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1. Concept and idea of musicThe connotations of the Greek musikḗ [téchnē] and the Latin [ars] musica went far beyond the idea of music as an art of making sound or organizing acoustic events. As Boëthius explained in De (institutione) musica (early 6th century CE; “On Music”), the music heard on earth ( musica instrumentalis) was an  imitatio of the  musica mundana (the universal “music of the celestial bodies” or “spheres”). According to the prevailing view in Greco-Roman antiquity and the Middle Ages, music was based, being a reflection of celestial order [1. 219], on number and …

1. PeriodizationThe definition of the start and end dates of 1450 and 1850 for the early modern period in this encyclopedia (Epoch) are not unproblematic as regards music. Musicologists would find the start date plausible, but not the end date. Possible criteria in support of 1450 as a start date would include: processes of individualization (Composer), a change in the value hierarchy between musicus and  cantor, that is, between practitioners guided by theory and those working directly with music in the strict sense or between music theory and musical …

1. Concept The requiem, which takes its name from the first word of the Latin Introitus (entrance text), “Requiem aeternam dona eis” (“Give them eternal rest”), is the Catholic Mass of the Dead (Latin  missa pro defunctis). Following the liturgical reform introduced by the Council of Trent (1545-1563), the full mass comprised nine musical sections: Introit ( Introitus: “ Requiem aeternam”); Kyrie eleison; Gradual ( Graduale: “ Requiem aeternam”); Tract ( Tractus: “ Absolve, Domine”); Sequence ( Sequentia: “ Dies irae, dies illa”); Offertory ( Offertorium: “ Domine Jes…

1. ConceptVocal music is not an established specialist term. As a vague comprehensive concept, it refers both to a specific mode of performance (music performed with the human voice) and a type of composition involving many different ways of setting texts, for single or combined voices, unaccompanied ( a cappella) or with instrumental accompaniment.During the early modern period, the former preferential status of vocal music relative to instrumental music was reversed. Until the 15th century, the sources show instrumental music as marginal,…

1. ConceptThe first use of the term “political music” is found in the work of Michael Praetorius, who in 1614/15 drew a distinction between spiritual music and “political and worldly music,” which existed outside the confines of the church “only for leisure and pleasure/in free and laudable use” (“nur zur Lust und Kurtzweil / im freyem löblichem Gebrauch”) [1. vol. 1, Index Generalis, b2v.]. Applying the criterion of usage, Praetorius defined it as functional music played within the structure of government. The term only came into regular use at the time…

1. Concept and aesthetic The term string quartet (German  Streichquartett, French  quatuor à cordes, Italian  quartetto d’archi) became established in the 19th century as the genre became clearly defined [6]. It quickly came to apply to more than the standard ensemble of first and second violins, viola, and cello. The quartet soon became seen as the ideal representation of the musical setting in four voices. Combined with the idea of an ensemble of four solo strings as voices on equal terms, the string quartet became the …

1. Itinerant musicians In the Middle Ages, itinerant musicians – who worked mostly independently but sometimes in conditions of quasi-employment at courts or in towns – were key figures in European musical culture. They played for entertainment (Light music), dancing, in the countryside, in streets and squares, at fairs, in taverns (Tavern music), and at tournaments and other ceremonial court occasions. Their audiences came from various strata of society, and they mastered an accordingly broad (and…

1. IntroductionThe word “theater” (from the Greek theatron, “place for viewing,” via Latin  theatrum, “[open-air] place for viewing [spectacles or plays]”) in the early modern period had a social sense that went far beyond watching or performing drama, and that was considerably wider in scope than today. It was neither associated with institutions, nor properly susceptible to experience and description as a single, coherent phenomenon. The fundamental characteristics of early modern theater were plurimedial…

1. Literature A florilegium is a compilation of images, maxims, or sayings, taken from the works of one or more authors or from musical works (see below, 2.) and arranged in the manner of a dictionary for rhetorical application. The term, derived from the Greek anthología (“flower gathering”) and dating only from the 16th century, evokes the process of “gathering flowers [of words]” (Latin  flores legere, literally “to collect blooms”), while the related term “(printed) commonplace-book” current in the English-speaking world focuses more strongly on the inte…

1. Definition Patronage in scholarship, science, and the arts is the financial support and encouragement offered by individual patrons or institutions to practitioners. The quintessential patron in Greco-Roman antiquity was Gaius Cilnius Maecenas, the friend and advisor to the Emperor Augustus in the 1st century BCE who operated as patron of a circle of poets that included Horace. Maecenas’ name has entered many European languages (but not English) as a common noun with the sense of “patron” or “sponsor” (German  Mäzen; French  mécène; Czech  mecenáš), and in derivatives wit…

1. ConceptThe salon is a quintessential European venue of memory and a sociocultural phenomenon of  longue durée with origins in the 16th century. The connotations of the term, which has a broad semantic range, vary according to period and cultural sphere. In German, they are often pejorative ( Salonliterat, “salon writer”;  Salonkommunist, “champagne communist”). It denotes the reception room, the regular meetings that take place there on a “set day” ( jour fixe), and the group of habitués who practice specific forms of sociability there and often use a salon …

1. TerminologyThe word “song” – denoting (a) the act of sustaining a melody with the voice, and (b) a composition for singing – dates back to Old English and has virtually identical cognates in all the Germanic languages (e.g. ON söngr, Dutch zang, OHG sang). NHG Gesang, however, was superseded in the sense of “composition for voice” by Lied in the 15th century. According to Grimm’s  Deutsches Wörterbuch, Lied (compare ON  ljóð, OE leóð, ME leth, “lay”) originally denoted making music by plucking strings; OHG glosses render the Latin bardus (bard) as liudari, and the explanatory carminu…

1. Concept and problemA work is considered plagiarism if it derives wholly or in part from the work of another author while deliberately concealing its source, permitting the definition of a “pretence of intellectual originality” [2. 1152]. Plagiarism is thus distinct from cryptomnesia (the unintended reproduction of something the author has forgotten having read) and the forms of parody and montage, in which disclosure of the source(s) is intended and crucial to reception. Whereas artistic forgery entails passing off one’s own w…

1. DefinitionThe term panegyric has two senses, which causes a degree of confusion. On the one hand, it refers to certain rhetorical and literary traditions of Greek and Roman antiquity and their later reception. On the other, it operates retrospectively as a general term for rhetorical and poetic texts, works of art, and musical compositions of encomiastic (honorific) character.Martin Disselkamp2. LiteratureIn ancient Greece, the  panegyrikós was primarily a festival, celebratory address that offered the speaker an opportunity to demonstrate all registers o…

1. History 1.1. IntroductionThe term  town denotes a settlement with either a town charter or a large population and compact development (on the problem of defining a town, see [21]; see also Rural society 1.). A town charter gave the corporation and its citizens legal and economic privileges (especially civic rights; market rights; staple rights; the right to hold a trade fair) and allowed the citizens to participate directly or indirectly in local political decisions (Council [administrative]; Mayor). In some cases, pri…

1. Introduction Dance - a sequence of stylized rhythmical steps and movements performed by individuals, couples, or groups - was one of the most widespread and popular forms of nonverbal communication and public representation in the early modern period. As an indispensable component of free time and festivals of all kinds, it formed part of the everyday world of almost all ranks and groupings, in both elite and popular culture (see also e.g. Kermis, fig. 1; Music, fig. 3). Many had their own danc…

1. General 1.1. OccasionsFestivals (from Latin  festus, “joyful, festive”) interrupt the routine of the everyday world, to which they contrast as a temporally and spatially limited “anti-structure” of which they are the structuring element [21]. In the early modern period, festivals marked the phases of natural, social, or individual chronologies, which could be either cyclic or linear. Cyclic chronologies included the annual agricultural cycle, the economic cycle, the church year with its recurring saint's days (Saint), and …