MUSIC AND MORALITY: Messiah’s Tainted Glory? Philosophical Aspects of a Musicological Quarrel on Alleged Anti-Semitism in Handel’s Oratorio
Journal Title: Miscellanea Anthropologica et Sociologica - Year 2015, Vol 16, Issue 3
Abstract
In this paper I reconstruct M. Marissen’s claim that G.F. Handel’s Messiah (HWV 56) conveysa palpable anti-Judaist message, in order to critically examine P. Kivy’s negative responseto it. What Marissen describes as ‘anti-Judaism’ are clear cases of anti-Semitism,according to Kivy’s definitions. Kivy claims that in order to discover how a musical artifactcan possess a meaning (an anti-Semitic one) it should be made clear how a human artifactin general can possess it. In the critical part of the paper, I argue that the Gricean model advancedby Kivy does not fulfill this condition; namely, it fails to provide a correct analysis ofthe meaning of an artwork (which in this case is a Baroque oratorio). I point out, however,that after some reformulation of Kivy’s arguments it is possible to salvage their core. The intentionalistconditions originally placed on meaning should now be regarded as conditionsof guilt. After this reformulation, even though the librettist and the composer can safely befound not guilty of anti-Semitism, the theological, musicological and moral inquiry on theOratorio’s meaning must still be considered in a broader interpretive horizon.
Authors and Affiliations
Jan Czarnecki
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