The period of the European Reformations marked a critical juncture with regard to music's relationship to liturgy and doctrine. Previous scholarship concerning music's fate during this time has tended to approach the topic from either a regional or confessional perspective, sometimes limiting our perceptions of the vast and diverse range of attitudes and practices emerging throughout Europe during this period. The present volume – which is the outcome of a conference held at the University of Leuven in 2012 – offers a welcome contribution to the topic, with essays from musicologists, historians, theologians and biblical scholars addressing a myriad of responses to music from both Catholic and Protestant perspectives. The volume comprises twenty essays organised thematically into four parts. They cover a diverse range of topics, ranging from the broadly applicable to the more localised and specific, with some of the latter perhaps not suitable for readers requiring a general introduction to the subject.

The rather brief introductory chapter combines a swift contextualisation of the volume with a summary of the essays contained therein, and perhaps would have benefitted from further analysis of previous scholarship on the subject, as well as a more wide-ranging introduction to the history of both theological and musical reform. Daniel Trocmé-Latter opens the section entitled ‘Medieval Heritage’ with a comparison of the criticisms of music made by pre-Reformation heretics with those made by sixteenth-century reformers, demonstrating that debates surrounding the role of music in liturgy are traceable to much earlier discourses, although he rightly acknowledges the difficulty in drawing any direct lines of influence. Contributions from Henk Jan de Jonge and Marie-Alexis Colin concentrate on the revived interest in the Sibylline prophecies: the former offers a reassessment of the theological and confessional significance of Orlandus Lassus' motet cycle, Prophetiae Sibyllarum, whilst the latter devotes attention to the political and polemical messages conveyed within two sixteenth-century French musical collections based on the Sibylline prophecies.

Miikka Anttila opens the section on Lutheran Germany with a rather brief appraisal of Luther's aesthetic judgement of music, followed by an excellent contribution from Thomas Schmidt highlighting the complexities inherent in describing music as distinctly Lutheran or Catholic. His arguments resonate with a number of the essays in the volume and offer a valuable methodological framework for future research. Mattias Lundberg's essay on learning and piety in Lutheran school songs serves as valuable introduction to the oeuvre, posing opportunities for further study of the music associated with these institutions. Alanna Ropchock Tierno's analysis of the Lutheran copies of Josquin's Missa Pange lingua – a mass based on a hymn associated with the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation – shows an affinity with Schmidt's argument, demonstrating that Catholic liturgical music could also relate to Lutheran eucharistic theology. Inga Mai Groote offers a more localised study, focusing on how the writings of the lesser-known Lutheran reformer, David Chytraeus, shaped and advanced musical thought in later sixteenth-century Germany.

The brief section entitled ‘Image and Identity’ begins with two essays concerned with religious self-expression, in line with extant scholarship on figures such as William Byrd and Ludwig Senfl. David J. Burn and Grantley McDonald examine the public persona of the composer and poet Leonhard Paminger, a convinced Lutheran who developed a ‘cautious strategy of self-disclosure‘ within his music; Elizabeth Giselbrecht draws attention to how the oeuvre of the music publisher Nikolaus Stein reflected his connection to the Catholic faith, whilst also remaining sensitive to the bi-confessionality of Frankfurt. Moving away from individual self-expression, Sarah Davies offers an interesting discussion about the visual and aural significance of the organ during the period 1560 to 1660, showing its significance as a profound symbol of confessional identity for orthodox Lutherans.

The final section, ‘Reformation and Counter-Reformation in European Perspective‘, is by far the largest, containing eight essays covering a wide range of topics. Gioia Filocamo offers an excellent opening with an essay addressing the practice and significance of music for cloistered nuns following the restrictions put in place by the Council of Trent. Xavier Bisaro presents debates surrounding music's ethical qualities through an examination of the lesser-known body of French casuistic literature. Frank Dobbins analyses the works of the French composer, Clément Janequin, to consider whether a composer's musical output can tell us anything about their religious identity. From an editorial perspective, his contribution would perhaps have been better suited in the section on ‘Image and Identity’, as it offers an alternate perspective to those put forward by Burn, McDonald and Giselbrecht, in its argument for ‘the autonomy of music from dogma or ideology’. Nils Holger Petersen and Hyun-Ah Kim offer a welcome geographical shift to musical and theological changes during the Danish and Swiss Reformations respectively. Beat Föllmi offers an impressively detailed overview of the context and development of the ‘Strasbourg Psalter’, revealing the formerly overlooked impact that this body of works had on the development of metrical psalmody. Andrew Cichy's valuable analysis of the musical life of three English seminaries in continental Europe highlights the diversity of musical training within these institutions, posing opportunities for further study regarding the impact that such training had on the musical lives of Catholics living in England. Peter Malisse brings the volume to a close by drawing attention to how the Reformations were reshaped and reimagined in subsequent ages: he argues that Victorian music historians felt unease surrounding Henry viii's personality and reform, prompting a ‘narrative blind spot’ in the history of England's musical past.

Whilst this volume contains a range of stimulating essays and case studies, overall it is difficult to identify any strong unifying theme or argument, as is not uncommon with volumes of conference proceedings, especially those that cover such a vast topic as that of the present volume. It might have benefitted from stronger contextualisation within the introductory chapter, as well as an index pointing to key themes, places and people to help draw the collection together. That being said, the multidisciplinary and cross-confessional approach is particularly valuable: the contributions highlight the multiplicity of attitudes towards music during the European Reformations, not just between the various confessions, but also within them, and will be of great interest to scholars familiar with the topic.