La Stangetta Reconsidered
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Carlo Bosi 41 ° # b Ó ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ œ œ œ w & w ˙ ˙ œ œw w ˙ œ trez [sic!] soir et ma -˙ tin! Son- nez la bien- ve - nu - e 280 w ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ w w &b ˙ ˙ w ˙wÓ ˙ ˙ ‹ tez soir et ma- tin, Son- nez la bien- ve - nu - e La stangetta Reconsidered: b ˙™ œ Ó ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ w w & ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ w w ‹ tez soir et ma- tin! Son- nez la bien ve- nu - e Weerbeke, Isaac, and the Late Fifteenth-Century Tricinium ¢ Eric Jas 46 ° ## U b ™ & Ó ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ › De mon- si - gneur le dauf --fin! ™ quick look at Gaspar van Weerbeke’s oeuvre suffices to remind one that secular works ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ œ œ › U› &b Ó œ constitute but a small part of his output. Concise as this group may be—the number ‹ - - --- De mon si gneur le daul fin! ofA works is limited to six or seven pieces—it presents scholars with considerable difficulties. w U Two of the compositions are transmitted in incomplete form, and three are also ascribed to &b Ó ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ œ œ w › ‹ De mon- si - gneur le daul - fin! other composers. Even the authorship of secular works that have an unconflicted ‘Gaspar(t)’ or 1 ‘Jaspart’ ascription poses problems as confusion with the works of Jean Japart lurks. Alongside ¢ these difficulties,La stangetta may not seem to pose much of a problem. Ever since the publica- tion of Dietrich Kämper’s 1980 article on this three-voice instrumental piece, it has been con- 2 sidered an authentic composition of Weerbeke. However, things are not as straightforward as many have come to believe. Kämper’s case for Weerbeke’s authorship is based on two major assumptions: that the ascription of the work in the first edition of Petrucci’s Odhecaton is trustworthy and that Marchesino Stanga, the ‘cameriere d’onore’ of Gian Galeazzo Sforza and later ‘tesoriere’ of 3 Ludovico Sforza, can be identified as the probable dedicatee of the piece. A striking aspect * I would like to thank Paul Kolb for his helpful suggestions and revisions and Adam Gilbert for kindly sharing his thoughts on La stangetta with me. 1 The two incomplete works are Bon temps je ne/Bon temps ne viendra/Adieu mes amours and Que fait le cocu au bois. O venus bant is ascribed to Weerbeke in Sev 5-1-43 but to Josquin in Petrucci’s Odhecaton. Vray dieu is attributed to ‘Gaspart’ in Flor 2442 but is more likely by Compère, to whom it is attributed in Petrucci’s Canti C. For a discussion of the pieces that involve confusion of Weerbeke and Japart, see the contributions in this volume by David Fallows (Ch. 13) and Carlo Bosi (Ch. 14). 2 Dietrich Kämper, ‘La stangetta – eine Instrumentalkomposition Gaspars van Weerbeke’, in Ars musica, musica scientia: Festschrift Heinrich Hüschen zum fünfundsechzigsten Geburtstag am 2. März 1980, ed. Detlef Altenburg (Cologne: Gitarre und Laute Verlagsgesellschaft, 1980), 277–88. Among the authors that have readily accept- ed Weerbeke’s authorship are Reinhard Strohm, in The Rise of European Music, 1380–1500 (Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, 1993), 570; Allan W. Atlas, in Renaissance Music: Music in Western Europe, 1400–1600 (New York and London: Norton, 1998), 368; Martin Picker, in Henricus Isaac: A Guide to Research (New York and London: Garland Publishing inc., 1991), 95; and Emma Clare Kempson, in ‘The Motets of Henricus Isaac (c.1450–1517): Transmission, Structure and Function’ (Ph.D. thesis, King’s College London, 1998), 61–62. 3 Fausto Torrefranca was the first to suggest a relationship between La stangetta and the Stanga family. His idea that Marchesino Stanga had either composed the music or the text was later rejected by Helen Hewitt, who suggested that the piece was possibly written in honour of Stanga either by Obrecht in Ferrara or by Weerbeke in Milan; Harmonice musices Odhecaton A, ed. Helen Hewitt, edition of the literary texts by Isabel Pope (Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1942), 76. © FHG Gold Open Access - Creative Commons CC 4.0: BY-NC license Eric Jas La stangetta Reconsidered: Weerbeke, Isaac, and the Late Fifteenth-Century Tricinium of the discussion of La stangetta is that the conflicting attribution to Henricus Isaac has been later Zwickau partbooks (Zwi 78/3), which were copied between 1535 and 1545 in the town of put aside without much dispute. Now that the secular works of Weerbeke are about to be Zwickau (see below), and which ascribe the work to Obrecht. 282 published in his Collected Works and a new edition of Isaac’s secular works is being prepared, it A second line of transmission, with Isaac’s name attached to it, is represented by 283283 may be the right time to re-evaluate the matter. another early source, one that might even be earlier than the Odhecaton: the famous Segovia manuscript (Seg s.s.). Differences from Petrucci are slight, but a few ligatures, rhythmic Transmission substitutions, an incidental rest, and especially the lack of the final bassus flourish make it It may be prudent to start by taking a closer look at the transmission of the work. There are rather unlikely that the Segovia and Petrucci readings are related to one another.6 A third and seven sources in white mensural notation and two lute intabulations (Table 15.1).4 The Odheca- clearly late—and anonymous—redaction of the piece is found in Formschneider’sTrium vocum carmina of 1538.7 Table 15.1. Sources for La stangetta How should the three ascriptions for La stangetta be evaluated? It may be helpful to start (1) Petrucci, Odhecaton v r with Obrecht. The Obrecht ascription has been known since the late nineteenth century, when fols. 54 –55 , La stangetta: Uuerbech (ascription in 1501 edition only) 8 Reinhard Vollhardt took stock of the music manuscripts of the Zwickau Ratsschulbibliothek. (2) Egenolff, Cantiones selectissimae, S & T only no. 54, La stangetta: anonymous The piece must have looked attractive to early Obrecht scholars because of its parallel tenths (3) Formschneider, Trium vocum carmina between the outer voices and the explicit use of sequences, two characteristics that are easily no. 44, La stangetta [handwritten in T of Jena copy]; anonymous associated with Obrecht’s style. This, together with the fact that conflicting ascriptions for the (4) Flor Panc 27 work were not yet known, explains why it was included as an authentic piece in the first edition v r fols. 34 –35 , La stangetta, anonymous of Obrecht’s works.9 (5) Hei X/2 On closer examination, however, the situation is not that favourable for Obrecht. As no. 29, lA stangetta: anonymous [B only] mentioned earlier, the set of partbooks with the Obrecht ascription was copied in Zwickau in (6) Seg s.s. fol. 172r, Ortus de celo flos est, ysaac the decade between 1535 and 1545. It was originally owned by Stephan Roth (1492–1546), who (7) Zwi 78/3 was rector of the Latin School from 1517 to 1520, town scribe as of 1528, and alderman from 1543 no. 18, no title/incipit, Obrecht in Zwickau. Roth was an avid collector of books, and when he died he left his library, con- 10 Intabulations taining some 6,000 volumes, to the Ratsschulbibliothek. He was married to Ursula Krüger, (8) Spinacino, Intabolatura de lauto II no. 28 (fols. 37v–38v), La stanghetta, anonymous (9) Newsidler, Der ander Theil 6 Appendix 1 contains a transcription of La stangetta after Petrucci’s Odhecaton . For convenience’ sake I have no. 6 (sig. C1v–C3r), La stangeta: anonymous changed Petrucci’s voice designation (– / tenor / contra) to the standard S, T, B. All variant readings of the Segovia manuscript are listed in a concise table at the end. With regard to the Segovia transmission, Kämper takes a different stand. While acknowledging a certain autonomy and independence (‘eine gewisse Eigenständigkeit und Unabhängigkeit’, 279) of the Segovia reading, he also suggests that its variants may ton is one of the two earliest sources. The first edition, of 1501, is incomplete and preserves only have arisen in connection with the underlay of the contrafact text (‘aus der Kontrafaktur resultierenden the superius and tenor of La stangetta with the ascription ‘Uuerbech’. The piece is complete Erfordernissen der Textunterlegung’) and concludes that it does not compromise the supremacy of the in the second and third editions (of 1503 and 1504), but in these the ascription to Weerbeke is Odhecaton reading. This line of reasoning is problematic, however, as the Segovia reading has no contrafact text at all, but merely an alternative textual incipit (see no. 6 in Table 15.1). suppressed. The reading of the Odhecaton version is without problems and was probably used 7 Formschneider’s edition contains a number of questionable variant readings which introduce awkward con - as the scribal exemplar for the anonymous transmission in Flor Panc 27, which was probably trapuntal errors (especially in the bassus, bb. 24–26 and 56). A modern edition of this version is found in 5 Hieronymus Formschneider. ‘Trium Vocum Carmina’, Nürnberg, 1538, ed. Helmut Mönkemeyer, Monumenta copied in Mantua between 1505 and 1515. It was no doubt used as the model for the much Musicae Ad Usum Practicum, 2 vols. (Celle: Moeck Verlag, 1985), vol. 1, no. 44. 8 Reinhard Vollhardt, Bibliographie der Musik-Werke in der Ratsschulbibliothek zu Zwickau, Beilage zu den 4 The tenor partbook of Egenolff’s collection (no. 2 in Table 15.1) was recently discovered by Royston Gustavson Monatsheften für Musikgeschichte 1893–1896 (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1896). in the Schweizerische Landesbibliothek in Bern. I am most grateful to Dr Gustavson for sharing biblio- 9 The first Obrecht edition was prepared by Johannes Wolf between 1908 and 1921 for the Vereeniging voor graphical details and for checking the reading of La stangetta in the tenor partbook.