---Ursprüngliche Nachricht--- From: "G.R. Crona" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Spagna / Francesco
Dear Mathias, my memory wasn't too far off :) The tune must have been a very well known cantus firmus. a search on my antiquated PC gave the following: 1. Cavalcanti=similar to Francesco 2. Siena: 4 counterpoints to the Spagna 3. Doug's history: "FRANCESCO SPINACINO Nothing is known of Francesco Spinacino outside of the two Petrucci books, and their front matter and dedicatory poems add nothing of biographical substance. [39] These books contain about fifty intabulations of vocal works, six of them for two lutes, and twenty-seven ricercars, as well as two settings of the bassadanza tenor La Spagna." 4. MP3: Dufay Collective (Heringman) on Magnatune.com: "Classical - Dufay Collective - Cancionero" 5. Volta de Spagna Dentice [?] Hainhofer XII, f. 3v 40032, pp. 394-395, Volta 40032, p.402, Volta Besard 1603 f.160 Volte 6. New Grove a): FANTASY ITALY Ricercares were prominent in printed Italian keyboard music from 1523 onwards, but fantasias were comparatively rare. Two different types of fantasia are found in Neapolitan prints of 1575-6: three of the fantasie sopra varii canti fermi in Rodio's Libro di ricercate are woven around hymn or antiphon chants, a fourth around the melody La Spagna. b): Improvisation western ensemble: Although there are many early visual and literary references to instrumental ensemble music, no direct discussion of improvisation by instrumental groups has been found. We can only surmise that when contrapuntal - as opposed to heterophonic - improvisation took place in instrumental performance it was by players who had been trained in the vocal practice of improvising on a cantus firmus. The first sure evidence of such a practice is in the improvisation of the music for the bassadanza and saltarello danced in 15th-century Italy. Surviving collections of bassadanza tenors in long notes, along with pictures showing two high instruments presumably improvising on a tenor played by a sackbut, indicate that the music accompanying these dances may well have been produced by just such an improvising group. Later compositions on one of these bassadanza tenors, La Spagna, in which the tenor in long, even notes is accompanied by florid melodies in the upper parts, add weight to this conclusion. It is significant too that the only book in this period giving examples of ensemble improvisation (for violone and harpsichord), Diego Ortiz's Trattado de glosas (1553), still used the old La Spagna tenor when illustrating the technique of improvising on a cantus firmus. The beginning of one such improvisation, when contrasted with another (ex.2b) from the same book, shows the archaic nature of this improvisation. The one shown in ex.2b has a 16th-century Italian dance bass, which acts as a series of roots for triads, and the improvised melody is shaped by the notes of each chord and is organized motivically. The bass also gives the rhythm of the dance and is organized in phrases that are multiples of four bars. It is also short and is repeated several times, showing a series of improvised variations - a form and style that were to be used in improvisation for several centuries to come. (Is this your cantus??) c): Spinacino, Francesco: Intabulatura de lauto, libro primo [libro secondo] (Venice: Ottaviano Petrucci, 1507/R) (RISM 15075-6, BrownI 15071-2). 2 vols., 56 ff. each; 81 pieces (7 for duet): intabulations of motets, chansons, a Flemish song and instrumental ensemble music (including 2 Spagnas) by Josquin. d): Chicago, Newberry Library, Case MS VM C.25: Compositione di meser Vincenzo Capirola, gentil homo bresano (copied in Venice by Capirola's student Vidal, c1517/R; see Notation. 74 ff.; 42 compositions: 13 ricercares, 7 dances (2 Spagnas). e): The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, 20.860 (olim 28.B.39): Siena Lutebook. [...] and 7 dances including 4 settings of the 'Spagna detta Lamire'. f): Brussels, Bibliothčque Royale de Belgique, II 275: Lutebook of Rafaello Cavalcanti (dated Jan 1590). 3 + 104 ff.; c247 pieces (some for duet), grouped roughly by genre. Ff.1-49v: 22 galliards, 18 passamezzos (some on the romanesca) and other dances (saltarellos, ghieromettas, pavaniglias, spagnolettas, 'ruggieri da cantar', pavans, calatas, Spagnas, etc g): JOSQUIN The five-part arrangement of the bass-danse melody La Spagna would be another, but the qualities of lucid structure and varied texture associated with Josquin (not to mention basic competence in the handling of dissonance) are so conspicuously absent from it that it is impossible to accept it as authentic on the shaky testimony of Ott, who published it as a motet (Propter peccata) in 1537. h): LUTE REPERTORY ITALY (i) Italy. The earliest surviving significant Italian lute source is a heart-shaped manuscript (I-PESo 1144) partially copied in the last decades of the 15th century and possibly of Venetian origin. Unusually, it is notated in a rudimentary form of French lute tablature (the rhythm-signs and sporadic barring being apparently based on the position of the tactus rather than on note durations) using letter-ciphers rather than numbers. This early layer of the manuscript, which includes one piece for seven-course lute, contains a few song arrangements (including the ubiquitous De tous biens plaine), a number of ricercares in improvisational style, and a single bassadanza, a setting of the well-known basse danse tenor La Spagna. [...] Few contemporary manuscripts survive, but two are of special importance, both of Venetian provenance. The earlier (F-Pn Rés.Vmd 27) dates from the first decade of the 16th century, and, like the earlier Pesaro manuscript, the tablature for the most part omits bar-lines and rhythm-signs. It comprises two sections, the first of which contains 25 ricercares, dances and frottolas for solo lute; a ricercare and the bassadanza on La Spagna are also found in the Pesaro manuscript i): RICERCARE IMITATIVE Singers could perform these works to the appropriate solmization syllables. The term 'ricercare da cantare' occurs as late as Claudio Merulo's third book (1608), while the four-part ensemble ricercare itself was cultivated at least until the publication of Antonio Cifra's Ricercari e canzoni franzese . libro primo (1619), published in four partbooks, with a separate organ score. (The second book, also 1619, is in score only and was probably originally for keyboard, though considered an ensemble work by Frotscher and Apel.) Of particular interest in the history of the ensemble ricercare are the works on 'La Spagna' by Mayone (1609) and Trabaci (1615). j): RICERCARE PRELUDIAL The non-imitative ricercare did not entirely die out after the early 16th century; examples for solo viol are found in the works of Sylvestro di Ganassi dal Fontego and Diego Ortiz. The former included eight solo ricercares in his two instruction books of 1542-3. Ortiz, in his Trattado de glosas (1553), used the term 'recercada' not only in the sense of a rhapsodic piece for solo viol but also for viol and keyboard works based on various grounds (in which case the keyboard player added chords above the bass line), and transcriptions of vocal polyphonic pieces for the same medium. The six pieces based on the basse danse melody known as 'La Spagna' belong to a whole tradition of didactic works using this widespread cantus firmus. Those of Ortiz are perhaps the first to be designated ricercares; most of their successors, however, belong to the imitative type rather than to the improvisatory type cultivated by Ortiz. The close association between the ricercare and the Renaissance practice of diminution is exemplified in Giovanni Bassano's Ricercate, passaggi et cadentie (1585). 7. Krakow: Mus.ms.40591= similar to Francesco and Cavalcanti I suppose Seems "bassadanza" is keyword here -- Best, Mathias Mathias Roesel, Grosze Annenstrasze 5, 28199 Bremen, Deutschland/ Germany, T/F +49 - 421 - 165 49 97, Fax +49 1805 060 334 480 67, E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Gesucht: Das Beste für die Stadt" Ökumenischer Stadtkirchentag vom 19. bis 26. September 2004 in Bremen ! http://www.stadtkirchentag-bremen.de
