Journal article

Publication year: 2014

Pages: 41-47

Journal: Musica Docta

Volume number: 2014

Issue number: Special Issue

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2039-9715/4305

Publisher: University of Bologna

Abstract: 

The evolution of music history in the first half of the 14th
century is characterized by an internationalization of European musical
culture, as a continuation of the cultural process of early Humanism.
The category of ‘evolution’, and the very idea of ‘rebirth’, or the
“legend of progress” (Martin Le Franc, Johannes Tinctoris) as discussed
by Reinhard Strohm, must be read today not only in terms of stylistic
standardization, but also as one of the hallmarks of a search for
cultural identity. Even from a historical-musical point of view, what we
see is the building of a new European taste from the combination of
local styles and practices, thanks to the spread of handwritten
collections all over the continent. Even composers from more distant
regions embraced the new style, although less regularly.

The
Council of Basel was not only a historical event confined to the years
during which the synod took place, just as it cannot be regarded as a
mere empirical fact that only affected one city in northern Switzerland.
It should rather be taken as a paradigmatic event in the cultural
history of the 14^th century. The encounters between
intellectuals and artists, the interaction between musicians from
different European regions, who met thanks to the frequent travels of
the courts and chapels, turned the Council into a virtual platform for
both the search for a new cultural identity, and the birth of new
musical repertories and practices. The Council therefore transcends the
material boundaries of the city of Basel, turning into a true ‘cultural
generator’, where each individual contributed to the constant
transmission and fusion of musical experiences, which became vectors for
a new musical vision that reached to even the farthest corners of
Europe.

Harvard Citation style: Nanni, M. (2014) Transmission of musical knowledge and history of European culture in the early decades of the 15th century, Musica Docta, 2014(Special Issue), pp. 41-47. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2039-9715/4305

APA Citation style: Nanni, M. (2014). Transmission of musical knowledge and history of European culture in the early decades of the 15th century. Musica Docta. 2014(Special Issue), 41-47. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2039-9715/4305