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I am listening to Richard Wagner's "Parsifal" right now. The plot of the opera is intensely religious, centered around guilt, sin, redemption, illicit sex and holy relics. The music is... sublime, fantastic, some of the best I have ever heard in my life. So, the question is - would you enjoy something like that? Do you appreciate any of the religious art (whatever - Gothic cathedrals, organ music, Eastern Orthodox icons), whether Christian or of any other religion? Does anything about it bother you? What are your thoughts about it in general?
I haven't really associated the Parsifal legend with religion, but with the King Arthur legends (although of course they overlap).
Just last night I sat through a 90 minute authentic performance of Monteverdi's Vespers (1610) complete with Cornettos and Sackbuts and Lutes. That it was a paean to the Virgin Mary did not prevent me from appreciating the music, the performance, or the clever wordplay in the original Italian (helpfully provided with English translation in the program). It even prompted me to put it on my list to educate myself about the history of Mariolatry and the role, if any, that this composition played in its promotion, given that it introduced the concept to the Ducal church the composer was working for at the time.
I'm also intrigued that the composer's wife died around the time of this, his first composition of church music, and that he didn't produce any non-secular works for another 30 years after, despite being appointed music director of St Mark's in Venice, probably the biggest religious venue outside of the Vatican at the time.
So ... yes, of course I can appreciate real artistry even if it's expended on religious ideology. And I can appreciate religious sentiment even if I can't agree with it.
I am listening to Richard Wagner's "Parsifal" right now. The plot of the opera is intensely religious, centered around guilt, sin, redemption, illicit sex and holy relics. The music is... sublime, fantastic, some of the best I have ever heard in my life. So, the question is - would you enjoy something like that? Do you appreciate any of the religious art (whatever - Gothic cathedrals, organ music, Eastern Orthodox icons), whether Christian or of any other religion? Does anything about it bother you? What are your thoughts about it in general?
Wagner hurts my ears and bores me to tears. Has nothing to do with the lack of my religious beliefs.
But I absolutely *love* the Staples Singers. Also has nothing to do with the lack of my religious beliefs.
I am listening to Richard Wagner's "Parsifal" right now. The plot of the opera is intensely religious, centered around guilt, sin, redemption, illicit sex and holy relics. The music is... sublime, fantastic, some of the best I have ever heard in my life. So, the question is - would you enjoy something like that? Do you appreciate any of the religious art (whatever - Gothic cathedrals, organ music, Eastern Orthodox icons), whether Christian or of any other religion? Does anything about it bother you? What are your thoughts about it in general?
So for me, that is complex. I never had a problem with religious art that was not part of my religious tradition, it never unsettled me even right after I left the faith. Cathedrals, stained glass, statuary, "hihg church" trappings, classical music, latin, none of these things were ever a part of my belief experience, so I could appreciate them purely as art.
I did have a pretty strong reaction to southern gospel, religious bluegrass and country music, contemporary Christian music, and Praise and worship style stuff. It hit too close to home, and I could not enjoy it for what it was. Over time, that has faded, and now I do enjoy some good hymns and country gospel music, although I am still pretty turned off by most contemporary Christian music. That is more for lack of artistic merit, rather than religious content, though...
In the last couple years my wife and I wave gotten to go to an evensong service at King's College in Cambridge, a performance of the Passion of St John at a Cathedral in London, Handel's Messiah by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, a Lutheran confirmation, and we have taken some curious students from Saudi Arabia to a Methodist and an Episcopal church. Its nice to go every once in a while, but it generally is not terribly compelling to me, because I don't actually believe any of it .
El Greco religious paintings, Messiaen theological organ music, C.S Lewis' books with a more or less overt religious message. Church architecture, Hindu Temples, Hindu dances with a strong religious basis. Charles Ives - who is always harping on about religion. A lot of Islamic art and architecture, the Ramayana, especially in S. E Asia dance tradition.
If it's good, it's good. The religious content is no more a problem for me than the Greek myths in the Iliad or Monteverdi's Orfeo. Oh yes, His 1610 Marian Vespers is a work in which I have taken a particular interest.
Uk masterpieces such as Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, Holst's Hymn of Jesus or Vaughan Williams' Pilgrim's Progress, all based on religious material.
I might add that, for the same reason, I never had a problem with Shostakovich, especially since communism has definitively ceased to be a world threat.
Yes, and it'd be cutting off my nose to spite my face if I were to disavow all expressions of human striving and yearning just because they were of a religious nature. For most of human history, religion was a big part of how we framed our attempts to understand reality and make meaning. As a species, we are starting to get beyond religion, but there's no way to understand where we came from without understanding religion.
Oh yes, [Montiverdi's] 1610 Marian Vespers is a work in which I have taken a particular interest.
For what it's worth, I did a bit of poking around last night. The musicologist who lectured before the concert suggested that the church for which those works were composed had little emphasis on the veneration of Mary up to that point, so I wondered just when this practice came to the fore.
It turns out that it is quite ancient, at least back to the 3rd or 4th century, but the 1600s appears to have been a time of struggle between factions who wanted to de-emphasize it and factions that wanted to reinforce it. The popes around that time came out with the notion that it was heresy to suggest that Mary was not "immaculately conceived" (sinless from birth), a notion I had never heard of, and fraught as it is with infinite regress problems, seems a dicey one to promote. But also at just this time Monteverdi was clearly unhappy with how he was being treated at court and was hoping for papal sponsorship. What better way to ingratiate himself with the pope than by writing something supporting his pet doctrine? Alas, he never even got an audience, though he covertly traveled to Rome and attempted it.
I can only speculate of course but it does fit with what was going on in the time period.
I'm afraid I don't have much appreciation of classical music as such, even though I play the piano. It's pretty much the last thing I'd think of listening to, but that's just personal taste. I do enjoy some of the traditional hymns but that's about it.
If talking about painting and sculpture that's a different story. I appreciate art from practically every era of history, though there are some genres I'm more partial to than others. Medieval art alone covers over 1000 years of history and almost all of it has a religious theme.
When I was a teenager I'd have skipped all the Byzantine art in a galley, but these days I try to absorb all of it. I grew to appreciate it as I got older and now I think most of it is stunningly beautiful. I appreciate it for it's position in history, the craftsmanship and skill of the person who created it and the story behind it.
In fact I've been spending some time of late visiting the Met and Cloisters in New York, with an even greater appreciation of conserving these great works, since the recent destruction of ancient artifacts in Iraq, which I find heartbreaking.
Yes I do find the architecture on some of the old churches, mosques, temples, old pagen burial grounds like new grange etc... very beautiful, same with some of the music.
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