Dr Peter Martens provides the first complete edited English
translation of, and commentary on, Issac Vossius’s De poematum cantu
et viribus rythmi, a late seventeenth-century work of Continental
musical humanism, all the more interesting for being published in
England and dedicated to royalist Henry Bennett, Duke of Arlington.
This treatise plays an important but poorly understood role in the
continued development of rhythmopoeia; Vossius continues the arguments
of figures such as Vincenzo Galilei and Marin Mersenne - desiring to
link linguistic rhythm, music, and the passions - by proposing a
practical, if undemonstrated, method for doing so based on ancient
poetic feet. This resuscitation of poetic feet in the service of
affect is made explicit by Vossius, but is undoubtedly more familiar
to musicologists from Wolfgang Caspar Printz's 1696 Phrynis
Mitilenaeus or Johann Mattheson's 1739 Der vollkommene Capellmeister.
Vossius, or more correctly, De poematum cantu, was often cited during
the century after its publication, and no modern treatment of
rhythmopoeia seems complete without a citation or short excerpt from
this work. There is little secondary literature that focuses on this
treatise, but what does exist links this work directly to John
Dryden's composition of his 1687 and 1697 St. Cecilia odes, and their
musical settings by Giovanni Battista Draghi and Jeremiah Clarke,
respectively. In Dean Mace and H. Neville Davies' debate over the
extent of Vossius's influence on these works can be found a rich
picture of the contentious issues surrounding text-setting and musical
affect that so occupied a great many writers in
late-seventeenth-century England. A full translation and accompanying
discussion of Vossius's own sources and musical influences allows
English-language students and scholars to access and study this work
in the depth and to the degree it deserves.
Les mer
On the Music of Poetry and Power of Rhythm
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781000655858
Publisert
2022
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Taylor & Francis
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter