Music, Myth and Story in Medieval and Early Modern Culture ed. by Katherine Butler and Samantha Bassler

Abstract

Reviewed by: Music, Myth and Story in Medieval and Early Modern Culture ed. by Katherine Butler and Samantha Bassler Bradford Lee Eden Music, Myth and Story in Medieval and Early Modern Culture. Edited by Katherine Butler and Samantha Bassler. (Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music, 19.) Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 2019. [xiii, 318 p. ISBN 9781783273713 (hardback), $99; ISBN 9781787444409 (e-book), $24.99.] Music examples, illustrations, color plates, bibliography, index. The interconnections between folklore, myth, and story are both numerous and varied. Many origin myths and legends incorporate aspects of music, song, and drama in their construction, along with both human and supernatural individuals who embody and glorify musical attributes and abilities. This book provides a kind of navigational guide to the rich mythological traditions of various cultures and countries from the fifth to the early eighteenth centuries, blending a range of musical perspectives. Case studies encompass literary, theatrical, and iconographical scholarship wrapped around musical meanings, musical philosophy, musical techniques, musical theory, and musical performance linked to various myths and stories throughout history. Divided into seven sections and fifteen chapters, arranged both thematically and chronologically, this book provides a rich source of music’s influence on numerous stories and mythologies. The editors provide a detailed historical introduction to the topic, framing the essays that follow through discussion of musical figures throughout history and myth, including Orpheus, Jubal, the Muses, Pythagoras, and Apollo, to name but a few. Butler and Bassler also explain three approaches to the study and interpretation of musical myths at various times and places: the cosmological tradition centered around classical mythology, the Euhemerist or historical tradition, which interpreted the classical gods as historical men, and the moral or allegorical tradition, which arose during the Renaissance and saw the allegory of musical myth and story separated from any gods or historical personages. The editors provide brief summaries of the chapters while linking the entire contents together philosophically, from the Neoplatonist view of music as universal harmony to the Cartesian viewpoint of the separation of mind and body. [End Page 416] Section 1 focuses on the medieval period, with three essays on the influence of myth in music theory. John MacInnis examines how medieval music theorists incorporated Greek mythological narratives surrounding the harmony of the planets and universe as well as theological underpinnings around the human soul. Ferdia J. Stone-Davis explores Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy and similar early music treatises as blendings of music as myth and myth as music, providing meaning to the world and the universe in new ways. Elina G. Hamilton then considers the significance of origin myths and the genealogies constructed for music as an influence on fourteenth-century English singers and through the early fifteenth-century musical treatise De origine et effectu musicae. Section 2 contains two chapters on iconographical representations of myth and music during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Jason Stoessel traces the influence of Minerva through various biblical, historical, and allegorical figures, illustrating how the biblical figure Tubalcain in particular became associated iconographically with polyphonic, vernacular song collections. Stoessel provides this analysis through a reconsideration of Dosso Dossi’s Allegory of Music. Tim Shephard and Patrick McMahon then focus on early sixteenth-century Italian visual representations of the myth of the musical contest between Apollo and Pan, specifically how King Midas obtained ass ears and how various artists portrayed and reshaped this myth in ways that influenced moral and musical judgment in 1520s Italy. Section 3 has two chapters that examine Renaissance philosophies of music in relation to myth. Jacomien Prins contrasts two interpretations of the figure of Orpheus by the late fifteenth- century Italian philosophers Marsilio Ficino and Girolamo Cardano, showing how a mythical figure could engender new aesthetic standards and ideas. Katherine Butler then describes the nature of music in early modern England and how metanarratives around competing myths were used to justify new and changed perceptions of humanity’s relationship to nature and the ancient world. Section 4 moves from conceptual to practical aspects of musical performance in England and Italy in the sixteenth century. Jamie Apgar examines biblical stories of angel song from the early church and connections to alternatim choral singing in Protestant...