Flora Dennis

University of Sussex, Art History, Faculty Member

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Ruben López-Cano

Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya

David Seamon

Kansas State University

Paul Rodgers

Lancaster University

Armando Marques-Guedes

UNL - New University of Lisbon

Florin Curta

University of Florida

Francisco de Paula Souza de Mendonça Júnior

UFSM - Universidade Federal de Santa Maria

Laurajane Smith

The Australian National University

Kati (Katalin) Prajda

University of Vienna

Dan Ioan Mureșan

Rouen University

Olga Palagia

National & Kapodistrian University of Athens

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Papers by Flora Dennis

Pratella, Francesco Balilla

Oxford Music Online, 2001

Italian survivals

Early Music, 2005

Organ parts survive for many of the works, and the editors have sensitively provided parts where ... more Organ parts survive for many of the works, and the editors have sensitively provided parts where they do not exist; exceptions are the tuneful five-part almaines, where a theorbo seems more appropriate (if a chordal accompaniment is needed at all), and the six-part almaines, which are thought to have been the repertory of the royal wind consorts—due in part to their narrow range and the royal Stuart arms, ‘in a garland of vine-branches, flanked by lion and unicorn supporters’, stamped in gold on the binding. Pitch is another uncomfortable topic addressed squarely, with on the one hand recent research suggesting a high pitch for English chamber organs, and on the other hand the observations by both Michael Praetorius and Mersenne that the English played their viols at a low pitch ‘so as to render the sound of them sweeter and more charming’. The prefatory material also includes six pages of illuminating facsimiles: a keyboard score in Thomas Tomkins’s hand; Berardi’s example in Arcan...

Futurism

Oxford Music Online, 2001

Russolo, Luigi

Oxford Music Online, 2001

Music and space

Unlocking the gates of chastity: music and the erotic in the domestic sphere in fifteenth and sixteenth-century Italy

Music in Ferrarese Festivals: Harmony and Chaos

Musical Sound and Material Culture

The material culture of the past is often treated as silent. Although sixteenth-century texts com... more The material culture of the past is often treated as silent. Although sixteenth-century texts comment on the ‘racket’ of wooden shoes during dances1 or the ‘noise of plates and knives’ in a kitchen during the preparation of a meal,2 when we examine such historical objects today, their cacophony is forgotten.3 Yet the range of sounds objects made – and the cultural and economic forces required to produce those sounds – can reveal valuable information that mute examinations ignore. In this chapter on music and material culture I will consider how we can explore international trade, collaborations between craftsmen, aesthetic choices and fashions, and changing social practices and values in the early modern period by listening to musical objects

Representing the domestic interior in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy: from the birth of the Virgin to palaces of cheese

Resurrecting Forgotten Sound: Fans and Handbells in Early Modern Italy

Music and sound are ephemeral and immaterial. 'As it is born', wrote Leonardo da Vinci, d... more Music and sound are ephemeral and immaterial. 'As it is born', wrote Leonardo da Vinci, describing the sense of hearing, 'so it dies, and it is as fleeting in its death as it is in its birth.' While the Western system of musical notation is capable of preserving certain aspects of historical, sonic exeperience, it evolved in order todirect performance, not record musical experience, and was applied to particular types of musical repertory. Unwritten pieces transmitted by ear 'died' with those who had memorised them. In the early modern period such notation obviously recorded only pitched, musical sound. The noises that resonated through the streets, houses, churches and fields of the past are preserved only in rare, and usually fleeting, textual descriptions.

Medieval and Renaissance Music

When is a Room a Music Room? Sounds, Spaces, and Objects in Non-courtly Italian Interiors

The Music Room in Early Modern France and Italy, 2012

Although never an easy feat, tracing the connections between sounds, spaces and objects becomes e... more Although never an easy feat, tracing the connections between sounds, spaces and objects becomes easier the higher up the social scale one goes in the Early Modern period. The survival of documentary and material evidence helps to identify musical repertories that were known to have been performed in specific spaces on particular instruments. Given the lack of comparative sources at lower social levels, is it possible to establish relationships between these three elements in non-courtly contexts? This chapter considers non-courtly ‘music-rooms’, addressing how practical material and conceptual motivations forged links between music and domestic space in this period. It goes on to examine broader, perhaps unexpected, connections between musical sound and the material culture of the Early Modern domestic interior.

Review: Italian survivals

Early Music, 2005

Famously, Luzzasco Luzzaschi's music written for Ferrara's legendary concerto delle don... more

Organology and material culture

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Cooking pots, tableware, and the changing sounds of sociability in Italy, 1300–1700

Sound Studies

Disclosure statement: No potential conflict of interest. Acknowledgements: I am deeply grateful t... more Disclosure statement: No potential conflict of interest. Acknowledgements: I am deeply grateful to Viktoria Tkaczyk and Leendert van der Miesen for the invitation to spend time as a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science to work on this topic, and to the friends and colleagues in Berlin (Ruth Ur and Philipp Misselwitz in particular) with whom I discussed this paper fruitfully in its early stages. My thanks to Kate Sturge for her exceptional editing; to Francesco Ventrella, Jaqueline Marie Musacchio and Alexander Masters for their invaluable comments and suggestions on earlier drafts; and to the three anonymous reviewers for Sound Studies for their helpful suggestions.

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Interior Spaces for Music

When is a room a music room? Sounds, spaces and objects in non-courtly Italian interiors

Sound, Space and Object: The Aural, the Visual and the Tactile in Early Modern French and Italian Music Rooms, ed. Deborah Howard and Laura Moretti, 2012

STUDYING THE SOUNDS, SPACES AND OBJECTS of the past can feel like a doomed enterprise. Vanished s... more STUDYING THE SOUNDS, SPACES AND OBJECTS of the past can feel like a doomed enterprise. Vanished sounds leave elusive echoes, represented in musical notation or secondary descriptions that evade precise reconstruction. The few spaces that have survived demolition or substantial alteration have often been extensively adjusted, creating different acoustic effects. Sound-producing objects have usually been signifi cantly modifi ed-for example, the sixteenthcentury harpsichords truncated to correspond with eighteenth-century fashions. 1 Today, most sit silent in museums, encased in glass.

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Scattered knives and dismembered song: cutlery, music and the rituals of dining

Renaissance Studies, Jan 1, 2010

One of the rarest sixteenth-century objects going into the new Medieval and Renaissance Galleries... more One of the rarest sixteenth-century objects going into the new Medieval and Renaissance Galleries has a dual identity: it is both a knife and a piece of music. On one side of its broad blade is a clear, perfectly notated musical setting of a blessing of the table, to be sung before a meal; on the other, a prayer giving thanks, to be sung when the meal has ended. This knife is usually presented as a single item. However, the inscription ‘.i.9[primus] tenor’ implies the existence of other voices, suggesting that it was once part of a larger set of knives, each of which bore one part of a complete polyphonic, or multi-voiced, song. This article confirms that the V&A's knife is one of at least twenty examples surviving in other museums and collections or published during the nineteenth century, and is the first study to consider them as a group. It explores the possible social and symbolic functions of these distinctive objects, relating them to contemporary dining practices, and situates them in the context of broader relationships between music and the material culture of the table during the sixteenth century.

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Resurrecting Forgotten Sound: Fans and Handbells in Early Modern Italy

Everyday Objects: Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture and its Meanings, ed. Catherine Richardson and Tara Hamling , 2010

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Unlocking the Gates of Chastity: Music and the Erotic in the Domestic Sphere in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Italy

The Erotic Cultures of Early Modern Italy, edited by Sara Matthews-Grieco , 2010

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Pratella, Francesco Balilla

Oxford Music Online, 2001

Italian survivals

Early Music, 2005

Futurism

Oxford Music Online, 2001

Russolo, Luigi

Oxford Music Online, 2001

Music and space

Unlocking the gates of chastity: music and the erotic in the domestic sphere in fifteenth and sixteenth-century Italy

Music in Ferrarese Festivals: Harmony and Chaos

Musical Sound and Material Culture

Representing the domestic interior in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy: from the birth of the Virgin to palaces of cheese

Resurrecting Forgotten Sound: Fans and Handbells in Early Modern Italy

Medieval and Renaissance Music

When is a Room a Music Room? Sounds, Spaces, and Objects in Non-courtly Italian Interiors

The Music Room in Early Modern France and Italy, 2012

Review: Italian survivals

Early Music, 2005

Famously, Luzzasco Luzzaschi's music written for Ferrara's legendary concerto delle don... more

Organology and material culture

Download

Cooking pots, tableware, and the changing sounds of sociability in Italy, 1300–1700

Sound Studies

Download

Interior Spaces for Music

When is a room a music room? Sounds, spaces and objects in non-courtly Italian interiors

Sound, Space and Object: The Aural, the Visual and the Tactile in Early Modern French and Italian Music Rooms, ed. Deborah Howard and Laura Moretti, 2012

Download

Scattered knives and dismembered song: cutlery, music and the rituals of dining

Renaissance Studies, Jan 1, 2010

Download

Resurrecting Forgotten Sound: Fans and Handbells in Early Modern Italy

Everyday Objects: Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture and its Meanings, ed. Catherine Richardson and Tara Hamling , 2010

Download

Unlocking the Gates of Chastity: Music and the Erotic in the Domestic Sphere in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Italy

The Erotic Cultures of Early Modern Italy, edited by Sara Matthews-Grieco , 2010

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Flora Dennis

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