The question of decline in the historiography of seventeenth-century Spain originally included socio-economic analyses that determined the decline of Spain was an economic recession. Eventually, the historiographical debate shifted to include cultural elements of seventeenth-century Spanish society. Gender within the context of decline provides further insight into how the deterioration of the Spanish economy and the deterioration of Spanish political power in Europe affected Spanish self-perception. The prolific Spanish women writers, in addition, featured their points of view on manhood in their works and created a model of masculinity known as virtuous masculinity. They expected Spanish men to perform their masculine duties as protectors and providers both in public and in private. Seventeenth-century decline influenced how women viewed masculinity. Their new model of masculinity was based on ideas that male authors had developed, but went further by emphasizing men treating their wives well.

English publisher John Playford (1623-1686/1687) first published his "The Division Violin: Containing a Collection of Divisions Upon Several Grounds for the Treble-Violin" in 1684. The first edition of this violin collection contains 26 written-out examples of improvisation, serving as a living snapshot of the performance practice of the time. This research is based on the second edition, which Playford had expanded into 30 pieces for the violin, published in 1685. The purpose of this study is to investigate the art of improvisation in England during the late 17th century, focusing on Playford's "The Division Violin." The dissertation first surveys the development of English violin music in the 17th century. Then, the dissertation traces eight selected 16th-century Italian diminution manuals. This will help readers understand the progression of the Italian diminution and improvisation practice in the 16th century and how it relates to the English division of the 17th century. Finally, based on a thorough research of the 17th-century improvisatory style and rhetorical approach, the author of this study provides performance suggestions on "Mr. Farinell's Ground," No. 5 from "The Division Violin."

This study is concerned with the vertical combinations resulting from late sixteenth century cadential formulae and in passages immediately preceding these formulae. The investigation is limited to Masses dating from the last half of the sixteenth century and utilizes compositions from the following composers: Handl, Kerle, Lassus, Merulo, Monte, and Palestrina, Victoria. This study concludes that the progressions I-V-I and I-IV-I appear to be the only two root progressions receiving high enough percentages to be regarded as significant. These percentages are tempered by the fact that I-V-I and I-IV-I may be interpreted as repetitions of standardized cadential formulae found in the sixteenth century. The study also concludes that root motion by fifth accounts for no less than 67.35 per cent of the root movements analyzed during the investigation. The percentage differential between root movement by fifth and root movement by second (the interval receiving the next highest percentage) at no time drops below 40.41 per cent. The evidence indicates that root movement by fifth does account for the majority of the root motion analyzed in final cadential passages of Masses dating from the late sixteenth century. The percentage differential between root motion by second and root motion by third decreases as the chord progressions become longer. None of the differential percentages were judged to be high enough as to merit placing any significance of root motion by second over root motion by third.

Although early Venetian operas by composers such as Claudio Monteverdi and Francesco Cavalli offer today's listeners profound moments of emotion, the complex codes of meaning connecting emotion (or affect) with music in this repertoire are different from those of later seventeenth-century operatic repertoire. The specific textual and musical markers that librettists and composers used to indicate individual emotions in these operas were historically and culturally contingent, and many scholars thus consider them to be inaccessible to listeners today. This dissertation demonstrates a new analytical framework that is designed to identify the specific combinations of elements that communicate each lifelike emotion in this repertoire. Re-establishing the codes that govern the relationship between text, musical sound, and affect in this repertoire illuminates the nuanced emotional language of operas by composers such as Claudio Monteverdi, Francesco Cavalli, Antonio Cesti, and Francesco Lucio. The new analytical framework that underlies this study derives from analysis of seventeenth-century Venetian explanations and depictions of emotional processes, which reveal a basis in their society's underlying Aristotelian philosophy. Chapters III and IV examine extant documents from opera librettists, composers, audience members, and their associates to reveal how they understood emotions to work in the mind and body. These authors, many of whom were educated by Aristotelian scholars at the nearby University of Padua, understood action and emotion to be bound together in a reciprocal, causal relationship, and this synthesis was reflected in the way that they depicted affect in opera. It also guided the ways that singer-actors performed and audiences interpreted this music. In contrast, post-1660 Baroque operas from France and Italy express affect according to the musical conventions of the Doctrine of Affections (based in the ideas of René Descartes) and aim to present a single, clear emotion for each large semantic unit (recitative or aria). This paradigm does not hold true for operas composed before 1660; thus, this vibrant repertoire requires a new analytical approach that respects its pre-Cartesian musical aesthetics. Early Venetian opera composers express not just one, but many affects in each semantic unit. In their operas, musical sound interacts directly with text and dramatic action on a line-by-line basis to produce an unprecedented fluidity of emotional meaning. Chapter II describes a new analytical framework based in this understanding to reveal the means that librettists, composers, and performers used to communicate emotion in this repertoire. Chapters V through X contain hermeneutic and musical analyses (according to the method described in Chapter II) of case studies drawn from Venetian operas performed between 1640 and 1658. These chapters illustrate how this repertoire uses a flexible but well-defined system of musical and textual markers to convey characters' emotions. This new approach unlocks an aesthetic system that privileges the fluid, real-time emotional reactions of the individual in accordance with Aristotelian emotional understanding. In Chapters XI and XII, supporting information gleaned from seventeenth-century acting treatises, reception documents, and conduct books enables an examination of the singer's role in depicting these textual and musical representations of affect in performance. These two chapters address seventeenth-century views on affective communication through voice acting and physical gesture, together with recommendations for today's singers who perform this repertoire. In taking a systematic approach to the identification of specific textual, musical, and gestural means for communicating affect in early Venetian opera, this dissertation offers a new approach to analyzing and performing its dynamic emotional content.

The purpose of this project is to conduct and analysis of the role and symbolism of the trumpet in two early eighteenth century Spanish music dramas: La Guerra de los Gigantes by Sebastian Duron and Los Desagravios de Troya by Joaquin Martinez de la Roca.

This dissertation argues that early modern writers such as William Shakespeare, Thomas Middleton, George Herbert, John Milton, and Andrew Marvell played a critical role in the transition from the Neoplatonic philosophy of beauty to Enlightenment aesthetics. I demonstrate how the Protestant Reformation, with its special emphasis on the depravity of human nature, prompted writers to critique models of aesthetic judgment and experience that depended on high faith in human goodness and rationality. These writers in turn used their literary works to popularize skepticism about the human mind's ability to perceive and appreciate beauty accurately. In doing so, early modern writers helped create an intellectual culture in which aesthetics would emerge as a distinct branch of philosophy.