William Smith, The Use of Hereford: The Sources of a Medieval English Diocesan Rite. Farnham: Ashgate, 2015. xxxi + 830pp. £150. ISBN 978 1 4724 1277 5.

about Hildegard of Bingen. Arguably, this chapter encapsulates the volume’s most immediate implications for scholarship beyond the circumscribed study of Hildegard reception, since it crystallises succinctly the differences between the two revivals: while the French resurgence of interest in chant was instigated from a religious vantage point, German scholars were interested primarily in the musical aspects of chant. The monks at Solesmes took as their yardstick the medieval sources of Gregorian chant while Germans such as Franz Xaver Haberl were guided by humanist reworkings, most prominently the Medicean Graduale of 1614. Readers with a general interest in the politics of nineteenth-century chant revivals may be tempted to put down Bain’s book before they reach chapter 3; scholars with an interest in Hildegard, in turn, might be tempted to skip it. However, the chapter is worth close attention and is likely to encourage further, in-depth studies of the nineteenth-century reception of medieval music. Perhaps Bain would have been better served by placing this chapter earlier on in her study, for it undergirds much of her presentation of Hildegard-specific reception and it would be a pity for its insights to go unnoticed. This minor quibble aside, Bain’s study achieves its aim with admirable clarity: it demonstrates with flair that the revival of Hildegard and her music was not instigated in the twentieth century, but is rooted in the nineteenth century. Into the bargain, Bain offers readers rich insight into the cultural milieux in which such processes of reception and revival took place, encouraging further investigation.