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This project is a Catholic church located in downtown Blacksburg, VA. Whereas many religious buildings seem to rely heavily on iconography in order to designate the building as sacred, this project explicitly seeks an architectural expression of the liturgy that exists independently, but not necessarily to the exclusion of, iconography. Also present in this investigation is the idea of distilling the architectural ideas from traditional elements of church design and applying them in a more modern context. / Master of Architecture

This thesis contributes to our knowledge of the early (modern) Bohemian musical culture by tracing the musical production and activities at the Jesuit Clementinum college in Prague from its foundation in 1556 to the establishment of the autonomous Bohemian Province in 1623. This analysis draws on original Jesuit archival documents (diaria / diaries, memorial books, catalogi personarum / personnel catalogues, litterae annuae / annual letters, historiographical works of the period) and wider primary sources, which the author interprets within broader socio-cultural and historical realms. Authentic testimonies written in Latin that document musical activities in the Clementinum and the relationship of Prague Jesuits with music are included in the footnotes or in appendices. Individual chapters seek to illustrate (illustrare) and assess (recensere) the materials investigated from the following points of view: 1) institutional (Order, College, associated sodalities); 2) environmental acoustics (broader sound production within the spaces of the College and the rest of the city); 3) prosopographical (music prefects of the College and of the Marian Congregation); 4) surviving musical sources; 5) ceremonies with musical components (liturgical and paraliturgical ceremonies, graduations, congregational...

The purpose of this thesis is to give an account of the comparable use of dissonance of Palestrina, Lassus, and Victoria through harmonic analysis and statistical comparison, illustrating the stylistic differences among the three composers works. The thesis does. not attempt to cover text setting, melodic construction, ranges, or aesthetic evaluation of composition other than that which pertains to dissonance. The analysis of dissonance was done with primary consideration being given to the vertical structure of the harmony, observing the linear structure only with relation to the approach and resolution of that dissonance.

La confrontation du théâtre et de la liturgie est un lieu commun de la pensée. Il est un motif rhétorique récurrent chez les pères de l’Église pour définir a contrario et par surenchère le bon ethos du chrétien à l’Église. Ce tour de pensée ecclésiastique, typique de la synthèse augustinienne de la rhétorique antique et du christianisme, n’est pas seulement un héritage livresque au XVIIe siècle. Il est particulièrement pertinent à la vue des enjeux auxquels est confrontée l’Église catholique : elle doit répondre aux accusations protestantes, qui traitaient la messe de farce ; le théâtre renouvelé de l’antique se rétablit grâce au soutien du pouvoir, se sédentarise et devient un divertissement régulier. Cette banalité nouvelle fait de la Comédie, aux yeux des augustiniens, le lieu d’une « représentation vive » et continuelle des passions du monde, particulièrement de l’amour et de l’honneur : le théâtre apparaît comme une liturgie inversée. Là où les pratiques de piété sont censées amoindrir les passions et nourrir la foi, le théâtre excite les passions et étouffe l’esprit de prière. La querelle de la moralité au théâtre montre non seulement une concurrence morale, mais aussi psychique et affective. Les deux représentations prétendent susciter la présence d’esprit et « toucher » le cœur, voire lui « imprimer des mouvements ». La messe est qualifiée de « représentation vive du sacrifice de la croix », pendant laquelle le fidèle doit se remémorer vivement le sacrifice christique et sa signification grâce à une lecture allégorique, et se l’appliquer à lui-même. Par la considération et l’accomplissement de cérémonies, par la vocalisation des psaumes, le fidèle est invité à produire des « actes » du cœur pour s’unir à Jésus-Christ. Ce rapport au texte comme trace à suivre, et ce rapport au corps et à la voix comme media pour s’auto-exciter, expliquent pourquoi les comédiens professionnels sont condamnés par les dévots : ils excitent en eux les passions contraires à l’Esprit saint, ils rappellent des sentiments qu’un pénitent ne pourrait pas se remémorer sans « horreur ». La « représentation » est alors conçue comme un effort de remémoration.Le rétablissement du théâtre à l’antique nécessitait un discours pour en éclairer les visées et en légitimer l’existence dans une société chrétienne et monarchique. Traduire la mimesis aristotélicienne par « représentation » plutôt que par « imitation » rendait le théâtre beaucoup plus proche de la liturgie et lui ajoutait les connotations de vue, de présence et de mémoire. Le débat entre plaire et instruire est un débat entre théâtre-divertissement et théâtre-cérémonie. Incomber au théâtre la fonction d’instruire, c’était le rapprocher d’une prédication et de la messe, car instruire, signifiait instruire chrétiennement. L’échec de sanctification du théâtre des années 1640 fit conclure à une incompatibilité du théâtre avec la folie et la modestie chrétienne, mais la possibilité d’une instruction civique par le théâtre émerge à la fin du siècle. Le théâtre participe de la construction d’une morale laïque. / The confrontation between liturgy and theater is a topos of the discourses which reveal deeply-rooted issues of representation in the seventeenth century. This commonplace had been a recurrent rhetorical device in the patristic sermons, where it emphasized the differences between Christianity and paganism. It is vigorously reactivated in seventeenth-century France as the Catholic Church faces its Calvinist critics, who accuse mass of being a comedy. Profane theater becomes a regular and professional kind of entertainment in the city and at the court, thanks to the protection of the royal power. This is why it is seen by Augustinians as a recurrent “lively representation” of the values of the world, such as love and honor, which are contradictory to the celestial Christian spirit. Treatises against Comedy written by Christian zealots reveal not only a moral, but also an emotional and psychological competition between liturgical practices and theater. Both “representations” try to force the presence of the mind and to touch, or even to print, the heart. The mass is then qualified as the “lively representation” of the Passion of the Christ, during which Catholic prayers must commemorate the mystery of divine sacrifice. By considering and acting out ceremonies, by vocalizing prayers, the believer is invited to produce certain acts of the heart and to unite with Christ, applying the Christ’s sacrifice to himself. Thus, the believer can be assimilated to an existential comedian on the divine stage : he actively involves his sensibility in the imitation of the great Christian model, by entering into the spirit of the psalms. This relationship to the text as a vestige to follow, this use of the voice and the body as mediums to excite devotion, explain the condemnation of the professional comedian by the Christian zealots (dévots). Indeed, the comedian is seen as someone who excites his own passions, playing a dangerous game with his heart and reminding himself of former worldly passions which can only lessen his faith.The reestablishment of theater questions the legitimacy, the definition and the goals of this art in a Christian society. Translating mimesis by “representation” and not “imitation” brought the theater closer to the liturgy. The discourses on theater in the 1620s and 1630s show that the authors tended to see a memorial, reiterative and visual dimension in theater that was not present in Aristotle. The debates finally conclude on the definition of theater as an honest form of entertainment rather than as a living form of instruction, namely because the latter was the responsibility of predication and mass. Saint Thomas could justify theater as a way of merely releasing the mind without interesting the heart or touching the soul ; at that time, indeed, instruction meant Christian instruction. In the 1640s, to please the devout Spanish queen Anne of Austria, several playwrights did attempt to call back the theater to its former institutional position by assimilating it with religious ceremony and creating sanctified tragedies. But this attempt failed for both poetic and political reasons. The disposition of the spectators in the city was not to be instructed. The theater was finally recognized as incompatible with Christian folly and modesty, but slowly participated in the formation of a secular morality in a new civic sphere.