Mystical Love in the German Baroque: Theology, Poetry, Music (Contextual Bach Studies)

This book identifies the cultural and devotional conventions underlying expressions of mystical love in poetry and music of the German baroque. It sheds new light on the seemingly erotic overtones in settings of the Song of Songs and dialogues between Christ and the faithful soul in late 17th- and early 18th-century cantatas by SchYtz, Buxtehude, and J.S. Bach.