Musical Spirituality: Reflections on Identity and the Ethics of Embodied Aesthetic Experience in/and the Academy

by Deanne Bogdan

Music in/and My Life

Several years ago, I attended a Pontifical High Mass at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. It was the feast of the Epiphany, a public holiday in the predominantly Roman Catholic country of Austria.1 A "lapsed" Catholic myself, my intention as part of the congregation that day was not primarily one of worship as it was to listen to a performance of the Pauckenmesse of Joseph Haydn, complete with soloists, full choir, and orchestra (in overcoats), including, of course, timpani.