Volume 216, 2015, Pages 389–409
Music, Neurology, and Neuroscience: Historical Connections and Perspectives
Abstract
Opera
is the most complete form of theatrical representation, characterized
by musical accompaniment, both instrumental and vocal. It has played an
important role in sociocultural spheres, affecting the various social
strata and reflecting customs and ideas in different centuries.
Composers have created pieces that have also shown the development of
medicine. Since the birth of opera in seventeenth century in Italy,
neuroscience has played an important role in influencing the
representation of madness and neurological aspects. From the Folly
of the Renaissance, a path toward a representation of madness was
developed, initially linked to the myths of classical antiquity. In the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, madness was represented as comical
or funny, of a loving nature and influenced by the spread of the Commedia dell’Arte
(Comedy of Art). In the nineteenth century, with the rise of the first
scientific theories of the mind, insanity took more precise connotations
and was separated from other psychiatric and neurological diseases. The
operas of the twentieth century depicted psychiatric and neurological
diseases, taking into account newer medical and scientific discoveries.
Keywords
- opera music;
- mesmerism;
- madness;
- stroke;
- epilepsy;
- headache;
- sleepwalking;
- dementia;
- neuropsychiatry;
- neuroscience
- Corresponding author: Tel.:
+39 (030) 7102631; Fax: +39 (030) 7102622
Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
