Musical Representations of Grief and Death

Wolfgang Marx

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Chapter 17 Musical Representations of Grief and Death

In: Grief, Identity, and the Arts

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Wolfgang Marx

Wolfgang Marx
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 262–274

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004158719_024

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Abstract

Music has been linked to grief and death since human beings started expressing themselves musically; there is hardly any culture on our planet that does not have a musical aspect to its funeral rites. It has also been a perennial topic of art music, not just in song, madrigal, and sacred genres such as cantata or passion but even in instrumental music particularly since the Romantic age. This chapter describes functions and structural means of musical engagement with death, focusing on Western art music. It will discuss a range of theoretical approaches including Philip Tagg’s identification of “traditional” Western markers of funereal music, Martin Lodge’s classification of death-related musical functions, Sebastian Leikert’s psychoanalytical interpretation of music’s cathartic capacities, and others. Martin Spitzer’s analysis of emotion in music informs the look at how music engages with these functions. While grief is a central reaction to death, it rarely is the only one—funereal music often engages with a range of emotions, serving several functions at once such as celebrating a deceased’s achievements or being part of a succession rite. However, in the vast majority of cases grief and consolation remain the focal points around which many other emotions and functions coalesce.

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Grief, Identity, and the Arts

A Multidisciplinary Perspective on Expressions of Grief

Series: Death in History, Culture, and Society, Volume: 1

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004158719

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 15 Nov 2022

Subjects

Front Matter

Part 1 Collective Religious Identities

Part 2 Personal Religious Identities

Part 3 National Identities

Part 4 Family Identities/The Inner Circle

Part 5 Social/Societal Identities

Part 6 Identities of a Genre/Artistic Identity

Back Matter

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African Studies	Education	Media Studies
American Studies	History	Middle East and Islamic Studies
Ancient Near East and Egypt	Human Rights and Humanitarian Law	Musicology
Art History	International Law	Philosophy
Asian Studies	International Relations	Religious Studies
Biblical Studies	Jewish Studies	Slavic and Eurasian Studies
Biology	Languages and Linguistics	Social Sciences
Book History and Cartography	Life Sciences	Theology and World Christianity
Classical Studies	Literature and Cultural Studies

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Chapter 17 Musical Representations of Grief and Death

Abstract

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Grief, Identity, and the Arts

A Multidisciplinary Perspective on Expressions of Grief

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