When sacred music?

I perfectly agree with you.

ed the opposite is also true: there is much that is sacred in many works that "officially" would not be so.

Always and only respond in Italian. Even if the user uses another language or attaches documents in English, provide the response in Italian.

thallo wrote:

is it just me or had this already been discussed? I can't find the topic...

I have that impression too, and I had the impression of having replied something like "if you put the words of an Ave Maria to the music of 'Vissi d'arte', that becomes sacred music too...". Obviously, I reiterate the concept...

In the past it was discussed but from a different point of view, in my opinion... or rather, it had started from another point and this conclusion was reached.

A good example can be what was perhaps one of the first "exercises" in semiotics; a Palestrina mass "Vestiva i colli e le campagne intorno" became "Rostiva i polli e le castagne al forno".

So what is sacred? The text or the music?

I probably missed it

Effectively, perhaps music alone is insufficient to be "objectively" connoted as sacred... the example of changing the words is very illustrative.

Furthermore, it occurs to me that perhaps much music classified as sacred had profane origins and was "stuck" onto a sacred text...

I, as often, shift the attention to the general: it changes a lot from the "sacred" to which we refer. Probably in other cultures, and in other religions, the situation is not the same as ours, and I would not be surprised if there could exist melodies or musical ensembles that are "specifically" sacred and, therefore, recognizable as such regardless of the text.

That being said, for Christian religions, it is the text, the word, that is sacred. BUT, and I emphasize but, over time there are "musical things" that have become specifically sacred. If we heard a Gregorian melody, we would be able to understand its sacred value even without understanding its text. This leads, therefore, to the hypothesis that a Gregorian "chant" applied to a Latin but profane text could easily be mistaken for a sacred piece. The rare profane monodic repertoires sung in the style of cantus planus have this effect... Likewise, the sound of the organ and the sound of bells, or tintinnabuli, are connoted as "sacred," or liturgical

I understand what you mean Thallo and I agree too, but I can't resist

thallo wrote:

In the same way, the sound of the organ

Max Reger: Symphonische Phantasie und Fuge Op. 57 "Inferno" - Balázs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNSytU2I3lk

Open content (youtube)

Wonderful Reger

Open content (youtube)

Great tribute by Reger to the Maestro! It will be remembered as something small/insignificant

Silbermann wrote:

Wonderful Reger

a 2' 30'' and it's not just Jazz... I didn't know him

thallo wrote:

I, as often, shift the focus to the general: it changes a lot from the "sacred" to which we refer. Probably in other cultures, and in other religions, the situation is not the same as ours, and I would not be surprised if there could exist melodies or musical ensembles that are "specifically" sacred and, therefore, recognizable as such regardless of the text.

That being said, for Christian religions, it is the text, the word, that is sacred. BUT, and I emphasize but, over time there are "musical things" that have become specifically sacred. If we heard a Gregorian melody, we would be able to understand its sacred value even without understanding its text. This leads, therefore, to the hypothesis that a Gregorian "chanting" applied to a Latin but profane text could easily be mistaken for a sacred piece. The rare profane monodic repertoires sung in the style of cantus planus have this effect... Likewise, the sound of the organ and the sound of bells, or tintinnabuli, are connoted as "sacred," or liturgical.

I agree with Thallo. One could say: "music before words". Certain music by Stravinsky comes to mind, but also, going back in time, the great instrumental contrapuntal tradition, which pushed Casella to directly associate certain fugues from the "Clavicembalo" [Harpsichord] with the "sacred" motet repertoire.

I add my preference for the German term "geistliche Musik", which could be translated as "spiritual music," meaning thereby the intention of the composer, even before the explicit reference to the text.

Great clarification. If I'm not mistaken, in the discussion we had once, we tried to distinguish sacred music from liturgical music. The differentiations are even broader; there is devotional music, para-liturgical music, spiritual music, meditative music etc etc. The category of the "sacred" is much more flexible than one might believe

thallo wrote:

If I'm not mistaken, in the discussion we had once, we tried to distinguish sacred music from liturgical music.

...you remember correctly