Classicism and Grace as Leading Aesthetic Ideas for the Music of the Age of Enlightenment

Music historiography has only quite recently come to terms with the notion of a music typical of the Age of Enlightenment, which on the other hand has in the past few decades increasingly attracted the interest of historically informed performers. This contribution discusses two aesthetic principles – classicism and grace – which ought to be considered as crucial features of that music, having directly inspired most composers of the Age of Enlightenment. Both deserve to be closely focused in order to better understand inspiration, features and potentiality of that music. On one side, classical simplicity, promoted by intellectuals such as Montesquieu and Pluche decades before Winckelmann; on the other, grace, explicitly connected by Algarotti to Tartini, displaying harmony, balance and measure. Scores such as Jommelli’s Requiem and Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, and more generally Catholic Marian repertoire, might be considered as icons of a new aesthetic sensibility inspired by lightness and enchantment.