Customer Reviews

Music and Spectacle in Baroque Rome: Barberini Patronage under Urban VIII

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A thorough, lucid examination of the cultural, political and musical climate of the Barberini era in 17th century Roman life, Music & Spectacle in Baroque Rome maintains a wide scope of analysis and history. The book has much to offer to the musician who enjoys historical exploration, as well as the scholar who seeks a window into the craft of musical composition in a specific historical period.

Frederick Hammond has the good fortune to be both an accomplished musician (organist/harpsichordist) as well as eminent scholar. Musicians who specialize in period performance are often hungry for a broader cultural and historical understanding of the compositions they perform. I believe they will be grateful for the clarity and breadth of Hammond's writing, which offers an alternative to the often fussy and jargon-heavy language of musicological scholarship.

Hammond deftly positions the evolution of musical development in the context of the history of musical patronage, without losing sight of the central role of individual compositional genius. This approach incorporates a deconstructional perspective, often applied in literary criticism and historical scholarship but less frequently in music studies, positing that the art object or text is created more by the historical/socio-political context of creation than by individual vision. His argument is supported by concrete historical information about and clever discussion of the pontificate of Maffeo Barberini, Pope Urban VIII, the contemporary patronage system, and biographical information on the relevant ecclesiastical and musical personages.

The detailed analysis of the actual music of the period both serves and potentially limits the accessibility of the book. While clear to musicians (particularly keyboardists) and leading us to the core of the matter, the musical discussion leans toward a more scholarly level and may therefore be of greater interest to the early musician than to the non-musician reader. However, any less detailed a discussion of the repertoire would leave the books central conclusions hollow and unsupported. With music as "evidence", Hammond builds his case, showing how the nexus of social forces and individual vision converges in artistic creation and audience experience of music and festival. We see that our contemporary image of the artist as isolated misunderstood loner in a garrett, shunned by society, is a romantic nineteenth century invention that is utterly alien to the baroque period.

This book is extremely useful to any musician who delves into "period-performance" at any level, be it amateur or superstar. I would also recommend it to historians or the historically interested who would like to gain a greater understanding of what it was to be a musician and contemplate musical performance in a time other than our own, highly commercialized and individuated one. Getting past the musical "jargon", this could be a very useful resource for the scholar who never touched an instrument or sang a note, but would like to dip a toe or two in the baroque performance ocean.