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classical music that was banned by christians as heretic?

8K views 14 replies 11 participants last post by  ahammel 
#1 · (Edited)
I know this is a naive question but, were some symphonies dub ''satan music'' because of heavy usage of tritone(the devil note).

Did the Church (protestant) vatican(catholic) and the christian orthodox , banned symphonies or opera
on these bases.

I Wonder if during medieval era some classical composer were burn at the stakes and partitions destroy(burn) has satan work?

Did sutch event actually occured in the past, what the story here, were some classical composer excommuniate ect...

Perhaps my question have been ask a 100 millions time allready but i wanna know.

:tiphat:
 
#2 ·
In the sixteenth century the Council of Trent did address what appropriate church music was (as examined in the little heard Opera "Palestrina"), and there were strictures on what music could be used liturgically. But I am not aware of any individual pieces actually being "banned" (as in the Church's old prescribed literature list). Martin Luther opened up the hymnal a little ("Why should the Devil have all the good tunes?"). Southern Baptists take a dim view of dancing. A lot of conservative Christians have a thing against Rock music. But in general the Church has little control over what is listened to outside its doors.
 
#3 ·
In certain states from the beginning of the art form operas/oratorios had to have their libretti routinely run past the state censorship for approval - many were toned down or altered for fear of offending the church whether on religious, political or moral grounds. I guess this eased off as the 19th century wore on as governments were operating on more or less exclusively secular basis, but some countries were presumably more strict about its implementation than others.
 
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#9 ·
I seem to remember there being some restriction on religious themes in operas that stifled a performance of Samson And Delila in London as well, but unfortunately I can't remember the exact details. It didn't have to do with the music, it was a restriction on biblical stage performances, I believe.

Polyphony was initially controversial in church music, in part because it obscured the words as well its uncomfortable chords, but that was deep in the Medieval era when the church held a more centralized position in society, and even then I believe was solely aimed at music for use in churches.

In general, most censorship in the 18th and 19th century was due to extramusical content - stagings, librettos, etc. that were controversial. Certainly that by no means means that all works were accepted by the musical establishment, just that few ( to none? I can't think of any ) were censored based on musical content.

The 20th century was the "golden age" of censorship based on musical content, much of it in the Soviet block and for non-supernatural reasons.

Pope Pius X placed a restriction on certain wind instruments including the saxophone, but it was more of a taste issue than assuming they were innately diabolic.
 
#10 ·
I would not say banned but they wanted music to have Christian stories or bible stories so that music can be played.Bach made plenty of Christian music.Now music that was non Christian was banned of course back in the day.But later people just made great music without Christian themes.
 
#11 · (Edited)
I haven't come across anything like that, where the church declared a piece heretical just because it had a tritone (it would just be considered bad composing), and I haven't heard of a composer being burned at the stake for his music. It's strange that it didn't happen, because during the Reformation, Catholic composers would learn from Protestants, and Protestants would learn from Catholics. It seems like the sacred composers were the first to be ecumenical.
 
#14 ·
Back in the 12th century a couple of popes also wanted to ban the use of the crossbow as it was considered 'unchivalrous' - it was still perfectly OK to smash someone's brains out with a mace, of course... :lol:
 
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