Queen Christina of Sweden as a Patron of Music in Rome in the Mid-Seventeenth Century

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
TESSA MURDOCH
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Chamber Music ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
Keen Interest ◽  
Commissioned Works ◽  
Queen Christina Of Sweden

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.

Compositional and Performance Mapping in Computer Chamber Music: A Case Study

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 64-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Lyon ◽  
R. Benjamin Knapp ◽  
Gascia Ouzounian
Keyword(s):  
Chamber Music ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Mapping Problem ◽  
Software Interfaces ◽  
Digital Synthesis ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Physical Gestures ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Musical Interaction

The mapping problem is inherent to digital musical instruments (DMIs), which require, at the very least, an association between physical gestures and digital synthesis algorithms to transform human bodily performance into sound. This article considers the DMI mapping problem in the context of the creation and performance of a heterogeneous computer chamber music piece, a trio for violin, biosensors, and computer. Our discussion situates the DMI mapping problem within the broader set of interdependent musical interaction issues that surfaced during the composition and rehearsal of the trio. Through descriptions of the development of the piece, development of the hardware and software interfaces, lessons learned through rehearsal, and self-reporting by the participants, the rich musical possibilities and technical challenges of the integration of digital musical instruments into computer chamber music are demonstrated.

On the Nomenclature of the Vinegar Eelworm

1927 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 133-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. G. Peters
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Keen Interest ◽  
Naked Eye ◽  
The World

This eelworm, only just visible to the naked eye, and quite common in vinegar in all parts of the world, has long been known to zoologists, and indeed was an object of keen interest and discussion to the naturalists of the seventeenth century. Petrus Borellus [3], for instance, enthusiastic over the recent adoption of the microscope for researches in natural history, published in 1656 his “Observationum Microcospicarum Centuria,” in which he leads off with a note “De Vermibus aceti.” In the twelfth edition of the “Systema Naturae” (1767), Linnaeus included a species redivivum in that final genus of the Regnum Animale so appropriately named Chaos. This species of animal he says, “Habitat in Aceto & Glutine Bibliopegorum.”.

The Anthropomorphic Analogy: Humanising musical machines in the early modern and contemporary eras

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-180
Author(s):  
Rebecca Cypess ◽  
Steven Kemper
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
Physical Computing ◽  
Western Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
Musical Systems ◽  
Historical Contextualisation ◽  
Sensor Interfaces ◽  
The Relationship

Since the late twentieth century, the development of cybernetics, physical computing and robotics has led artists and researchers to create musical systems that explore the relationship between human bodies and mechanical systems. Anthropomorphic musical robots and bodily integrated ‘cyborg’ sensor interfaces explore complementary manifestations of what we call the ‘anthropomorphic analogy’, which probes the boundary between human artificer and artificial machine, encouraging listeners and viewers to humanise non-musical machines and understand the human body itself as a mechanical instrument.These new approaches to the anthropomorphic analogy benefit from historical contextualisation. At numerous points in the history of Western art music, philosophers, critics, composers, performers and instrument designers have considered the relationship between human musician and musical instrument, often blurring the line between the two. Consideration of historical examples enriches understandings of anthropomorphism in contemporary music technology.This article juxtaposes the anthropomorphic analogy in contemporary musical culture with manifestations of anthropomorphism in early seventeenth-century Europe. The first half of the seventeenth century witnessed a flourishing of instrumentality of all sorts. Musical instruments were linked with the telescope, the clock, the barometer, the paintbrush, and many other instruments and machines, and these came to be understood as vehicles for the creation of knowledge. This flourishing of instrumental culture created new opportunities for contemplation and aesthetic wonder, as theorists considered the line between human being and machine – between nature and artifice. Manifestations of the anthropomorphic analogy in seventeenth-century conceptions of musical instruments help to contextualise and explain similar articulations of the anthropomorphic analogy in the present day.

Female Arthurians in Scandinavia: Eufemia, Christina and the Modern Female Scholar

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-60
Author(s):  
Sofia Lodén
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Literary Study ◽  
Arthurian Romance ◽  
Queen Christina Of Sweden ◽  
Female Scholar ◽  
The Middle Ages

Abstract This article traces the line between the medieval female reader of Arthurian romance in Scandinavia and the female scholar of today. It draws attention to a number of female patrons and readers of Arthuriana in the Middle Ages, as well as to Queen Christina of Sweden in the seventeenth century. It also discusses the contribution of Scandinavian women to the scholarly field of Arthurian literary study.

Michael Boym’s Medicus Sinicus: New Facts, Reflections, Conclusions

T oung Pao ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 103 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 448-472
Author(s):  
Edward Kajdański
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Keen Interest ◽  
Le Fort ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
The Many

Following the author’s previous work on reconstituting the transmission to Europe, disappearance, and eventual publication under other names of the Polish Jesuit Michael Boym’s manuscript work on Chinese medicine, this article recounts the recent discovery of some of these manuscripts. They are kept at the Jagiellonian Library in Krakow, and were originally part of the Chinese Library of the Elector of Brandenburg, where they were acquired from Dutch officials who had earlier bought them from the Jesuit Philippe Couplet (who had obtained them from Boym’s last companion). The complex story of these manuscripts’ travels documents the keen interest in Chinese medicine among the many competing European powers and institutions in the seventeenth century; it also shows that we should be careful in assessing whether the publication of Boym’s seminal work under other names was willful plagiarism, or a result of contemporary tensions and confusion.
Cet article fait suite aux travaux antérieurs de l’auteur sur la transmission en Europe, la disparition puis la publication sous d’autres noms des travaux manuscrits sur la médecine chinoise du jésuite polonais Michael Boym. Il relate la découverte récente d’une partie de ces manuscrits dans la bibliothèque Jagiellonienne à Cracovie, et montre qu’ils viennent de l’ancienne bibliothèque chinoise du Grand Electeur de Brandebourg, où ils ont été originellement acquis auprès d’officiers hollandais qui les avaient achetés auprès du jésuite Philippe Couplet, qui lui-même les avait obtenus du dernier compagnon de Boym à la mort de celui-ci. L’histoire complexe des voyages de ces manuscrits met en lumière le fort intérêt pour la médecine chinoise de la part des diverses puissances et institutions européennes du 17e siècle, alors en vive concurrence ; elle nous engage aussi à la prudence quant aux jugements que l’on peut porter sur la publication des travaux pionniers de Boym sous d’autres noms, qui doit autant aux tensions et confusions politiques du temps qu’à un plagiat intentionnel.


Andrzej Panufnik

Tempo ◽  
1960 ◽  
pp. 13-18
Author(s):  
Harold Truscott
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
The Other ◽  
Direct Connection ◽  
Independent Music ◽  
Stringed Instruments ◽  
New Type ◽  
Italian Model

Andrzej Panufnik was born in Warsaw on September 24, 1914. His father, Tomasz, was the most eminent Polish constructor of stringed instruments, and author of many scientific books concerning the construction of musical instruments. Some of his books are in the library of the British Museum. Tomasz influenced in many ways the early musical ideas of his son, and this influence has lived on in one way in Andrzej's mature musical output. His father at first designed his instruments on the old Italian model—‘Antica’ was his name for them. He also later designed a new type of violin which he called ‘Polonia’—the Polish instrument. Andrzej's mature music falls into three categories: ‘Antica’, music based on compositions by seventeenth-century Polish composers, ‘Polonia’, music based partly on original Polish folk tunes, and ‘Independent’, music which he calls unrelated, free, but which at times does reflect the other two in spirit, simply because he cannot alter his nature. The works in this latter class have no direct connection with either of the other two.

The Vocal Wit of John Dryden

2006 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 371-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tina Skouen
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
John Dryden ◽  
Literary Critic ◽  
Keen Interest ◽  
English Poet

Abstract The English poet-critic John Dryden (1631–1700) took a keen interest in refining the mother tongue. As a literary critic, he was particularly concerned with the contrast between the sound of the vernacular and that of Latin. This study establishes a connection between Dryden's observations on sound and the recommendations concerning elocution found in such seventeenth-century rhetorics as Some Instructions Concerning the Art of Oratory (1659) by Obadiah Walker. In order to appreciate Dryden's use of sound in his own poems, I argue that one should also take into account the phonetic theory provided by contemporary grammars. The study thus pays tribute to the fact that in the age of Dryden the concerns of rhetoric and grammar were closely interwoven.

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