O Let Us Howle Some Heavy Note: Music for Witches, the Melancholic, and the Mad on the Seventeenth-Century English Stage

by Amanda Eubanks Winkler

In the 17th century, harmonious sounds were thought to represent the well-ordered body of the obedient subject, and, by extension, the well-ordered state; conversely, discordant, unpleasant music represented both those who caused disorder (murderers, drunkards, witches, traitors) and those who suffered from bodily disorders (melancholics, madmen, and madwomen). While these theoretical correspondences seem straightforward, in theatrical practice the musical portrayals of disorderly characters were multivalent and often ambiguous.

O Let Us Howle Some Heavy Note focuses on the various ways that theatrical music represented disorderly subjects―those who presented either a direct or metaphorical threat to the health of the English kingdom in 17th-century England. Using theater music to examine narratives of social history, Winkler demonstrates how music reinscribed and often resisted conservative, political, religious, gender, and social ideologies.

Genres: Music

232 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2006

Reviews

[Lindsey]

Parts of this book were very informative and helped me to put the music of Dido & Aeneas into the context of the time period it was written. Interesting to see how different people's reactions would have been back then.

[Katie Thorley · Rating 5 out of 5]

❤️❤️❤️