In Association with The Fintry Trust

Renaissance Music and Magic – £10

Downloadable Podcast

A personal perspective with Dr Angela Voss and Julie Parker

In this session on Renaissance Music and Magic Angela Voss discusses her love of playing and studying the music of 15th-17th centuries, and talks about how the newly-discovered esoteric philosophy of hermeticism and Neoplatonism influenced 15th century practices of musical and astral magic.

Angela also looks at the music of John Dowland in the Elizabethan Hermetic revival, and the innovative work of Claudio Monteverdi as the last great madrigal composer and the inventor of opera. In the 17th century, the magical, participatory world view was torn asunder as Enlightenment thinking began to separate the individual from the cosmos. The arts now no longer acted as reflections of a divine universe. Angela opens out the conversation to questions and discussion about this rich and dynamic period in cultural history, and plays some musical examples.