Transformation of Religious and Metaphysical Music in the Early and Middle 19th Century - Research Paper Example

Transformation of religious and metaphysical music in the early and middle 19th century Content Introduction 2 1.1 Place of Music in the Romanticism Era 4 1.2 Idea of Absolute Music 7 1.3 Absolute Music and Wagner 10 2.1 Understanding Religion and Music Relationship 13 2.2 Wagner about Religion and Art 14 2.3 The Parsifal as a Reflection of Wagner’s Religious View 17 Conclusion 20 References 22 Introduction In Europe of 19th century art has become be treated “as the great creative Power”, as Redesdale wrote in his Introduction to the Chamberlain’s Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (Chamberlain, 2005, p.xlii). To the middle of this century, with appearance of the Schopenhauer’s views on hierarchy of art forms, music has gained a predominating position and “superiority that surpasses even the exalted claims made for art in general” (Williams, 2009, p.3). Schopenhauer argued that music is able to express the reality - the thing-in-itself in terms of Kant, while other arts “only have access to intermediary objectifications of reality. …Unlike the other arts, dependent on the imitation of the phenomenal world, music …could to a certain extent exist if there was no world at all” (Schopenhauer, 1957, as cited in Williams, 2009, p.3). Such Schopenhauer’s treatment of music was later endorsed enthusiastically by many of great musicians and philosophers, including Wagner and Nietzsche (who said that “music exposes the hidden truth of human nature” (cited in Williams, 2009, p.5), leading to the “revaluation of art as a philosophical enterprise, [what became] one of the great achievements of German Romanticism” (Ibid. p.5). Thus, Schopenhauer is considered to be a thinker who had influenced profoundly a philosophical support for what later has become called a “metaphysical” music. In our essay we try to reveal and analyse the idea of transformation of religious and metaphysical music in the early and middle 19th century, taking as a basis “The Idea of Absolute Music” and other related works of famous music historian Carl Dahlhaus. In order to understand better the relation between art and religion (the idea played a major role in cultural thoughts existing in that time), we study the “Religion and Art” of Richard Wagner, as well as we investigate nature of his engagement with religious themes in the Parsifal opera. We hope our work will make a feasible contribution in the researches aiming to reveal variety of ways people think about music. I. Dahlhaus: General Transformation of Music in the Romanticism 1.1 Place of Music in the Romanticism Era Before focusing immediately on the mentioned-above essay’s objectives, we would like to understand a general place of music in the historical and philosophical context of the nineteenth century, which was, by the definition of Chamberlain (2005), “essentially a century of accumulation, an age of transition and of the provisional; …it dangles between empiricism and spiritism …between doctrines of infallibility and the most stupid materialism …[between] the rule of the millionaire and proletarian government” (p.xcvi). In relation to a number of philosophical and aesthetic things of nineteenth century, one major concept is considered to apply – it is Romanticism. The concept is also generally used in relation to music of that time. Beard and Gloag (2005) suppose the beginning of romanticism is linked to the appearance of works of German Romantic poet Novalis and German writer Schlegel, who “emphasise the importance of …the concepts of the sublime and the infinite – how the magnitude of nature points to the limitations of human understanding” (Beard & Gloag, 2005, p.121). These ideas were also widely discussed by German philosophers Fichte, Hegel and, particularly, by Kant. Later Romanticism has shifted toward a human subjectivity of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, as well as toward the idea of absolute music of Wagner. On account of a lot of great German thinkers, writers and musicians, who contributed to development of the Romanticism phenomenon, it is also recognised as the German Romanticism. “The Romantics returned God to Nature - the age revived the unseen world, the supernatural, the mysterious, the world of medieval man”, says Kreis (2001, p.1), “the world was developing, it was a world of continuous process, it was a world in the process of becoming.” Romantics, in contrast to the philosophers of 18th century, have found “warmth in the heart”, where the heart was “a source of knowledge – the location of ideas felt as sensations rather than thoughts” (Ibid. p.1). Imagination, instincts, emotions, trust, beauty and faith are human attributes that give a life and warmth to the heart, according to Romantics’ opinion. Historical traditions and mystical experience have become the important forces in society of the Romanticism era. All of these grandiose shifts have drastically influenced art and especially music. The majority of composers of the Romanticism made mystical experience their most important goal. They had a monumental concert effect with new dynamics using various musical instruments, concentrating on “increased speed, technical proficiency, and volume” (Kreis, 2001, p.1). The piano and the violin have become the dominant solo instrument; musicians (pianists, violinists) have turned to the public, performing their skills and wizardry. Kreis (2001) declares that “the cult of the virtuoso was born” (p.1). Randel (2003) adds that “With the rise of the Romantic Movement an emotive theory of “self-expression” took form. This theory concentrates on the composer, rather than the listener and averts that sad music is, first and foremost, the “expression” of the composer’s emotion, and this, somehow, perhaps by arousal, gives us an insight into or lets us share the emotion of the composer, which, it is supposed, if the composer is a great artist, must be a very special and great emotion” (p.15). Romanticism is also characterised by the diversity of musical styles and corresponding composers – from Verdi, Schumann and Berlioz to Wagner, Brahms and Rimsky-Korsakov, as well as by emergence of new genres such as “the symphonic poem, the song cycle and music drama” (Beard & Gloag, 2005. p.122). An important contribution to the interpretation of Romanticism in music has been made by German musicologist Carl Dahlhaus, who asserted that “the principal aesthetic paradigm in 19th century German musical culture …[was] a concept of absolute music” (Ibid. p.123). 1.2 Idea of Absolute Music According to Dahlhaus (1991), “The idea of “absolute music” consists of the conviction that instrumental music purely and clearly expresses the true nature of music by its very lack of concept, object, and purpose. Not its existence, but what it stands for, is decisive. Instrumental music, as pure “structure”, represents itself. Detached from the affections and feelings of the real word, it forms a “separate world for itself” (p.7). The concept of absolute music came into the world in the very beginning of German Romanticism, in works of Hoffmann, Herder, Tieck, Wackenroder, and others, but it was Richard Wagner, who has coined the exact term “absolute music” when discussing texted versus untexted music in the middle of century. According to Beard and Gloag (2005), absolute music, referring to pure instrumental music, is often seen as the opposite of programme music, or music with a descriptive content. Roger Lustig in the Introduction to the Dahlhaus “The Idea of Absolute Music” adds that “in absolute music the subject of a piece of music can be found within itself, i.e., the musical theme is the subject, whereas the subject of a painting, poem, or novel is outside the work itself” (Dahlhaus, 1991, p.vii). In his famous review of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in 1807-1808 Hoffman writes: “When music is spoken of as an independent art the term can properly apply only to instrumental music, when scorns all aid, all admixture of other arts, and gives pure expression to its own particular nature. It is the most romantic of all arts – one might say the only one that is purely romantic” (cited in Beard & Gloag, 2005, p.2). The symphony has become the most important genre through the context of which instrumental music of the early 19th century was elevated and revealed a high aesthetic value of such “independent art” (Beard & Gloag, 2005). In his works “The Idea of Absolute Music”, “Nineteenth-Century Music”, “Between Romanticism and Modernism” Dahlhaus investigates origins and multi-faceted nature of absolute music. Dahlhaus (1991) asserts that in the central European musical culture of the nineteenth-century the concept of absolute music was very deep-rooted. Historically, the older idea of music was originated in antiquity and has existed until the seventeenth century. “That music …consisted of harmonia, rhythmos, and logos. Harmonia meant regular, rationally systematised relationships among tones; rhythmos, the system of musical time, which in ancient times included dance and organised motion; and logos, language as the expression of human reason. Music without language was therefore reduced, its nature constructed: a deficient type or mere shadow of what music actually is” (Dahlhaus, 1991, p.8). But, increasingly the idea of absolute music has become the esthetic paradigm of German musical culture in the nineteenth century. Partially it was explained by Chua, who says that the difference between two rationalities (modern and ancient) exists as follows, “Ancient rationality unifies; modernity divides” (Chua, 1999, p.20). Chua (1999) asserts that early Romantics were able to realise this division (“split between himself and his environment”) and they were able to create New Harmony, the “aesthetic as the way of reconciliation” (p.21). Dahlhaus (1989) considers the aesthetics of Romanticism originated in the eighteenth century and compares it with the music aesthetics of Enlightenment. He suggests thinking about aesthetics of Enlightenment as having been associated with sensibility, arguing that during the Enlightenment “bourgeois audiences gradually came to self-awareness …and what they wanted from music was “feeling” (Dahlhaus, 1989, p.89). Music was considered “meaningless noise” if it was not able “to reach the heart” or “to reflect inner emotion” (Ibid. p.89). The music compositions were relatively simple: just a few notes, often combined by quite artlessly, but it was sufficient to reach hearts of listeners, who were under the impression of the novels of great writers. The Romantics held the opposite concept – “their ideal was no longer the simple song but the symphony …which was capable of creating a form spanning hundreds of measures using solely the logic of harmony and theme, without recourse to a text” (Dahlhaus, 1989, p.89). Dahlhaus (1989) concludes that “sensibility and the search for feeling gave way to a metaphysics based on …Kant’s theory of the Sublime in order to do justice to absolute instrumental music and to capture in words the aesthetic experience of the listener” (p.89). Thus, the metaphysical aesthetic of Romanticism was presented as an antithesis to the psychological aesthetic of the Enlightenment (Ibid. p.89). A good example of these differences is presented again in an expression of Hoffmann, concerning the Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony: “Beethoven’s music sets in motion the mechanisms of dread, fear, horror, pain, and kindles that infinite longing that is the essence of romanticism. Beethoven is a purely romantic composer, and for that very reason a genuinely musical one; and this may explain why he is less successful in his vocal music – which does not admit indefinite longing but merely presents the affections given in the text as though experienced in the domain of the Infinite – and why his instrumental music seldom appeals to the masses” (cited in Dahlhaus, 1989, p.90). In such a way Hoffmann tries to explain and separate the metaphysics of instrumental music from the aesthetic of feeling. In addition he understood that this new concept of wordless music can also be viewed as a kind of religious spirituality. According to Hoffman (cited in Dahlhaus, 1991), instrumental music “leads us forth out of life into the realm of the infinite” (p.67). Thus, the early Romantics considered that through symphonies and quartets, one may gain the subjective, transcendent experience of mystical union that formerly had been available principally through German pietistic devotion. However, Dahlhaus (1991) confesses that it is hard to find the case for a unified Zeitgeist (or spirit of the age) during the nineteenth century in relation to the absolute music concept. He argues that “especially in light of the monumental contribution of Wagner in the second part of the century and Wagner’s association with a critique of the idea of absolute music” (Beard & Gloag, 2005, p.123), the second half of the nineteenth century would be more correctly called as “the age of Wagner”, or the term “neo-Romanticism” (Dahlhaus, 1980, p.4). 1.3 Absolute Music and Wagner Paradoxically, but although the concept “absolute music” emerged in the beginning of nineteenth century, and, as we mentioned above, was discussed seriously in writings of philosophers of that time (Herder, Hoffmann, etc.), the most musical and philosophical representation of the term was given by Wagner, who coined the term in 1846 (Dahlhaus, 1991). In a search of new musical forms, Wagner assumed that the musical drama could be a model for his own synthesis of music and language, toward which Wagner aspired, being affected by the Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: “Already almost breaking the bounds of absolute music, it stems the tumult of the other instruments with its virile eloquence, pressing toward decision, and passes at last into a song like-theme” (cited in Dahlhaus, 1991, p.18). According to Dahlhaus (1991), for Wagner such a decision was “the transition from “imprecise”, objectless instrumental music to objectively “precise” vocal music” (p.18). Wagner considered that “endless and imprecise expressiveness” should be transformed into a finite and precise one: “The first thing, the beginning and basis of all that is extant or conceivable, is true physical being” (Dahlhaus, 1991, p.19). Dahlhaus (1991) argues that for Wagner, “absolute music is “detached” music, severed from its roots in speech and dance, and thus simply abstract” (p.20). Wagner hoped that his music drama would be a “rebirth of Greek tragedy” (Dahlhaus, 1991, p.20), so he considered that in the music drama, music, scenic action (bodily movement) and poetic text should cooperate – “and only thus attains the perfection denied absolute music …the “total work of art” is pointedly the “true music”; in contrast, absolute music, detached from its establishment and justification through speech and action, is a deficient type” (Ibid. p.20). Therefore, the Wagner’s concept of absolute music comprises not only pure instrumental music, but also vocal music. In addition, Wagner assumed that instrumental music is not strictly absolute whilst it is influenced by dance. “Absolute instrumental music”, according to Wagner, is the music “no longer” determined by speech and scenic actions. In this point, as Dahlhaus (1991) assumes, Wagner reinterpreted the Romantic metaphysics of the symphony as follows: “rather than a goal of music history, it was a mere antithesis, as intermediate step in a dialectic process” (p.22). Ideas of Wagner were of great importance for further development of music culture, in particular his theory of the “total artwork” (Gesamtkunstwerk), in which Wagner, however, “did not eliminate the lack of synchronism between the separate arts which were necessary to the stage realization of the drama” (Dahlhaus, 1980, p.6). Van Huyssteen (2007) considers the remarkable feature of Richard Wagner’s musical dramas is that, “even if one were to see these works of art as highly localised in the world of 19th century Romanticism, they are major works of art precisely because of the undisputable universal intent and the timelessness of their musical and poetic content” (p.6). II. Wagner: Religion and Art 2.1 Understanding Religion and Music Relationship “Music is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the Infinite” (Chamberlain, 2005, p.liii). In these words Chamberlain (2005) illustrates the influence of Religion upon Music and, vice versa, of Music upon Religion. Religion has inspired the musicians from the ancient times, in their turn, they “so inspired, have touched the hearts of thousands, infusing them with some perception, some share of their own inspiration” (Chamberlain, 2005, p.liii). Trotter (1987) calls the music as the most available and universal of all the arts: “It springs out of the very speech and soul of a person or a community. It uses the most universal instrument, the human voice, and sounds created by earthy things like catgut and skin and wood and brass. Its tenderness and its profundity begin with the songs for infants sung by parents, and its power is manifested in the chants of priests of all cults and sects incanting prayers for the benefits of the gods” (p.1) Religion is associated with various fundamental issues: birth, life, death, love, hope, faith, God; so, its language and symbols remain invariable and timeless eventually. Understanding of these symbols are, however, heavily depends on ways of perceiving and understanding these symbols, which exist in the society in a given historical period of time. It is undoubtedly relate to music. For example, for the ancient Greeks music was a method to establish ties with the structure of the universe. The "music of the spheres" was being considered literally as the sounds of concentric spheres of the universe touching each other. It is widely recognised among scholars that one of the most important developments during the Romanticism was the transformation of religion into an impressive subject for inspiration of artists and musicians. Many of them were drawn to religious imagery, as well as to other ancient traditions (Greek, Arthurian, etc.), even in which they no longer believed. One of the brightest examples of connection music and religion in nineteenth century is the Beethoven's musical compositions. Otten (1912) in his Catholic Encyclopedia wrote that: “Beethoven's faith in God as experienced through art is an important theme in his conversation books, his belief that art is a force unto itself, and that infuse his search for redemption through and in music - “God is closer to me than others of my art” (p.1). Otten (1912) points out also that the Beethoven’s opera Fidelio and the Ninth Symphony, especially its final choral on Schiller's “Ode to Joy”, are those compositions where the inners struggle of the author against and triumphant victory over his doubt were revealed to the utmost. 2.2 Wagner about Religion and Art One could undoubtedly agree with Van Huyssteen (2007) who said: “Richard Wagner is, and will probably always be, a controversial figure in the history of Western art. Wagner’s work has been complexly influenced by very diverse religious traditions … [which] include Nordic myths and legends, direct Christian influences from the Bible, Christian medieval legends, other medieval epics, Buddhist and Hindu images and worldviews...[and] also mystical influences from both Christianity and Islam” (pp.3-4). It is also understandable that Wagner did not use the images in their original forms, but reviewed them and created new authors’ concepts. In his interpretation old religious and mythological imagery revealed its universality and eternal importance for human nature. Van Huyssteen (2007) describes it as: “these mythologies are magical-realist, narrative summaries of the actual world in which moral possibilities are personified and made flesh” (p.4). Wagner (1994) corroborates this thought in his “Religion and Art” essay: “One might say that where Religion becomes artificial, it is reserved for Art to save the spirit of religion by recognising the figurative value of the mythic symbols which the former would have us believe in their literal sense, and revealing their deep and hidden truth through an ideal presentation” (p.211). Tanner (1996) explains the Wagner’s statement as that a genius does not intend to make a “religion of art”, but when he sees that a religion is not able to play its role longer, the genius uses art to provide human expectations (p.184). Religious beliefs of Wagner, as it is described by Hollinrake (1992), are formed under a dramatic impact of Feuerbach (until about 1857) and Schopenhauer. The Feuerbach’s influences are revealed in a music drama “Jesus von Nazareth” in 1849, where Wagner , contrary to “the conception of theology as a divisive force inspired by resentment, egoism and national pride, inimical to art and totally opposed to the universality of the Christian message” (Hollinrake, 1992, p.146), proclaimed “the redeeming power …of fearlessness, freedom and love” (Ibid. p.147). A new phase in the development of Wagner’s ideas concerning Religion and Art relations researchers linked with his decision to develop the subject of “Parsifal” in 1857 (Hollinrake, 1992; Tanner, 1996). Hollinrake (1992) assumes that Wagner has come to this idea “under the influence of the neo-Buddhism of Schopenhauer …and had departed further from the orthodox Christian position” (p.147). The intention of Wagner was clear: “To establish the universality of the Gospels by breaking the confining barriers of a mendacious tribal theology …and by affirming the doctrinal content of the ancient sources of oriental religious enlightenment in which, according to Schopenhauer, Christianity had originated” (Hollinrake, 1992, p.148). According to Van Huyssteen (2007), “the question “what it really means to be human” for Wagner was always tied directly to an intense sense of personal awareness, consciousness, and destiny” (p.6). So, in this sense “one of the deepest intentions of the multi-layered forms of Wagnerian artworks is to confront human beings with a ‘mirror’ that would reflect, sometimes shockingly, our inner selves and personal identities and would always raise questions about our destiny, and our ultimate place in the universe” (Winkler, 1974, cited in Van Huyssteen, 2007, p.6). It is remarkable that Wagner in his musical dramas always balances a destiny of his heroes between fate and free choice (or Will). In 1880 Wagner (1994) states his attitude toward religion finally: “Our best guide to an estimate of the belief in miracles will be the demand addressed to natural man that he should change his previous mode of viewing the world and its appearances as the most absolute of realities; for he now was to know this world as null, an optical delusion, and to seek the only Truth beyond it. If by a miracle we mean an incident that sets aside the laws of Nature; and if, after ripe deliberation, we recognise these laws as founded on our own power of perception, and bound inextricably with the functions of our brain: then belief in miracles must be comprehensible to us as an almost necessary consequence of the reversal of the “will to live”, in defiance of all Nature. …then belief in miracles must be comprehensible to us as an almost necessary consequence of superhuman power, since he finds that union with It is longed for as the only object worth endeavour. It is this Other that Jesus told his poor of, as the “Kingdom of God”, in opposition to the “kingdom of the world”; He who called to Him the weary and heavy-laden, the suffering and persecuted, the patient and meek, the friends of their enemies and lovers of all, was their “Heavenly Father”, as whose “Son” he himself was sent to these “his Brothers”. We here behold the greatest miracle of all, and call it “Revelation” (p.212). We’ve made such a long citation advisedly, assuming that it will help us to answer the question: “What is the nature of Wagner’s engagement with religious themes in Parsifal?” 2.3 The Parsifal as a Reflection of Wagner’s Religious View In the “Richard Wagner and Mysticism” Steiner (1930) retells the Wagner’s remembrance about how the idea of Parsifal came to his mind. It was a Good Friday of 1857 and Wagner “was standing on the balcony of the summer-house …and as he looked out over the landscape he saw the budding of the early spring flowers. The sight of the young plants revealed to him the mystery of the Holy Grail, the mystery of the coming-to-birth of all that is implicit in the image of the Holy Grail” (p.1). Wagner was not a religious person, and as Van Huyssteen (2007) notes, he was even anti-religious, but he was a highly-creative musician, possessed a luxuriant imagination and ability to deep emotional experience. Before the event on Good Friday of 1857 he has already appealed to religious subjects both in his music and in narratives. “Most importantly,” adds Van Huyssteen (2007) that Wagner has already been inspired by “mystical sense of selfless love always treated as a summons to supreme sacrifice, which ... emerges as a sacred and redeeming force. ...with his focus on character and passion, and on moments of sacrifice in which ideals become real, the sacramental quality of our deepest emotions are revealed” (p.4). Kinderman and Syer (2005) emphasise that Wagner was not interested in “glorifying orthodox religion through art” (p.2), although there were a lot of commentators asserted that “Parsifal was a reflection of Jesus Christ” (Ibid. p.2). Actually, in Parsifal Wagner tried to “retrieve the truth of some of the most crucial Christian symbols, but …he undertook this task by locating these deeper Christian truths not within traditional ecclesial, theological, or confessional contexts, but quite specifically within a post-doctrinal, aesthetic-religious context” (Van Huyssteen, 2007, p.3). We believe the core intention and, at the same time, achievement of Wagner in Parsifal was formulated by Hollinrake (1992): “Parsifal transposes the principal doctrines of Buddhism along with material from the Gospels and the liturgy of the Eucharist into the context of a Christianized redaction of the legend of the Grail – a mystical emblem unrecognised by any ecclesiastical authority” (p.149). Mystical legend of the Grail and of the knights of the Grail, in which roots of Christianity and heathen rituals and symbols are deeply intertwined, has lived for around a thousand years as the core of the Christian faith. The most sacred symbols - the cup or chalice, the cross, and the spear – have possessed a great significance among all Christian confessions. But meanings of these symbols have become understood differently; in some cases differences are quite profound. Winkler (1974) argues for “a continued symbolism between the spear as a pagan symbol of power in Wotan’s hands that ultimately becomes the spear that pierced the side on Jesus on Golgotha. Consequently, the symbol of the spear, once the sacred weapon of Wotan, later a symbol of destruction, received a new significance in Christianity” (cited in Van Huyssteen, 2007, p.15). But for what purposes did Wagner shift and mix several religious doctrines and creatively transform different sacred symbols? We assume the answer has been already done in a previous section, as well as Van Huyssteen (2007) confirms once more that for Wagner: “The fundamental question is, of course, whether we humans are the helpless victims of a predetermined fate or destiny, of some form of rigid biological or divine predestination, or whether we can transcend and escape blind fate and destiny” (p.5). The issue of personal destiny for Wagner is linked with the only highest virtue, which is above all other virtues – it is “the mystery of complete and selfless love. It is this destiny, this evolutionary search for the deepest secret of human identity and the true goal of human life that for the later Wagner was embodied in the ancient quest for the Holy Grail (Winkler, 1974, cited in Van Huyssteen, 2007, p.5). In the final scene of the opera Parsifal the full chorus sings: “redemption for the Redeemer!” and this “redemption” idea is revealed as complex, multifaceted – redemption is given to many heroes and symbols, participating in the opera: from Holy Spear and Holy Grail to Parsifal himself and Kundry. We assume this grandiose picture of general redemption was conceived by Wagner purposely to make clear impressive demonstration of his major idea – every person indeed has a power and freedom to choose between God and Evil, or both; and every person himself is responsible for much of what happens to him. Van Huyssteen (2007) formulated a similar though as follows: “On the one hand, we are bound to the laws of nature through biological, genetic, and hormonal constraints, while also bound to our cultural contexts and personal histories; however, on the other hand, we have a remarkable freedom to choose who we want to be and how we want to find ultimate meaning in spite of these constraints. In this sense we are significantly free to choose and act even if our physical and psychological natures are entirely determined by constraints for which we can never be held responsible” (p.26). Wagner kept the subject of Parsifal in the mind for more than half of his life, trying different characters and events in previous works, so the Parsifal has become the final opera and literally the work of whole life of Richard Wagner. In our time, when about 130 years have passed from the first performance of the Parsifal opera, Wagner’s ideas do not lose their topicality. Nowadays thousands of people continue “the experience of hearing the music of Richard Wagner … [resulting in] a hyper-self-awareness of what it means to be human, mediated by Wagner’s stunning revisioned symbolization of our traditional religious symbols. In this creative process the symbol is resymbolised, and for Wagner this is how God might finally be expressed or intimated, and for him why Art goes beyond Religion” (Van Huyssteen, 2007, p.27). Conclusion Dahlhaus (1989) defines the nineteenth century, as a period in music history “from Beethoven’s late works, Rossini’s operas, and Shubert’s lieder to Schonberg’s “emancipation of dissonance” and the complementary rejection of “modernism” brought about by Richard Strauss in Der Rosenkavalier” (p.1). This period fits within the years 1814 and 1914. In our essay we viewed two important phenomena of that time – the idea of Absolute Music of early Romantics and the religious-art relationship in the Wagner’s’ Parsifal opera’s context. Without doubts both phenomena are connected conceptually via “absolute music”, although they are based upon different meanings of the term “absolute music”. In spite of differences in meaning the term was widely used during the whole century, inspiring an appearance other similar concepts, and not only in music – “absolute philosophy”, “absolute harmony”, etc. One of the significant issues that interested many writers, philosophers and musicians of the nineteenth century was the relationship between Art and Religion. And one of the most respected thinkers in this area was Richard Wagner, who made ideas a reality in his music, namely in musical operas and dramas, which represent his concept of absolute music as a holistic merging of instrumental music, vocal and dance. His last opera was Parsifal – a brilliant example of combination of art, religion, and theology, able to merge “some of the greatest scientific achievements of our time [so that to make] fundamental contributions to human understanding” (Van Huyssteen, 2007, p.3). References Beard, D. & Gloag, K. (2005). Musicology: the key concepts. London, Routledge. Chamberlain, H.S. (2005). Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, Volume 1. Munchen, Adamant Media. Chua, D.K.L. (1999). Absolute music and the construction of meaning. Cambridge University Press Melbourne. Dahlhaus, C. (1980). Between Romanticism and Modernism. Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press. Dahlhaus, C. (1989). Nineteenth-Century Music. Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press. Dahlhaus, C. (1991). The Idea of Absolute Music. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Emslie, B. (1991) Woman as image and narrative in Wagner’s Parsifal: A case study. Cambridge Opera Journal, 3(2), 109-124. Hollinrake, R. (1992). Opinions and outlook: Religious beliefs. In: Millington, B. (Ed.) The Wagner Compendium: A Guide To Wagner’s Life and Music. New York, Schirmer Books. Kinderman, W., & Syer, K.R. (2005). A companion to Wagner's Parsifal. Rochester, Camden House. Kreis, S. (2001). The History Guide's Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History: Abelard to Nietzsche. Lecture 16, The Romantic Era. Retrieved April 29, 2010 from http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture16a.html Lippman, E.A. (1992). A history of Western musical aesthetics. Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press. Otten, J. (1912) Ludwig Van Beethoven. In: The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. New York, Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved April 29, 2010 from http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15265b.htm Randel, D. (2003). The Harvard dictionary of music. Cambridge, Harvard University Press. Schopenhauer, A. (1957). The World as Will and Idea. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul. Steiner, R. (1930) Richard Wagner and Mysticism. Anthroposophy, A Quarterly Review of Spiritual Science, 2 (5). London, Anthroposophical Publishing Company. Retrieved April 29, 2010 from http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19071202p01.html Tanner, M. (1996). Wagner. London, HarperCollinsPublishers. Trotter, F.T. (1987). On Being Alive to the Arts and Religion: Music. In: Trotter, F.T. (Ed.) Loving God With One’s Mind. Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church. Retrieved April 29, 2010 from http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=510 Van Huyssteen, J.W. (2007). Building Effective Bridges to Culture: God and Redemption in the Work of Richard Wagner. In: Middleton, P. (Ed.). The God of Love and Human Dignity: Essays in Honour of George M. Newlands. T&T Clark. Retrieved April 29, 2010 from http://www.vanhuyssteen.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/buildingbridges.pdf Wagner, R. (1994). Religion and Art. Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press. Williams, R. (2009). Das Eine im Wandel: music and Kunstwissenschaft. Journal of Art Historiography, 1, December, pp. 1-14. Retrieved April 29, 2010 from http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_139134_en.pdf  Winkler, F. E. (1974). For Freedom Destined. New York, Waldorf Press. Read More