Theme of the conference: "Inspiration of Literary Works in Music" dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the passing of Uxío Novoneyra
This theme covers a wide range of intermedial issues concerning the passion for music of writers and poets, their friendship with representatives of musical art, images of figures of musical art, works of prose and poetry written under the influence of musical impressions, references to musical folklore, songs, musical instruments, opera, ballet, musical terminology, etc. as stylistic features of their work, and whether and how these issues are reflected and interpreted in literary museums.
Having unfortunately lost the music of the ancient Etruscans, Greeks and Romans, monastic and ecclesiastical music developed in the early Middle Ages to accompany the ceremonies of Christian worship. In this case, the music is at the service of the written text, often also very beautiful from a literary point of view, and follows its progression. Today it goes by the name of Gregorian Chant after Pope Gregory the Great who in the sixth century collected the oldest texts and music. In the 11th century, an important event took place that would be fundamental for the transmission of music: the Benedictine monk Guido di Arezzo invented a valid way of writing musical notes and gave them a name (ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si), taken from the first syllables of the Latin text of the hymn of St John the Baptist (24 June).
His invention would be fundamental to the transmission of music to this day, and the system we use today with the staff is an evolution of the system invented by the monk Guido.
In museums all over the world, as well as in archives and libraries, manuscripts with literary texts and musical texts are preserved, united in an inseparable relationship.
During the late Middle Ages, between the 13th and 14th centuries, profane music and even profane theatre, often accompanied by music, emerged alongside religious music.
Sacred and profane music developed further during the Renaissance between the 15th and 17th centuries with both sacred and profane polyphony, or very famous are the Protestant chorales like the beautiful ones by Bach: in 1598 Daphne, the first opera, was staged in Florence. It was precisely the Florentine Camerata, a group of poets, musicians and men of letters who met in the house of Count Giovanni Bardi, who tried to revive the ancient Greek tragedy in new forms in which poetry, music, dance and stage action were united in a varied yet unified performance.
Our museums, archives and libraries also preserve documents on the composers and writers of this period, helped by the fact that with the invention of printing, musical and literary texts also began to be more easily disseminated.
Between the 18th and 20th centuries, profane music developed in which literary text and music had a very close role and often one was born, inspired, by the other. This was the time of the great composers and writers whose documents are preserved in our museum houses and museums throughout the world. Alongside classical music, there is also popular music and song that is a precious heritage that our museums preserve and promote.
Even today, music, cinema, videos, theatrical performances, dances, are widespread: in all these artistic activities, words and music are often united and enhance each other.
