Music converges with the sacred in multiple ways. The term itself derives from mythology and, depending on the belief system, may be used to separate beautiful or otherwise valuable sounds from others, be these deemed noise or blasphemous. Some suggest that an extraterrestial observer would consider music schools as religious institutions with their own godly figures, doctrines and scriptures. To complement and complicate the debate, Sounds Sanctified comprises an introduction and five essays where the sacred in music – and vice versa – is approached in the context of epics, architecture, hymns and church music, and extreme metal. The collection is based on presentations delivered at the conference “Music and the Sacred” in 2018.
Table of contents
ANTTI-VILLE KÄRJÄ AND SAMULI KORKALAINEN
Introduction
PHILIP V. BOHLMAN
Music, the Sacred, and the Epic Moment
SERAFIM SEPPÄLÄ
Musical language unlocking sacred spaces: Armenian architecture experienced
HELEN ROSSIL
The hierophany of heterophony in traditional Danish hymn singing
ANDERS DILLMAR
‘The sacred’ in relation to ‘church music’ in Swedish debates at the beginning of the eighteenth century and the end of the twentieth century
EUGENE DAIRIANATHAN
Vedic metal as an alternative awareness of sacred space: A perspective from Singapore
