Aural Architectures of the Divine

Sacred spaces establish the setting for religious ceremonies in which music, the spoken word and other sounds play a central role. The structure and furnishing of holy places create specific acoustics which affect the spiritual soundspace. Conversely, ritual and music influence their architecture and decoration. In what ways do aural architectures of different historical, geographical and cultural settings differ or coincide? And to which extent can digital technologies provide new insights into the spatial-sonic dimension of divine rituals of the past? The book investigates the interplay of sacred spaces, sound and rites in transcultural perspectives from ancient to premodern times. Tobias C. Weißmann is a senior researcher and lecturer at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. His scholarship focuses on the intermediality of music, painting and architecture, the social, political and religious functions of music, sensory studies and digital humanities. Klaus Pietschmann is Professor of Musicology at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. His research ranges from the social, institutional, and theological dimensions of sacred music to digital musicology and seventeenth- to nineteenth-century opera.