Sacred And Secular Intersections In Music Of The Long Nineteenth Century

Sacred and Secular Intersections in Music of the Long Nineteenth Century: Church, Stage, and Concert Hall explores interconnections of the sacred and the secular in music and aesthetic debates of the long nineteenth century. The essays in this volume view the category of the sacred not as a monolithic attribute that applies only to music written for and performed in a religious ritual. Rather, the “sacred” is viewed as a functional as well as a topical category that enhances the discourse of cross-pollination of musical vocabularies between sacred and secular compositions, church and concert music. Using a variety of methodological approaches, the contributors articulate how sacred and religious identities coalesce, reconcile, fuse, or intersect in works from the long nineteenth century that traverse an array of genres and compositional styles.

The book explores interconnections of the sacred and the secular in music of the long nineteenth century. It investigates manifestations of religion in music not primarily intended for liturgical performance and assesses compositions that originated in a liturgical context but...

"This book is the first comprehensive study that reevaluates music's role in the relationship between the French state and the Catholic Church at the end of the nineteenth century. As the divide between Church and State widened on the political stage, more and more composers began writing religious-even liturgical-music for performance in decidedly secular venues, including popular cabaret theaters, prestigious opera houses, and international exhibitions: a trend that coincided with Pope Leo XIII's Ralliement politics that encouraged conservative Catholics to "rally" with the Republican government. But the idea of a musical Ralliement has largely gone unquestioned by historians and musicologists alike who have long accepted a somewhat simplistic epistemological position that emphasizes a sharp division between the Church and the "secular" Republic during this period. Drawing on extensive archival research, critical reception studies, and musical analysis, this book reveals how composers and critics from often opposing ideological factions undermined the secular/sacred binary. From the opera house and niche puppet theaters to Parisian parish churches and Montmartre's famed cabarets, composers and critics from opposing ideological factions used music in their effort to craft a brand of Frenchness that was built on the dual foundations of secular Republicanism and the heritage of the French Catholic Church"--

Sacred Sounds, Secular Spaces provides the first fundamental reconsideration of music's role in the relationship between the French state and the Catholic Church in the Third Republic, revealing how composers and critics from often opposing ideological factions undermined the secular/sacred binary through composition and musical performance [editor].

This volume brings together new approaches to music history to reveal the interdependence of music and religion in nineteenth-century culture. As composers and performers drew inspiration from the Bible and new historical sciences called into question the historicity of Scripture, controversies raged over the performance, publication and censorship of old and new musical forms. From oratorio to opera, from parlour song to pantomime, and from hymn to broadside, nineteenth-century Britons continually encountered elements of the biblical past in song. Both elite and popular music came to play a significant role in the formation, regulation and contestation of religious and cultural identity and were used to address questions of class, nation and race, leading to the beginnings of ethnomusicology. This richly interdisciplinary volume brings together musicologists, historians, literary and art historians and theologians to reveal points of intersection between music, religion and cultural history.

Nineteenth century music is known for its grandiose over-the-top performances. Larger-than-life orchestras, choruses, settings, length of works, and even harmonic language were all commonplace at this time. Hidden in among all of this was a movement pulling entirely in the opposite direction. Sacred music performed during the worship service had always been more conservative than its secular counterpart, but a new movement began to push for sacred music to regain what it had lost since the days of the Renaissance masters. The Allgemeine Deutsche Cäcilien-Verein (The Cecilian Society) was formed with the hope of reducing sacred music to its core to allow for space for the contemplation of God and the listeners and participants. The Society, founded in Germany, grew and expanded as far as the New World, and with the encyclical Motu proprio of 1903 vanished even more quickly than it had begun. This thesis discusses the origins of this society and the figures responsible for it. The focal point is Anton Bruckner. Anton Bruckner is a composer most known for his symphonies. Choral practitioners will have heard his more popular motets, such as Os justi and Locus iste, but his Masses and other motets are infrequently performed. One of the reasons that these motets are so popular is that they combine the simplicity of earlier music with various aspects of nineteenth-century harmony and structure that creates a special mix not found many other places. It is debatable whether or not Bruckner was influenced by the Cäcilien-Verein and if he even had any kind of relationship with them outside of a few encounters. His music reflects their suggestions on how sacred music should be written.