The Spirituality of Mozart's Mass in C Minor, Bach's Mass in B Minor, and Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time: When Hearing Sacred Music Is Relating to God

This is a musical analyses of three classical religious works that focus on the concept of "relating" to the music as a means of "relating" to God. This book is based around reports from people who have listened to certain pieces of sacred music and have said that hearing the music is itself an encounter with the divine. While listening to the music, these people find that relating to the music is a way to relate with God. The music as such becomes inaudible, and disappears into an encounter in which they address and are addressed by God, or the Risen Christ, or the Eternal Infinite. Although many pieces could have been chosen as examples of this kind of hearing and this kind of spirituality, the book takes only three so that it can describe them in considerable detail and depth. These pieces of music are: "Three Movements" from Mozart's "Mass in C Minor", the resurrection music from Bach's "Mass in B Minor", and Oliver Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time".