The Sacred in Music

by Blackwell, Albert L.

• ISBN13: 9780664224868
• ISBN10: 0664224865
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-05-01
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Pr

Summary

Religion and music are complementary resources for interpreting our lives. Music serves the sacred in ways that can be specified and articulated, yet the connection between them has been sorely neglected in the scholarly study of religion. InThe Sacred in Music, Albert Blackwell brings the two subjects together in a celebration of the rich Western musical tradition, both classical and Christian.

Author Biography

Albert L. Blackwell is Reuben B. Pitts Professor of Religion at Furman University in South Carolina and director of a small church choir. A graduate in physics from M.I.T. and divinity from Harvard, he has written a book on Schleiermacher, edited one on Richard Niebuhr, and translated one on Bach

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. 7
Introduction	p. 11
Basic Modalities and Methods
Basic Presuppositions and Predilections
Musical Predilections
Religious Predilections
Culture and Language
Analysis and Practice
Sacramental Traditions	p. 25
Sacramental Encounter
Divine Eminence and Divine Immanence
Two Sacramental Traditions
The Pythagorean Tradition
The Incarnational Tradition
Creation: Transcending Contingency	p. 49
The Pythagorean Tradition: Music's Sacramental Silence
Pythagorean Intervals
The Overtone Series
Division of the Diapason
Melody and Harmony
Musical Particularity and Universality
Religious Particularity and Universality
Beyond Contingency: Trusting Divine Logos
Music, Mathematics, and Transcendence
Creation: Manifesting Transcendence	p. 91
The Incarnational Tradition: Music's Sacramental Sound
On Balancing the Pythagorean and Incarnational Traditions
Emotion and Meaning
Divine Artistry and Human Artistry
Mozart and Deconstruction
Mozart and Transcendence
Creativity as Covenant
Fall: Enduring Time	p. 125
From Harmony to Babel
Christian Ambivalence toward Music
Time's Terrible Beauty
Music's Dark Resources
Tonal Tension
Dissonance
Interference
Minor Modes
Music as Virtual Life
Music and Silence
Music and Noise
Music and Chaos
Music and Life's Pilgrimage
Sacred Music: Evaluation and Taste
Music and Theodicy
Salvation: Sustaining Harmony	p. 159
Can Beauty Save Us?
Music and Goodness
Music and Truth
Music and Beauty
Idol, Distraction, Offering, or Grace?
Music's Power to Heal and to Harm
Cosmic Harmony
Harmony: Individual and Social
Social Sharing and Immediate Experience
Temperament: Musical and Communal
Final Bliss: Surpassing Language	p. 199
Hope for Harmony
Varieties of Mystical Experience
Outwardly and Inwardly Oriented Mysticisms
Meanings of Transcendence
Communion with Transcendence
Mysticisms of Knowledge and of Love
Musical Illustrations
Beyond Verbal Language
Music and Transcendence
Intimacy
Penetration
Fulfilment
Silence or Succour?
Music and the Numinous
A Sacramental Vessel
Quieting
Preparing
Abasing
Attracting
Constituting
Proclaiming
Celebrating
Music and Final Bliss
Codetta	p. 233
Notes and References	p. 235
Index of Biblical Passages	p. 247
General Index	p. 249
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.