Explore the vast range of titles available.

iThis is the first dedicated study of the musical patronage of a Roman baronial family in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Patronage – the support of a person or institution and their work by a patron – in Renaissance society was the basis of a complex network of familial and political relationships between clients and patrons, whose ideas, values, and norms of behavior were shared with the collective. Bringing to light new archival documentation, this book examines the intricate network of patronage interrelationships in Rome. Unlike other Italian cities where political control was monocentric and exercised by single rulers, sources of patronage in Rome comprised a multiplicity of courts and potential patrons, which included the pope, high prelates, nobles, and foreign diplomats. Morucci uses archival records, and the correspondence of the Orsini and Colonna families in particular, to investigate the local activity and circulation of musicians and the cultivation of music within the broader civic network of Roman aristocratic families during the period. The author also shows that the familial union of the Medici and Orsini families established a bidirectional network for artistic exchange outside of the Eternal City, and that the Orsini-Colonna circle represented a musical bridge between Naples, Rome, and Florence.

In 1892, the celebrations for the quatercentenary of the discovery of America included the participation of musicians. The climax of these festivities was the premiere of Colombo a Santo Domingo by the Mexican composer Julio Morales. The nature of this piece implied that Mexico would contribute, with its own voice, to the most aristocratic genre in music: opera. Nevertheless, after the premiere and one benefit performance immediately afterwards, Colombo a Santo Domingo was immediately withdrawn by its composer and it was never performed again. Morales himself wondered if the absence of a critical response was a sign of the piece’s true aesthetic achievements.This article questions the process that led him to withdraw the piece from the centennial opera season by studying the programming of the Italian Opera Company run by the businessman Napoleón Sieni. By viewing this piece in the context of the other operas presented that season, it puts forward a hypothesis based on a comparison between the Mexican opera and the classics of the bel canto canon.This argument is supported through an analysis of the contemporary press. As part of a historiographic process, it proposes a critique of the musical criticism of the time, allowing us to better understand the opera’s reception. It concludes with a musical analysis of Morales’s own score.

The qin 琴, a seven-stringed plucked musical instrument, occupies a unique status in Chinese cultural history. By the time it was established as the musical embodiment of classical tradition and literati culture in the Song dynasty, it had become an exchangeable commodity. While literary writings composed before the Song rarely focused on its monetary value, the unprecedentedly vibrant commercial world recast the qin, hitherto an aristocratic or scholarly pursuit, as a commodity that affected the life of the literati. This article examines how the literati worked through the conflicting values brought by the commodification of the qin to create and reinterpret its new meaning as an object with both cultural and monetary value. The commercial mechanism that the literati took part in also brought about changing characterizations in the connoisseurship of the qin. The astute perception of sound was no longer the sole criterion for appraisal, which now included familiarity with the qin’s physicality and knowledge of its craftsmanship. Behind the ostensible monopoly of the literati discourse on the qin, there was an economic and social network in which different groups participated—groups that together defined the cultural and commercial values of the qin.

This article is a contribution to the rediscovery of the gagaku soundscape in medieval Japan with a special focus on instrumental music as part of the repertoire of gagaku and bugaku, a subject that is mostly absent from research on the history of Japanese religions. The article outlines some of the ways in which professional musicians and music virtuosos among the aristocracy conceptualized gagaku and bugaku instrumental music in Buddhist terms between the eleventh and the sixteenth centuries. In addition to providing doctrinal justifications for artistic endeavors, they also contributed to the development of new ritual forms, such as bugaku hōyō and kangen kōshiki. This article explores influential Buddhist canonical ideas about music and shows how they were developed by musicians in medieval Japan.

Šio straipsnio tikslas – menotyriniu požiūriu išanalizuoti ir įvertinti grafo Konstantino Tyzenhauzo (1786–1853) dailės palikimą įvairiapusės jo veiklos ir tuometinio laikmečio kontekste. Grafo kūryba – įdomus ir dėmesio vertas palikimas, mėgėjiškos aristokratijos kūrybos liudijimas. Įvairiuose leidiniuose publikuoti ar minimi pavieniai K. Tyzenhauzo kūriniai, tačiau kaip į visumą iš menotyrinės perspektyvos į juos dar nebandyta pažvelgti, dalis darbų dar nepublikuota. Analizė atskleidžia, kad K. Tyzenhauzo negausiai išlikusių piešinių ir akvarelių grupę sudaro gan skirtingos stilistikos, meninio lygmens darbų pavyzdžiai, atskleidžiantys grafo meninius eksperimentus: dalyje darbų ryški mokytojų A. Orlovskio, J. P. Norblino įtaka. Kaip brandžiausia grupė išskiriami romantizmo tendencijas atsispindintys darbai, kuriuose fiksuoti istorinio paveldo objektai (Kuoknesės, Vilniaus Gedimino, Trakų pilys), tačiau originaliausią grupę, kurioje ryškiausiai atsispindi K. Tyzenhauzo braižas ir originalumas, sudaro Rokiškio ir apylinkių fiksuoti vaizdai, paukščių piešiniai. Tai romantizuoti, autentiški vizualiniai savojo laikmečio ir savosios aplinkos fragmentai. Dailė grafui, kaip ir daugeliui kitų to meto didikų, niekada nebuvo pagrindinė, profesionali veikla, tačiau jis buvo gana gabus, šis gebėjimas pasitarnavo ir jo moksliniams tikslams. K. Tyzenhauzo darbai, kuriuose užfiksuoti paukščiai, įvairūs architektūriniai objektai, taip pat turi mokslinę, istorinę ir ikonografinę vertę. The goal of this article is to analyse and evaluate from an art-historical perspective the artistic legacy of Count Konstanty Tyzenhauz (1786–1853) in view of his multifaceted activities and in the context of his time, by applying formal and iconographic methods of art criticism. The Count’s work is a captivating and noteworthy legacy, a testimony to the amateur creativity of aristocracy. Various publications have published or mentioned only single works by Tyzenhauz; no attempt, however, has been made to study them as a whole with regard to the art-historical approach, moreover, some of the works had not yet been published. The analysis revealed that a number of sparsely preserved works, be it drawings or watercolours, are at variance with the stylistic rendering and artistic expression, thus disclosing the Count’s creative experiments and a notable influence of his teachers Orłowski and Norblin. The views representing historical heritage objects (the Koknese, the Vilnius Gediminas, and the Trakai castles) reflect in the main the Romantic tendencies and constitute the group of the most mature Count’s artworks. However, taking account of his unique style and individual manner, images of Rokiškis and the surrounding areas, as well as drawings of birds, stand out for the distinctive interpretation and comprise the most original group. They are romanticised, authentic visual fragments of his time and familiar environment. Art was not the Count’s main and professional endeavour, likewise for a number of noblemen of the epoch, but his artistic inclination let him adapt his talent for scientific purposes. No doubt, Tyzenhauz’s works that feature birds and various architectural objects are of important scientific, historical and iconographic value.

This study is a spatial analysis of The Great Gatsby (1925). This novel presents the power game among various white classes in American society in the context of the Roaring Twenties, with obvious spatial characteristics. The geographical distribution between East Egg, West Egg, and the Valley of Ashes presents the high-and-low-class distinction of different classes in social space. The upper classes practice class oppression and exploitation through space, while the lower classes also use space to resist oppression and climb the class ladder. This paper draws on French philosopher Henri Lefebvre’s spatial ideas, especially the spatial triad, to explore the close connection between space and class in the novel. The Great Gatsby encompasses various class groups in white society, including the hereditary aristocracy like the Buchanans, the new money represented by Gatsby, and the lower class represented by the Wilsons. To modify the spatial order, different classes use space as a medium to preserve their class identity and seek their social presence, which reproduces the illusion of the American Dream of the Jazz Age and reveals Fitzgerald’s humanistic concern for people in spatial relations.

Where scholars frequently claim that ballads emerge primarily from orally transmitted folk and festival songs, evidence shows equally important aristocratic influences on the form during the early sixteenth century. In what has become a well-known innovation among music historians, early English printer John Rastell becomes the first to use a new, influential system for printing music when he publishes the musical notation for a dramatic ballad within his own 1520 play, The Four Elements. Crucially, Rastell takes the musical setting for his ballad from a composition attributed to no less a figure than Henry VIII. But, while Rastell’s dramatic ballad has been well-discussed in relation to Henry VIII’s oeuvre as a composer and lyricist, its broader relationship to early Tudor balladry has not been thoroughly investigated. In fact, despite a surge of new interest in discussing early English ballads both within and without dramatic literature, there exists no serious, sustained study of balladry that focuses on the first half of the sixteenth century. Putting Rastell’s dramatic ballad into conversation with an array of secondary evidence, this article thus works toward addressing an ongoing scholarly gap in the early history of the English ballad, revealing, in its course, the early Tudor court’s extensive, often deliberate, and too-frequently elided influence over the genre’s development.

Collecting activities were an important cultural and social phenomenon in 19th century Europe. Women also participated in these activities, although in many cultures their role and the results of their collecting work have not yet been adequately evaluated. Taking the example of Slovakia, it is possible to highlight the contribution of women in collecting folk songs, while encompassing those features which are specific to the regional circumstances. Women took part in all important collecting projects of the 19th century in Slovakia. Reconstruction of their socio-cultural background highlighted the fact that at the inception of these projects women of the aristocracy and gentry were active collectors. The majority of female collectors came from families of the Slovak intelligentsia, who belonged to the middle class. By the end of the 19th century many such families had become part of the contemporary elite of Slovak society. We focus on two research questions: 1, how did the gender category of the collector condition the record of song material (an aspect of the collection concept); and 2, what contribution did women’s collecting activities make to the study of traditional song culture (an aspect of the collected material). A definition of women’s concept of collecting, with primary orientation on song lyrics, was deduced from the 19th century preference for the national language and the role of Slovak women in its diffusion in private as well as public life, and from analysis of the genre structure of the collected material. The romantic concept of collecting in Slovakia is compared with an early concept of documentation at the beginning of the 20th century which derived from abroad, although some of its elements were beginning to take effect also in domestic collecting activities.

The Bengali bhadralok have had an important impact on Indian nationalism in Bengal and in India more broadly. Their commitment to narratives of national progress has been noted. However, little attention has been given to how ‘earthly paradise’, ‘garden of delights’, and related ideas of refinement and nobility also informed their nationalism. This article excavates the idea of earthly paradise as it is portrayed in Satyajit Ray's 1958 Bengali film Jalsaghar, usually translated as The Music Room. Jalsaghar is typically taken to depict, broadly, the decadence and decline of aristocratic ‘feudal’ landowners (zamindars) who were granted their holdings and, often, noble rank, such as ‘Lord’ or ‘Raja’, during Mughal or British times, representing the languid past of the nobility, and the ascendance of a restless business-oriented class that represents an emerging present and possible future. The zamindars are shown as pursuing aesthetic and spiritual delight, ecstasy, and edification through soirées. These soirées are produced for those among the nobility who are sufficiently cultivated and cosmopolitan to appreciate the finer things in life, such as the classical music and dance showcased in this film. The businessmen, too, aspire to host such exceptional events, but are too crass to do so properly and, moreover, they are motivated by a desire to accrue prestige, thus using soirées as a means to an end, rather than to experience aesthetic and spiritual elevation as an end in itself. I argue that the film calls on the bhadralok to value aesthetic cultivation and to actively counter its evanescence. The film thus beckons and authorizes the bhadralok to sustain the value of the timeless past, including nobility and refinement. Yet the bhadralok are also expected to embody and expand a new, progressive, and utilitarian spirit that would modernize India. With the aristocrats gone, and the entrepreneurs eager to assume authority, the film charges the bhadralok to construct a nationalism in which the immortal, character-building values of classical art, for example, can yet be sutured to utilitarian progressivism. I argue that the film conveys this even though it does not explicitly portray or even mention the bhadralok, or feature uniquely Bengali music and art. Accordingly, this article does not focus on the actual aesthetic and political practices of bhadralok nationalism. The aim is to shed light on one genealogy through which the bhadralok sanctioned themselves as India's stewards along these lines.

Readers of the notational and theoretical treatises of the late fourteenth century experience musical compositions that were both feasts for the eyes and the ears. These examples of Augenmusik—what Richard Taruskin calls \"a phenomenal feat of calligraphy\"—represent a development that Ursula Günther in 1963 labeled the ars subtilior.2 Characterizing this so-called ars subtilior or \"subtler art,\" as it was practiced by \"the Avignon School\" for popes and wealthy aristocratic patrons in parts of southern France and northern Italy, were the concern for the expression of the beauty of musical sound and the lure of notating more sophisticated rhythms, such as those overheard in popular music and dance. Experiments with new note shapes are described in the anonymous Tractatus de diversis figuris, one of a set of musical treatises transcribed in Pavia in 1391 and held in the library of the Visconti family of Milan (now Newberry Library, MS 54.1).3 The prologue labels the style of writing that employs more variety of rhythm as an artem magis subtiliter. In what follows, I will draw connections between some of the ideals of beauty as seen and heard in late-fourteenth-century musical ideas inspired by an ancient rhetorician whose influence warrants investigation.