The Liturgical Use of the Organ in the Sixteenth Century: the Judgments of Cajetan and the Dominican Order
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2014, Vol 5, Issue 3
Abstract
This paper explores the liturgical use of the organ in the sixteenth century according to the judgments of Tommaso de Vio, Cajetan (1469–1534) and the Dominicans. In particular, it asks the question: In worship, is solo organ music capable of conveying a specific meaning or a particular text (as seemed to be expected in alternatim practice)? The Dominican sources show an increasingly skeptical attitude, with a consequent tendency to limit the organ’s role in worship. The implication of this study is that organ alternatim did not fall out of favor (with the Dominicans at least) because it failed to carry out the job it was given in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but because it could not do the new job is was given in the sixteenth century. Organ alternatim made sense in a gothic worldview, but less so under the influence of renaissance humanism. While these Dominicans accepted the use of the organ, they did so with great concern at the potential influx of secular music into worship, since secular melodies and rhythms, even without their original words, bring multiple inappropriate associations. To remedy this, various strategies were used to harness instrumental music to text.
Authors and Affiliations
Michael O'Connor
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP25379
- DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel5030751
- Views 294
- Downloads 10
Spirituality in Nursing: An Overview of Research Methods
Spirituality has been widely considered important for patients’ health and for healthcare practice and is related to connectedness, meaning in life, and transcendence. Research concerning spirituality is growing rapidl...
Fragmented, Messianic, Paradoxical, Antinomian, Revolutionary, Secular: The Hermeneutics of Eschatology
Multiple philosophical-theological efforts in the last century, from W. Benjamin to J. Caputo, have been centered on a messianic opposition to normative structures, a challenge that invokes a long history in the West o...
Spirituality and Wellbeing in the Context of a Study on Suicide Prevention in North India
The connection between spirituality and wellbeing, including its benefits for physical and mental health, has been recognized in the Eastern cultures for a very long time, although the sharp division between science an...
The Brief RCOPE: Current Psychometric Status of a Short Measure of Religious Coping
The Brief RCOPE is a 14-item measure of religious coping with major life stressors. As the most commonly used measure of religious coping in the literature, it has helped contribute to the growth of knowledge about the...
A Political End to a Pioneering Career: Marianne Beth and the Psychology of Religion
Although forgotten in both Religionswissenschaft (the Science of Religion) and psychology, Marianne Beth (1880-1984), initially trained as a lawyer and already in 1928 called a “leading European woman”, must be conside...