Editor's Introduction to 'Identity and Locality in Early European Music, 1028-1740'

Abstract

References to musical performances in clearly identifiable places or locales occur infrequently in surviving documents from the premodern era (I use the last convenient term here to encapsulate the more common periodizing terms the middle ages and the Renaissance). One account is that detailing the arrival of the newly elected Holy Roman Emperor, Rupert of Bavaria, at Padua 18 November 1401. Galeazzo Gatari's account in the 'Cronica carrarese' begins: .... .... Although this account conflates events of 18 November with those occurring the following day, this description is interesting for a number ofreasons. Firstly, music takes pride of place in Gatari's account: it precedes all other formalities staged by Padua's officials for the arriving Emperor, including his ritual welcome by the ecclesiastical head of the Paduan congregation, Stefano da Carrara. Secondly, this account witnesses the intersection of place (including architecture in the form of surrounding fourteenth-century Carrara walls and the old All Saints gate) and music in the one ceremonial space. All takes place in the shadow of the city walls, the effective physical limits of Padua. Within lies the physical city of Padua. The sung 'Benedictus' (assuming that it is plainsong) is not particularly local in the sense that the same text and, in many cases, same music was used in the Holy Office throughout Western Christendom: its text and music are universal, rather than particular, even if they happened to contain minor localizations of pronunciation or melodic ornament. But the act of singing the 'Benedictus' localizes if we accept the view that musical performance is a social practice and that, following Michel de Certeau, social practice spatializes or, following Henri Lefebvre, social practice produces social space.