7. November – 18:00 Uhr – Hörsaal 1 des Instituts

Gratioso Uberti’s treatise Contrasto musico (Rome: Lodovico Grignani, 1630) stages a debate between Signori “Severo” and “Giocondo” on the benefits of music for both the individual and the body politic. “Severo” is repeatedly disturbed by the horrible sounds coming from the music school near his house, but more is concerned by Plato and Aristotle’s warnings on the dangers of the art given its (ef)feminizing qualities. “Giocondo” therefore takes his companion on a genial seven-part “tour” through typical musical locations in Rome — the music school, private houses, princely palaces, churches, oratorios, the open air, and composers’ workshops — to explain their purpose and benefits. Uberti was a jurist in the Papal curia, so his text is inevitably full of citations (from Classical Antiquity, the Bible, the Church Fathers, and other such sources) and also dubious arguments. But he also broaches some important issues in often surprising ways, including how amateur listeners (as he was) might have engaged with music with their ears, minds, and hearts.

Tim Carter (David G. Frey Distinguished Professor of Music, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) works on opera and musical theatre from Monteverdi through Mozart to Rodgers & Hammerstein. He has held fellowships at the Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, the Newberry Library, and the National Humanities Center. In 2013 the American Musicological Society awarded him the Claude V. Palisca Prize and the H. Colin Slim Prize for his publications respectively on Monteverdi and on Kurt Weill. In 2017, he was named an honorary member of the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music and of the Royal Musical Association.