between the confessions must be characterised with the politically loaded term, ‘toleration’ (p.7).

Indeed, while the word ‘toleration’ gives modern-day energy and relevance to this topic, it often seems out of place. Bacciagaluppi states that ‘it was pragmatically necessary to practice toleration, setting provisionally aside any issues of cross-confessional strife, in order to obtain whatever was desired, either expertise (as in organ-building) or artistic expression (as in the book trade)’ (p.8). However, the text is rarely clear about what exactly individuals were ‘setting provisionally aside’. For instance, how was it artistic disobedience for Reformed individuals to sing ‘Lord, have mercy’, so long as Piazza's Latin-language setting was sung outside of the liturgy? Or, alternatively, what were the dangers associated with a Reformed individual learning how to play the organ, again, so long as it was not played during the worship service? The other problem with the word ‘toleration’ in this context is that it implies that both parties were compromising aspects of their faith in order to maintain a peaceful Swiss political union. However, the evidence presented in this work is heavily weighted towards the ways in which Protestants ‘tolerated’ or accepted aspects of Catholic musical content and practice. Few examples illustrate the reverse. Two examples of Catholic ‘toleration’ are mentioned: incorporation of vernacular texts (p.67) and promotion of simple musical settings (p.41). However, by the seventeenth century vernacular texts had long been a part of Catholic devotion (p.83), and the prohibitions against motets, excessive ornamentations and purely instrumental music are more likely to have been an effort to align with proposed Tridentine musical purity rather than with Reformed practice. If this imbalance is indeed characteristic of the evidence (and not just the perception of this reader), then it would have provided an interesting point for discussion in this monograph.

Bacciagaluppi's work on archival sources has produced an impressive amount of data about the ways in which German-speaking Swiss navigated the complexities of religion and politics in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It has also exposed these materials to new levels of enquiry, raising new questions concerning the official and perceived lines of distinction between the Catholic and Reformed confessions as they related to artistic expression in everyday life. By unearthing many of the gradations and nuances of everyday life that filled the gaps between the two confessional extremes, Bacciagaluppi's work is a testament to the type of musicological work that can be done on archival records, and it will become a valuable reference for those interested in the ramifications of societal polarisation.