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Alfonso I D'este: Music and Identity in Ferrara

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Alfonso I D'este: Music and Identity in Ferrara Shephard, Tim (2010) Alfonso I d'Este: music and identity in Ferrara. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. Access from the University of Nottingham repository: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13912/1/523577.pdf Copyright and reuse: The Nottingham ePrints service makes this work by researchers of the University of Nottingham available open access under the following conditions. · Copyright and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. · To the extent reasonable and practicable the material made available in Nottingham ePrints has been checked for eligibility before being made available. · Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not- for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. · Quotations or similar reproductions must be sufficiently acknowledged. Please see our full end user licence at: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/end_user_agreement.pdf A note on versions: The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher’s version. Please see the repository url above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. For more information, please contact [email protected] ALFONSO I D'ESTE: MUSIC AND IDENTITY IN FERRARA Tim Shephard, MusB, PGDip. Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy July 2010 PAGES MISSING IN ORIGINAL Abstract Although a great deal of documentation on the patronage of Alfonso I d'Este has already been published, music historians and cultural historians have given little attention to Alfonso's style and importance as a patron of the arts. This study aims to marshal the already-available information to examine Alfonso as a patron of music, placing his interest in music firmly within the context of both his other artistic interests and his role in the turbulent political circumstances of his reign. In so doing it adopts analytical tools developed within the fields of cultural and critical theory and current within literary and art history, although thus far only rarely brought to bear on the history of music in what was once called the High Renaissance. In particular, this study looks at Alfonso's patronage through the thematic of identity, seeking to understand the tasks achieved in the construction of the ruler as a princely persona by both large chapel choirs and private music-making. These concerns will be aligned with the demands placed upon Alfonso by the dynastic, political, military and physical context of his reign. In addressing private music-making at Alfonso's court, this study will seek to make unusually extensive use of the decorations of private courtly spaces - which will be found to offer a frame designed quite self-consciously to give meaning to the musical recreations undertaken therein. The resulting picture will substantially revise our current, somewhat haphazard and uncritical view of Alfonso's music patronage, whilst at the same time proposing new ways to read music's meaning at court. Chapters I and II were presented in abridged form at the Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference 2009 in Utrecht. Parts of Chapters III, IV and VI were presented at the Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference 2008 in Bangor, the Royal Music Association's Research Students' Conference 2009 at King's College, London, and the bodies/music conference, Cork, April 2010. Chapter V, in different versions, was presented at the RMA Annual Conference 2006 in Nottingham and the Association of Art Historians' Annual Conference 2008 in London. Aclmowledgements A project such as this incurs many debts, both direct and indirect. The first and largest is, of course, to my supervisor, Philip Weller, in whom I believe I have found a friend and mentor for many years to come. Without his open mind and his astonishingly broad knowledge of Renaissance culture, much of what I have attempted would not even have been allowed, let alone possible. A second debt is owed to Peter Wright, my colleague in Nottingham, from whose unrivalled expertise in music codicology I have learned a great deal. Several other members of the faculty at Nottingham, in particular Dan Grimley and Paula Higgins, have been generous enough to provide me with helpful feedback on parts of this thesis. My thanks are also due to a number of Renaissance scholars who have read and commented on my work, or offered encouragement, critique and advice at conferences: Bonnie Blackburn, Stanley Boorman, Anthony Cummings, Jeffrey Dean, David Fallows, Matthew Hunter, Margaret Maclntyre, Melanie Marshall, Gabriele Neher, Joshua Rifkin and Rupert Shepherd. A select group of Renaissance scholars at the beginning of careers have been my companions now at several Medieval and Renaissance Music Conferences, and have proved an extremely fertile source of inspiration and encouragement over the course of preparing this thesis. Among these are Raz Binyamini, Katherine Butler, Daniel Donnelly, Jane Hatter, Kate Maxwell and Patrice Nicolas. My fellow inhabitants of the Postgraduate Room in the Department of Music have acted as a kind and patient family for the past four years, and each has made a valuable contribution to my work: they are Mark Clayden, Angela Kang,James Munk, Daphne Thorbjorg,Justin Williams, Katherine Williams and, most importantly, Jan Butler and Dennis Leo. Finally, my deepest appreciation is owed to my wife Bev, who through a constant process of discussion and debate has been through this whole thesis with me, and who deserves a medal for remaining patient and keeping me more-or-less sane. 3 Contents Introduction 5 Part 1 - War and the Chapel Choir: Alfonso between Public and Private Chapter I - Chapel Choirs and the Ruler's Public Identity 12 Identity, Princebood and Chapel Choirs 12 The Chapel Choir in Ercole d'Este's RNlership 19 Chapter II - Firing the Chapel Choir 30 1502-5: Apprenticeship 30 1505-9: Insecurity 36 1509-13: Wor and the Firing of the Choir 37 Chapter III - Pastoral and Performance: the Publicness of Private Space 48 .After the War. Pllblic to Private 48 Music and Landscape 52 The Publicness of Privaq 55 Music and Identity in Private Space: An Indicative Exantple 57 Epilogue 60 Part 2 - Music and Identity in the Private Apartments: Alfonso and his Dynastic Models Introduction 62 Chapter IV - Isabella and the Virtuous Voice 63 Voice and Deco1'llm 63 Making Isabella's Stlldiolo: A SlImmary 67 Voice and Legitimaq 70 Minman Eqllivocations 76 Voice and Agmq 80 Chapter V - Alfonso and the Poetics of Agency: the SllIdiolo 87 Making Alfonso's SllIdiolo: A S IImmary 88 The Andrians and Philoslratlls' Music 91 Trollble on Parnassm: Bacchm'Masculine Eloqllence 94 Music. Landscape and Pmmct 100 Viewing. Performance and Identity 104 Alfonso's Agenq 108 Chapter VI - The Erotics of Song: A Shared Theme 111 Mllsic at Begiore 111 Calliope 's Song 116 Erol and the Lion: Leonello's MUle 120 Si"" Voim: Bono': Mille 126 A COllrllYEros: Alfonso's MIIII 132 Chapter VII - Conclusions: Living Music at Court 137 Decorated Space and Mllsical Meaning 137 Objects in Performance 138 Chapel Choirs in Contlxt 142 Music and Alfonso '.r Identity 142 illustrations 145 Appendix - An Inventory of the manuscript London, ReM Ms. 2037 171 Bibliography 179 5 Introduction [Alfonso] was neither extravagant nor fond of display, and he cared nothing for a brilliant court. He was indifferent to externals, even to his own clothing. His chief concern was to increase the efficiency of the anuy, build fortresses, and cast cannon. When the affairs of state left him any leisure he amused himself at a turning-lathe which he had set up, and also in painting majolica vases, in which art he was exceedingly skilful. He had no inclination for the higher culture - this he left to his wife.' Such estimates as Gregorovius' have had the effect of forming an almost insuperable barrier to the discussion of Alfonso as a patron of the arts.2 Historians of art and music generally prefer their patrons to be of a literary tum of mind, trained in Latin letters, musically literate, exercised by philological and stylistic questions. If they have illustrious humanist educators or retainers, so much the better. We prefer them to be apparently aware of the increasing nobility of the arts and to make space for the emerging self-awareness of their practitioners. We like to frame them as contemplative viewers and listeners, intellectually immersed in a philosophy (or a theology) expressed in artistic tenus. By these measures Alfonso was a boor. His interest in the arts was as much physical as thoughtfuP His paintings are replete with a joyfully Ovidian sensuality. The polyphonic music produced for his court is relatively simple. Nonetheless, the practitioners Alfonso persuaded to service these interests were among the best available: Brumel was among the highest-regarded composers of his day; Bidon the most famous singer in Italy; and Titian, Raphael and Michelangelo were peerless as painters. Alfonso was also among the few patrons of his time to keep a single artist - Dosso Dossi - continuously employed at court. Alfonso's father Ercole I is by now among the most thoroughly studied of Renaissance music patrons. A huge amount of documentary detail and a reasonably clear picture of his character and purpose as princely patron have been articulated over recent years. Alfonso was both like and unlike his father. After an early involvement in the chapel choir concerning the hiring of Josquin, he maintained his father's large chapel choir until 1510, when circumstances brought about its departure almost In lIIam (the subject of Chapter 11).During this period the choir was led first by Jacob Obrecht and then by Antoine Bramel, two of the foremost musicians of the age.
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