Music in the Aesthetic Lectures and other Writings of Friedrich Schleiermacher

The paper will discuss Friedrich Schleiermacher’s views on music as expressed in his Lectures on Aesthetics (1819-33), and compare them with his lectures on practical divinity and other writings. Schleiermacher perceived an organic link between music and religion. In On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (1799), he used the term “music of religion” when discussing the nature of his religious feelings, and described a “language of the heart” that linked human and religious affections. The paper will also discuss Schleiermacher’s views on music in the context of German Romanticism in his efforts to explain the centrality of music and religion.