Realized Continuo Accompaniments from Florence c1600 John Walter Hill Early Music, Vol. 11, No. 2. (Apr., 1983), pp. 194-208. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0306-1078%28198304%2911%3A2%3C194%3ARCAFFC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2 Early Music is currently published by Oxford University Press. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/oup.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org Fri Nov 9 18:48:54 2007 John Walter Hill Realized continuo accompaniments from Florence c1600 Historical instruction books for continuo realization of the song by Francesco Rasi, published in 1608, are plentiful, but in general they leave modern per- which is in the manuscript; the manuscript contains formers with three major problems. Beyond the inter- nothing from Euridice or I1 rapimento di Cefalo, the pretation of the figures and rules of part-writing given operas performed at celebrations in Florence in 1600, in nearly every one, they leave much in doubt excerpts from which would presumably have been concerning the texture, rhythm and melodic features included if it had been copied after that date; and the appropriate to accompaniments. As a body, they leave early versions of Caccini's songs that it contains would many geographical and chronological lacunae, con- have been rendered obsolete by the more fully orn- centrated as they are in Germany and France and in the amented and rhythmically detailed versions published late 17th and 18th centuries. And they are over- in Le nuove musiche of 1602. In B704, 45 songs have whelmingly written from the standpoint of keyboard fully realized accompaniments in Italian lute tablature, practice, providing little guidance for the use of other in addition to the basso continuo and vocal lines in instruments. It is a stroke of fortune (though no staff notation. The other pieces have six-line staves on accident), therefore, that nearly 60 of the earliest which the intabulated realizations were never written. Florentine monodies survive with both basso continuo Another indication that work on this manuscript was lines and fully written-out realizations, some in lute not completed is the number of errors in the tablature: tablature, others for keyboard, done at a time and although many were corrected, some remain for the place very close to those of their composition. These modern editor to rectify. realizations give us valuable guidance for the per- 2 Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Magl. formance of solo songs by Giulio Caccini and Jacopo XIX.30 [FXIX.30], a 43-folio manuscript bearing the Peri, and by extension, of songs by Monteverdi and date 12 May 1595 and containing 36 dances and vocal other monodists and, perhaps, of portions at least of compositions entirely in lute tablature without staff the earliest operas. notation. The composers named in it are Santino Garsi The principal Florentine manuscripts that contain (1542-1604) and one Giovanni Galletti. Concordances these realized continuo accompaniments are: show that at least three of its songs are by Caccini, and 1 Brussels, Bibliotheque du Conservatoire Royal de another three are found anonymously in the earliest Musique, Codex 704 [B704], a 127-folio manuscript Florentine monody manuscripts, where they also have with 140 songs, all but one for solo voice and basso basso continuo accompaniment^.^ The date written in continuo. All the identified pieces are by Florentine the manuscript is corroborated by the fact that one composers. They range chronologically from Piero Caccini song in it, which appears in the 1602 Nuove Strozzi's Fuor' dell'humido nido, sung by Caccini in a musiche, seems to be a pre-publication version. The celebration of 1579, through excerpts from the famous manuscript lacks a vocal line to go with the words that Florentine intermedi of 1589, fragments of the first are written in, and even the rhythms are not notated for opera, La Dafne (Florence, ~1594-7),by Jacopo Corsi some of the intabulations. These songs could have and Peri, to songs later published in Caccini's two been played and sung only by a musician already monody collections (1602 and 16 14). The repertoire familiar with the pieces, presumably a Florentine places the collection's origin in Florence. Three factors musician. suggest that its main body, the work of Porter's copyist 3 Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Magl. a, was created ~1594-1600: the latest datable com- XIX. 115 [FXIX. 1151, a keyboard manuscript of 15 folios positions are the fragments from Dafne, since we know containing 24 songs and dances. 15 items seem to be that many of Caccini's songs were published well after vocal compositions, including five arias for singing they were composed, and since the same might be true terze rime, sonnets and other standard textual forms. 194 EARLY MUSIC APRIL 1983 Another five pieces are found also in the earliest ms.CS11, a 55-folio manuscript containing 132 items, Florentine monody manuscripts where they have only mostly solo songs, with voice lines in staff notation a basso continuo line as accompaniment. The only and accompaniments in lute tablature. This collection composer named in the manuscript is Santino Garsi, was begun on 4 November 1574, in Munich by the although concordances establish Caccini and Peri as Florentine Cosimo Bottegari (1554-1 620), whose own composers of other items.3 Again, a pre- 1602 version compositions dominate the manuscript. After he of a Caccini song helps to date this manuscript; returned to Florence in the early 1580s, Bottegari additional evidence is supplied by the watermarks on continued to add to the manuscript. It contains one the paper, which seem to have been made by the same song by Caccini and two others found in B704, also forms as those that made the paper for a household with realized accompaniment^.^ account book belonging to Jacopo Corsi in Florence 8 London, British Library, Egerton 2971, a 37-folio and begun in 1593.4 manuscript of English origin, whose earliest owner 4 Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Magl. was one Robius (?Robert)Downes. Along with some 20 XIX. 138 [FXIX.1381, a 48-folio keyboard manuscript English continuo songs by Nathaniel Giles (~1558- with 23 songs and dances. Seven of these pieces have 1634).Robert Jones w1597-16 15) and others, and four text underlaid, while another two seem, either because instrumental pieces, it contains five Italian monodies of the rubric 'Terza rima' or because of the title given, withvocal line and accompaniment in French-English to be vocal compositions. One of the texted pieces is lute tablature. Two of these monodies (Dolcissimo found in B704 and in two other early Florentine sospiro and Amarilli mia bella) are by Caccini. All five are monody manuscripts, where a basso continuo line written with considerably more ornamentation than only is added to the vocal part5 Again the only Caccini used in his printed collections. The lute composer named is Santino Garsi. The manuscript was accompaniments are thinner and more contrapuntal once part of the library of the Tuscan grand dukes, than those in the Florentine manuscripts. which tends to support the hypothesis of Florentine 9 Tenbury Wells, St Michael's College, 1018 [T1018],a origin. mixed manuscript of 48 folios containing some ten In addition, there are two manuscripts that seem to motets arranged for solo voice and instrumental be Florentine and have important similarities to one or consort, another ten untexted motets for consort more of those already mentioned, but have no known performance, 21 English continuo songs by Robert concordances in basso continuo manuscripts. Johnson (~1583-1633),Alfonso Ferrabosco (1578- 5 Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Magl. 1628) and others, 30 Italian monodies by Ferrabosco, XIX. 168 [FXIX.1681, a 58-folio manuscript containing Caccini and others, with continuo accompaniment, 26 songs and dances entirely in lute tablature without one English partsong, and one Italian monody (Se di staff notation. Three pieces have text underlaid, while farmi morire), the vocal line of which is accompanied by another three have titles suggesting vocal models, a French-English lute intabulation somewhat more in including Ancor che col partire by Cipriano de Rore. One the Florentine style than those in the preceding page carries the date 10 May 1582.6The paper bears manu~cript.~ the same watermark as FXIX. 115 (no.3 above) and the 10 Tenbury Wells, St Michael's College, 1019, six Corsi account book (see fn.4). folios that may once have been part of the preceding 6 Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Magl. item. Along with 13 English lute songs, one ascribed to XIX. 109 [FXIX.