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| Title | Theology as a basis for golden section analysis: a model of construction for Johann Sebastian Bach's St. John Passion |
| Author | St. Marie, John S. |
| Author email | stmariemusic@gmail.com;StMarieMusic@gmail.com |
| Degree | Doctor of Musical Arts |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Choral Music |
| School | Thornton School of Music |
| Date defended/completed | 2012-10-16 |
| Date submitted | 2012-11-09 |
| Date approved | 2012-11-09 |
| Restricted until | 2012-11-09 |
| Date published | 2012-11-09 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Strimple, Nick |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Scheibe, Jo-Michael Grases, Christian |
| Abstract | The St. John Passion (BWV 245) is a monumental work by Johann Sebastian Bach in the genre of the oratorio Passion. While significant scholarship on this work exists, including Bach’s use of Divine Proportion or Golden Section principles in his compositions, this paper expands the research by setting forth original theories on how Bach structured the St. John Passion. Bach’s interest in numerology, attention to musical structure, and use of Divine Proportion or Golden Section principles in his compositions are well documented and accepted by scholars. This multi-movement work is analyzed within this paper in terms of phi proportion, showing that phi application by Bach was driven by a theological premise, thereby revealing a formal structure in the St. John Passion that has been unexplored in the scholarship to date. ❧ In determining why Bach may have utilized an unorthodox application of Golden Proportion in this specific piece of music, it was hypothesized that a Lutheran theological precept may have been utilized to create the dimensions explaining the atypical, early break of the St. John Passion. Bach, a consummate church musician, would have put much thought into the creation of his Passion music; scrutinizing the biblical text as he conceptualized his musical setting and giving great care to constructing a work that was theologically sound and relevant to the tradition of the Leipzig churches he was serving. This paper explores the theological understandings of a Lutheran Germany in the eighteenth-century, the history of the Golden Section, and the influence both had on Bach in his composition of the St. John Passion. Based upon both textual and musical considerations, four logical points of departure for the calculation of Golden Section are analyzed in order to demonstrate the plausibility of a theology-informed application of Golden Proportion and that it was such theological thinking that provided the dimensional scaffolding for the structuring of Bach’s masterwork, the St. John Passion. |
| Keyword | golden section; Bach; phi; St. John Passion; passion; divine proportion |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m |
| Rights | St. Marie, John S. |
| Access conditions | The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given. |
| Repository name | University of Southern California Digital Library |
| Repository address | USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 7002, 106 University Village, Los Angeles, California 90089-7002, USA |
| Repository email | cisadmin@usc.edu |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume4/etd-StMarieJoh-1278.pdf |
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