THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE
Spirit of the Renaissance--_Trovatori_ and _cantori a liuto_; The
Florentine _Ars nova_; Landino; _caccia_, _ballata_, madrigal--The
fifteenth century; the Medici; Netherland influence; popular song
forms--Adrian Willaert and the new madrigal--Orazio Vecchi and the
dramatic madrigal.
We have learned in the previous chapters how music, an incipient
art fastened in the bondage of religious mysticism, groped through
the blackness of the mediæval night; how, bound by dogmatic rule,
it became the object of intellectual lucubration, the scholastic
medium of pedants, who reared their stupendous structure of Gothic
intricacy beyond the reach of ordinary man, 'that tower of Babel, in
the building of which tongues were confounded, till no one understood
what he sang nor what he heard.’ And we have seen how this edifice,
in adapting itself to the use of the denizens, softened its lines
and its angles, broadened its spaces and became a thing of beauty--a
process in which we see reflected the dawn of a new era, when humanity
breathes a freer air; that glorious spiritual awakening which found its
religious expression in the Reformation, its æsthetic revelation in the
Renaissance. We shall presently consider the influence of the former
upon the course of music in Germany; our immediate purpose is to follow
the path of the parallel process accomplished through the Renaissance
in Italy.
In the words of J. Addington Symonds, the history of the Renaissance
is 'the history of the attainment of self-conscious freedom by the
human spirit manifested in the European races.’ In politics it meant
the breaking down of the reactionary forces vested in the church
and the empire, in science it meant the substitution of knowledge
for superstition, the fearless exploring of new continents and the
demonstration of the infinity of the universe; in art it meant the
firing of man’s imagination, the stimulation of his creative faculties
by the Revival of Learning, 'that rediscovery of the classic past which
restored the confidence in their own faculties to men striving after
a spiritual freedom, ... which held up for emulation master works of
literature, philosophy and art, provoked inquiry, shattered the narrow
mental barrier imposed by mediæval orthodoxy.’
Just as the artist 'humanized the altar pieces and the cloister
frescoes upon which he worked’ and so 'silently substituted the love
of beauty and the interest of actual life for the principles of the
church,’ so the musician 'humanized’ the service of the church, brought
beauty, expression and emotion into his masses and motets, imbuing them
with the dramatic spirit, the spirit of passion, which had never been
absent from the _secular_ music of the people, the music that is always
indigenous to the soil. It is in this music that we must first seek the
embodiment of the Renaissance spirit, which means the direct expression
of human emotions in terms of oral beauty. That spirit has been
associated in the history of music with two things: the 'invention’
of monody[98] and the rise of opera, both of which are placed about
the end of the sixteenth century. But recent research has shown these
apparently sudden events to be the outcome of a development extending
back nearly three hundred years, so that they become the objective
rather than the starting point of our account, which will aim to trace
the steps by which this momentous reform was accomplished.
I
Our story has a direct connection with Chapter VII, where we spoke
of the art of the Provençal troubadours. Though their influence was
not felt in Italy till late in the twelfth century it bore a fruit as
rich as it had in France. In the middle of the thirteenth a number
of troubadours and jongleurs visited Frederick II at Milan, in the
train of Raymon Berengar, Count of Provence. The Emperor extended
his patronage to them, as did also Charles d’Anjou, the king of
Naples. They became known among the people as _uomini di corti_,
and _ciarlatanti_ (because their chief theme was the exploits of
Charlemagne), and the natives taught by them were called _trovatori_
and _giocolini_. These soon cultivated native poetry in the Italian
vernacular, the _volgar poesia_, which spread its influence to northern
Italy as well and found representatives especially in Florence and
Bologna. The thirteenth century records the names of Quittona d’Arezzo,
Guido Guincelli and Jacopone da Todi, and upon the threshold of the
fourteenth stands Dante (1265-1321), one of the greatest poets of all
times, who with Petrarch (1304-1374) and Boccaccio (1313-1375) finally
demonstrates the power of the Italian language as an artistic medium.
In these three, Symonds says, 'Italy recovered the consciousness of
intellectual liberty.’ What is more to our purpose, they so clarified
and amplified the Italian tongue that it became the vehicle for a
national literature, in which were produced not only epics after the
classic models, but also lyric gems in new and spontaneous forms, which
would inspire the creation of melody.
Among these poetic forms we frequently meet with _canzone_ and
_madrigals_ (then called _mandriale_, from Ital. _mandra_ = hearth),
which were evidently written to be sung. Their melodies, however,
were no longer composed by the poets themselves but by a class of
musicians characteristic of Italy during the Renaissance, the _cantori
a liuto_, lutenists, who were essentially composers and singers, as
distinguished from the _trovatori_, who were poets primarily. One of
these _cantori a liuto_ was Dante’s friend, Casella, whose name he has
perpetuated in the _Purgatorio_.[99] The importance of the lutenists in
this and succeeding periods of music calls for a brief explanation of
their instrument. The lute was a plucked string instrument, somewhat
resembling the guitar. Its origin was oriental. The favorite instrument
of the Arabs, it reached Italy by way of Spain, and thence spread all
over Europe. In the fifteenth to the seventeenth century it came to
hold a place relatively as prominent as our pianoforte to-day--it was
the household instrument _par excellence_ and an important member of
early orchestras. In shape the lute resembles the mandolin rather than
the guitar, but it was made in various sizes, varieties, and ranges
(chitarrone, theorbo, etc.). The number of strings was variable. Five
pairs running across the fingerboard and an additional single one for
the melody were fretted; the rest running _outside_ were used only as
open strings. The tunings varied at different periods, and, as in the
case of the organ, a special kind of notation, or tablature, was used
(_cf._ Vol. VIII, Chap. II).
It must not be supposed, however, that these lutenists were learned
musicians in the sense of the contrapuntists who, at this same period,
flourished in the Netherlands, and who had already begun to invade
Italy. They were not familiar with the complicated musical science of
the time. The ecclesiastical modes, mensural science, notation and its
ramifications, ligatures, prolation and proportions, the theory of
consonance and dissonance, the laws of voice progression, etc., all
combined to form a science so formidable as to baffle all but those
devoting their lives to its study. A boy put to school in childhood
could achieve only in manhood the knowledge of a 'cantor.’ As for
composing, he would first have to be, as Kiesewetter says, a 'doctor
of counterpoint.’ The lutenists were none such; they were essentially
_dilettanti_ and hence their art, which was transmitted from ear to
ear, has not been preserved to us. To gain a knowledge of the nature of
their music we must turn to the more learned native musicians, who, we
know, cultivated the same forms in the fourteenth century.
Here we meet with the most remarkable revelations. We will recall how
music in its course of development under the guidance of the church
'chose a path which led directly away from the solo style of the folk
song or the song of the troubadours and into the realm of polyphonic
imitation.’ It has been supposed, therefore, that the vocal solo had
no place in the system and never appeared in the art music of the
time. But recent investigators have unlocked for us a treasure of
song by a school of Italian musicians of the early fourteenth century
who perpetuated not only the solo style, but the solo song with
instrumental accompaniment, which is the supposed 'invention’ of the
Florentine monodists of 1600! Fétis was the first to make known to the
world the existence of the precious manuscript of the Bibliothèque
Nationale in Paris, dated 1375, which contains the specimens of these
early Renaissance masters, among whom we should mention Jacopo da
Bologna, Giovanni da Cascia (1329-1351), Francesco Landino (1325-1397)
and Ghiradellus de Padua. Their worth was appreciated not only by
Fétis who, in speaking of Giovanni da Cascia, says that 'Guillaume
de Machault, who was the most celebrated French musician of the
same epoch, does not show greater ability,’[100] but also by other
historians. Ambros says, 'If their (the Italians’) works take an
inferior position to that of the Netherlanders the reason is not lack
of talent, but the fact that because of a disposition deeply rooted in
the Italian nature and character, which later bore the richest fruits,
the Italians were to develop certain sides of the art, before it had
to be subjected to the indispensable school of contrapuntalism.’ But
none of the historians were aware of the full significance of this
music until Johannes Wolf’s[101] study of mensural notation appeared
and until Hugo Riemann’s deductions[102] for the first time placed it
in its true light. It is this school, which he characterizes as the
Italian _Ars nova_, whose influence upon the French _Ars nova_ and its
chanson literature we have already emphasized.
The centre of this art is Florence, which Fétis calls 'the cradle of
modern music.’ Its principal representative is Francesco Landino,
mentioned above. The facts of his life are brief. He was born in
Florence about 1325, the son of a painter of some reputation. Having
lost his sight in his youth, he sought consolation in the study of
music. He learned to play all the instruments then in vogue and, it is
said, even invented others. But it was his ability on the organ that
made him famous. In this he surpassed his contemporaries to such an
extent that he was aptly styled _Francesco degli organi_. The chief
musicians of his time united to bestow upon him a laurel wreath, with
which the king of Cyprus crowned him in Venice. He died in his native
city in 1390.
What is true of his music applies in a great measure to that of
his contemporaries--those named above and a number of others. The
three principal forms into which their compositions are cast are the
_caccia_, the _ballata_ and the madrigal. The _caccia_ is the one
indigenous form of the three, being of truly Tuscan origin. It is a
canon for two voices, with or without a third as bass foundation, which
does not participate in the canon (like the drone bass of 'Sumer is
i-cumen in’). As its name implies (_caccia_ = chase) it is a hunting
song, though later it is applied to the humorous description of a
market scene. The _ballata_ is clearly derived from the dance songs of
the troubadours. Its form as cultivated by the Florentines shows at
the beginning a phrase whose text and melody serve as a chorus refrain
(_ripresa_). This is followed by a middle section which is repeated
(_piedi_) over a different text; then the opening section is again
taken up with fresh text as a _volta_, after which it is repeated as
refrain. Often there are a number of strophes (_copla_) which are alike
except for the texts of the _piedi_.
The madrigal, too, originated in Provence, being derived from the
_pastourelle_. While the latter, however, recounts amorous adventures
with rural belles, the madrigal poems of Dante and his successors have
for their subject the contemplation of the beauties of nature, with a
whimsical, philosophical or sentimental conclusion. Its musical form is
similar to the ballad and _rondeau_; it is divided into two parts with
repeats and its melodic phrases are usually not of greater length than
would be required for about five text lines. We shall see later a new
development of the madrigal in the polyphonic _a capella_ style, which
became significant for the development of opera; the present form is,
however, entirely monodic and accompanied.
Herein indeed lies the most remarkable feature of these early forms
of secular music; in that they present a definitely thought-out
combination of vocal and instrumental music, whose existence at this
period was until recently unsuspected. But the latest research has
definitely shown that the doubtful melismatic figures without words
which precede and follow the individual phrases are nothing but
instrumental preludes, interludes and postludes. Riemann[103] calls
attention to the surprisingly definite _harmonic_ basis of these
songs; which seems far in advance of diaphony, _faux-bourdon_ and
all the primitive forms of polyphony. There is a remarkably varied
combination of intervals--octaves, sixths, fifths, thirds, also
sevenths and ninths used in the nature of passing notes or over a
pedal--foreshadowing the manner of a much later day. Consecutive fifths
and octaves occur rarely, and when they do are used in a way which is
not very objectionable even to modern ears. A strictly modal character
is avoided by the frequent use of chromatics. 'Indeed this Florentine
“ars nova” of the fourteenth century has no connection with the
laborious attempts of the Paris school. This is evident from the fact
that it does not build “motets” upon a tuneless tenor, or construct
_rondeaux_ and “conducts” in the clumsy manner of the organum, but
that it appears with entirely new fundamental forms, and with such a
certainty and natural freshness, that a theoretical process of creation
seems absolutely out of the question. No, this Florentine New Art is a
genuine, indigenous flower of Italian genius. If we nevertheless insist
upon tracing its roots beyond the rich soil of Tuscan literature, we
can only find it in the troubadour poetry of Provence.’[104]
According to our authority, there took place in the second half of
the fourteenth century an active exchange of the achievements between
the Florentines and the Paris school, in which France took from
Italy a greater rhythmic variety, while Italy gained from France the
manner of writing over a _faux-bourdon_ foundation, the result being
a decided detriment to the Florentine school, which lost much of its
freedom in the invention of independent voices, though it gained in
harmonic purity, while of course the consecutive octaves and fifths
naturally disappear entirely. Examples of madrigals, _cacci_, etc., of
the Florentine school may be examined in Johannes Wolf’s _Geschichte
der Mensuralnotation_. A notable specimen by Giovanni da Cascia is
'The White Peacock,’ quoted by Riemann (I²). The _cantori a liuto_,
who flourished probably throughout the fifteenth century, performed,
no doubt, the compositions of these masters, no less than their own
inventions and the popular songs of the day, the _frottole_, the
_canzone_, _villanesche_ and _villanelle_, which resounded through the
streets and the _campagna_ of Renaissance Italy.
II
The fifteenth century saw Italy well advanced toward the state in which
it has been compared to ancient Greece. The work begun by Petrarch had
made mighty strides, the recovery of ancient learning and ancient art
had become the great passion of the age, and the worship of beauty
was the second, if not the first, creed of a people but recently
emerged from the broils of civil war and settled down to a prosperous
period, under a benevolent tyranny of which the rule of the Medici at
Florence was the arch-type. Learning and culture had become a badge of
nobility and the patronage of the arts an instrument of power. That
music shared in the boon which came to art is unquestionable; a musical
education was once again, as in ancient Greece, an essential part of
a gentleman’s equipment; poets and musicians shared the patronage of
princes, who themselves had no greater ambition than to be accounted
men of genius--in truth, Florence had become the Athens of the modern
world.
Cosimo de Medici returned from his Venetian exile in 1434 and, once
installed in power, we see him surrounded by such men as Donatello,
Brunelleschi, Ghiberti and Luca della Robbia. Gemistos Plethos, the
Byzantine Greek, fires his passion for Plato’s philosophy and Marsilio
Ficino is trained under his patronage to translate the works of the
sage. Vespasiano assures us of his versatility as follows: 'When
giving audience to a scholar, he discoursed concerning letters; in the
company of theologians he showed his acquaintance with theology, ...
astrologers found him well versed in their science, ... musicians in
like manner perceived his mastery of music, wherein he much delighted.’
Cosimo’s grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492), far surpassed
his grandsire in talent and culture. He was a writer of prose and
poetry, gave the impulse to the revival of a national literature, and
may be said to have raised popular poetry to the dignity of an art,
in writing new verses for the _canzone a ballo_ which the young men
and girls sang and danced upon the squares of Florence to celebrate
the return of May, and the _canti carnascialeschi_, the songs that
the Florentine populace sang, masked, at carnival times. He organized
for these occasions great pageants in which he himself took part,
engaging the best artists for the embellishment of chariots and the
designing of costumes, while he himself wrote songs appropriate to
the characters represented on the cars, causing new musical settings
to be made by eminent composers. 'Every festivity,’ says Symonds, 'May
morning tournaments, summer evening dances on the squares of Florence,
weddings, carnival processions, and vintage banquets at the villa, had
their own lyrics with music and the _Carola_.’
Lorenzo’s famous academy constituted perhaps the greatest intellectual
galaxy of the age, for at his table sat Angelo Poliziano, Cristoforo
Landino, Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Leo Battista
Alberti, Michelangelo Buonarrotti, Luigi Pulci. Surrounded by these
companions we behold him in the streets of Florence, not disdaining
to perform his own songs, in the midst of an approving populace, or,
perchance, 'when Florence sleeps beside the silvery Arno and the large
Italian stars come forth above,’ accompanied by a few kindred spirits,
lute in hand, singing the verses of a Dante or a Petrarch to the
accompaniment of soft Italian zephyrs; or, again, in his villa 'on the
steep slope of that lofty hill crowned by the mother city, the ancient
Fiesole,’ with Michael Angelo, 'seated between Ficino and Politian,
with the voices of prophets vibrating in his memory and with the music
of Plato sounding in his ears ... till Pulci breaks the silence with
a brand-new canto of Morgante, or a singing boy is bidden to tune his
mandoline to Messer Angelo’s last-made _ballata_.’[105]
To such gatherings of boon companions and to the small domestic
circle the _cantori a liuto_ were finally relegated, for, as we shall
see, their usefulness had been outlived. Such men as these were
the perpetuators of their art and the last, perhaps, to cultivate
the spontaneous monodies of their Florentine forbears, for it is
unthinkable that these worshippers of beauty, these æsthetic
sentimentalists should have escaped the charm of that school and have
forgone it in favor of that which followed. For meantime the musicians
of the Netherland school continued to spread their propaganda in Italy,
and so successfully, that their contrapuntal works began to supersede
the native monodic style.
[Illustration: ALTAR OF THE VIRGIN.]
_After the painting by Bellini (Venice Academy)._
Their method had, indeed, undergone great improvement: Josquin des
Près and his more expressive style had achieved tremendous popularity
throughout Europe.[106] Toward the end of the fifteenth century these
masters cultivated the secular forms more and more, always, of course,
in their wonted contrapuntal method. They would frequently take the
melody of a favorite folk-song, use it as their tenor (the middle
part) around which they wove an artful counterpoint. In Germany the
'harmonization’ of popular melodies, or melodies in the popular vein,
had been going forward for some time, and it is a noteworthy fact that
Heinrich Isaac, one of those most prominently engaged in this work,
was organist in Florence from 1484 to 1494 and again after 1514. The
style of writing adopted in these popular settings was a simple 'note
against note,’ which emphasized chord progressions rather than melodic
integrity.
Definite ideas of harmony were beginning to take root about this time.
Ramis de Pareja, the Spanish theoretician, in 1482 had, by his new
mathematical definitions of the ratio of intervals, established the
consonant nature of the triad; Franchino Gafori and Ludovico Fogliano
(d. 1539) had insisted upon the same principle. In 1558 Gioseffo
Zarlino[107] gave to the world his _Institutioni harmoniche_, which,
following the Ptolomean determination of intervals, established
the natural relations of the tones of the major triad (_divisione
armonica_) and in the course of the century his ideas of harmony became
the common property of musicians. With harmony as the predominating
principle of music, with 'vertical’ hearing rather than 'horizontal’
as the prevailing habit, and the constantly freer use of chromatics,
the doom of ecclesiastical modes was sounded, even if not fully
accomplished till later, and the real advent of modern music had been
reached.
The Italians, from early times as to-day primarily and essentially
melodists, never found great appeal in the barbarous descant and
counterpoint of the Netherlanders. 'But they could not but perceive
the charm of harmony, once it had been cleansed of its dross, when
composers no longer worked for the eye of their expert colleagues
alone, but for the ears of the people as well.’ Hence polyphonic music
was gradually accepted in the place of the native monodies which had
now lost caste, and it became fashionable to perform motets for the
entertainment of one’s guests. However, the number of native singers
able to perform this 'learned’ music was insufficient to supply even
the churches outside of Rome, much less the palaces of the aristocracy,
until the increased influx of Netherlanders as singers and teachers
spread their art among the musicians of Italy. During the sixteenth
century the simplification of notation made the art of reading music
accessible to the _dilettanti_, who now formed musical coteries for
the performance of polyphonic songs. Native composers busied themselves
to supply the demand and their products were spread broadcast by
enterprising publishers, for meantime, in 1476, the art of printing
had been introduced in Rome.[108] The first of these publishers was
Ottaviano dei Petrucci, who, though not its inventor, so advanced the
art of music printing as to render it a practical medium. His office
in Venice produced in 1501 a collection of ninety-six songs written by
various composers. Thus he brought polyphonic music to the people and
so caused the old monodies of the lutenists and earlier masters to pass
still farther into oblivion.
Among the native products of Petrucci’s press we see a number of
four-part songs of lighter genre called _frottole_. This was a
simple popular form akin to the _ballata_ and usually supposed to be
of humorous content. The _frottola_ was essentially a street song,
originally sung to an improvised accompaniment, and did not really
belong to the _a capella_ species. But in Petrucci’s collection
(between 1504 and 1509 he published nine books of _frottole_) they
appear as polyphonic pieces in a manner of the time.[109] In this guise
they were stepping stones to a nobler form which was to achieve immense
popularity and, practised by the more educated circles of amateurs,
became the 'chamber music’ of the period. This was the madrigal or, to
be precise, the _new_ madrigal, for though the old verses of Dante,
Petrarch, etc., served as bases, its musical structure had little to do
with the earlier form (see above, p. 264).
This, in fact, was the only excuse for adopting the name madrigal
for this new type of composition. Composers were weary of the short
forms with their endless repetition of phrases and, recognizing the
superiority of the old classic poems both in sentiment and structure,
proceeded to apply to them their polyphonic skill. Like in the motet
the setting was continuous (_durchkomponiert_), with or without
reiteration of musical ideas, but, unlike that stereotyped form, the
madrigal was the child of free invention throughout, not a contrapuntal
exercise upon a given _cantus firmus_. The tenor was not more prominent
than the other voices; neither, on the other hand, was the treble a
real 'melody’ in the modern sense, being the result of simultaneous
calculation. The madrigal was the _a capella_ composition _par
excellence_ and, as the secular counterpart of the motet, became the
standard form in which the pure vocal style was developed.
III
Adrian Willaert (1480-1562), the founder of the so-called Venetian
school, whose activities as a church composer we shall recount in the
next chapter, is generally considered the father of the new madrigal.
Though others went before him, it was he who endowed it with the
freshness and vitality which made its extraordinary vogue possible.
Master Adrian, says Ambros, 'found in the smaller _frottole_ of a
Marco Caro and others many noble, serious expressions of sentiment.
This _colorit_, this peculiar tone, he retained, together with the
manner of treating Italian verse; but in place of the timid, poor and
often clumsy technique of the Italians he applied to them the entire
Netherland mastery of accomplished counterpoint--and the madrigal was
ready.... The madrigal was to express only the pure and the profound.
The _cor gentile_ was the center of this poetry and music--the heart
moved by noble love, with its joys and pains, its love, hope, longing,
suffering and anger. The 'tone’ of the madrigal is ever one of tender
emotion, never of vehement passion.... It should never burst out in
unbeautiful, violent expressions.’ Analyzing one of his madrigals,
Riemann say that 'on the whole there is so much originality, so much
individual endeavor, that the lack of flowering fancy and warm blood
is willingly overlooked. We feel as one does in the case of moderns,
for instance Berlioz, that we are in the presence of a distinguished
personality.... Willaert is great by virtue of the various impulses
that he gave, as teacher, as eminent artist, but not really because of
his compositions. If we compare him to the passionate Verdelot, the
daring Arcadelt, the solemn Festa, the supple Gero, or the genial Rore,
commanding all the nuances of expression, any one of these will be
found more telling, but ... in all of the works of these, his pupils,
we find the traces of his genius.’ Riemann has here named the greatest
of the madrigalists, some of whom we must now consider further. They
were all not only learned contrapuntists, but consummate masters of
style, as is shown by the restraint with which they applied their
skill, and they have left us works 'which for purity of style and
graceful flow of melody can scarcely be exceeded.’
Philippe Verdelot’s madrigals appeared even before those of Willaert
(1538), but few have been preserved with all parts complete. He
probably lived in Italy during 1525-1565 (Florence and Venice). His
second book of five-part madrigals appeared in 1536 and in the same
year Willaert published lute arrangements of Verdelot’s madrigals.
Besides nine books of madrigals (four to six parts) he left motets for
up to eight parts and a large mass, _Philomena_.
But the success of his madrigals was even surpassed by those of Jacques
Arcadelt. A native of the Netherlands (b. 1514), the latter died in
Paris after 1557. He appears as singer at the court of Florence from
1540 to 1549, when he became one of the papal singers of the Sistine
Chapel in Rome and singing master to the boys at St. Peter’s. Besides
compositions which appeared in miscellaneous collections, he published
independently five books of four-part madrigals (1537-1544), another
for three parts, all of which went rapidly through many editions,
besides three masses and a book of motets. One of his madrigals, _Il
bianco et dolce cigno_, a notable example of the style, is reprinted by
Burney.[110] The well-known _Ave Maria_, which has been edited by Sir
Henry Bishop and transcribed by Liszt, is now thought to be of doubtful
authorship.
Constanzo Festa, of Rome (where he was papal chapel singer from
1517 till his death in 1545), the first Italian representative of
the imitative vocal style in church composition, is with Willaert
and Verdelot the originator of the new madrigal; his _Amor che mi
consigli_, published in 1531, even points to him as the first in
the field. His works are distinguished by rhythm, grace, elegance,
simplicity and purity of harmony. Burney further assures us that 'the
subjects of imitation in it are as modern, and that the parts sing
as well as if they were a production of the eighteenth century.’ His
madrigal _Quando ritrovo la mia pastorella_ ('Down in a Flow’ry Vale’)
was for a long time the most popular piece of its kind in England. He
was less happy in his motets, in which he followed the absurd custom of
setting the voice to different texts. A celebrated _Te Deum_ by him is
still sung by the pontifical choir upon the election of a new pope.
Festa attained the dignity of _maestro_ at the Vatican, being at that
time the only Italian to hold such a position.
The most distinguished pupil of Willaert was Cipriano di Rore (b. _ca._
1516 at Mechlin or Antwerp). After leaving Willaert’s tutelage in
Venice he went to the court of Hercules II at Ferrara in 1542, where,
in the same year, his first book of madrigals was brought out. After
sundry travels in his native country, he was made _maestro di capella_
to Duke Ottavio Farnese at Parma, returning to Venice as Willaert’s
successor upon the latter’s death. He enjoyed great distinction as a
composer of originality--of his ecclesiastical works we shall speak
in Chapter X. As a composer of madrigals and _ricercari_ (see Chap.
XI, p. 356) he followed in his master’s footsteps. Eight books of four
to five-part madrigals, published from 1542 to 1565, of which the
four-part ones were issued in score form in 1577 as an aid to the study
of counterpoint, constitute the bulk of his secular works. It will be
well to mention here that Monteverdi, a half century later, acclaimed
'the divine Cipriano di Rore’ as the founder of the new art, because of
his endeavors in establishing the supremacy of melody.[111]
Luca Marenzio (b. near Brescia, 1550-1560) was probably the most
distinguished of all the madrigalists, though he by no means limited
himself to this field. His contemporaries called him _il piu dolce
cigna_ (the sweetest swan), _divino compositore_, etc., and he enjoyed
the highest musical eminence. About 1584 he was _maestro_ to Cardinal
d’Este, later at the court of Sigismund III of Poland received the
unusual salary of 1,000 _scudi_, and was organist of the papal
chapel in Rome from 1585 till his death in 1594, caused, it was said,
by a broken heart because of his love for a relative of Cardinal
Aldobrandini whom he could not marry. His printed compositions comprise
no less than eighteen books of madrigals (4 to 6 voices) and many
ecclesiastical works.
Of further names we need only mention Constanzo Porta, of Padua
(1530-1601); Giovanni Croce, of Venice (1557-1609); Andrea and
Giovanni Gabrieli (of whom we shall speak in a later chapter); Claudio
Merulo, of Correggio (1553-1604), and Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of
Venosa (1560-1614), 'the most daring and most genial harmonist of the
sixteenth century,’, and finally the princely Lassus and the great
Palestrina himself, as a few of the endless host of madrigal writers.
Not thousands, but tens of thousands of madrigals were composed in this
period; it was the accepted medium for the expression of every poetic
idea, every pretty sentiment. People sang madrigals at home and abroad,
in society and for private pastime; in short, its popularity has not
been surpassed even by the modern song.
IV
A distinct departure from the madrigal of Willaert, and one in which
historians are wont to see a direct step toward the opera, is seen in
the descriptive, or dramatic, madrigals of Allessandro Striggio (b.
Mantua, 1535) and Orazio Vecchi. The descriptive element had indeed
invaded song composition much earlier. The French 'program _chansons_,’
notably those of Clement Jannequin, who attempted to reproduce in
vocal music the song of birds and the noise of battle, were, perhaps,
the most remarkable phenomena of this kind. Though not an Italian,
Jannequin deserves notice here because of his influence in this
direction. He was a pupil of Josquin and, besides a varied lot of
sacred works, issued a great number of _chansons_ which became popular
as bravura pieces in instrumental form, being printed in Italy without
texts in 1577 (_partite in caselle per sonar_). His great chansons
(_inventions_), which stamp him _the_ programmistic composer of the
sixteenth century, include _La bataille_ (on the battle of Marignano
[1515]), _La guerre_, _Le caquet des femmes_ (women’s gossip), _La
jalousie_, _La chasse au lièvre_ (rabbit hunt), etc., etc. A curious
example is the excerpt reprinted in our supplement. In it the cuckoo’s
call, the nightingale’s song, the notes of the thrush and other sounds
of nature’s music are introduced simultaneously.[112]
Verdelot’s realistic description of the chase, Eckhard’s tumult of
the people at St. Mark’s and Striggio’s dispute of the washerwomen at
the brook are additional instances in which vocal music appropriated
the dramatic elements of action, movement--the passing shapes and
the play of colors. In the hands of these composers, the madrigal
became a vehicle for humorous or whimsical moods no less than for
the expression of tender sentiments, or 'a charming, picturesque and
dramatic symphony,’ for which Romain Rolland finds an analogy in the
'Romeo and Juliet’ symphony of Berlioz. Such are Orazio Vecchi’s
_La selva di varia ricreatone_ (1590), 'Musical Banquet’ (1597) and
_Amfiparnasso_. They are in reality series of madrigals which follow
out a continuous idea as in dramatic action, their text comprising
the dramatic forms of monologue and dialogue, but, curious as it may
seem, never set to music in the way that seems natural to us--as solos,
duets, etc.--but always in madrigalesque polyphony. Thus, instead of
having the singers represent the different characters of the piece,
the actual practice was to have the monologue sections sung by all
of them, while the dialogue would be carried on between sets of two
or three singers each. For example, if Isabella (in _Amfiparnasso_)
speaks to her lover Lucio, a group of three voices represents each of
them; Isabella is characterized by a soprano and supported by an alto
and a 'quinto,’ Lucio represented by a tenor sustained by a quinto and
a bass. Never did it occur to the composer, even when the text was
marked _Lucio solo_, actually to write for a solo voice! By this we may
understand what a revolution was necessary in men’s minds to accomplish
the essential step to dramatic fidelity.
The following is Romain Rolland’s pen picture of the most interesting
exponent of the dramatic madrigal: 'Orazio Vecchi (b. Modena 1550;
d. there 1605) was a man of the Renaissance. He possessed its
superabundance of vigor, the desire for action, and a robust good
humor. Chapel master at Modena, we find him on the highways and by-ways
of Italy, indoors only to take part in brawls and _coltellate_.
Commissioned as archdeacon of Correggio to correct the Gradual of the
Roman Catholic church; he is occupied in 1591 with directing private
and public masquerades in Modena. A writer of celebrated masses, he
becomes at the same time the creator of _opera buffa_. Three times the
Bishop of Reggio dismissed him from his function, but his reputation
was enormous--the house of Este and the great Italian lords extended
their favor to him, while his name spread to Austria, to Denmark and
to Poland. At his death in 1605 he was regarded not only as one of the
foremost musicians of the century and the inventor of musical comedy,
but as one of the greatest geniuses of the age.’ Comedy is, indeed,
his sphere; rarely does he ascend to the height of pathos or passion,
though he amply proves himself capable of portraying earnest sentiment
and sometimes pathos; but the question whether he merits the reputation
of having created comic opera or not we shall leave to the judgment of
the reader.
First we shall let him speak for himself. 'I know well,’ he says, 'that
peradventure some will consider my “caprices” as unworthy and light,
but they should learn that as much grace, art and fidelity is required
to trace a comic part as in representing an old reasoning sage.’ And
elsewhere, 'Music is poetry by the same right as poetry itself.’
That the conscious purpose of his music was the expression of ideas
is evident from these directions which preface his _Amfiparnasso_:
'Everything here has a precise purpose; it is necessary to find
this, and only by expressing it well and intelligently will you give
life to the performance.... The moral import [of the piece] is of
less consequence than the simple comedy; since music appeals to the
emotions rather than the intellect, I have been obliged to compress
the development of the action into the smallest space, for speech is
more rapid than song. Hence it is necessary to condense, contract,
suppress detail and only to take the capital situations, the moments
characteristic to the subject. The imagination must supply the rest.’
Vecchi’s disciple, Banchieri, gives a clear account of the manner of
performing these madrigals in the preface to _La comedia di prudenza
giovenile_: 'Before the music one of the singers will read in a
loud voice the name of the scene, the names of the characters and
the argument. The place of performance is a room of medium size, as
closed-in as possible (for the sake of acoustics); in one corner of
the room two large carpets are laid on the floor and an agreeable
decoration is used for the background. Two seats are placed at the
right and left respectively. Behind the “back-drop” are benches for
the singers, who must turn toward the audience and be seated at a
hand’s breadth from each other. Behind them is an orchestra of lutes,
_clavicembali_, etc., attuned to the voices. Above is a large sheet
which hides both singers and musicians. The singers (invisible) follow
the music of their parts; there should be three (or better six) at a
time. They must give animation to the cheerful words, pathos to the sad
ones, and enunciate loudly and intelligibly. The reciting actors (alone
on the scene) must prepare their rôles, know them well by heart and
follow the music closely. It would not be amiss to have a prompter aid
the singers, instrumentalists and reciters.’
These 'actors’ do not, as may be supposed, perform pantomime; they
simply pronounce the prologue and announce the scenes. At the end
they would, perhaps, dance a few ballet steps in order to leave
the spectator in a happy frame of mind. By way of example we shall
briefly recount the plot of Vecchi’s _chef-d’œuvre_, that _commedia
armonica_ of the strangely inexplicable title _Amfiparnasso_. The
story centers around the love intrigue of Lucio and Isabella, the
daughter of Pantalone, who has determined to marry her to the pedantic
Gratiano. Lucio attempts to commit suicide but is saved. Isabella,
about to follow him into death, declares her love. They are married
and in the last scene receive the forced consent and the presents of
all concerned. Meantime, Pantalone serenades and is rejected by the
courtesan Hortensia, Lelio pursues another adventure with the beautiful
Nisa, and the captain, Cardone, believing himself loved by Isabella,
makes advances and is promptly rebuked. Doctor Gratiano sings absurd
serenades while Francatrippa, the valet of Pantalone, goes to borrow
money at the Jews’ house, who reject him under pretext of the Sabbath.
The book for this amazing comedy, as indeed for all the others, was
written by Vecchi himself. He makes all his characters speak in their
various dialects and the 'score’ is full of humorous descriptions
and characterizations. The piece had great success and, while there
were many adverse criticisms, the number of his imitators attests the
continued popularity of the form which he developed.
Adriano Banchieri of Bologna (1567-1634) was Vecchi’s chief disciple
and one of his great admirers. He frankly imitated him in his _Studio
dilettevole_ for three voices (1603), while in his _Saviezza giovenile_
he yields to the influence of the Florentine reform (of which later)
and endeavors to present a compromise between the 'representative’ and
the polyphonic styles. He was, moreover, a musician of great merit,
composed, like Vecchi, numerous organ pieces and was the author of
a number of theoretic works and polemics. The vogue of the dramatic
madrigal continued throughout the north of Italy for twenty years after
Vecchi’s death; in Bologna it survived to the end of the seventeenth
century. Whatever its importance in the development of the opera,
however far removed from realistic action, the dramatic principle is
there--we have, in fact, a musical drama, or, at least, a dramatic
symphony, especially if we regard the voices which accompany the
characters in the nature of instruments.
And here it behooves us to record another peculiar fact: These minor
voice parts were often actually played on instruments, not only in the
dramatic madrigal, but in the other vocal forms as well; sometimes
because of the lack of singers and sometimes for the sake of variety.
The first recorded instance of this kind of solo singing was supposed
to have occurred in 1539 when Sileno sang in an _intermedio_ the upper
part of a madrigal by Francesco Corteccia (d. 1571), accompanying
himself on the violone, while the other parts, representing satyrs,
were taken by wind instruments. Caccini, the reputed inventor of
'monody,’ in an intermezzo by Pietro Strozzi performed at the marriage
of Duke Francesco and Bianca Capello (1579), himself sang the rôle of
Night with an accompaniment of viols. These instances are, however, not
isolated. The experiment proved popular and became common practice.
A number of the _frottole_, _villanelle_, madrigals, etc., which
came from Petrucci’s press, appeared, indeed, in the guise of lute
arrangements.[113]
But all this was as far from true 'monody,’ or solo melody, as the
dramatic madrigal was removed from opera, for the mere emphasizing
of an upper part, which was developed out of, or as counterpart to,
another, could not make it express the sentiment intended by the
text or follow the accents and natural inflections of the spoken
word. Monody was as much a lost art as the Greek tragedy, which the
'inventors’ of opera thought they were reviving from a slumber of
well-nigh two thousand years. Its reinstatement was the result of a
deliberate reform, a revolt against the prevailing polyphonic method,
accomplished by a limited number of individuals. Even if the analytical
historian must reject the possibility of the sudden invention of an
artistic form, we cannot deny the merit of the most definite step
toward the creation of opera to the Florentine _camerata_, an account
of whose activities we shall reserve for a later chapter. Our object in
this discussion has been to emphasize the fact that monody, the most
natural form of musical expression, was _not_ an arbitrary invention
such as the contrapuntal style evidently was; that it lay, indeed, at
the very foundation of that style, but was so effectually displaced by
it that only the faintest memories of it survived. It was from these
memories that the new art of the seventeenth century, with its new
dramatic significance, sprang--just as the _Ars nova_, the new art of
the fifteenth century, had sprung from their source. The intervening
space of two centuries was a period of prodigious development both
in secular and church music, and of the most active exchange between
the two. But in this exchange the church unquestionably remained
the debtor, for it acquired from the secular art most of its really
vital elements, even dramatic force. Only thus could it become the
ideal expression of that new religious spirit with which both the
Catholic and Protestant faiths were to be imbued. The development of
this religious art, which forms the parallel to the movements just
described, is our next subject.
C. S.
FOOTNOTES:
[98] The word monody may be applied to the purely melodic,
unaccompanied music of ancient times and the plain-song era, which,
however, is better described as homophony, in contradistinction to
monody in the present sense, namely, solo melody with instrumental
accompaniment. In monodic music the upper voice predominates throughout
and determines the harmonic structure. In vocal polyphony, or
counterpoint, the principal voice (_cantus firmus_) was usually in the
tenor, and had no such determining significance.
[99] Dante’s _ballate_ were everywhere known and sung, according to
Saccheti’s novels, and when Dante overheard a blacksmith singing his
song he scolded him for having altered it. Dante himself was, according
to an anonymous writer of the thirteenth century, _dilettore nel canto
e ogni suono_.
[100] F. J. Fétis: _Hist. Gén. de la Musique_, V. 308.
[101] Joh. Wolf: _Geschichte der Mensuralnotation von 1260-1450_ (2
vols., 1904).
[102] _Cf._ H. Riemann: _Handbuch der Musikgeschichte_ I², pp. 305 ff.
[103] H. Riemann: _Op. cit._, I², pp. 305 ff.
[104] H. Riemann: _Op. cit._, I², pp. 305 ff.
[105] J. A. Symonds: 'Renaissance in Italy,’ Vol. II.
[106] During 1471 to 1488 Josquin was at the papal chapel in Rome. His
popularity there is illustrated by the following episode. When a motet
was performed in a distinguished social circle it passed almost without
notice until the hearers became aware that Josquin was its composer,
when all hands promptly proceeded to express their admiration of it.
[107] B. Chioggia (Venice), 1517; d. Venice, 1590; was a pupil of
Willaert. In 1565 succeeded Cipriano de Rore as _maestro_ at St Mark’s.
Most of his compositions have been lost. His theoretical works were of
the greatest importance. Like M. Hauptmann later, he already recognized
but one kind of third, the major, and distinguishes the thirds of the
major and minor triad not by size but by position, upon which principle
he based the entire theory of harmony. Only the introduction of the
thorough bass soon after, which reckoned all intervals from the bass
up, prevented a development of this rational theory. (Cf. Riemann:
_Gesch. der Musiktheorie_, pp. 369 ff.)
[108] _Cf._ Chap. X, pp. 284 ff.
[109] The frottola 'stood midway between the strict and complicated
madrigal and the _villotta_ or _villanella_, which was a mere
harmonization of a tune; and in fact as the use of counterpoint
increased it disappeared, its better element went into the madrigal,
its lower into the _villanella_.--Grove’s 'Dictionary.’
'If we consider the frottole as contrapuntal exercises they appear
very meagre. If, however, we consider them as attempts to free the
_cantabile_ melody, the declamatory rhythm which is analogous to
the verse metre, from the imitative web, and as an attempt to endow
musical pieces with architectural symmetry in the construction of
its consecutive (not simultaneous) elements they are significant
phenomena.’--Ambros.
[110] 'History of Music,’ III, 303.
[111] The inscription _Cromatici, a note nere_ on the title page of
some of di Rore’s madrigals, which has been thought to indicate the
chromatic nature of these compositions, refers, as Riemann clearly
shows (_Handbuch der Musikgeschichte_ II¹. 411), simply to the color of
the notes, _croma_ being a current name for the eighth note since early
times.
[112] _Musikgeschichte in Beispielen._ Excerpt, etc., in _Handbuch der
Musikgeschichte_, II¹. 407 ff.
[113] That these vocal compositions were often performed entirely by
instruments is indicated by the direction which we meet frequently
on sixteenth century title pages: 'practical for all instruments.’
The kind of instruments was not indicated and the choice was left
to the direction of the performer. Not till the end of the century
did musicians begin to discriminate and to recognize the value of
instrumental timbre. In the _intermezzi_ arrangements of madrigals,
etc., were often performed by many instruments, as for instance in
those produced in 1565 by Striggio and Fr. Corteccia (d. 1571), who
assembled an orchestra of 2 clavicembali, 4 violini, 1 liuto mezzano,
1 cornetto muto, 4 tromboni, 1 flauti diritti, 4 traverse, 1 liuto
grosso, 1 sotto basso di viola, 1 soprano di viola, 4 liuti, 1 viola
d’arco, 1 lirone, 1 traverso contralto, 1 flauto grande tenore, 1
trombone basso, 5 storte, 1 stortina, 2 cornetti ordinarii, 1 cornetto
grosso, 1 dolzaina, 1 lira, 1 ribecchino, 2 tamburi.