Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Bach's Sacred Music in the Post-Secular Age: Performance, Reception, and the Negotiation of Religious Meaning

Bach's Sacred Music in the Post-Secular Age: Performance, Reception, and the Negotiation of Religious Meaning

Gessel, Jeroen Van

Paperback

Series: Music and Sound Culture

General SociologyMusic Reference

ISBN10: 3837683850
ISBN13: 9783837683851
Publisher: Transcript Publishing
Published: Sep 27 2026
Pages: 204
Weight: 0.62
Height: 0.43 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Despite ongoing secularization Bach's sacred music is more popular than ever before. How do we negotiate the tension between enjoying this music and struggling to connect with its Christian doctrinal content? Using Habermas's concept of the post-secular as a translation of religious content that can enrich secular society, Jeroen van Gessel takes a closer look at complete recordings of Bach's cantatas, staged and filmed versions of the Passions and efforts to reenact performances from Bach's time. Based on these case studies he argues that contemporary performances of Bach's sacred music move ever further away from the original Christian context of this repertoire, but simultaneously try to hold on to it.

Also in

Music Reference

View All