TY - CHAP
T1 - Le nonne della ninfa
T2 - Feminine voices and modal rhetoric in the generations before Monteverdi
AU - Stras, Laurie
PY - 2002/2/22
Y1 - 2002/2/22
N2 - In 1586, the Italian court poet Torquato Tasso famously decried the degeneration of modern music, labelling it “soft and effeminate," but without elaborating further on why it should be so cons idered. Although a classical commonplace, readily applied to any aspect or component of society that fell short ofa Renaissance commentator’s expectations, Tasso ‘s choice of this epithet shows he perceived elements that had formerly contributed to music’s masculine gravitas had become impaired.? Elsewhere in his writings, Tasso set out those which he considered to be feminine and masculine virtu ; an examination ofhow these virtu could have been exhibited in musical materials might then suggest possible directions for his censure. Furthermore, it may reveal ways in which femininity, as a quality rather than as a byproduct ofdeterioration, might consciously have been invoked through compositional choice: specifically, to represent female stereotypes through the characterization of their speech.
AB - In 1586, the Italian court poet Torquato Tasso famously decried the degeneration of modern music, labelling it “soft and effeminate," but without elaborating further on why it should be so cons idered. Although a classical commonplace, readily applied to any aspect or component of society that fell short ofa Renaissance commentator’s expectations, Tasso ‘s choice of this epithet shows he perceived elements that had formerly contributed to music’s masculine gravitas had become impaired.? Elsewhere in his writings, Tasso set out those which he considered to be feminine and masculine virtu ; an examination ofhow these virtu could have been exhibited in musical materials might then suggest possible directions for his censure. Furthermore, it may reveal ways in which femininity, as a quality rather than as a byproduct ofdeterioration, might consciously have been invoked through compositional choice: specifically, to represent female stereotypes through the characterization of their speech.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85070388727&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.4324/9780203055496
DO - 10.4324/9780203055496
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:85070388727
SN - 0815333943
SN - 9781138870345
SN - 9780815333944
T3 - Criticism and Analysis of Early Music
SP - 123
EP - 165
BT - Gender, Sexuality, and Early Music
A2 - Borgerding, Todd C.
PB - Routledge
CY - New York & London
ER -