Music, the Emblematic, and "The Mystery of Holy Matrimony"

Abstract

Johann Oettinger's Warhaffte historische Beschreibung der firstlichen Hochzeit is a fascinating amalgam of narrative detail and moral-political commentary.1 Printed in 1610,2 it commemorates the wedding of Duke Johann Friedrich of Wiirttemberg to Barbara Sophia of Brandenburg, which had been celebrated at Stuttgart during November of the preceding year. In its detailed delineation of guests, pageants, religious ceremonies, tournaments, and banquets, Oettinger's account is typical of contemporary festival literature. But by providing expansive commentaries that combine classical, historical, and scriptural citations,3 Oettinger invites the reader simultaneously to admire the splendor and sophistication of the festivities and to reflect on their deeper political and religious significance. A musical pageant of Phoebus, Lucina, and the Muses on the eve of the wedding afforded Oettinger an opportunity to shape his account to moral and political ends. While the music for this performance is no longer extant, his account includes the texts that were sung, a detailed prose account and engraving of the performance,4 and a commentary on its meaning. For Oettinger, who was also involved in its planning,5 the pageant is an embodiment of orthodox Lutheran teaching through which audience and reader arrive at a proper understanding of marriage. In the context of the festivities, which presented this particular marriage as a seal of the recently formed Protestant Union and a triumph of true religion,6 the teaching of the pageant gains wider currency as a manifestation of Protestant ideology.7 In his description of the pageant, Oettinger reveals a deep concern with the role of musical and theatrical performance in the projection of moral and political ideology. This concern conditions both his statements regarding sensory experience and his method of presentation, which draws on the layout and interpretive procedures of contemporary emblem books. By the invocation of commonplaces about the symbolic potential, emotional effect, and proper function of music, he seeks throughout to integrate aural experience with intellectual and spiritual edification.