Thread: Do you need to believe in the "divine" to fully appreciate sacred classical works?

Lately, I have been immersing myself into Schubert's masses, which are some of the gorgeous masses I ever heard.





I also a small collection of Bach and Mozart's sacred works. Then a small question popped in my head..

Do you need to believe in the "divine" to fully appreciate sacred classical works?

My view in religion is indifferent but these works are full of spirituality that it sends you in another plane of existence. I read somewhere that classical music has it roots in the church and some of the early classical works are Gregorian Chants.

So do you think, spirituality and classical music is intertwined?

Undoubtedly, spirituality has inspired many compositions especially in previous centuries.

"Do you need to believe in the "divine" to fully appreciate sacred classical works?"

No. I am an agnostic and LOVE to listen to compositions like Bach's Passions, Bach's cantatas, various Requiems thoughout the centuries and so on.

I think Art Rock's answer is a perfect summary of all the reasonable points that could be made to answer your question.

I think to make the question less loaded, it would be useful to consider whether or not (for example) you believe it is necessary to believe in the Greek gods to fully appreciate the epics. If yes, then so be it. But if no, then your answer ought to be the same for sacred music.

My answer is yes. I am not religious myself, but these are at least in some cases works intended to provoke religious sympathies. I cannot help but feel there is more there for someone who is religious than someone who is not. How could the Mass not seem more glorious when it is carrying the message of one's salvation?

Originally Posted by Polednice

it would be useful to consider whether or not (for example) you believe it is necessary to believe in the Greek gods to fully appreciate the epics. If yes, then so be it. But if no, then your answer ought to be the same for sacred music.

I don't think that's a good analogy. The epics were not as far as I know intended to provoke religious sympathies. They don't contain any religious message I am aware of.

I guess the defining word is "fully" appreciate. How "full" are you asking?

There are works I appreciate for their artistic worth and even enjoy hearing but which have a message which doesn't resonate with me or which I'm even repulsed by (like Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin).

Believers will connect with sacred works to a greater degree than other works because these works resonate with an experience which, in them, is authentic; as someone said, "it makes my soul sing." This is not to say an agnostic won't have the same feelings of exaltation, peace, and joy - music has a way of reaching every emotion - it just won't be speaking to his experience in the same way.

That would be the only difference in the degree of "fullness" that I can see.

Originally Posted by jalex

My answer is yes. I am not religious myself, but these are at least in some cases works intended to provoke religious sympathies. I cannot help but feel there is more there for someone who is religious than someone who is not. How could the Mass not seem more glorious when it is carrying the message of one's salvation?

I don't think that's a good analogy. The epics were not as far as I know intended to provoke religious sympathies. They don't contain any religious message I am aware of.

In that case, as with Manxfeeder's comment it depends what is meant by the 'fullness'. Speaking purely musically, the same appreciation is open to us all. Any religious sympathy is evoked by the text, not the music.

The Odyssey certainly has a religious element to it (the gods legitimate and support--effectively if only eventually--deserving human rulers; would-be usurpers will die violently and humiliatingly at their hands).

However, that is off-topic. On-topic:

The answer to your question basically depends on whether you think there are some emotions or thoughts that only religious people experience.

I personally don't think that's the case. Any emotion or experience--awe, love, joy, fear, or whatever--that religious people feel and express through their religious tradition can also be felt and expressed in a secular way. I do not exclude ecstasy, trance, or possession.

I speak from experience here. Like many agnostic-atheists, before I lost my faith I was a very intensely dedicated Christian: my appreciation for old Protestant hymns from "The Kneeling Drunkard's Plea" to "Amazing Grace," Bach's masses, Byzantine Chant, Andrei Rublev's icons, Baroque church art and architecture, and many other things has improved.

It's a matter of further maturity, experience, education, and thought, not adherence to any particular creed. I will maintain this position until and unless neurologists find strong evidence of decisive inferiority in the artistic or sensual capacities of skeptics.

So you no more need to be Christian to appreciate Bach than you need to be Roman to appreciate Virgil. And with reference to Schubert's music, the right analogy might be that you don't need to be Christian to appreciate it any more than he needed to be Christian to write it; you don't need to be Christian to appreciate Schubert's music any more than you need to be Italian to appreciate Romeo & Juliet. (I would live in a world where no one would bother pointing out that Shakespeare was not Italian.)

I can imagine two possible sorts of oppositions: (1) there are some emotions that only religious people can have; (2) there are some emotions that only members of a certain [variety of] religious community or followers of a certain [variety of] religious tradition can have. Both of these intentionally deny that someone is fully human: in the first case, only the non-religious are denied to be fully human; in the second case, everyone outside of the blessed community or tradition is denied full humanity.

And of course that is precisely the point.

''fully'' > what I mean is ''comprising the entire work (music, message etc)''

@Manxfeeder

You hit the nail in the head. Anyone who appreciate classical music can appreciate the musical artistry and technical beauty of a sacred classical work. But religious people can fully appreciate and embrace the message of the music. I think in some ways, the music strengthens their beliefs and religious attitudes.

@science

Gread points.

Here's a quote from Schubert after composing the song, Ellen dritter Gesang no. 3, popularly known as Ave Maria.

''I think the reason for this is that I never force myself into devotion or prayers, unless i am truly overpowered by the feeling; that alone is true devotion.''

That quote came from a composer who intentionally omits some important passages on setting his masses (''I believe in One True Catholic Church'') and probably rejects religion himself.

Originally Posted by peeyaj

Do you need to believe in the "divine" to fully appreciate sacred classical works?

In order for me to answer that question, I would have to get in the minds of non-believers (of the "divine") in order to partake of the appreciation that they take away from them.

I'm not without talents, but "mind-meld" and ESP are not among them.

If a non-believer says that he has a keener appreciation of Masses and Motets since the diminution of his beliefs, I can't bring anything to the table with which to contradict him.

So I don't (bleeping) know... nor am I likely to EVER know.

So I'll set this aside and return my focus to things I CAN work out.

I fully agree that one need not be religious to appreciate these works. The real question is whether someone who is religious might feel certain emotions more strongly when listening. The music and words alone presumably would affect religious and non-religious people roughly the same. But religious people may associate the work with other beliefs that elicit stronger feelings.

Originally Posted by jalex

I cannot help but feel there is more there for someone who is religious than someone who is not. How could the Mass not seem more glorious when it is carrying the message of one's salvation?

Here I believe jalex is correct that certain works may bring other associations that could enhance the listeners overall sense of beauty, joy, or other positive feelings. I'm not sure if the OP intended these associated feelings as part of the question. I guess that depends on how "fully" was meant.

The answer is no.

Actually I think we may well be able to know the answer decisively. I think it's possible that skeptics have a somehow different sort of brain - it's notable that a few (and always only a few) people everywhere are skeptical of the local religious tradition. My guess is that there is a kind of personality variable in susceptibility to religious experience, with very strong skeptics at the low end of a spectrum and very highly talented religious leaders at the high end: there may be people who simply cannot experience trance, while others can fall into one very quickly. Don't know, just a guess. [Edit: Sorry, "personality" variable may not be the correct jargon. I'd guess that one's susceptibility to religious experience is rather adjustable.]

And I'd also guess that there is a personality variable about susceptibility to musical experience, with some very indifferent people at one end of a spectrum and very passionate music lovers at the other end of it. IF all that holds up, it is also possible that there would be a correlation between them, and I'd expect there to be, since music plays such an important role in most (if not all) religious traditions. But I'd also guess that if all that were to hold up, further research might find that susceptibility to rhythm is the key for religious experience, and susceptibility to melody would be much less significant.

Guesses and guesses and guesses - but I think we'll be finding out one way or the other about a lot of this stuff in the coming decades.

is it necessary to be a believer to fully appreciate this?



or this?



i don't think so. So why it has to be different for music?
And wasn't Rachmaninov agnostic or atheist? And still he composed the amazing vespers.

I suspect when the question will be asked on large pool of ordinary listeners, the answer would be resoundingly YES..

I think if we're talking about the aesthetics of any artwork, then anybody is able to appreciate it to its full extent. But, if by "full" in this context you are including "an appreciation of the religious message", then I think it's fairly obvious that only religious people are going to be affected to full extent intended by the text.