This book is useful both to the scholarly world of musicology and Jesuit history, as well as to the casual reader in Jesuit studies. The curious title of this book in its singular references to Italy and North America — nevertheless in a notable fashion — exemplifies current trends in the historiography of the Society of Jesus. As Professor John O’Malley has noted, in the last twenty-five years the questions that historians pose concerning the nature of the Jesuits have changed. Historians have now begun to ask what were the Jesuits like, and how were they similar or dissimilar from their contemporaries? The historiographical focus of Jesuit studies has changed so that rather than looking at the Society of Jesus from above (Counter-Reformation, papacy, ecclesiastical institutions), the focus now is history from below (Jesuits as part of movements of popular religion, confraternities, lay piety and folk religion, and pious practices). In addition, the shift from strictly Western concerns to a global and multicultural perspective further influences the writing of Jesuit history. Non-Jesuit historians have not only shaped the historiography of recent years, but have likewise influenced musicology and writing on Jesuits and music, of which this book is a prime example.

Music as Cultural Mission is divided into two distinct parts. Part 1 consists of an introduction to the Jesuit cultural mission in early modern Italy, especially Milan and Naples. There follows seven chapters by various authors exploring particular issues, institutions, and personalities that frame the use of music by the Jesuits in eighteenth-century Milan and Naples. Professor DelDonna, in addition to the introduction, has provided two of the seven chapters in part 1. The first chapter surveys what we know about the Jesuit enterprise as it traces the musical participation in the institutions of these two Spanish possessions. This Milan portion of the chapter is a general introduction, yet points toward the detailed archival work that still awaits eager scholars of Jesuit music. DelDonna’s later discussion of sources from Naples is much more revealing of some of the very fine archive work he has done in Naples, and whets the reader’s appetite for his very fine chapter 7, “The Society of Jesus and Neapolitan Musical Culture.”

Two other chapters in part 1 deserve mention: “The Musical and Theatrical Activities of the Jesuits in the Kingdom of Naples: Accounts from the Gazzetta di Napoli (1675–1768)” by Ausilia Magaudda and Danilo Costantini, and Emmanuele Colombo’s “‘The music must serve the poetry’: The Jesuit Oratorio in Eighteenth-Century Milan.” The Gazzetta di Napoli is one of the few extant documentary sources in Naples that describes musical events at seven Jesuit institutions in Naples. Beautiful plates accompany a rich tapestry of text that brings to life the musical events of eighteenth-century Jesuit Naples. Colombo’s article revisits the humanist debate about music and text. Not surprisingly, the text in Jesuit oratorios, operas, and cantatas was important in the apostolic outlook of the Jesuits. Milan offers a paradigmatic outline of Jesuit musical culture in general. Arguments stemming from the regole of the confraternities echo other contemporaneous European Jesuit sources: utilizing music but not disturbing devotion, otherwise controlling the noise of the musicians and the costs of the musical enterprise (“who will pay?”), Colombo follows with a rich presentation of twelve oratorios from the Congregation of the Immaculate Conception at San Fedele in 1708–26, offering compelling textual analyses.

Part 2 of Music as Cultural Mission shifts the focus to North America. Anna Harwell Celenza’s introduction briefly reviews concepts of the Jesuit mission in the context of teaching (as evangelization) and consequently addresses the approach to missions outside of Europe, particularly in New France (Canada) and Maryland, and including the history of music at Georgetown University in Washington. Georgetown (founded in 1789) functions as a bridge from the pre-suppression Society (in 1773) to the restored Society of Jesus in 1814. The musical tradition of Georgetown in the early years reflected the tradition of the pre-suppression colleges (sung catechism, drama, and academic defenses, with serious theory and instrumental teaching), and in its passage to the restored Society one can trace the shift of music toward more of an extracurricular position as humanistic subjects, especially the sciences, came to the fore. Finally, Michael Zampelli’s excellent paper, “Bridging the Distance: Jesuit Performance Transposed to a Contemporary Key,” is another paradigmatic essay linking early performance of Jesuit music to its contemporary revival.