Spielwerk

Music, in its apparent immateriality, is often elevated to a position of closeness to God, an honour not bestowed upon most other phenomena. The understanding of music hence provides important insights into the relationship between the understanding of the world and the understanding of God which in turn can clarify the relationship between music and religion from the point of view of the philosophy of religion. Using a hermeneutical method of orientation, Stefan Berg undertakes an analysis of the point where religion becomes relevant in the situation of music. In the ontological horizon of Augustine's De musica, religion and music fuse into the unity of the world. In J.-J. Rousseau's thinking, which is focussed on the individual subject, they meet each other as two separate entities. Over and above these two perspectives the situation of music presents itself as a S pielwerk, a specific hermeneutical situation of a musical game. B.A. Zimmermann's Ekklesiastische Aktion is used to show that here music and religion establish a transient relationship to each other, which always is concrete, and limited in time and space.