Sounding Spa – Bathing and Spa Music of the Early Modern Period
The Baths of Leuk
The idealised image of a thermal spa not only displays food and drink in the bath, but also active music-making on two wind instruments, a lute with a bent neck and singing.
Even in ancient medicine, baths were used to regain or maintain health. However, medicinal spas in healing thermal or mineral springs and in public and private bathhouses involved not only bathing, but also eating and drinking, singing and playing music on instruments. Bathing music during sulphur, sweat and steam baths or drinking cures is not just for entertainment; the musical sounds themselves are said to have healing and cleansing powers.
The Science of Bathing Culture
The science of bathing culture, balneology, is a broad, established field of research in European medical and social history. However, bathing in the early modern period always included a musical component in addition to cleansing aspects and the hope of being cured of illness or other ailments: Music takes on different functions – from amusement to cure.
The rich man at his table
This copper engraving provides an allegory for the biblical parable about lively events in a bathing environment: in addition to the actual bathing of a lady, cupping and bloodletting can be seen in the foreground, while a flute player plays music in the background.
Against this backdrop, it is surprising that widespread bath music has so far been largely excluded from the music-historical research discourse. For example, the musicological encyclopaedia “Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart” does not contain a separate entry on “bath”, “spa” or “spa music”. Even in other research, there are only a few articles on the significance and form of music in the bathing culture of the early modern period (1450 to 1750). And these few discussions on the history of music either offer only brief, superficial descriptions or they describe stays of musicians (such as Telemann or Bach) in bathing resorts. We aim to fundamentally reappraise the sources in order to open up bathing music for research and to shed light on the cultural-historical aspects associated with bathing and spa music.
The men’s bath
In addition to the bathing scene, the painting depicts the four temperaments and five senses.
While the bathers are engaged in various activities in the water, a musician sits at the edge of the pool and plays his string instrument.
Music as Medicine
The intended healing process in the bath is based on medical theories of the time. Medical dietetics encompassed measures and actions that contributed to a healthy lifestyle and recovery. According to this view, physical exercise or selected foods, for example, promoted the healing process. Music also plays a key role here by influencing the mind and spirit.
The music theorist Johannes Tinctoris wrote around 1470/80 that music dispels sadness, delights people and heals the sick. These convictions were subsequently confirmed by various early modern authors. Music is not only described as a guide to human emotions, but is also seen as a central means of influencing the body and mind. As with any medication, the dosage plays a decisive role: used in the right measure, music is beneficial to the healing process by encouraging the mind and thus strengthening the spiritus, the human spirits. However, too much can have harmful consequences. For example, 17th century bathing physicians such as Philipp Weber and Malachias Geiger warned against excessive singing in the bath, which, according to the ideas of the time, filled the head and made it weak and fluid.
The Cleansing Power of Music
In addition to the physical healing process, the bath also served to heal the soul. This reveals the religious dimension of early modern bathing: like all other areas of life, it was essentially shaped by the Christian faith. Praising God is therefore a central concern of bathers and the daily lives of spa guests were characterised by a multitude of prayers, processions and religious services. While people were to abstain from active (acoustically perceptible) singing and music during silent, personal prayer in the baths, surviving testimonies also document religious services in which bathers sang spiritual songs.
In general, the ecclesiastical moral code sets certain standards for bathing: On the one hand, there is an obligation of physical as well as spiritual purification; on the other hand, there is a ban on “immoral” behaviour - music was also strictly regulated in this sense, for example, booing songs were explicitly forbidden.
The pictorial and literary sources on the subject show ambivalent views and individual moral concepts on the opportunities and temptations of the bath - these take on many forms, particularly in the fairy tales and gay literature of the time. This ambivalent view also affects the evaluation of music in the bathing experience: One symbol of this is the (music-making) bathing jester, who stands as a timeless metaphor for all kinds of worldly vanity and general misery.
Bathing Journey
The Franciscan monk Thomas Murner describes physical and spiritual purity in his spiritual bathing journey. Christ acts as a bathing shore and blows on his instrument into the bath and also for the Last Judgement.
The title woodcut of the medical treatise depicts a jester playing music, standing at the edge of the pool and portraying an ambivalent attitude towards the bathers.
Bath music: Who? How? What?
How can we picture the making of music in the bath? Who makes music? For whom is the music played?
In 1504, the then Roman-German King Maximilian I took his musicians with him to the baths, despite the turmoil of war, so that he would not have to do without melodious entertainment. There is also evidence of courtly musicians accompanying their employer at the Pfeffersbad in Switzerland: In August 1630, a baron whose name cannot be definitively determined enters the baths with his musicians and fills the Pfeffersbad with loud sounds. Wind players of the town or tower and municipal music groups often provide the bathing entertainment. In addition to these professional performers, the bathers themselves also make music - music is an essential part of the bathing ritual.
In the text of his four-part composition, the composer and singer Ludwig Senfl refers to the pleasures and conversations in the bath. Rituals and social conventions also play an important role.
What kind of music was performed and how has it been passed on?
The repertoire of bath and spa music is wide-ranging and includes both sacred and secular bath songs. Sacred bathing songs are aimed at the spiritual purity of bathers and sometimes reveal potential confessional conflict with bathing culture.
The nun Meliora Muchheim regularly visited the nearby bathing resorts together with her conventuals from Hermetschwil Abbey. The song she composed includes spiritual references to illness and health as well as aspects of entertainment.
Secular bathing songs, on the other hand, are mainly used to entertain bathers and typically refer to the illnesses to be cured in the bath or the benefits of local baths (“Bring light courage and make good blood”!). The surviving sheet music can be divided into different types: There are stand-alone song leaflets, tablatures or compositions with lyrics specifically related to the bathing environment. However, most of the bath songs are contained in collections or as appendices to medical-balneological writings. Furthermore, additions such as “sung in the [...] bath” indicate that traditional chorales, church hymns and folk songs were also used in the bath, and so ultimately any musical genre, adapted to the external and internal circumstances, is conceivable as bathing and spa music.
