The Great Works of Sacred Music

Some of the best music by the most renowned
composers was inspired by religious devotion: to show the composer’s own piety,
to help a patron impress peers, or to remember loved ones. Sacred music often has
been the source of great compositional innovation and even greater emotional
expression. In this course, we will examine masterful musical settings used by
composers in the Western classical tradition to elevate music to the sphere of
Christian prayer, an elegant and transcendent devotional gift. These lectures
will span more than a thousand years of music history, examining both smaller
works of personal devotion—such as chorales, hymns, and carols—as well as major
public and concert genres, such as masses, oratorios, cantatas, and requiems.