Music, Representation, and Social Order in Early-Modern Europe

Abstract

he notated, hence surviving, music produced in Western Europe between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries is predominantly music that responded to the needs of two groups: those in charge of organized and largely hegemonic religions (essentially, but not exclusively, the Roman Church and the several main Protestant sects) and the hegemonic social classes (initially the aristocracy and the bureaucratic, educated class that served the aristocracy's needs while coveting its class privileges, and later the emergent and eventually triumphant bourgeoisie proper). The music of both groups came into existence in the first place not simply because the individuals comprising these groups were powerful but more because music was perceived by them as having a role to play in the maintenance of power and the modes of self-definition upon which their power in part depended. In this regard, music was an acknowledged means of establishing caste: it was a vehicle by which to establish and maintain-via non-verbal and emoive means-a sufficient level of prestige to help authorize and therefore help stabilize position.