Honoring God and the City: Music at the Venetian Confraternities, 1260-1806

by Jonathan Glixon

Overview

Honoring God and the City presents the first detailed history of musical activities at Venetian lay confraternities, societies that were crucial to the cultural and ceremonial life of Venice. Based on over two decades of research in Venetian archives, musicologist Jonathan Glixon traces musical practices from the origins of the earliest confraternities in the mid-thirteenth century to their suppression under the French and Austrian governments in the early nineteenth century.
Glixon first discusses the scole grandi, the largest and most important of the Venetian confraternities. Scole grandi hosted some of the most elaborate musical events in the Venetian calendar, including lavish annual festivities for each scola's patron saint and often enlisting such high-profile musicians as Giovanni Gabrieli and Claudio Monteverdi. Glixon places detailed descriptions of these events in the context of the scole grandi's long histories, as the roles of salaried musicians, singers, string players, and organists evolved over the centuries.

The book's second part is concerned with the scole piccole, the numerous smaller confraternities born in churches throughout Venice. These local organizations, usually consisting of a modest number of salaried musicians augmented by hired players, took part in annual festivities and performances and played a crucial role in local cultural life.

Detailed appendixes include a calendar of musical events at all Venetian confraternities in the early eighteenth century and a complete listing of musicians for an important seventeenth century festival. The result of painstaking research, Honoring God and the City demonstrates the vital role of confraternities in the musical and ceremonial life of Venice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199711383
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	06/01/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Jonathan Glixon received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and has spent twenty-five years researching musical activities at religious institutions in Venice. In collaboration with his wife, Beth L. Glixon, he conducted an archival study of seventeenth-century Venetian opera. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky where he teaches musicology at the University of Kentucky.

Table of Contents

Part I: The Scole Grandi
1. For the Honor of God: The Origin and Nature of the Scoli Grandi
2. Gathering Together: Ritual and Ceremony at the Scoli Grandi
3. Singing for the Souls of Brothers: Musical Beginnings to the early 15th century
4. Singing Praies to the Lord: The Early Use of Professional Musicians, 1445-1500
5. The Best in the City: Salaried Musicians
6. So Super-excellent: Music for the Annual Festa
7. Only a few appear and often none: The Scole in decline, 1650-1807
Part II: The Scole Piccole
8. Processions, vespers, songs, and organ: The Scole Piccole and Music to 1600
9. An honorable and necessary work: The Scole Piccole in the 17th century
10. With jubilant voices: The Final Century of Music at the Scole Piccole, 1700-1807
Conclusions Appendix I: Processions and Ceremonies of the Scole Grandi Appendix II: A Calendar of Religious Occasions Celebrated by the Scole Appendix III: Musicians for the Festa di San Rocco, 1595-1634
Appendix IV: The Venetian Monetary System