Dahlhaus (1989) defines the nineteenth century, as a period in music history “from Beethoven’s late works, Rossini’s operas, and Shubert’s lieder to Schonberg’s “emancipation of dissonance” and the complementary rejection of “modernism” brought about by Richard Strauss in Der Rosenkavalier” (p.1).
In this essay I viewed two important phenomena of that time – the idea of Absolute Music of early Romantics and the religious-art relationship in the Wagner’s’ Parsifal opera’s context. Without doubt both circumstances are connected conceptually via “absolute music”, although they are based upon different meanings of the term “absolute music”. In spite of differences in meaning the term was widely used during the whole century, inspiring an appearance other similar concepts, and not only in music – “absolute philosophy”, “absolute harmony”, etc.
One of the significant issues that interested many writers, philosophers and musicians of the nineteenth century was the relationship between Art and Religion. And one of the most respected thinkers in this area was Richard Wagner, who made ideas a reality in his music, namely in musical operas and dramas, which represent his concept of absolute music as a holistic merging of instrumental music, vocal and dance. His last opera was Parsifal – a brilliant example of combination of art, religion, and theology, able to merge “some of the greatest scientific achievements of our time [so that to make] fundamental contributions to human understanding” (Van Huyssteen, 2007, p.3).
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Dahlhaus, C. (1989). Nineteenth-Century Music. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Van Huyssteen, J.W. (2007). Building Effective Bridges to Culture: God and Redemption in the Work of Richard Wagner. In: Middleton, P. (Ed.). The God of Love and Human Dignity: Essays in Honour of George M. Newlands. T&T Clark. Retrieved April 29, 2010 from http://www.vanhuyssteen.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/buildingbridges.pdf