This article explores the relationship between music and religion through a case study of Harmony of the Spheres by the Dutch composer Joep Franssens. Situated within the context of religious change in the Netherlands, where institutional religion has declined while spiritual and sacred repertoires remain culturally significant, this article asks how musical experience can generate, mediate, or...
In this essay the author explores the thesis that music is by its nature religious, or rather, that it has qualities that correspond well with what religion, in a broad sense, aspires to be. Four musical qualities are explored: timbre, the tonal system of western music, the time relations within the tonal network, and the non-referential nature of music. These qualities are linked to the...