Musical Heaven and Heavenly Music: At the Crossroads of Liturgical Music and Mystical Texts

Abstract

The following study concentrates on the relationship between liturgy, visionary space, and the theoretical implications of music as cosmological order in the medieval mystical tradition. It examines musical instances in mystical accounts by elucidating the ways in which mystical texts engage with music and dance as something that forms a bridge to the celestial realm. Performance aspects of mystical accounts can be seen as part of a creative reception of the scriptures, especially when embedded in ceremonial acts such as the liturgy. In mystical texts, musical sound is used to represent and reproduce the theoretically ineffable union between soul and God. Mapping between source material from medieval Germany, especially focusing on the mystic Christina of Hane, and medieval music theory, it becomes apparent how scholastic and theological ideas were negotiated, reshaped, and developed in the monastic practice.