Medievalism and Music
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 March 2018
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199757824-0241
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 March 2018
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199757824-0241
Introduction
Medievalism, broadly construed, concerns the cultural and intellectual afterlife of the Middle Ages. It has a long tradition as a topic for critical scholarly engagement. Initially growing up in the disciplines of history and literature, it quickly spread to encompass the disciplines of art, architecture, music, and cultural studies, and began to incorporate theoretical positions taken from critical theory and psychoanalysis. With the founding of Studies in Medievalism by Leslie J. Workman, medievalism began to strike out as an interdisciplinary subject in its own right, crossing boundaries of genre, discipline, and period. The study of music and medievalism is a key part of the broader discipline, as an integral part of understanding popular culture broadly, and the genres of film, television, video games, and opera (among others) specifically. Medievalism is an important part of understanding the context of scholarly and performance traditions such as the historically informed performance practice movement and in understanding many types of music from Wagnerian opera to heavy metal. Indeed, medievalism has a long history in the arts. It has, throughout its history, come to mean many things, from the deliberate creative use of the medieval by later generations in art, literature, music, and other cultural products, to its explicit representation, and even more-general influence, conscious or otherwise. The earliest forays of 18th-century Romanticism tended to hold the medieval in high regard as a way of rejecting the political and ideological formulations of the Age of Enlightenment. It therefore formed an important part of 18th-century movements in art, architecture, literature, poetry, and music. More recently, medievalism has become an important part of popular culture, impacting upon film, television, video game, and popular music to an increasing degree, as well as entering political and journalistic discourse as a way of understanding contemporary phenomena.
Core Texts
The topic of music and medievalism is part of a broader academic discourse on medievalism that crosses disciplinary boundaries. Presented here are important readings from the broader discipline that are nonetheless vital for the study of music and medievalism. The section is divided into Foundational Texts on Medievalism, Reference Works and General Readings on Medievalism, General Literature on Medievalism with Substantial Sections Relating to Music, and Reference Websites, Publications, Societies, and Digital Tools.
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Article
- Afghanistan, Music in
- Air de Cour
- Albéniz, Isaac
- American Minstrel Music
- American Music Theory, 1955–2017
- Analysis
- Armstrong, Louis
- Asia, Southeast
- Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel
- Bach, Johann Sebastian
- Barber, Samuel
- Baroque Music
- Beatles, The
- Bellini, Vincenzo
- Berg, Alban
- Berlioz, Louis-Hector
- Bernstein, Leonard
- Boccherini, Luigi (Ridolfo)
- Boulez, Pierre
- Brahms, Johannes
- Brass Instruments
- Brazil
- Britten, Benjamin
- Buddhist Music
- Buxtehude, Dieterich
- Byrd, William
- Cage, John
- Canada
- Cantus Firmus
- Canzonetta
- Carter, Elliott
- Castrato, The
- Central Asia
- Chaconne and Passacaglia
- Chamber Music
- China
- Christian Hymnody
- Classical Era
- Clementi, Muzio
- Cold War Music
- Conductors and Conducting
- Continuo
- Copyright and Licensing in Music
- Corelli, Arcangelo
- Counterpoint
- Country Music, American
- Couperin, François
- Cuba
- Cuba, Classical Music in
- Dance
- de Lassus, Orlande
- des Prez, Josquin
- Diaspora
- d’Indy, Vincent
- Disability and Music
- Donizetti, Gaetano
- Double Bass
- Dowland, John
- Du Fay, Guillaume
- Dunstaple, John
- Dvořák, Antonín
- Early Modern British Metrical Psalmody (1535-1700)
- East and West Africa
- Electronic and Computer Music Instruments
- Elgar, Edward
- Ellington, Edward Kennedy "Duke"
- England
- English Catholic Music after the Reformation to 1750
- English-Speaking Caribbean
- E. T. A. Hoffmann
- Ethnomusicology
- Exoticism
- Falla, Manuel de
- Fauré, Gabriel
- Field, John
- Film Music
- Folk Music
- Franck, César
- French-American Colonial Music
- Frescobaldi, Girolamo
- Fugue
- Gabrieli, Giovanni
- Gender and Sexuality in Music
- Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, Carlo
- Gibbons, Orlando
- Glass, Philip
- Glinka, Mikhail Ivanovich
- Gluck, Christoph Willibald Ritter Von
- Gounod, Charles
- Greece, Music in
- Grétry, André
- Guido of Arezzo
- Hancock, Herbie
- Hanslick, Eduard
- Haydn, Joseph
- Hensel, Fanny
- Hildegard of Bingen
- Hindemith, Paul
- History of Music Theory
- Holst, Gustav
- Honegger, Arthur
- Ichiyanagi, Toshi
- Iconography, Early Modern European
- Ifukube, Akira
- India, Music in
- Indigenous Musics of the Arctic
- Indonesia
- Instruments, Musical
- Iran, Music in
- Ireland
- Isaac, Heinrich
- Israeli Art Music
- Ives, Charles (Edward)
- Janáček, Leoš
- Japan
- Jazz
- Jewish Music
- Joachim, Joseph
- Joplin, Scott
- Karłowicz, Mieczysław
- Keyboard Instruments
- Keyboard Music
- Korea
- Liedekens, 15th- and 16th-Century Dutch Polyphonic Songs
- Liszt, Franz
- Lully, Jean-Baptiste
- Lute, Vihuela, and Early Guitar
- Luther, Martin
- Machaut, Guillaume de
- Madrigal
- Mahler, Gustav
- Mass
- Massenet, Jules
- Medievalism and Music
- Mendelssohn, Felix
- Messiaen, Olivier
- Mexico
- Milhaud, Darius
- Minimalism
- Monteverdi, Claudio
- Motet
- Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
- Music and Cognition
- Music in the Balkans
- Musica Ficta
- Musical
- Musical Instruments, Classification of
- Musorgsky, Modest Petrovich
- Nationalism in Western Art Music
- North Africa
- Oboe
- Operetta
- Orchestral Music
- Organum
- Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da
- Peking Opera (Beijing Opera, jingju)
- Penderecki, Krzysztof
- Performance Practice in Western Art Music
- Philosophy of Music
- Popular Song in the Age of Louis XIV
- Post-Colonialism
- Poulenc, Francis
- Prokofiev, Sergey
- Puccini, Giacomo
- Puerto Rico, Music of
- Purcell, Henry
- Rameau, Jean-Philippe
- Rap/Hip-Hop
- Ravel, Maurice
- Recitative
- Recorder
- Renaissance
- Resources for Musical Research
- Romanticism
- Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
- Roussel, Albert
- Rumba
- Saint-Saëns, Camille
- Satie, Erik
- Scarlatti, Alessandro
- Scarlatti, Domenico
- Schenkerian Analysis
- Schnittke, Alfred
- Schoenberg, Arnold
- Schütz, Heinrich
- Schumann, Clara
- Schumann, Robert
- Serialism
- Shostakovich, Dmitry
- Sibelius, Jean
- Soler, Antonio
- Solo Secular Vocal Music
- Sonata
- Sonata Form
- Sound Art
- Strauss, Richard
- Stravinsky, Igor
- String Quartet
- Suite
- Sustainability, Music
- Symphony
- Tallis, Thomas
- Talma, Louise
- Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich
- Technology, Music
- Telemann, Georg Philipp
- Thailand
- Tonality
- Vaughan Williams, Ralph
- Verdi, Giuseppe
- Victoria, Tomás Luis de
- Video Game Music
- Viol
- Viotti, Giovanni Battista
- Virtuosity/Virtuoso
- Vivaldi, Antonio
- von Weber, Carl Maria
- Wagner, Richard
- Webern, Anton
- West Asia
- Western European Music Criticism, c. 1700-1970
- Women in Music
- Woodwind Instruments
- Yuasa, Jōji
- Zarzuela