Convincing Catholic sacred music cannot be written by every gifted composer. When Gustav Mahler, a convert from Judaism, was asked why he had not composed a Mass, he replied that if he did he would have to omit the Credo. After Mahler wrote his gargantuan Symphony No 8, called the Symphony of a Thousand, he claimed that metaphorically it comprised a Mass.
A more literal example is when the Protestant composer Robert Schumann, who described himself as “religious, but without religion”, wrote a Mass and a Requiem intended for “church service and concert use”. Schumann created four-square, monumental sounds, as if to offer aesthetic advice to Catholic listeners.
