Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Music As Divine Art
The idea of music as a divine art implies that music is not considered on its merits alone, but points beyond itself and man to the divine. Thus music can be under-stood as an invention of divinities or as a general principle of divine creation. It may be interpreted as an image, imitation, or anticipation of divine or heavenly music. It can be understood as a means of influencing divinities. And, finally, the meaning and mission of music can be realized in cultic praise of the divinity.
Such conceptions are encountered both in magical and in mythical eras, throughout cosmological and theological-metaphysical forms of thought, indeed well into structured philosophical systems. They possess a strongly thematic character, so that their “history” is broadly developed in variations of the same or similar conceptions and perspectives. Nonetheless, shades of meaning may be differentiated in various periods. The idea of music as a divine art is active from the earliest times at least down to the age of baroque in Europe. Thereafter it increasingly becomes a victim of ration-alistic skepticism and, after a brief revival in the romantic period, finally yields to a purely this-worldly concept of music. Closely connected with this idea,dependent upon it in many ways, or antithetically presupposed by it, is the idea of music as a demonic art.
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