Italian Musical Culture and Terminology in the Third Volume of Michael Praetorius’s Syntagma musicum (1619)

Abstract

From the third volume of Michael Praetorius’s Syntagma musicum one receives the impression that, according to its author, only those who were able to compose, play or sing ‘all’italiana’ (in the Italian manner) were considered culturally up-to-date. This treatise can therefore be seen as a mirror reflecting the way in which Italian music was perceived north of the Alps in the second decade of the seventeenth century. The present article, based on a re-reading of the third volume of Syntagma musicum, shows how in the early decades of the seventeenth century the circulation and the assimilation of Italian musical culture and terminology was far-reaching in the German-speaking countries, contributing to the genesis of a pan-European musical style and terminology.