Ars militaria

Wistreich, R. (2013) Ars militaria. In: Die Musik in der Kultur der Renaissance: Kontexte, Disziplinen, Diskurse. Handbuch der Musik der Renaissance (5). Laaber, Lilienthal, Germany. ISBN 9783890077055

Abstract

It would be an over-simplification to characterise Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries as utterly dominated by conflict and warfare; nevertheless, there could have been few people in this epoch whose lives were not directly touched by the social consequences of organised aggression. War was considered to be largely inevitable, ultimately a natural result of the human condition of interior strife in which, in Erasmus’ words, ‘Reason wars with inclinations’. It is against the background of two realities, then, that this chapter examines the links between music and the Renaissance culture of war. These are, first, the common discourse of military values in the construction of the identity of the European nobility (who were the principal patrons and consumers of art music), and second, the constant noise of war, both literal and figurative, and its various representations and appropriations in music. *** Please note this chapter is in German. ***

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