A supreme composer can only come out of a musical nation.
The duty of the words is to say just as much as the music has left unsaid and no more.
There is no reason why an atheist could not write a good Mass.
Beethoven was ahead of the times, Bach behind them.
I suppose it never occurs to these people that a man might just want to write a piece of music.
Why should we not enter into our inheritance in the church as well as the concert hall?