Musical composition and mystical spirituality

Mystical and visionary states are often associated with sound and music, from the thoroughly multimedia visions of St Hildegard of Bingen (which reportedly gave rise to her chant compositions) to Margery Kempe’s auditory vision of heavenly melodies and sweet birdsong. As a composer and scholar I am drawn to those who have experienced visions consistently, and written them down systematically. From this starting point, here I examine compositional processes and outcomes of myself and a selection of composers from different times and places (Hildegard of Bingen, François Couperin, Arvo Pärt, Peter Maxwell Davies) through the lens of mystical spirituality. The theoretical frame for this is drawn from literature, in the traditions of both religious studies and musicology, by William James, Albert Blackwell, Jonathan Harvey and Michael Tippet. I interrogate this and other literature (referencing in passing Ivan Moody and Peter Bouteneff) to consider notions of mysticism, spiritual ecstasy, and its musical encoding, for which a semiotic methodology is employed