Singing of Arms and Men

Harness's highly original study of the horse ballet in Tuscany provides a rich introduction to the single most important musical genre for projecting Tuscan power in the seventeenth century. Deftly weaving insights from music, gender, and performance studies, she shows how these works sustained an image of the Tuscan state as a symbolically manly player on the world stage, and as a state whose bureaucratic class was exquisitely controlled by His Highness the Grand Duke. Brava, bravissima! * Suzanne G. Cusick, Samuel Rudin University Professor in the Humanities Emerita, New York University * No genre of musical theater can rival equestrian ballet for its public display of power: it scaled the absolutist messages of opera and court ballet to super-sized dimensions, and by using horses as its medium, it foregrounded the military skills of aristocratic riders. Singing of Arms and Men is an indispensable study of ten Medician balletti a cavallo that leverages Harness's astonishing command of Florentine archives. Harness pairs nuanced analyses of libretti and music with thorough consideration of production challenges, expenses, and the lives and labor of all involved. A must-have for scholars of early modern festivity. * Kate van Orden, author of Music, Discipline, and Arms in Early Modern France * Harness's study of the Florentine equestrian ballet is not only an important and innovative contribution to musicology, but a model of how creative and interdisciplinary research can change the way we look at the cultural world of an earlier civilization. Employing a wide range of sources and methods, Harness reveals how the genre functioned, how these works were prepared and performed, and how they were utilized by the Medici to achieve their political and social goals. * Jonathan Glixon, Professor of Musicology Emeritus, University of Kentucky * Harness's highly original study of the horse ballet in Tuscany provides a rich introduction to the single most important musical genre for projecting Tuscan power in the seventeenth century. Deftly weaving insights from music, gender, and performance studies, she shows how these works sustained an image of the Tuscan state as a symbolically manly player on the world stage, and as a state whose bureaucratic class was exquisitely controlled by His Highness the Grand Duke. Brava, bravissima! * Suzanne G. Cusick, Samuel Rudin University Professor in the Humanities Emerita, New York University * No genre of musical theater can rival equestrian ballet for its public display of power: it scaled the absolutist messages of opera and court ballet to super-sized dimensions, and by using horses as its medium, it foregrounded the military skills of aristocratic riders. Singing of Arms and Men is an indispensable study of ten Medician balletti a cavallo that leverages Harness's astonishing command of Florentine archives. Harness pairs nuanced analyses of libretti and music with thorough consideration of production challenges, expenses, and the lives and labor of all involved. A must-have for scholars of early modern festivity. * Kate van Orden, Author of Music, Discipline, and Arms in Early Modern France * Harness's study of the Florentine equestrian ballet is not only an important and innovative contribution to musicology, but a model of how creative and interdisciplinary research can change the way we look at the cultural world of an earlier civilization. Employing a wide range of sources and methods, Harness reveals how the genre functioned, how these works were prepared and performed, and how they were utilized by the Medici to achieve their political and social goals. * Jonathan Glixon, Professor of Musicology Emeritus, University of Kentucky *