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English Keyboard music 1650-1695: Perspectives on Purcell

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Purcell Society Edition, volume 6 PC6
Edited by Andrew Woolley
xlii+190pp, linen bound. £85
Stainer & Bell ISBN 979 0 2202 2345 7; ISMN 978 0 85249 930 6

This volume will be welcomed by anyone interested in 17th-century English keyboard music. With typical Purcell Society thoroughness and equally typical Stainer & Bell beautiful book publishing, it comprises 32 pages of introduction and facsimiles, then 126 movements (plus variants), divided into sections:

  • Organ music from Restoration Oxford (six works, mostly anonymous)
  • John Cobb (including two dubious and four anonyma)
  • Commonwealth and early Restoration suites (Mell, Locke, two dubious, two anonyma)
  • Pieces by or associated with Frnacis Forcer (including Blow, Farmer and Lully)
  • John Blow and his milieu (three dubious, seven anonyma, Lully & Lebègue)
  • Pieces collected by Charles Babel
  • Giovanni Battista Draghi (four suites)

There follow two appendices, the first an Almain in D minor by John Cobb, the second a suite in F by Davis Mell, then a thoroughly detailed Textual Commentary giving all the variants of the multiplicity of sources. Just this description of the layout of the contents gives some impression of just what a massive undertaking the project was, and what an achievement its realisation is. Woolley and co. (and Stainer & Bell!) have produced a book that is both unparalleled in its informative value and inclusive scope, and in the presentation of that which is most important, i. e., the music itself, in a performable format. Where variants are too complicated to describe in detail (or are, perhaps, deemed of equal value?), third and (especially in the music by Draghi) fourth staves are very cleverly added to allow musicians to have both versions available in a single score.

I did find it rather tiresome to see the editor credited on every page of music, likewise the Purcell Society Trust asserting their copyright similarly but in this age of digital reproduction it is quite right of them to ensure that everyone knows who has invested so much time, effort and money into producing such a monumental and excellent contribution to our understanding and appreciation of this repertoire.

Brian Clark

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François Couperin: Pièces d’Orgue

Floral design

Edited by Jon Baxendale
184 pp (hardback)
Cantando Musikkforlag
ISMN: 979-0-2612-4441-1

It has always frustrated me that past generations of editors have thought it just fine to publish music in non-specialist, mass-distribution editions in a form that is not fully suitable for performance. I am thinking in particular of renaissance music that lacks any indication that a plainchant incipit or insertion is needed and liturgical organ music that gives no hint of the chant that should surround it.

Well, at long last this latter issue has been addressed, at least for Couperin, by this handsome new edition of his two organ masses which may prove to be the most enduring memorial to have been stimulated by the composer’s 350th anniversary year – it has already been used for three recordings. An editorial re-consideration of the masses was long overdue. Their sources are complicated by the fact that the music, though ‘published’ by the composer, was never actually engraved and printed: what you bought was a printed title page but a manuscript copy of the notes themselves. In a spectacular piece of diligent research Jon Baxendale has carefully explored the whole musico-social-historical-commercial context of the surviving copies and their relationship to others that must once have existed and proposed a new and convincing stemma on which to base his work.

Indeed, what this publication contains in addition to the music is at least as important as it is. The lengthy introduction explores Couperin’s early life as an organist and the sources of the music; offers advice on performance style and ornamentation; and explains that this music is in the alternatim tradition, in which organ music replaces portions of the sung liturgical texts. Not only are the necessary chants and texts to complete the mass ordinary provided but there is also a set of propers. Needless to say, all the chant is from appropriate French sources. In addition, there is an explanation of the organs on which the repertoire was originally played, discussion of exactly which stops were used for what, and comments from other contemporary organists/composers – since we have none from Couperin himself – on the general character of each movement style. All these are evaluated and explained further, where this is needed, by the editor. The volume ends with a substantial critical commentary and a valuable bibliography.

As an organist myself, I value the edition’s landscape format, the clarity of the print and its relatively spacious layout which leaves space for the insertion of fingering! I do, however, regret that the margin on the binding edge is not a little more generous in order to provide easier reading of those parts of the pages. However, above all I value Couperin’s music, of which we now have a newly-authoritative edition we can use with re-booted confidence and understanding – an edition underpinned by no little editorial knowledge, skill and sheer love.

I honestly think that this is the publication that those who play the French Baroque organ repertoire have been needing for decades.

David Hansell

I declare an interest in that I did see and comment on an early version of the edition but I did none of – and claim no credit for any of – the research and do not benefit financially from sales!

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Samuel Michael: Psalmodia Regia (Leipzig, 1632)

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Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 201
Edited by Derek L. Stauff
xxxii + 209pp (plus a facsimile of the tenor part book)
A-R Editions, Inc.
ISBN 978-0-89579-879-4 $230.00

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]ne of the four earliest Leipzig prints of vocal music involving instruments (the others being by Schütz, Schein and the composer’s brother, Tobias), Samuel Michael’s 25 settings of verses from the first 25 psalms is a most important collection. Printed shortly after the liberation of Leipzig by the combined armies of Sweden and Saxony during the Thirty Years War, it contains music for between two and five parts above the basso continuo. These range from vocal duets, through solos or duets with obbligato instruments, up to five voices. They average around the 90 bars in length. The texts reflect the trials and tribulations of the inhabitants of Leipzig (and the German population in general) during the war, while the musical language reveals the increasing influence of Italian music, though really these interesting and worthwhile pieces would stand comparison with Schütz or Schein in concert (or church).

After Stauff’s informative introduction to the composer and the dedicatee of the original print (not something we hear enough about terribly often!), he discusses the context of its creation and publication, goes into some detail about its reception (which seems to have been far more widespread than you might imagine!) before no fewer than five pages of detailed footnotes and the full texts and translations of Michael’s chosen verses. Stauff reveals that a planned second instalment of 25 settings of extracts from Psalms 26-50 does not seem to have materialised – as if Leipzig had not had enough, the composer (and many of his family) fell victim to an outbreak of plague a year after liberation.

While Stauff’s Table 2 is interesting in showing where some of the texts were used in the liturgy of the Lutheran church in various places, the fact that he found no concordances at all for four of them would have been reason enough for me not to feel that this had been the reasoning behind Michael’s print. I would have thought it far more likely that cantors would have chosen pieces from the volume that matched the forces they had available or whose text resonated with a particular sermon or circumstance. Whatever his intentions, Stauff has done an excellent job of making this fine collection of modest works available in clear, practical editions. I hope A-R Editions will make imprints of the individual pieces available to performers who can undertake the next step of re-introducing this fine music to listeners!

Brian Clark

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Motets from the Chansonnier de Noailles

Medieval floral

Recent Researches in the Music of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, 42
Edited by Gaël Saint-Cricq with Eglal Doss-Quinby and Samuel N. Rosenberg
lxxxiv + 192pp. $360.00.
ISBN 978-0-89579-862-6

[dropcap]N[/dropcap]on-specialists will, I fear, be terrified by this new edition of early one-, two- and (rarely) three-voice motets, such is the overwhelming amount of information contained in the introduction, the discussions of the words and the critical notes. When it comes to the music itself, it is difficult to know quite where to start; as an extreme example, let’s take 26. Bien doit joie demener / IN DOMINO. Firstly we have an “unmeasured transcription” which presents the two parts as they appear in the manuscript (which one can see in glorious colour on the gallica.fr website!), the French texted part in C2 clef and the lower part (which just the first two words of the Latin text) in C3. This is followed in the edition by not one but two measured transcriptions, the second of which lengthens the rests between the phrases (there are only two, which are repeated in a varied sequence) and inverts long and short note values, with a knock-on effect upon the stresses of the underlaid words. I spend my life transcribing manuscript sources and consider myself to have quite sharp logical and pattern-discerning eyes, and I also understand that there are often several ways to interpret what one sees, but – try as I might – I just could not see how some of the measured transcriptions could have been extrapolated from the unmeasured ones. I can, however, understand that there are singers who will be terrified by the original notation but who would like to sing the music, so editions like these are necessary to enable that. At $360 a copy, though, I don’t see it tempting many new singers into the field – this is more likely to end up with all its esteemed forebears on a library shelf where it will be invaluable for scholars of both early motet texts and their music.

Brian Clark

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Francesco Barsanti: Secular Vocal Music

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Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 197
Edited by Michael Talbot
xxv, 2 + 71pp. $145
ISBN 978-0-89579-867-1

[dropcap]P[/dropcap]erhaps best known for his recorder sonatas and the recently recorded concerti grossi  he published in Edinburgh, Francesco Barsanti’s secular vocal music fills a fairly modest volume. Consisting of five Italian cantatas and six French airs for solo voice and continuo, a four-voice Italian madrigal and two catches in English for four equal voices, it provides another viewpoint from which to consider one of Handel’s contemporaries. With typical thoroughness, Talbot gives as lively a portrait of the composer as is possible, and – as well as comprehensive critical notes – idiomatic translations of the non-English texts are provided. All in all, this is an excellent volume which will be partnered in due course by Jasmin M. Cameron’s versions of the composer’s surviving sacred music. The recitatives are dramatic and the arias tuneful; the three longer French airs might overstay their welcome unless the singer has some impressive ornaments up his or her sleeve; the madrigal might make a welcome and novel addition to an amateur vocal group’s repertoire? Either way, Barsanti’s music deserves to be more widely known, and one hopes that its availability (even if the cost might mean only libraries can afford to buy it!) will encourage performers to explore it.

Brian Clark

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Restoration Music for Three Violins, Bass Viol and Continuo

Floral design

Musica Britannica CIII
Transcribed and edited by Peter Holman and John Cunningham
xlviii (incl. six plates) + 134pp
ISMN 979 0 2202 2517 8; ISBN 978 0 85249 953 5;
ISSN 0580-2954; Stainer & Bell Ltd £99.00

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s a violinist, there are few things I enjoy more than playing music for three treble parts, so the contents of this volume (much of which I know from recordings by one of the editors and his ground-breaking Parley of Instruments) are a delight.

There are 11 three-movement fantasia-suites by John Jenkins, a ten-movement suite by Thomas Baltzar, grounds by Bartholomew Isaack and Nicola Matteis, and five sonatas by Gottfried Finger (as well as the sole surviving part from a sixth).

After a broad introduction to the repertoire (including a footnote referring readers to a free download site rather than the English publisher, King’s Music/The Early Music Company, for early Italian sonatas for three violins, while modern German editions are credited in footnote 11), each of the composers and his output are profiled in greater detail.

The music itself is neatly laid out with repeats and ends of movements at line or page breaks. Editorial additions are printed in smaller type and if something is not clear, there are extensive notes on sources and discrepancies in the 18-page critical notes that complete this very handsome volume.

At under £100, this beautiful book is a bargain. Hopefully its true worth will be shown in renewed interest in the repertoire it contains. Although it states that performing material is published simultaneously, I was unable to find it on www.stainer.co.uk – perhaps they are “in preparation”. Let us hope so!

Brian Clark

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Antonio Salieri: Requiem With Two Related Motets

Pink chrysanthemum

Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era, 108
Edited by Jane Schatkin Hettrick
xxv, 4 + 248pp. $360
ISBN 978-0-89579-859-6

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is Jane Schatkin Hettrick’s fourth Salieri contribution to the RRMCE series, following a mass in D (vol. 39), one in D minor (vol. 65), and a Plenary Mass in C with Te Deum  (vol. 103). Scored for SATB (solo and chorus), two oboes, English horn, two bassoons, trumpets, trombones, timpani, strings and organ, Salieri intended it to be performed at his own funeral (he started writing it in 1804…), along with one of the two motets of the title (Audite vocem magnum dicentem, which in the event was not part of the service; the other work in the volume, probably Salieri’s last, is a smaller-scale motet with string accompaniment only, Spiritus meus attenuabitur). The inclusion of music for English horn seems to follow a Vienna Hofkapelle  tradition, since both Bonno and Eybler used it in their Requiem settings. As one would expect with the distillation of years of study of her subject, the editor presents a clear picture of the works’ histories and a very clean edition. Completists will probably disagree with me, but I don’t fully understand why the clarinet part (a contemporary alternative for the English horn) for the Requiem is printed separately, and even less so why it merits a whole page of critical notes to itself – could those seriously not have been integrated into the main commentary? That is such a minor quibble in the context of such a magnificent volume which will hopefully encourage more performances of Salieri’s neglected music. Perhaps the two smaller works could be made available as off-prints so choirs could have a taster?

Brian Clark

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Daniele Torelli and Giulia Gabrielli: Madrigali in Seminario

Dark green flowers

Musiche vocali profane da una miscellanea storica a Bressanone
Series “Biblioteca Musicale” no. 28
pp. xlviii+141 (LIM, 2017)
ISBN 9788870968156 €30

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is a selection from five Venetian prints of mid-16th century madrigals (from 1550 to 1572, and for two to five voices) that are bound together with a greater number of miscellaneous part-books of sacred music of the same period, forming a two-volume collection found in the library of the “Seminary” (short for the Studio Teologico Accademico di Bressanone). The compilation probably dates from the end of the 17th century or later, and their shelf marks are: I-BREs, XXI.L.10  and I-BREs, XXI.L.11.

This is the first volume of a project begun in 2008 at the University of Bolzano which aims to publish music from the archives of various churches of Bressanone, which is in the German-speaking province of Bolzano. The project includes polyphonic music, among which this surprising number of secular works has turned up. They were originally donated to the library by bishops and priests, and constitute a very small part of the library’s holdings of 11th- to 20th- century manuscripts and prints. That said, this selection of 41 pieces, published in score here, and chosen according to various criteria (e.g. variety, quality, rarity, vocal ranges, versions of the literary material), represents a small part of the secular music found in the two compilations, themselves mainly containing sacred polyphony.

Giulia Gabrielli supplies this background, comparing the Seminary’s library with all the other archives in the province. Only hypotheses can be made to explain why wealthy clerics donated so much secular polyphony in the 16th century, when printed, or in the following century.

The books found in the two compilations (and the number of pieces chosen from each) are: Il Capriccio con la Musica sopra le Stanze del Furioso, 1561 by Jachet de Berchem (8); Il Primo Libro de Madrigali a due voci, dove si contengono le Vergine  [Petrarch], 1572 by Giovanni Paien (10); Le Napollitane, et alcuni Madrigali a quatro voci  [sic], 1550 by Baldassarre Donato (7); Opera Nona di Musica Intitolata Armonia Celeste, libro quarto a cinque voci, 1558 by Vincenzo Ruffo (10); and Il Primo Libro de’ Madrigali a tre voci, by Costanzo Festa (4) and Giacomo Fogliano (2), from the later, corrected, invaluable edition printed by Claudio Merulo in 1568. [N.B. the Opera Omnia  of Festa, in Corpus mensurabilis musicae, 25/7, only presents the 1564 and 1566 prints.]

The selection and editing make a very good impression, so after profiting from this new volume from the LIM singers may soon be going to Bressanone to see these prints, or other copies conserved elsewhere. Daniele Torelli’s footnotes also say which of these 16th-century prints are already digitized, and where to find them. The transcription from part-books in unbarred mensural notation to score must have been an immense job, necessary to enable Torelli to assess the works and plan a balanced selection. His critical edition of the music and underlay was perhaps less problematic, judging from the modest number of corrections. He gives short biographies of the composers, histories of the prints, and compares the literary texts found here to other versions.

The LIM has printed the music very well: there are plenty of notes per line, which allows performers to see the counterpoint, the contrasts, and whole lines at once. The underlay fits without being too small to read. It is a little hard to keep a book of 189 large pages open on a music stand, and I see why a translation of the introductory material and texts was not included, as it would have added another 40 pages.

It may still surprise English musicologists (it should not) that Italian scholars present poetic texts in normalized spelling. This does not obscure at all the archaic derivation of the words, and is absolutely required since Italian is pronounced phonetically. To do otherwise would alter the pronunciation and make some words incomprehensible. Most corrections are made, in fact, silently (e.g. where -ti- is pronounced -zi-, or -lg- must be rewritten as -gl- ). Others, if significant, are footnoted; and where Venetian spelling and pronunciation omits the doubling of consonants, it is supplied in brackets only in the critical presentation of the poetic texts, not in the music itself.

Given the uniqueness of the source, it will be hard for non-Italian readers to grasp exactly what this “collection” is. This brief summary cannot do justice to the 48-page introduction, but I hope it may explain the rather complicated, allusive and surprising title of the volume. At www.lim.it/it/edizioni-musicali/5213-madrigali-in-seminario one can see the detailed table of contents, with composers, first lines and poets, if known. They are by Ariosto, Petrarch, Bembo, Sannazaro, Parabosco, Corfino, Poliziano, and Cassola; six of the Donato texts and two of the Festa madrigals are anonymous. Perhaps the last of the short homophonic Donato Napollitane  [villanelle] is anonymous because the ‘poet’ didn’t want to divulge his name? A rough translation of No pulice n’è ’ntrato intro l’orecchia  would be:

‘A flea has gone into my ear,
which drives me mad night and day.
I know not what to do.
Run here, run there; grab this, grab that;
come to my aid! be my beauty!’

The vocal ranges of all the parts of these madrigals are quite narrow, so many soprano or canto parts could be sung by contraltos, the latter doing some tenor parts, and tenors doing some baritone parts. The basses are indeed basses, but often only because of a couple low notes at cadences that could be taken an octave higher. Thus all the music in this selection could be performed by various interchangeable voices and without transposition. There is a lot to choose from.

Barbara Sachs

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Francesco Spinacino & Joan Ambrosio Dalza, Anthology from Ottaviano Petrucci’s Tablatures for Lute

Dark green flowers

ed. Paolo Cherici
44pp. €15.95
ISMN: 979-0-2153-2359-9
SDS 25 (Bologna: Ut Orpheus, 2017)

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he first publisher and printer of music was Ottaviano Petrucci (1466-1539), and his first book, Harmonice Musices Odhecaton, appeared in 1501. Between 1507 and 1511 Petrucci printed six volumes of lute music with Italian lute tablature: two books by Francesco Spinacino (both 1507), a third by Giovan Maria Alemano (1508) which is now lost, a fourth by Joan Ambrosio Dalza, and two collections of lute songs by Franciscus Bossinensis (1509 and 1511). (The word “by” here does not necessarily mean composed by; it could also mean, collected, arranged, intabulated, or any combination of those.)

For the present anthology Paolo Cherici chooses a fair selection of pieces from Dalza’s collection: four calatas, two pavana-saltarello-piva suites (one alla venetiana, and the other alla ferrarese), all five tastar de corde, eight recercars, and four intabulations including two frottole by Bartolomeo Tromboncino. He could have included more calatas and more pavana-saltarello-piva suites, or even reproduced the whole of Dalza’s book, but instead he dips into Spinacino’s Libro Primo, and extracts just seven recercari. I don’t see the point, since it creates an imbalance between the two composers. I think it would have been better to save up Spinacino for a separate volume. Furthermore, to describe the edition as an Anthology from Ottaviano Petrucci’s Tablatures  is slightly misleading, since the editor includes none of the lute songs or the 46 ricercari from the two books of Bossinensis.

The format is similar to other books in the Paolo Cherici Collection. The tablature is clearly laid out on the page, with no page-turns, and there are 36 pages of music. Cherici maintains the original notation – Italian lute tablature. He provides an interesting Preface in Italian and translation into English, which gives information about Petrucci, together with what we know about the lives of Spinacino and Dalza. He compares and contrasts the contents of their books: Spinacino included intabulations of music by Franco-Flemish composers such as Josquin, Brumel, Ockeghem and Ghiselin, whereas Dalza concentrated on dance music, and music by Italian composers, notably Tromboncino. Some of Spinacino’s intabulations involved complex divisions, whereas Dalza kept the vocal original fairly intact, give or take leaving out one of the voices. It is an interesting comparison, but largely irrelevant if we have no intabulations by Spinacino in the edition. The English translation of the Preface would have benefitted from better proof reading: publicatiotts (publications), appare (appeared), and calledn (called). Strictly speaking the Salterello on page 12 should be spelt Saltarello. It is a pity Cherici does not reproduce Dalza’s introduction, which explains why there are special rhythm signs for the Saltarello and Piva (pp. 8-9), and Piva (p. 14).

As far as the editing of the music is concerned, Cherici shows where notes have been changed by putting them in square brackets. However, there is no critical commentary, so there is no way of knowing what those changes involve. The exception is a footnote for a note changed on page 7. I checked the first piece (which has no editorial square brackets) against the original and found the following alterations:

1) bar 40, 2nd note: 0 on 3 changed to 0 on 2;
2) bars 49, 50, 54, 82: right-hand fingering dots added to be consistent with similar passages;
3) bars 63, 79, 144: right-hand thumb and index dot swapped round;
4) bar 121, 3rd note: 0 on 3 changed to 0 on 4;
5) bar 127, 3rd note: 3 on 2 changed to 2 to 2;
6) bar 149, 2nd and 3rd notes: 3 on 2 changed to 3 on 3; 1 on 2 changed to 1 on 3.

The structure of this piece has puzzled me for many years, but for chord patterns to show some sort of consistency there appears to be a bar missing, perhaps because of haplology. My solution is to play bar 109 again between bars 110 and 111. Cherici reproduces the notes of the ending as they were in the original, with a pause sign over what in effect is the last chord, followed by five more notes; he does not include Dalza’s “Finis”. However, in spite of “Finis”, it is just possible that Dalza’s five extra notes were meant to lead back to the beginning as a Da Capo, in which case the last note (3 on 2) should be changed to 3 on 1 to match bar 2.

The Calata ala spagnola on page 6 of Cherici’s edition was included by Hans Judenkünig in Ain schone kunstliche vnderweisung  (1523), which helps throw light on editorial decisions:

7) bar 36, 3rd note: Cherici keeps Dalza’s 1 on 2 (e’ flat), but it is surrounded by 2 on 2 (e’ natural). There is a good case for changing it to 2 on 2, especially as that is what Judenkünig has done;
8) bar 71, 1st chord: Dalza and Judenkünig both have 0 on 5, which Cherici (rightly, I think) changes to 3 on 5, but where are the square brackets?
9) bar 84, 1st two events: Dalza and Judenkünig both have 3 on 6 followed by no bass note; Cherici changes this (unnecessarily, I think) to 3 on 5 and 2 on 5, but even though he puts these notes in square brackets, there is no way of telling what was in his source.

Despite my various cavils, this is a useful edition, and hopefully more lute music published by Petrucci will appear in future editions.

Stewart McCoy

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Giovanni de Macque: Il Primo Libro de Madrigali a Quattro Voci

Dark green flowers

Edited by Giuseppina Lo Coco
Biblioteca Musicale n. 32. (LIM, 2017)
x+143pp. €25
ISBN 9788870969252

[dropcap]G[/dropcap]iovanni (Jean) de Macque was born circa 1550 in Valenciennes, then part of the Spanish Netherlands, but he was active in Italy throughout his career, in Rome for a decade (from 1574?), during which time he published five books of madrigals (for A. Gardano, Venice) and became the organist at San Luigi dei Francesi, and in Naples from 1585 until his death in 1614. After a century in which the Italian courts imported musicians and polyphony of the Flemish school, polyphony was already thriving in the hands of Italian composers (Palestrina, Gesualdo and others). This is no way hampered de Macque, who attended the family reunions organized and patronized by Gesualdo, where he was in contact with composers, patrons, and literati. He became part of the Prince’s entourage at least from 1586, the year in which he dedicated his Ricercate et Canzoni francese a Quattro voci  to him (of which only the tenor part survives).

His Primo libro de’ madrigali a 4 voci  of 1586 followed his five previous Venetian madrigal publications, between 1576 and 1583, mostly for 6 voices, and preceded another seven to come out between 1587 and 1613. The books were numbered according to the number of voices, and we have no knowledge of a second book of 4-part madrigals, a Terzo … a 4 voci  appearing in Naples in 1610. The only known complete copy of the Primo libro … was lost during World War II, found in the Jagiellonian Library in Kraków by D. A. D’Alessandro in 1987 and subsequently returned to the Berlin Deutsche Staatsbibliothek. Many lists of de Macque’s works still do not report it.

The LIM has printed these 21 short madrigals (25 to 45 bars each) in a small, easy to hold volume of 150 pages. Most contain three well-spaced systems of the score, with easily readable lyrics, the short melismas alternating with syllabic note-setting and the wonderful counterpoint clear to the eye. Sometimes publishers do not appreciate how important it is to grasp whole phrases in a glance, which we can do here. Each two-page spread of about 20 x 29cm can also be easily scanned.

Ten of the madrigals (I-VI, XII-XIII, and XV-XVI) are by Petrarch, the rest anonymous. The first six set the six stanzas of Petrarch’s 8th Sestina, Là ver’ l’aurora, che sì dolce l’aura  to music, as was also done (in part or in full) by Palestrina, de Lasso, Pietro Vinci, Mateo Flecha el Joven, Striggio, and undoubtedly others before and after de Macque. Each stanza has six lines, without rhyme, each ending with one of six words, according to an ever-revolving order whereby abcdef changes to faebdc. These six madrigals are in F major, with numbers 2 and 5 ending on the dominant. De Macque did not set Petrarch’s concluding tercet, in which the six words appear in the middle and end of three lines – perhaps there not being enough text for another madrigal. The tercet is more a poetic feat than a climax: it sums up the unified theme of frustration with the impossibility of moving Laura’s feelings by love or verse. The 6th madrigal starts with the laughter of the plants and flowers and ends with seven bars in which a skipping dotted rhythm describes the final metaphor: namely that the ‘angelic soul’, his beloved, does not hear his amorous notes, as we, when singing our verses in tears, may as well be trying to catch [run after] the breeze with a lame ox! Zoppo  (lame) is sung to long notes, and l’aura  (the breeze) is Petrarch’s frequent homonym for his unobtainable Laura.

The other two pairs of settings of Petrarch are of Sonnets (192 I’ piansi, or canto, ché ’l celeste lume  and 51 Del mar Tirreno a la sinistra riva). In each the two quatrains (abba abba) form the first madrigal, and the remaining two tercets (aba bab) are used for the second.

This edition is scrupulous in presenting the texts in modern spelling, adding punctuation and necessary letters in brackets or in italics (the latter for vowels truncated by an apostrophe before a different vowel). Where the elimination of an apostrophe does not affect the pronunciation, the truncated words are spelled out in full, observing the metrics, to make the text comprehensible. Other corrections which Italian academic conventions require (correcting misprints, wrong accents, abbreviations, “j” for “i”, and removing the obsolete etymological “h”) make this edition not only much easier for Italian and non-Italian speakers to use, but is exemplary for the correct division of syllables in the underlay.

Singers will notice that the present score (SATB in G and F clefs) was originally in parts for Canto (G2), MS (C2), A (C3), Baritone (F3). The vocal ranges are never extreme, and there is virtually no chromaticism, despite de Macque’s close connection to Gesualdo. The occasional original ligatures are indicated by brackets above the separated notes. After 432 years this beautiful music, originally only in part books, has the well-edited score it deserves. Titles of the madrigals are as follows:

I. Là ver’ l’aurora, che sì dolce l’aura (1st part)
II. Temprar potess’io in sì soavi note (2nd part)
III. Quante lagrime, lasso, quanti versi (3rd part)
IV. Uomini e dei solea vincer per forza (4th part)
V. A l’ultimo bisogno, o misera alma (5th part)
VI. Ridon or per le piagge erbette e fiori (6th part)

VII. Quando sorge l’aurora
VIII. Nel morir si diparte
IX. Quel dolce nodo che mi strinse il core
X. Donna, quando volgete
XI. Crudel, se m’uccidete

XII. I’ piansi, or canto, ché ’l celeste lume (1st part)
XIII. Sì profondo era e di sì larga vena (2nd part)

XIV. O fammi, Amor, gioire

XV. Del mar Tirreno a la sinistra riva (1st part)
XVI. Solo ov’io era tra boschetti e colli (2nd part)

XVII. Non veggio, ohimè, quei leggiadretti lumi
XVIII. Al sol le chiome avea
XIX. Donna, se per amarvi
XX. O d’Amor opre rare
XXI. Chi prima il cor mi tolse

Barbara Sachs

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