Music and the Early Modern Imagination – serie

Burdened by famine, the plague, and economic hardship in the 1500s, the troubled citizens of Milan, mindful of their mortality, turned toward the veneration of the Virgin Mary and the creation of evangelical groups in her name. By 1594 the diversity of these lay religious organizations reflected in microcosm the varied expressions of Marian devotion in the Italian peninsula. Using archival documents, meditation and music books, and iconographical sources, Christine Getz examines the role of music in these Marian cults and confraternities in order to better understand the Church's efforts at using music to evangelize outside the confines of court and cathedral through its most popular saint. Getz reveals how the private music making within these cults, particularly among women, became the primary mode through which the Catholic Church propagated its ideals of femininity and motherhood.

A defining moment in Catholic life in early modern Europe, Holy Week brought together the faithful to commemorate the passion, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In this study of ritual and music, Robert L. Kendrick investigates the impact of the music used during the Paschal Triduum on European cultures during the mid-16th century, when devotional trends surrounding liturgical music were established; through the 17th century, which saw the diffusion of the repertory at the height of the Catholic Reformation; and finally into the early 18th century, when a change in aesthetics led to an eventual decline of its importance. By considering such issues as stylistic traditions, trends in scriptural exegesis, performance space, and customs of meditation and expression, Kendrick enables us to imagine the music in the places where it was performed.

In Italy during the late cinquecento, printed music could be found not only in the homes of the wealthy or the music professional, but also in lay homes, courts, and academies. No longer confined to the salons of the elite, music took on the role of social play and recreation. Paul Schleuse examines these new musical forms through a study of the music books of Italian priest, poet, and composer, Orazio Vecchi. Composed for minor patrons and the wider music-buying public, Vecchi's madrigals took as their subjects game-playing, drinking, hunting, battles, and the life of the street. Schleuse looks at how music and game-playing allowed singers and performers to play the roles of exemplary pastoral characters and also comic, foreign, and "rustic" others in ways that defined and ultimately reinforced social norms of the times. His findings reposition Orazio Vecchi as one of the most innovative composers of the late 16th century.

English music studies often apply rigid classifications to musical materials, their uses, their consumers, and performers. The contributors to this volume argue that some performers and manuscripts from the early modern era defy conventional categorization as "amateur" or "professional," "native" or "foreign." These leading scholars explore the circulation of music and performers in early modern England, reconsidering previously held ideas about the boundaries between locations of musical performance and practice.

English music studies often apply rigid classifications to musical materials, their uses, their consumers, and performers. The contributors to this volume argue that some performers and manuscripts from the early modern era defy conventional categorization as "amateur" or "professional," "native" or "foreign." These leading scholars explore the circulation of music and performers in early modern England, reconsidering previously held ideas about the boundaries between locations of musical performance and practice.

Musical culture in Jewish communities in early modern Italy was much more diverse than researchers originally thought. An interdisciplinary reassessment, Music and Jewish Culture in Early Modern Italy evaluates the social, cultural, political, economic, and religious circumstances that shaped this community, especially in light of the need to recognize individual experiences within minority populations. Contributors draw from rich materials, topics, and approaches as they explore the inherently diverse understandings of music in daily life, the many ways that Jewish communities conceived of music, and the reception of and responses to Jewish musical culture. Highlighting the multifaceted experience of music within Jewish communities, Music and Jewish Culture in Early Modern Italy sheds new light on the place of music in complex, previously misunderstood environments.

Musical culture in Jewish communities in early modern Italy was much more diverse than researchers originally thought. An interdisciplinary reassessment, Music and Jewish Culture in Early Modern Italy evaluates the social, cultural, political, economic, and religious circumstances that shaped this community, especially in light of the need to recognize individual experiences within minority populations. Contributors draw from rich materials, topics, and approaches as they explore the inherently diverse understandings of music in daily life, the many ways that Jewish communities conceived of music, and the reception of and responses to Jewish musical culture. Highlighting the multifaceted experience of music within Jewish communities, Music and Jewish Culture in Early Modern Italy sheds new light on the place of music in complex, previously misunderstood environments.

French polymath and savant Marin Mersenne played a pivotal role in the evolution of seventeenth-century musical thought, serving as the central hub of a vast correspondence network and writing prolifically on theology, mathematics, natural philosophy, and music. Yet when it comes to one of the most commonplace early modern assumptions about music – its kinship with rhetoric – Mersenne has received little attention from music scholars, for whom the history of the topic has long centered on figures from the German-speaking world.Challenging this received wisdom, Universal Harmony in the Age of Eloquence uses Mersenne as a case study to broaden our understanding of rhetoric's place in the early modern musical imagination and, conversely, of music's place in the early modern rhetorical imagination. Author André de Oliveira Redwood invites readers to reframe the music–rhetoric relationship from the perspective of Mersenne's world – a world of preachers and scholars, Jesuit classrooms and Minim cloisters, epistolary exchange and learned tomes. Turning to Mersenne's writings, including his ambitious Harmonie universelle, Redwood shows that Mersenne understood music and rhetoric to be mutually informative disciplines joined in the service of instruction, persuasion, and devotion.An important contribution to our understanding of seventeenth-century French musical thought, Universal Harmony in the Age of Eloquence showcases Mersenne's rhetorical thought and offers a new model for interdisciplinary work between music theory, theology, the history of science, and rhetorical studies.

French polymath and savant Marin Mersenne played a pivotal role in the evolution of seventeenth-century musical thought, serving as the central hub of a vast correspondence network and writing prolifically on theology, mathematics, natural philosophy, and music. Yet when it comes to one of the most commonplace early modern assumptions about music – its kinship with rhetoric – Mersenne has received little attention from music scholars, for whom the history of the topic has long centered on figures from the German-speaking world.Challenging this received wisdom, Universal Harmony in the Age of Eloquence uses Mersenne as a case study to broaden our understanding of rhetoric's place in the early modern musical imagination and, conversely, of music's place in the early modern rhetorical imagination. Author André de Oliveira Redwood invites readers to reframe the music–rhetoric relationship from the perspective of Mersenne's world – a world of preachers and scholars, Jesuit classrooms and Minim cloisters, epistolary exchange and learned tomes. Turning to Mersenne's writings, including his ambitious Harmonie universelle, Redwood shows that Mersenne understood music and rhetoric to be mutually informative disciplines joined in the service of instruction, persuasion, and devotion.An important contribution to our understanding of seventeenth-century French musical thought, Universal Harmony in the Age of Eloquence showcases Mersenne's rhetorical thought and offers a new model for interdisciplinary work between music theory, theology, the history of science, and rhetorical studies.

Tonal Space in the Music of Antonio Vivaldi incorporates an analytical study of Vivaldi's style into a more general exploration of harmonic and tonal organization in the music of the late Italian Baroque. The harmonic and tonal language of Vivaldi and his contemporaries, full of curious links between traditional modal thinking and what would later be considered common-practice major-minor tonality, directly reflects the historical circumstances of the shifting attitude toward the conceptualization of tonal space so crucial to Western art music. Vivaldi is examined in a completely new context, allowing both his prosaic and idiosyncratic sides to emerge clearly. This book contributes to a better understanding of Vivaldi's individual style, while illuminating wider processes of stylistic development and the diffusion of artistic ideas in the 18th century.