In this interview with authors from the Society for Renaissance Studies book series, we talk to Katie Bank and reflect on her book Knowledge Building in Early Modern English Music which was published in 2021. We discuss the music’s affective power, the John Templeton Foundation project ‘Can Beauty Save the World?‘ and the importance of understanding history through physical experience.
What drew you towards Renaissance and Early Modern studies in general and then intellectual history in particular?
When I was age 14 or so, my mother strongly suggested I join the school choir, which was of a pretty good standard for an otherwise unremarkable state school in California. From day one, I was drawn to renaissance music – Byrd, Weelkes, and Victoria in particular – and my interest in early music blossomed from there and never really left me. From these sung experiences I have this innate knowledge of music’s affective power, which is something I’ve never experienced with any other activity. I would say my interest in intellectual history comes from a genuine desire to better understand music’s presence in human lives.
Apart from your own, what book would you recommend for people to read to learn more about your field of study?
As a starting point, I always recommend Christopher Marsh’s Music and Society in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2010). Few scholars are so adept in musical culture and yet so good at communicating this to anyone with a sensing human body.
What were the key arguments in your book?
Distilled down and put into laymen’s terms 1) English ‘madrigals’ were not as frivolous and lacking in meaning as often portrayed, 2) the recreational music and music making of this period not only reflected changes in epistemology, it also actively shaped how people understood the world.
If you could go back and start the book over again, is there anything you would change, either about the structure of the book itself or about your sources / methodology?
Not really. There are always small things to niggle, but I’m pretty proud of the book.
What are you working on now?
I’m currently working on two projects. My Leverhulme-funded project aims to deepen our understanding of early modern musical experience, emotion, and musical knowledge through music’s complex relationship to the visual. My research has shown that the musical-visual culture of early modern England contains abundant insight into how visual/auditory sensing built interior culture, both of the home and the self. I am interested in what the act of making music meant to people and what they felt when they experienced it. My next project is part of the John Templeton Foundation project, ‘Can Beauty Save the World?‘ at Catholic University of America. My UK-based subgrant, based at the University of Birmingham, explores singing as a ‘spiritual’ practice, both of the past and today. For example, in 1665, Samuel Pepys experienced an extraordinary night singing with friends: ‘Here the best company for musique I ever was in, in my life, and wish I could live and die in it’. This cocktail of good music and good company (plus a few pretty faces) was, for Pepys, key to a life well lived. His yearning to ‘live and die in it’, described as ‘extasy’, resonates with choral singers today. Like many in his society, Pepys was a regular church goer yet much of his most ‘spiritual’ writing was often reserved for musical, rather than overtly religious experiences. In religious and more secular eras alike, one finds musical-spiritual experience on the periphery of, or central to fundamental questions of human existence, such as the quality and purpose of beauty, being, or community. Our study combines qualitative, historical, and practical approaches to better understand non-religious devotion to, and participation in, sacred music-making as a fulfilment of spiritual yearning. Basically, I’m going to be hanging out with sociologists for a while.
If you were not an early modernist, is there any other period or history or historical field you would like to work on?
I’ve always said if I did not study music, it would definitely be the history of food. A variation on the same, really. But how fun would that be? And ostensibly of interest to more people.
Is it necessary to be able to read and understand Latin to work in Renaissance / early modern studies?
It is a skill; I don’t think it should be viewed as a barrier to the study of the Renaissance. But a good thing to learn, for sure.
Is there any advice you would give to PhD students or early career researchers for finding their feet or developing their work in your field?
Sing, join a band, go to the theatre, do some am dram, pick up the tuba or a paint brush. The more one can do the thing, however ‘badly’, the more one can understand the history of it as an experience.
Katie is a music historian and research fellow at the University of Birmingham. She writes about music making in early modern England and its intersection with emotional experiences of the past. She seeks to understand the ways singing connects us, then and now. Katie has published articles in journals such as Early Music, Music & Letters, Arts Journal, and Renaissance Studies, as well as a monograph, Knowledge Building in Early Modern English Music (Routledge, 2021), and multiple co-edited collections. Her work has been funded by the Leverhulme Trust, the NEH/Newberry Library, the AHRC, the John Templeton Foundation, Arts Council England, and the British Academy. She also sings a lot.
Her book Knowledge Building in Early Modern English Music was published in 2021: https://www.routledge.com/Knowledge-Building-in-Early-Modern-English-Music/Bank/p/book/9780367519728