Education
Marissen studied music history at Calvin College and received his Doctor of Philosophy from Brandeis University.
Marissen studied music history at Calvin College and received his Doctor of Philosophy from Brandeis University.
He has guest taught on the graduate faculty at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania. In June 2014 Marissen announced that he had retired from active teaching at Swarthmore, although he remains a professor emeritus. Marissen"s most controversial work began as an essay published in The New York Times on Easter Sunday, 8 April 2007, entitled “Unsettling History of That Joyous ‘Hallelujah’", which is the basis for his recently published monograph entitled, Tainted Glory in Handel’s Messiah: The Unsettling History of the World’s Most Beloved Choral Work (Yale University Press, 2014).
The article received a long series of spirited responses, including a follow-up news story in the Times, many letters to the editor, follow-up responses in a wide variety of publications (including from Watergate-figure Chuck Colson and from the religion author Martin East Marty), along with extensive blog and internet newsgroup discussions.
His most recent novel, Bach & God, explores the religious character of Bach"s vocal and instrumental music in seven interrelated essays. Marissen offers wide-ranging interpretive insights from careful biblical and theological scrutiny of the librettos.
Yet he also shows how Bach"s pitches, rhythms, and tone colors can make contributions to a work"s plausible meanings that go beyond setting texts in an aesthetically satisfying manner. In some of Bach"s vocal repertory, the music puts a " learned counterpoint, can powerfully project certain elements of traditional Lutheran theology.
Bach"s music is inexhaustible, and Bach & God suggests that through close contextual study there is always more to discover and learn.
Published by Oxford University Press, it will be released on April 20, 2016. lieutenant is available for pre-order now.