Bach and Beauty
Thursday, 26 February 2026, 16:30-18:30
Senate House, Room 264
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How do music and text combine in Bach’s Sacred Cantatas? Do listeners miss out on some of their value if they are not Christian believers? And is it a mistake to listen to them as pure or ‘absolute’ music? Richard Taruskin and many other musicologists understand these works as having a dominant religious point. If so, listening to them primarily for their beauty, as many today do, is, if not a mistake, radically anachronist, and threatens to be an experience of only a part of what the Cantatas have to offer. This approach side-lines the musical-beauty of the Cantatas or sees it as subservient to the religious message. This seems to be the current consensus. As a Bach Cantatas lover, this troubles me. I suggest that a moderate formalist Hanslickean approach can take musical-beauty, as well as the beauty of the setting of the text, to be central. On such a view, you do not need to be a believing Christian to fully appreciate these works. But: text matters, and we need to understand the text to appreciate the fit of music to text. I spell out such a view, and argue for a particular way that the elements of the Cantatas are structured, such that all the itches can be scratched. I engage with the arguments of Bettina Varwig and Taruskin, before reflecting on the religious nature and availability of these works.
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Following NHS guidance, all attendees are strongly encouraged to be vaccinated (including boosters) against Covid-19, unless medically exempt. Our group is diverse; please continue to be considerate of those who wear face coverings and those who don’t. Thank you.