The Transformation of Ritual Space: Berlioz’s “La Grande Messe des Morts” at Tanglewood, by Larry Wallach

The Transformation of Ritual Space: Berlioz’s “La Grande Messe des Morts” at Tanglewood
Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Russell Thomas, tenor
Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutoit, July 9, 2011

Gustave Doré (1832-1883), Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno: The Judecca-Lucifer, wood engraving,1857

For medieval and modern readers, Dante’s Inferno imparts to the after-life a spatial grandeur, a vision of echoing vaults, vast beyond the reaches of terrestrial architecture, filled with souls in various stages of damnation or beatitude.  Our imaginations seem capable of constituting visual and three-dimensional experiences from such partial cues as words on the page or moving images on a screen. Natural locales such as the top of Pike’s Peak or the rim of the Grand Canyon inspire awe, if not vertigo, but provide a different order of experience. Closer to Hell-Purgatory-Heaven, or to the view from the space-ship Enterprise, perhaps, are the interior architectures designed by humans to enclose us in ideological spaces. Chief among these, in the Western historical experience, is the Gothic and post-Gothic cathedral, in which spatial experience is given a precise theological definition.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International journal for the Arts!







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