Presented to you through Paradigm Publishing Services
Boydell & Brewer
Book
Licensed
Unlicensed
Requires Authentication
Music, Myth and Story in Medieval and Early Modern Culture
-
Edited by:
-
With contributions by:
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2019
About this book
The complex relationship between myths and music is here investigated.
Myths and stories offer a window onto medieval and early modern musical culture. Far from merely offering material for musical settings, authoritative tales from classical mythology, ancient history and the Bible were treated as foundations for musical knowledge. Such myths were cited in support of arguments about the uses, effects, morality and preferred styles of music in sources as diverse as theoretical treatises, defences or critiques of music, art, sermons, educational literature and books of moral conduct. Newly written literary stories too were believed capable of moral instruction and influence, and were a medium through which ideas about music could be both explored and transmitted. How authors interpreted and weaved together these traditional stories, or created their own, reveals much about changing attitudes across the period.
Looking beyond the well-known figure of Orpheus, this collection explores the myriad stories that shaped not only musical thought, but also its styles, techniques and practices. The essays show that music itself performed and created knowledge in ways parallel to myth, and worked in tandem with old and new tales to construct social, political and philosophical views. This relationship was not static, however; as the Enlightenment dawned, the once authoritative gods became comic characters and myth became a medium forridicule. Overall, the book provides a foundation for exploring myth and story throughout medieval and early modern culture, and facilitating further study into the Enlightenment and beyond.
KATHERINE BUTLER is a seniorlecturer in music at Northumbria University; SAMANTHA BASSLER is a musicologist of cultural studies, a teaching artist, and an adjunct professor in the New York metropolitan area.
Contributors: Jamie Apgar, Katie Bank, Samantha Bassler, Katherine Butler, Elina G. Hamilton, Sigrid Harris, Ljubica Ilic, Erica Levenson, John MacInnis, Patrick McMahon, Aurora Faye Martinez, Jacomien Prins, Tim Shephard, Jason Stoessel, Férdia J. Stone-Davis, Amanda Eubanks Winkler.
Myths and stories offer a window onto medieval and early modern musical culture. Far from merely offering material for musical settings, authoritative tales from classical mythology, ancient history and the Bible were treated as foundations for musical knowledge. Such myths were cited in support of arguments about the uses, effects, morality and preferred styles of music in sources as diverse as theoretical treatises, defences or critiques of music, art, sermons, educational literature and books of moral conduct. Newly written literary stories too were believed capable of moral instruction and influence, and were a medium through which ideas about music could be both explored and transmitted. How authors interpreted and weaved together these traditional stories, or created their own, reveals much about changing attitudes across the period.
Looking beyond the well-known figure of Orpheus, this collection explores the myriad stories that shaped not only musical thought, but also its styles, techniques and practices. The essays show that music itself performed and created knowledge in ways parallel to myth, and worked in tandem with old and new tales to construct social, political and philosophical views. This relationship was not static, however; as the Enlightenment dawned, the once authoritative gods became comic characters and myth became a medium forridicule. Overall, the book provides a foundation for exploring myth and story throughout medieval and early modern culture, and facilitating further study into the Enlightenment and beyond.
KATHERINE BUTLER is a seniorlecturer in music at Northumbria University; SAMANTHA BASSLER is a musicologist of cultural studies, a teaching artist, and an adjunct professor in the New York metropolitan area.
Contributors: Jamie Apgar, Katie Bank, Samantha Bassler, Katherine Butler, Elina G. Hamilton, Sigrid Harris, Ljubica Ilic, Erica Levenson, John MacInnis, Patrick McMahon, Aurora Faye Martinez, Jacomien Prins, Tim Shephard, Jason Stoessel, Férdia J. Stone-Davis, Amanda Eubanks Winkler.
Author / Editor information
Contributor: Katherine Butler
KATHERINE BUTLER is Senior Lecturer in Music, Northumbria University. She is the author of Music in Elizabethan Court Politics (2015 and 2019).
---
Contributor: Katherine Butler
KATHERINE BUTLER is Senior Lecturer in Music, Northumbria University. She is the author of Music in Elizabethan Court Politics (2015 and 2019).
Topics
-
Download PDFPublicly Available
Frontmatter
i -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Contents
v -
Download PDFPublicly Available
List of Illustrations
vii -
Download PDFPublicly Available
List of Contributors
x -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Editors’ Note
xiv -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Introduction
1 - I. Myth in Medieval Music Theory and Philosophy
-
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
1. Music and the Myth of Apollo’s Grove
17 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
2. The Consolation of Philosophy and the ‘Gentle’ Remedy of Music
32 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
3. And in England, There are Singers: Grafting Oneself into the Origins of Music
46 - II. Iconologies of Music and Myth
-
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
4. The Harmonious Blacksmith, Lady Music and Minerva: The Iconography of Secular Song in the Late Middle Ages
63 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
5. Foolish Midas: Representing Musical Judgement and Moral Judgement in Italy c.1520
87 - III. Myths in Renaissance Philosophies of Music
-
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
6. Marsilio Ficino and Girolamo Cardano under Orpheus’s Spell
107 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
7. Origin Myths, Genealogies and Inventors: Defining the Nature of Music in Early Modern England
124 - IV. Myth and Musical Practice
-
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
8. How to Sing like Angels: Isaiah, Ignatius of Antioch and Protestant Worship in England
141 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
9. In Pursuit of Echo: Sound, Space and the History of the Self
156 - V. Narratives of Performance
-
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
10. Ophelia’s Mad Songs and Performing Story in Early Modern England
169 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
11. Dangerous Beauty: Stories of Singing Women in Early Modern Italy
195 - VI. Myth and Music as Forms of Knowledge
-
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
12. ‘Fantastic Spirits’: Myth and Satire in the Ayres of Thomas Weelkes
215 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
13. Feeling Fallen: A Re-telling of the Biblical Myth of the Fall in a Musical Adaptation of Marvell’s ‘A Dialogue between Thyrsis and Dorinda’
232 - VII. Re-imagining Myths and Stories for the Stage
-
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
14. ‘Armida’s Picture we from Tasso Drew’?: The Rinaldo and Armida Story in Late Seventeenthand Early Eighteenth-Century English Operatic Entertainments
249 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
15. Translating Myth Through Tunes: Ebenezer Forrest’s Ballad Opera Adaptation of Louis Fuzelier’s Momus Fabuliste (1719–29)
267 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Bibliography
285 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Index
313
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
January 23, 2024
eBook ISBN:
9781787444409
Original publisher:
Boydell Press
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781787444409
Keywords for this book
Music; Myth; Story; Medieval; Early Modern; Classical Mythology; Musical Knowledge; Art; Sermons; Educational Literature; Moral Conduct; Enlightenment
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
