Historical Music Sociology: The Simplicissimus Phenomenon

Abstract

For example, up until the 19th century, the social position of the musician did not carry any significant importance, because in the civic sense, he hardly had a place in society, within the framevs ork of urban development, until the second half of the 18th century when the musicians' guilds representing their interests were forined. Hungary was in a unique situation in the 17th century. For more than 600 years it had been living in the same place with its centre in between the Danube and the Tisza Rivers and surrounded by the Carpathian Mountains the tectonic continuation of the Alps towards the east. The Turkish-Moslim conquest reached the Hungarian stretch of the Danube as early as in the 16th century; then it was directed towards Vienna. In the beginning B:ungary was a military springboard, but then everits occurred that allowed the Turks to stay in the middle and western parts of the country for 150 years. They introduced their own public administra,tion. They exerted little influence on Hungarian culture. They permitted a free practice of religion until the very end of their dominion. Hungarian culture however was still divided into several parts. It was in this period that the Reformation spread (into the Turkishdominated territories too), the Hungarian literary language was formulated and Latin was replaced by the preva,iling national language. The country was cut into three parts: the territory north of the middle part of the country belonging to the Turks was ruled by the IIabsburg dynasty -with a number of German groups settled there while in the east there was a Hungarian principality, Transylvania, autonomous but dependent upon the Turks. Cultural lifeeven from the sociological point of view was evened out or Wsimilar in the North and in the East.