The Philosophical-aesthetical Conception of Music in Gioseffo Zarlino's Istitutioni harmoniche
Abstract
Gioseffo Zarlino reflects on the musical innovations of his time within the humanist sphere turning to the ancient Greek philosophy in order to give a rational foundation to the musical theory. Nevertheless, he also considers other traditions of the past: Greek mythology, Greek-Latin literature, biblical tradition, Christian tradition. All these lines converge in Zarlino’s thinking, without the aim of organizing those different contributions in a logical way, but with an instrumental purpose: choosing those ideas and concepts which enable him to pose a theory in order to ground the contemporary musical transformations.
The analysis will be focused on a selection of chapters of the first part of Istitutioni harmoniche (1589), where the confluence of traditions can be appreciated. Zarlino juxtaposes the attempt to find a rational foundation of the musical theory with mythical references from Greek-Latin antiquity and Jewish-Christian religious considerations. The concept of musica mundana, which proceeds from Pythagorean tradition, becomes the core of the argumentation. After that, both the manifestation of these duality of traditions in the pictorial representation of music and the scenic-musical configuration of Zarlino’s aesthetic-philosophical conception of music in Giovanni de’ Bardi’s Intermezzi (1589) will be examined.
References
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