Authors: Gary Tomlinson
ISBN-13: 9780226807928, ISBN-10: 0226807924
Format: Paperback
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Date Published: November 1994
Edition: 2nd Edition
Magic enjoyed a vigorous revival in sixteenth-century Europe, attaining a prestige lost for over a millennium and becoming, for some, a kind of universal philosophy. Renaissance music also suggested a form of universal knowledge through renewed interest in two ancient themes: the Pythagorean and Platonic "harmony of the celestial spheres" and the legendary effects of the music of bards like Orpheus, Arion, and David. In this climate, Renaissance philosophers drew many new and provocative connections between music and the occult sciences.
In Music in Renaissance Magic, Gary Tomlinson describes some of these connections and offers a fresh view of the development of early modern thought in Italy. Raising issues essential to postmodern historiography—issues of cultural distance and our relationship to the others who inhabit our constructions of the past —Tomlinson provides a rich store of ideas for students of early modern culture, for musicologists, and for historians of philosophy, science, and religion.
"A scholarly step toward a goal that many composers have aimed for: to rescue the idea of New Age Music—that music can promote spiritual well-being—from the New Ageists who have reduced it to a level of sonic wallpaper."—Kyle Gann, Village Voice
"An exemplary piece of musical and intellectual history, of interest to all students of the Renaissance as well as musicologists. . . . The author deserves congratulations for introducing this new approach to the study of Renaissance music."—Peter Burke, NOTES
"Gary Tomlinson's Music in Renaissance Magic: Toward a Historiography of Others examines the 'otherness' of magical cosmology. . . . [A] passionate, eloquently melancholy, and important book."—Anne Lake Prescott, Studies in English Literature
Tomlinson (music history, U. of Pennsylvania; and author of Monteverdi and the End of the Renaissance) describes some of the connections that Renaissance philosophers drew between music and the occult sciences, and offers a fresh view of early modern thought in Italy. He focuses on a period roughly between the lifetimes of two key figures: the philosopher, magician, and musician Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) and the philosopher Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639). Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Preface | ||
1 | Approaching Others (Thoughts before Writing) | 1 |
2 | The Scope of Renaissance Magic | 44 |
3 | Modes and Planetary Song: The Musical Alliance of Ethics and Cosmology | 67 |
4 | Ficino's Magical Songs | 101 |
5 | Musical Possession and Musical Soul Loss | 145 |
6 | An Archaeology of Poetic Furor, 1500-1650 | 189 |
7 | Archaeology and Music: Apropos of Monteverdi's Musical Magic | 229 |
8 | Believing Others (Thoughts upon Writing) | 247 |
Appendix: Passages Translated in the Text | 253 | |
Works Cited | 271 | |
Index | 283 |