The music of the Renaissance will take center stage at
the Peabody
campus this spring and summer as the conservatory and
George Peabody Library will host a conference and connected
exhibit on the period of history known as the dawn of the
modern world.
On May 23, the George Peabody Library, part of the
university's
Sheridan Libraries, will open an exhibition titled
Art, Science, Spirit, Soul: Mastering Music in the
Renaissance. The exhibit, which runs until July 31,
will explore the quintessential elements of musical
education for both men and women in the Renaissance.
Susan Weiss, one of the curators of the exhibition and
director of the conference, said that the exhibit, which is
free and open to the public, will showcase an array of
works that reveal the social, historical and cultural
contexts that were key to the study of music during the
period.
"We not only have music treatises but also books on
grammar, mathematics and more practical subjects like
fencing and fishing. The surviving books point out the
diversity and spirit of the Renaissance men and women doing
the reading," said Weiss, a musicologist at Peabody. "In
the days following the birth of printing, people were
hungry for learning, building their libraries with
theoretical and practical sources."
Emily Caton, a Peabody student and
assistant curator of the exhibition; Mark Sudek of the
Baltimore Consort; Susan Weiss, Peabody musicologist and
co-curator; John Buchtel, foreground, rare books curator at
the Sheridan Libraries and co-curator of the
exhibition.
PHOTO BY HIPS / WILL KIRK
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Beautifully illustrated rare books from JHU's Sheridan
and Arthur Friedheim Libraries, the Walters Art Museum, the
Folger Shakespeare Library and the Library of Congress will
be on display. Also included in the exhibit will be period
string and wind instruments from the Peabody Conservatory's
collection and manuscripts featuring ornate woodcuts and
engravings.
John Buchtel, curator of rare books at the Sheridan
Libraries and co-curator of the exhibition, said that the
exhibit includes some of the most influential early printed
music treatises, manuals and handbooks.
"The idea behind the show is to look not only at the
ways music was taught, and its contexts, during the
Renaissance but also at the ways books and images can
provide evidence for varying degrees of musical literacy
during this time period," Buchtel said. "It has been
exciting to discover as many early modern music-related
works as we uncovered in the process of preparing this
show. It is an immense privilege to curate the Sheridan
Libraries' rare books collections, and it never fails to
amaze me how full of surprises our collections are."
Specifically, the exhibit will include perhaps the
most famous book on the science of beekeeping, The Feminin
Monarchi, which was published in 1634 by Charles Butler, a
priest. The book includes a four-part song, written in
table music format, intended to imitate the sounds of bees
buzzing. Also on display are such seminal works as the
Practica Musicae (1497) by music theorist Franchinus
Gafurius, a friend of Leonardo da Vinci's whose works
greatly influenced later writers on music.
A lute, a popular instrument of
the day
PHOTO BY HIPS / WILL KIRK
|
From June 2 to 4, the Peabody Conservatory will host a
conference titled Reading and Writing the Pedagogy of the
Renaissance: The Student, the Study Materials and the
Teacher of Music, 1470-1650, in which distinguished
scholars from around the world will explore how people
learned to play and sing music in Renaissance times.
The conference will feature a performers' roundtable,
at which members of Early Music ensembles will teach a
Renaissance music lesson, using the texts and popular
instruments of the day such as lutes, citterns, recorders,
flutes, crumhorns and rackets. The racket is a short wooden
or ivory instrument containing cylindrical tubing that was
bent back on itself nine times to produce a reedy,
low-pitched and muffled sound. In Renaissance times,
knowledge of music and the ability to play an instrument
were considered an essential part of a gentleman's and
gentlewoman's education.
Among those scheduled to attend the conference is
noted historian Anthony Grafton, author of Bring Out
Your Dead: The Past as Revelation (Harvard University
Press, 2001) and Cardano's Cosmos: The Worlds and Works
of a Renaissance Astrologer (JHU Press, 2000).
A highlight of the conference will be the June 4
musical performance of the Baltimore Consort, an ensemble
specializing in arrangements of the medieval and
Renaissance music of England, Scotland and France. The
concert, tickets for which are $12, will take place at 8
p.m. in Peabody's Griswold Hall.
The conference is supported by funds from the National
Endowment for the Humanities, the Dean's Office at the
School of Arts and Sciences, the Peabody Musicology
Department, the Arthur Friedheim Music Library, the
University of Delaware and the Venable law firm.
Registration for the event is $50 per day. To register
or to purchase concert tickets, go to
www.Peabody.jhu.edu/renaissance.
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