SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CHAMBER MUSIC MANUSCRIPTS AT DURHAM

Following her abdication, Queen Christina of Sweden took up residence in the Palazzo Farnese, Rome from 1655. She had already developed a keen interest in music, gained from tuition from a French dancing master, and playing the star role in the ballet The Captured Cupid in honour of her mother's birthday in 1649. Christina's arrival in Rome was marked by performances in her honour in the Palazzo Barberini and Palazzo Pamphili of specially commissioned works by contemporary composers Marco Marazzoli and A.F. Tenaglia, and by her favourite Giacomo Carissimi. Inspired by the chamber music proportions of the cappella of the Collegio Germanico, many of Carissimi's secular arias were composed for his royal Swedish patron. After two years in France, Christina returned to Rome, where she took up residence in the Palazzo Riario on the Janiculum. Inventories record her musical instruments and describe the contents of the Great Hall in which concerts were held.

Download Full-text

Consort Music Manuscripts in Archbishop Marsh's Library, Dublin

R.M.A Research Chronicle ◽

10.1080/14723808.1976.10540875 ◽

1976 ◽

Vol 13 ◽

pp. 27-63 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Richard Charteris

Keyword(s):

Seventeenth Century ◽

Printed Books ◽

The Press ◽

Music Manuscripts ◽

Music Books

Archbishop Marsh's Library, otherwise known as the Library of St. Sepulchre, is adjacent to St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and was founded in 1704 by Narcissus Marsh D. D. (1638–1713), Archbishop of Armagh. Today the library contains over 20, 000 books and 300 manuscripts; the manuscripts and special books, including some music books, are located in the manuscript room, which is on the main landing before entering the first gallery of the library - all items in the manuscript room bear the press mark ‘Z’. To be found among the general holdings is a small, but valuable, collection of music manuscripts and printed books on music; some of the items were collected by Marsh himself, and date from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Among the seventeenth-century manuscripts is a group which contains instrumental consort music, and these are the ones which will be discussed in this article.

Download Full-text

The Rost Manuscript of Seventeenth-Century Chamber Music: A Thematic Catalog

Notes ◽

10.2307/941962 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 47 (2) ◽

pp. 372

Author(s):

David Hunter ◽

M. Alexandra Eddy

Keyword(s):

Seventeenth Century ◽

Chamber Music

Download Full-text

‘Obtained by peculiar favour, & much difficulty of the Singer’: Vincenzo Albrici and the Function of Charles II's Italian Ensemble at the English Restoration Court

Journal of the Royal Musical Association ◽

10.1080/02690403.2018.1507116 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 143 (2) ◽

pp. 325-359

Author(s):

Ester Lebedinski

Keyword(s):

Seventeenth Century ◽

Chamber Music ◽

Cultural Exchange ◽

English Court ◽

English Restoration ◽

French Court ◽

Italian Music

AbstractThis article discusses the function of Vincenzo Albrici and Charles II's Italian ensemble at the English Restoration court. The article cites newly discovered archival evidence to suggest that Albrici arrived at the English court in 1664 to become the leader of an exclusive ensemble performing Italian chamber music. The employment of the Italian ensemble imitated Mazarin's patronage of Italian music at the French court, arguably to rehabilitate the recently restored Stuart dynasty in the eyes of Continental courts. The article suggests that the ensemble performed chamber music privately at court, and also occasionally appeared in the queen's Catholic chapel after 1666. The recruitment of Albrici and the Italian ensemble shows that the English court participated in Continental musical fashions after the Restoration, and illustrates the complex webs of cultural exchange in mid-seventeenth-century Europe.

Download Full-text

THE CARDONA AND FERNÁNDEZ DE CÓRDOBA COATS OF ARMS IN THE CHIGI CODEX

Early Music History ◽

10.1017/s0261127902002061 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 21 ◽

pp. 223-258 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Emilio Ros-Fábregas

Keyword(s):

Seventeenth Century ◽

Music Manuscripts ◽

Coats Of Arms

The Chigi Codex occupies a place of honour among music manuscripts of the Renaissance; thirteen masses by Ockeghem along with L'homme armé masses by Josquin, Busnoys, Brumel and Compère figure prominently among its contents. According to Herbert Kellman, it was copied between 1498 and 1503 for the Burgundian nobleman Philippe Bouton. Several coats of arms of the Spanish families Cardona and Fernández de Córdoba appear in different places in the manuscript and Kellman suggested that the transfer of the Chigi Codex to the Spaniards occurred after the death of its first owner in 1515. Seven works, the foliation in the upper right margin of the recto folios and a table of contents with a heading that reads Tabla de missas y motetes were added by a Spanish scribe. Since Mouton's motet Quis dabit oculis, written on the death of Anne of Brittany in 1514, is also among the added works, Kellman concluded that these additions to the Chigi Codex were made after that date. The assumption that the manuscript travelled to Spain is further supported by a seventeenth-century inscription written in Italian on the flyleaf of the manuscript, which affirms that the book was used in Spain.

Download Full-text

From Mantua to Vienna: A New Look at the Early Seventeenth-Century Dance Suite

Journal of the Royal Musical Association ◽

10.1093/jrma/129.2.181 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 129 (2) ◽

pp. 181-219

Author(s):

Don Harrán

Keyword(s):

Seventeenth Century ◽

Chamber Music ◽

Instrumental Music ◽

Chamber Works ◽

Dance Suite ◽

Music Literature ◽

Habsburg Court ◽

New Evidence ◽

New Look

There is a gaping hole in the instrumental chamber-music literature at the Habsburg court of Vienna in the early seventeenth century. Of the composers in the employ of Emperor Ferdinand II, Giovanni Battista Buonamente was the only one to publish instrumental chamber works; but Buonamente's origins were Mantuan and the contents of his publications reflect the influence of the sinfonie, sonatas and dances by the leading Mantuan instrumental music composer Salamone Rossi. The similarities raise various questions. How does the Mantuan-born empress Eleonora impress her musical tastes on the Viennese court? To what extent is the Mantuan exemplar operative in Viennese instrumental music, particularly dances? How do the dance works of both Rossi and Buonamente relate to the incipient suite? And what new evidence can be brought to bear on the ordering of its constituents to form a larger construct?

Download Full-text