In the preceding sections, I have broadly outlined the development of the presence of music in prose texts in the first half of the 17th century. I will now concentrate on the diverse ways in which the music appears in the novels. Roughly speaking, two categories can be distinguished, although more systematic research is needed in order to break down the various functions according to the types of prose in which music occurs. The first category involves music as a theme. This is the case when music plays a thematic role in a text (what Wolf refers to as ‘thematization’, ‘telling’ or ‘explicit reference’). The second category involves music as a structural principle. This is the case when music has an impact on the form and structure of a text (Wolf speaks of ‘imitation’, ‘showing’ or ‘implicit reference’).

The first category, music as a theme, includes all instances in which a prose text deals with music. This happens in a literal sense when the characters themselves speak of music. For example, ‘He would rather listen to a drum or trumpet than a psalm, and he seemed to be born only for drinking and bloodshed.’ More specific examples include responses to certain music, for example, to a song that can be heard somewhere in the distance or that has just been heard without a visible source: ‘O comrades, who is the damsel or goddess who plays the great vault of heaven and sings so pleasantly that the whole house reverberates?’ Even if the characters make no explicit reference to music, however, they sing, or dance and make music, either individually or collectively: ‘They were singing in front of each other, holding each other by the hand, so that they could dance properly.’ Traditional musical instruments (e.g. trumpet, drum, harp, violin, lute, flute, gamba, zither, guitar) are played. More unusual instruments are used as well: ‘This hunting arrow was (simply put) an instrument that Andronicus often played to provide himself with music and cheerfulness, he called the thing (mockingly) his cure for all kinds of diseases.’