(“Post-in-progress”)

We are used to classical musicians playing music in a very controlled environment: musicians on one side, audience on the other. Musicians minimizing any sound and body movement that is not produced by their playing the instrument, the audience minimizing any noise so as not to disturb the enjoyment of the music played.

But here is an interesting few lines describing a performance of a virtuoso lutenist of the early Renaissance, Pietrobono de Burzellis, a musician who spent most of his time at the court of Ferrara. It is  an excerpt from a eulogy by poet and orator Aurelio Brandolini describing how the lutenist Pietrobono moved as he played:

Adde quod et vultu cantum gestumque decorat, / quaeque canti cithara, corpore et ore refert. / Nunc caput in terram curvat, nunc tollit in auras, / et vultum ad citharam, labia pedesque movet. / Lumina cum fidibus flectit pariterque reflectit, / totus cum cithara concinit ipse sua. /

(Translation: “Add to this that he accompanies his song and gestures with facial expressions, he delivers each song on the cithara with his body and voice. At times he bends his head towards the ground, others he turns it towards the ceiling, and then moves his face, lips and feet close to the chitara. He turns his eyes one way and another, his whole being singing with the chitara.”)