| The seventeenth century has long been considered the Golden Age of Netherlandish civilization. The increasingly critical and specialized nature of musicological investigations of related topics in Netherlandish musical history has made possible a detailed examination of the present subject. The full flowering of Dutch instrumental chamber music that occurred in the last decades of the seventeenth century was preceded by an extensive period in which new styles and techniques were developed in the Netherlands or were imported from abroad and adapted to local tastes and needs.;The primary purpose of the present study has been to identify and evaluate the constituents of the Dutch repertory for instrumental chamber ensembles produced during the early portion of the seventeenth century. Although numerous compositions of the period, and references thereto, have undoubtedly been lost, only twenty individual or collective items of Dutch chamber music of the seventeenth century have not survived of the total of sixty-eight works identified by this author as having existed or having been advertised as available. Once the repertory had been determined, it was analyzed, described, and classified. To assist in forming an accurate and comprehensive appreciation of the subject, it was necessary to locate and evaluate archival and other types of information pertaining to musicians and musical practices of the time, to compare and contrast Dutch production with that from abroad, and to identify and trace stylistic influences, both indigenous and foreign. The music and the styles in which it was compared are examined from numerous perspectives: the nature of changing musical fashions and the increasing influence of foreign styles, the domestic environment in which chamber music was composed and performed, publishing and the dissemination of prints, and the characteristics of Dutch instruments, instrumentation, and performance practice. Among the principal conclusions reached in the course of the study is that the repertory is not only of substantial intrinsic value but that it also evidences a combination of domestic and foreign stylistic elements that is especially useful in establishing the most salient and influential features of non-Dutch instrumental music developed and adapted throughout northern Europe during the period. |
