Sonorous Sublimes: An Introduction

Abstract

The sublime -that elusive encounter with overwhelming height, power or limits -has had a long relationship with music, from the early-modern rise of interest in the Longinian sublime to its saturation of European culture in the later nineteenth century and beyond. Music sits in productive tension with the sublime in many foundational texts. 1 Yet sustained attention to this relationship has been relatively uncommon. Scholars in other fields have called for a moratorium on studies of the sublime, yet there are remarkably few books dedicated to the sublime and music. 2 Drawing together perspectives from musicology, sound studies, literary studies, intellectual history and theology, this collection offers a perspective on music that responds to current understandings of the sublime as a pre-disciplinary category traversing the arts, sciences and humanities. 3 It covers the period of the European revival of the sublime, from