astern Illinois University )> oa A Music History Research Paper Rubric tyler / Fenton, Spring 2015 Superior | Excellent [ Very] Good | Acceptable | Nat Good Acceptable Tharoduetion ni “Thesis responded fo researoh quewtion iz Thats asia spec pray soars Bar sqauniare sansa areca ‘Thats Was arpa “Thesis was original “Thais onsatedof Cla 1a Saupe oT good Tass ‘india suport opie Sentngns/CONSION a Faagiaph Development Const ied App Prepared quinions appropri Toenails jou omc logy Waakigaas Z Grammar & Syntax Senence Sueur Z Thoroughly Resear: “nce eckgrund rec stp paper “nda on pele romeo ene “foresee “Stool of ria sous oh Ste etree Wr ¥ Sites dionaretey | fecace a prise wa hoy X “nftses anys ue gay \K ISIN 4 i . ay Md COR, 7 a oi whiwhry oo aigeyte G7 Laker try pate 7a i sr nagerier. liye on Sprre writen. Miby Sate yon Cer Ke fate - ~ apluibe Luxtely + 6 few Whites finn Bima Wi come eee ae ae wolle Pi 6cat's yew Prete # putly Peces Tan yok legnerasd. pos fed by De ay 0 od 50% uct / 56% Wapunont Mabe son.77 Asal ph Iss > zo mee Poe sirethig fom GF A Am, tl Stata, yore Hemrvriy’sThe Musical Struggle of the Sacred Divas in the Renaissance Name: Tyler Harr Class: Music History 1 Prof.: Dr. K. Fenton Sssay No. 4 Final Draft Date: April 27, 2015 Assignment/Stage:With the days of unity throughout Europe long gone, the reformation brought division in governments, countries, and faith. ‘Protestant versus Catholic’ would tum out to be a huge game y changer in the way the church worked in Europe. After Luther and his followers started a new o oo Jy > church, the Catholic Church started their counter-reformation movement becoming stricter with \Y JS CA rules, practices, and especially with music. One of the areas that were forced to change was the ‘women living as nuns during the Renaissance. Across the Catholie churches, nuns would stay xe, separated from society to pray for the souls of the world through singing, philanthropy, and study. Cloistered off into convents, these women made music for Mass and for the office daily, : a which became a problem for the Catholic Church. During the Renaissance, female sacred nye musicians were strongly valued within the walls of the nunneries shown through the social | wo implications of dowries for nuns, the popularity of works written throughout the continent, as ar e well as details from the life of Lucrezia Orgina Vizzana. Outside of the convent walls, women ey ve scourge iY or Ogee singers, especially nuns, were not'Valued and were forced to challenge the sgetal norms of " society, a unique concept for Renaissance women. asp ww During the Renaissance, women musicians could fall into three categories: wives and | ot i daughters, courtesans, and nuns. First of all, playing music as a wife or daughter was a very te, important skill to know at the amateur level in order to make a woman marriage material. é « Although this was a skill that women would have, many daughters were discouraged from we becoming musicians in a professional setting, In a letter to his daughter, Pietro Bembo, ge Renaissance Venetian scholar, discusses how becoming a professional musician is not an option for his daughter.' After asking her father for lessons to play the monochord, Bembo quickly 1 Pietro Bembo," In Strunk's Source Readings in Music History, edited by Leo Treitler and W. Oliver Strunk (W.W. Norton & Company, 1998), 333.dismisses this idea encouraging her to focus on writing and cooking, He writes, “I will explain to you something you are perhaps too young to know: playing music is for a woman a vain and ey not have the social opportunities to become musicians. However, if' a woman wanted to become | we) frivolous thi ives and daughters, who made up most of the female half of society, would a professional musician in the Renaissance, she could become a courtesan, however this was not a professional musician by today je courtesan displayed certain features. Good Jooks and sexual availability were prerequisites of her artistic life. She offered erotic entertainment.” * Although these women would be able to make musi it was not a particularly moral career option.’ These two types of woman musicians lived throughout the Renaissance and differed greatly from the third option: to become a nun, ‘A more religiously sound avenue for women would be to become a nun. Although all ‘nuns did not play music, there are many cases in which they did. Although nuns are a still a common sight today, there are many distinctions to make for Renai sance nuns. Musical practice was a common sight among convents throughout Europe, and Italy specifically: “thousands of organists, singers, and composers can be traced in the records of Italian nunneries.” ° These nuns would sing and observe the Office and Mass daily, the same as the monks of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. With polyphony and new music budding into the liturgy, it is no wonder that nuns would want to become vocalists, composers, and instrumentalists. These women would go on to make great strides for women, music, and fight for religious freedom. ve Thee a ees jembo, 333. fe 3 Bembo, 333 jet wr * Veronica Doubleday, Courtesan. (Oxford University Press, 2015). ve (ae * Doubleday. x ° Craig Monson, Disembodied Voices. (University of California Press, 1995. 1Within the walls of the convents women musicians wer (alu, 3hown through the concept of dowries. In Renaissance marriages, the daughter’s family would have ample money or goods to sell their daughter to a suitable husband. Having desirable qualities, ills, and political influences also played a large role in marriages, but money would still be needed. If families had many daughters, or if they were not particularly wealthy, there were still options to get rid of their daughters. Another popular option was to send daughters to the church, where they could become nuns. The dowry would be much cheaper for nuns as opposed to sending them to a husband. The church would be able to lower dowries for daughters who were musically talented.’ Lowering of dowries for musically talented nuns shows that the convents put good amount of importance on the musical achievement of the cloister. This concept is similar to scholarships for university students who are rewarded financially for their merit, skills, and application, Despite Pietro Bembo’s letter to his daughter and the frivolous nature of music, “the development of a daughter’s musical gifts with an eye towards the nunnery thus proved a very sound investment.” This process shows the importance of music within the walls of the : nunneies we Another aspect of the importance of music for the nuns was the music written for them, V/, ey v ek especially by one composer, Lucrezia Orgina Vizzana, whose life was typical of the nuns of the * wee ae Renaissance. Most well known for “Componimenti musicali de motetti a una ¢ piu voci” a set of s Xb Motets, Vizzana had to come from somewhere: her family was a upper class well distinguished Fg family.” They also had very strong ties to the nunnery in Bologna, “By the late 1590s, the oe? Bombacci had also already established strong family ties within the convent walls that made the 7 Monson, 3. Vv ® Monson, 2. * Monson, 20.Vizzani girls’ arrival there almost inevitable”.!” Because Lucrezia showed great promise for music, she went to the convent at age eight along with one of her sisters.'! “Having entered Santa Cristina in earliest childhood, Lucrezia Vizzana scarcely knew the world beyond the convent walls”. !?)Although she was very young, she began right away with a music apprenticeship: she ‘was the apprentice to Camilla Bombacei, and later Emilia Grassi, both very well achieved abbesses. '* The women within the walls of the convent showed great strengths in creativity and a desire for independence. The architectural aspects of the chapels also point to the importance of convent music in the Renaissance as well as male support of the nuns leading to their own independence. Many nuns would live in separate parts of larger churches and cathedrals, and would have to be careful to be kept separate from the rest of the people. In the Santa Cristina Chapel in Bologna, Italy the only access point to an organ was through the convent. Except this building does not only have ‘one organ, but two organs in order to have double choir works with more call and response choral works. '* This became a problem in the later part of the Renaissance, which will be looked at in more detail. This is also found in the convent of San Zaccaria where “the costly architecture, chancel decoration, and the choir stalls... were commissioned with the assistance of male agents, partial funded with contributions from male civic authorities...and overseen by male supervisor all, most of the population, especially male population, was in support of the nuns. In a book by Craig Monson, “Disembodied Voices", he discusses his concept of "° Monson, 20. " Monson, 23, ” Monson, 23 ae \ 8 Monson, 39. 9 '* Monson, 56. \ '° Gary M. Radke. Nuns and Their Art: The Case of San Zaccaria in Renaissance Venice. (The University of Chicago Press, 2001). 431“women’s sphere” that made the nuns of the convent so productive and efficient.'® The solidarity gained by these women helped strengthen them against opposition, and most of the general population was in support of women thinking, doing, and creating by and for themselves.'7Although this may seem like a perfect existence, until the counter-reformation tumed the nuns’ world upside down. ‘With the strict ules and regulations given to the muns created musical challenges forthe women within the convent walls. After excommunicating Martin Luther and the start of the protestant reformation, the Catholic Church decided they needed more rules and regulations for their worship and other festivities. The main gathering of Catholic officials was the Council of Trent, first meeting in 1545.'* The nuns were thought to have appealed to “dangerous and distracting crowaf)ind also a general opinion of nuns and monks as being lazy and not praying with as much diligence. Other rumors of nuns having sexual relationships with male clergy spread which lead to the convents being a very important topie of discussion for the Council of Trent.” With the growing popularity of the music made by nuns, the bishops and leaders made new rules to hinder the nuns” productivity. The Council of Trent had new rules and regulations concerning the nuns in very specific ways. One of the large areas of interest was the use of instruments in their music: The leaders decided that instruments were not needed and brought more attention to the convents when that was not part of their purpose. Paleotti, the main bishop in charge of the music of the convents, *© Monson, 8. "Monson, 8. * Mons '° Monson; 37. *° Monson, 36.began by enforcing that all of the organs would be removed from the chapels.”' Even though some polyphony was allowed for a while, only the bass viol could be used, to play the lower parts which women cannot sing. However, as time passed, the rules began to pile on top of one another leading to only spoken text for the Divine Office and eventually a complete ban on everything that was not medieval plainchant.* Vizzana’s life was drastically changed when music teachers were no longer allowed to come to the nunneries and teach music. This made the nuns more responsible for passing the information they knew to their apprentices. The most well known change for the Renaissance nuns was that they would not be able to be seen by the general population, This led to the building of screens for the choir lofts and in some areas throughout Italy the ordinary citizen would not be allowed into the nunneries at all. Although J these post-Council of Trent rules made life harder for the(Guns, the story does not stop here, i The nuns of the Renaissance fought back against the regulations of their music, and took matters into their own hands. The(Npuns wanted to keep playing and writing music, so they would try to ask special permission to keep their old traditions, “lobbying for small concessions or “— ee special licenses" which would let them include some other musical textures aii struments. Specifically the nuns petitioned to get the organs placed back into their chapels again Although they did not get the organs back until 1601 with the death of Paleotti, the nuns peaceful, rule- abiding tactics not really work.”* The nuns later took matter into their own hands bringing back instrument, and finding loopholes in the bishops’ rules. With no outside public allowed into the nunnery, and no male clergy men allowed due to fear of courtesan-like behavior, the nuns were able to hide things well from the bishops. In many cases they would just blatantly ignore ee co >! Monson, 38 o , a ol jn 2 = ow v eee fos ete ced Ge pk ee ‘ ** Monson, 43. L V ye (Pg Sd ra Wye * w Ot _ Geethe rules given to them and bring in instruments, polyphony, and whatever else they wanted to include.’ Slowly the nuns would sneak in more keyboard instruments, viols of all sizes, and even brought in music styles that belonged to the outside world, that would not have been allowed in the nunneries. ‘This is where the ‘diva’ concept comes into play. Although this is a colloquial term, it is still fitting for the rule bending nuns of the Renaissance. ‘The nuns of Bologna, and other parts of Italy, may have challenged these strict rules; other parts of Europe were dealing with a similar process. Spain had a very different Renaissance ol eis eounterpars, Italy and England. Although during the medieval era most of period t Europe agreed on the concept that music was “a branch of" maton) si in the Iberian Peninsula was seen as having less educational value, and being low class like dance and poetry.”” ‘Music was not seen as valuable for wives and daughters such as the Italian Renaissance women. ‘There would be even less opportunities for Spanish women to make music for a living. had ‘even more rules and regulations for music in worship and for the most part they actually followed them. Organ, polyphony, and any use of musical instruments were forbidden.”* Some ‘musicologists have said that the Spanish did not have a Renaissance, but went directly from the medieval era into the Baroque era, although this is not an agreed upon conclusion, Pilar Ramos has this to say about that claim: “Certainty Not! Firstly, if positions against the lavishness of sacred music can be read as forerunner of the Council of Treft” ind also are compared to Fa K * Monson, 47. 4s 26 Pilar Ramos, Musical practice and idleness: a moral controversy in Renaissance Spain. (aca \ Musicologica, 2009). 255. 77 Ramos, 259. ** Ramos, 260. *Lutheran churches of the Reformation.” The Spanish music of the Renaissance foils the divas of : ie the Italian Renaissance that would not take ‘no’ for an answer. Despite the few avenues for women musicians, Renaissance nuns became extremely popular for their choirs, instrumentalists, and various liturgical mst However, after the Council of Trent the nuns’ ability to make music freely was taken away. The Italian nuns did not follow the rules, such as the Spanish nuns, and challenged the parameters given to them, Although the Italian Renaissance nuns may have not sung melismatic pop songs like Beyoneé or Christina Aguilera, these nuns surely made a name for themselves in European history * Ramos, 261 *° Monson, 2.Bibliography vw @ ys. Lee wi Doubleday, Veronica. "Courtesan." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford 4 Qu 5 wl University Press, accessed April 20, 2015,http://www-oxfordmusiconline.com/subsei Monson, Craig. Disembodied Voices. Berkely: University of California Press, 1995, / "Pietro Bembo.” In Sirunk’s Source Readings in Music History, edited by Leo Treitler and W. Oliver Strunk, 312-316. W. W. Norton & Company, 1998, Radke, Gary. "Nuns and Their Art: The Case of San Zaccaria in Renaissance v7 Venice."Renaissance Quarterly $4, no. 2 (2001): 430-39. Accessed April 11, 2015. wowjstor.com, Ramos, Pilar. "Musical Practice and Idleness: A Moral Controversy in Renaissance Spain." Acta Musicologia 81, no. 2 (2009): 255-74. Accessed April 11, 2015. www,jstor.com.