A proposito di musica e musicisti d’Etiopia. Una nota sulle più antiche testimonianze

Abstract

The article deals with the musical activity and the social status of musicians within the Ethiopian traditional societies, between I millennium B.C. and the period of the Gondär dynasty(17th cent.). Archaeological and literary documents allow one to reconstruct a true ideological debate, pivoting around the struggle between the sacred and the profane. Thus, music was exposed to a religious judgement too, to absolve the creativity addressed to the praise of God and to convict the art made for the pleasure of the senses.