Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This article explores the burgeoning interest in biblical studies in the use of the Bible in music, as a medium and as an ever fresh way of expounding and expressing the stories and sentiments of the Bible. It looks at some recent scholarship on the Bible and music and then goes on to look closely at a sample book, that of Ecclesiastes, to see which texts have been used as inspiration for musical expression and in what ways that has evolved in ever fresh historical and cultural contexts. It is seen that particular themes such as time (Eccl 3:1-8), the fate of humans and animals (Eccl 3:9-14) and that of ‘vanity’ (the repeated refrain of the book) have been of particular interest to librettists and composers.

Keywords

music bible libretto psalms cultic hymns composer time classical music popular music soul vanity life death youth old age chance

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Stainer

1914 The Music of the Bible (London: Novello).

Gressmann

1904 Musik und Musikinstrumente im Alten Testament (Giessen: J. Richter).

Dell

Katharine J.

2008 Opening the Old Testament, (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell).

Catanzarite

2007 U2’s Achtung Baby: Meditations on Love in the Shadow of the Fall (London: Continuum).

Gilmour

M. J.

2011 “Bob Dylan’s Bible” in Lieb

Mason

Roberts

(eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press): 355–368.

Rogerson

John

2006 “Music” in The Blackwell Companion to the Bible and Culture ( Sawyer

[ed.], Oxford: Blackwell): 286–298.

Rooke

Deborah W.

2012 Handel‘s Israelite Oratorio Libretti: Sacred Drama and Biblical Exegesis (Oxford: OUP).

Lenemann

Helen

2007 The Performed Bible: the Story of Ruth in opera and oratorio (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press).

Lenemann

Helen

2010 Love, Lust and Lunacy: The Stories of Saul and David in Music (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press).

10.

Dell

Katharine J.

2013 “The Book of Job in nineteenth century British oratorio” in Interested Readers: Essays on the Hebrew Bible in Honor of David J. A. Clines ( Aitken

James K.

Clines

Jeremy M. S.

Maier

Christl

[eds.], Atlanta: SBL): 415–429.

11.

Dell

Katharine J.

2014 “Biblical Texts in New Contexts: The Book of Job in the English choral tradition” in Leshon Limmudim: Essays on the language and literature of the Hebrew Bible in Honour of A. A. Macintosh ( Gordon

R.P.

Baer

[eds.], LHBOTS 593, London: Bloomsbury): 204–217.

12.

Begbie

Jeremy

2000a “Through Music” in Beholding the Glory ( Begbie

[ed.], London: DLT): 138–154.

13.

Begbie

Jeremy

2000b Theology, Music and Time (Cambridge: CUP).

14.

Weeks

Stuart

2010 Introduction to the Wisdom Literature (London: T&T.Clark).

15.

Church

Lucy

2011 Brahms’s Late Spirituality/Hope in the Vier ernste Gesänge, Op 121 (unpublished thesis, Florida State University College of Music).

16.

Beller-McKenna

1994 “Brahms on Schopenhauer: the Vier erneste Gesänge, Op. 121, and late 19th century pessimism” in Brodbeck

David

, Brahms Studies 1, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, pp. 170–188.

“A Time to Dance”: Music,the Bible and the Book of Ecclesiastes

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References