Steve Schwartz <[log in to unmask]> wrote about Bernard Stevens' Mass for Double Choir: >This masterpiece can stand beside the monuments of Vaughan Williams, >Holst, Britten, Elgar, and Walton without becoming dwarfed or washed >out. It's also a bit of an anomaly in Stevens's output. As far as >I know, Stevens was an atheist, or at least an agnostic. So, Vaughan Williams was too, wasn't he? >The work answers the question of whether a non-believer can write a >successful sacred work resoundingly in the affirmative. Hasn't that been already answered by RVW's work? - seb