Heft 04 / Oktober 2016

Zusammenfassung:

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Summary:

The Question of God: A Comparison Between Bach and Handel – This article is an attempt to approach the question, often addressed by researchers but by no means considered resolved, of Bach’s relationship with God. This is attempted by the method of an anthropologically-oriented context analysis of surviving first-hand documents, and the case of Handel is used for comparison. For Bach, God is hierarchically superordinate and ontologically prior to all that exists and all that is possible. He is the basis of all human existence and the purpose of all thought and action. With Handel, the relationship between divine omnipotence and human autonomy is shifted by a gain in inner autonomy for humans, though God, as the basis underlying the order of the existent, remains the final authority. The study concludes with a brief look at Telemann’s understanding of God.

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