Re-creating the sacred: Romantic aesthetics in sacred contexts in the late 19th century

The late nineteenth century saw a widening in the gap between the style of music written in a sacred context and that written in a secular context. While in previous time periods music written in a sacred context could be stylistically similar to that written in a secular context, the late nineteenth century saw the establishment of highly contrasting expectations, goals, and stylistic characteristics for sacred as opposed to secular idioms. Composers who desired to write in both sacred and secular idioms were thus forced to find a way to bridge this stylistic gap. The strategies which each composer chose to employ illuminate both specific characteristics of that composer’s music and also the overall contexts in which sacred music was written in the nineteenth century. This study attempts to explore this thesis through the sacred works of Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, and Anton Bruckner.