Religion in Sound: Exploring the Relationship Between Music and Religion in the Composition Harmony of the Spheres by Joep Franssens
M.J.M. Hoondert, Nataliia Vdovychenko
Religions July 18, 2026 DOI: 10.3390/rel17070858 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Case study with digital ethnography and musicological analysis Case report Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | YouTube listener responses to Harmony of the Spheres |
| Topics | Mysticism |
| Keywords | Harmony color Spiritual practice Performative utterance Situated Active listening Ethnomusicology Worship Ethnography Evocation Aesthetics Context archaeology Islam Improvisation Epistemology Sacred music Music and emotion Spirituality Musical form |
| Key findings | Argues that Franssens' Harmony of the Spheres opens a space for non-institutional, sonically mediated religion through specific musical techniques that listeners interpret in religious and spiritual terms. |
Abstract
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 articulate forms of religiosity. Combining musicological analysis, theories of sound and religion, and a digital ethnographic reading of YouTube listener responses, this article argues that Franssens’ music opens a space for non-institutional, sonically mediated religion. The composition’s slow harmonic movement, repetition, tonal affirmation, textual unintelligibility, spatial sonority, and evocation of timelessness invite immersive listening and self-transcendence. Listener responses confirm that these musical techniques are frequently interpreted through religious and spiritual language, including references to God, angels, heaven, the sublime, peace, and mystical experience. The article argues that Harmony of the Spheres should not be understood as explicitly confessional music, but as a form of “religion in sound”: an aesthetic and performative practice through which listeners encounter transcendence, community, and an unbound spirituality beyond traditional religious institutions.