Discours moral et discours musical : le thème de la vanité dans la musique de l’Italie post-tridentine

Abstract

A phenomenon analogous to the case of painting, the theme of vanity entered the field of music in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, materializing in a large corpus of vocal pieces, which have remained, however, overlooked by critics. Analyzing the representative vanity pieces in the Italian repertoire, this article intends to demonstrate the paradoxes of a speech that, while attempting to assert a code of moral values threatened by modern social practices, ultimately contributes to its abolition. Keywords : Vanitas, Music, Italy, Counter-reformation.