A map of 16th century musical experience
Urban music and practices of 16th-century Europe have been studied for their geography and culture, particularly in Renaissance Italian cities. Additionally, urban music of the time in other countries has been recently explored. A largely unexplored area, however, is that of the Iberian Peninsula, particularly Spanish music in a broader urban context apart from cathedral musical life. The EU-funded project URBANMUSICS (Urban musics and musical practices in sixteenth-century Europe) reviewed this situation. Using official and unofficial musical practices in the spaces of Barcelona, the study identified and analysed various types of music. It also looked at other institutions such as convents and monasteries. Little had been researched on convents on the Iberian Peninsula, which can provide useful insight into the female musical experience. The liturgical-musical element used in the testament of wills was also considered since these death rituals and cultural artefacts reveal a considerable amount of information about an individual’s life. Various international projects and events were organised that aimed to compare and contrast findings in terms of source material, methodology and content. A seminar was set up to examine the impact of the political alliances on how music developed in Spain, Italy, Austria and Portugal. Additionally, two main interdisciplinary activities were organised. They included a series of seven lectures by major cultural and music historians and four cultural history workshops. Results included a vast collection of new material that was entered into the URBANMUSICS database, which will be housed on open access. Designed as an analytical tool, the database can be useful to any historian of urban culture. The entries number in the thousands and can be searched by name, profession/position, geographical location, institution and source types, as well as specifically by musical fields such as genre, performance space and musical instrument. All results have been published in numerous books, collections of essays and articles. The information will be useful in the fields of urban musicology and European cultural history.
Keywords
16th-century, cultural mapping, urban music, music history, Iberian Peninsula, URBANMUSICS
