Convent Music and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Vienna

Janet K. Page is Professor of Musicology at the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music at the University of Memphis. Her research explores musical life in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Vienna, performance practice, women and music, and wind instruments and music. Her publications include an edition of the oboe concertos of C. P. E. Bach for the new Complete Works edition, and articles, reviews and reports in Early Music, The Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music, and Eighteenth-Century Music.

'Convent Music and Politics is a valuable contribution to the literature on nuns and music. It intersects with the work of other scholars in the field but also offers a unique perspective on convent music at a particular time and in a particular place. As Monson noted in an important 2002 article on the Council of Trent (Journal of the American Musicological Society, 55), most decisions about musical practice during the Counter-Reformation, including those affecting performance in nunneries, were left up to local authorities. Janet Page's attractive and wellwritten monograph illustrates that point well.' Colleen Reardon, Music and Letters

• Introduction: female convents and music in Vienna, 1650–1785; 1. Columbina in the convent: the music of entrance, clothing, and profession in Viennese convents; 2. Maria Anna von Raschenau and music at the convent of St Jakob auf der Hülben; 3. Court, music, and Counter-Reformation education in an Ursuline convent; 4. 'A virtual picture of Arcadia': musical entertainments for Leopold I and Joseph I; 5. Commedia dell'arte, talking animals, and the three Marys: passion music in Viennese convents; 6. Convents, music, and Habsburg rule in eighteenth-century Vienna; Appendix 1. Plays, oratorios, cantatas, Sepolcri, and Feste teatrali performed in Viennese convents, ca.1660–1774; Appendix 2. Selected documents; Appendix 3. The Habsburgs and their family connections; Appendix 4. Glossary of terms and titles.