Dialogo Della Musica Antica Et Della Moderna of Vincenzo Galilei
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no. 730o V, 1 DIALOGO DELLA MUSICA ANTICA ET DELLA MODERNA OF VINCENZO GALILEI: TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY DISSERTATION Presented to the Graduate Council of the North Texas State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By Robert H. Herman, M. M. Denton, Texas August, 1973 Herman, Robert H., Dialog dell musica antics et della modern of Vincenso Galilei: Translation and on- mmeentaryDoctor of Philosophy (Music Theory), August, 1973, 929 pp., 43 tables, bibliography, 165 titles, index. The purpose of this study is to provide a practical English translation of Vincenzo Galilei's significant treatise on ancient and modern music (1581). In spite of the important place this work holds in the history of music, it has never before been made available in its entirety in any language other than the original Italian. The Dialogo della music a antics et della modern was, in effect, an expression of monodic tendencies in Italian music of the sixteenth century. While the prevailing vocal compositional style was contrapuntal, Galilei advocated the development of homophonic pieces, which could produce in their hearers whatever affections or emotions the composer desired to convey. The emphasis was on simplicity of melody, with only a few chords for accompaniment. This style, with its sparseness of means, was influenced by the music of the ancient Greeks, whose philosophies and art forms were in credit at the time, having been revived by such Renaissance humanists as Lorenzo di Medici, Marsilio Ficino, and Angelo Poliziano. Galilei, influenced by the erudite Girolamo Mei, who was 2 a classical philologist, drew away from his former mentor, Gioseffo Zarlino, a firm believer in traditional counter- point. He included in his Dialogo many attacks upon Zarlino's teachings, engendering a long and bitter contro- versy which extended until Galilei's death in 1591. The ideas promulgated by Galilei became the subjects of discussion by members of the Florentine Camerata of Count Giovanni Bardi. Experiments revealed the dramatic led to possibilities of the new monodies, which in turn the establishment of a new art form, the opera. Besides the 1581 edition, the Dialogo has been reproduced in two twentieth century facsimile editions (Rome, Reale accademia d'Italia, 1934, and New York, Broude Bros., 1967). These versions, along with a number of microfilm copies, were used in preparing this disser- tation. All appeared to be from the same impression. The original Dialogo is not divided into chapters. Division headings have been supplied in the translation according to the logical separation of Galilei's material. The first section of the translation concerns itself with acoustical speculations, while the second section is a critical discussion of ancient and modern musical art. The third section is a critical discussion of polyphony and the fourth section is a history of musical instruments 3 and notation. The fifth and final section concerns itself with a critical discussion of the instrumental music of Galilei's time. These five headings were considered by Galilei to be the ones most pertinent to a modern treatise on music. In the present translation every effort has been made to provide a lucid rendition of Galilei's work. The long, tedious sentences which appear in the original version have been divided, thus removing the same obstacle to English readers as would be presented to modern Italian readers of the 1581 edition. It has also been necessary, on occasion, to alter the grammatical structure of particularly idiomatic passages as well as to remove a number of confusing particles and conjunctions. In no instance, however, has the original meaning been distorted. Because of increased demands upon the time of musical scholars, there is an even greater case for translated versions of significant treatises. It would, moreover, permit the free flow of important musical ideas, unhampered by the barrier of a foreign language, thus helping to preserve for an increasing number of readers the extensive heritage of our musical past. 1973 ROBERT HENRY HERMAN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PREFACE In the course of the ages, many works on music have appeared, some of which have flourished briefly before passing into obscurity. Others, possessing more enduring qualities, have been granted a more permanent place in the panorama of history. There are very few treatises, standing at the foundation of an era, which form the cultural concepts that cleave to the core of musical society. Vincenzo Galilei's Dalogo della musica antica et moderna was such a work, for at its inception it fomented a fierce controversy between the proponents of ancient and modern music. Before the strife faded, its tremors were felt in many lands by academicians of diverse disciplines. The Dialogo is significant for several reasons. It is, initially, a valuable study, both of the Renaissance concept of ancient Greek music and the music of the Renaissance. Galilei's work is rich in source materials, for he cites nearly all of the ancient authorities on music, including many incidental references to that sub- ject in the classical authors. The Dialogo also contains iv a wealth of information on many facets of musical art including tuning theories, comparisons of Greek music with that of Galilei's time, sixteenth-century polyphony, the history of musical instruments and notation, and Renaissance instrumental music. There are, in addition, authentic examples of ancient Greek music, the Hymns to the Muse, to the Sun, and to Nemesis, which appear in print in the Dialogo for the first time, as well as portions of the tables of Alypius, which contain the early Greek notation symbols. Despite the importance of this treatise, no full English translation of it has been made until now. There are excerpts in collections by Oliver Strunk1 and Bruno Nettl,2 but neither of these is sufficient to realize the entire potential of the Dialoo as a valuable reference work. The purpose of this disser- tation, therefore, has been to translate the Dialogo into English, transcribe its musical examples into modern notation, and provide a commentary upon its salient features. 1Oliver Strunk, Source Readings in Music History (New York, 1950), pp.3227 2 Bruno Nettl, The Book of Musical Documents (New York, 1948), pp. 36~7;~T4-47. V The Dialogo takes the form of a long rambling dis- course, 149 pages in all. It is equipped with marginal glosses known as "postilli" which are set off from the main body of the text. Their function is to pinpoint the location of a name or subject in the text, to clar- ify or amplify a statement, or to serve as a repository for bibliographical information. Since there are no chapter headings or divisions in the Dialogo, the "postilli" more or less act in their place. To elim- inate this inconvenience, chapter divisions and head- ings have been supplied in the English translation. Numbers and captions have also been added by the trans- lator to all musical examples and diagrams to facilitate reference to them. In order to expedite comparisons with the 1581 edition of the Dialogo, the original page numbers are given in brackets in the margin of the translation. The traditional catchword, like the musi- cal "custos", stands guard at the foot of each column except where the text artistically dwindles down to a point, heralding the approach of a large illustration on the succeeding page. Except for the use of indirect discourse, occa- sional archaic or interchangeable spellings ("i" for "y", "h" either retained or dropped, and so forth), and a few obsolete verb forms, the Italian of the vi Dialogo is essentially the same as that of today, and, as such, poses no monumental problems to the translator. Galilei generally manages to say what must be said, but his style is rather verbose, full of redundancies and tautologies. Only occasionally does it border upon the elegant, being more often commonplace and sometimes decidedly awkward. He has a pronounced tendency for complexity of sentence structure and almost a penchant for parenthetical expressions. Sir John Hawkins de- scribes his writing as "clear and nervous but negligent," adding that "nice judges say that it is in some instances ungrammatical." 3 In order to provide a more lucid English translation, many of the lengthy sentences have been divided into shorter ones, and many of the unwieldy particles and conjunctions have been eliminated. The references to "questa" and "quella" (this and that) and "cosa" (thing), proper enough in Italian, but vague and confusing in English, have been replaced, where unclear, by the words they originally modified. While it has been necessary to deviate in some instances from the formal grammatical structure of the Dialogo, in no case have Galilei's statements been materially altered. 3Sir John Hawkins, A General History of the Science and Practice of usic, 2vols., facsimile c.mewYork, 175)I 44. vii There are, in addition, frequent technical errors or inconsistencies. The marginal glosses were partic- ularly prone to printing problems. In several instances, one digit of a page or chapter number is missing. Simi- larly, it is not always clear who is referred to by the citation in a marginal gloss due to the omission of his name. If there are several successive glosses, it is also difficult to determine the object of each one. There is an instance (Dialogo, p. 124) in which the final letters of several lines were cut off in printing. The same error was apparent in comparing the 1934 and 1966 facsimile editions. A number of Galilei's musical examples came without sharps and, in one case, even with- out notes (Dialogo, pp. 37-38). Galilei's recalcitrant Venetian printers are prob- ably to blame for some of the errors in the Dialogo.