TOWARDS A THEORIZING OF THE MANNERIST STYLE IN MUSIC
TOWARDS A THEORIZING OF THE MANNERIST STYLE IN MUSIC

Summary/Abstract: The mannerist style could be evaluated as a historical period or as an aesthetic constant in art history. In contemporary musicology, we already have the frame of a mannerist period that might correspond, in music, to what was happening at the time in fine arts and in literature (in the transition from Hochrenaissance to Hochbarock), and the composer unanimously considered mannerist - in such a context - remains Gesualdo da Venosa. But mannerism could be seen also as a constant infiltrated within other styles and highlighting its characteristic manifestations, according to each case. Arguments could outline a mannerist tradition that connects musical guidemarks which are remote in time: representatives of the Renaissance with Bach, with Schumann and other romantics, with Berg and other moderns, with Berio and other postmoderns. This paper sketches some concepts, symbols, procedures that could be related with the aesthetic constant of mannerism in music: the magic letter, Ars combinatoria, the magic square, the magic Number, the ludic element, musical quotation, labyrinth, mirror, masque.

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