{"id":4351,"date":"2007-07-18T13:53:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-18T13:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/07\/music-for-spiritual-exploration\/"},"modified":"2007-07-18T13:53:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-18T13:53:00","slug":"music-for-spiritual-exploration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/07\/music-for-spiritual-exploration.html","title":{"rendered":"Music for Spiritual Exploration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

When I need to be persuaded yet again that reality includes transcendence and the spiritual, I usually turn to music<\/a> rather than opening the writings of some theologian or other (although those help a lot too!). Here are a few pieces I\u2019d recommend for this purpose\u2026<\/p>\n

Peteris Vasks\u2019<\/a> Lauda<\/i><\/a>\"\" which I was listening to earlier today<\/p>\n

Alan Hovhaness\u2019 Symphony \u201cCelestial Gate<\/a>\"\"\u201c<\/p>\n

Kurt Atterberg\u2019s<\/a> Symphony No.2<\/a>\"\", the opening and closing sections of the second movement being, for me, the most inspiring melody of all time<\/p>\n

Ralph Vaughan Williams\u2019 Symphony No.5<\/a>\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

James Horner\u2019s score from Deep Impact<\/a>\"\"<\/i> and of course any of John Williams\u2019 music from Star Wars<\/a>\"\"<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Let me also mention Gustav Holst\u2019s Hymn of Jesus<\/i><\/a>\"\" which is not only beautiful music but is fascinating as a very rare instance of the setting to music of an extracanonical Christian text <\/a>(Hovhaness<\/a> has done the same with the Odes of Solomon; Joaquin Rodrigo, famous for his Concierto de Aranjuez<\/a>\"\", has a setting of some Qumran hymns<\/a>\"\"). I played the Holst piece for my \u201cHeresy\u201d class the last time I taught it, not least because this helps students realize that these extracanonical texts had a role in Christian<\/em> worship for those that valued them.<\/p>\n

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When I need to be persuaded yet again that reality includes transcendence and the spiritual, I usually turn to music rather than opening the writings of some theologian or other (although those help a lot too!). Here are a few pieces I\u2019d recommend for this purpose\u2026 Peteris Vasks\u2019 Lauda which I was listening to earlier […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMusic for Spiritual Exploration<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When I need to be persuaded yet again that reality includes transcendence and the spiritual, I usually turn to music rather than opening the writings of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/07\/music-for-spiritual-exploration.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Music for Spiritual Exploration\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When I need to be persuaded yet again that reality includes transcendence and the spiritual, I usually turn to music rather than opening the writings of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/07\/music-for-spiritual-exploration.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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