Music and the Myth of Arcadia in Renaissance Italy

by Giuseppe Gerbino

• ISBN13: 9780521899567
• ISBN10: 0521899567
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-04-27
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The idea that there was a time when men and women lived in perfect harmony with nature and with themselves, though rooted in classical antiquity, was one of the most fertile products of the Renaissance literary and artistic imagination. This book explores one specific aspect of this idea: the musical representation and stylization of the myth of Arcadia in sixteenth-century Italy. Giuseppe Gerbino outlines how Renaissance culture strove to keep this utopia alive and demonstrates how music played a fundamental role in the construction and preservation of this collective illusion. Covering a range of different musical genres, including the madrigal, music for theater, and early opera, the book overcomes traditional barriers among genres. Illustrative music examples, including previously unpublished music, serve to expand the reader's knowledge of this important repertory, and provide new insights into the role of music in the preservation of cultural myths.

Table of Contents

Introduction: music in Arcadia: an unsettled tradition

The idiosyncrasies of chronology

The return of the shepherd

Musical remedies

On the cusp between language and music

Musical eclipses: theatre

The boundaries of the genre

Singing like shepherds, singing like peasants

Ruzante's song and the rustic picturesque

Re-founding pastoral theatre

The (female) performance of high culture: the madrigal

A pastoral society

The dark side of Arcadia

Marenzio's utopia of the senses

Lost in Arcadia

Epilogue: pastoral, opera and the impossibility of tragedy

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