Article
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The musical esoterism of Francesco Zorzi (1466-1540) in the work De harmonia mundi totius (1525)
André GABY
Original title: O esoterismo musical de Francesco Zorzi (1466-1540) na obra De harmonia mundi totius (1525)
Published in Music in Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance
Keywords: Christian Kabbalah, Esoterism, Philosophy of music, Pythagoreanism, Renaissance.
The humanism and the musical renaissance derived from it are both the result of Italian thinkers contact with the Neoplatonic and Hermes Trimegistus works – coming from Byzantium thanks to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 – and with Kabbalistic works brought by Jews definitively expelled from Spain. in 1492. Among so many names in Italian humanist thought, stands out in Venice the Franciscan friar Francesco Zorzi (Giorgi). He learned the Hebrew language and the teachings of Kabbalah, dedicating his intellectual efforts to the continuation of the synthesis work of ideas on spiritual elevation (Platonic, Aristotelian, Neoplatonic, Hermetic, Jewish, or Christian) initiated by Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. Zorzi believed that Kabbalah could prove the truths of the faith of Christianity present in the Bible, that is, the numbers generated by the letters of the Hebrew alphabet would be related to the Pythagorean “Harmony of the Spheres” conception, and the truths of the cosmos reality would be described in the scriptures enterlines of Judeo-Christian religious tradition. Our work consists of presenting to the Portuguese language community the esoteric-kabbalist musical conception present in the work Harmonia mundi totius by Francesco Zorzi, together with some extract’s translation into Portuguese.
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La quale fu cantata molto bene – The performances of Alessandro Striggios’ monumental 40-part compositions in Munich 1567/68
Bernhard RAINER
Published in Music in Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance
Keywords: 16th c. instrumentation, 40-part compositions, Alessandro Striggio, Cantorey, Ecce beatam lucem, Missa sopra Ecco si beato giorno, Transposition.
In the 1560s Alessandro Striggio composed monumental works such as his Missa sopra Ecco si beato giorno à 40 and a 40-voice motet, both of which can be proven to have been performed in Munich in 1567 and 1568. Analysis of the performing forces of Munich’s Cantorey of this time concludes not only that the instrumental participation of these performances must have been significant, but also that the works were transposed downward. Furthermore, a hypothesis is proposed that the Munich performance of an untitled 40-voice motet in 1568 involved Striggio’s Ecce beatam lucem à 40, which itself may constitute a contrafactum of Ecco si beato giorno, a madrigal that circulated in copies during the decade.
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Marin Marais (1656-1728) and the didactic function of the Avertissement
Kristina AUGUSTIN
Original title: Marin Marais (1656-1728) e a função didática dos Avertissement
Published in Music in Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance
Keywords: Avertissement, Early Music, Historically Informed Performance, Marin Marais, Viol.
This text concludes a work begun in 2019 that included the production of an article on the life of the gambist Marin Marais, published in this magazine, with the respective review of primary sources. This was followed by the publication of a second article with the translation of the prefaces (Avertissement) of the five books of Marais. This article seeks to analyze the didactic function of the afore mentioned Avertissement and demonstrate in what aspects they contribute to a better understanding and execution of the works of Marin Marais.
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Music and dance in the paintings of Nicolas-Antoine Taunay (1755-1830)
Bárbara DANTAS
Original title: Música e dança nas pinturas de Nicolas-Antoine Taunay (1755-1830)
Published in Music in Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance
Keywords: Dance, Modern Painting, Music, Nicolas-Antoine Taunay.
The French painter, Nicolas-Antoine Taunay, lived in a confused time. It witnessed one of the most important political upheavals the world has ever seen, the French Revolution. Even though he was in the “eye of that hurricane”, his painting pleased both the monarchy and the republicans. An example of this are the landscape paintings in which he referred to an iconography linked to dance and music, more specifically, to the roda and to fête galante. This work, therefore, intends to demonstrate how modern landscape painting, normally dissociated from a political content, is also a symbolic expression of power while referring to classical and melancholic themes.
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Schemata, Motif and Topics in Theme and Variations in Sonata K305 for Piano and Violin in A Major by W. A. Mozart (1756-1791)
Aline Mendonça PEREIRA; Ernesto HARTMANN
Original title: Schemata, Motivo e Tópicas no Tema e Variações da Sonata K305 para Piano e Violino em Lá Maior de W. A. Mozart (1756-1791)
Published in Music in Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance
Keywords: Compositional Procedures, Mozart’s Sonata for Piano and Violin in A Major K305, Schemata, Theme and Variations, Topics.
The present work investigates in the second movement of Mozart's Sonata for Piano and Violin in A Major K305 (1778) – Tema con Variazioni – the compositional and expressive procedures employed by the composer. To this end, it reviews the literature on the Theme with Variations (Zamacois, Stein, Schoenberg and Scliar) concepts of Topic, Style, and Schemata (Ratner, Hatten, Sutcliffe, Day-O’Connell) proposing an analysis of the movement grounded on these concepts. The results are discussed in the light of the analysis and it is concluded that, even using the non-amplifying Variation or Fantasy model; preserving formal structures due to the Schemata repeatedly employed; and presenting themselves within the script described by Ratner (from his study of contemporary treatises), the diversity of styles and topics present ensure unity of the movement as expected of a part of a larger work without abstaining the contrast that is widely explored by the vast repertoire of composer of the constitutive elements of each style.
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The Music. One of the keys to understanding Time
Ricardo da COSTA
Original title: A Música. Uma das chaves para a compreensão do Tempo
Published in Music in Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance
Keywords: History, Liberal Arts, Methodology, Music.
The purpose is to present José Enrique Ruiz-Domènec’s (Spanish Historian 1948- ) methodology for the study of the Past: the appreciation of Music – traditionally one of the seven liberal arts – in historical studies as a key element for understanding the history of cultures in time. To do this, we will concentrate on four of his books: España, una nueva historia (2009), Personajes intempestivos de la Historia (2011), Europa. Las claves de su historia (2012), and Escuchar el pasado. Ocho siglos de música europea (2012). In them three characters are presented that symbolize the imperative need for Music studies to find the key to the Past: Pope Gregory, the Great (540-604) and the creation of the universe European sound with Gregorian chant, Mozart (1756-1791) and the rational sense of civilization of the Ancien Régime, and Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999) and the incurable nostalgia of Spanish in Aranjuez Concert (1939).
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Apotropaic Middle Ages laughter: Visions of the Sacred Obscene in Classical Greece
Manuel ÁLVAREZ JUNCO
Original title: La risa apotropaica medieval: visiones de lo obsceno sagrado de la Grecia Clásica
Published in Music in Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance
Keywords: Apotropaic, Classical Greece, Evil eye, Middle Ages, Romanesque, Sacred obscene.
In classical Greece, the images of the apotropaic –protector against evil eye, satanic spirits or misfortune–, together with their magical and sacred aspects, combined the grotesque, the obscene and the laughable. This article delves into the analysis of this surprising conjunction in the symbolic visualizations of that culture, pointed out by some authors as belonging to the “sacred”. It also analyzes them as a possible origin of the images of explicit obscenity of the carvings on the exteriors of many buildings of the European Middle Ages, such as the spinaries, sheelas, double-tailed mermaids, moons, gargoyles, caganers, etc.
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The flourishing of painting in the time of Plato (427-347 a. C.) and Aristotle (384-322 a. C.). Hunting scene
Miháy BODÓ
Original title: El florecimiento de la pintura en la época de Platón (427-347 a. C.) y Aristóteles (384-322 a. C.). Escena de caza
Published in Music in Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance
Keywords: Aigai, Central perspective, Greek Painting, Greek Theater, Hunting scene, Scenography, Tomb II, Vergina.
The essay focuses on Hunting scene, mural painting from Tomb II of Vergina, and is part of a larger investigation in which I have set out to analyze the pictorial structures of the few Greek works that have been preserved and have survived to this day. Through the reconstruction of the artistic creation processes, the article tries to reveal the knowledge of the craft of painting of the time. The results of the analysis show that it was the Hellenic workshops that laid the foundations for the visual communication tools that we use the most today, as well as the representation of form, light and shadow, space and even the use of linear perspective. The text is addressed both to specialists in the subject and to a wider audience. The graphic images produced by the author facilitate the understanding of the painting's high pictorial level.
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The Cançon de la Crosada (13th century) by William of Tudela. An English Translation (II-LXV)
Antonio CORTIJO OCAÑA
Original title: La Cançon de la Crosada (s. XIII) de Guillermo de Tudela. Traducción al inglés (II-LXV)
Published in Music in Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance
Keywords: History of the Albigensian Crusade, Inquisition, Persecution.
The History of the Albigensian Crusade is one of the most intriguing medieval Provençal texts. It represents the beginning of a persecuting society. We provide a translation.
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Sacred and profane in Medieval: superposition or symbiosis? – The case of dedicated medieval religious institutions to non-religious purposes
Armando Alexandre dos SANTOS
Original title: Sagrado e profano no Medievo: superposição ou simbiose? – O caso das instituições religiosas medievais dedicadas a finalidades não religiosas
Published in Music in Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance
Keywords: Building bridges, Middle Ages, Military life, Religious orders, Rules of Religious Orders.
This article considers the interpenetration of the sacred and profane spheres in the Middle Ages, studying the case of some religious orders destined for temporal and profane purposes, such as the construction of bridges; it focuses, in a special way, on the theological foundation of these orders and the constitutive importance of the rules or statutes for their regular and official existence.
