Image and eloquence: secular song

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521792738.013

12 - Image and eloquence: secular song

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008

Margaret Murata

Edited by

Tim Carter and

John Butt

Show author details

Tim Carter: Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
John Butt: Affiliation:
University of Glasgow

Book contents

Get access

Summary

In ceremonies such as a Mass of thanksgiving or the performance of a royal birthday ode, the music embraces the aims of the event as a whole, whether trumpets are playing simple tattoos or the best soprano warbles the verse of the court poet. Such public displays could proclaim and reinforce political and social hierarchies in many ways, at the very least by confirming the prestige of the employer–patrons of those who made the music. Yet even in the largest cities of Europe, such public performances would have been fairly rare occasions. What of more ordinary and personal music-making: the servant singing as she washes linens, or the Dutch merchant’s wife at her keyboard? Samuel Pepys singing Carissimi to his guitar, or castratos singing love-duets in a palatial but private performance? What we call secular vocal music comes from all social classes and includes traditional songs, popular songs, and music to the newest poetry; music written down as well as music learnt only by ear; tunes sung to oneself, sung with friends or accompanied by a professional instrumental ensemble.

General surveys have tended not to explore such diversity in seventeenth-century music-making and have typically been content to open the new century by calling attention to a shift from singing in parts to accompanied solo song. For the period roughly between 1580 and 1620 one finds comparisons drawn between the ‘old’ unaccompanied polyphonic madrigal (and its presumed emphasis on counterpoint) on the one hand, and on the other, the solo madrigal with continuo accompaniment (and its presumed homophony).

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Music
, pp. 378 - 425

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521792738.013 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adam, W. (ed.), Geselligkeit und Gesellschaft im Barockzeitalter. 2 vols, Wiesbaden, 1997 Google Scholar

Agamennone, M., ‘Cantar l’ottava’. In Kezich, I poeti contadini

Albert, H., RechteHeyrats-Kunst bey hochzeitlichen Ehren-Frewden des …Herrn Christoff Pohlen … und …Ursulen [Stangenwald] (Königsberg, 1650); facs. in Sämtliche Gelegenheitskompositionen (Stuttgart, 2001).Google Scholar

Assenza, C., La canzonetta dal 1570 al 1615. Lucca, 1997 Google Scholar

Austern, L. P., ‘“For Love’s a good musician”: Performance, Audition, and Erotic Disorders in Early Modern Europe’. Musical Quarterly, 82 (1998)CrossRef Google Scholar

Braun, W., ‘ Concordia discors: Zur geselligen Musikkultur im 17. Jahrhundert’. In Adam, (ed.), Geselligkeit und Gesellschaft im Barockzeitalter, i:

Brednich, R. W., Die Liedpublizistik im Flugblatt des 15. bis 17. Jahrhunderts. 2 vols, Baden-Baden

Buijsen, E., and Grijp, L. P. (eds), Music and Painting in the Golden Age. Zwolle, 1994 Google Scholar

Butt, J., Music Education and the Art of Performance in the German Baroque. Cambridge, 1994 CrossRef Google Scholar

Caluori, E., The Cantatas of Luigi Rossi: Analysis and Thematic Index. 2 vols, Ann Arbor, 1981 Google Scholar

Carter, T., ‘Giulio Caccini’s Amarilli, mia bella: Some Questions (and a Few Answers)’. Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 113 (1988)CrossRef Google Scholar

Carter, T., Music in Late Renaissance and Early Baroque Italy. London, 1992 Google Scholar

Cavallini, I., ‘Sugli improvvisatori del Cinque–Seicento: persistenze, nuovi repertori e qualche riconoscimento’. Recercare, 1 (1989)Google Scholar

Cecchi, P., ‘Le “cantade a voce sola” (1633) di Giovanni Felice Sances’. Rassegna veneta di studi musicali (1989–90)Google Scholar

Collaer, P., ‘Lyrisme baroque et tradition populaire’. Studia musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungariae, 7 (1965)Google Scholar

Corkine, W. Second Book of Ayres (London, 1612; repr. 1977).Google Scholar

Craig-Mcfeely, J., ‘The Signifying Serpent: Seduction by Cultural Stereotype in Seventeenth-Century England’. In Austern, L. P. (ed.), Music, Sensation, and Sensuality. New York and London, 2002 Google Scholar

Dewald, J., Aristocratic Experience and the Origins of Modern Culture: France, 1570–1715. Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford, 1993 Google Scholar

Doughtie, E. (ed.), Lyrics from English Airs, 1596–1622. Cambridge, MA, 1970 CrossRef Google Scholar

Durosoir, G., L’air de cour en France, 1571–1655. Liège, 1991 Google Scholar

Durosoir, G., La musique vocale profane au XVIIe siècle. Paris, 1994 Google Scholar

Fenlon, I., and Carter, T. (eds), ‘Con che soavità’: Studies in Italian Opera, Song, and Dance, 1580–1740. Oxford, 1995 Google Scholar

Fischlin, D., ‘The Performance Context of the English Lute Song, 1596–1622’. In Coelho, V. A. (ed.), Performance on Lute, Guitar, and Vihuela. Cambridge, 1997 Google Scholar

Freitas, R., ‘Singing and Playing: the Italian Cantata and the Rage for Wit’. Music and Letters, 82 (2001)CrossRef Google Scholar

Harper, A. J., ‘Everyday Life and Social Reality in the German Song of the Seventeenth Century’. In Parente, J. A. jr., and Schade, R. E. (eds), Studies in German and Scandinavian Literature after 1500: a Festschrift for George C. Schoolfield. Columbia, SC, 1993 Google Scholar

Harper, A. J., ‘Gesellige Lieder, poetischer Status und Stereotypen im Barockzeitalter’. In Adam, (ed.), Geselligkeit und Gesellschaft im Barockzeitalter, ii:

Hill, J. W., Roman Monody, Cantata, and Opera from the Circles around Cardinal Montalto. 2 vols, Oxford, 1997 Google Scholar

Hitchcock, H. W., ‘Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Vocal Chamber Music’. Historical Performance, 1 (1988)Google Scholar

Hudson, R., The Folia, the Saraband, the Passacaglia, and the Chaconne: the Historical Evolution of Four Forms that Originated in Music for the Five-Course Spanish Guitar. 4 vols, American Institute of Musicology, 1982 Google Scholar

Huppert, G., Les bourgeois gentilshommes. Chicago and London, 1977 Google Scholar

Huygens, C., Pathodia sacra et profana (Paris, 1647), ed. Noske, F. (Amsterdam, 1957; repr. 1976).Google Scholar

Johnson, W. R., The Idea of Lyric: Lyric Modes in Ancient and Modern Poetry. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1982 Google Scholar

Jorgens, E. B. (ed.), English Song, 1600–1675 (NewYork and London, 1986–7), xi; in Callon, G. J. (ed.), Songs with Theorbo (ca. 1650–1663), ‘Recent Researches in Music of the Baroque Era’, 105 (Madison, WI, 2000). , Jorgens (ed.), English Song, 1600–1675, ii; ed. Cofone, C. J. F. (New York, 1975).Google Scholar

Jurgens, M. (ed.), Documents du Minutier Central concernant l’histoire de la musique (1600–1650). 2 vols, Paris, 1974 Google Scholar

Kezich, G., I poeti contadini. Rome, 1986 Google Scholar

Kross, S., Geschichte des deutschen Liedes. Darmstadt, 1989 Google Scholar

Kyrova, M., ‘Music in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting’. In Buijsen, and Grijp, (eds), Music and Painting in the Golden Age

Leopold, S., ‘Al modo d’Orfeo’: Dichtung und Musik im italienischen Sologesang des frühen 17. Jahrhunderts, ‘Analecta musicologica’, 29. 2 vols, Laaber, 1995 Google Scholar

Leopold, S., ‘Remigio Romano’s Collection of Lyrics’. Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 110 (1983–4)CrossRef Google Scholar

Mabbett, M., ‘Le connessioni stilistiche tra l’Ottavo Libro di Monteverdi ed il madrigale avant-garde a Vienna’. In Colzani, Alberto et al. (eds), Il madrigale oltre il madrigale: dal Barocco al Novecento; destino di una forma e problemi di analisi. Como, 1994 Google Scholar

Massip, C., L’art de bien chanter: Michel Lambert (1610–1696). Paris, 1999 Google Scholar

Menestrier, C.-F., L’art des emblemes ou s’enseigne la morale par les figures de la fable, de l’histoire & de la nature. Paris, 1684; repr. Mittenwald, 1981 Google Scholar

Mischiati, O., Indici, cataloghi e avvisi degli editori e librai musicali italiani dal 1591 al 1798, ‘Studi e testi per la storia della musica’, 2. Florence, 1984 Google Scholar

Motley, M., Becoming a French Aristocrat: the Education of the Court Nobility, 1580–1715. Princeton, 1990 CrossRef Google Scholar

Murata, M., ‘“Singing”, “Acting” and “Dancing” in Vocal Chamber Music of the Early Seicento’. Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music, 9/1 (2003) <http://www.sscmjscm.org/jscm/v9/no1/Murata.html>Google Scholar

Perella, L., ‘Bénigne de Bacilly and the Recueil des plus beaux vers, qui on esté mis en chant of 1661’. In Orden, K. (ed.), Music and the Cultures of Print. New York and London, 2000 Google Scholar

Porter, W. V., ‘Lamenti recitativi da camera’. In Fenlon, and Carter, (eds), ‘Con che soavità’

Rasch, R. A., ‘The Editors of the Livre septième ’. In Schreurs, E. and Vanhulst, H. (eds), Music Printing in Antwerp and Europe in the 16th Century, ‘Yearbook of the Alamire Foundation’, 2. Leuven, 1997 Google Scholar

Simpson, C. M., The British Broadside Ballad and its Music. New Brunswick, NJ, 1966 Google Scholar

Smith, B. R., The Acoustic World of Early Modern England: Attending to the O-factor. Chicago and London, 1999 Google Scholar

Spink, I., English Song from Dowland to Purcell. London, 1974 Google Scholar

Spink, I. (ed.), The Blackwell History of Music in Britain, iii: The Seventeenth Century. Oxford, 1992 Google Scholar

Stein, L. K., Songs of Mortals, Dialogues of the Gods: Music and Theatre in Seventeenth-Century Spain. Oxford, 1993 Google Scholar

Steinheuer, J., ‘ Fare la ninnananna: Das Wiegenlied als volkstümlicher Topos in der italienischen Kunstmusik des 17. Jahrhunderts’. Recercare, 9 (1997)Google Scholar

Strunk, O., Source Readings in Music History, Revised Edition, iv: The Baroque Era, ed. Murata, M.. New York and London, 1998 Google Scholar

Toft, R., ‘Tune thy musicke to thy hart’: the Art of Eloquent Singing in England, 1597–1622. Toronto, Buffalo and London, 1993 Google Scholar

Walls, P., ‘London, 1603–49’. In Price, C. (ed.), The Early Baroque Era: from the Late Sixteenth Century to the 1660s, ‘Man and Music’, 3. London, 1993 Google Scholar

Ward, J. M., ‘And Who but Ladie Greensleeves?’. In Caldwell, J., Olleson, E. and Wollenberg, S. (eds), The Well-Enchanting Skill: Music, Poetry, and Drama in the Culture of the Renaissance; Essays in Honour of F. W. Sternfeld. Oxford, 1990 Google Scholar

Weller, D. P., Jan Miense Molenaer, Painter of the Dutch Golden Age. New York and Manchester, VT, 2002 Google Scholar

Whenham, J., ‘“Aria” in the Madrigals of Giovanni Rovetta’. In Fenlon, and Carter, (eds), ‘Con che soavità;’

Wilson, J. (ed.), Roger North on Music, Being a Selection of his Essays Written during the Years c. 1695–1728. London, 1959 Google Scholar

Würzbach, N., The Rise of the English Street Ballad, 1550–1650, trans. Walls, G.. Cambridge, 1990 Google Scholar

Book contents

12 - Image and eloquence: secular song

Summary

Access options

References

Save book to Kindle

Save book to Dropbox

Save book to Google Drive