Chapter 6: After Perfection: Pressures for Change
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Chapter 6: After Perfection: Pressures for Change I. Introduction A. The Utopian aesthetic world of the ars perfecta could not contain the turmoil of religious upheaval and the pressures of humanism. During the sixteenth century, a new set of musical values arose that reflects these and other influences. II. The Protestant Reformation A. A series of revolts against the Catholic Church, spearheaded by Martin Luther (1483– 1546), had far-reaching consequences on the history of Europe. B. Music did not hold a high place for many of the new Protestants. 1. John Calvin of Geneva was particularly severe in his criticism of religious music. 2. He only allowed sung psalms. 3. The Swiss German Reformed Church of Ulrich Zwingli burned organs and music books. C. Luther was an exception to this anti-music bent. 1. He saw music as a means to augment the religious experience. 2. He played several instruments. 3. Luther advocated the Tenorlied, which is a polyphonic setting of a song melody, which is usually paced in the tenor. 4. He admired Josquin and Senfl. III. The Lutheran Chorale A. Luther promoted congregational singing. B. The strophic German hymn sung in the Lutheran Church is a chorale. 1. Some chorales are direct translations of Catholic hymns. 2. Some chorales are adapted from secular songs, such as Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott. C. Johann Walther (1496–1570) arranged the first printed polyphonic chorales. See Anthology 1-54. D. The soprano part eventually received the melody in chorales. IV. The Catholic Response: The Counter-Reformation A. The Counter-Reformation was the Catholic response to the Reformation. B. The ars perfecta ideal did not suit the new emphasis on emotional response to the liturgy. C. Sensuality that could provoke an emotional response was desired, as were sheer sound and spectacle (such as cori spezzati). V. Polychoral and “Concerted” Music A. Two musicians whose music suited the new aesthetic ideals of the Counter- Reformation belonged to the same family: Andrea (ca. 1532–85) and Giovanni (ca. 1553–1612) Gabrieli. B. The elder, Andrea, was organist at St. Mark’s in Venice. 1. His works employed antiphonal choirs, and some were accompanied by instruments. 2. His published works included the title CONCERTI. a. Concerti means “concerted” style, in which timbre and contrast play major roles. b. At St. Mark’s, Gabriele mixed voices with trombones and organ. C. In 1602, Lodovico Viadana published concerti that included a pared-down organ part for bass line alone, which he described as basso continuo. 1. Although it had been practiced for some time, basso continuo parts became standard in the seventeenth century. 2. It involves the left hand playing pretty much what is written, and the right hand improvising as needed above. 3. Musicians such as Adriano Banchieri were concerned that the ease of playing from a basso continuo part might cause organists to not learn how to improvise from the score out of sheer laziness. VI. The Art of Orchestration Is Born A. Early publications did not indicate which instruments were to be used. B. The first composer to specify such was Giovanni Gabrieli, Andrea’s nephew, who was also an organist at St. Mark’s. 1. Giovanni published Sacrae Symphoniae (1597), in which he requires specific instruments in addition to the singers. a. In eccesiis benedicite Domino exemplifies Giovanni’s style. 1) Fifteen parts divide into three different groups. 2) Instruments required are cornetti, trombones, violins, and something similar to a viola. 3) The singers’ parts include choral and soloists. 4) The soloists have a highly decorated part. 5) The sound of the work is meant to reverberate in the space that is St. Mark’s. 2. Giovanni’s spectacular approach veers widely from the ars perfecta. C. The elaborate instrumentation of the Venetian composers demanded professional performers, who in turn could be employed in works that had no singers. 1. Examples include the sonata (something played) and canzona per sonare (song for playing, which became canzona sonata: played song). 2. One of the best known of these is Giovanni Gabrieli’s Sonata pian’e forte. VII. Music Printers and Their Audiences A. The growth of money-based economies and mercantilism spurred the growth of the printing industry, which in turn helped spread the ideas of humanism. B. Petrucci began publishing music in 1501. 1. Initially, music publishing was laborious, as it involved three different impressions. 2. Pierre Attaignant invented an easier printing mechanism. C. Even though Petrucci published music of the ars perfecta style, most money was made in printing vernacular songs. VIII. Vernacular Song in Italy A. The Italian frottola was a popular song in a light style, and its popularity increased with publication. 1. Marco Cara (ca. 1465–1525) wrote frottole with dance-like rhythms and poetry based on an eight-syllable pattern. a. Castiglione mentioned Cara accompanying himself on the lute in his Book of the Courtier. This comment describes a type of performance that was common less than a century later, which in turn suggests that the “monodic revolution” was not new at all. b. Cara worked in Mantua. There, his patron Isabella d’Este oversaw the rebirth of Italian song as a literate tradition. IX. The “Parisian” Chanson and the Music of Description A. As seen with the Tenorlied and frottola, French song of the sixteenth century took a turn toward a national style that differed from the international courtly style of the fifteenth. B. The name most associated with the Parisian chanson (as most came from Paris) was Claudin de Sermisy (ca. 1490–1562). 1. Attaignant published Sermisy’s chansons. 2. His style matches the musical emphases to that of the text declamation. C. Another famous composer of Parisian chanson was Clement Janequin (ca. 1485– 1558). 1. Attaignant also published his works, which became influential all over Europe. 2. Several of his chansons are large works (over 200 measures) and vividly recall acts of war in the music. X. Lasso: The Cosmopolite Supreme A. One of the most brilliant composers of the sixteenth century, Orlando di Lasso (1532– 94), has not been discussed much in the previous sections because he does not fall easily into any of them, although he could be representative of most. Such versatility made him famous in his own time. 1. A Netherlander by birth, Lasso spoke French, worked in Mantua and Bavaria— he was quite cosmopolitan. All his appointments were secular. 2. Lasso’s compositions clearly show the influence of growing up with printed music. 3. That he tried his hand at so many different genres demonstrates his association with the idea of national styles, rather than ars perfecta/international style. 4. The text includes one example from four languages spoken by Lasso. a. French: Je l’ayme bien is in the style of the Parisian chanson, with ars perfecta qualities. b. Italian: Matona mia cara is a silly, low-style Italian song. c. Latin, secular: Audite nova is a Latin song, turned into German. d. Latin: Prophetiae Sibyllarum is a setting of the classical text and reflects a serious, intellectual bent, with humanist musical treatment. XI. The Literary Revolution and the Return of the Madrigal A. The musical debate of the sixteenth century can be described as one between those who championed the ars perfecta and its universality and those who mixed styles to achieve a measure of expression. 1. Composers such as Lasso did not take sides in such debate but moved between the two as they saw fit, although the character of the text remained a necessary item to communicate musically. B. “Literary” music is music that embodies or responds to meaning, which is most clearly seen in the genre of the madrigal. 1. The madrigal as a literary genre was chiefly driven by the Petrarchan revival. 2. The sixteenth-century madrigal bears no connection to that of the Trecento: instead of a formes fixes, the sixteenth-century madrigal is through-composed and responds directly to the text. 3. It bears hallmarks of northern-styled polyphony (the composers were called oltremontani). 4. Important early madrigal composers were Verdelot and Jacques Arcadelt, both of whom published books of madrigals in the 1530s. 5. The humanist scholar Pietro Bembo was influential in the Petrarchan revival and emphasized the device known as antithesis in his works. Composers picked up on these contrasts and used them extensively in madrigals. C. Arcadelt’s first book of madrigals (1539) was the most frequently printed book in the sixteenth century. 1. From this book, the piece Il bianco e dolce signo was the most famous. 2. It typifies madrigals of this period. a. There are several instances of antithesis. b. Chromaticism is used to heighten the meaning of the text. c. “Madrigalisms” such as word-painting are present. D. Da le belle contrade d’oriente by Cipriano de Rore takes these ideas further. XII. Paradox and Contradiction: Late Italian Madrigalists A. Native Italians eventually took over madrigal composition from the oltremontani. 1. The first of these was Luca Marenzio (1553/54–99), of Rome. a. His Solo e pensoso sets Petrarch’s poem. b. Word-painting vividly mirrors the text. 2. The chromaticism and dissonance treatment found in madrigals was the source of consternation for some sixteenth-century composers. a. The most famous instance is Cruda Amarilli by Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643), attacked in print by Giovanni Maria Artusi. b. Monteverdi graphically set the text with musical transgressions that reflect the sentiments in the poem. c. The most extreme composer in this regard was Carlo Gesualdo (1560– 1613), a southern Italian nobleman. XIII. Music for the Eyes A.