Funeral Music between Heaven and Earth
Music and Death: Interdisciplinary Readings and Perspectives
ISBN: 978-1-83867-946-0, eISBN: 978-1-83867-945-3
Publication date: 26 November 2019
Abstract
Contemporary funerary culture in the Netherlands is often characterised as secularised and individualised. This chapter focuses on images of heaven and angels and various versions of the Ave Maria in contemporary funeral music. How is this musical repertoire interpreted in a secularised context? This study builds on earlier research on images of heaven and angels in the context of death (Quartier, 2011; Walter, 2011, 2016a, 2016b) and demonstrates how images of heaven and angels and the Ave Maria in the context of contemporary funeral rituals in the Netherlands are related to ‘lived religion’ – how religion is ‘lived’ both in- and outside institutionalised settings – and ‘continuing bonds’ – how bonds with the deceased are not severed but continued. It also shows that the range of applicability of these concepts should not be overestimated, as musical references to heaven and angels, and the song Ave Maria, can also be regarded as ritual repertoire.
Keywords
Citation
Bruin-Mollenhorst, J. (2019), "Funeral Music between Heaven and Earth", Bennett, M.J. and Gracon, D. (Ed.) Music and Death: Interdisciplinary Readings and Perspectives (Emerald Interdisciplinary Connexions), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 7-18. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83867-945-320191005
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020 Janieke Bruin-Mollenhorst