Aesthetics of Baroque Music in Italy, Spain, the German-Speaking Countries and the Low Countries

For the first time, Dr. David Whitwell presents a thorough study of the performance of music in society together with the philosophical views on art versus entertainment, the role of performance in education and character formation and how earlier philosophers viewed the interplay among Reason, Emotions, experience and the senses. Very few music history texts make it clear that the central obsession of Baroque composers and philosophers was the full restoration of the emotions to music. This volume presents these studies in Italy, led by the famous Camerata, Spain and Germany. From Germany we are particularly fortunate to have extensive documentation of this new view of music by important composers and philosophers, including major figures such as Leibniz and Spinoza. This quest to explain music through the communication of emotions even led Johannes Kepler to apply these ideas in the last major argument in support of the ‘Music of the Spheres’.