Liberated by Skepticism


Edward Muir, The Culture Wars of the Late Renaissance, Harvard, 175 pages

Review by FRANCIS X. ROCCA

Finding the roots of opera in the history of science is a task that would daunt even a polymath of Renaissance stature. Yet in "The Culture Wars of the Late Renaissance," Edward Muir plausibly explains how the skepticism taught by a professor at the University of Padua in the early 17th century fostered a musical revolution in neighboring Venice -- and much else besides.

Could art really imitate nature? Followers of Cesare Cremonini (1550-1631) did not think so, elaborating their master's philosophical skepticism into a "profound rhetorical skepticism" that "eroded confidence in artistic norms and rules." Cremonini's thinking, Mr. Muir shows, helped to free up the whole idea of what the arts might do. Composers and librettists, under the influence of Cremonini's disciples, felt themselves set loose from convention. They made a place for "pure voice . . . utterly disconnected from the text of the libretto, a practice that led to the musical, lyrical and emotional excesses so characteristic of early opera." Mr. Muir's exhibit A is Monteverdi, specifically "L'Incoronazione di Poppea" (a work that is still in the repertory today).

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Posted: Mon - May 7, 2007 at 11:22 AM          

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