The Fleeting Moment: The Sacramental Universe of Music, from the Aesthetic Form to the Empathetic Event

Nowadays, the drama of the incommunicability of the experience of God is perhaps one of the greatest problems that theology must face if it wants to establish a sincere dialogue with contemporary thought. A visit to contemporary theological art, and concretely to music, is an exercise that should be taken into consideration when one wishes to offer a word about God to our world and to men and women of these days. Through this article author wants underline that the relationship between theology and music could reveal itself as a way to discover the mysterious-symbolic presence of God which reveals itself.

Von der kompositorischen Funktion und Stellung der Kratemata im byzantinischen Kirchengesang

The Byzantine church chant is a purely liturgical song. The music that is practiced here is primarily linked to the understanding of the text and its comprehension. That’s why the sound-word ratio is very pronounced in the syllabic and semi-melismatic chants. This harmonious relationship between music and poetry is partly destroyed in the very extensive and highly melismatic kalophonic songs, because long note chains are set over a single word, even over the vowel of a single syllable. Closely related to the kalophonic pieces often Kratema are executed, representing the total abolition of the connection between the music and the text message. They are likewise extensive melismata, but have no concrete text and are usually built on the meaningless syllables te-ri-rem. In this study, first some of the different explanations as to the origin and the role of Kratemata in worship events will be presented shortly. The actual core of the investigation are the reflections about what a compositional meaning (in music content, formal, compositional and sound aesthetic way) these pieces have and how they affect the structure and organization of their respective total song (kalophonic piece and Kratema together).

An der Schnittstelle zwischen Ost und West Evangelische Kirchenmusik in Siebenbürgen

Due to historical developments, Evangelical church music in Transylvania has changed significantly in recent decades. Major events that had an impact on this development are the establishment of the communist regime in Romania and the mass exodus of German-speaking Evangelical congregation members from most Transylvanian towns and villages. This poses a challenge for the Evangelical Church, who has to conserve and maintain largely unused and empty churches, as well as their assets, such as organs, sheet music, and other musical paraphernalia. However, the changed situation also has its benefits, since it requires an opening of the small Evangelical Church toward others. Music is particularly useful medium for this opening towards the non-Evangelical world, as it is not language-bound.

Die orthodoxe Kirchenmusik als ein bedeutendes Erbe von Byzanz und ihre moderne Rezeption im Westen am Beispiel des „Byzantinischen Kantorenchores München“

The Byzantine Music was created within the liturgical life of Orthodoxy and has been developed accordingly in the Eastern Church Worship. Together with the hymnography the Byzantine Music in Orthodoxy has from the beginning taken a central place, especially since there is absolutely no orthodox worship without psalmodic accompaniment. It is one of the most notable achievements in the Byzantine era, for which in the last decades also in Western Europe a great interest is awakened.

Leiturgía – Ort der musiké: Plädoyer für eine Perspektive auf Kirchen-Musik als heteromodales Ereignis

The meaning of music exceeds the mere acoustic noise. Liturgy clarifies that fact. Focusing aesthetic modes music is considered as defined by the ancient Greek term musiké, back then the union of movement/dance, sound, poetry. As performance musiké correlates with liturgy (performance as well) in a special way. The bodily and transcendent dimensions of musiké arise in liturgy – something performative, i.e. evolving from doing. Liturgy and music are connected with bodily presence (incarnation) and movement – the fundament of life. Both corporal actions and expressive dance in liturgy exist as a form of musiké. Using the example of resonance, listening, polyaisthesis, time/space it becomes apparent that musiké is movens, confronting us with the alien, carrying us to foreign spaces. Leiturgía is a specific aesthetic site where church music opens peculiar the human dimension of musiké. Our society is in need of such places.

Communication Difficulties between Different Liturgical-Musical Paradigms:

Contemporary ecumenical efforts face considerable difficulties due to differences of liturgical and musical paradigm between different confessions. Therefore, in opposition to a vision that is of secular inspiration and often eclectically and syncretically built in ecumenical manifestation, the Orthodox Church presents a traditional liturgical-musical perspective, a cosmic and soteriological typology, whose cyclical arrangement and liturgical hymns share a sacramental connection with divine revelation.