ECU Libraries Catalog

Mystical love in the German Baroque : theology, poetry, music / Isabella van Elferen.

Author/creator Elferen, Isabella van
Format Book and Print
Publication InfoLanham, MD : Scarecrow Press, 2009.
Descriptionxxvi, 357 pages : illustrations, music ; 24 cm.
Subject(s)
Series Contextual Bach studies ; 2
Contextual Bach studies ; 2. ^A700313
Contents Petrarchism -- Petrarchan poetry and the madrigal in seventeenth-century Germany -- Affective expression in poetry and music -- Affect and discourse of love -- Mystical love in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Lutheran poetry and theology -- Spiritual and mystical love in seventeenth-century vocal music -- Mystical love in Johann Sebastian Bach's vocal works.
Abstract This book identifies the cultural and devotional conventions underlying expressions of mystical love in poetry and music of the German baroque. It sheds new light on the seemingly erotic overtones in settings of the Song of Songs and dialogues between Christ and the faithful soul in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century cantatas by Heinrich Schutz, Dieterich Buxtehude, and Johann Sebastian Bach. While these compositions have been interpreted solely as a secularizing tendency within devotional music of the baroque period, the author demonstrates that they should instead be viewed as intensifications of the sacred. Based on a wide selection of previously unedited or untranslated seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sources, the author describes the history and development of baroque poetic and musical love discourses, from Schutz's early works through Buxtehude's cantatas and Bach's cantatas and Passions. This long and multilayered discursive history considers the love poetry of Petrarch and its effect on the madrigal in Germany, European reception of petrarchan imagery and tradition, and the role of Catholic medieval mystics in baroque Lutheranism. This book shows that Bach's compositional technique, focusing on the emotional characteristics of text and music rather than the depiction of single words, allows the musical expression of mystical love to correspond closely to contemporary literary and theological concepts.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references (pages 331-344) and index.
LCCN 2008026549
ISBN9780810861367 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN0810861364 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN9780810862203 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN0810862204 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN9780810862210 (ebook)
ISBN0810862212 (ebook)

Available Items

Library Location Call Number Status Item Actions
Music Music Stacks ML3849 .E54 2009 ✔ Available Place Hold