Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T14:41:59.153Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Power and display: music in court theatre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Lois Rosow
Edited by
Tim Carter  and
John Butt
Tim Carter
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
John Butt
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow
Get access

Summary

The seventeenth century inherited a well-established tradition of magnificent courtly spectacle. For centuries, European rulers had celebrated special occasions with feasts, tournaments and jousts, and parade-like entries into their domains, all involving spectacular decoration, costume and pageantry. By the latter part of the sixteenth century, particularly under the influence of the Medici court in Florence, such events had developed a vocabulary and set of values that reflected both the Humanist spirit of the age and the growing notion of the prince as the repository of absolute power. From these elements came important new theatrical genres in which music played a central part.

The Medici, and those who emulated them, regarded magnificence as a princely virtue. Lavish spending on building projects and artworks served the state by displaying the monarch’s power and prestige. Moreover, the arts had a special ability to express the court’s values and confirm the importance of politically significant events. Theatrical spectacles brought the arts together. According to the Neoplatonic ideals of the era, poetry, music, dance, painting and architecture, working in harmony, were thought to reflect in microcosm the orderly harmony of the universe, recreated here on earth under the wise and virtuous rule of the prince. Theatrical entertainments were thus an important part of major dynastic celebrations. Though ephemeral, such entertainments were often recorded in lavish detail in commemorative volumes sponsored by the court; the music, too, might sometimes be published. Those who were not privileged to attend could thus experience the event vicariously, in all its magnificence.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Music
, pp. 197 - 240
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

Aercke, K. P., Gods of Play: Baroque Festive Performances as Rhetorical Discourse. Albany, NY, 1994 Google Scholar
Anthony, J. R., French Baroque Music: from Beaujoyeulx to Rameau. Rev. edn, Portland, OR, 1997 Google Scholar
Apostolidès, J.-M., ‘From Roi soleil to Louis le Grand’. In Hollier, D. (ed.), A New History of French Literature. Cambridge, MA, 1989 Google Scholar
Arbeau, T., Orchésographie (Langres, 1588),in McGowan, , L’art du ballet de cour en France.Google Scholar
Barroll, L., ‘Inventing the Stuart Masque’. In Bevington, and Holbrook, (eds), The Politics of the Stuart Court Masque
Becker, H. (ed.), Quellentexte zur Konzeption der europäischen Oper im 17. Jahrhundert. Kassel, 1981 Google Scholar
Benoit, M., ‘Paris, 1661–87: the Age of Lully’. In Price, (ed.), The Early Baroque Era
Bevington, D., and Holbrook, P. (eds), The Politics of the Stuart Court Masque. Cambridge, 1998 Google Scholar
Bianconi, L., Music in the Seventeenth Century, trans. Bryant, D.. Cambridge, 1987 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bianconi, L., and Walker, T., ‘Production, Consumption, and Political Function of Seventeenth-Century Opera’. Early Music History, 4 (1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolduc, B., ‘From Marvel to Camp: Medusa for the Twenty-First Century’. Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music, 10 (2004) <http://sscm-jscm.org/jscm/v10/no1/bolduc.html>Google Scholar
Bouquet-Boyer, M.-T., ‘Les éléments marins dans les spectacles àla cour de Savoie 1585–1628’. In Canova-Green, and Chiarelli, (eds), The Influence of Italian Entertainments on Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Music Theatre in France, Savoy and England
Brown, H. M., ‘How Opera Began: an Introduction to Peri’s Euridice (1600)’. In Cochrane, E. (ed.), The Late Italian Renaissance, 1525–1630. London, 1970 ; reprinted in Rosand, E. (ed.), Garland Library of the History of Western Music, v. New York, 1985 Google Scholar
Burgess, G., ‘The Chaconne and the Representation of Sovereign Power in Lully’s Amadis (1684) and Charpentier’s Medée (1693)’. In McCleave, (ed.), Dance and Music in French Baroque Theatre
Caccini, F., La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola di Alcina (Florence, 1625; repr. 1998), ed. Silbert, D., ‘Smith College Music Archives’, 7 (Northampton, MA, 1945).Google Scholar
Canova-Green, M.-C., and Chiarelli, F. (eds), The Influence of Italian Entertainments on Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Music Theatre in France, Savoy and England, ‘Studies in History and Interpretation of Music’, 68. Lewiston, 2000 Google Scholar
Carter, T., ‘Jacopo Peri’s Euridice (1600): a Contextual Study’. Music Review, 43 (1982); reprinted in Carter, Music, Patronage and Printing in Late Renaissance Florence, Aldershot, 2000 Google Scholar
Carter, T., ‘Lamenting Ariadne?’ Early Music, 27 (1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, T., ‘Rediscovering Il rapimento di Cefalo ’. Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music, 9 (2003) <http://sscm-jscm.org/jscm/v9/no1/Carter.html>Google Scholar
Carter, T., ‘The North Italian Courts’. In Price, (ed.), The Early Baroque Era
Carter, T., Monteverdi’s Musical Theatre. New Haven and London, 2002 Google Scholar
Carter, T., and Szweykowski, Z. M. (eds), Composing Opera: from ‘Dafne’ to ‘Ulisse errante’, ‘Practica musica’, 2. Kraków, 1994 Google Scholar
Christout, M.-F., Le ballet de cour au XVII siècle / The Ballet de Cour in the 17th Century, ‘Iconographie musicale’, 8. Geneva, 1987 Google Scholar
Coeyman, B., ‘Walking through Lully’s Opera Theatre in the Palais-Royal’. In Heyer, (ed.), Lully Studies
Couvreur, M., Jean-Baptiste Lully: musique et dramaturgie au service du prince. Brussels, 1992 Google Scholar
Cusick, S. G., ‘“There Was Not One Lady Who Failed to Shed a Tear”: Arianna’s Lament and the Construction of Modern Womanhood’, Early Music, 22 (1994)Google Scholar
Cusick, S. G., ‘Of Women, Music, and Power: a Model from Seicento Florence’. In Solie, R. (ed.), Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1993 Google Scholar
de Cavalieri, E., Rappresentatione di Anima, et di Corpo (Rome, 1600; repr. Bologna, 1977).Google Scholar
Ducrot, A., ‘Lully créateur de troupe’. XVII siècle (1973)Google Scholar
Fenlon, I., ‘The Mantuan Orfeo ’. In Whenham, (ed.), Claudio Monteverdi: ‘Orfeo’
Fenlon, I., ‘The Origins of the Seventeenth-Century Staged Ballo ’. In Fenlon, I. and Carter, T. (eds), Con che soavità: Studies in Italian Opera, Song, and Dance, 1580–1740. Oxford, 1995 Google Scholar
Fenlon, I., Music and Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Mantua. 2 vols, Cambridge, 1980, 1982 Google Scholar
Franko, M., Dance as Text: Ideologies of the Baroque Body. Cambridge, 1993 Google Scholar
Gordon, B., ‘Talking Back: the Female Voice in Il ballo delle ingrate ’. Cambridge Opera Journal, 11 (1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, J., ‘Entertainments for the Marriages of the Princesses of Savoy in 1608’. In Mulryne, J. R. and Shewring, M. (eds), Italian Renaissance Festivals and Their European Influence. Lewiston, 1992 Google Scholar
Hammond, F., Music and Spectacle in Baroque Rome: Barberini Patronage under Urban VIII. New Haven and London, 1994 Google Scholar
Hanning, B. R., ‘Glorious Apollo: Poetic and Political Themes in the First Opera’. Renaissance Quarterly, 32 (1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanning, B. R., ‘The Ending of L’Orfeo: Father, Son, and Rinuccini’. Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music, 9 (2003) <http://sscm-jscm.org/jscm/v9/no1/Hanning.html>Google Scholar
Hanning, B. R., Of Poetry and Music’s Power: Humanism and the Creation of Opera. Ann Arbor, 1980 Google Scholar
Hansen, J. B., ‘From Invention to Interpretation: the Prologues of the First Court Operas; Where Oral and Written Cultures Meet’. Journal of Musicology, 20 (2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harness, K., ‘ La Flora and the End of Female Rule in Tuscany’. Journal of the American Musicological Society, 51 (1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harness, K., ‘ Le tre Euridice: Characterization and Allegory in the Euridici of Peri and Caccini’. Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music, 9 (2003) <http://sscm-jscm.org/jscm/v9/no1/Harness.html>Google Scholar
Harris-Warrick, R., ‘Magnificence in Motion: Stage Musicians in Lully’s Ballets and Operas’. Cambridge Opera Journal, 6 (1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris-Warrick, R., ‘Recovering the Lullian Divertissement ’. In McCleave, (ed.), Dance and Music in French Baroque Theatre
Heyer, J. H. (ed.), Lully Studies. Cambridge, 2000 Google Scholar
Hill, J. W., ‘Florence: Musical Spectacle and Drama, 1570–1650’. In Price, (ed.), The Early Baroque Era
Holbrook, P., ‘Jacobean Masques and the Jacobean Peace’. In Bevington, and Holbrook, (eds), The Politics of the Stuart Court Masque
Holman, P., ‘Music for the Stage, i: Before the Civil War’. In Spink, I. (ed.), The Blackwell History of Music in Britain, iii: The Seventeenth Century. Oxford, 1988 Google Scholar
Holman, P., Four and Twenty Fiddlers: the Violin at the English Court, 1540–1690, Oxford, 1993 Google Scholar
Howard, S., The Politics of Courtly Dancing in Early Modern England. Amherst, MA, 1998 Google Scholar
Isherwood, R., Music in the Service of the King: France in the Seventeenth Century. Ithaca, 1973 Google Scholar
Kelly, T. F., First Nights: Five Musical Premieres. New Haven and London, 2000 Google Scholar
Kirkendale, W., ‘L’ Aria di Fiorenza’ id est ‘Il Ballo del Granduca’. Florence, 1982 Google Scholar
La Gorce, J., Jean-Baptiste Lully. Paris, 2002 Google Scholar
Landi, S., Il S. Alessio: dramma musicale (Rome, 1634; repr. Bologna, 1970).Google Scholar
Le Leyzour, P., ‘Myth and Enlightenment: on Mythology in the Eighteenth Century’. In Bailey, C. B. (ed.), The Loves of the Gods: Mythological Painting from Watteau to David. New York, 1992 Google Scholar
Legrand, R., ‘ Persée de Lully et Quinault: orientations pour l’analyse dramaturgique d’une tragédie en musique’. Analyse musicale, 27 (April 1992)Google Scholar
Leopold, S., ‘Rome: Sacred and Secular’. In Price, (ed.), The Early Baroque Era
Lully, J.-B., Les Amours déguisés, ed. Anthony, J. R. and Anthony, Harris-Warrick R., in Lully, (Euvres complètes), 1/6 (Hildesheim, 2001).Google Scholar
MacClintock, C., and MacClintock, L., Le ballet comique de la royne, 1581, ‘Musicological Studies and Documents’, 25. American Institute of Musicology, 1971 Google Scholar
MacNeil, A., ‘Weeping at the Water’s Edge’. Early Music, 27 (1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mamone, S., ‘Ladanza di scena negli intermedi fiorentini: 1589–1637’. In Canova-Green, and Chiarelli, (eds), The Influence of Italian Entertainments on Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Music Theatre in France, Savoy and England
Massip, C., ‘Paris, 1600–61’. In Price, (ed.), The Early Baroque Era
McCleave, S. (ed.), Dance and Music in French Baroque Theatre: Sources and Interpretations, ‘Study Texts’, 3. London, 1998 Google Scholar
McGowan, M., L’art du ballet de cour en France, 1581–1643. Paris, 1963 Google Scholar
Menestrier, C.-F., Traité des tournois, joustes, carrousels et autres spectacles publics (Lyons, 1669).Google Scholar
Molinari, C., Le nozze degli dèi: un saggio sul grande spettacolo italiano nel Seicento. Rome, 1968 Google Scholar
Monteverdi, C., L’Orfeo: favola in musica (Venice, 1609; repr. Kassel, 1998), 2nd edn (Venice, 1615; repr. Farnborough, 1972).Google Scholar
Murata, M., ‘The Recitative Soliloquy’. Journal of the American Musicological Society, 32 (1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murata, M., Operas for the Papal Court, 1631–1668, ‘Studies in Musicology’, 39. Ann Arbor, 1981 ‘Why the First Opera in Paris Wasn’t Roman’. Cambridge Opera Journal, 7 (1995)Google Scholar
Nagler, A. M., A Source Book in Theatrical History. New York, 1952 Google Scholar
Nagler, A. M., Theatre Festivals of the Medici, 1539–1637. New Haven, 1964; repr. New York, 1976 Google Scholar
Néraudau, J.-P., L’Olympe du Roi-Soleil: mythologie et idéologie royale au Grand Siècle. Paris, 1986 Google Scholar
Norman, B., Touched by the Graces: the Libretti of Philippe Quinault in the Context of French Classicism. Birmingham, AL, 2001 Google Scholar
Orgel, S., ‘Marginal Jonson’. In Bevington, and Holbrook, (eds), The Politics of the Stuart Court Masque
Ossi, M., ‘ Dalle machine… la maraviglia: Bernardo Buontalenti’s Il rapimento di Cefalo at the Medici Theater in 1600’. In Radice, M. A. (ed.), Opera in Context: Essays on Historical Staging from the Late Renaissance to the Time of Puccini. Portland, OR, 1998 Google Scholar
Ossi, M., ‘Claudio Monteverdi’s Ordine novo, bello e gustevole: the Canzonetta as Dramatic Module and Formal Archetype’. Journal of the American Musicological Society, 45 (1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osthoff, W., ‘Dokumente zur italienischen Oper von 1600 bis 1706’. In Becker, (ed.), Quellentexte zur Konzeption der europäischen Operim 17. Jahrhundert
Peacock, J., ‘Italian Libretti and the English Court Masque’. In Canova-Green, and Chiarelli, (eds), The Influence of Italian Entertainments on Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Music Theatre in France, Savoy and England
Pierce, K., and Thorp, J., ‘The Dances in Lully’s Persée ’. Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music, 10 (2004) <http://sscm-jscm.org/jscm/v10/no1/pierce.html>Google Scholar
Pirrotta, N., ‘Orchestra and Stage in Renaissance Intermedi and Early Opera’. In Pirrotta, , Music and Culture in Italy from the Middle Ages to the Baroque: a Collection of Essays. Cambridge, MA, 1984 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pirrotta, N., Music and Theatre from Poliziano to Monteverdi, trans. , K. Eales. Cambridge, 1975 Google Scholar
Povoledo, E., ‘Origins and Aspects of Italian Scenography’. In Pirrotta, , Music and Theatre from Poliziano to Monteverdi
Price, C. (ed.), The Early Baroque Era: from the Late Sixteenth Century to the 1660s, ‘Man and Music’, 3. London, 1993 Google Scholar
Prunières, H., Le ballet de cour en France avant Benserade et Lulli. Paris, 1913 Google Scholar
Rizzi, G. (ed.), Repertorio di feste alla corte di Savoia (1346–1669) raccolto dai trattati di C. F. Menestrier. Turin, 1973 Google Scholar
Rosow, L., ‘French Baroque Recitative as an Expression of Tragic Declamation’. Early Music, 11 (1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosow, L., ‘Making Connections: Some Thoughts on Lully’s Entr’actes’. Early Music, 21 (1993)Google Scholar
Rosow, L., ‘The Articulation of Lully’s Dramatic Dialogue’. In Heyer, (ed.), Lully Studies
Saslow, J. M., The Medici Wedding of 1589: Florentine Festival as ‘Theatrum mundi’. New Haven and London, 1996 Google Scholar
Savage, R., and Sansone, M., ‘ Il corago and the Staging of Early Opera: Four Chapters from an Anonymous Treatise circa 1630’. Early Music, 17 (1989)Google Scholar
Schneider, H., ‘Dokumente zur französischen Oper von 1659 bis 1699’. In Becker, (ed.), Quellentexte zur Konzeption der europäischen Oper im 17. Jahrhundert
Solerti, A., Gli albori del melodramma. 3 vols, Milan, 1904; repr. Hildesheim, 1969 Google Scholar
Solerti, A., Musica, ballo e drammatica alla corte medicea dal 1600 al 1637. Florence, 1905; repr. Hildesheim, 1969 Google Scholar
Southorn, J., Power and Display in the Seventeenth Century: the Arts and Their Patrons in Modena and Ferrara. Cambridge, 1988 Google Scholar
Spitzer, J., and Zaslaw, N., The Birth of the Orchestra: History of an Institution, 1650–1815. Oxford, 2004 Google Scholar
Stein, L. K., ‘The Origins and Character of Recitado ’. Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music, 9 (2003) <http://sscm-jscm.org/jscm/v9/no1/Stein.html>Google Scholar
Stein, L. K., Songs of Mortals, Dialogues of the Gods: Music and Theatre in Seventeenth-Century Spain. Oxford, 1993 Google Scholar
Sternfeld, F. W., The Birth of Opera. Oxford, 1993 Google Scholar
Strong, R., Art and Power: Renaissance Festivals, 1450–1650. Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1984 Google Scholar
Tomlinson, G., ‘Madrigal, Monody, and Monteverdi’s “via naturale alla immitatione”’. Journal of the American Musicological Society, 34 (1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walls, P., Music in the English Courtly Masque, 1604–1640. Oxford, 1996 Google Scholar
Ward, J. M., ‘Newly Devis’d Measures for Jacobean Masques’. Actamusicologica, 60 (1988)Google Scholar
Weiss, P. (ed.), Opera: a History in Documents. Oxford, 2002 Google Scholar
Whenham, J. (ed.), Claudio Monteverdi: ‘Orfeo’ ‘Cambridge Opera Handbooks’. Cambridge, 1986 Google Scholar
Wood, C., Music and Drama in the ‘Tragédie en musique’, 1673–1715: Jean-Baptiste Lully and his Successors. New York, 1996 Google Scholar
Wood, C., and Sadler, G., French Baroque Opera: a Reader. Aldershot, 2000 Google Scholar
Zaslaw, N., ‘The First Opera in Paris: a Study in the Politics of Art’. In Heyer, J. H. (ed.), Jean-Baptiste Lully and the Music of the French Baroque: Essays in Honor of James R. Anthony. Cambridge, 1989 Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×