Musical symbols of the ephemera – eternal dichotomy in the final movement of “Tehillim”by Steve Reich
Musical symbols of the ephemera – eternal dichotomy in the final movement of “Tehillim”by Steve Reich

Summary/Abstract: In my paper I chose to analyse a 20th century work by Steve Reich, a musical setting of psalms in Hebrew language. The dichotomy between the evanescence and the eternal in the last musical part of Tehillim is a hermeneutical aspect that caught my attention because of the artful way in which the composer used augmentation as a symbol of time dilation. Time and rhythm in music are metaphorical images of extra-musical time –the human time in comparison with the divine time. The hermeneutic analysis of the musical texts offers the opportunity to go beyond the harmonic and rhythmic texture, to a spiritual universe whereby the composer argues his choices.

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