Article
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The difficulty in distinguishing beauty and art in some medieval expressions
Susana BEATRIZ VIOLANTE
Original title: La dificultad en la distinción de belleza y de arte en algunas expresiones medievales
Published in The Medieval Aesthetics
To flee from common places, it would be necessary to determine what is understood as beauty, distinguishing how this concept has been modified in relation to geographical space, periods of historical time and what the different centers of power have instituted as such. Something extremely complex because, fundamentally, I consider that it cannot be defined beyond than what generates an “aesthetic” tension that drives us to say: how nice!!! How ugly!!! But this “tension” is crossed by a whole discourse that makes us distinguish the beautiful and the ugly as such. What do we think of art in the medieval period? Because classical Greek art is still “seen” in many works, especially from Renaissance, modern and even contemporary, but we do not find the different perspective with which the medieval has expressed itself, with that recognition - and it does not seem to interest too much “See” - although, its superposition of close and distant planes - I - dare to find them stylized? in some of Picasso’s, Kandinsky’s, Magritte’s works ... I know it might seem “crazy” what I say, but here go certain images.
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The medieval music: between sound number science and beautiful art
Celina A. LÉRTORA MENDOZA
Original title: La música medieval: entre ciencia del número sonoro y arte bella
Published in The Medieval Aesthetics
It is almost a topic both in the history of music and in the history of acoustic science, that in antiquity music was understood especially as the science of sound number, forming part of the quadrivium, and establishing a connection we would say natural between music understood as harmony and rhythm and mathematics and astronomy, discarding the concrete aspect of musical interpretation and its effects. It is also a topic to say that in the Renaissance period there are two new phenomena: the physical (and not only mathematical) consideration of the “sound number”, with the study of vibrations or acoustics, on the one hand. On the other, the incorporation of music into the world of fine arts (that is, considering its sensitive and affective aspect, as “capturing the beautiful”), which would not have happened before, neither in Antiquity nor in the Middle Ages. Without discussing the point related to Antiquity, given that the documentation on this matter is very scarce and susceptible of diverse interpretations that cannot be verified, and focusing on the Middle Ages, an attempt will be made to provide arguments in favor of the following theses. That in the Middle Ages, especially since the 12th century, a process of approach between the consideration of "the mathematical" and the "beautiful" begins, while two concepts of beauty are analyzed and discussed: as splendor of order and as splendor of form. In this way the splendor formae would be a way from which to privilege the musical beauty of the melody. That in this process, long, complex and with many inflection points, two lines can be highlighted: the monastic religious song and the court music (possibly the upper troubadour). In both cases a greater appreciation of the melody gradually appears, seeking to produce a feeling of beauty to bring the soul (that is, the spirit) closer to the superior (religious or the beautiful human) from the materiality of sound.
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Ethics and Aesthetics of Music in Ramon Llull’s Philosophy
Ricardo da COSTA
Original title: Ética e Estética da Música na filosofia de Ramon Llull (1232-1316)
Published in The Medieval Aesthetics
Brief exposition of the importance of Music in Western aesthetic thought. From Plato, and later, in the Middle Ages, San Isidore of Seville, Guido of Arezzo and Ramon Llull, all thinkers who did meditations on the importance of the aesthetics of harmonic sounds for human existence. In relation to Llull, we deal with the subject from the works Doctrina pueril (c. 1274-1276), Fèlix o el Libre de meravelles (c. 1289), Arbre de Ciència (c. 1295-1296), Ars generalis ultima (c. 1305), Ars brevis (1308) and especially, the Libre de contemplació en Déu (c. 1273-1274).
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Father José Maurício Nunes’ Sinfonia Fúnebre (1790): an analysis employing Robert Gjerdingen’s Musical Schemata
Ernesto HARTMANN
Original title: A Sinfonia Fúnebre (1790) do Padre José Maurício Nunes Garcia (1767-1830): análise com o conceito de Schema Musical de Robert Gjerdingen
Published in Music in Middle Ages and Early Modernity
In this work I investigate the use in Father José Maurício Nunes Garcia’s Sinfonia Fúnebre (1790) of what the American musicologist Robert Gjerdongen calls Schemata. According to Gjerdingen, Schemata are abstract structures that were part of the Galant Style, either in Central Europe as in the Colonies, as Brazil is the case. In order to do so, I make a brief overview of the editions available for analysis; review of the Schemata concept in Gjerdingen and other authoritative authors; elaborate a table that articulates form, tonality, Schemata bar by bar; and last, exemplify the use of this Schemata in musical excerpts of the work. I conclude that the systematic and very sophisticated use of the Schemata by the Brazilian composer demonstrates that he is by no means just a mere imitator of the Galant Style, but instead, a great master of this idiom and capable to organize the Schemata at his will to fulfill his expressive needs as it is the case in this Sinfonia Funebre.
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The Music in Don Quijote by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)
Antonia Javiera CABRERA MUÑOZ
Original title: La Música en el Don Quijote de Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)
Published in Music in Middle Ages and Early Modernity
This article deals with Music in the great work Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605 and 1615), written by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1615) during the Spanish Golden Age. In this relationship between the two Arts (Literature and Music) we emphasized the protagonist character of the work, Don Quixote de la Mancha, who, in both parts, gradually evolve his musical sense to see himself as a fully musical character in the second part: Music is present in various attitudes of his in several episodes, using the recitation and singing, instrumental, general knowledge and even dance to show their musical skills. Several authors have studied this relationship in detail, so that in this work we made a brief synthesis of some contents with the purpose of introducing the Brazilian reader to this relationship in Don Quixote, since in Brazil there is nothing published on the subject, as verified in the main research databases available to the general public and specialized. We begin with a brief synthesis of the life and work of Cervantes, highlighting his literary path to understand a little of his worldview as an intellectual; then we dedicate ourselves to his relationship with Music, the musical environment of his time and how the musical expression was introduced in his works; at once, we made a cut of Don Quixote musician, by highlighting some musical aspects that character shows. The analysis of Don Quixote showed that Music is as much pastoral as in the urban or contemporary to Cervantes. In reading the work, it was also verified that Music unfolds in three ways that correspond to its three outputs: in the first, the musical elements are scarce and simple and show, crudely, the contrast between what imagined by the knight and rural reality; in the second, the same happens as in the first, but little by little the gentleman is contemplating reality as it is and are the other characters who try to convince him that everything is a product of enchantments; in the third, Don Quixote assumes the role of musician in the manner of the knight-errant.
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The musician and humanist Damião de Góis (1502-1574)
Márcio Paes SELLES
Original title: O músico e humanista Damião de Góis (1502-1574)
Published in Music in Middle Ages and Early Modernity
Damião de Góis, was born in Alenquer in a family of the Portuguese nobility, grew up in the court of D. Manuel I where he had access to musical learning. Later, a diplomat under King John III had contact with Franco-Flemish music, developed in the chapels of the court of Burgundy and lived with important humanists of his time as Erasmus and Bembo. His compositions as well as his musical taste in the French-Flemish style served as an argument in a complaint in the Holy Office that ended up leading to his death in 1574.
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Feasts, Theatre and Power
Lenora Pinto MENDES
Original title: Festa, Teatro e Poder
Published in Society and Culture in Portugal
The Avis Dynasty took power in Portugal in the fourteenth century with the support of the population of the cities of Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra. From the beginning, it made use of the popular festivities as a form of support and legitimation. Throughout the entire dynasty, in the royal festivities the urban segments of the cities were present, reinforcing the vassal contract between the kings and the cities. In the reign of D. Manuel the theater will be part of this dynamic and will highlight Gil Vicente, first Portuguese playwright who acted in the courts of D. Manuel and D. João III, creating theatrical acts for the most important moments of the royal festivities such as births, coronations and funerals.
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Bernat Metge and Ramon Llull in front of the Saracens
Julia BUTIÑÁ JIMÉNEZ
Original title: Bernat Metge y Ramon Llull frente a los sarracenos
Published in Society and Culture in Portugal
A passage from the book I of Bernat Metge’s Lo somni that had not been attended before, when hi is treating of the paradise of the Saracens, acquires a lucid sense with his reading in the shade of the Llibre del gentil e dels tres savis of Ramon Llull and under a humanistic interpretation. The systematic burlesque one of the barcelonian notary becomes clear across a source of traditional mentality: Ramon Martí. With it, Metge is anticipating the defense of the women, to which he will dedicate the books the III and IVth, as well as it signs his lulian adherence.
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Between Byzantium and Outremer: considerations on leprosy in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem
Esteban Augusto GREIF
Original title: Entre Bizancio y Outremer: consideraciones sobre la lepra en el Reino Latino de Jerusalén
Published in Society and Culture in Portugal
In the last years, the comprehension and understanding of leprosy and the social place of the leper as a rejected and stigmatized subject from society during the Middle Ages, have change. In this way, had come to light a new interpretation that detached the integration of those who suffer this disease. Similarly, the view of the leprosarium as spaces of social segregation was revised. Besides, new investigations about the treatment of this disease in the world of the Eastern Mediterranean started to appear. However, the analysis of the circulation of knowledge and practices between the East and the West were not frequent. Thus, our proposal, it is located into this space and tries to comprehend which was the social treatment of leprosy and lepers from the byzantine world that impacted in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.
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Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, El Cid (1048-1099), very good knight and from great lineage
Olga PISNITCHENKO
Original title: Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, El Cid (1048-1099), muy buen cauallero e de grande linaje
Published in Society and Culture in Portugal
This article proposes to analyze the image of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar constructed by Estoria de España of Alfonso X and as chronicles derived from it. Our research is concentrated not so much on the study of political and military abilities of El Cid, but mainly on the knightly model that is elaborated from its image by the chroniclers that represent a voice of the king in the analyzed historical works. According to the chronicles, Rodrigo acts as a vassal of the three kings (Fernando, Sancho and Alfonso) who succeed each other on the throne of Castile and Leon, constructing with each one of them peculiar relations that introduce to the reader or listener of history a wide spectrum of situations in which Rodrigo continues to remain within the line of behavior of an exemplary vassal.
