Habsburg musical power

Abstract

Very few establishments in history have maintained such a musically fertile milieu as the imperial court in Vienna. The undisputed climax of its court chapel was the period between 1619 and 1740, that is, during the reigns of emperors Ferdinand II, Ferdinand III, Leopold I, Joseph I and Charles VI. These five rulers—all of them keen musicians and several of them composers of some quality—provided continued substantial funding for their large musical chapels, defying financial and political crises and attracting some of Europe’s finest musicians. With the emperors combining their love of music and their unwavering zeal for the cause of the Roman Catholic Church, it comes as no surprise that sacred music was able to reach new heights at their courts. Nonetheless, only few comprehensive studies have been devoted to this fascinating environment. Any student of the subject will be familiar with Friedrich Wilhelm Riedel’s seminal Kirchenmusik am Hofe Karls VI. (1711–1740): Untersuchungen zum Verhältnis von Zeremoniell und musikalischem Stil im Barockzeitalter (Munich–Salzburg, 1977) as well as Stephen Saunders’s Cross, sword, and lyre: sacred music at the imperial court of Ferdinand II of Habsburg (1619–1637) (Oxford, 1995), two monographs focusing on the outer ends of the court chapel’s golden age. The intervening period between 1637 and 1711, however, has received relatively little attention. This makes Andrew Weaver’s book on sacred music during the reign of Ferdinand III (1637–57) an all the more welcome contribution to the field. The work started life as the author’s PhD thesis titled ‘Piety, politics, and patronage: motets at the Habsburg court in Vienna during the reign of Ferdinand III (r.1637–1657)’ (Yale University, 2002), and has undergone a thorough revision for publication by Ashgate. Although the study has maintained much of its original content, its scope has been narrowed down in the process, from a broader portrait (in line with Riedel and Saunders) to a more specific exploration of monarchical representation through the medium of sacred music. What it lost through this transformation (among other things, half of its tables, over 40 music examples, and a useful musical appendix of 190 pages), it has gained in terms of focus and clarity. The result is a well-structured and beautifully written account of how sacred music, along with other art forms, was utilized in order to construct and revise the image of Ferdinand III in turbulent times. As such, the book also draws much-needed attention to a frequently overlooked emperor who belonged neither to the great winners nor the spectacular losers of history.