Description
Book SynopsisNew essays by noted authorities on music and related arts in early modern Italy, giving special attention to musical sources, poetry, performance, and visual arts. The rich cultural environment of early modern Italy inspired a vast array of musical innovations: this was the first age of the virtuoso performer, the era that witnessed the beginnings of opera, and a moment that saw the intersection and cross-fertilization of madrigals and songs of all sorts. Word, Image, and Song: Essays on Early Modern Italy presents a broad range of approaches to the study of music and related arts in that era. Topics include musical source studies, issues of performance, poetry and linguistics, influences on music from the classical tradition, and the interconnectedness of music and visual art. Their points of departure include well-known musical workssuch as Monteverdi's madrigals, librettos of seventeenth-century operas, the poetry of Giambattista Marino, and the paintings of Titian and his contemporaries. Contributors: Jennifer Williams Brown, Mauro Calcagno, Alan Curtis, Suzanne G. Cusick, Ruth I. DeFord, Dinko Fabris, Beth L. Glixon, Jonathan E. Glixon, Barbara Russano Hanning, Wendy Heller, Robert R. Holzer, Deborah Howard, Giuseppe Mazzotta, Margaret Murata, David Rosand, Susan ParkerShimp, Gary Tomlinson, Alvaro Torrente, Andrew H. Weaver. Rebecca Cypess is Assistant Professor of Music at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Beth L. Glixon is Instructor in Musicology at the University of Kentucky School of Music. Nathan Link is NEH Associate Professor of Music at Centre College.
Trade ReviewAlmost every essay is rooted in seventeenth-century Venice. Nonetheless, the editors have achieved what amounts to a landmark collection of scholarly commentary on the compositional, spatial, visual, hermeneutic, and socio-political power of musical drama in this period. will appeal to scholars across a wide array of disciplines. Encourages a keen reconsideration of documentary sources and the stratified ways in which they can be read, . . . combining empirical analysis with a keen cultural and humanistic perspective. [Cusick's chapter] engages the reader in an old musicological topic made fresh by means of a compelling methodological framework. * MUSIC & LETTERS *
The excellent scholarship, brilliant insights, and fresh and sometimes unconventional thinking in this impressive collection offer a significant contribution to the study of the relationship of music and verbal text in seventeenth-century Italy. Representing modern approaches to questions that in some cases are more than a century old, these essays reflect a harmonious variety of methods, points of view, and interests. --Hendrik Schulze, University of North Texas * . *
Table of ContentsMaria Cavalli, Copyist and Teacher - Jennifer Williams Brown Il ritorno di Poppea: A New German Source Provokes Some New Thoughts-and Old Arguments - Alan Curtis An Unreported Mantuan Libretto from 1623 - Gary Tomlinson The Triumph of Inconstancy: The Vicissitudes of a Seventeenth-Century Libretto - Beth Glixon and Jonathan E. Glixon A Letter on Benedetto Ferrari, "Eccellentissimo sonator di tiorba" - Dinko Fabris Recordings of Music Written for St. Mark's: An Architectural Historian's View - Deborah Howard The Twenty-Two Steps: Clef Anomalies or "Basso alla bastarda" in Mid-Seventeenth-Century Italian Opera - Alvaro Torrente "Indarno chiedi": Clorinda and the Interpretation of Monteverdi's Combattimento - Suzanne G. Cusick The Veil, the Mask, and the Eunuch: Sight, Sound, and Imperial Erotics in L'incoronazione di Poppea - Wendy Heller Baciami, Claudio: Psychological Depth and Carnal Desire in the Marino Settings of Monteverdi's Book Seven - Andrew H. Weaver Powerless Spirit: Echo on the Musical Stage of the Late Renaissance - Barbara Russano Hanning Excavating Virgil in Counter-Reformation Rome: Domenico Mazzocchi's Dialoghi Based on the Aeneid - Susan Parker Shimp Music as a Fonte della varietà: Sforza Pallavicino on the Aria 233Robert R. Holzer - Robert R. Holzer Giambattista Marino's Operatic Aesthetics - Giuseppe Mazzotta Strophic Form in the Canzonettas of Orazio Vecchi, Luca Marenzio, and Claudio Monteverdi - Ruth I. DeFord Cantar ottave, cantar storie - Margaret Murata Dramatizing Discourse in Seventeenth-Century Opera: Music as Illocutionary Force in Francesco Cavalli's Giasone (1649) - Mauro Calcagno Incitamentum amoris musica [picta] - Prof David Rosand Selected Bibliography List of Contributors Index
