"Il paradiso della musica"

Musica antiqua Italica - Saltarelli, Laude, Ricercare e Villanelle

In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Italy is Europe's "musical wonderland", a country in which different (music-) cultures meet, rub one another, giving life to something new and unprecedented. There is, on the one hand, the powerful Catholic Church with its important conservatory function, which, with its oral and written tradition in the best sense, has preserved the music, but at the same time also sought to prevent many innovations, and on the other the first religious "folk music" by the "Laudesi" Brotherhood arises in catholic Europe.
Harmonious and polyphonic Instrumental music develops and is enhanced, for example with the experiments of Ars Nova and Ars Subtilior. At the same time, the powerful influences of Arab culture and music with their rhythmic percussive elements are slowly spreading from southern Italy towards the Alps.