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Description of  The Theology of Handel's 'Messiah,' Beethoven's 'Credo,' and Verdi's 'Dies Irae': How Listening to Sung Theology Leads to the Contemplation of God

In pieces of music setting biblical or liturgical texts, the musical connections of one passage or one movement to another also connect to one another the texts that they set. This book's analyses show how the composers' melodic, harmonic and structural events work on and determine the ideas and images in the texts. The goal is to point to the 'heard theology' that becomes available when listeners pay attention to the musical relationships and their impact on the contemplation of God.