Italian Diminution Treatises in Context
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Southampton
Department Name: Sch of Humanities
Abstract
The myriad treatises devoted to the skill of musical ornamentation published in Italy between 1535 and 1620 are an important, intriguing and unique constellation of primary sources. Despite this,they have yet to be satisfactorily placed in any wider cultural context, an omission which means
we do not yet have a clear understanding of their purpose, function and impact: all vital questions for both musicologists and musicians working on this era. My research will focus on these research lacunae.The publications in question include (amongst others) Silvestro Ganassi's Opera intitulata Fontegara (Venice, 1535), Girolamo Dalla Casa's Il vero modo di diminuir (Venice, 1584), Giovanni Battista Bovicelli's Regole et passaggi di musica (Venice, 1594), and Francesco Rognoni's Selva di varii passaggi (Milan, 1620). Such books were published with the primary stated aim of teaching the art of ornamentation - a necessary skill for any professional musician at that time. Despite the interconnected nature of these books they are seldom considered as a corpus, and missing from most discussion is a consideration of their meaning and status in a wider musical and cultural context. Through understanding these wider issues will we be able to establish the practical and theoretical impact of such treatises. I will begin my enquiries by asking: who were these books for? who bought them and where? are they documenting an actual performance style, or representing an ideal? In other words: who had the intellectual ability, economic power and practical opportunity to buy and use these treatises? Taking the books at face value, it appears obvious they were aimed (at least in part) at aspiring professional musicians. There are several assumptions involved in that theory that require examination however, such as: could musicians really afford these books? were professional musicians even routinely literate? and crucially, is there any evidence that such books formed part of the educational curriculum of aspiring professional musicians?
Many boys received musical education from religious establishments that needed choristers. Such institutions may have had the financial means to procure treatises, but it is a risk to assume they routinely did so and then taught from them. Another route to becoming a professional musician in Italy was as a member of the piffari - civic musicians equivalent to the English Town Waits. The fact we routinely see the same family names finding employment in these bands across generations strongly suggests a father-to-son apprenticeship system. If boys tended to be born into the piffaro tradition and received training from fathers, uncles and brothers, that leaves little room for the widespread use of expensive books as pedagogical tools. I will test that assumption by investigating evidence relating to the education of piffari players. Professional musicians aside, another major target audience (perhaps the major target audience) for these treatises could have been the newly literate, affluent and culturally-aware middle classes. What evidence is there that links the books with such people, or with the activities of the intellectual academies that were springing up in many Italian towns? Ancillary questions such as these need to be addressed to satisfactorily evaluate the contents of the treatises themselves. To identify the users of these books, I will pursue research areas such as: Studies from other disciplines including print, reading and book culture in Early Modern Italy. This will help establish an understanding of the marketplace and environment (both business and intellectual) for the treatises. Archival study of surviving documents such as sixteenth-century Italian printers' and booksellers' stock catalogues for evidence of the cost of such books. This data will be vital when assessing a realistic readership. Study of music education, particularly in religious establishments known to have educated boys in music.
we do not yet have a clear understanding of their purpose, function and impact: all vital questions for both musicologists and musicians working on this era. My research will focus on these research lacunae.The publications in question include (amongst others) Silvestro Ganassi's Opera intitulata Fontegara (Venice, 1535), Girolamo Dalla Casa's Il vero modo di diminuir (Venice, 1584), Giovanni Battista Bovicelli's Regole et passaggi di musica (Venice, 1594), and Francesco Rognoni's Selva di varii passaggi (Milan, 1620). Such books were published with the primary stated aim of teaching the art of ornamentation - a necessary skill for any professional musician at that time. Despite the interconnected nature of these books they are seldom considered as a corpus, and missing from most discussion is a consideration of their meaning and status in a wider musical and cultural context. Through understanding these wider issues will we be able to establish the practical and theoretical impact of such treatises. I will begin my enquiries by asking: who were these books for? who bought them and where? are they documenting an actual performance style, or representing an ideal? In other words: who had the intellectual ability, economic power and practical opportunity to buy and use these treatises? Taking the books at face value, it appears obvious they were aimed (at least in part) at aspiring professional musicians. There are several assumptions involved in that theory that require examination however, such as: could musicians really afford these books? were professional musicians even routinely literate? and crucially, is there any evidence that such books formed part of the educational curriculum of aspiring professional musicians?
Many boys received musical education from religious establishments that needed choristers. Such institutions may have had the financial means to procure treatises, but it is a risk to assume they routinely did so and then taught from them. Another route to becoming a professional musician in Italy was as a member of the piffari - civic musicians equivalent to the English Town Waits. The fact we routinely see the same family names finding employment in these bands across generations strongly suggests a father-to-son apprenticeship system. If boys tended to be born into the piffaro tradition and received training from fathers, uncles and brothers, that leaves little room for the widespread use of expensive books as pedagogical tools. I will test that assumption by investigating evidence relating to the education of piffari players. Professional musicians aside, another major target audience (perhaps the major target audience) for these treatises could have been the newly literate, affluent and culturally-aware middle classes. What evidence is there that links the books with such people, or with the activities of the intellectual academies that were springing up in many Italian towns? Ancillary questions such as these need to be addressed to satisfactorily evaluate the contents of the treatises themselves. To identify the users of these books, I will pursue research areas such as: Studies from other disciplines including print, reading and book culture in Early Modern Italy. This will help establish an understanding of the marketplace and environment (both business and intellectual) for the treatises. Archival study of surviving documents such as sixteenth-century Italian printers' and booksellers' stock catalogues for evidence of the cost of such books. This data will be vital when assessing a realistic readership. Study of music education, particularly in religious establishments known to have educated boys in music.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
Laura Brooks (Primary Supervisor) | |
Gawain Glenton (Student) |
Title | Music in a Cold Climate: sounds of Hansa Europe |
Description | This is a commercial CD recording featuring music by performer/composers from early seventeenth-century northern Europe. I led and directed the entire ensemble project from conception to completion. In it, I tried to put into practice elements of improvisation and embellishment as disseminated in sixteenth and seventeenth century primary sources. |
Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
Year Produced | 2018 |
Impact | The recording has been reviewed internationally and the response so far has been universally positive. Many reviewers picked up on the spontaneity of the ornamentation. SWR2 radio in Germany said: 'Freude am kontrastierenden Spiel, virtuose Improvisationen und ansteckende Vitalität - das alles scheint für das noch recht junge englische Ensemble "In Echo" eine Selbstverständlichkeit zu sein.' BBC Radio 3 said 'It's almost like eavesdropping on these composers and travelling musicians sitting down together for a jam session There's such flexibilty and freedom in the playing it was almost improvisatory'. |
URL | http://delphianrecords.co.uk/product-group/music-in-a-cold-climate-sounds-of-hansa-europe/ |
Title | Per imitar la voce - concert performance at the 2017 Brighton Early Music Festival |
Description | I conceived of this lunchtime performance at BREMF 2017 to be an illustration of the vibrant culture of instrumental virtuosity that developed in Early Modern Italy. One element of the concert involved me spontaneously improvising florid diminutions to a canzona by Banchieri in the style of the treatises. I intentionally did this without prior preparation or music. I explained to the audience what I was attempting, and how the practice is rooted in the treatises I am studying. I also wrote the programme notes, which quoted directly from some of my primary sources. This was for a non-academic, concert-going Brighton public. |
Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
Year Produced | 2017 |
Impact | The issues I wrote and spoke about were entirely new to the public audience of around 100 people. The performance and the explanatory talk was warmly received, and I believe this was a successful exercise in public engagement, |
URL | http://www.bremf.org.uk/2017/eventpage/programmes/Event26.pdf |
Description | My research led to the recent publication of a new modern edition of one of my key primary sources: Giovanni Battista Bovicelli's 'Regole, passaggi di musica' (Venice, 1594). My edition puts this source into a format accessible to a far wider audience than had been previously possible, thanks to the side-by-side placing of the original Italian and English translation. It was published and peer reviewed by Septenary Publications (Frome, UK) and has begun to circulate among amateur and professional performers keen to widen their knowledge of the ornamentation techniques taught by Bovicelli. Sales figures and reviews are still pending. A link to the publisher's website: http://www.septenaryeditions.com/cataloguearchive/index.php?id=3588977051573335610 |
First Year Of Impact | 2018 |
Sector | Creative Economy |
Impact Types | Cultural |
Description | Conference paper and Round Table Q&A, Brighton |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | I was invited to give a paper in October 2018 at the BREMF/NEMA conference on historical vocal style. My title and abstract were as follows: Gawain Glenton. Il canto schietto: towards an understanding Luigi Zenobi's 'simple' style of singing Luigi Zenobi's Perfect Musician letter (c.1600) is one of the most engaging sources for students of historical vocal performance practice. Zenobi details the skills required of singers at this time, explaining that they should be able to deploy a repertoire of florid and playful passaggi involving scales, leaps, skips and echoes. He makes clear that every good singer should 'know how to sing the piece in its simple form ('deve saper cantare il canto schietto'), that is, without any passaggio, but only with grace, trillo, tremolo, ondeggiamento, and esclamatione.' Zenobi's letter is not a formal treatise and does not offer the reader any examples pertaining to these modes of performance. It is however clear that Zenobi's idea of 'simple' performance involves a degree of ornamentation which challenges modern expectations of late-renaissance polyphony. This paper aims to shed light on the concept of canto schietto by linking Zenobi's letter to contemporary sources including Oratio Scaletta's Scala di musica (Verona, 1598), and Francesco Rognoni's Selva de varii passaggi (Milan, 1620), both of which include advice on singing 'cleanly and well' (using the term 'cantar polito e bene'). These sources show that Zenobi's view of 'simple' performance formed part of the musical mainstream. Scaletta and Rognoni provide us with some of the practical details missing from Zenobi's tantalising letter, details which are crucial to any modern performer wishing to understand and attempt the artful performance of late sixteenth-century vocal polyphony in a historically informed style. Following this talk I participated in a Round Table session alongside the Brazilian scholar Viviane Alves Kubo-Munari. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
URL | https://bremf-nema-conference-20185.webnode.com/programme2/ |
Description | Conference paper, Basel, Switzerland |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | I was invited to give a paper in a two-day conference organised at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Switzerland in January 2019. The conference was an extraordinary meeting of leading international performers and researchers. My paper was an extended version (actually more than double the length) of the paper I had recently given in Brighton. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://www.fhnw.ch/de/forschung-und-dienstleistungen/musik/schola-cantorum-basiliensis/symposien-un... |
Description | Practical presentation given at Dartington International Summer School 2017 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
Results and Impact | I gave a 90 minute presentation to attendees of the Dartington International Summer School in 2017. The audience was mainly undergraduate music students, plus amateur musicians. I focussed on the treatise by Maffei (Naples, 1562) which includes advice and examples of ensemble ornamentation. To illustrate the talk, I formed the students into small groups and asked them to attempt various examples. This was a successful way to get my points across, and also to engage people in the subject. The subject was entirely new to all the attendees. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
URL | https://www.dartington.org/whats-on/summer-school/week1courses/ |
Description | Visit to give a seminar at York University |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | I visited York University on June 12th 2017 to give on talk on my research, with particular reference to the complicated reception history of diminution treatises and practice. It was entitled 'Curlicues and whirligigs: Understanding the "flatulent virtuosity" of early modern Italy'. In it, I charted the thread of opposition to ornamentation from the sixteenth century through to today. Historical opposition tended to take the form of a rebuke of an individual's poor execution, rather than opposition to the practice per se. Such critiques have nevertheless been co-opted by modern scholars such as Timothy Collins in their attacks on the entire practice. Much modern opposition is rooted in the anachronistic view that renaissance polyphonic music in the Palestrina style is pure, and should not be sullied with interventions such as ornaments. The veneration of Palestrina reached a peak in nineteenth century Germany and is rooted in the establishment of the 'werktreue' idea, in which composers (and their scholarly supporters) retain for themselves (or are imbued with) the role of sole arbiter and definer of taste. The werktreue concept also strongly opposes the 'corruption' of written text. The attitudes formed during this German 'Palestrina revival' persist today, particularly in performances by leading vocal ensembles such as the Tallis Scholars. These attitudes and performances have effectively distorted the public's view of renaissance polyphony. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
URL | https://www.york.ac.uk/music/news-and-events/events/research/2016-17/summer-week-9/ |
Description | Workshop and Lecture/Masterclass |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | I was invited by the Brighton Early Music Festival to run a workshop with young professional singers on aspects of Early Modern ornamentation practice. I coached them for a day in London before then using them to demonstrate aspects of my public presentation in Brighton two days later. I also coached them publicly in the same session in a quasi-masterclass setting. This 90 minute lecture demonstration was incredibly well received and prompted an extended Q/A during which members of the public asked many questions. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://www.bremf.org.uk/2019/eventpage/ne14.htm |