THE SOUNDS OF MILAN, 1585–1650
Robert L. Kendrick
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
The Sounds of Milan, 1585–1650
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THE SOUNDS OF MILAN, 1585–1650
ﱾﱽﱼﱻ Robert L. Kendrick
1 2002
1 Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Sa˜o Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto
Copyright 䉷 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kendrick, Robert L. The sounds of Milan, 1585–1650 / Robert L. Kendrick. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-513537-7 1. Music—Italy—Milan—16th century—History and criticism. 2. Music—Italy—Milan—17th century—History and criticism. 3. Milan (Italy)—Social life and customs—16th century. 4. Milan (Italy)—Social life and customs—17th century. I. Title. ML290.8 .M4 K463 2002 780'.945'2109031—dc21 2001036651
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lucia marchi
O potente Milan, quanto ti puoi Tener felice per le gran canzoni, Che cantan per le strade ogn’hor li tuoi . . . —Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, “Canzoni di Milano,” Libro sesto de i Grotteschi Uh, citaˆ morta, Milan sensa miracul, sensa speransa pio¨v, e manca el vent, t’uˆ ’ista ’n o`lter dıˆ ’me remesciada da ’na matina mia del sentiment, uh citaˆ ve`gia, Milan sdementegada, lassa che pio¨va semper, sensa vent. —Franco Loi, from Nove poesie in nero; courtesy of Arnaldo Mondadori Editore Wenn man die Hinterlassenschaft der Vergangenheit betrachtet, wie eine Art von a¨sthetischem Bilderbuch, wenn etwa der Blick vor allem auf den Wandel der “Stile” gerichtet ist, dann kann man leicht den Eindruck gewinnen, als habe sich von Zeit zu Zeit der Geschmack oder die Seele der Menschen, gleichsam sprunghaft, durch eine plo¨tzliche Mutation von innen her gewandelt: Nun sind es “gotische Menschen,” nun “Menschen der Renaissance,” die man vor sich sieht, und nun “Menschen des Barock.” Wenn man versucht, eine Vorstellung von dem Aufbau des ganzen Beziehungsgeflechts zu gewinnen, in das alle einzelnen Menschen einer bestimmten Epoche versponnen sind, wenn man den Vera¨nderungen der Institutionen nachzugehen sucht, unter denen sie leben, oder der Funktionen, die ihre soziale Existenz begru¨nden, dann schwindet der Eindruck mehr und mehr, dass sich irgendwann einmal plo¨tzlich in vielen, einzelnen Seelen unerkla¨rlicherweise und unabha¨ngig von einander die gleiche Mutation vollzogen habe. Alle diese Vera¨nderungen vollziehen sich geraume Zeit hindurch immer ganz langsam, in kleinen Schritten und zum guten Teil lautlos fu¨r Ohren, die nur die grossen, weithin schallenden Ereignisse aufzunehmen imstande sind. —Norbert Elias, U¨ber den Prozess der Zivilisation
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acknowledgments
My first debt is to the libraries, archives, and staff that made this book possible, most notably dott. Roberto Fighetti and Ulderico de Piazzi at the Archivio della Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo in Milan, but also dott. Mario Armellini (and the desk attendants) at the Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale of Bologna, and dott.ssa Agostina Zecca Laterza at the Conservatorio di Musica “Giuseppe Verdi” of Milan. I owe particular thanks to don Fausto Ruggieri at the Biblioteca Capitolare e Archivio della Metropolitana, Milan, for his endless patience and advice on matters liturgical. I am also grateful to the Archivio di Stato of Milan, the Archivio Storico Diocesano of Milan, the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, the Biblioteca Trivulziana/Archivio Storico Civico, the Civica Raccolta delle Stampe “A. Bertarelli,” don Franco Buzzi at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, don Natale Ghiglione at the Pontificio Istituto Ambrosiano di Musica Sacra, and dott. Marco Bascape` at the II.PP.A.B of Milan. It was a pleasure to have the help of Alessandro Picchi, Andrea Luppi, and Riccardo Terzoli in Como, the staffs of the Biblioteca Casanatense (Rome), the Biblioteche Capitolari of Piacenza and Vigevano, the Archivio del Duomo (Brescia), the Archivio dei Filippini (Naples), and of dott. Paolo Monticelli (Novara) and Dr. Louis Jordan and Ina Kahal at the Ambrosiana Project, University of Notre Dame. At the last minute, the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart was very helpful, and a special thanks for the reproductions goes to dott.ssa Stefania Maderna at the Sopraintendenza dei Beni Artistici e Culturali at the Pinacoteca di Brera. I am grateful to friends in Milan: Franco Pavan, Monica Romano, Antonio Riccardi, Monica Chitto`, Giuseppe Strazzeri, Giovanna Amadasi, Roberto, Monica, and Giuliana Leonardi, and Simona Acquistapace. Candace Smith and Bruce Dickey helped in many ways. Other colleagues—Christine Getz, Andrew Green, Prisca Giorgini, Danilo Costantini, Ausilia Magaudda, W. Richard Shindle—contributed helpful information. I am grateful to Steven Saunders for many comments about connections with Austria. Work with David Douglass, Mary Springfels, and Fabio Bonizzoni has aided my understanding of the music. My discussions with Gianvittorio Signorotto and Danilo Zardin deepened the historical background of the book, while
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acknowledgments
Geraldine Johnson, Pamela Jones, Mary-Ann Winkelmes, Robert Miller, and Nicole Riegel gave advice on iconography. Writing the book was made possible by a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship at the National Humanities Center of North Carolina, whose staff was ever concerned to see the book finished. I am particularly indebted to Eliza Robertson for library work and Karen Carroll for editing. Louise Rice’s comments greatly improved a first draft. Later, Anne Robertson gave a sense to motet texts, Jessie Ann Owens helped clarify some of the initial chapters, and Jane Bernstein commented on printers, while James Ladewig and Robert Judd shared their ideas about the canzona repertory. As always, I am completely indebted to Bonnie Blackburn and Leofranc Holford-Strevens for saving me from many a pitfall, linguistic, documentary, and musical, and for advice on matters large and small. Amy Kaplan and Mark Volken prepared the musical examples with exemplary patience and musicality. The students of Music 447 at the University of Chicago—Nikkola Carmichael, Donald Chae, Dawn de Rycke, Katarzyna Grochowska, and Catherine Saucier—gave helpful critiques of the whole, and I am grateful to Yossi Maurey for a final check of difficult spots. As the book was coming to its end, Lucia Marchi entered its author’s life. Her questions and comments helped make many of its points clearer. But more importantly, she illuminated every day of its completion with love and affection, and it is hers.
contents
List of Illustrations xi List of Music Examples xiii List of Abbreviations xvii A Note on Money xxi
part i: spaces and their musics 1. The Sonic Expressions of Urban Identity 2. The Cathedral and the Shrine 26 3. Churches, Monasteries, Palaces 63
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part ii: attitudes and actions 4. Theory, Aesthetics, Devotion 5. Rites and Rituals 116 6. Il mestiere di musico 163
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part iii: musical expressions 7. Models and Imitatio, 1585–1610 195 8. From Triumph to Plague, 1610–1630 257 9. Reconstruction and Reformulation, 1630–1650 Documents 379 Appendixes A. Milanese Feste di precetto
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B. The Structure of Ambrosian Vespers and the Contents of the Pontificalia (1619) 399 C. Chant and Polyphony for Selected Feasts at Vespers 401 D. Ignazio Donati’s Polychoral Music for the Duomo 403 E. Score, Keyboard, and Basso Parts in Milanese Prints, 1596–1617 Notes 409 Bibliography 501 Index 515
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illustrations
1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10 2.11 3.1 3.2 5.1 5.2 5.3 9.1
Marc’Antonio Baratieri, Plan of Milan, 1629 12 G. B. Lampugnani, View of Milan, 1640 13 Anonymous, Cardinal Federigo Borromeo Preaching in Milan Cathedral, ca. 1620 30 Melchiorre Gherardini, Entrance of the Cardinal-Infant Ferdinand to the Duomo, 1633 38 Federico Zuccari, St. Agatha Visited by St. Peter in Prison, 1597 40 Camillo Procaccini, Triumph of David, 1592–95 43 “Anonymous Fabriczy,” View of S. Maria presso S. Celso from the South, ca. 1590 44 Anonymous, Miracle of 15 August 1782 in S. Maria presso S. Celso, ca. 1783 46 Annibale Fontana et al., S. Maria presso S. Celso, fac¸ade, 1574–93 47 Annibale Fontana, The Assunta, 1583–85 48 G. C. Procaccini, Martyrdom of Sts. Nazarius and Celsus, 1606 53 Anonymous, Processional Cross of Charles Borromeo 58 G. B. Crespi, “Il Cerano,” Martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria, 1604 59 Aureliano Luini, Musical Angels, ca. 1580 77 A. Luini, Angels with a Musical Canon 78 The nivola carrying a priest with the Santo Chiodo, ca. 1950 140 G. P. Bianchi, Catafalque for Queen Isabella of Spain, Milan, 1644 157 Anonymous, Procession for Peace among Christian Princes, Milan, 4 November 1638 161 Carlo Francesco Nuvoloni, The Artist’s Family, ca. 1650 374 xi
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music examples
1.1 2.1 2.2 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 6.1 6.2 6.3 7.1 7.2a 7.2b 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.10 7.11
Serafino Cantone, Audite me, divini fructus a 8 (1599) 6 Giulio Cesare Gabussi, Beata Agata a 3 (1608) 41 Giovanni Paolo Cima, Veni, sponsa Christi a 1 (1610) 60 Ambrosian chant, Lucernarium Quoniam tu illuminas 129 Chant and Vincenzo Pellegrini, Lucernarium Quoniam tu illuminas (1619) 130 Anonymous, Recessit pastor noster a 8 (ca. 1588) 149 Gabussi, Defecit gaudium cordis nostri a 8 (1589) 154 Orfeo Vecchi, Cantantibus organis a 6 (1610) 174 G. B. Stefanini, Cantantibus organis a 6 (1610) 179 Pellegrini, Cantantibus organis a 4 (1619) 183 Gabussi, Sperent in te omnes a 5 (1586) 196 Orlandus Lassus, Veni in hortum meum a 5 (1562) 198 Giuseppe Gallo (after Lassus), Veni in hortum meum a 8 (1598) 199 Vecchi, Missa Io son ferito a 5 (1588), Kyrie I 204 Cantone, Ch’io t’ami a 5 (1591) 207 Vecchi, Congratulamini mihi omnes a 5 (1597) 212 Guglielmo Arnone, Dilectus meus a 5 (1599) 216 Cantone, Officium hebdomadae sanctae a 5 (1603), Feria quinta, lectio II 218 Gabussi, Hymn Miraculum laudabile a 4–5 (1619), stanza 10 223 Gabussi, Lucernarium Quoniam in te eripiar, day Mass of Corpus Domini (1619) 224 Cantone, Ecce sacerdos magnus/Sancte Simpliciane a 8 (1599) 227 Antonio Mortaro, Plaudat nunc organis a 8 (1599) 232 xiii
xiv 7.12 7.13 7.14 7.15 7.16 7.17 7.18 7.19 7.20 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 8.8 8.9 8.10 8.11 8.12 8.13 8.14 8.15 8.16 8.17 8.18 8.19 8.20 8.21 8.22 8.23 8.24 8.25 8.26 8.27 9.1 9.2 9.3
music e xamples Gabussi, Ah dolente partita a 5 (1598) 237 Gabussi, Surge, amica mea a 2 (1608) 240 Girolamo Baglione, Maria Magdalene a 4 (1608) 242 G. P. Cima, O dulcedo melliflua a 1 (1610) 244 G. P. Cima, Mirabile mysterium a 4 (1610) 246 Giulio Cesare Ardemanio, Vidi speciosam a 6 (1610) 251 Stefanini, O sacramentum pietatis a 7 (1608) 255 Ottavio Bariola, Canzona “Il Gobo Nan” a 4 (1594) 258 Massimiliano Nuvoloni, Sentite ancora questa bizzaria a 3 (1608) 259 Giovanni Ghizzolo, O mi fili a 4 (1611) 263 Ghizzolo, Ad Dominum cum tribularer a 4 (1611) 266 Ardemanio, Consolare, o mater a 1 (1612) 271 G. D. Rognoni, Una es, o Maria a 2 (1615) 273 Flaminio Comanedo, Gaudens gaudebo a 4 (1615) 275 Pellegrini, Nativitas tua, Dei genitrix a 5 (1619) 276 Orazio Nantermi, Quae est ista? a 4 (1620) 280 Pellegrini, Posthymn Ipse lignum a 5 (1619) 286 G. D. Rognoni, Ambrosian Litanies a 4 (1623) 289 Pellegrini, Missa Ecce sacerdos magnus (1619), Benedictus 292 Michelangelo Nantermi, Anima del cor mio a 5 (1609) 295 F. Rognoni, Parlo, misero, o taccio? a 5 (1613) 296 F. Rognoni, Pallidetto mio sole a 5 (1613) 299 F. Rognoni, Io vo’ piangendo i miei passati tempi a 5 (1613) 303 Comanedo, Schiera d’aspri martiri a 5 (1615) 307 Ghizzolo, Gioite voi co ’l canto a 1 (1613) 309 Ghizzolo, Vien dal ciel, o dal mare a 2 (1613) 310 P. P. Torre, Che dar piu` vi poss’io? a 2 (1622) 311 Ardemanio, Musica concertata a 1–5 (1628), “Spera, spera pastore” 313 Arnone, Consolamini, popule meus a 8 (1625) 315 F. Rognoni, Flavit auster a 5 (1624) 319 Cantone, Ave suavis Maria a 4 (1625) 326 G. B. Ala, Consolare, o mater a 2 (1621) 330 F. Rognoni, Ave virgo benedicta a 1 (1626) 332 Ardemanio, Quo abiit dilectus tuus? a 3 (1626) 333 G. D. Rognoni, Tu gloria Jerusalem a 3 (1626) 335 Lorenzo Frissoni, Una es, o Maria a 4 (1626) 339 M. A. Grancini, Quam vilis a 2 (1631) 342 Ignazio Donati, Ingressa Justus si morte praeoccupatus (ca. 1633) 344 Donati, Psalm Exaltabo te, Domine a 18 (ca. 1633) 346
music e xamples 9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8 9.9 9.10 9.11 9.12 9.13 9.14 9.15
Donati, Psalm Deus misereatur nobis a 19 (ca. 1635) 347 Donati, Psalm Eructavit cor meum a 19 (ca. 1633) 351 Donati, Psalm Deus misereatur nobis a 19 (ca. 1633) 353 Donati, Magnificat a 18 (ca. 1633), opening 358 Donati, Psalm Domine, quis habitabit? a 19 (ca. 1633) 359 Antonio Maria Turati, Offertory from Missa in exequiis reginae Hispaniarum a 4 (1644) 362 Turati, Jubilate populi, exultate gentes a 3 (ca. 1645) 363 Francesco della Porta, O Maria, vera caritas a 2 (1651) 365 Porta, O quam bonus es a 2 (1648) 368 Turati, Ingredere, augustissima prole a 8 (1649) 372 Turati, Consolare, o mater a 2 (1651) 376 Turati, Gaude, mater Jerusalem a 8 (ca. 1645) 378
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abbreviations
Library sigla A-Wn D-As D-MU¨s D-Rp D-Rtt E-VAcp Gb-Och I-AOc I-Ib I-Mb I-Mfd I-Rc I-Tn I-VIGsa PL-Kj US-BEm US-Cn US-Cu
Vienna, O¨sterreichische Nationalbibliothek Augsburg, Staats-und Stadtbibliothek Mu¨nster, Dio¨zesanbibliothek, Santini-Bibliothek Regensburg, Bischo¨fliche Zentralbibliothek, Proske-Musikbibliothek Regensburg, Fu¨rst Thurn und Taxis Hofbibliothek Valencia, Real Colegio-Seminario del Corpus Christi (Patriarca), Archivo Oxford, Christ Church Library Aosta, Cattedrale, Biblioteca Capitolare Isola Bella, Archivio Borromeo Milan, Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense Milan, Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo, ArchivioBiblioteca Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria Vigevano, Biblioteca del Capitolo della Cattedrale Cracow, Biblioteka Jagiellon´ska Berkeley, University of California, Music Library Chicago, Newberry Library Chicago, University of Chicago, Joseph Regenstein Library, Special Collections
Other abbreviations AA AGS AL ASBM
Archivio ambrosiano (Milan, 1949–) Archivio General de Simancas, Spain Arte lombarda (Milan, 1955–) Archivio Storico dei Barnabiti, Milan
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ab b r e v iat i o ns ASCM ASDM
ASL ASM
AVFD
BA BCM
BT CEKM DBI DCA DLA IIMSC
II.P.A.B ISS New Grove II
NV
PL RRMB RRMR RSCA SdM
Archivio Storico Civico, Milan Archivio Storico Diocesano, Milan (sezione in Roman numerals) DSA: Duplicati e Status Animarum SmpSC: Archivio di S. Maria presso S. Celso DC: Debito e Credito; GdC: Giornale di Cassa; LM: Libro Mastro; OD: Ordinanze Diverse 1583–1692; SR: Sedute Registri Archivio storico lombardo (Milan, 1889–) Archivio di Stato, Milan (p.a., parte antica; “Fondo” omitted) RCS: Registre delle cancellerie dello Stato Archivio della Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo, Milan AD: Autori diversi AS: Archivio Storico (numbers as busto/fascicolo/ documento) MdC: Maestri di capella OC: Ordini capitolari Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan Biblioteca Capitolare e Archivio della Metropolitana, Milan DdC: Fondo Liturgico, “Diari dei cerimonieri’ Biblioteca Trivulziana, Milan Corpus of Early Keyboard Music (NeuhausenStuttgart) Dizionario biografico degli italiani (Rome, 1962– ) Dizionario della chiesa ambrosiana (Milan, 1990–94) Dizionario di liturgia ambrosiana (Milan, 1995) Italian Instrumental Music of the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries, ed. J. Ladewig (New York, 1987–95) Istituzioni per la Pubblica Assistenza Beneficaria, Milan Italian Secular Song, 1606–1636, ed. G. Tomlinson (New York, 1986) The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed., ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London, 2001) Bibliografia della musica italiana vocale profana pubblicata dal 1500 al 1700, ed. Emil Vogel, Alfred Einstein, Franc¸ois Lesure, and Claudio Sartori (Pomezia, 1977) Patrologia Latina Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era (Madison, Wis.) Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance (Madison, Wis.) Ricerche storiche sulla chiesa ambrosiana (Milan, 1955– 74) Storia di Milano (Milan, 1957– )
abbrev iations
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Partbook and voice types are abbreviated as: C Canto, Cantus S Soprano Mz Mezzo-soprano A Alto, Altus T Tenor, Tenore Bar Baritone B Basso, Bassus BC Basso continuo Bp Basso principale BpO Basso per l’organo/Bassus pro Organo Org Organo Part Partitura Clef names use the letter/line system; pitch is designed in the Helmholtz system (middle C ⫽ c⬘). I have not expanded the following abbreviations in documentary citations: D. (Dominus/o/i; Don); M. (molto); Ill. (Illustrissimo/a/i); R.do/i (Reverendo/i); S.r (Signore/a); Sig.a (Signoria). I have presumed the entries on the city and its composers to be found in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, rev. ed. by L. Finscher (Kassel and Stuttgart, 1994–) and The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed., ed. S. Sadie (New York and London, 2001).
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a note on money
Most payments were made in the Milanese system, in which the lira imperiale (a nonmetallic currency, and the normal unit of payment for salaries and the like) was divided into twenty soldi or 240 denari. Its value obviously fluctuated, but in 1610 it was worth 5.16 gr of silver. Large coins included the scudo and doppia (gold), and the ducatone and filippo (silver); the scudo was worth around L. 6. To make equivalents is always difficult. By way of example, a couple who served to keep up a house and workshop for its (non-resident) owner in 1624 received a yearly wage (besides room and board) of L. 180, probably sufficient for daily living expenses in the case of a “working-class” couple without children. On the other end, a small workshop in the central parish of S. Tecla was sold in 1599 for L. 3000, a large sum. (Examples come from S. D’Amico, Le contrade e la citta`, 126 and 86.)
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Part I SPACES AND THEIR MUSICS
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1 The Sonic Expressions of Urban Identity
Amid the surrounding sights and sounds on the afternoon of 30 November 1598, Guido Mazenta had every reason to be proud of himself and his city. Over the summer and autumn, the prefect of the paleo-Christian basilica of San Lorenzo, amateur poet, hydraulic engineer, and future civic official (vicario della provisione) had been involved in the design of the seven arches erected for the day along the streets leading from Milan’s southern gate of Porta Romana to its cathedral. This mile-long route was to be taken by the fourteen-year-old Habsburg princess Margaret of Austria as she entered the city on her westward journey from Ferrara, where she had just been formally married in absentia to the new lord of Spanish Lombardy, Philip III. The union, bridging the two parts of the Habsburg realms, took on special import in light of the death two weeks previously of the emperor’s father, Philip II, whose forty-year reign had stabilized the city’s political situation. As always, the royal entry posed the question of the often tense relationship between ruler and ruled, and the city’s districts had just finished the ritual of their formal recognition of the new Habsburg as their ruler. The arches, each with a Latin inscription in praise of a Habsburg (or Imperial representative), began just outside the city’s escarpment: the first in stone featuring a large pearl, symbolizing the queen’s name “Margarita,” followed by wooden ones; the second placed inside the gate of the new walls erected by Milan’s governor Ferrante Gonzaga between 1549 and 1569; a third on the long Corso di Porta Romana, inside the previous city perimeter; a fourth where the Corso narrowed, between the churches of San Nazaro and San Giovanni in Conca; a fifth just outside the cathedral square (all these financed by the city); a sixth inside the Duomo’s piazza; and a seventh at the doors of the cathedral (these two, in ecclesiastical urban space, funded by the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo, its administrative board).1 Margaret’s route retraced the via porticata and the cardo maximus of Roman Mediolanum, and it took place on the first Monday of (Roman-rite) Advent, thus linking her entrance with both the ancient and the soteriological. Finished within a week, the written account of the queen’s entry, prefaced by Mazenta, shared the generic norms and even the turns of phrase typical of such 3
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spaces and their m usics
pamphlets. At the beginning of the entry around two o’clock, the description claimed that the staging was highlighted by the triumph of the elements over the gray Lombard autumn, resorting to a popular metaphor, the theatrum mundi, for the city’s transfiguration: It seemed then that, as this new dawn [Margaret] prepared to enter, the sun also dissolved all the dark clouds, and Milan became the most spacious theater of the whole world; since such was the press of natives and foreigners who gathered to see Her Royal Majesty, and the magnificent pomp of her entry into the city, that one thought that Milan, large as it was, could not contain so many people.2
The entry would have taken its way slowly along the Corso, turning right into the tightly packed city center just before its end. The intersection of empire and city was evident in the number of Habsburg dominions represented in Margaret’s entourage and the dozens of civic officials who greeted her. The Imperial party was headed by her new sister-in-law Isabella Clara Eugenia, archduchess of the Spanish Netherlands, and her half-brother-in-law, the archduke Albert, while the city’s Senate, magistrates, and clergy were also part of the welcome. Habsburg and civic institutions also combined at the sonic announcement and punctuation of the three-hour procession, even so not long enough: As Her Majesty approached [Porta Romana], the castle’s musicians [i.e., the Spanish garrison band] and the city’s trumpeters, dressed in white and red, divided into two parts on the wall, began to play antiphonally, with long silver trumpets . . . Everyone thought that she passed too quickly . . . and wondered whether Her Majesty had sufficiently admired the due honors, the apparati, and the arches, or had heard the sweet consorts staffed by famous musicians who, near each arch, made the happiest name of Margaret of Austria resound with angelic voices and exquisite instruments one by one, in various songs composed to that end.3
At a dusk illuminated by the candles placed in all the city’s windows, making the artisans’ narrow streets (the contrade) shine as if at noon, polyphony also marked her ingress into the ceremonial heart of Milan: At day’s end, Her Majesty also finished her voyage, and as she arrived and dismounted at the cathedral’s door, she saw it so filled with people that the entire city seemed to be found inside that vast church, and nowhere else. There the Te Deum laudamus, along with other motets composed for the occasion, was sung by four choirs with the organs, and after receiving the blessing from Monsignor the Legate [Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini], she entered [the Duomo].4
The Music of an Entry Mazenta’s account reveals some of the conditions of culture and music in Milan: the interplay of secular and sacred sentiment in the ritual action; the ways in which the city itself became as a staging place (theatrum) for wider forces (in addition to
the s onic expressions of urban identity
5
the theatrical entertainments that followed the entrance); the bursts of polyphony at ephemeral sites funded by long-standing urban institutions; and the symbolic importance of the sonic marking of space and passage inside the wall, capped by the performance (probably in a polyphonic setting involving all the cathedral’s singers) of the Te Deum, the hymn believed to have been written in the city twelve hundred years before by its patron, St. Ambrose.5 In the city’s Ambrosian rite, the day was also one of the saint’s three feasts (his Baptism), and the queen’s entrance thus resonated with local tradition. The extant musical products occasioned by Margaret’s entry and subsequent twomonth stay were several: the elaborate court dancing recorded in Cesare Negri’s Le gratie d’Amore (1602), but also the printed edition of eight-voice motets for festive occasions composed by the Benedictine organist at the monastery of San Simpliciano, Serafino Cantone (ca. 1565–ca. 1630), dedicated to Margaret the following 1 January. A similar motet book by the second organist at the cathedral, Guglielmo Arnone (ca. 1570–1630), was inscribed the next summer to Albert.6 And there was other, unpreserved, music in those days: the dances in the contrade’s festivities, the queen’s visits to the urban Marian shrine of Santa Maria presso San Celso and its neighboring foundling hospital, and the polyphonic Vespers sung by the Franciscan nuns at San Bernardino delle Monache on 13 January in honor of the visitors.7 The piety and artistic interests of the young princess would have led her to hear the music as not only formal sound but also fascinating samples of urban expressive culture.8 Cantone’s edition, his Sacrae cantiones etc. octonis vocibus, opened with a mass modeled on Claudio Merulo’s five-voice madrigal Dalle perle e rubini, a choice evidently due to Margaret’s name as well as to the model-like nature of Merulo’s elegantly crafted linear counterpoint.9 Like the gigantic pearl emblazoned on the first of the entrance arches, the print began with an emblematic invocation of the sovereign. The most strikingly unusual motet text of Cantone’s collection, Audite me, divini fructus, is a passage from Ecclesiasticus, previously set by no European composer, evidently alluding to the benediction of the young bride (together with Albert and Isabella ) in propagating the Habsburg line: “Listen to me, divine offspring, and flourish like a rose planted by living waters; bud, you flowers, like the lily, give forth your smell of frankincense and bring forth leaves in grace; gather your song, and praise the Lord in all His works.”10 Cantone could have found his rather obscure verses in his Benedictine congregation’s breviary, part of the monastic canticle at Matins for feasts of Mary and of virgin saints; it was also chanted on the feast of the Visitation (2 July), the commemoration of another urban entrance that invoked betrothal, family, and reproduction.11 Although the words were directly applicable to the future of Margaret, Albert, and their spouses (quite literally divine children according to medieval theories of kingship), their broader contemporary exegesis—the verses of Wisdom prophesying success and salvation for all the children of the Church—held equally for any Milanese who heard them.12 The laudatory and optimistic spirit of the text became increasingly typical of the city’s intellectual temperament for the next three decades. And its floral symbolism, a semantic field capable of connoting Marian, amatory, or martyriological meaning, would recur in many urban cultural products of the next century. The composer’s formal choice, an antiphonal instrumental canzona with the two
6
spaces and their m usics example 1.1 C1
& c #˙
Serafino Cantone, Audite me, divini fructus a 8 (1599), mm. 1–25
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vocal choirs trading motives, phrases, and periods, was innovative in the genre (ex. 1.1). Cantone selected a typical mode (9), and the short phrases of the text’s opening might have led him to employ a half-step mi—fa idea in the outer voices as a flexible declamatory module leading to the close of the exordium (“fructificate”). The canzona-like rhythm and equal musical periods would have been suggested by the accentuation of the text. The conventions of the instrumental form might also have occasioned him to omit the canticle’s second verse so as to begin with two similarly structured imperatives. Thus the second, parallel command (“florete flores”) was set to a variation of the opening period, as was normative in a canzona.13 Cantone linked internal rhythmic contrast to musical referentiality with a triple-time phrase for “gather your song.” The piece ended, again typically for a canzona, with a da capo of the opening twenty-three measures, repeating the initial imperative, changed only to cadence with an echo of the last tutti heard (“in all His works”) before the return of the opening. Given the relatively static affect of the passage, Cantone’s setting logically remained largely bound to its modal finalis, reiterating A as a cadential point of articulation repeatedly throughout the motet.
the s onic expressions of urban identity example 1.1 6
C1
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Continued
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occasion, Audite me was reprinted in a Nuremberg anthology, copied into two South German miscellanies (one Catholic, one Lutheran) as well as into an organ tablature (minus its words), part of the circulation of some Milanese music north of the Alps.16 Some version of its text was also set by later composers at least six times, in one case addressed to another Habsburg bride, Eleonora Gonzaga in Vienna, by Giovanni Felice Sances in 1638.17 Despite the nexus of cross-fertilizing genres and social meanings for sacred texts evident in Cantone’s motet, the net musical results of the entrance accounts are sketchy: no trace of the madrigals in Margaret’s honor, let alone of the trumpeters’ flourishes, remains. And whatever else might have been that day’s music for most city dwellers—the spinners, bargemen, and metalworkers who produced the wealth indirectly funding editions like Cantone’s—is lost forever. The queen herself would live only another thirteen years. But the memory of her visit, and her interest in the city, remained in urban memory. The accounts of her Milanese exequies in 1611 testify to the public grief at her passing, the occasion
the s onic expressions of urban identity example 1.1
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a half-finished Duomo looking more like a construction site than a cathedral, a Gothic mammoth arising unexpectedly amid a warren of artisans’ workshops, noble palazzi, and teeming houses.21 For the city’s panegyrists, its other extraordinary edifices were devoted to sanitation or administration: two hospitals and the archbishop’s residence. Its prestige from antiquity was embodied in its paleo-Christian churches. But there were other prospects: the far greener area on the urban periphery, between the core and Gonzaga’s new walls; the ubiquitous canals (navigli, now largely covered) that circled and infiltrated the city, linking it to the commerce of the rivers Po and Ticino; and the socially stratified districts fanning out from the Duomo, identified by one of the six main gates (clockwise from the north: Comasina, Nuova, Orientale, Romana, Ticinese, and Vercellina). The residents of each district, accompanied by the city’s trumpeters and chanting clergy, brought oblations to the cathedral every summer. Each porta included the concentric arrangement of the contrade, including the teeming poor neighborhoods, home to some musicians, around the southern and northern gates. All of the districts were united by the omnipresence of ritually
the s onic expressions of urban identity
11
demarcated areas: parish churches, stational crosses, Marian shrines, neighborhood charitable-devotional chapels (luoghi pii), female monasteries.22 Milan had its pan-urban markers as a holy city. The most obvious analogy was the miniature reproduction of Calvary in the church of San Sepolcro, 500 yards away from the Duomo’s entrance, a structure that underlined the city’s claim to represent Jerusalem. The stational crosses combined this general idea with local antiquity. But most prestigious was the Holy Nail, the Sacro Chiodo, preserved in a reliquary up in the cathedral’s apse. Every 3 May (the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross), a cleric ascended to its resting place and brought it down; it was then carried in solemn procession to S. Sepolcro and back, remaining on the Duomo’s high altar for two days in a Forty Hours’ exposition. Its possession was one of the city’s glories, and its liturgical celebration generated a good deal of polyphony. The various sacred sites reminded the Milanese of their place in a supernatural world order and provided loci for civic and personal identification. They would also be differentially marked by polyphony. No seventeenth-century creation like Rome in its structure or details, Milan retained its concentric form and medieval fabric, evident in Marc’Antonio Barateri’s famous map of 1629 (fig. 1.1). An actual view of the city’s northern and central zones by Giovanni Lampugnani and Bernardino Bassano, dating from 1640, gives some sense of the structure provided by the major buildings (fig. 1.2). At the center were the dual edifices of ecclesiastical and temporal prestige, the Duomo and the ducal palace; but much of the city’s activity (not least its music) radiated outward into the contrade. Like other premodern centers, the city consisted of layers of variably organized space, and the sonic composition of these spaces was a distinct part of their identity.
A Place and Its History From prints, maps, and urban panegyrics we can gain some idea of Milan’s visual appearance, which changed little in the century after the completion of the new walls. It is harder to re-create the aural world of a city dweller at a given moment: amid the slow spread of polyphony in the late Cinquecento, at the beginning of archbishop Federigo Borromeo’s tenure;23 or in the urban self-assertion for the canonization of the most famous Milanese in modern times, Federigo’s cousin and predecessor Carlo, and Borromeo’s opening of the Ambrosiana Library, around 1610; or after the ideological dislocation of the plague years 1630–31. Both the context and structures of works by city composers—men and women such as Orfeo Vecchi (ca. 1551–1603), Giovanni Paolo Cima (ca. 1570–ca. 1630), Claudia Rusca (ca. 1593–1676), or Michelangelo Grancini (ca. 1605–69)—are little known today, thus rendering the perception of novelty more difficult. In an overall perspective, the places of musical creation must have borne some relation to the symbolic hierarchy of urban sites, but they were also far from coextensive. The city’s strategic importance in Europe was doubted by few. On his Italian journey Montaigne both overestimated Milan’s population and recognized its centrality to peninsular power.24 Spanish officials called it simply the “llave de Italia.”
12
spaces and their musics
figure 1.1
Marc’Antonio Baratieri, Plan of Milan, 1629 (by permission of Civica Raccolta delle Stampe “A. Bertarelli,” Milan)
At several points, its inhabitants surpassed 100,000 and it continued to hold its historic place as the fulcrum between Italy and the north.25 Despite upheavals, urban life flourished, rebounding after the economic depression of the mid-1580s and again after the contagion of 1629–31.26 It thus usually ranked about third among the five Italian “super-cities” (in 1600, it was seventh among all European centers).27 Given its political status, it also seemed to share many features with Naples, an idea developed in a manuscript comparison of the two cities by the Milanese patrician Giacobo Valeri, dedicated to its archbishop Cesare Monti in 1635.28 Though far from Rome’s stature, the Lombard capital still partook of several aspects of the standard anthropological typology of early modern European cities: it was a place of ritual and prestige (evident in its local liturgy and its position as the “key to Italy” for the north); it housed important trade and manufacture, and was thus a hinge for its overwhelmingly rural hinterland; and it was a vital administrative post for both its Spanish Habsburgs and their clan, the Austrians of the Holy Roman Empire.29 The value of its characteristics was evident in the fame of its textiles but also its religious structures, and even in the renown of its musical nuns.
figure 1.2
G. B. Lampugnani, View of Milan, 1640 (by permission of Civica Raccolta delle Stampe “A. Bertarelli,” Milan)
14
s p ac e s an d t h e i r musi c s
Recent historical studies have revised the nineteenth-century view of the city’s double oppression by Spanish rule and ecclesiastical tyranny, although certain legends, such as that of Borromean omnipotence, have died hard.30 The Iberian governor and grand chancellor both exercised control through local officials and cooperated with the traditional institutions: the patrician Senate, the magistrato straordinario, the vicario di provvisione, and the two councils of the decurions and the Giureconsulti.31 The city’s economic growth into the early Seicento, and more difficult times thereafter, were mediated by a delicate political arrangement among the local patriciate, the governor appointed by Madrid, and the archdiocese, the last with enormous temporal influence. Rather than a simple two- or three-party antagonism or alliance, however, the multiplicity of urban authority is evident; polysided disputes over legal jurisdiction, church benefices, and the devotional expression of piety marked much of Federigo’s tenure.32 As a result, Church-State conflicts and ecclesiastical politics are more familiar than is the patrician world.33 For music, these power-sharing strategies in the city resulted in a multiplicity of possibilities for patronage, and a means to survive the crises, great and small, that marked the seeming stasis of Spanish rule. The major events in the city’s history are well known. At the beginning, it rebounded from the plague of 1576, and the succeeding decades saw economic and cultural vitality. But the War of the Mantuan Succession (1612) and the ongoing drain of Spanish power in the Low Countries began to undermine prosperity. And the State of Milan’s involvement in the Thirty Years War, including French/Savoyard attacks, the repeat of the Mantuan conflict, and the second plague of 1630, led to greater problems. After the second contagion, the city came back to life, culminating in a momentary break in the hostilities after the Treaty of Westphalia at the end of our period.34 To sample urban cultural products of this time suggests, on one hand, a shared transcendent, religious, and hierarchical worldview of its castes and classes, in which city dwellers all partook of some sort of Milanese identity that reinforced their position as Catholics, feudal subjects, and dialect speakers. But the seeming unity was deeply contested, as even the briefest exposure to the documentary evidence highlights the disagreements over social articulation, political power-sharing, and even the use of polyphony in the female monasteries. The concentration of conflict and accord in one place thus raises the issue of whether there were urban qualities to the music stronger than the contemporary characterization of individuals on the basis of their birthplace, not their adult residences: namely, the ways in which the city’s institutions, norms, and culture catalyzed polyphony at given points. In light of such conflicts and commonalities, the revisionist historiography of urban decline both helps and complicates a new view of the city’s music. One approach has chronicled economic growth and decline, attacking “refeudalization” theories of property relations; but musical life, while subject to economic fluctuations, does not seem to correlate directly, except in the most extreme cases, with such trends.35 Another has accentuated the diffusion, alliances, and strategies of political power in the State of Milan, but has not yet reached the question of how culture might have fit into such collaboration.36 A third has highlighted the flourishing of religious life and expression, while still concentrating on the centrality of the two
the s onic expressions of urban identity
15
Borromeos, often presuming a strongly harmonious and apolitical character of popular sacred culture, ideas simply not present in the surviving evidence.37 The city’s music partook of a wide range of “high” and “low” styles and genres, and thus all these aspects bear on its flourishing. Many preserved records of cultural activity—literary academies, painting and music in churches, theatrical entertainments in palaces—are due to members, lay or religious, of patrician or wealthy commercial families. Equally vital, but now almost irretrievable, were the expressive means of merchants, artisans, and laborers, who continued the city’s tradition of silk, wool, and metalwork production, and its central role for agriculture and trade. But, as several cases of repertories studied below indicate, the division between patrician and popular culture was not pronounced; influences and borrowings ran in both directions. Although the musics existed in the same city, the various spaces of Milan hosted different styles and genres, and individuals experienced (and created) sound along a continuum from chant to traditional song to complex polyphony.
Music in Its Place Mazenta’s account of one central moment in urban self-enactment suggests that music might have carried a considerable specific weight among the media of communication and symbolic figuration, one not reducible to simple parallels with the other arts. Beyond the mute testimony of prints, paintings, and panoramas, urban culture both “high” and “low” was, in important ways, vocal. The most obvious case in which the sounds of the city were made into an object of art was the polyphonic setting of the calls of the olive-oil and acquavita sellers in the market of the Verziere behind the Duomo, along with the ubiquitous washerwomen and chimney sweeps in Grancini’s Capriccio sopra le arti milanesi of 1646).38 But even more vitally, in an era of limited literacy (even among some musicians), the propagation of the words (not exactly “texts” in a literary sense) and actions central to society’s self-understanding occurred largely through sound: preaching, fanfares, chant, and polyphony. For the city’s population, daily and sacral time itself was marked by the pealing of the bells and the chanting of Marian antiphons in several churches at dusk. Music-making seems to have been far more common than the amount of the surviving repertory would indicate, and the activity itself placed the musician, amateur or professional, in touch with the divinely created order of the cosmos in a way unique to the art. Although the surviving musical evidence is largely comprised of composed and notated polyphony, improvisation played an important role in all repertories. The sonic projection of the belief systems which informed Milan was of great importance in the expression of urban ideology, although (in some cases for good reason) its practice often lacked the international renown of Rome or Venice, with the notable exception of music in the female monasteries. In his encomium of the famed singer Claudia Sessa (ca. 1575–ca. 1617), a Lateran Canoness nun at Santa Maria Annunciata, the South Netherlands rhetorician and temporary resident Erycius Puteanus (1574–1646) adduced her performances as a mark
16
s p ac e s an d t h e i r musi c s
of the worth of vocal music, dating back to antiquity.39 For Federigo and many others, the singing of such women was perhaps the highest form of music and prayer in the city.40 The question, then, is not so much one of the musical production of ideology as it is of the ways in which chant and polyphony encapsulated and symbolized the belief system of the city’s residents. The civic character of music rested, on the most superficial levels, on the sonic markers unique to or characteristic of the city (Ambrosian chant, nuns’ choirs) and, on a more structural plane, on its power to impart affect and meaning to texts and symbolic action, an activity for which the distinction between sacred and secular is largely meaningless.41 The production, distribution, and interpretation of the repertory were essentially social. The devotion of the city’s inhabitants and the formative role of ecclesiastical institutions combined to produce a surviving repertory consisting largely of Latintexted ritual or para-ritual polyphony for the Office, Mass, or private devotion; its existence must reflect a need for the polyphonic expression of such sentiment. Far fewer vernacular pieces, for courtly entertainment, domestic singing, or spiritual recreation, have been transmitted, although it would be a mistake to conclude that proportionally less of such music was to be heard. Although there are references to systems and occasions of stage music, the subject of excellent recent study, the musical components of the surviving theatrical repertory are fugitive until the performance of Cavalli’s Giasone in 1649.42 Afterwards, the documentation becomes clearer.43 With the exception of musicians attached to the band of the governor’s court, almost every composer in this study held a church appointment, full- or part-time.44 The production of the city’s music presses was comprised in good part by sacred works. Yet, far from reflecting the tyranny of an omnipotent and monolithic church hierarchy (an idea not really applicable even to the editions associated with the Duomo), a variety of social and devotional accents is evident, and it is misleading to separate sacred music from the differentiated urban world that produced it. Indeed, the competition for audiences and prestige among the shrines would increasingly be expressed in musical attractions. The intellectual economy of the city also influenced its production of music. Milan’s cultural output, if not always original, was often far-reaching in its hinterlands: the distribution of words provided on the one hand by the presses and on the other by the city’s training institutes for rhetoric, the Palatine Schools and the diocesan seminary. Within the broader framework of the local printing industry, Milanese music publishing grew from total eclipse after the 1576 plague to become the second in Italy, producing some 320 editions between 1583 and 1651, largely for a regional market in Lombardy, Piedmont, and Liguria. Composers working in the city were responsible for 135 of these (of which 112 survive), and they also had fifty-three (fortyeight survive) produced in Venice.45 The musical repertory was propagated by three firms, with two functioning simultaneously for much of the period: the Tini family (active 1585–1612) and their later partner Filippo Lomazzo (1603–30), but also Agostino Tradate (1598–1612) and Giorgio Rolla (1619–51).46 Most of the music survives only in printed editions (with the important exception of the Duomo’s repertory in the 1630s and 1640s), thus at first glance evincing more universal norms of presentation and less evidence for the site-specific origin of pieces.47
the s onic expressions of urban identity
17
Over time, the city became an irreplaceable site for music, its ensembles not to be found in the extra-urban institutions of the diocese, while the interchange of genres, the spread of texts to be set, or the printed propagation of the repertory were unthinkable outside the walls. Inside them, musicians living in the poor and crowded neighborhoods of Porta Ticinese and Porta Romana, like the ducal chapel singer Fabio Varese (ca. 1570–1630), or Riccardo Rognoni and his sons Giovanni Domenico (ca. 1574–1622) and Francesco (ca. 1588–ca. 1630), met, interacted, learned, and fought, the careers of these men thus reflecting a musical urbanization.48 The differing sonic environments—both acoustically and in terms of repertory—of the churches, monasteries, and palaces of the city provided an aural counterpoint to the symbolic hierarchy of prestigious sites in the city, but the musically renowned institutions did not necessarily coincide with the famous places noted by visitors and panegyrists. This study commences just after 1580, a time of ends and beginnings: the start of a brief economic depression, the departure of the cathedral’s choirmaster Pietro Ponzio (1582), and the death of its archbishop Carlo Borromeo (and its organist Giuseppe Caimo, both in 1584). In particular, the loss of Caimo on 6 May 1584, while in his mid-thirties, seemed a setback to the city’s musical life.49 But the following years marked new initiatives: the waning of the future saint’s most restrictive policies against polyphony in the city, starting already under his chosen successor Gaspare Visconti (in office 1585–94); the reestablishment of music publishing; a new maestro at the cathedral from 1583, Giulio Cesare Gabussi (ca. 1555–1611); and the spread of genres secular and sacred to the palaces and parishes of patricians and producers.50 Federigo Borromeo’s ascent to the see in 1595 roughly coincided with the institutionalization of, and increase in, polyphony in the city, in part due to his own aesthetic liberalism.51 The growth of music paralleled other cultural trends, especially the production of painters influenced by both the new classical realism of the Carracci and by the two-generation-old legacy of Mannerism. After 1590, a first set of artists from the Campi and Luini families, along with Ambrogio Figino, was supplanted by the Procaccini (Camillo, Carlo Antonio, Giulio Cesare) from Bologna.52 The other major painters of the new century—Il Cerano (Giovanni Battista Crespi), Il Morazzone (Pier Francesco Mazzuchelli), joined later by the two Fiammenghini brothers (Giovanni Mauro and Giovanni Battista della Rovere) and Daniele Crespi—had numerous commissions in urban shrines and palaces. Some of their works were produced for the very churches employing the singers and composers who were creating this study’s repertory. Thus Milanese churches’ preexistent and new decoration, embodying and channeling urban devotion, might well have related to the music (especially motets) sounding around it.53 The architectural neoclassicism evident in numerous ecclesiastical buildings of Carlo’s era by Martino Bassi and Pellegrino Tibaldi was first modified and then replaced by the next generation, primarily Aurelio Trezzi, Fabio Mangone, and Francesco Maria Ricchino.54 And the literary output of the city, although largely unknown, was by no means uninteresting. It included the tragicomedies produced in the Brera college or the theatrical works for the ducal palace in the years around 1620, between Federico Della Valle’s arrival in Milan and Emanuele Tesauro’s first experiments. Epideictic rhetoric was produced in churches, city schools, and the academies (e.g., the Inquieti) by rhetoricians such as Puteanus and Aquilino Coppini (both of whom
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had important connections to music), and by poets (the musically trained Girolamo Borsieri). The literary tastes of the city reflected classicizing preferences (G. B. Guarini, Gabrielo Chiabrera) as well as some of the newer Marinist trends around 1620. The anagrams, emblems, and literary conceits of the new century had important manifestations in the city, and some of their underlying structures turned out to resound in the music as well.55 The relative tranquility and artistic productiveness of the turn of the century fostered the idea, revived by such urban panegyricists as the indefatigable Gesuato friar Paolo Morigia, that Milan was a second Rome, a former capital of the Empire (in which Christianity had been legalized in 313) boasting its own four early basilicas (Sant’Ambrogio, S. Lorenzo, San Nazaro, and S. Simpliciano), and a special place as a bulwark of Catholicism.56 In 1627, the cathedral cleric Giovanni Battista Villa extended this claim, based on such analogies as the seven stational churches (the basilicas, the Duomo, Santo Stefano in Brolio, and San Vittore al Corpo) symbolically circumscribing the capital, together with the age and priority of the Ambrosian tradition and the city’s role in the empire ancient and modern.57 The interest in Christian antiquity was sparked also by Federigo’s own Roman experiences before 1595, and gave some of the background to musical thought; it also provided occasions for sanctoral devotion that also had musical reflections. Some of Milan’s own historiographers produced accounts of the city’s ancient and paleo-Christian events and surviving monuments, efforts that took on particular importance in the early seventeenth century with the codification of Ambrosian rite and the reaffirmation of a local tradition.58
The Benchmarks of Culture For all the continuity of urban structures and ideology, Milan was a somewhat different place three generations after 1585. To understand change, it is important to sort out the broader philosophical turns whose reflections were felt and heard in Milan, ranging from Pythagorean experiments to new devotional expression. Although the structural and economic shifts had a vital impact on music, the role of individual agency in catalyzing new genres or new ways to approach old genres cannot be overlooked, and several musical junctures highlight the role of key collections or pieces. The idea of the city’s musical space broaches broader problems: the balance between social order and affective participation in urban ceremony; the sonic projection of royal or sanctoral presence in the city; and the role that polyphony or chant actually played in the thaumaturgic or transformative effects of such partially prescribed action.59 But only to trace the function of motets and madrigals as expressions of ideology, palimpsests of power relations, would be to miss the sonic evidence for the mental structures of that world. The musical analyses take as their points of departure several ideas. Although theory and practice were changing in this period, the most cogently conceived and executed pieces make absolute aural sense in terms of the aesthetic priorities and musical systems of their time and place. Second, music seems not to have been considered as being exactly synonymous with literary texts. The importance
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of contemporary rhetoric is underscored by the anti-Petrarchan turn of late cinquecento theorists of sacred literature like Gabriele Fiamma, whose formulations were themselves changed at the hands of Giambattista Marino and his followers in the first decades of the new century. Although few settings of sacred vernacular poetry have survived, still the theoretical trends in religious literature provide a guide to composers’ selection and treatment of Latin texts as well.60 The few contemporary descriptions of music’s effects, some from Federigo’s pen, seem to presume that the art had its own logic, different from that of painting or poetry.61 The idiosyncratic theorist Giovanni Battista Magone in Pavia considered persuasion, the goal of rhetoric, to be shared with music.62 For sacred music, one point of comparison is the north Italian sermon. Every citizen heard at least one of these a week; the most famous orators, such as the Milanese Franciscan Francesco Panigarola (1548–94), enthralled thousands, and there were numerous printed collections of the form. Unlike other literary genres, sermons shared two features with polyphony: they were primarily acts of virtuoso performance (the structure of which was written down before or after in stylized form), and they were geared toward the projection of a sacred text to a specific audience, with both arts occurring often in the same service.63 The seventeenth century witnessed a notable change in their style, evident in the deployment of parataxis, syntactic displacement, and grammatical inversions in the works of the Milanese Paolo Aresi (1574–1644) and the Comascan Emanuele Orchi (ca. 1600–49). The most extended example of the new rhetoric is found in three lengthy, spectacularly virtuoso sermons never meant to be spoken, Marino’s 1614 Dicerie sacre.64 The second plague of 1630–31, followed by Federigo’s death and Pope Urban VIII’s selection of Cesare Monti as archbishop, formed a cultural caesura which allowed a new generation around 1640 to develop artistic tendencies only latent in Borromeo’s years: literary concettismo, dramatic pictorial styles (Ercole Procaccini the younger, Carlo Francesco Nuvolone, Francesco Cairo, Melchiorre Gherardini), and extended musical procedures based on repetition and asymmetry.65 The efflorescence of devotion found largely artistic expression: sanctoral feasts, triumphs of the Madonna, the processions of urban confraternities, Passiontide events such as the Spanish entierro, and the marking of liturgical time by theatrical or musical works. Combined with this was a newly personalized spirituality, characterized by charismatic leaders and holy women, an emphasis on internal illumination, and the individual relationship between believer and Christ.66 Nor did the musical settings represent only their creators’ personalities. A musician’s world was full of models, standard patterns, and generic norms, ranging from the melodic reminiscences of chant to the phrases of classic madrigals. Even some of the most original composers employed imitatio in their works. The values embedded in the words, sacred or secular, were by definition social. Although individuals developed characteristic ways to approach tradition, their works show the interplay between formal conventions and generational changes cutting across genres, and pieces bore not only private meaning but also more common cultural perspectives.67 This study ends around 1650 at another juncture of social and musical trends: the reestablishment of European equilibrium and a temporary lull in the FrancoSpanish hostilities that for twenty years had threatened the very survival of the State
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of Milan; the flurry of cultural activity surrounding another entry of a Habsburg princess, namely the visit in summer 1649 of Philip IV’s new bride, Maria Anna of Austria; the deaths a year later of Monti and the Duomo’s maestro Antonio Maria Turati (ca. 1604–50); the end of Rolla’s music printing; and, although no one could have foreseen it, a return to social, intellectual, and musical conflict reminiscent of Carlo Borromeo’s era, due largely to the reactionary turn of the new archbishop, Alfonso Litta.
The Place of Devotion Local practice was reenacted on a daily basis in most churches of the diocese, as, unlike most in the post-Tridentine Catholic world, it officiated in its own ancient liturgy, the Milanese (Ambrosian) rite that Carlo had fought hard to preserve. Mass and Divine Office differed notably from Roman practice, with important implications for music.68 And the Ambrosian chant dialect continued in use, at least in the cathedral, parishes, and a few churches of religious orders. Carlo’s role as model bishop underscored the city’s place as the see of the most populous diocese in Catholic Europe. Local sacred polyphony flowered in the context of a spontaneous and increasingly variegated wave of popular religious sentiment among all classes in northern Italy. Although prelates or governors could attempt to regulate the public expression of such devotion, still the traditions and support of local institutions allowed for a far wider range of daily practice than the printed rules, liturgical books, or gubernatorial edicts suggest. Carlo’s Romanizing centralization plans, evident also in his founding of new monasteries and charitable institutions, had barely modified the city’s topography; more significant were the prelate’s attempts to refashion ecclesiastical institutions and to redefine many aspects of urban life as public and thus subject to episcopal regulation.69 But as improbable as it might have seemed in the late 1570s, the long-term effects on music turned out to be far more modest. This result was due not least to the devotional currents shaping individuals’ piety: an official emphasis on personal prayer, and on the internal visualization of Passion mysteries or other images; and an upturn, only seemingly contradictory, in public events such as processions, funerals, and the coronation of Marian images.70 Federigo was particularly devoted to the Virgin, and Milan witnessed dramatic growth in the number and nature of events honoring her, and much of the city’s symbolic action revolved around her figure. In 1655, the Capuchin preacher Ignazio da Carnago equated her with a “city of refuge” for sinners. In contemporary perception, the Lombard capital was the most Marian of any Italian city. Three of its major institutions for polyphony—the cathedral (Santa Maria Nascente), S. Maria della Scala, and S. Maria presso S. Celso, not to mention twenty-nine other foundations—were dedicated to the Virgin.71 She and the Eucharist were the main devotional objects of the numerous confraternities, generally attached to the parishes, and promoted strongly by Carlo Borromeo.72 Civic devotion and political ritual also raise questions of personal identification and social belief, for instance music’s underlining the special nature of 15 August
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(Assumption) for the Milanese who flocked that day into S. Maria presso S. Celso, showing special devotion to the altar of its miraculous Marian image and statue. What fueled the cult of local martyrs such as Sts Nazarius and Celsus or Gervasius and Protasius, not to mention Milan’s patron Ambrose, commemorated by altarpieces, annual processions, and motets? And how did polyphony contribute to the city’s enactment of its hierarchies, unity, and self-conceptualization? To be sure, specifically urban ideology was evident in the context, as some rituals (the Forty Hours’ adoration of the Eucharist) had had their origins in the city and were a necessarily civic practice. Processions, regular (for Corpus Christi) or extraordinary (to counter the plague), traced some of the routes of sacred geography, and usually began or ended with sung polyphony.73 The city was also a site for the transcendent; sanctioned or discouraged by the archdiocesan curia, miracles occurred with some regularity. The reported cases include the weeping Marian image at the Lateran Canons’ church of Santa Maria della Passione in 1590, the wonders worked by Carlo Borromeo’s clothes, and the intercession of medieval beate.74 Indeed, Milan itself prefigured the Heavenly Jerusalem, immanently in the 132 sanctoral bodies, 119 saintly heads, and 2,880 other relics that Morigia dutifully tallied among the churches’ holdings.75 The polyphonic repertory flowered only in a profoundly sacral place. Milan coexisted as urbs and as civitas, on one hand the architectonic structures incorporating historical layers reaching back to the Roman and paleo-Christian city, and on the other the community of living milanesi united by custom, dialect, and not least religion. One of Grancini’s motets, set for the symbolic number of seven voices and written in strict archaizing style (“da capella”) for the extraordinary services ordered to counter the 1630 plague, recalled a medieval liturgical text invoking the apocalyptic city, one that had been placed at the portico of the church of Corvey. Closer to home, it also echoed a penitential antiphon chanted in Milan’s streets every spring during the three-day Lesser Litanies: “Enclose our city, Lord, and let your angels guard it; mercifully hear its people who cry and mourn to you. We have sinned, and all tribulations have come upon us. You are good, o Lord, have mercy on us, and grant relief to your people.”76
Local Prestige and Foreign Relations The breakdowns, such as the plague, underscore the ways in which daily reality gainsaid the completeness of the urban symbolic system. Despite the panegyric claims, the city was no Rome, politically or culturally. Even small problems—Duomo singers who missed services, physical fights among organists, unpaid ducal musicians— showed some of the difficulties of music. The accounts of foreign residents and visitors often omitted any mention whatsoever of polyphony except in the female monasteries, while the number of the city’s composers whose works transcended local bounds, to judge from the reprinting of pieces in anthologies and the ownership of editions outside the publishing market, was limited. In a first generation, there were Vecchi, Gabussi, and Cima; later, Ignazio Donati (ca. 1567–1638), Giovanni Battista Ala (ca. 1598–1630), Francesco Della Porta (ca. 1604/14–67), and Chiara Margarita
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Cozzolani (1602–ca. 1677). The provincial quality of some repertory may be traced as far back as the Bavarian resident’s negative comments on music in 1571.77 Still, some of the pieces considered here display such compositional logic and patent connection to ideology as to transcend routine in their own time and to warrant evaluation after four hundred years. For all its local traditions, the city was not isolated. Composers, singers, and theorists moved among the Italian states. Theatrical troupes brought plays and music from Venice or Florence to Milan.78 And Federigo’s personal network of patronage and support extended not only throughout the peninsula but also to Catholic Germany and the Spanish Netherlands via Puteanus. The connections of both Federigo and Monti to Rome were strong, and at crucial junctures some of its musical models would be important in the local repertory, as they were in liturgy, art, and architecture.79 At the beginning of the period, reprints, ornamentation treatises, and publications of musical contrafacts reproduced or transformed a series of model works by European figures (Palestrina, Lassus) or north Italians (Andrea Gabrieli, Claudio Merulo).80 Closer to home, singers from S. Maria presso S. Celso and the Duomo hired themselves out to neighboring cities on special occasions, while composers in Genoa and Turin (Simone Molinaro, Sigismondo d’India, Enrico Radesca) had editions published in the Lombard capital. Thus the overall picture undercuts the idea of the city as an island of conservative musical idiolects, a concept shared in modern times by both local panegyric historiography and traditional accounts centered on Florence, Rome, and Venice, and a view paralleling earlier criticism of regional painting. Evidently, by analogy to the visual arts, most of the scarce musical historiography has posited, implicitly or explicitly, a “Lombard” or “Milanese” school of composition. Some of the closest ties, however, were to the other centers of court and religious ritual nearby. Important cities for music were located inside the State of Milan: Cremona, Lodi just twenty miles south, ancient (and very Borromean) Pavia, or Novara (whose cathedral hosted influential composers from Michele Varotto [ca. 1540–97] to Gasparo Casati [ca. 1610–ca. 1640]). Further afield, the Via Emilia, the road down to the Adriatic, was ascended by a series of cathedral musicians, first from Bologna (Gabussi and his deputy Damiano Scarabelli), then from the Marches (the two choirmasters of the cathedral after Gabussi, Vincenzo Pellegrini [ca. 1560–1630], and the extremely talented Donati, a composer of European importance), also traversing Parma, the home of Arnone’s and Cima’s teacher Merulo. The dynastic courts with real influence in Milan were the neighbors: the various Gonzaga branches of Mantua and, to a lesser degree, the Savoyards of Turin. Both maintained close relations with Carlo Borromeo, while the former stayed in political alliance with the Spanish and played a role in Milanese cultural politics, not least by their frequent visits (probably including Monteverdi, thus reinforcing the composer’s ties to the city).81 The contacts with the Gonzaga resulted in musical dedications: Arnone’s 1600 madrigals, Vecchi’s third book of masses (1602), or the third volume (1609) of Coppini’s madrigal contrafact series, devoted exclusively to Monteverdi’s works. Given the weakness of the governor’s court in artistic production, the Gonzaga’s political alignment with Milan, and some parallels between the two centers (local liturgy emphasized by music, patrician family saints, anti-absolutist urbanism), a symbolic prestige exchange, in which Milanese musicians sought the support of a
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“real” court while the Gonzaga gained spiritual renown from the Lombard capital, seems to have been at work. Connections ran northward as well; expatriate musicians like the former cathedral singer Giovanni Battista Bonometti (ca. 1585–1627) brought their talents and repertory to Austria.82 A few pieces, like Audite me, were picked up by German editors and reprinted in the first three decades of the seventeenth century. Coppini sent his third contrafact book to Puteanus in Louvain, noting Monteverdi’s broaderscale musical effects, the need to beat time while singing, and once again, as he had remarked in the preface to the second book of 1608, the remarkable power over the affects found in the madrigals.83 Later on, some of his texts were set independently of their original music by Milanese and Bolognese composers a generation later.84 Ties with Poland started with two dedications by the organist of S. Maria presso S. Celso, Gasparo Costa, to two brothers, Jerzy and Szymon, of the Olelkowicz family from Słuck (Slutsk), the latter of whom had been in Italy and converted to Roman Catholicism in the late 1570s. Costa’s 1581 book of motets and spiritual madrigals was inscribed to Jerzy, evidently a move in an (ultimately partially successful) conversion campaign orchestrated by the nuntio in Poland.85 Later, Crown Prince Władisław Wasa’s visit to Milan in 1624 included numerous hearings of church music, and indirectly occasioned Lomazzo’s dedication of the urban motet anthology Flores praestantissimorum virorum (1626) to a famous young singer in Gdan´sk, Constantia Czirenberg (1605–53). The reception of one Milanese composer in Poland is found in the 120 motets by Vecchi, along with canzonas from Lomazzo’s Seconda aggiunta anthology (1617), copied by Cistercians into the Pelplin Organ Tablature in the 1630s.86 Relations with Spain were more complex than might appear from the scarce presence of Iberian figures in the printed works, as the centrality of the Empire was all the more crucial for Milan. In 1600, the violinist and composer Stefano Limido was brought to Madrid, possibly at Margaret’s behest, for court festivities; Spanish songbooks and panegyric texts in the city suggest further musical interactions.87 Still, recent studies of Spanish dominions elsewhere have underscored how little Imperial power was concerned with centralizing or standardizing local culture, and this autochthonous approach undergirds the employment of composers even at S. Maria della Scala, the stronghold of Spanish opposition to archiepiscopal power.88 The political relations raise other issues for power and polyphony. Artistic production flourished due to the patricians who directly or indirectly funded such activity, in the case of music, often the dedicatees of printed editions. For all that the era has been viewed as dominated by the two Borromeos, most commissions actually took place without any intervention at all by Carlo, or even the far more culturally minded Federigo. The painting, architecture, and music at the cathedral were under the control of the Fabbrica, which did not necessarily agree with the archbishop; even freer were the male and female religious houses. Much of the art on public display, visually or aurally, was completely independent of any prelate’s aesthetics, and caution is in order as to the degree to which patrons’ support reflected conscious stylistic turns as opposed to merely personal or purely accidental links. To detail how the city provided the context for polyphony is obvious; to determine the possibility of specifically Milanese traits in compositional procedures or
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genres, features that might provide a sonic sign for place, is a taller order. Beyond the music’s function there loom larger issues: the possibility of shared aesthetic approaches in different arts, or the relationship between humanistic speculative thought in the city and compositional practice. Paralleling the alterity of the physical cityscape, the answers are rendered difficult by the unfamiliarity of the local repertory. The music has languished under Romantic verities (“Counter-Reformation”) whose parallels have long since been abandoned in other fields. Indeed, the entire idea of imposing teleological categories derived from past centuries of art historiography presents problems. How might a “baroque” work like Gabussi’s two-voice sacred concerto Consolamini, popule meus, probably written for Christmas Vigil at the cathedral around 1600, have been succeeded by Pellegrini’s “Renaissance” five-voice imitative setting, on an Ambrosian-chant cantus firmus, of the Vespers item Memento Domine David, composed for the same service at the same institution sometime between 1612 and 1618? The polystylism was an essential feature of the city’s music for the entire period. In the absence of an insider’s categories for music (like those for art appreciation given by one important patron in Federigo Borromeo’s Musaeum [1625]), the stylistic terms (“gratia,” “maniera”) present in the semantic field of contemporary listeners and writers seem to offer more subtle, but more authentic, openings to the musical categories of the time.89 Earlier scholarship has focused on musicians working at the cathedral.90 Stage music and dance for the ducal court were sometimes mentioned but largely do not survive, and recent research has begun to explore dramatic texts and their occasions.91 The religious music of the city has always been summarized as simple “CounterReformation” declamation, following the supposed dictates of an omnipotent Church or archbishop, and thus any serious consideration of the music has been confined to early instrumental works, valorized as distant precursors of nineteenth-century absolute music.92 The city’s canzonas, along with a few early sonatas, are almost its only presence in the modern revival of early music to this point.93 These pieces were, however, often performed at moments at Mass and Vespers, functioning as ritual instrumental music.94 Editions comprised only of canzonas are relatively rare though interesting; although some thirty Milanese composers published at least one instrumental piece, still only a few of these men produced substantial amounts of canzonas or capriccios.95 More positively, Cantone’s motet shows the interpenetration of forms and styles in urban ceremonial music that continued far into the new century. Some of the church music has attracted scholarship in overview.96 Some recent work has begun to shed light on Orfeo Vecchi.97 Meanwhile, Cima’s motet book of 1610 and life at S. Maria presso S. Celso have also benefited from new attention.98 The earlier history of patronage and repertory at the cathedral and S. Maria della Scala also provides the basis for many developments in the later sixteeenth century.99 Some of the later music at the cathedral has been surveyed, and the contexts of theatrical music exhaustively addressed.100 The problems presented by the whole repertory are several: motets and madrigals around 1600 in their relationship to their models, and the formation of conventions in the early sacred concerto and the concertato madrigal around 1610. These issues were fused in the following decade, with the codification of an Ambrosian-rite repertory and the expansion of inherited forms
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in motet and solo song. Finally, the works of a new generation parallel the aesthetic changes of Monti’s years. To find a context for the music, one can retrace the major sites that Margaret herself visited, starting with the most representative churches, the cathedral and the main Marian shrine.
2 The Cathedral and the Shrine
Most documentation and compositions of city musicians stem from figures working at a variety of ecclesiastical institutions. Four churches with citywide audiences maintained large permanent ensembles, and some twelve others, largely belonging to religious orders, had some kind of musical life, employing at least an organist and some singers. In addition, the governor’s court supported both instrumentalists and vocalists for the ducal palace and its chapel, San Gottardo in Palazzo. The four main churches featured varying kinds of sonic environments, audiences, and musical forces. Two, the Duomo and S. Maria presso S. Celso, held special places in urban symbolic life. They hosted polyphony, on the average more than once a week, and also shared musicians. However, as the new century progressed, both were increasingly overshadowed by the female monasteries, among which the public practice of polyphony spread rapidly, from about five houses around 1600 to some twenty at mid-century.1
The Heart of the City Margaret’s entrance pointed up the cathedral’s place as the spiritual and social fulcrum of Milan.2 Ultimate responsibility for its music rested with its Fabbrica, a situation paralleled elsewhere in Italy. This board was dominated by local patricians: twelve nobles (two for each city district) and the vicario di provisione, together with a small group of ecclesiastics, comprising three canons, three doctors of the collegio, and the archbishop or his vicar general. Carlo’s attempts to banish the laity from this body, like many other gestures of his later years, had been quickly overturned.3 Administrative independence of the archbishop and the strong participation of traditional urban institutions and lay patricians were thus structural principles. The funds and weekly workings of the choir and organs were under the control of the Provincia Ecclesiae, one of twenty subcommittees of the Fabbrica. The Provincia’s other responsibilities included mediating the often difficult relationship between the Fabbrica and the cathedral chapter (capitolo metropolitano) and monitoring the seemingly endless architectural and liturgical problems.4 Given the extent of its 26
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responsibilities, the net result was a notable deprioritizing of musical matters, compared with the more obvious and costly affairs of construction, services, decoration, and jurisdiction; orders and reforms for polyphony were normally sporadic, delayed, or post facto.5 Among the roughly thirty priests in residence, the most important for the ceremonies involving polyphony were the seven mazzaconici (the priests formerly assigned to instruct the choirboys). By the Cinquecento they were responsible for the chanting of Proper items at Mass, and antiphons and responsories in the Office.6 The priest on duty in any given week (the hebdomadario) and the two orders of sixteen readers (lettori maggiori and minori) had their functions explicitly described in Carlo’s era, with strict orders not to interfere with the polyphonic performance of items.7 The minor readers, members of the socially humbler capitolo minore, were to sing the hymns (presumably also the chant stanzas thereof in alternatim practice), versicles, and responsorii in choro of the Office, and to intone psalms.8 The social and repertorial gap among the various jobs was underscored by physical distance, as the mazzaconici and the lettori stood or sat in the lower of the two choir stalls (coro inferiore), while the capitolo maggiore and senior clerics occupied the upper. The physical distance between the two sets of stalls had resulted in problems for the performance of chant. Many cathedral services were recorded in the diaries of the master of ceremonies (the cerimoniere or maestro delle cerimonie), an office predating Carlo’s tenure, which the future saint had upgraded in order to regularize services.9 This priest, together with his coadjutor (vice-maestro), had the task of ensuring that liturgy in the Duomo proceeded correctly, especially on Milanese holy days of obligation (feste di precetto); he also followed the archbishop to other churches, on processional feast days and for novices’ professions as nuns. Federigo’s peripatetic habits resulted in constant activity, and the diaries are filled with invaluable, if spotty, information on major events, as well as sometimes biting commentary on liturgical mishaps and the constant ecclesiastical infighting. Over a century, the office was held by four cerimonieri: Giovanni Paolo Clerici (1579–88); Orazio Casati (1588–1611); Francesco Casati (1611–29); and Gironimo Regio (1629–72).10 Although the sung performance of a mass or motet was sometimes noted, the accounts do not name specific pieces or their composers.11 The occasions for music were organized around the pontifical days, feasts on which the archbishop (or, in his absence, the archpriest) would celebrate Mass and Office. Around the time of Carlo’s reforms, these celebrations were stabilized at approximately twenty-five, together with two Vigils; in the early Seicento, another six plus a Vigil were added.12 Of these, the titular feast of Nativity BVM (8 September) and the feast of the Invention of the Cross (because of the presence of the Chiodo), along with those of the civic patron Ambrose and the city’s intercessor Sebastian, took on importance. For the chapter, however, other days important for music were also celebrated, including those of St. Blaise (3 February) and St. Thecla (24 September), the latter the patroness of the former summer cathedral. Although it is unclear whether anyone around 1600 would have looked back on the era of Franchinus Gaffurius as the glory days of cathedral polyphony, still, a century later, the largest single body of paid musicians in the city was at the Duomo: the maestro di capella, his vice-maestro (an office documented from 1582, and stabilized with the appointment of Damiano Scarabelli from Bologna around 1587), and a group
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of singers. The ensemble ranged from seventeen under Giulio Cesare Gabussi in 1589, rising to about twenty-five in the late 1620s, sinking to eight after the plague in 1631 (and returning to twenty-one by 1643).13 Part of this group was the schola of choirboys, variable in size between four and eight, which had passed from its traditional chant repertory (for example, the responsoria cum infantibus at Vespers) to singing polyphony with the adults. The duties of the two leaders included simply keeping the ensembles together as well as organizing the large amount of liturgical polyphony that must have been sung to falsobordone formulas, and thus their duties retained something of the tenorista tradition of the Quattrocento. Besides Carlo Borromeo’s efforts to employ only priests as adult singers, it was a more general point of pride that no instrumentalists besides the organists were ever used, a practice that the curia tried to extend unsuccessfully to other churches in the diocese.14 Under Pietro Ponzio (1577–82), the ensemble had been expanded in size, and its repertory moved to a norm of five-voice scoring.15 In theory, all the singers were to be present whenever the chapel sang on principal feasts, alternating by halves for normal (semiduplex) Sundays. But the quantity of requests for permission to be absent, and of fines for missed services, suggest that several singers were routinely missing, especially on less important Sundays. The numbers were full for pontifical feasts and special occasions (for a list of such days, see app. A). Seven additional singers were hired for 8 September 1595, the first titular day to be celebrated with Federigo as archbishop: three basses, three tenors (among them Orazio Nantermi, from S. Maria presso S. Celso), and an alto.16 Other such occasional hirings can be traced from 1584 onwards.17 From Ponzio’s time, the festal division of the ensemble into two choirs obtained for 8 September at least.18 As a sign of growth, the most important events from the late 1590s were marked by the division of the corps into four choirs (as for Margaret’s entrance), a tradition for the rest of the period; from later evidence it appears that this did not necessarily entail polyphony in sixteen to twenty real parts.19 On 13 April 1609, Gabussi reported that four-choir music had been sung for the entrance of the Spanish prelate Cardinal Antonio Zapatta (1551–1635), a large-scale event confirmed by the cerimoniere’s diary.20 For polychoral performance, Milan seems to have trailed Roman practice by only a few years. The use of two choirs spread from the Duomo to male regulars’ churches and the female houses in the 1590s, but the quadripartite arrangement seems to have been most typical of the cathedral and major civic events.21 Although there is no specific list of ‘four-choir’ days, still the symbolic importance of the arrangement, whatever the actual number of compositional voices, for the major ritual acts became evident when withheld. As Casati noted, the procession of 17 February 1621 for the new Pope Leo XI featured a Te Deum intoned by the archpriest and ‘continued by the singers in two choirs, but there were loud complaints because they did not sing in four choirs.’22 At the same time, solo and duet singing was also common.23 From the mid-1580s, there were two organists, one for the 1559 Antegnati instrument on the north side of the presbytery and one for the newer Valvassori organ of 1584–90 on the south (this latter replacing a fourteenth-century keyboard), which alternated weekly for daily services, except for functions on pontifical feasts, when
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they played together.24 Gasparo Costa (ca. 1545–90) must have been hired for the Antegnati instrument soon after the death of Giuseppe Caimo, in summer 1584; in the next several years, he was joined by the organ-builder G. B. Morsellini (ca. 1541– 91) for the new keyboard.25 These jobs were soon filled for a generation: in 1590, Cesare Borgo came from the Cassinese Benedictine church of San Pietro in Gessate to replace Costa, who died in July.26 After Morsellini’s death the next year,27 Borgo moved to the Antegnati and Guglielmo Arnone was hired to play at the still inoperative Valvassori instrument.28 The former continued at the older organ until his death on 19 October 1622, possibly plying a side trade as a notary (which might explain his limited compositional production).29 Six months after Borgo’s passing, Giovanni Francesco Biumi, previously at Santa Maria della Passione and Sant’Ambrogio, was brought in, while Arnone continued up to his mortal illness in autumn 1630.
Space and Sound in the Cathedral The placement of the musical forces depended directly on the restructuring of the altar area desired by the archbishop and executed by Pellegrino Tibaldi, starting in the late 1560s, partially in an effort to facilitate the execution of liturgy and chant. The spatial distinction between chant and polyphony was also marked, with the two capitoli responsible for monophony around the main altar. After the Antegnati organ was moved from the side altar of St. Agatha, the organists sat one level directly above the regular place of the adult singers of polyphony, who were on the two cantorie (or pergami) designed by Galeazzo Alessi and Tibaldi in the 1560s and 1570s respectively, above both sides of the front portion of the choir. Morigia seemed more impressed by the cost and decoration of the choir lofts than by the music emanating from them.30 At first, they were evidently open to the ambulatory.31 The weekly alternation for normal Sundays suggests that one of the cantorie (and its organ) was not staffed on such days. The location of the singers also suggests that coordination with the organists might have been more difficult than it would first seem, and it is not clear where the maestro himself was positioned among the singers. An anonymous seicento painting (fig. 2.1) shows singers hanging out of the platforms in order to hear Federigo preach, probably at a pontifical feast. The perspective is distorted, as the cantorie were lower than the pulpit, and the size of the crowded presbytery is exaggerated, with the altar shown more distant than it actually was. But the disposition seems essentially accurate: the high altar ringed by the chapters and the presbytery packed, evidently with other clerics and patricians. The right (“Epistle side”) cantoria was in front of the seats reserved for the city’s Senate on major feasts, while the left flanked the archiepiscopal throne, next to the senior cathedral clergy; the interplay of secular and religious authority could not have been more clear.32 The long reverberation time of the cathedral, unmuffled by tapestries, would have created the effect of a sonic wash of polyphony, especially the further back (west) one receded from the altar, in tandem with the descent in social class among the congregation.33 Thus the most acoustically satisfying seats for polyphony during
figure 2.1
Anonymous, Cardinal Federigo Borromeo Preaching in Milan Cathedral, ca. 1620 (by permission of the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan)
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liturgical ceremonies were those of the nobility, religious and lay, occupied (from north to south) by the archbishop, capitolo maggiore, governor, magistrates, and senators.34 While polyphony was most audible to this select group, chant (corresponding to its overall projection and perceptibility in the city as a whole), emanating from the mazzaconici backed by the choir stalls and projecting directly outward into the nave, would have been clearly perceptible to a far wider public than simply those in the crossing or presbytery. Also unclear was the placement of the third and fourth choirs on the most festive occasions; by the 1620s, they were accompanied by two portable regal organs, whose blaring tone quality must have lent the ensemble an unusually piercing sound.35 In much of the manuscript repertory of the 1630s and 1640s, the parts for choirs III and IV simply doubled I and II, respectively. For reasons of musical coordination, they were probably deployed somewhere at floor level underneath their paired choir.
The Early Years Gabussi, who had been brought from Bologna as Costanzo Porta’s second recommendation to Carlo (after Ludovico Balbi), took up his job in November 1582.36 Despite his service as maestro in Forlı`, he was young, possibly only about twentytwo.37 Scarabelli, a student of Andrea Rota, and the new organists were of the same generation, while many of the singers also seemed relatively junior.38 The paylist of 5 October 1589 named six boys, the ornamentation expert and soprano G. B. Bovicelli, four altos, two tenors, two basses, and the two maestri; of these, Bovicelli was paid more than any other singer (including Scarabelli).39 The sense of the ensemble around 1590 is that of an energetic and self-confident group of musicians, evident in Scarabelli’s dedication of his 1592 motets to the entire chapel, an inscription without parallel among other Italian editions. In particular, the five eight-voice pieces of this edition seem to relate to major feasts at the Duomo or in the city, easily performable by the cathedral’s forces.40 The fourteen adult singers listed include only two native milanesi, another tribute to the city’s function in attracting outsiders. But the choir, despite the patriotic claims of local historiography to its importance, was characterized by severe and recurrent problems. The records show some of the difficulties involved in running the capella, with much time spent on satisfying the formal demands (the wearing of cassocks, avoiding talking, or early departures during services). Despite the prestige of the position (and at least one pay raise), Gabussi tried to leave twice.41 On 30 October 1597, he informed Federigo regretfully that he had been forced, out of his desire to return home and because of his elderly parents, to take the maestro’s job at San Petronio in Bologna, left vacant by Rota’s death.42 Although Gabussi was evidently not permitted to leave by the archbishop, and further induced to stay by a pay raise in January 1598, he did indeed depart for a year’s sojourn at the Polish court (an appointment over which Borromeo would have had little control) between May 1601 and June 1602. Matters had been complicated by Scarabelli’s resignation in late 1598 with Giovanni Antonio Molasco his replacement. A pay raise of 31 July 1597, possibly in thanks for the dedication of a Magnificat cycle, had not induced the deputy to stay.43 Six years later, Scarabelli
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evidently was chosen as the replacement for Orfeo Vecchi at the Scala, but then disappeared again after a year.44 At the Duomo, Molasco held things together until Gabussi’s return, which was motivated by unknown reasons.45 The maestro’s production in Poland seems to have been small.46 Another indication of the demands was the kind of editions published by cathedral musicians. Gabussi’s individual output of printed sacred music ended after 1589, with an edition consisting of ten Magnificats and a funeral motet for Carlo Borromeo. He contributed to the early small-scale sacred concerto, with twelve examples published in Lucino’s urban anthology Concerti de diversi of 1608 and a few other pieces appearing in other collections up to 1615. His major systematic output in his later years was a nearly complete annual cycle of stanzaic alternatim hymns a 4 for the massive Ambrosian-rite Vespers settings published in the Pontificalia Ambrosianae Ecclesiae ad Vesperas . . . Lucernaria, Hymni, et Posthymni, the collection edited by Pellegrini in 1619.47 Still, Gabussi’s overall output was remarkably limited over thirty years, and the judgment of “troppo misurato nelle attioni sue” by his teacher Porta seems to apply to his publication record, as well. Possibly the difficulties of running the chapel simply hindered his production. Scarabelli’s motets and Magnificats were followed by a nowlost litany collection before 1604. Having published an eight-voice mass and Magnificat collection in 1588 while still at S. Pietro in Gessate, the organist Borgo produced canzonas in 1599 and a second book of masses and motets in 1602, then fell silent except for three motets in anthologies.48 The second organist Arnone made up the slack, publishing a now-lost Magnificat set in 1595 (possibly dedicated to Federigo), three motet collections between the 1590s and 1602, eight concertos in the anthologies, and a large-scale eight-voice motet edition in 1625. Despite the problems, the scoring of this repertory reveals the gradual growth of the chapel. Gabussi’s motet for Carlo’s funeral (Defecit gaudium cordi nostri, published in the 1589 edition, and discussed below) is the first printed example of an eight-voice, double-choir piece in the repertory. His 1586 motets are evenly divided between five- and six-voice pieces, thus expanding over Ponzio’s normal ensemble. Both Scarabelli’s Magnificat collection and the lost litanies range from four to twelve voices, while Arnone’s collection of 1599 is set for five and eight parts.49 The total output of Duomo figures around 1600 reveals an absence of published music for Vespers except for the Magnificat cycles, little emphasis on the Mass (both traits due to the peculiarities of Ambrosian liturgy), and a high percentage of motets usable in either Milanese or Roman rite. Few of the Duomo’s musicians neglected secular music. Gabussi had his second book of five-voice madrigals printed in 1598; while Costa’s canzonettas appeared in 1588, those of Borgo in 1591, and Arnone’s madrigals in 1600. Flaminio Comanedo, a student of Gabussi and a tenor in the chapel from around 1600 until after 1622, published two canzonetta books (1601 and 1602) and three madrigal collections later, along with a Vespers edition in 1618.50 That the cathedral composers were far more public as producers of secular polyphony than even the ducal musicians underscores both the failure of Carlo’s efforts to restrict such genres, and the heuristic unhelpfulness of a perspective that presumes an omnipotent Church dictating stylistic or
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textual choices for composers.51 It also testifies to the interplay of the sacred and the secular in the city. The next series of editions connected with the cathedral involved another singer, the central figure in the introduction of the sacred concerto into the city’s printed repertory, Francesco Lucino. A former Humiliato friar, he was a virtuoso bass, and had served in the cathedral from around 1580. His close relation to Federigo is evident from letters of autumn 1598, indicating that he had been sought by other institutions (probably S. Maria presso S. Celso), but noting his preference to stay at the cathedral. After the prelate intervened in an unspecified manner, Lucino stated his desire to “live and die under the shadow of Your Excellency,” a wish fulfilled.52 He was chosen as vice-maestro in 1603 as the second successor to Scarabelli (whose madrigals he had included in his 1590 anthology of Bolognese composers, Le Gemme, evidently another model collection for a burgeoning domestic public). The very first small-scale sacred concerto book to be printed in the city (and the third in all of Italy), Orazio Scaletta’s Cetra spirituale of 1605, was inscribed to him. He assembled the 1608 Concerti de diversi, and was also the dedicatee of the 1612 reprint of this collection, to which the publisher Lomazzo had added several stylistically new motets in a Prima Aggiunta (or Aggiunta Nuova).53 Lucino’s catalyzing of the sacred concerto in the city was unlikely to have happened without support from the prelate; Federigo’s penchant for officiating personally at pontifical feasts meant that he must have heard some of these pieces at their first performances.54 Lucino became sick in 1617, and Giovanni Battista Corradi (a contralto castrato and priest) was elected just after his predecessor’s death on 11 December.55 Some festal repertory from this time is represented by a set of part-books of eight-voice works dated 1612, still in the archive, readied for publication by Corradi but apparently never printed (AD2/8).56 It contains eleven motets, seven Magnificats, five psalms for sanctoral feasts, and a Pater noster, essentially festal repertory; among the motets, there are two pieces for Chiodo days and three Marian texts. Other Duomo singers of this generation included the altos Giacomo Fasolo, who served for over twenty years, and (Giacomo) Filippo Ferrari, “il Mondondone,” the dedicatee of several concertos around 1610, and the tenor Girolamo Vimercato, an important figure later, hired in 1614.57
Conflict and Decimation Gabussi’s death on 8 July 1611 led to a flurry of applications for his post, some addressed directly, if wrongly, to Federigo.58 In the meantime, the Fabbrica ordered that his compositions be found and given to Lucino to be returned to the archive.59 The jockeying began quickly, as Federigo’s old friend Francisco Soto wrote to the prelate proposing Giovanni Francesco Anerio, stressing his ties to the Vallicella and his studies of organ and of philosophy. The irrepressible Romano Micheli nominated himself a week later (Doc. 11a–b). The official chapter candidates were an anonymous choirmaster to Margaret in Spain (possibly Limido) and one from Bergamo (probably Giovanni Cavaccio at S. Maria Maggiore).60
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Federigo’s intervention with the chapter, however, led to the selection of Vincenzo Pellegrini in December, seemingly a puzzling choice since he had been neither a church maestro nor an organist.61 Back in Pesaro, he had produced only a canzona book in 1599 and a choirbook-format mass collection dedicated to Clement VIII in 1603/4. He had been a canon of Pesaro cathedral since before 1589, and had taught a singing school connected to the local seminary since the early 1580s. He would have met Federigo during the latter’s stay in Pesaro on 2 December 1610 (on the prelate’s homeward journey after Carlo’s canonization), when Borromeo celebrated Mass and gave medals of the new saint to the cathedral’s canons, including Pellegrini.62 According to the new choirmaster’s own letter of 7 January 1612, a Roman connection was decisive—the intervention of Cardinal Bonifacio Caetani (1568–1617), the recently resigned legate to the Romagna.63 Pellegrini’s own skill in negotiating cardinals’ patronage and politics was also in evidence, as he asked for a slight delay in starting.64 He took up service in time for the major feasts of April–May 1612.65 The new maestro was soon repeatedly reproached for failing to keep external discipline among the singers, but the entire dispute may have been some sort of leftover feud with the chapter, dating back to his forced election.66 Pellegrini began his job with disadvantages: he had had no previous contact with the clerics, and had arrived at the behest of a third party through Federigo. Still, his compositional and editorial output in the decade after his appointment was strikingly large and varied, almost the opposite of Gabussi’s. After his Magnificat cycle, dedicated to the archbishop (1613), he was responsible for integrating his predecessor’s hymns into the massive 1619 edition of Ambrosian Vespers polyphony, composing almost all the other items himself and evidently editing the collection in collaboration with the novice music printer Giorgio Rolla.67 He then assembled a more modest 1623 book of litanies and ceremonial music, the Litaniae Ambrosianae et Romanae a 8, two publications which concluded the larger printed series of standard liturgical editions instigated by Federigo. In addition, Pellegrini’s own 1619 motet book (Sacri concentus a 1–6) is the size (sixty-seven motets plus a mass) of Lucino’s entire Concerti de’ diversi anthology together with its addenda, thus one of the largest editions of seicento Italy, even if many of its pieces must date from his Pesaro years.68 Pellegrini evidently had the resources to publish the collection at his own expense at the top-line Venetian house of Vincenti.69 In terms of compositional output, the contrast with the previous decades could not have been sharper. His compositions are well crafted, sometimes experimental in their approach to counterpoint. Pellegrini’s problems with the choir might also be due to the sheer amount of time he must have spent composing. If the production and standardization of cathedral repertory was what the archbishop had wanted, he was the right choice. Indeed, aspects of chapel life continued normally during his tenure. Other singers who joined the chapel under Pellegrini included the bass Giovanni Blacino, who arrived in 1617 (and would rise to vice-maestro on 5 May 1639), and another bass, Matteo Ferrari, who served as puntatore (attendance keeper) in the 1620s.70 Arnone was granted compensation for the publication of his eight-voice motets in 1625 (even though they were dedicated to S. Ambrogio’s canons).71 Pellegrini requested a subvention for other editions, now lost if they were ever published, in 1629.72
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But his relations with the chapter had worsened. Rumors circulated in late 1619 that the post of maestro was vacant.73 On 22 May 1621 the Provincia decreed that each voice part be reduced to four singers, bringing the chapel from twenty-one down to eighteen, with eight boys. Five adults were fired, absolutely or conditionally, and Pellegrini was admonished to obey the orders, with the threat of bringing the matter to Federigo’s attention.74 On 12 March 1625 the entire Fabbrica was called together to audition seven sopranos in the presence of Pellegrini, Arnone, G. P. Cima, and Giulio Cesare Ardemanio, the organist at the Scala (Doc. 14).75 Four singers were fired; the rector was instructed to admonish Pellegrini to continue instructing the choirboys and improve his diligence in his pedagogical tasks. More ominously for the veteran choirmaster and Borromeo prote`ge`, the third decision, also to be transmitted to Federigo, was “That the aforesaid rector speak to those persons that S.S. [Federigo] knows in order to obtain the opinion of Monteverdi, so that if the current maestro does not fulfill his duties, it might be known where to search in case the chapter should decide to use another.” The seriousness of the dispute was evident, as a maestro had not been fired at any time in the previous century.76 The troubles continued, as the maestro and senior organist fought bitterly about Arnone’s attempts to place his son among the extra keyboard players hired for the major feasts, and a number of other matters. Between the general economic crisis and the ongoing disputes in the chapel, the last years of the decade were difficult times for the cathedral ensemble. The plague of 1630 took its worst toll among the cathedral musicians, on duty and largely unable or unwilling to flee. Along with Corradi, Arnone, most of the choirboys, and all the adult singers but four, Pellegrini died, probably in August; the last receipt on which he signed was dated on the second of that month.77 The polyphony continued, probably with very small forces under Biumi, but no decision on a maestro took place for seven months. The junior organist took over as most of the singers had left or died, and Arnone was either sick or already dead. On 9 December the deputies put out the call for a new organist, establishing also the salary.78 On the 29th there was a test of the candidates to replace Arnone, for which (given the dearth of survivors) the opinion of Biumi and the young Antonio Maria Turati was solicited by the deputies. Michelangelo Grancini seems to have been an uncontested choice.79 After the contagion, Vimercato, the surviving senior tenor who had been de facto in charge from December 1630, was formally confirmed as vice-maestro by a vote of 26 March 1631.80
After the Contagion The actual process of selecting Ignazio Donati reveals the Fabbrica’s priorities. The difficulties were evident in that nothing was done all fall, as the deputies moved first to establish Vimercato’s post. By 10 February 1631 a request from Biagio Marini, temporarily in town at the Scala, had arrived, but was evidently tabled.81 At the end of March, Donati’s memoriale had been received. The Fabbrica decided to refer the matter to Federigo’s opinion on 31 March, and the deputies Pirovani and Arconati reported back within a week, apparently giving the prelate’s strong recommendation of the composer.82 The election then took place quickly, on 10 April, and Donati
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arrived from Lodi that month.83 The sense is that of a wary board, waiting to hire until someone quite experienced and trustworthy could be found, after which things moved swiftly. Besides his talents as a composer, Donati seems to have been an efficient organizer and educator. The cathedral’s musical archive resumes after a lapse of over a century with manuscript copies of some of his large-scale works for Mass and Vespers of major feasts.84 The concern with pedagogy evident in their written-out runs and ornamentation is also evident in his better-known 1636 second book of solo motets. In his Milanese years, Donati also published a book of small-scale motets (Li vecchiarelli et perregrini concerti, 1636, some of whose contents date back to the 1620s) and a volume of six contrapuntal masses (1633), of which three could be sung either a voci piene or in the equal-voice (ATTB) a voci pari scoring, a somewhat archaic trait suitable, however, for an ensemble training new choirboys.85 Donati’s rebuilding of a chapel was carried out in the broader reconstruction of symbolic life in the cathedral. To read Regio’s diary for 1631 and 1632 is to be conscious of an often laborious effort to reestablish normal ritual life, a task almost broadsided by Federigo’s death on 18 September 1631. Each event, especially the visits of the stational churches and the major cathedral feasts—Epiphany, 3 May, Corpus Domini [Christi], 8 September, and 4 November (Carlo Borromeo’s feast)—received careful detailing, as if the annual cycle had to be restored precisely and correctly.86 Similar care obtained in the musical ensemble. Although the chapel had been reduced to eight, including the boys, six more singers were added by the next year, bringing the total close to pre-plague levels. Already by Holy Week in 1631 outsiders were hired.87 The four adults and four sopranos were joined by a fifth soprano in July, while four singers were hired for 8 September 1631.88 An overview of the payment records for adult singers gives the increase in the chapel’s size, from the four of 1631.89 By April 1632, a year after taking up the job, Donati had been able to make permanent hires of two badly needed basses, two tenors, and two altos, and to raise the number of sopranos to seven, including the adult castrato Carlo Ceppi; the chapel was essentially back to normal, due to the influx.90 For the big feasts of autumn 1632, three outside singers, including the veteran tenor and maestro di coro at S. Maria della Scala, Giovanni Lambrugo, and the famed alto Antonio Pestagallo from the ducal court across the street, were hired in addition to the regular eleven adults and seven sopranos.91 The Chiodo rites of May 1633 were attended by the whole Senate, and polyphony seems to have played a major role in the services.92 Although a few boys came and went, by autumn 1633 the chapel was at full size, four adults on a part for the lower voices, and nine boys. The usual outsiders were hired for the two feasts, including Lambrugo, with Turati and Francesco Casati to play the two regals, each noted as being “novo.” The presence of the new governor, Cardinal-Infant Ferdinand of Spain (1609–41), on 8 September and 4 November 1633 led Donati to hire five adults and two sopranos for Mass and Second Vespers.93 While Ferdinand was still in the city, on 3 May 1634, three other adults were hired, with no mention of the regals, possibly by now a regular job.94 In 1634, Donati asked for a well-deserved raise for his many services (Doc. 18).
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The somewhat variable scoring of the pieces, together with the payment records for extra singers and organists, also provides some idea as to when the works might have been premiered. The preserved works of Donati include those for three major cathedral feasts: 3 May, 8 September, and 4 November. There is also a set of psalms for Sunday. For 3 May, the six sopranos, five altos, and five tenors exclude 1632 and 1634, and point towards 1633 or 1635–37. The regular chapel in autumn 1633 included three altos, four tenors, and four basses; with the two added altos and one tenor for Nativity BVM, any of Donati’s polychoral settings would have been performable in 1633. The singers hired included two altos, two tenors, and a bass; thus the largest forces since the funeral of Philip III had been assembled at the cathedral, for a service where the cardinal’s presence was noted.95 The sopranos, six altos, and five tenors and basses for 4 November again point towards 1633 (or after 1634). The only named soloists in the partbooks are the altos Pestagallo and Fedele Mangiarotti (“Sig.re Fedele”), both listed only in the Sunday Vespers. Given the prominence of the extra two soprano parts, it is possible that one was meant for Ceppi. Of all these possibilities, November 1633 would have had major political importance. The Cardinal-Infant, present as governor of Milan and as one of the administrative leaders of the Empire in the Thirty Years War, was the most prominent member of the Duomo audience.96 His entrance on 24 May had been a major event, the first joyous act of the city after the plague (fig. 2.2).97 He himself had officiated at a festive Mass with a polyphonic Te Deum on 18 September, in honor of the birth of a nephew, the heir to the Hungarian throne.98 The festivities represent the first possible occasion on which Donati’s polychoral Vespers and masses, scored for between sixteen and twenty-four voices in the four choirs with the two regals added, could have been performed, essentially one singer on a part.99 By the last autumn of Donati’s life, the eleven adults and nine boys were a regular feature of the chapel, along with the four outsiders for the September celebration and the seven hired for Carlo’s feast, the norm of the last two years of his tenure.100 Major outside hirings took place for the feasts of 1637. Evidently the 1630s, which started out so unpromisingly, turned out to be a successful decade for the Duomo’s choir. A special feature of Donati’s later years was the hiring of three Roman singers at Monti’s express wish.101 In general, the archbishop’s tenure seems to have been characterized by a tendency toward the attempted regulation (but not necessarily restriction) of ritual in the archdiocese, parallel to the Roman situation in the last years of Urban VIII. The maestro’s work in conducting led others to take up the slack in composing; the politically astute Grancini’s motet output is found in his Book V of 1636.102 Despite the rebuilding of the chapel into the largest church ensemble between Venice and Rome, Donati’s sudden death (probably from apoplexy or a heart attack) on 21 January 1638 brought new uncertainty.103 Everything had seemed normal, up to that moment; Donati had signed off on the singers’ pay on 15 January, and Vimercato had applied for a leave for the following Sunday. The maestro’s twenty days of service were paid off, together with money for his orphaned (and illiterate) daughter, and a provision for his musical estate, or at least his compositions for the Duomo, to come into the cathedral’s archive (Doc. 19).104
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figure 2.2 Melchiorre Gherardini, Entrance of the Cardinal-Infant Ferdinand to the Duomo, 1633 (by permission of Civica Raccolta delle Stampe “A. Bertarelli,” Milan)
In line with the policy adopted for the organist’s job in 1630, a competition system was set up to hire the new maestro. But the difficulty of administering a functional chapel while composing music led Giovanni Battista Crivelli, Donati’s successor, to resign for precisely this reason, departing for Bergamo after three years in late 1641, thus becoming the first maestro since Ponzio in 1582 not to die in the job, and leaving behind no manuscript music in the archive.105 As was the norm, the vicemaestro Blacino served for six months in the interim, teaching the boys.106 The affair provoked the Fabbrica to reprint the old orders for chapel discipline from 1572 with additions evidently aimed at Crivelli’s “faults”: outside teaching (to the neglect of the choirboys), refusal to compose on command or to hand his compositions over for sole use of the chapter, and unwillingness to advise the board of voice changes among the adults.107 The new order that a motet be sung any time a member of the capitolo maggiore sang Mass or Vespers helps explain the extensive motet production by cathedral musicians in the next decade.108 The other result of all the instability in the chapel after 1638 seems to have been the reinforcing of Grancini’s position. In all, the years after the plague witnessed a steady growth in overall expenses for the chapel.109 The concorso to replace Crivelli was won by Antonio Maria Turati, the first native maestro ever.110 Filippo Picinelli’s encomium noted that he had been a prote´ge´ of Federigo, but his musical education started much earlier. He had been born into
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a noble and well-off family in the parish of S. Pietro in Camindella around 1604, and his first musical training may well have been at the hands of Borgo, whose family rented from Turati’s father in that year.111 Like the older composer, he had his first organist job at S. Pietro in Gessate. He must have replaced G. P. Cima at S. Maria presso S. Celso by autumn 1630, and served under Donati as regal player on the major feasts at the cathedral in the 1630s.112 Although his only surviving published work is posthumous (1651), the repertory of his eight years seems to be largely preserved in the cathedral’s manuscript archive.113 With Turati’s death in June 1650, another moment of articulation in the chapel took place; the concorso was entered by G. A. Grossi in Novara, G. C. Cabiati in Lodi, the aged Micheli in Rome, Francesco Della Porta at S. Maria presso S. Celso, and Grancini, the first time that a Duomo organist had ever been considered as maestro. He won by one vote over Della Porta, whose election might have given the chapel’s music a rather different shape in the coming decade.114
Cathedral Decoration and Motets The ensemble functioned in a cathedral whose interior was changing considerably, partially because of Carlo’s reforms and partially in response to urban devotion.115 The archbishop had given orders to banish most of the patrician tombs, and to reorganize the preexisting set of side altars with six new ones after plans by Tibaldi, constructed in the nave from 1570 to 1600. The net result was that, by the late Cinquecento, Masses were celebrated at fourteen side altars, with the only sung service noted on the feast of St. John the Evangelist (27 December) at St. Thecla’s altar.116 Although most surviving polyphony related to services at the high altar, one three-voice concerto by Gabussi in the 1608 Lucino collection seems linked to the reconstruction of the first altar on the south wall, that of St Agatha. Its new altarpiece was Federico Zuccari’s 1597 St. Agatha Visited in Prison by St. Peter, commissioned by Federigo himself in another Roman connection, and refinished by Paolo Landriani in 1603 (fig. 2.3). The building of the altar itself was entrusted to Bernardo Paranchino in 1596, and Gabussi’s piece might have been written at any point in the decade thereafter. The most notable feature of the altarpiece is Zuccari’s archaizing classicism, and the simplicity of the painter’s style is mirrored in the traditional cast of Gabussi’s motet. Its text evokes the moment in the saint’s passion just before Peter’s miraculous visit: “Blessed Agatha, having entered the prison, raised her hands to God, and prayed: ‘Lord, who made me overcome the torments of the executioners, now let me come to your mercy.’ ”117 These words were not found in Ambrosian liturgy and were probably taken from Roman rite to enhance the narrative aspects of the painting. Although the style is that of the cinquecento tricinium, Gabussi took advantage of the texture to set the moment of direct address with a typical inflection to cantus durus (ex. 2.1). The most visible depiction of music in the cathedral was the iconography of the organ shutters (on both instruments), begun in the last third of the Cinquecento by Giovanni Meda and Ambrogio Figino, then rapidly finished by Camillo Procaccini.118
figure 2.3 Federico Zuccari, St. Agatha Visited by St. Peter in Prison, 1597 (Milan, Cathedral; by permission of the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo, Milan) 40
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42
s p ac e s an d t h e i r musi c s
Procaccini’s Triumph of David on the external apse shutters of the Valvassori, executed between 1592 and 1595, recalls one of the more unusual textual combinations in Cantone’s eight-voice book of 1599 (fig. 2.4): prima pars: The people of Israel sang, alleluia, and the entire multitude of Jacob sang in accordance with the law, alleluia; and David with his singers played the cithara in the house of the Lord, alleluia, and sang praise to God, alleluia. secunda pars: The women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and leading their choirs to meet King Saul, with joyful drums and cymbals, and in front came women, playing and saying: “Saul slew a thousand, and David ten thousand.”119
The entire textual complex of the motet, found in no other setting, actually resonated with most of the iconographic themes visible on the organs: not only Procaccini’s depiction on the Valvassori of the heroic Israelite women with their instruments and the triumph of the proto-musician David, but also (when the shutters of the Antegnati were closed), Meda’s versions of David playing the harp at the Ark of the Covenant (choir) and performing to appease Saul’s wrath (apse). Outside the cathedral, the emphasis of Cantone’s text on female sacred music-making also paralleled the burgeoning renown of nuns in the decade. Had the motet been performed by the twochoir arrangement of the Duomo ensemble, it would have functioned as music referential to the iconography of music. The other connections among cult, image, and polyphony in the cathedral are less immediately apparent. Some of the Assumption pieces may be related to Pope Pius IV’s altar of the Assumption and St. Joachim, with its medieval German statues of the Madonna and Child with angels. Devotion to the Assumption was reinforced by Carlo Borromeo’s institution of the Compagnia dell’Assunzione, a cathedral confraternity. Arnone’s 1625 Quae est ista? is an eight-voice concertato setting of the most common text for this feast. The major cathedral altar for Mary, however, was that of the Madonna dell’Albero in the north transept, whose decoration was begun at Federigo’s behest in the 1620s. This centerpiece of Marian devotion in the cathedral was a statue of the Virgin and Child, with an altar and a large tree-shaped candelabrum in front (hence the name). The inscription on the Marian statue featured a tag from the Song of Songs (“circumdabant eam flores rosarum”) taken from the Ambrosian responsorium in choro for Second Vespers of the feast (and thus a text set by Pellegrini in the 1619 Pontificalia) which referred to the circling flowers. The sculpted bouquets parallel several Marian floral motets by cathedral musicians, notably the Florete flores settings in Arnone’s same book and in Biumi’s 1629 edition, and Grancini’s 1650 Florete lilia. One unusual Song of Songs cento set in Grancini’s Sacri fiori concertati of 1631 seems to refer both to the decoration of this altar and to Mary’s holding the Christ Child in her arms, as depicted on the statue: “[Daughters of Jerusalem:] We will make you necklaces of gold, laced with silver; [Sponsa:] When the king was reclining, my spikenard gave forth its odor. My beloved is like a bundle of myrrh to me; between my breasts he will remain.”120 Grancini’s five-voice setting, again in strict archaizing style, echoed the altar decoration being completed around 1630, as well as the rep-
figure 2.4 Camillo Procaccini, Triumph of David, 1592–95 (Milan, Cathedral; by permission of the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo, Milan)
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spaces and their musics
resentation of the Madonna; it might date to the spring of 1631, between his appointment as organist and the publication of the book.
Decoration and Polyphony at S. Maria presso S. Celso The principle church for Marian devotion in the city also featured iconography, decoration, and music. Traditionally popular among all social classes in the city, S. Maria presso S. Celso had become the primary urban thaumaturgic sanctuary during the Cinquecento.121 Any visitor, like Margaret in January 1599, approached the church by heading due south from the Piazza de’ Mercanti, over a bridge constructed by Ludovico il Moro through the medieval walls and over a naviglio, following the Contrada di S. Celso into the green space of the outer perimeter.122 An anonymous view from the south, dating from the later Cinquecento and probably by a northern visitor, gives a sense of its position on the edge of town (fig. 2.5). The church was built around a painting—actually a fourth-century wall fresco in a small chapel abutting the male Benedictine house of S. Celso—of the Madonna, which had miraculously ended the plague’s decimation of the city on 30 December 1485. The image was also linked to urban tradition in that St. Ambrose himself was thought to have commissioned it.123 Although the original chapel dated from around 1430, the century after the miracle witnessed the construction of an entirely new
figure 2.5
“Anonymous Fabriczy,” View of S. Maria presso S. Celso from the South, ca. 1590 (by permission of the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart)
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building, funded by patrician families but also by donations from humbler social layers throughout the city, and administered by a board of patrician deputies. These eighteen representatives were all laymen, in charge of the donations, alms, and expenses of construction, decoration, and music. Hence the patrician management of the church was even more pronounced than at the Duomo, and the archbishop or curia had almost nothing to do with the shrine’s life. The Sforza had instituted five chaplains at the shrine, posts continuous under Spanish rule, all attached to the major (but not high) altar of the Madonna. In addition, thirteen Lateran Canons lived at S. Celso and officiated at services; here, however, unlike in other Italian cities, they seem to have had no relation to polyphonic practice at the church, since the maestri, organists, and all the singers were paid laymen.124 From the 1590s on, two of the deputies were assigned to deal with music.125 To be a musician in their service meant also to serve the Madonna herself and her image.126 The rites of passage for every urban family—marriage, birth and baptism, heavenly destiny—were reflected in the Marian themes emphasized at the shrine; every pair of new spouses in the entire city went to restate their vows on their marriage day at the altar of the miraculous image. The birth of a daughter to Margaret and Philip III, the first realization of the promises of Cantone’s Audite me, caused the governor to call for a Mass of the Holy Spirit and then a large procession to the church on 21 October 1601; similar rejoicing followed for the birth of the future Philip IV in 1605.127 Likewise, the titular (and musically most important) day, Assumption, underlined Mary’s intercessory role in Heaven and underscored the promise of eventual redemption for all the faithful. Even as late as the Settecento, the church was crowded every 15 August with citizens, paintings, drapes, and decorations (fig. 2.6). Several versions of Mary’s ascent were artistically represented among the shrine’s artworks, and the feast was enacted by the annual procession that day, which started from the cathedral, and involved clerics, artisans, guilds, the governor’s entourage, and not least musicians. In addition to this urban blend of popular and regal aspects of Mariology, there accrued a martyriological layer of devotion, based on Ambrose’s putative discovery of the bodies of Sts. Nazarius and Celsus who had been executed on the site, with the latter’s remains kept in situ in the shrine.128 The latter’s relics were reinstalled by Carlo Borromeo in 1577 under a side altar. Morigia’s panegyric of 1594 outlined its origin, wonders, decoration, and place in urban devotion.129 In line with its origin as an edifice of miracle, the building was clearly laid out as a classicizing temple.130 Although it was ornate, it was far from the largest church in the city, and some of the crowds who flocked there would have had to remain outside in the splendid atrium.131 Most of the prominent names in local architecture, from Bramantino to Alessi, contributed to its design between 1490 and 1580.132 The prestigious interior decoration occurred in two waves, one between 1550 and 1587, the next in the first decade of the new century, largely at the hands of Cerano and G. C. Procaccini. The first set of church embellishments reflected, on one hand, the thaumaturgic moment, embodied in the altar built by Martino Bassi over the miraculous fresco and its statue of the Assunta, Annibale Fontana’s masterpiece of 1580–85, and, on the other, the narrative of the Virgin’s life, laid out clearly on the external fac¸ade. Work on the fac¸ade’s sculpture, according to Alessi’s overall design as modified
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spaces and their musics
figure 2.6
Anonymous, Miracle of 15 August 1782 in S. Maria presso S. Celso, ca. 1783 (Milan, S. Maria presso S. Celso; by permission of the Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali, Soprintendenza di Milano)
by Bassi, was divided between Fontana and Stoldo Lorenzi, and completed between 1574 and 1593 (fig. 2.7).133 The ground level, with its Sibyls (Fontana) and Adam and Eve (Lorenzi) emphasized the pre-salvational world; the second order featured early events in Mary’s life, centered on Fontana’s Nativity relief (with its inscription “Verbum caro factum est”), surrounded by reliefs of the Epiphany and Presentation with statues of Gabriel and Mary (Annunciation), and flanked by prophets. The fourth
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figure 2.7
Annibale Fontana et al., S. Maria presso S. Celso, fac¸ade, 1574–93 (by permission of the Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali, Soprintendenza di Milano)
order (above the third housing windows) featured later scenes from Mary’s life: the Flight into Egypt, and Wedding at Cana. The whole was surmounted by Fontana’s statue of the Assunta, surrounded by two praying and two trumpet-playing angels. In 1597 the narrative cycle was completed by G. C. Procaccini’s reliefs of the Visitation and Nativity BVM on the fourth order, commissions that led to further work in various media by the artist for the church.134 Besides a sequential account of Mary’s life, the central ascending axis of the fac¸ade represented a soteriological progression: the Fall, Annunciation, Nativity, Resurrection, Assumption. The Marian images of the interior, also completed discontinuously, reminded the visitor of some, but not all themes on the fac¸ade. The object of universal admiration for its sheer richness, Bassi’s altar was placed over the original miraculous image, in the north crossing. Fontana’s statue of the Assumption, different from his depiction on the fac¸ade, represents a combination of the legacy of Michelangelo with a dramatic presence of the Virgin (fig. 2.8). The original miraculous image itself in the base of the altar was provided shutters by the sculptor depicting her birth and death.135 Special devotion to Mary’s veil was expressed by large numbers of urban residents on 30 December.136 The 1620 miracle of the tearful Madonna involved not the original sacred image, but a medieval wall fresco of the Virgin flanked by Nazarius and Celsus on the second north altar in the nave, underlining the universal perception of the shrine as a place of miracles.137 The internal decoration of the church found its first expression in a series of pseudo-chapels in the apse, funded by patrician families, with dedications that did not always correspond to the paintings commissioned and completed in the 1550s.138
figure 2.8 Annibale Fontana, The Assunta, 1583–85 (Milan, S. Maria presso S. Celso; by permission of the Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali, Soprintendenza di Milano)
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Except for the two (real) chapels in the transepts (the north one being originally dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria and the south to St. Roch), there were no side altar decorations in the nave until after 1600. The apse paintings commissioned in the decades of the church’s construction emphasized family life: Gaudenzio Ferrari’s Baptism of Christ placed at the curve of the apse end of the church, but clearly visible from the nave; Carlo Urbino’s Parting of Christ and Mary in the first south chapel; in the south transept, Paris Bordone’s Holy Family with St. Jerome, and on the north wall, the shrine of St. Celsus.139 In all, the surviving motet repertory produced by the shrine’s musicians would seem to relate best to the Assumption, other Marian feasts, or the sanctoral cults represented in the apse and transepts. The archival records also clarify some of the organization of polyphony. From the time of Simon Boyleau, the choir size was around eight adults.140 Filiberto Nantermi was maestro at least by the 1580s, having served at the church from the late 1560s.141 Around 1570, he introduced his son Orazio, probably as a boy soprano, who then graduated to become a tenor.142 The choir size seems to have fluctuated from seven to nine in the closing decades of the Cinquecento. During the wave of decoration in the 1580s, there were problems with music, as the deputies noted that the singers not only missed the services with polyphony, but often did not even come and still claimed their pay (Docs. 1, 3).143 A set of fines was set up, evidently to some effect.144 Although the money spent on music seemed large, the duties were actually restricted: “The singers and organist perform on all holy days of obligation at High Mass and Vespers, and the organist in particular also performs every Saturday at High Mass.”145 A visitation by Luis de Castilla, archdeacon of Cuenca, on 12 April 1587, at the end of his seven-year stint as “visitator general” in Spanish Italy, provides an account of the church’s decoration and music at the very end of this first wave of decoration.146 The five ducal chaplains were listed, along with the thirteen regulars, the latter to be present every day at High Mass and Vespers, and to share the responsibilities for votive Masses. The board had spent L. 2,663 in the previous year on the singers and organist (compared with L. 2,000 on statues and L. 5,000 on stonework). The report also remarked the Raphael painting bought from Carlo Borromeo’s estate. Its main focus, however, was on popular devotion to the church’s Madonna, noted in the miracles and the alms that accrued.147 Castilla’s account came at the time of an upgrading of the church music; the deputies ordered that the singers were to wear cassocks.148 The report to the prior a week before the titular feast that singers missed services and that “non essere la musicha del tutto perfetta” resulted in the deputies’ order that current singers be given raises and others hired.149 That Vespers in the late Cinquecento were very much public is evident from some of the ecclesiastical infighting over the carrying of mitres and wearing of vestments.150 The initial placement of the singers was in the choir, almost under the cupola. This location, plus the disposition of the organ on the back wall, and the moderate size of the nave, probably ensured that the polyphony would be fairly audible throughout the structure. Hence the hierarchial audibility found at the Duomo was lacking, a situation that tallies well with the city-wide character of the shrine’s public. As part of the outfitting of the interior, after the rejection of a new Antegnati
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organ by the deputies in 1574, the church was provided another instrument by 1576.151 An organist was regularly employed, starting with Costa at some point before 1580. After his departure, Ottavio Bariola took over, elected on 1 February 1584.152 He had been born around 1550, probably in the city, and was thus a contemporary of Caimo. At the time, he lived on the other side of town, in his father’s house in the parish of S. Eusebio.153 Much appreciated by the deputies, he took leave in April 1595 for unclear reasons.154 He might have taken on reduced dutites (the document required him to be present on the first Sunday of every month) after coming into his inheritance; later, he died on 5 May 1604.155 Giovanni Paolo Cima took over, remaining until his death, probably in the 1630 plague.156 Bariola’s playing was noted by Morigia in 1595, and there was a surprisingly large amount of published music for organ. He put out at least three (possibly five) books, Orazio Nantermi a canzona edition before 1596, and Cima a collection of ricercars and canzone in 1606.157 Thus the state of the ensemble around 1590 seems to have improved, with about eight singers and Bariola, still appreciated so highly that his request to leave the city for several months in fall 1590 was granted as paid leave, with no permanent substitution to be made.158 Two singers’ requests for raises between December 1589 and February 1590 were granted, but discipline soon became a problem again.159 At the same time, the presence of the musicians in the newly finished choir was perceived as disorderly, especially on the titular feast, and they were moved behind the stalls against the wall, out of the way of the priests.160 In 1594, screens were ordered to be placed in front of the lectern and on the organ loft so as to hide the singers completely.161 There is no trace in the payment records of any use of ensemble instruments other than the organ, which suggests that Bariola’s works were first meant only for keyboard, and that Cima’s famed ensemble pieces of 1610 originated from other performance situations (see chapter 3 below).162 With the end of expenses for decoration, the possibilities for music increased. In Lent 1593 the deputies evidently experimented with singing the Marian antiphon on Saturday and then ordered, in order to achieve “pia devotione,” the two deputies in charge of music to investigate how much other city churches spent on singers for such services.163 The largest payments were for Assumption Day, with outside musicians, banners, drapes, and special objects.164 But another continuous focus for music was the Saturday litany and antiphon service (the “Salve”).165 The board negotiated to bring Lucino and an unnamed castrato (probably Bovicelli) away from the Duomo, evidently hoping thereby to increase alms to the shrine.166 Morigia’s pamphlet summed up the state of music in spring 1594 (Doc. 6): [The deputies] maintain a good musical ensemble with its maestro di capella, with an excellent organist. Nor should it be omitted that for some years now the deputies, eager for divine devotion and wishing that the Virgin Mary Our Lady should be venerated at that site where every day and hour she grants many graces to her devoted ones, have thus introduced a devotion worthy of praise. Every Saturday evening, at the hour of Compline, the Salve Regina is to be sung with certain versetti and responses with prayers to solemnify Saturday, a day dedicated by the Church to the glorious Mother of God. Thus at the prescribed hour the musicians and organist assemble, with the priests vested, and after many candles have been lit at the altar rail of Our Lady, the singers begin, and the organist responds, and then both to-
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gether, with such sweetness and lovely harmony that it generates a holy devotion and affect of the heart toward the Mother of God in the hearts of the listeners, for it seems an angelic choir. Thus there is no one devoted to that holy place who does not wish to be present for such a sweet and devout symphony, unless they have a just excuse (for these are excused); and I add that many patricians go there.
The addition of music around 1590 to the prestigious and popular artistic decoration is evident in Morigia’s account, as the church became a special kind of visual and musical place in the city. The Salve service was organized by Orazio Nantermi, who hired the musicians.167 Special feasts were also celebrated, and the presence of the Franciscan composer Valerio Bona as a Mass celebrant between 1595 and 1597 adds to the sense of the growing musical importance of the shrine.168 It was no surprise that Margaret should have brought a candelabrum on her visit of 16 January 1599, as she was greeted by the music, an event repeated six months later for the return visits of the Archduchess Isabella and Pietro Aldobrandini.169 As Filiberto Nantermi got older, two unofficial maestri, Guglielmo Berti and Orazio Nantermi, took charge of the singers. In 1598, Berti was treated as maestro, as the functioning of the ensemble continued to trouble the deputies because of the frequent absences.170 At some point Orazio took over, having received various pay raises and hired many of the outside singers for Assumption Day in the previous decade.171 The roster of adult singers had been largely stable, with the Nantermis plus G. P. Candiano and the bass Antonio Bargella in the chapel.172 It seems that, for the years after 1595, the ensemble could count on six to eight adults and, with some interruptions, a boy soprano for Sundays and feasts. Cima’s threat to leave in 1606 led the deputies to raise his salary to match Bariola’s.173 By the first years of the new century, the ensemble seems to have consisted of about eight active singers (two on a part), two substitutes, and two pensioners (including Filiberto Nantermi), led by Orazio Nantermi.174
Repertory, Devotion, and Conflict The vocal music accompanying the decoration has survived only fragmentarily. Some of the pieces in Costa’s five-voice collection of spiritual madrigals and motets must have been composed for the shrine in the years after the plague, possibly for titular and other special days when the number of singers was sufficient.175 Bovicelli, a noted ornamentation specialist, would have displayed his abilities on Magnificat and psalm tones or falsobordoni. The musical repertory of the years after the initial decoration was completed, evident in the increased number of voices present in the 1590s, is found in Orazio Nantermi’s five-voice motets, first published in 1601 and reprinted in score in 1606, and in Cima’s four-voice works of 1599, as well as some of the putatively older pieces found among the forty-two motets in the organist’s 1610 Concerti ecclesiastici.176 The devotional priorities of the church showed some resonance in its musicians’ output. With its mixture of motets and madrigali spirituali, Costa’s 1581 edition seems practicable for informal use and aesthetically closer to Bemboist models of mid-
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century. But one of its motets, Virgo prudentissima, is a setting of a traditional text for the Assumption.177 Similarly, the pieces for the major feast day are clear in the prints of Nantermi and Cima: the former’s motets of 1601 open with the sequence (set in two partes) Ave, mundi spes Maria. There follow two Marian exaltation texts (Veni, amica mea and Beata es, virgo Maria, Dei genitrix), the latter again mixing the Assumption with personal intercession; Nantermi’s book also featured the standard Introit for 15 August, Gaudeamus omnes in Domino.178 The 1599 motets of Cima are less dominated by Marian themes, but do include Exaltata est sancta Dei genitrix and Assumpta est Maria. By 1612, a tavola divided the major feast days for the singers into three categories, twenty-seven common feasts, eighteen solemn ones, and the titular day.179 The next wave of church decoration, from 1599 to 1610, employed two of the three most important artists in the city, working in a very different style from the almost canonical figures of the preceding decades. This set involved both new creations (altarpieces) and works that can be seen as a commentary on the accomplishments of the previous century. They were located in the aisles and side altars of the nave, shifting the focus from the miraculous image and the sanctuary to the public area of the church.180 The exception was Procaccini’s addition to Fontana’s statue, two angels holding her crown, executed from early 1598 to spring 1599.181 Fontana’s Virgin looks up to Heaven as she ascends from earth, and the addition of the putti angels underscores the moment of her coronation, in that sense “completing” the original sculpture. From the place of the singers behind the choir, one could easily have seen the crowned statue. Although none of Cima’s or Nantermi’s texts actually mentions crowning, the responsory for Visitation set in Nantermi’s book of 1601 highlights Mary’s queenship: “Who is this woman, who rises like the sun, beautiful as Jerusalem? The daughters of Zion will see her, and call her blessed; they will praise her as a queen; and rosebuds and lilies of the valley, like spring days, will surround her.”182 The rest of the decoration would also have been quite visible to the public. In the first years of the decade, Cerano was at work on the first things a visitor would have seen: the stuccos of the first two vaults in the north aisle, and the frescoes of angels, prophets, and sibyls in the first two chapels and vaults of the south aisle, dating to 1603–4. Around 1605, he also completed a Visitation and an Annunciation on canvas, to be displayed as a temporary installation and additional decoration in the side aisles on those feast days.183 Martyriological devotion was also enhanced. In 1601–2, Giulio Cesare Procaccini passed from sculpture to painting, subcontracting the stuccos and executing the frescoes on the vaults and walls of the fourth chapels on the left and right, those of the Lamentation and Sts. Nazarus and Celsus (the latter is fig. 2.9).184 He also began the altarpieces for those two chapels, finishing the Pieta` by 1604 and the martyrs by 1607; later in the decade, he added a St. Sebastian (third left chapel; now in Brussels).185 In the first chapel of the north aisle, Cerano’s Martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria (payments from 1605 to 1609) complemented its south parallel, dedicated to the eponymous saint of Siena. For the north transept, Camillo Procaccini executed another Assumption.186 The entire effect was to reinforce the major devotional focus and to strengthen the presence of martyrs, male and female, in the church.
figure 2.9
G. C. Procaccini, Martyrdom of Sts. Nazarius and Celsus, 1606 (Milan, S. Maria presso S. Celso; by permission of the Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali, Soprintendenza di Milano)
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This, the single largest decorative project in Milan after Carlo’s death, was also one of the most expensive, and the costs would have immediate effects on music. In 1607, the artistic expenditures (and possibly the disputes between the Nantermis and Cima) led the deputies to another proposed reform. On 23 December they passed a reduction in the chapel, firing both Nantermis and leaving the total number of singers at four: Camillo Mazza, bass; Ottavio Verderio, tenor; Landriano, alto; and Giacomo Monza, soprano, specifying that Lucino would continue to sing at the Saturday Salve (Doc. 9).187 That the Nantermis, chased out of the job that had supported three generations of their family, suspected Cima as the instigator is evident from the organist’s letter of 1608, requesting protection from the deputies against the threats of violence made against him by the priest Giovanni Battista Nantermi, another of Orazio’s children, inside the basilica of S. Lorenzo, Cima’s parish.188 The conflict had no immediate impact, as the deputies had saved on two of the higher salaries. The tumult led to turnover; by the time of the printing of Cima’s 1610 motet book (its dedication by Lomazzo to the virtuoso bass who was not in the shrine’s service, Ottavio Valera, is dated 26 October), newer singers at S. Maria were named as dedicatees of pieces (the bass Matteo Ferrari, for a Cantate Domino, and the tenor Giulio Maleardo, for a Gustate et videte).189 The numbers shrank to nine by 1610, then rose again to between twelve and fifteen.190 On 29 May 1611, the veteran composer (“di molto valore nella sua professione, come si puo` ancora vedere dalle sue compositioni musicali messe in stampa,” of which latter only one edition survives) Alessandro Savioli was brought in from S. Lorenzo in Bergamo as maestro, evidently because of complaints about the poor quality of the music, with only Cima running matters. This situation had led to a reduction in the income from alms. But Savioli was let go on 9 February 1614, in another budget cutback, and matters returned to their previous state, as the deputies seemed unable to resolve the vicious circle of the expenses of good performers needed to attract alms that would pay for them.191 Savioli’s firing was part of the deputies’ decision to stabilize the number of voices to six and implicitly to entrust their direction to Cima; Ferrari and two sopranos were also released.192 The deputies’ financial reasoning was clear: Considering that, wishing to maintain the normal ensemble at the formal level of a chapel in this holy church, it will be necessary to add many voices, which (besides the difficulty in finding good ones) will also cost more than at present; and also that for some years now the said ensemble has not provided the desired satisfaction either to the nobility or the public, and everyone complains about it, and the alms as well have decreased more than the usual.193
These orders did not work. By the end of the year, the deputies complained about singers taking leave and thereby ruining the musical part of services.194 The interminable negotiations over pay raises and absences over the following decade made the Duomo look like a haven of tranquility.195 Cima complained first about his own salary, and then in the 1620s, that the departure of Antonio Brera and Matteo Ferrari to the Duomo would leave the chapel with only one soprano.196 The request, however, underscores the fluidity of passage between the shrine and the cathedral.197 Still, some continuity in the ensemble was evident, as the tenor Verderio remained for at least twenty years. After the plague, the combined post of organist and
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maestro was taken by the young Turati, noted as one of the best young musicians in the city, probably as soon as autumn 1630, remaining until his election to the cathedral in 1641–42.198 Some of the contents of his 1651 motet book must date from his time at the shrine, along with the two pieces in an anthology of the same year.199 He was succeeded by one of the best-known composers of mid-century Milan, Francesco Della Porta. He came from a job at at S. Ambrogio in the 1630s, and won a competition of 17 January 1642, besting Teodoro Casati. His contract stipulated the same duties as those of Cima, including Mass and Vespers on major (solenni) feasts, and Mass and the Salve on all Saturdays.200 Before his appointment, he had published a book of ricercars and fantasias, which survives only in an Italianate manuscript from Augsburg copied before 1640.201 Della Porta’s three adventuresome small-scale motet books of 1645, 1648, and 1651, printed by Vincenti in Venice and appearing within a decade of his arrival at the shrine, were quickly pirated by Phale`se in Antwerp. The organist’s contribution to the formation of mid-century European style was praised by Sebastian de Brossard, who was responsible for copying and arranging some of his motets a generation after the organist’s death on 11 January 1667. The French theorist thought that Della Porta’s compositions had served as models for much later composition.202 The ongoing efforts to reform the ensemble had yet another episode in December 1649 (Doc. 23). Like his predecessors in 1614, the deputy entrusted with the task, Alessandro Panigarola, again decided to reduce the singers to four, attempting to control absences and fixing both the days for polyphony and the items in some detail. The move seems to have been provoked by staffing problems at the Salve service, once again included as a major part of the shrine’s musical life; the deputy mandated the Marian litanies and a motet on Saturdays.203 Panigarola also decreed polyphony at Mass and Vespers on the feste di precetto, as well as on some Marian and churchrelated feasts, at Forty Hours, on the first Sunday of each month and Sundays in Lent (da capella, with the regal permitted in the season).204 The orders made a clear division between solemn and minor feste di precetto, with the former (Christmas, Circumcision, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Assumption, and All Saints) featuring a polyphonic mass Ordinary with motets at the opening, after the Epistle, and at Communion.205 A similar division was made for solemn (First) Vespers, with the polyphonic hymn, psalms, Magnificat, and Marian antiphon interspersed with three motets (at the opening, and flanking the canticle).206 The specificity of Panigarola’s recommendations, at least as a general guide if not strictly followed for feast days, fits Della Porta’s output well. First is the overwhelming importance of motets, with some six sung at Mass and Vespers on the major days, a total reflected in the forty-eight pieces he published in the three books between 1645 and 1651. The devotional priorities of the shrine are also evident in their destination, over half Marian and a quarter Christological/eucharistic.207 This suggests that motets on non-Marian feasts were increasingly slanted toward general Elevation (or preparation for Communion) works, not specific to the given day. In addition, if the shrine had passed from Ambrosian to Roman rite, then the organist’s Vespers psalms of 1656 also largely make sense in a free interpretation of the rules: an opening Lenten set of a cappella dominical psalms plus versicle and Magnificat a 4; a concertato Marian cursus with an optional fifth voice (presumably to handle the
56
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frequent uncertainty over the ability to hire an extra singer beyond the four mandated, or a post-1649 reworking of pieces composed originally a 5), together with a psalm for Sundays/male saints and for Corpus Domini in the same scoring; and smallscale settings for the former feasts plus a duplicate Ps. 147 (Marian).208 The last category includes two pieces with obbligato violins, the first from the shrine. Panigarola’s late, specific orders raise the problem of earlier moments in the church’s repertory in relation to its changing forces. That Cima was not aware of the scope of the upcoming reduction in 1607 seems evident from his purchase, two days before the decision, of eight music books from Lomazzo, three of which are for more than four voices.209 The list includes many, but not all, of the printer’s recent publications: two books of small-scale motets, including Viadana’s second volume in the genre (but notably omitting the two editions of Agazzari’s motets that Lomazzo had published and praised in the preceding two years), and the first concerto collection, Scaletta’s Cetra spirituale.210 The lot also included masses by Radesca (a 4), Re (a 5–8), and Belloni (a 5), and Magnificats by Vecchi (a 5) and Molinaro (a 4), along with the former’s now-lost Ambrosian hymn cycle, all editions published by Lomazzo (with the exception of the Viadana) between 1603 and 1607, implying more than four voices, and all printed with either a basso seguente part or a partitura.211 That the purchase reflected the normal order of business at the shrine is evident from Lomazzo’s sale of unspecified editions, or perhaps his compilation of music books, for the shrine as early as 1597, before he bought into the Tini firm and issued prints in his own name.212 In general, the repertory reflects the shrine’s ensembles, as the almost even division between CCATB and CATTB scorings in Nantermi’s book has more to do with modal choice than with a surfeit of boys, and most of the anthology pieces are for two to four voices. The music of the early seventeenth century, created as the second wave of decoration was going on busily around it, reveals some interesting changes. It is largely owed to Cima: forty-one motets in his 1610 book, and some twenty concertos in urban anthologies or others’ prints between 1605 and 1627. Some of Orazio Nantermi’s eight anthology concertos (1608–20) might also date from his last years of service.213 The most obvious occasions of celebration, Assumption and church ornamentation, are represented only by two large-scale motets in Cima’s 1610 book. These include the only eight-voice piece (Assumpta est Maria) in the church’s whole repertory, for one of the extraordinary titular days of the 1600s with its triumphal arch, city trombetti, and procession; and one (Ornaverunt faciem templi, from the liturgy of the Dedication of a Church) of the two five-voice pieces that Cima ever composed.214 The Annunciation of the fac¸ade and Cerano’s painting was echoed in the organist’s four-voice concerto from the 1608 Lucino anthology, O Maria virgo, ave. A two-voice motet (Tu, gloria Jerusalem) by Orazio Nantermi printed in the same collection takes another obscure text (originating in the Book of Judith), again used on the feast of the Visitation, as its point of departure, mixing the literary registers of Mariology and ending with a personal plea: “You, glory of Jerusalem, daughter of the barren Anna, you joy of Israel, betrothed to the carpenter Joseph, you honor of your people, virgin commended to the virgin [St John], you mother of God, O Mary, what will you give back to Him? You mother of God, O excellent one, have
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57
mercy on me.”215 Although the motet probably dated to any point in the fifteen years prior to its publication, its destination reinforced the ongoing prominence of the feast, celebrated also by Cerano’s festal canvas. The role of the primary familial shrine of the city, found in the Raphael School Rest on the Flight into Egypt and the Leonardo Virgin and Child with St. Anne, was also evident, underscored by the personalized quasi-couplet at the end. The reference to the “glory of Jerusalem” highlighted not only Mary’s place in theology, but the very real way in which her shrine and her image were the glory of Milan. Another important object was Carlo Borromeo’s crucifix (fig. 2.10), borne in the anti-plague processions of 1576, and preserved in the third south altar, probably the subject of a 1599 motet by Cima, destined for 3 May: “O blessed cross, you alone were worthy of bearing Heaven’s King, alleluia.” Other pieces in Cima’s collections seem related to Cross spirituality, although, as was the composer’s habit, they set very common or general, not strikingly emotive, texts.216 The martyriological side of devotion was also present, sometimes in unexpected ways. The devotion to Nazarius and Celsus seems to be reflected in one of Nantermi’s motets, possibly intended for their Translation: “These are the men who, while living in the flesh, founded the church with their blood; they drank from the Lord’s chalice and have been made friends of God.”217 But the most striking parallel between music and painting in the whole repertory is that for the devotion to Catherine of Alexandria. Cima’s 1610 setting of the most common antiphon for feasts of virgin martyrs uses the words of the angel presenting the saint’s reward: “Come, you bride of Christ, take the crown which the Lord has prepared for you for all eternity, alleluia.”218 The painting to which this may relate, created in the years before the issue of the Concerti ecclesiastici, is Cerano’s extraordinary depiction of Catherine of Alexandria literally receiving her heavenly crown from the exterminating angel who has just routed her executioners (fig. 2.11). The painting represents several planes of narrative: the dark background to the event of martyrdom, the distortion of the saint’s executioners, and the coronation of Catherine herself as she ascends to heaven, now freed from earthly torment. Its dynamism is evident in such details as the anatomical distortion of the Roman soldier in the right foreground, and the way in which the more realistic handling of Catherine, along with the strong color contrast of her almost naked white body against all the darkness of her surroundings, serves to set her above the confused and dramatic scene of martyrdom. The painting seems to have a direct relation to the antiphon text. Here it would seem to be spoken by the angel proffering the saint her heavenly reward. Cima’s setting (ex. 2.2) is in a largely diatonic seventh mode (eighth if we consider the alto and continuo lines to be in a plagal cofinalis relationship to a non-existent tenor, an idea weakened by the first strong cadence on D). The piece works around a series of descents in voice and continuo from g⬘; this generates the opening motive and several internal ideas. The descent pattern is broken, however, by two leaps up to a⬙, one for “sponsa,” the first reference to Catherine, and one beginning the musical corona that is a direct rhetorical representation of “coronam.” This seems to parallel Cerano’s pictorial handling of Catherine, which highlights and isolates the saint relative to the scene of her martyrdom. The vocal writing of Cima’s piece is virtuosic by the standards of the collection.
figure 2.10
Anonymous, Processional Cross of Charles Borromeo (Milan, S. Maria presso S. Celso; by permission of the Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali, Soprintendenza di Milano)
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figure 2.11
G. B. Crespi, “Il Cerano,” Martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria, 1604 (Milan, S. Maria presso S. Celso; by permission of the Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali, Soprintendenza di Milano)
59
60
s p ac e s an d t h e i r musi c s example 2.2a A
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Giovanni Paolo Cima, Veni, sponsa Christi a 1 (1610), mm. 1–11
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Its rhetoric, however, is even more straightforward than normal, with periods allotted to each idea (“Veni,” “accipe,” and “alleluia”), all cadencing on the final G, and exploiting a series of brief ideas (ex. 2.2a). Yet most striking are two gestures. One is the unexpected, textually unnecessary, and modally foreign chromatic turn at measure 37; the other is the extremely unusual final cadence (ex. 2.2b) with its unresolved tritone and its downward cadential leap in the voice part. As odd as it may seem, a similar conclusion is to be found elsewhere in Cima’s book.219 But here the tritone over the penultimate sonority is not resolved incorrectly, as elsewhere, but simply abandoned, as the voice jumps down to the third of the final. The effect is to jar the normal modal framework of the piece in the same way that a viewer of Cerano’s painting might be disconcerted, or perhaps reminded of the essentially disharmonious nature of the pagan world, by the figure of the torturer in the foreground. The infringement of Cinquecento norms in these artistic details is unexpected by the standards of the piece, by the horizon of expectations set up for the listener by the opening periods of the motet. Such unexpected compositional moves seem to parallel directly Cerano’s flouting of perspective and plane in his painting, a procedure that serves an expressive purpose, however, in its rendering of the “tortuous” nature of Catherine’s martyrdom, another important devotional point for the audience, visual or sonic, at S. Maria. After 1630, the decoration was largely complete, as the deputies chose to spend money on music, with the exception of a few altarpieces such as Melchiorre Gher-
example 2.2b
Cima, Veni, sponsa Christi a 1 (1610), mm. 37–49
36
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s p ac e s an d t h e i r musi c s
ardini’s St. Catherine of Siena Kissing Christ’s Side (ca. 1640) at the saint’s first south altar, an image that seems to have inspired Della Porta’s (and ultimately Cozzolani’s) settings of O quam bonus es.220 Yet the greater generality of mid-century motet texts, evident in both Turati’s and Della Porta’s books, with their paratactic and unspecific catalogues of Marian praise, ironically render the destination of a given piece for a given feast or devotional object more difficult. Turati’s O quam beati semper eritis may have originated for the celebration of the Translation of Sts. Nazarius and Celsus, but nothing would stop it from being used on any feast of multiple martyrs, and the limits of a purely institutional history become evident in this light.221 For all the differences between the cathedal and the shrine—large versus small forces, regular ritual life based on the Office versus Marian festivities, diffuse versus focused sonic environments—the two churches shared features: musicians (Boyleau, Costa, Turati), singers going in both directions, and a sense of the absolute necessity of music in urban ritual life. Despite the centrality of both, and as many connections were established between them over the generations, a series of other institutions filled other niches of devotion, prestige, and polyphony in the city.
3 Churches, Monasteries, Palaces
Outside the two main centers, the churches, cloisters, and noble residences of Milan provided varying levels of support for polyphonic practice. The public and private life of the religious orders was differently marked by music, but the quintessentially urban confraternities, welfare institutions, and family/dynastic dwellings also sponsored or hosted the art. It was precisely this decentralized and variegated profile that music shared with the other manifestations of city culture noted above. Outside the two major churches, the sonic profile of the city changed over time, depending on the fluctuations of the musical life of these places.
Custodians of the Civic Bodies Music in the second-largest church of the city had strong connections with urban ritual and art. The Conventual Franciscans of San Francesco Grande were situated next to S. Ambrogio, like S. Maria presso S. Celso on the outer perimeter of the city.1 Their Marian devotion was prominent, with the second chapel (one of its seventeen side altars) on the south wall, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, housing its most famous art work, one version of Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks. In the late Cinquecento, the friars undertook large-scale redecoration, including important commissions of altarpieces from the Luini and Procaccini family painters and from Simone Peterzano.2 In particular, Peterzano’s massive Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes fresco backed the north choir and emphasized eucharistic devotion.3 The church’s major link to urban society was its role as patrician necropolis, with some two hundred family tombs occupying major parts of the nave and the adjoining Cloister of the Dead. The relics of St. Barnabas and the bodies of the Paleochristian martyrs Sts. Naborus and Felix had been repositioned by Carlo Borromeo, the latter under the main altar in line with the church’s previous dedication. But unlike the Duomo, where the archbishop had largely banished the tombs, here the reworking preserved the symbolic continuity between the bones of the martyrs 63
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and those of the patricians’ families. Torre’s guidebook noted the patrician tombs, linking them to the martyrs’ bodies, reportedly found by St. Ambrose on the site.4 The traditions of polyphony at S. Francesco dated back to the Quattrocento, and were closely tied to civic ritual at the office-taking of the vicario della provisione and the dodici di provisione every January. A contract of 15 February 1556 had given land to the friars in exchange for a Mass of the Holy Spirit in polyphony, to be celebrated at the beginning of the year, on the occasion of the induction of these officials.5 The Franciscans were called upon to pray incessantly for the deputies and for the city; thus their music, and their urban mission, were supplications for the civic body.6 This tradition continued throughout the period, as on every 1 January all the civic officials went with the paratici, the gonfalone, and the six city trumpeters to hear a large-scale polyphonic mass at S. Francesco with two organs, while the convertite at the neighboring house of S. Valeria adored the Host during the Mass.7 Some of the largerscale repertory to be published by composers active at the friars’ church could have been heard on this occasion. Since there are no records of payments to external musicians, the corps of musicians at the house must have been drawn from its studio, the Franciscan quasiseminary that housed as many as sixty friars and novices in residence, normally for several years at a time. This institution made city youth into musicians (among other things), well into the Settecento.8 Other Franciscan traits are evident in the church’s repertory: the active mission of the order in “reclaiming” profane genres resulted in a marked production of secular music; also, the extreme mobility of its musicians, along with their relative autonomy as individuals, meant that few stayed in the city for very long.9 Given such space for personal initiative, and a number of religious superiors evidently willing to back the production of editions, the mendicants turned out a surprisingly continuous stream of music composed by friars who had been transferred from other cities.10 The size of the studio’s forces is unclear. At the very end of the period, the application made by S. Francesco’s maestro Felice Antonio Arconati for the 1669 competition to succeed Grancini at the Duomo referred to his experience in leading forty musicians, singing a capella every day and on feast days with organ.11 A second keyboard in the church had been built, or perhaps moved from the Humiliati church of S. Maria in Brera, by 1582.12 The first in the series of maestri was Orazio Colombani, who put out a simple Magnificat cycle and a Vespers in 1583–84. He was succeeded by Tommaso Graziani, who published another Vespers cycle, a three-choir festive mass (for St. Francis, with Proper items), and a madrigal book in 1587–89 before being transferred to Ravenna that summer.13 The next documentable maestro was the peripatetic Bona, who (to judge from the evidence at S. Maria presso S. Celso) arrived around 1595 and left in 1597. His only Milanese print is his treatise on improvised counterpoint, diminutions, and psalm-tone differentiae of 1596. But some works for S. Francesco may well be represented in his later editions (as the forces in his next city, Casale Monferrato, were smaller).14 The total of the editions rendered the friars the most prolific (and largest-scale) composers around 1590. The influence of the Franciscan Costanzo Porta is evident in his students Graziani and Gabussi.15 While the maestro for the first two decades of the new century is uncertain, two
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composing organists were the extremely important Antonio Mortaro, 1598–1601, succeeded by Giovanni Antonio Cangiasi, who published a canzonetta book in 1602 and an edition of tricinia after moving to Locarno in 1607. Mortaro clearly was a central figure for all of northern Italy around 1600, one whose music was used as a model as late as Francesco Rognoni’s 1620 ornamentation treatise. A canzona by him served, most unusually, as the basis for a mass by G. F. Capello, and his motets were published in the transalpine anthologies for decades.16 Mortaro’s Milanese output was far more complex than the simple works emanating from the church in the 1580s: a 1598 tricinium collection that anticipates in many ways the style of the early sacred concerto; an eight-voice annual Vespers collection, and a three-choir edition of a mass combined with largely Marian Vespers and a few motets, both the next year; a canzona book in 1600; and a personalized but traditional book of four- to six-voice motets in 1602. The three-choir mass edition (Messa, salmi, motetti et Magnificat a tre chori of 1599) seems particularly suitable for performance on the civic festivities of 1 January accompanied by the friars’ prayers. Two motet texts that refer to God’s martial protection of His people, Incipite Domino in tympanis and Cantemus Domino, suggest possible use for the blessing and functioning of city government.17 Another piece, set for the studio’s ensemble of nine voices, in Mortaro’s 1606 book of masses and motets, Deus noster refugium, refers to divine aid in the face of troubles. Its mention of the mountains and sea being moved, and of the torrent of God’s power sanctifying His city (both the eschatological Jerusalem and Milan), clearly evokes the world of civic invocation.18 The setting of all these texts would have fit well with the annual civic ceremony accompanied by the friars’ invocations. All Mortaro’s Milanese-period books were reprinted within fifteen years, some twice, and normally in the more prestigious center of Venice. These represent the only reprints until 1611 of any city repertory except for two editions of Orfeo Vecchi. The organist’s works continued to be important for a generation, and his Milanese pieces represent some of his largest-scale and most popular music. More mysterious is the presence of another Brescian Franciscan a decade later. Giovanni Ghizzolo came from his job as a tenor at the cathedral of Novara, possibly as early as summer 1610 but more likely in spring 1611, and signed his next six editions from Milan.19 Given his presence in the city, and the lack of any institution named on his title pages, he probably remained at the studio, using Lomazzo’s press to have music circulate, and seeking patrons and employers, until being hired by Prince Siro of Correggio in October or November 1612.20 Unlike any other Franciscan, he had enough contact with other urban musicians and amateurs to obtain an epigram from Cesare Millefanti (1556–1640; a canon at S. Maria della Scala) in the important four-voice Concerti all’uso moderno of 1611, to dedicate pieces in the same collection to singers at the Duomo and the Scala, and to have some of his own pieces appear in the urban anthologies.21 Notwithstanding his previous troubles connected to worldly repertories, Ghizzolo’s association with secular music continued, as he published two madrigal and aria books a 1–2 in his Milanese biennium.22 Ghizzolo’s four-voice masses and Magnificat (with two motets) of 1612 were issued during this time; two of the pieces are modeled on two four-voice canzonettas from Felice Anerio’s first book of 1586. Two madrigals in Ghizzolo’s third book of the same year are dedicated to Milanese figures as well. The three eight-voice masses
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published in Op. 10 of 1612, along with the edition’s four motets, were followed by the Op. 11 second book of madrigals a 5–6 and the Op. 12 motets a 2–4 in 1614–15, the latter including a setting of one of Coppini’s contrafacta. Some of these pieces must date to the Milanese years as well. Ghizzolo’s memory was kept alive in the city by Lomazzo’s reprint, just after the composer’s death, of his Op. 17 psalms in 1625, part of the retrospective turn of that decade. The trail of S. Francesco’s maestri resumes again with the Vigevanese Francesco Bellazzi, who, after service in Parma and his native city, came between April 1622 and November 1623. He produced editions in the 1620s reminiscent in form, if not in style, of the first wave of forty years earlier, again centered on liturgical works: a five-voice concertato/da capella Vespers print of 1623, a Compline and Terce edition of 1624, and an eight-voice mass and motet print of 1628.23 Bellazzi probably died in the plague year 1630, disappearing after 1628. The Genoese friar Claudio Cocchi then came from Trieste and published yet another volume of Marian four-voice Vespers in 1632, the only post-plague edition by any non-cathedral musician until 1640. Finally, the first maestro to have been both a Milanese and a product of the studio, Giovanni Battista Cesati, served from before 1655, publishing a motet book, until he was called to Bologna in summer 1658.24 Despite the similarities to the cathedral’s Gothic architecture, and the clear devotional parallels to S. Maria presso S. Celso, the printed repertory associated with S. Francesco suggests a different polyphonic environment. The high population of the studio, and the tradition of polychoral masses for such events as the civic ceremonies on 1 January or order-related feasts (St. Francis), resulted in large-scale editions, from Colombani’s nine-part Magnificats (with one for fourteen voices) of 1583 to Graziani’s three-choir mass of 1587, Mortaro’s similar 1599 edition, Ghizzolo’s eight-voice mass and motet book of 1613, all the way to Bellazzi’s eight-voice masses of 1628, at a time when the genre was no longer widely cultivated. When many other composers were producing motets in smaller scorings, Franciscans continued to publish polychoral music for Mass and Office, adding editions for Hours largely unmusical elsewhere in the city (Compline, Terce). The size of musical celebrations at the church seems to have been large. Noteworthy was the order’s tendency to publish Ordinary and Proper items together, or to denote Ordinary items as suitable for Proper feasts.25 Given the importance of the patrician tombs, it was no surprise that Ghizzolo and Bellazzi produced three Roman-rite Requiems (1612, 1613, and 1628), more than at any other city institution. Beyond the corporate functions, the link of music and devotion was also apparent in the printed repertory. Some of it reflects Franciscan simplicity: the early Office music is alternatim (Colombani 1584, Graziani 1587), and even Bellazzi’s music is undemanding by the standards of his decade. Although these scorings are some of the largest in the city (apart from the Duomo, and one or two female houses, no other such resources were to be heard in the late Cinquecento), the actual difficulty of the voice parts is minimal, especially in the early editions, again suggesting the variety of musical training available among the residents of the studio. The Franciscans’ editions also often feature two choirs a 5 and a 4, resulting in nine-voice pieces. The lack of choirboys meant that pieces for equal voices (a voci pari) were more frequent than in most of the city repertory.26 The writing for an equal-voice choir,
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typical as early as Colombani’s and Graziani’s editions, seem to indicate the origin of such editions as Mortaro’s 1599 three-choir mass and Psalms (with their voci pari choir II) at the Milanese house. The sonic effect, in the vast Gothic space of S. Francesco, must have been oddly muted and fairly low (especially in comparison with the female monasteries), reinforcing the funerary and martyriological characteristics of the site. Another part of the church’s traditions was the large-scale celebration of certain feast days, normally linked to relics, altars, or the order: 11 June (St. Barnabas); 12 July (Sts. Naborus and Felix); 4 October (St. Francis); Immaculate Conception (8 December); and 28 December (Holy Innocents, with an Innocent’s body preserved at the north transept altar leading to the sacristy).27 A series of penitential texts set by Mortaro could have been used during Lent.28 Order-specific works appeared in all the editions, ranging from the intimacy of Mortaro’s 1598 tricinium Sancte Francisce, propera or Cangiasi’s similar piece (1607) for Anthony of Padua, O proles Hispaniae, to the expansiveness of Graziani’s 1587 mass for St. Francis. Other texts seem to be related to the Franciscans’ vocation.29 As custodians of the cult of their founder, the friars apparently also went outside: G. P. Cima’s 1610 motet seems to be suited for singing by the order or its wide urban following on his feast.30 One motet by Orfeo Vecchi sets a rhymed antiphon for a different commemoration in the saint’s life, the stigmata, a piece likely to date from the first universal celebrations of the feast in 1585 or 1586.31 In the new century, Philip IV was devoted to this latter feast, and Federigo celebrated it with music at the Duomo.32 Another motet for this feast was dedicated to Marta Ferrari, the music teacher at the female Collegio della Guastalla, and appeared in Agostino Soderini’s motet book of 1598: “O wonder, o joy, o Francis, judge of the peoples, guide and pilot of our forces; in you there rested the double spirit of the prophets. So now all the saints in heaven praise you, and the angels cry out your commendations, singing and psalmodizing solemnly, and alternating their voices with those on high.”33 Soderini set the words quite directly, with a slowed rhythm for the penultimate textual phrase, and a final antiphonal section between the two choirs for “alternantes voces cum vocibus altissimis.” If, in practice, the two ensembles had been composed respectively of outside musicians and the Guastalla’s girls (the latter not subject to the curial restrictions on nuns’ performances with male counterparts), this would have been another literal enactment of the text, one of the first musically referential moments in the city’s repertory. Pieces for the Immaculata, a favourite Franciscan theme represented not only by the side chapel but also by the double dedication of the right apse altar and a luogo pio on the right side of the atrium, include the opening motet of Ghizzolo’s Concerto all’uso moderno (1611; Pulchrae sunt genae tuae), along with Cangiasi’s 1607 Quam pulchri sunt gressus tui or Mortaro’s 1602 Egredemini et videte. Such pieces could have sounded on the solemn celebration of the Immaculate Conception, with its largescale alms-giving.34 Other Marian destinations include the Assumption motets, possibly reflections of the central altar in the apse dedicated to her or of the large southside altar of the Death of the Virgin.35 The clearest sign of a specifically Franciscan musical celebration of Mary is a free text serving as an introduction to the Magnificat, Plaudat nunc organis, set by
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both Bona and Mortaro (1601 and 1599). The reference to praising the Virgin with organs takes on special meaning given the practice named by Arconati of celebrating feasts with the instrument. The opening refers self-consciously to the antiphony of Mortaro’s musical setting: “Let Mary now be praised with organs, and let the drums resound for our Mother with quick strokes; let the happy choirs concord, and let sweet songs be mixed with alternating melodies; so hear how our ensemble sings: Magnificat anima mea Dominum. . . .”36 The martyrs’ bodies of the church were also celebrated: for Naborius and Felix, Mortaro’s Viri sancti (1598, the only six-voice piece in the book, and again in 1602) and Stabunt justi in magna constantia (a 13; 1599); for the Innocents, the four-section Innocentes pro Christo/Herodes natus/Sub throno Dei/Cantabant sancti (ending with the most familiar text for the feast) was featured in Cangiasi’s 1607 book; for All Saints,” another text from Revelations (7:2), Vidi alterum angelum, was set by Mortaro in 1602.37 Thus the repertory, and the decoration, of S. Francesco paralleled (without the miracles) those of S. Maria presso S. Celso, less than a mile away.38
Officiating for Ducal Prestige The fourth site both reflected ancient traditions and was essentially non-public. The ducal church of S. Maria della Scala, founded in the late Trecento, was an emblem of local rule, and achieving a canonry there represented a major achievement in the patriciate.39 The edifice was a moderate-size Gothic building, with three naves and three steps leading to it; the double choir stalls (now in San Fedele) were finished in 1560.40 The actual role of the church in urban life was to represent Habsburg prestige and piety, and episcopal versus ducal control of the church was a key source of conflict during Carlo’s tenure. Federigo’s only visitation of the church, in 1623, was negotiated well in advance and took place only after the concordat of 1618 established a modus vivendi between the archdiocese and the State of Milan. The structure of the chapter was strongly hierarchical: in descending order of prestige and income, the prevost, archpriest, archdeacon, mansionari, chaplains, and levites.41 The chapter’s structure also affected liturgy; the two maestri di choro were to intone the psalms on festive and ferial days, conduct the medial cadence in chanted psalmody, and direct the choir of canons.42 In 1651, a report by the ducal chaplain Antonio Bassanini on the ducal canonries noted the centrality of the Office in the church’s prestige. The provost, archpriest, archdeacon, fourteen canons, eight beneficiati, two guardians, and four clerics officiated three times a day, combining Matins and Prime; Terce, Sext, Mass, and None; and Vespers and Compline, all sung in chant, in which an examination was necessary for admission.43 Musical traditions dated back well to the early Cinquecento; later, a 1574 visitation (at the height of Carlo’s conflict with the chapter) recorded the presence of an organist, Felice Anardomo.44 There are no references to any large urban public ever present at the church, and it seems that music and liturgy took place largely for the benefit of the chapter and on the many occasions when the governor’s court came. Evidently its liturgy was Ambrosian.45 Certainly its devotion and decoration reflected some ancient themes in
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ducal piety. The Marian protection of its name was reflected in its major feast, Assumption BVM, depicted on the organ shutters (ostensibly by Bramante), also commemorated by a fresco by Bernardo Lanino in the atrium. The main altar, consecrated in 1548, held relics of St. Ciriacus and St. Bibiana, and capitular Masses and Vespers were sung there. Three major feasts celebrated there were the Assumption, St. Barbara, and St. Bibiana.46 The church also honored St. Veronica (despite Carlo’s excision of the feast from the diocesan calendar, in another attack on the chapter) on 4 February, while she was represented in the Deposition altarpiece by Simone Peterzano, on the north side. According to the 1620 Calendario volgare, her feast was as important at the Scala as was the Assumption. St. John the Baptist’s altar off the north transept featured another painting by Camillo Procaccini, while the Virgin with Sts. Jerome and Francis was represented in a south-nave altarpiece (Paolo Landriani, “il Duchino”). The Transfiguration was venerated in the first south chapel (with an altarpiece by Antonio Campi from the 1580s, now lost), while other feasts were celebrated at two of the side altars.47 The commissioning of the altarpieces and the canonries testify to a moment of wealth and activity in the church around 1580. Its musical traditions dated to Sforza rule, and were important in the mid-Cinquecento. Like so many other institutions, it came to greater musical prominence after the 1576 plague, when Carlo’s personal designation of Vecchi as the maestro di cappella was imposed on the chapter when he first held the job in 1580–82.48 Born (1551) in Milan and trained in Vercelli, Vecchi made ties with other cathedral chapters and musical patrons, some of whom figure as dedicatees in his printed work. Although the Scala was one of the central loci of conflict between Carlo and the governor, Vecchi’s functioning there seems to have proceeded in relative harmony. Vecchi’s subsequent ascent in the chapter was due in part to the aid of Federigo, whose assistance the composer invoked in January 1591, in the first effort for a chaplaincy attached to the altar of John the Baptist. In autumn, however, Vecchi’s letter requesting Federigo’s intercession with the provost Bernardino Morra evidently cleared the way for the better-paid position of a mansionario, one which would allow the composer to quit the onerous tasks of school-teaching (Doc. 4).49 On both occasions, Vecchi sent music to the prelate: a single motet with his first letter, then four motets which he considered the best pieces of all that Federigo had heard of his output (“le piu` belle compositioni che V. S. Ill.ma habbi sentito delle mie”). There is no record of any resistance from the chapter. A list from the 1590s gives an idea of the chapel he ran: six adult singers, an organist (Bernardo Borghese), plus sopranos to be hired at need.50 Still, despite the promotions, Vecchi did not hesitate to solicit Federigo for the job of maestro at the Duomo (even before Gabussi informed the prelate of his plans to leave for Bologna in 1597), reminding the prelate of his status as “diuoto servitore.”51 The plan came to nothing when Gabussi stayed. On several other occasions, Vecchi’s forces joined with those of the Duomo for four-choir music. Besides the funeral of Philip II (see chapter 5), several months later on 9 February 1599, the anniversary of the consecration of Clement VIII was celebrated in his nephew Pietro Aldobrandini’s presence with festivities at S. Fedele, with a mass and a motet sung by the two ensembles.52 On 12 February 1587, the cerimon-
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iere’s diary noted the Mass for the chapter at the ducal church with the presence of the cathedral’s singers and the Duomo’s organist Costa. One of Vecchi’s few eightvoice pieces, a Decantabat populus Israel (1590), used the normal secunda pars, telling in context, of a suitable text: “And so the priests and levites were sanctified, so that they might carry the arc of the Lord God of Israel.”53 This collaboration, despite the political differences between the archbishop and the chapter, reflected another kind of pan-urban music-making. Still, the most striking feature of musical life at the chapel was to be Vecchi’s spectacular burst of publishing in the last seven years of his life (1596 until just after his death, 1604). His first signal editions were the complete (i.e., non-alternatim) Salmi intieri of 1596 (the first such annual cycle published by an urban composer), and the Motetti d’Orfeo Vecchi et d’altri eccellenti autori a 5, book 1, of the next year, which combined seven motets by Romans and fifteen of his own.54 The former would be reprinted in 1614, with a posthumous tribute to the composer by Lomazzo, and the motet book would see two reprints in the years after its first edition, as if Tini did not realize how popular it would become.55 Vecchi’s dedications to Milanese patricians, nearby cathedral chapters (Novara, Como), and religious male and female suggest that he was able to use his connections for financing the printings, in one case reaching as far as Catholic Uri in Switzerland.56 The choice of dedicatees also contributed to the suitability of almost all of his music for institutions following Roman, not Ambrosian, rite.57 Indeed, the rapid printed output of Vecchi in these years would have been remarkable for any composer: fifteen surviving original editions, four reprints (two in Antwerp of five- and six-voice motets, the only northern pirating of a Milanese edition until Ala’s works in the 1630s), one contrafacta volume texted by him, and seven now-lost editions, a total of three prints a year.58 Some of this music has to date back to the 1580s; but the sheer comprehensiveness of his editions, spread between Tini and Tradate, is remarkable: five books of masses (one for four voices, two for five, and one for eight); two complete Vespers cycles (both in Roman rite) a 5; eleven books of motets consisting of one for four voices (a complete cycle for the Common of Saints), five five-voice volumes, and five for six voices (the fourth of which was the last Penitential Psalm series to be published in Italy), falsobordoni in eight orders, annual hymn cycles for both the Roman and Ambrosian rites, a double Magnificat set, and a cycle of spiritual madrigals, plus the contrafacta book. Borsieri’s encomium seems like an understatement: Orfeo Vecchi, formerly chapelmaster at the Scala, was a musical composer of such skill, that with the cartella at sight he created a motet, even a polychoral one, in the same amount of time in which a very accomplished writer would have written a letter. He [had] printed motets, psalms, masses and other musical works in such great abundance, that no one has exceeded him; instead, he himself surpassed all those in this profession who have published partbooks.59
Evidently Vecchi was so adept at working out points of imitation mentally that his use of the tablet was more a matter of notation than of experiment.60 The scope of the editions is comparable to that of the most prolific composers of Catholic Europe:
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the two five-voice (to the exclusion of any other scoring) Vespers cycles of 1596 and 1601 parallel those of another priest at a ducal church, Gastoldi’s two books of before 1600 and 1602, with again a popular first cycle followed by a less successful second.61 The two hymn cycles again “outdo” the single publications of Asola (1585), Palestrina (1589), Ponzio (1589), Varotto (1590), and Costanzo Porta (1602). The other question, not answerable from the surviving evidence, is whether Federigo, Vecchi’s previous patron, had anything to do with this rapid wave of publications. But the most striking feature is the sheer number of motets and their scoring and destination: the clear temporal priority of six-voice pieces (three books by 1598 compared with two of five-voice works), probably reflecting the Scala’s resources (especially in light of an anthology of works in the same scoring by the church’s musicians, compiled by Berti in 1610).62 If Vecchi’s earlier books feature texts from various festal occasions at the church, there is a clear turn later to almost obsessively complete cycles: the falsobordone and hymn books of 1600, the missing Ambrosian hymn cycle, the Penitential Psalms (1601), the double modal cursus of Magnificats of 1602, the adumbration of Marian virtues and feasts in the spiritual madrigal cycle of the same year (La donna vestita di sole), and the motets for the Common of Saints (Book V a 5, preserved without text in the Pelplin Tablature, and the 1603 settings a 4), all issuing forth in a remarkable hurry.63 Were one so inclined, by 1604 one could sing mass (and a motet) and Vespers on the feste di precetto (in Roman rite) in complete polyphony for an entire year, with a madrigal or contrafactum for recreation afterwards, using only Vecchi’s music, and still not have exhausted the contents of his publications. To look back on Vecchi’s output from the perspective of the compiler of the Pelplin Tablature also shows what was attractive in northern Catholic Europe a generation after his publications.64 After an opening section by other composers, largely of bicinia, his Book III a 6 of 1602 was copied almost entirely (items 51–69 in the tablature) and provided with liturgical assignments.65 Further on in the manuscript, the motets for the Common of the Saints a 4 of 1603 were again taken en bloc (291–311), followed by four pieces (motets and contrafacts) from the popular Book I a 5 of 1597 (312–15) and a twenty-two-motet cycle a 5 (316–51), again for the Common of the Saints and Proper of the Time feasts from Advent to Good Friday. This last probably represents the missing Book III or IV a 5, published after 1598.66 Next was another cycle, eleven motets from the now-lost Book V a 5 (352– 66), settings largely in two partes for male sanctoral feasts. This was then followed by a combination of original motets and contrafacts from the 1604 Scielta and 1597 Book I a 5 (366–99; also 402–3), and concluded by six motets a 5 (400–1 and 404– 13) of unknown provenance, possibly comprising much of the rest of Book V, for Proper feasts. The sheer cyclicity of Vecchi’s output, and its encyclopedic attempt to “cover” the same liturgical occasions with different settings a 5 and a 4, are remarkably striking. And his systematic production of motets makes this genre the most representative in all his works. Giovanni Battista Stefanini was hired from Turin in early 1605 to replace Scarabelli’s abortive service at the Scala.67 With the appointment of this layman, the link between a canonry and the appointment as maestro was broken. But his stay of five years was productive, with the first concerto book by a figure in the city (1606), and
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a five- to eight-voice collection in 1608.68 Around 1609, he went on to Rome, probably in the hope of finding better patronage and working conditions there. Stefanini was replaced by Benedetto Binago, coming from S. Gaudenzio in Novara, who won out over Galeazzo Sirena. The latter’s pecuniary interest in the job and hopes of promotion by the Scala’s singers were sarcastically noted in a letter by Monteverdi.69 The organists of the church were also present in the city’s compositional output: Borghese was followed by Arnone’s student Girolamo Baglione, who had less than a decade of public activity, leaving a large if somewhat schematic motet book to be collected by his father, dedicated to the canons of the Scala, and published by Lomazzo posthumously.70 Baglione must have been something of a prodigy, as he was fourteen when his first bicinium appeared in print, and died aged twenty-three in 1607.71 He was succeeded by an interesting and long-lived musician, astronomer, and scholar, Giulio Cesare Ardemanio (ca. 1575–1650), who served for more than four decades. His brother Giovanni Battista, one of the maestri di coro, took over Vecchi’s canonry at the same time.72 The two were mentioned together with Monteverdi (and the Scala’s famed tenor G. B. Lambrugo) in Giovanni Soranzo’s list of worthies appended to the end of his epic Lo Armidoro (Milan, 1611).73 Although Giulio Cesare published relatively few pieces, his solo motets, of which the first appeared in the 1608 Lucino anthology, mark a new kind of extrovert interest in virtuosity and contrast far removed from the other pieces in the Concerti de’ diversi, and inaugurate the rather different styles of the second decade of the century in the city. Ardemanio’s first stile antico motet, a Regina caeli, appeared in Geronimo Cavalieri’s 1605 second volume of the Nova metamorfosi contrafact series, dedicated to another canon of the Scala.74 But his circles were not restricted to the chapel, as Coppini reported having written the words of a dialogue that he set: I send my little ditty to be sung to be sung by your Lucinia, whom the sacred theater hosts. The words are mine, the music by Cesare Ardemanio; it is a dialogue. Lambrugo, that splendid singer, sang it twice in the church of the Scala, when the liturgy was officiated by the provost of the church in a solemn service. Everyone was hanging on the singer’s mouth. But the words are to be sung slowly, now in an energetic, now in a lowered voice, as noted on the score. Should Angelica [i.e., a nun of the Angeliche] Lucinia wish anything else of the kind, I will send other such works, so that her desire may be fulfilled.
Since Coppini sent it on Pentecost 1611 to a Genoese friend to have a solo woman singer perform it, one likely candidate for the piece is Ardemanio’s solo dialogue Consolare, o mater, published in the Prima aggiunta supplement (1612) to the 1608 Concerti de’ diversi.75 This piece, an Easter consolatory interchange between the Risen Christ and His mother, is scored for solo canto, and features the p and f indications (printed in the partitura) to which Coppini probably referred: [Risen Christ:] Be consoled, O mother. [Mary, piano:] O my beloved Son, O sweetest Jesus. [Christ, forte:] I have risen in glory, be glad, my mother. [Mary, piano:] Your wounds, my Son, wounded my heart. [Christ, forte:] Now you see your first-born in
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triumph. [both characters in one, piano, with a forte repetition:] O happiness, O true joy.76
The report’s immediacy seems to date from a performance by Lambrugo on Easter 1611 (3 April). Its flexibility in literary and literal voice—two characters combined in a single vocal line, suitable for either a male ducal singer (down an octave) or a nun—also shows how devotion transcended gender, in both symbolic characterization and practical ways. The contrapuntal legacy of the Scala’s composers—Vecchi, Stefanini, Ardemanio—and other urban figures (G. P. Cima, Gabussi, Limido, G. F. Cabiati) was collected in the 1610 Messe, motetti . . . a sei assembled by Berti, who had come from S. Maria presso S. Celso before 1605.77 As noted, the emphasis on six-voice motets in this repertory suggests the normal festal scoring of the chapel, in marked contrast to the double-choir music at the Duomo or S. Francesco (or in the other centers of north Italy). The anthology was unusual in its choice of occasions for motets: five pieces of general praise, five for Christmas, two for Assumption and St. Cecilia, and one for the Eucharist, along with a psalm-motet and another liturgical introduction like Mortaro’s Plaudat nunc organis, this time to the Sanctus.78 Berti’s dedication to Giulio Aresi summarizes Greek thought on the power of music, notes the role of motets in raising the soul to God, and describes his effort as a collection of the most classically proven (and traditional) pieces of the city’s composers: “Now Music sings the praises of the true God, and incites the desire for celestial things in all souls. When I was about to publish such kinds of songs composed by the leading authors of our city, and collected by myself, I decided to dedicate them to your name, not daring the weak, abbreviated, or overlong harmonies with which the house and home of private citizens resound today.”79 Within its genre, the collection traces a wide stylistic arc, summarized by Cima’s two contributions, one a canon, the other playing off two-canto duets against a quartet of lower voices. This feature also characterizes Stefanini’s eight-voice 1614 Concerti ecclesiastici, whose preface noted that the pieces (four motets, two antiphons, a mass, Magnificat, psalm, and litany) had been written while still in Milan for use at the Scala.80 Thus the repertory of the century’s first decade was actually not only largerscale but more varied in scoring and style than might seem.81 But problems of money and personnel began to trouble the chapel in the years after Stefanini’s departure and Berti’s anthology.82 In 1651, Bassanini reported that previously all feast days were done with polyphony, but since income had decreased at some unspecified point (probably in the financially troubled 1620s, with the expenditures for war in the Low Countries and Germany), only the pontifical days sung by the provost and a few others were so treated, evidently sparing the chapter the costs of a permanent ensemble and especially a maestro.83 The other records bear out this decline; Binago, the author of a few anthology concertos, was succeeded around 1615 by Lambrugo, evidently more of a singer than a composer, who also served as the other maestro di coro.84 Lambrugo had been given a chaplaincy at the Scala in 1609, and a place in the ducal chapel as well; he sang into the 1630s, until his death in 1636.85 G. C. Ardemanio continued as organist, publishing the first book of printed pieces for the stage in 1628, a set of madrigals and canzonettas for insertion
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into a pastoral play on Carlo Borromeo’s entrance into Milan, performed that Carnival at the Collegio de’ Nobili.86 No replacement for the maestro is known until Biagio Marini’s brief stay in 1649–50. In this time, the Scala’s ensemble seems to have become identical with that of the ducal chapel in the palace, and from the 1620s on it is hard to avoid the impression of a decline. A report from the 1660s noted the general decline of liturgy, including the previous musical decorum that had been reduced to nothing.87 The description seems exaggerated, as the diary of the Scala’s cerimoniere for 1663 recorded the musicians singing a motet during the Forty Hours, as well as at First Vespers of the Assumption. At Second Vespers of the same feast, both Ambrosian-rite psalms along with the hymn and Magnificat were done in polyphony.88 In line with the essentially private nature of the church, it is difficult to link much of its composers’ repertory with its devotional objects. A handful of motets seem related to the major feasts, especially Assumption and John the Baptist. The Assumption pieces opened Vecchi’s Book I a 5 (Surge propera/Veni, dilecte mi), and were found in the other editions of the church’s composers: Baglione’s 1608 Gaudeamus omnes . . . assumptionis a 2; Stefanini’s Beata es, virgo Maria a 7 (1608); and two pieces in Berti’s anthology, Vecchi’s Assumpta est Maria and Ardemanio’s Vidi speciosam. The Baptist and his altar had a number of reflections: Vecchi set Puer qui natus est nobis (twice, in Books II and V a 5, the latter in Pelplin), as did Stefanini (1606, hence possibly for 24 June 1605 or 1606), and Baglioni (1608 a 2). Others include Vecchi’s Hodie lucerna ante solem (Book III a 6) and Fuit homo in deserto/Erat Johannes (Book V a 5). Habsburg victories were also celebrated at the Scala, and, in light of Della Valle’s parallels between David and Philip III in his funeral oration (see ch. 4), a four-voice dialogue by Binago from the 1612 Prima aggiunta must refer to the military successes, limited though they were, of the monarch:89 “Saul slew a thousand, and David ten thousand, for the hand of the Lord was with him; he struck the Philistine, and removed shame from Israel; Saul slew a thousand, and David ten thousand with his soldiers; is this not that David of whom they sang in chorus, saying: ‘Saul slew a thousand, and David ten thousand with his soldiers’?”90 The piece uses the simple refrain form (“Percussit Saul mille”) with solos and duets. Although Spanish military affairs were generally quiet around 1610, the reference may be to the Treaty of Antwerp, signed with the Dutch in April 1609, or to the Savoyards’ formal apology (summer 1610) for their plans to invade Lombardy, failed after the assassination of Henry IV. The ducal ensemble proper, consisting of singers and instrumentalists, was located in the court, performing services at the palace chapel of S. Gottardo in Palazzo. This institution shows less prestige (and records) than the Scala, although some information about the singers can be found in the dialect poetry of one, Fabio Varese.91 He published a now-lost canzonetta volume in 1592 and was a member of the ensemble until his death. Although not well paid, some of the singers in the palace ensemble were among the better-known figures in the city. Varese’s contemporaries, some of whom seem to have perished in the plague, included the tenor Pietro Francesco Cinciardi (Cingardo) and his son; the tenor Ottavio Nicolino (until 1627); the future maestro Giovanni Battista Lambrugo; the bass Giovanni Lopez; and the tenor Nicolo` Pelizzone. Varese’s poem VI addresses the maestro, a “pre´ Zopp,” possibly
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G. D. Rognoni, who was a priest and seems to have suffered later from ill-health. It also refers to the singers “Cingard e Cingardett,” Ottavio Nicorin, and “messe´ Ippolet, Battista e ’l spagnolett.”92 A later generation comprised the tenor G. B. Bernacho, Antonio Pestagallo (the “Siren del nostro secolo”), the alto Antonio Piantanida, and the bass Carlo Ceppi.93 Among the instrumentalists there figure Varese’s friends “Sargent del viorin” and “Ieronim del cornetto,” both in the earlier generation. That the instrumentalists performed on visits to the Scala as well is evident from a retracted effort by the curia in 1623 to ban them.94 The size of the palace ensemble is unclear. Varese’s poem names six singers, plus himself and the maestro, thus a total of eight. The only music associated with the ensemble in this scoring is G. D. Rognoni’s madrigals of 1619. The surviving sacred music for the palace ensemble, again by Domenico Rognoni, requires five or fewer voices, and the plague seems to have diminished the forces considerably. By the time of Carlo Cozzi’s Vespers of 1649 for the entrance of Maria Anna, which includes three dedications to ducal singers, the ensemble seems to have come back. The largest reflection in printed editions for the palazzo’s forces came in the years after 1610, when both Rognoni brothers were hired, Domenico from S. Marco as maestro and Francesco (coming from the small Fieschi court of Messerano southwest of Vercelli) as head of the instrumental band.95 As financial difficulties increased, however, both took other appointments (Domenico as organist at S. Sepolcro and Francesco as maestro at S. Ambrogio), possibly in an effort to augment their incomes. As noted below, Domenico died in March 1622, and Francesco disappeared around 1630, again probably a plague victim. Biagio Marini was briefly in service in the mid1630s, and again in 1648–49. The next recorded maestro was Teodoro Casati, active from some point in the 1640s into the 1670s, whose Concerti ecclesiastici of 1651 include new-style motets (a 2–4) composed for the 1649 entry and for women of the Arese family. By 1665 the chapel, now identified with the Scala’s ensemble, had gone back to eight singers (two on a part, the sopranos called “Tiple”), cornetto, two violins, dulcian, and organ.96 The contents of the Rognonis’ prints are in some ways surprising. As part of court music, a large-scale madrigal book was produced by each son (Francesco in 1613, and Domenico’s mentioned above). Francesco also published a good deal of sacred music, only some of it related to his instrumental duties, as the 1610 mass and Sunday/Marian Vespers include two examples of the so-called canzona-motet.97 Francesco’s share of his 1624 edition consists of some four masses (two on cinquecento models) and three occasional motets; there are also motets by his recently deceased brother.98 Although he did not publish another edition after his madrigals of 1619 (the only urban edition dedicated to a governor, the duke of Feria), the anthologies and Grancini’s Second Book of motets (1624) do contain some twenty-three motets by Domenico, including a four-section piece in his brother’s 1624 book. Most of these pieces, including an Ambrosian Requiem in Grancini’s book, and the Ambrosian litany in the 1623 Pellegrini collection, seem to have been collected and published by others, possibly as a tribute; perhaps Domenico’s failing health led his brother to take over compositional duties in the court ensembles.99 Overall, the sacred repertory of the court seems to consist of imitation masses and motets for special occasions, and it seems no accident that Domenico Rognoni’s mass Ordinary in his brother’s 1624
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edition was entitled Missa regalis, possibly written in the last months of his life for the celebrations of Philip IV’s assumption of the throne.
Monastic Patricians Among the signs of the vitality of urban musical culture were the other sites for music outside the four main foundations and the female houses; monastic and mendicant churches both hosted polyphony. Among the former, the most obvious were the male Cassinese Benedictines of S. Simpliciano, due largely to the long career of Serafino Cantone.100 His nine surviving (of at least eleven) publications span from 1591 to 1627, and range in style from stile antico to madrigals to concertos.101 Tradition was evident in the five-voice motets of 1596 and 1605, along with the fivevoice Holy Week music (1603). He both incorporated the florid motet style of the 1620s into his 1625 Motetti concertati, and looked back to the music of his youth with his spiritual madrigal comedy Accademia festevole concertante of 1627. The actual conditions of music at S. Simpliciano are puzzling: there was no studio to provide singers, as at S. Francesco, and evidently less of an urban audience. In part, this is due to the lack of any preexistent musical tradition at the church, and to the modest musical tradition of the order. That Cantone, unlike other Cassinese composers, never published voci pari music suggests that there was some access to choirboys or male sopranos at the basilica for the top parts of those pieces actually performed there. His title pages list him only as the organist, not a maestro, and two of his ambitious editions were written for other locales: the 1603 Holy Week print, written at Subiaco under the inspiration of Angelo Grillo’s Passion poetry, and the 1625 motets for Saturday Marian services involving four urban singers (noted below). The sum total suggests that the monk composed a good deal of his output for forces outside his church.102 The monks did commission some new decoration in Cantone’s early years, along with restoring the five reliquary altars.103 The two cantorie on either side of the presbytery, each with an organ, would have been suited for the performance of the 1599 motets; they were also frescoed by Aurelio Luini in 1588 with angel musicians over Benedictine saints (figs. 3.1 and 3.2). The angels hold two completely notated canons in addition to instruments from the standard iconographic orchestra.104 Besides the Marian imagery in the basilica, notably the apse fresco by Bergognone, a few newer altarpieces were commissioned by the monks to honor their order, and each of Cantone’s motet collections had a piece specifically in praise of Benedict.105 Other pieces could be used for other monastic saints, male or female, such as Sts. Placidus and Maurus, represented on the cantorie as well as on altars.106 But more circumstantial occasions arose for music. Like their female counterparts, the male Benedictines of the city had clashed with Carlo, and it is a sign of Federigo’s more relaxed policy that the prelate’s visitation of 25 June 1604, not necessarily an occasion of unalloyed joy for the monks, should have been marked by polyphony. In preparation, a Mass was to be celebrated by the visiting secular clergy in Ambrosian rite, with the monks participating simultaneously in Roman monastic Use.107 The visitation record noted that Federigo entered to the sound of the organ
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figure 3.1 Aureliano Luini, Musical Angels, ca. 1580 (Milan, S. Simpliciano; by permission of the Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali, Soprintendenza di Milano)
and bells, and celebrated the Mass of St. Febronia in the Ambrosian rite (thereby upstaging the Benedictines’ St. William of Vercelli), with singers and organ at the Elevation. After the kiss of peace, he put on the pluviale, while the singers sang O sacrum convivium.108 It is suggestive that there is a five-voice setting of this text in Cantone’s Motecta cum letaniis published the next year. By the end of the period, the monks hired four singers and an organist (Cozzi) for feast days, Holy Week, and the “solemnita` de’ Corpi Santi” (probably 29 May), paying the latter L. 264; on 8 February 1653, this responsibility was transferred to the parish confraternity of Corpus Domini, adding the performance of litanies on Lenten Saturdays.109 S. Simpliciano was another place of urban prestige, as the paleo-Christian basilica had also been the site of a miracle to save the city in 1176.110 The placement of the church and monastery on the extreme northern perimeter of the city served both as a goal for one of the Lesser Litanies processions and as a kind of symbolic counterbalance to the role of S. Ambrogio on the south side. Its role in city devotion was due both to Simplicianus, Ambrose’s successor as bishop, and to the three martyrs Sisinius, Martirius, and Alexander whose remains had been festively translated in a massive urban procession by Carlo in 1582. A surprising number of Cantone’s texts used items from All Saints or the Common of Multiple Martyrs in the two Cassinese breviaries, possibly to honor these figures.111 Two general male sanctoral texts may have honored Simplicianus himself.112 The musical ways in which public occasions interacted with monastic devotion are partially evident in Cantone’s motet publications. The first book of 1596 contains,
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figure 3.2 A. Luini, Angels with a Musical Canon (Milan, S. Simplicano; by permission of the Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali, Soprintendenza di Milano)
besides the Benedict piece, a wide variety of textual choices.113 It was dedicated to Serafino Fontana, the abbot of S. Giorgio Maggiore in Venice (whose professed name Cantone was likely to have imitated at his own vow-taking), and opens with a text of (monastic) paternal advice, Fili mi, si timueris Deum. It also included five other personalized (hortatory) texts, a total of four sanctoral pieces, three settings of generalized praise, three Marian motets, and two Christological pieces. On the other hand, the 1599 volume seems to hold much more immediately occasional works, as noted above. The 1605 motets, incompletely preserved, combine a mixture of orderspecific, Marian, and eucharistic settings in addition to at least one occasional piece. Cantone produced a good amount of psalm settings (1602 and 1621), and his music for Holy Week, the last publication in a long tradition of Cassinese polyphony for the time, is a case unto itself.114 The other prestigious, largely monastic foundation was S. Ambrogio, divided between the Cistercians and diocesan canons, whose monks seemed to have employed lay musicians and for which the records are spotty.115 The only recorded maestri are Francesco Rognoni around 1620 (in addition to his duties at court), Pietro Maria Giussano in 1626, and the Cistercian G. B. Gricciati in 1631, while the organist’s job, held by Biumi in 1612, Arnone in 1625, and Grancini in 1631, seems to have diminished in responsibility from the previous century, when Caimo occupied it for sixteen years.116 Both Arnone and Grancini held the job in addition to the many duties of
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cathedral organist. But the monks must have had resources, as all three organists dedicated large editions in those years to them. Furthermore, the annual procession of the vicario della provisione and the paratici to the church on 7 December seems to have involved hired musicians. The ecclesiastical situation at S. Ambrogio was one of constant disputes about liturgy, precedence, vestments, and general church life, waged with varying degrees of intensity between the diocesan canons and the Cistercians.117 These battles led to another diocesan inquiry, this time involving the monks’ use of outside musicians, in 1605–6.118 Some thirty-four witnesses were called by the curial officials, evidently concerned to find “infractions” by the Cistercians; they were listed anonymously but with age, profession, and origin. Their testimony, largely formulated defensively in favor of the monks, provides a view of practice on feast days at this civic shrine. The curial officials attempted to weed out those who were related to the monks, and asked the witnesses what they knew of the use of instrumentalists hired, and whether or not they were aware that instruments were prohibited in diocesan churches. Some simply testified to the presence of singers, violins, a cornetto, and trombones together with the occasional lute; one witness was a paid trombonist himself.119 Of those who engaged the question of whether or not the practice had been prohibited, only two referred to Carlo’s ban, one criticizing the monks and the other denying that they used instrumentalists at all. Others were more outspoken in their defense of the Cistercians: “I think that they [instruments] are not prohibited, but allowed, because they are used in the music of many other churches of Milan, and serve to glorify God,” and, in a direct attack on the canons, “This church is the principal one of Milan, and it would be almost deserted if there were no monks there to maintain its reputation by officiating almost all day long with the canonical Hours which they sing there, especially on feast days with respectable musicians, together with the frequency of their daily Masses. For, other than the High Mass that they sing there, almost all the canons go to celebrate Mass in other churches.”120 Perhaps the closest we can come to one insider’s view of the suitability of the practice is the testimony from a septuagenarian layman: “I think that they do this [using singers and instrumentalists] for the glory of God, and to attract people to the Divine Office, according to the psalm which goes Laudate Dominum in tympano, et choro, in cordis, et organo.”121 The sense of one city dweller in favor of using all available means in the service of Divine praise could not be more apparent, and is congruent with Federigo’s own philosophy, whatever the curia might have thought. The curial inquiry then moved to a discussion of the source of the organist’s salary, less evident to the witnesses except for one who was a relative of Giovanni Pietro Zuffo, longtime organist at the church, presumably in the late Cinquecento.122 The disputes achieved no long-term resolution; by 1654 a decree of the Roman Rota supported the canons, but an undated note undermined their position by recording that they had actually imported musicians for the feast of the Deposition of St. Ambrose.123 Francesco Della Porta, in his secondary capacity as organist, was called in to testify several times, stating it had been the deputies of the church, not the canons, who paid outsiders. The dispute continued as late as May 1693. Like S. Simpliciano, three other contemplative houses who employed outsiders were situated between the medieval and Renaissance walls to the north and east. S.
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Pietro in Gessate employed an organist, essentially an entry-level job, with some regularity, and again the social status of the order allowed at least some access to publishing; several leading figures had their first jobs there.124 More important was the large Augustinian foundation of S. Marco, which hosted a maestro from the order (Agostino Resta) from before 1580 to some point after 1604. Resta’s dedication to abbot Sforza Speciano, dated 30 October 1585, of Ruffo’s five-voice responsories noted that the abbot had commissioned Ruffo to write them (evidently before 1571), and had them sung by S. Marco’s forces together with the Duomo’s every Holy Week.125 Later, another Augustinian, Giacomo da Sant’Angelo, was maestro around 1625. The organist’s job was also high-profile; Ruggiero Trofeo came from Mantua in the early 1590s, published music (and taught Borsieri), before replacing Stefanini in Turin in 1605. G. D. Rognoni was hired between February and December 1604. By 1611 Francesco Casati, essentially a performer, had taken over, remaining until after 1619.126 On the Sunday after Epiphany, nine deserving but poor young women were married to the sounds of a polyphonic mass.127 The other large basilica run by monks under Augustine’s Rule was S. Maria della Passione, whose Antegnati organ dated back to 1558. Its Lateran Canons employed the maestri Orazio Scaletta in 1585, Giulio Marchesi in 1596, and Giovanni Rambeglio in 1613, along with Soderini as organist at the issue of his double-choir motets in 1598.128 This volume was quite large, inaugurating the Tradate’s publishing ventures.129 At the basilica, extra singers were hired for important occasions, the possible origin of such motets as Soderini’s eight-voice Passion setting In die illa cadent montes or the one honoring the writer of the order’s Rule, Festivitatem hodiernam divi Augustini (both 1598). Fabio Varese was a singer there at some point, while Rambeglio, himself a Lateran Canon (like Marchesi), published a largely liturgical edition in 1613.130 Outside the city were charterhouses and monasteries, whose importance lay in the wealth of their abbots as dedicatees of urban anthologies.131 In the Jeronimite house of S. Girolamo in Castellazzo, fifteen miles northwest of the city, Pietro Paolo Torre put out an interesting madrigal and canzonetta book in 1622.132 Little is known about this figure, who seems to have died young, perhaps around the time of his publication.
Sacred Music in the City World: Mendicant and New Active Orders If the male monastic orders drew on patrician traditions, the congregations that ministered to the middle class of the city also generated musical activity. The case of the parish and convent of S. Maria Segreta, placed near the commercial heart of the city, among artisans’ shops and traders’ wares near the Cordusio, poses problems. Its confraternity employed an organist, and two composers from the Somascan order that officiated at it are associated with the church: Giuseppe Gallo, who published innovative double-choir motets in 1598, and Lorenzo Frissoni a generation later, most of whose music is lost. The parish also employed an organist to perform on the major feasts of the church year.133 Like S. Francesco, this convent had a studio that must
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have provided some of the performers for Gallo’s larger-scale pieces.134 Frissoni’s surviving works, three Marian motets and a piece for multiple saints in the 1626 Flores, seem more related to the iconography of the church, with its Annunciation and Visitation by Camillo Procaccini, than do Gallo’s motets, most written for other festive days or as personal tributes. Another mixture of order and trade is evident at the nearby Dominicans’ S. Maria della Rosa, where Soderini was organist by 1608, followed by Andrea Cima at some point before 1617 until at least 1627. The central location of the church was unusual for Dominican houses; its clear urban mission obviously also served as a center for the different Marian devotion of the Dominicans, and their emphasis on formalized prayer such as the Rosary.135 On 31 May 1588, the church’s Rosary confraternity contracted with Cristoforo Valvassori for an organ to be built, similar to the one in the Franciscan church of S. Angelo on the city’s outskirts, with an exact specification of registers.136 S. Maria della Rosa was physically across the street from a church with close ties to the archbishop, S. Sepolcro. As noted, this church had a particular place in urban life; officiated by the Oblates of St. Ambrose (whom Carlo had installed to replace the secular knights of Malta in 1578), its interior consisted of an open twostory space, with an empty sarcophagus representing Calvary in the crypt, the goal of the annual procession of the Chiodo on 3 May. As the place of Passion representation in the city as a whole, it had a special tie to Mary Magdalen, the patroness of one confraternity. Its major feasts, in line with the calling of the Oblates, were related to urban bishops: Ambrose (7 December), Carlo Borromeo, and a special celebration of the Ordination of Carlo (15 July). The future saint had introduced oratory-like structures modeled on those of the Roman Oratory. Music at these events can be traced from at least 1588 onwards.137 Villa’s description of such an institution in the 1620s linked Passion devotion with sermons and music: “[S. Sepolcro] is officiated by the Oblates of St. Ambrose, who convene there on feast days, with a good musical ensemble . . . Twice a week, Wednesday and Friday, the entire year long the oratory is held there, in which one hears spiritual discourses, and good concerts of music, with great gain to souls.”138 The church also was decorated in Federigo’s tenure, and the surviving musical repertory dates from the 1620s, when G. D. Rognoni (until 1622) and then Grancini (until 1630) were the organists who must have supplied at least some of the music for these sessions and for the feast days celebrated with polyphony.139 The position seems to have supported the rapid publication of Grancini’s three concerto books and an eightvoice mass volume between 1624 and 1628. The Oratorian genre of the dialogue was also reflected in Grancini’s output: ten examples among the three surviving motet books of 1624, 1628, and 1631. Of these, five are penitential or set the colloquy of the soul and Christ. One of Grancini’s dialogues (a 4) adumbrates the exchange most directly, using the military vocabulary present in the city’s consciousness after the outbreak of the Thirty Years War (Ubi es, o mi care Jesu?, from the Sacri fiori concertati of 1631): Anima: Where are you, my dear Jesus? Where are you, my beloved Jesus? Where is joy, where consolation, where solace, where restoration?
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s p ac e s an d t h e i r musi c s Jesus: I am here, why do you cry, why speak, why do you strive with your voice, O pious soul? Anima: My heart burns, my soul dissolves, my flesh weakens, and my mind wastes away. Jesus: What do you pray, what implore, what wish, what desire? Anima: To melt, and admire you, to contemplate and enjoy you. Jesus: Contend, and win, come and take, and serve faith. Anima: For You, my leader, I have fought, and charged, and seized; and that which I promised I have discharged. Jesus: O fortunate and happy soul, come into my kingdom, and take with glory that which you have claimed. Tutti: Come, our beloved sister, come our dearest companion, come into the garden of our God’s paradise, to rejoice and exult, to triumph and be glad, and to reign and triumph, crowned with us, in eternity.
The oratory at S. Sepolcro attempted to channel much of the burgeoning affective Christological devotion in the city, and Grancini’s pieces are one reflection of the tense equilibrium between control and piety in the last years of Federigo’s tenure.140 For its Oblates Grancini set a text in honor of their, and the city’s, patron, probably on the first such feast that he held the job (7 December 1622 or 1623), with language taken from Marian intercession: “Come out, dear ones, hurry and hasten festively to your defender; cry out, and say: ‘O saint Ambrose, you who were sent from heaven to free our home, pray God for us, that through your prayers we may obtain His grace. We ask you, our defender, that you always plead to the Father, mother, and Son for us, alleluia.’ ”141 The churches of other orders more involved in pastoral duties also employed organists: Andrea Cima had worked for the Carmelites of Santa Maria del Carmine in 1614 (while Bartolomeo Vialardi was at the same order’s parish of S. Giovanni in Conca in 1624). The Third Order Franciscans of Santa Maria del Paradiso seemed to offer an “entry-level” organist job, such as to the young Grancini in the early 1620s, followed by G. A. Zuffi, whose concerto books of the 1620s are lost. Polyphony in the other urban parishes was tenuous, usually with only an organist at some. Michelangelo Nantermi was organist at S. Lorenzo after being released from S. Maria presso S. Celso. Later, other churches added organists or had them publish music: the Theatines’ Sant’Antonio, the Barnabites’ Sant’Alessandro, and the Olivetans’ San Vittore al Corpo. Among the cathedral-size churches that Morigia listed in 1592, one of the largest Marian shrines in the center of town was the basilica of Santa Maria dei Servi, located behind the Duomo on Corso di Porta Orientale. Like S. Francesco, the Gothic church housed numerous patrician tombs and fostered Marian devotion.142 G. B. Ala came from Monza and Decio to be its organist around 1620, remaining possibly to his premature death, probably of the plague in 1630.143 Most of Ala’s works from his time at the church are lost, but the high regard in which Lomazzo held him, and
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the sheer number of his publications (nine in the period 1618–28), mark him as an important figure in the city. Ala’s music brought a new directness to the sacred concerto in the 1620s, and his importance far transcended his humble job. The majority of the six Marian pieces from the 1621 book are general, although the two images of the Assumption (one by Zenale, and an anonymous altarpiece with saints) testify to ongoing Marian devotion at the church. One sanctoral piece, Desiderium animae eius, could have been used either for Bl. Giovanangelo Porro, an urban Servite beato whose body was preserved in the church, or for Bl. Philip Benizi, a founder of the order. Still, the disjunction between the amount and destination of music published by figures at the smaller churches, and the limited occasions for polyphony at such institutions, suggests that a good deal of printed pieces were intended for other organizations or occasions. But in light of the evidence for the use of instruments at the churches of male regulars, it is striking that one genre, the canzona-motet, seems closely associated with these kinds of institutions. The first examples of 1598 stem from the Somascans at S. Maria Segreta (Gallo) and the Lateran Canons at S. Maria della Passione (Soderini). G. D. Rognoni’s pieces of 1605 were published during his time at S. Marco. The genre seems to have been one form for the musical celebration of major feast days, involving the churches’ ensembles plus city instrumentalists, the ties being obvious in the case of the players used by, but also loyal to, the Cistercians at S. Ambrogio. The other striking feature of music at all the male religious houses is its paling in the course of the seventeenth century as polyphony in the female monasteries grew to be the major musical attraction of the city, at least for visitors and the nobility.144 No less an observer than Francis de Sales in 1612 noted both the diversity of music in city churches (probably the Marian shrines and the regulars’ institutions, an idea that fits well with the evidence outlined above), but also commented that the singing of a single nun (possibly Claudia Sessa) outdid them all in spiritual fervor.145 By the nature of clausura (and their largely Roman-rite liturgy), nuns’ music was to some degree separate from the major civic festive occasions, although the visits of female royalty clearly generated musical activity in the houses (and, in the case of Maria Anna’s visit in 1649, at least one edition by a sister, Cozzolani’s Salmi a otto concertati). But the sisters compensated for this by their participation in the overall growth of devotional occasions, highlighting them with polyphony. Although the two Benedictine houses nearest the Duomo (Santa Radegonda and Santa Margarita) were clearly the most famous, different kinds of families could support their cloistered relatives at various houses, and archiepiscopal support in Federigo’s tenure led to the practice of polyphony at Santa Marta and Santa Caterina in Brera, both somewhat outside the innermost city center. Their relative autonomy from the male regulars who in some cases supervised them allowed for nuns to pick and choose the male musicians with whom they could (albeit quasi-legally) have contact, often musicians at the Duomo (or, in the case of dedications, both clerics and lay figures at the smaller city churches: Gallo, Vecchi, Andrea Cima). It is impossible to think about music in the city from the late 1590s onwards without the contribution of the female houses.
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Confraternities and Charity The numerous urban confraternities (most notably those of the Sacratissimo Sacramento attached to each parish) could hire musicians. A 1614 list of duties for the scuola of the Seven Sorrows of Mary, in the parish of Santa Maria Beltrade, noted that on the first Sunday of every month the scuola was required to have Mass sung with appropriate decor and outside musicians, presumably recruited from the stable chapels of the city.146 Giuseppe Belloni’s first book of (very simple and thus suited to amateurs) masses a 5 (1603) was dedicated to the congregation of Santa Maria Annunciata (or Salutata) in the Jesuit College of the Brera. The rules of this brotherhood required the singing of a hymn, psalm, or motet on Sundays and feast days by the members.147 There was also an informal maestro to assist at Vespers; instructions for polyphony seem to have been added after the original statutes of 1572.148 The dedication of the bodies did not necessarily coincide with the occasions for their sponsorship of polyphony.149 A 1627 piece by Andrea Cima seems to owe its origin to the Compagnia del Rosario at S. Maria della Rosa: “Rejoice daughters of Zion, rejoice you virgins of Jerusalem, be glad, you faithful peoples, and congratulate the glorious conqueror Mary, Queen of the kindly Rosary; bring roses and lilies from Zion’s valleys; celebrate a festive day with psaltery and song; magnify her name, and in a voice of praise all glorify the conqueror Mary, the destroyer of the hydra and dragon; rejoice and exult in this her victory.”150 In this context, the address to the “daughters of Zion” can only be an invitation to the urban public, a feature to be made more explicit in the repertory of the 1640s. Again, the motet’s text reinforces the identification of Milan with Jerusalem. At the confraternity of San Rocco, music is recorded in the 1590s, and on 22 June 1634 Biumi was paid for his compositions (evidently not surviving) that were sung at Saturday services.151 In the time of ritual renewal after the 1630 plague, the titular day of the confraternity of the Madonna del Carmine was celebrated with music provided by four choirs of singers and instrumentalists, drawn from all over the city, on 13 July 1632.152 This must have been as musically impressive as the other events of that summer (the processions of June and the large-scale music at the cathedral under Donati), as it featured twenty-one singers (among them Pestagallo, P. F. Rigamonte, and two from S. Marco), three organists (Turati and Teodoro Casati in addition to the regular, unnamed, keyboard player hired by the confraternity), five strings with cornetto and two trombones, and two maestri di capella (both unnamed).153 Around the same time, the eucharistic confraternity at S. Giovanni in Conca hired musicians in almost direct consequence of the economic ups and downs. In September 1627, they added a violin and cornetto so as to make two choirs of music, as the two singers were already paid by the regulars.154 The lack of alms in May 1629 led them to fire the musicians, only to reinstate an instrumentalist in January 1633. The scolari of the Carmelite church were thus following up on the major musical production of the church’s other confraternity earlier in the century (see chapter 5). Some of the most revealing evidence for music in one devotion comes from the
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confraternity of S. Maria Addolorata at S. Maria dei Servi.155 This, one of two confraternities at the church, preserved some documents between 1596 and 1598 that give a good sense of the forces used (Doc. 7).156 In 1596, the scuola paid musicians for Saturday services in Lent, probably six weeks’ worth, including four male singers, an unnamed soprano from the cathedral (possibly Bovicelli), a “Soprano di casa,” a violin, cornetto, and trombone: six singers, three instrumentalists, and Felice Avogadro playing organ. The use of instrumentalists in Lent is striking, and the music, vocal and/or instrumental, must have been one of the major attractions of the church’s services. In addition, a note of 2 October recorded preaching on the fourth Sunday of every month and on all Sundays in Advent, likely occasions for music although the records have not survived. In 1597, the six Saturdays of Ambrosian Lent (including Holy Saturday) were staffed by five regular singers (including Fabio Varese), two instrumentalists (cornetto and regal), and, for Holy Saturday, another soprano and a violinist, along with the preacher, who was paid twice as much as the highestpaid musician. For 1598, the payment summaries for the year record the Duomo tenor Giulio Cesare Rossino, three other singers, and Avogadro, normally for services on the fourth Sunday of every month.157 This confraternity drew its singers from across the city. For Lent, some of the penitential motets a 4–6 of these years could easily have been performed on such an occasion.158 Together with the instrumentalists, eight-part music would also have been possible. Other pieces on the theme of the Addolorata may also be related to the musical life of this confraternity. Most clearly, one of Ala’s 1621 motets, the dialogue Fili, quid fecisti? (on one of the Marian sorrows, that of Jesus in the Temple), derives from its devotional object.159 More intriguing is the simultaneous use of cornetto and violin, in the context of the scoring of the sonata a 3 for cornetto, violin, and violone in Cima’s 1610 book. Presumably the players would have included the “Gironimo del cornetto” mentioned in the Duomo accounts of music for Margaret in 1599, and later by Varese.160 Given the lack of payments to instrumentalists at S. Maria presso S. Celso, it seems that at least these works of Cima’s might owe their origin to such a penitential service, where the function of the “rarefied” instrumental experiments, with their thematic transformations, striking contrasts, and rhapsodic logic would have been to lead listeners’ minds to the contemplation of Divine order in contrast to the sordid world of sin. Morigia also listed the occasions when the luoghi pii hosted polyphony. On one hand, there were the the annual events: the feast of S. Ambrogio ad Nemus in the crypt of the eponymous basilica, the Holy Thursday dinner for the elderly poor at S. Nazaro, and All Saints’ Day in S. Eufemia.161 On the other, the luogo pio of the Santissimo Crocefisso in the cloister of S. Marco married off young women in their care on four Sundays with a polyphonic mass.162 Margaret’s day spent at S. Maria presso S. Celso on 16 January 1599 included a stop at the adjacent foundling hospital, as noted above. She brought animals, food, spices, fruit, and money to give to the orphans, and the connection of the Marian shrine to Milanese family life was underlined by this visit of the gift- and life-bearing sovereign.163 The cento that opens G. P. Cima’s four-voice motets of that year, Fac, Deus, potentiam, mixes the Magnificat with verses from Ps. 10 highlighting God’s help for the poor and especially orphans. The prominence of the piece in the print, whose
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dedication was dated less than two months after Margaret’s donations to the hospital, suggests a possible origin in the queen’s visit: “God, show power in your arm; disperse the haughty, and exalt the humble; to You, O Lord, the poor one has been abandoned, you will be the orphan’s aid.”164 The next motet in the collection, Hic accipiet benedictionem, seems like the answer to both this text and the psalm whence it was taken: “Here (s)he will accept blessing from the Lord, and mercy from God the Savior, for this is the generation of those who seek the Lord, who seek the face of the God of Jacob.”165
Palazzi The other obvious place of employment for musicians was the ducal court. Theatrical performances at the palace are documented from the time of Margaret’s entry to that of Maria Anna, but their music largely does not survive. The ceremonial preserved in the Biblioteca Trivulziana outlines the maestro’s church duties, which included Masses on the major feasts (Christmas and Easter) sung by the governor’s musicians.166 The other day-to-day duties of the ducal band are unclear, besides their provision of music for royal entrances or for dancing. The governor’s concern with having good instrumentalists, however, is evident from the hiring of the Rognonis and the presence of Biagio Marini in the 1630s. Many of the dance tunes preserved in schematic form in Negri’s manuals must have been played by the ensemble during the festivities for Margaret’s stay, while the rest of the repertory is lost. Some of the music of the Rognoni brothers, however, does give an idea of palace festivities. Certainly Francesco’s lost Correnti e gagliarde of 1624 would have been heard at formal dances. At the simplest end of vocal music, Francesco set a balletto in a court entertainment put on by Muzio Sforza, the Marquis of Caravaggio and an important patron, for the birth of a son to the governor, Juan Hurtado de Mendoza, on 7 October 1612: Fortunate boy, hear with what tones you are sung by the Muses; Look how every light dances and swings in your pure sight; Grow, you new Alcides Whom the benevolent heaven nestles, Plays and laughs, so at your smile Insubria [Milanese Lombardy] becomes Paradise.167
Francesco’s 1613 book also sets some weighty and very up-to-date poetry, including three Guarini settings and two Marino texts. Although some of these pieces may stem from before his years in the palazzo, they give some testimony to the cultivation of “higher” genres in the governor’s circle. Three strophic canzonettas, one by Francesco, close his brother’s eight-voice madrigal book of 1619.168 Yet this publication, despite its dedication to the Duke of Feria, contains more pieces written for Mendoza or for Pedro A´lvarez de Toledo (governor 1616–18), as Domenico himself pointed out.169
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The choice of the eight-voice dialogue (Perche piangi, pastore? and Aure soave) as the medium recalls the conventions of the 1590s. Music in the castle and palace in a later generation is indirectly witnessed by several manuscript text anthologies. The most famous of these, Trivulziana 1001 (also a principle source for Fabio Varese’s poems), includes texts that can be dated both to around 1620 and well into the 1630s, including a good number of canzonettas, and such modern pieces as the famous lament of the Queen of Sweden, Un ferito cavalier (set in Rome by Luigi Rossi).170
The Geography of Urban Polyphony To map musical practice onto the city leads to surprising results. Many of the major sites of prestige—the Castello, the hospitals, the Palazzo de’ Mercanti—were not marked by music. Furthermore, in many of the artistically or devotionally important churches it had little or no presence: five of the seven major basilicas (S. Vittore al Corpo, Sant’Eustorgio, S. Lorenzo, S. Nazaro, and S. Stefano), the decorated shrines of Santa Maria delle Grazie and Santa Maria presso San Satiro, and the church of the city’s patron and deliverer from the plague, San Sebastiano. An overall view of polyphony in the city’s structure around 1600 suggests first an urban core, a loose oval formed by the Duomo, the ducal palace, S. Radegonda, and the Scala. Like many other north Italian cities (Bergamo, Brescia, Parma, Piacenza), Milan’s musical prestige was divided between a cathedral and a Marian shrine on the outskirts of the city (or at least separate from a central Duomo), the latter featuring the Madonna’s direct protection of the city and often far more innovative repertories. Musical sites of intercession seemed to congregate on either side of the (razed, but present) medieval walls toward the south and west: S. Maria presso S. Celso, S. Francesco, S. Ambrogio, and many of the female houses such as San Maurizio.171 Less central to intercessory devotion were the two Augustinian churches on the north and east perimeters (S. Marco, S. Maria della Passione). Some places were defined by timbre: the nuns’ choirs emanating from their internal churches, the low sonorities of S. Francesco, and the plentiful use of instrumentalists at the male regulars’ shrines. Others seemed differentiated by genre (motets and dialogues at S. Sepolcro, or canzona-motets at S. Maria Segreta and S. Marco). Entire parts of the city had little remaining musical evidence, although it would be hard to single out a given district as being more or less musical than others. Thus, the sonic hierarchy of the city did not exactly mirror the sites of economic, religious, or political prestige.172 On the largest (and most optimistic) scale, then, the city’s sounds attempted to reproduce the musical complement of Paradise, a topos of similarity invoked again and again for contexts ranging from the female houses to the procession with Carlo Borromeo’s body in 1638. The sense of change in the city’s sonic composition is evident. In the new century, the spread of music among the female houses and to smaller churches and patrician palaces undercut the neat symmetry of the initial center/perimeter ring. The city’s musical physiognomy, then, came to resemble the more decentralized and less structured cases of Rome and Naples.
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Yet the art was not comprised only by single musical places. The beliefs and activities that transcended the framework of a given institution lent a corporate sense to music: the practice of ideology, acts of motion in urban space, and the production of professionals.
Part II ATTITUDES AND ACTIONS
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4 Theory, Aesthetics, Devotion
To city dwellers, the concept of musica held variable meaning, ranging from the practice of reading, performing, and composing music, through the desirable qualities of such sound, to the more rarefied speculations of the philosophically oriented. This intellectual basis of the art was, at first glance, the element least specific to a given place, undergirded as it was by widespread strains of thought variable in their mixture of medieval and modern philosophy. The immediately theoretical works consisted of treatises on musica practica, while issues of musica speculativa arose in writings of Puteanus and in Federigo Borromeo’s own notes. A generation later, Teodoro Osio’s arithmetical speculations appeared as two published works, and several related manuscripts, on number, meter, and music. A more artistic discourse related such ideas to contemporary musical styles. The most articulate, if biased, local commentator was Girolamo Borsieri, but other remarks scattered through poetry, composers’ prefaces, and other writings give fleeting glimpses of contemporary views on musical style, decorum, and affect. The broader intellectual context—changes in sacred and profane rhetoric, the role of both visual and aural stimuli to the moving of the passions, and music’s own place among the arts of the city—shaped composers’ choices and audiences’ expectations. And the symbolic relation between the city and its protectors, present in the minds of all residents, also found expression in its music.1
Musica practica The nine local editions between 1599 and 1652 of Orazio Scaletta’s primer Scala di musica aimed to reinforce the oral teaching that was still at the heart of learning musical fundamentals.2 Scaletta’s primer was edited and expanded by Grancini, and a sense of its audience’s domestic music-making is given by the simple polyphonic Marian litany formula by Orfeo Vecchi appended to all its issues after 1622.3 Three major Italian treatises on musical ornamentation of the time (of a total eight) originated in Milan: Riccardo Rognoni’s 1592 Passaggi, G. B. Bovicelli’s Regole 91
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of 1594, and the Selva di varii passaggi (1620) of Riccardo’s son Francesco. Bovicelli’s book formalized strikingly new practice in its extensive use of dotted figures, unexpected leaps, and added (or prolonged) dissonant ornamental tones. These render the top part of the graced models (motets or madrigals by Palestrina, Rore, Victoria, and Merulo, the sacred works being part of the Duomo’s repertory) a work of art in itself.4 His additions to falsobordoni lines (the only such examples printed in the Cinquecento) enlivened the most familiar polyphony.5 Bovicelli had learned his trade in Assisi and Rome, and so his procedures, like most Milanese musical culture around 1590, were not necessarily native to the city. But they were one of the most striking sounds in the cathedral choir and at S. Maria presso S. Celso, and his examples show the early importance of such emphasis on a single line in a largely polyphonic repertory. Riccardo Rognoni’s diminution volume is largely a collection of standard passaggi, arranged so as to fill in melodic skips and not strongly idiomatic to the kinds of instruments (largely violin-family) he played. But his son’s book is a different matter. The opening tribute from one of Francesco Rognoni’s students, his printer’s son, Francesco Lomazzo (probably around twenty years old), acknowledges his teacher’s debt to an earlier generation of ornamentation specialists: his father, Giovanni Bassano, and Girolamo della Casa.6 But the Selva di varii passaggi, divided into two parts, reflects wider ambitions and a higher status for music. Criticizing singers who applied interminable gorghe to all the syllables of a text indiscriminately, Francesco suggested that they take up some art other than music, so noble and so sublime.7 The Selva’s first half is addressed to singers, emphasizing rhetorical clarity in vocal production, and considering the singing voice as the instrument expressing the concetto of the soul and of the words. The second half treats instrumental diminution. The more ambitious scope of the book is evident in its organization of ornaments: first by durational value, then by local or global finalis, then by interval, then by simple two-note cadential figures. Like Bovicelli’s, Rognoni’s treatise then provides examples of effective and correct text underlay (which suggests that singers normally learned pitches before text), and concludes by summarizing its ornamental figures, first in a set of synthetic examples, and then in a group of actual pieces. The scope of the treatise had become not simply a catalogue of patterns, but a guide to aesthetic choices, reflecting Rognoni’s desire for noble refinement in a genre that had begun as an artisan-like craft of ornamentation. The runs, tremolos, esclamationi, and dotted figures were also used in Rognoni’s own compositions and in those of his peers in order to provide rhetorical emphasis to a passage or to demarcate an internal textual shift in a piece. Thus, improvised procedures formed part of the same compositional discourse as the printed repertory. Higher pedagogy involved two levels, first, the improvisation of a new sung (or played) line against canto fermo or figurato. But the real goal was to create a musico, a musician capable of creating polyphony in three to five parts. Counterpoint treatises with ties to the city include Bona’s Essempi delli passaggi (1596) and Camillo Angleria’s La regola del contraponto (1622). These two Franciscans helped propagate music in the urban world of domestic devotion and eager amateurs. Earlier, some of Ponzio’s Milanese experience (1577–82) was reflected in his Ragionamento (1588) and Dialogo (1595), issued in Parma. The voice-leading handbooks all attempt to show standard
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melodic progressions from consonance to consonance while still incorporating the melodic flexibility and range coming into vogue. Bona’s treatise, written in his previous job in Vercelli but published during his stay at S. Francesco, is eminently practical; he specifically rejects any speculative knowledge in the student’s acquisition of musica artificiale, the practical reading, singing, and composition of music. The rules end with guidelines for simple composition, emphasizing the primacy of the tono, crafting points of imitation, mixing consonance and dissonance, expressing the words, and differentiating among the various genres (sacred works, madrigals, canzoni, and villanelle). In the same way that Francesco Rognoni’s ornamentation book had considerably higher pretensions than his father’s, Angleria’s treatise is far more encyclopedic than Bona’s in its seemingly endless, and inductive, examples of voice leading. The book was dedicated to G. P. Cima, and its intellectual pedigree was evident in Cima’s reply to the inscription: “But when we consider your complete and excellent rule book, who could not see that it is defended by its own merits, since the instructions contained therein are nothing but streams emanating from that great source Claudio Merulo of Correggio, for whose great merit there is no reward other than that of Heaven itself.”8 The book combines an essentially conservative theory of modal species, dating to Zarlino, with some striking licenses in the linear deployment of voices. The issue was not so much intervals (although the examples contain such moments as successive sevenths), as the interaction of meter and consonance/dissonance. The more refined scope of the treatise is also evident in Angleria’s final discussion of double counterpoint with a ricercar and seven canons of varied ingenuity by Cima. In light of the continued production of such artifices by other city figures (examples can be found in Pellegrini’s motets of 1619 and in some of his Ambrosian liturgical settings issued the same year, and others in Francesco Rognoni’s masses of 1624), and the close ties to Milan of the indefatigable canonical experimentalist Romano Micheli in Rome, the treatise clearly reflects practices in city music around 1620: unorthodox voice leading, modal conservatism, and the continuing appearance of contrapuntally complex imprese. There was, however, no local consensus on important theoretical issues. Bona and Ponzio provided coherent explanations of an eight-mode perspective, while Angleria (and presumably Cima) held fast to Zarlino’s revised (1573) twelve-mode system. Although all the writers claimed to rely on previous authority, disavowing any innovation, the final results were not compatible, an issue to recur in the debates over compositional style. Even on the level of musica practica, there was no unified Milanese school. That ornamentation and models should have been so important, however, reflected broader aesthetic issues, even in work addressing the basics of music. Puteanus relied heavily on the selective interpretation of ancient sources in the three redactions of his treatise concerning his solmization proposal (a late example of “Bocedization”style reform) that spanned his Milanese years (1599–1607).9 The first and longest, the Modulata Pallas of 1599, combines the theory of seven-syllable solmization with a long rhetorical discourse on the antiquity, power, and cosmological connections of music, all the ideas vaguely unified by the number seven. That Puteanus’ views were closely connected to the philosophy of music in the archbishop’s circle is evident in the
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dedication of the Musathena, the shortened (and stylistically classicizing) redaction of 1602 inscribed to Federigo some six weeks before Puteanus spent summer leisure with Borromeo on Lago Maggiore.10 In both versions, the actual explanation of the (not-so-new) solmization system is given in chapter 9, and the content of the first seventeen chapters is essentially the same. Musathena seems to have been destined for a more northern audience. Puteanus derived his “bi” syllable from the word “labii” in Ut queant laxis, prefacing the idea with eight chapters, including a very traditional definition of music as the appropriate concord of various and different sounds and a discussion of Guido’s method.11 The proposal effectively disabled the hexachordal system, and Puteanus attempted to justify the change with long numerological speculations on the power of the sevensyllable poetic line and on the seven planets. The connection of musical materials with poetry and cosmology was noteworthy; it would be taken up in Marino’s tributes to the power of the settenario in the Dicerie sacre, about a decade later. The connection between Puteanus’ ideas and Milanese thought or patronage seems clearest in the dedicatory material to the various versions. Ercole Cimilotti, who had written a Guarini-like favola pastorale, I falsi dei, sent a poetic encomium of Puteanus to the latter’s teacher Justus Lipsius, this then prefixed to the Milanese edition of Modulata Pallas. The local edition was dedicated to the Paduan humanist Gian Vincenzo Pinelli (1535–1601), the correspondent of Girolamo Mei.12 Musica Pleias, the epitome of this version (Venice, 1600), was dedicated to the doctor, patron, and collector of natural curiosities Ludovico Settala, who had also been invoked in the dedication of the full treatise to Pinelli.13 This summary, set out as a dialogue, also concludes with an anonymous but competent three-voice canon at the unison. This is the primary suggestion of any concrete connection between Puteanus’ speculations and practical music.
A Prelate’s Musical World Puteanus’ close association with Federigo highlights the prelate’s own musical aesthetics and practice, not as prescriptive decree but as reflection of the intellectual currents around him. Borromeo himself was something of a philosopher-bishop. His thoughts on, and practical action on behalf of, music relate to his broader intellectual training and temperament.14 After his early humanist education in Pavia and Bologna, he went to Rome in 1586, where Philip Neri’s influence had a crucial influence on him, devotionally and aesthetically, guiding him toward accessible spirituality and artistic pluralism. By virtue of founding membership in the new Congregation on Rites, he was also involved with the reforms of liturgy and chant taking place under Sixtus V, who had raised him at age twenty-two to the red hat (as had happened to Carlo).15 The first two musical dedications to him, both on this occasion in 1588, were Orfeo Vecchi’s Missae quinque vocum ad normam concilii provinciali Mediolanensis sub Carolo Borromaeo Cardinale habiti and Francesco Soto’s Terzo libro delle laude spirituali. They epitomize two poles of his musical world: the first, an edition of classicizing polyphony, written supposedly according to his cousin’s wishes, and the
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second, a popularizing Oratorian product for purposes of spiritual recreation and instruction.16 Although he venerated his cousin’s memory, and was the logical choice to succeed Visconti as archbishop in 1595, Federigo’s practice was no copy of the future saint’s. He left his see after two years to return to Rome in order to lobby at the Vatican on jurisdictional questions, was present in Ferrara for the papal takeover in 1598, and did not finally return to his diocese until 1601, acts unthinkable for Carlo.17 His main pastoral goal was to systematize and order diocesan institutions while providing outlets for the personal expression of piety, evident in the flood of printed decrees, standard editions, and relatively liberal rules (especially for nuns) that emanated from his curia. Part of the quiet campaign for Carlo’s canonization involved the boost to family prestige consequent thereon.18 Just as Carlo’s canonization was assured, he began to write voluminously on a wide range of topics ranging from mysticism to literature to science; the treatises, penned from 1610 onward but not published until the 1620s, seem to have had some influence in Milan and a limited circulation in Catholic central Europe.19 A special part of his interests concerned the revival of antiquity, especially the lives of early martyrs and bishops. Much of his other cultural activity—from art and manuscript collection to his concern for the quality of preaching in the diocese—centered on standard models and their accessability to his flock. The archbishop’s literary style, evident in the treatises and above all in his sermons, was of a late humanist stamp, in striking contrast to the rhetorical and stylistic complexities of contemporary preachers and poets in the transition to concettismo.20 Far less evident was Borromeo’s relationship to music. The prelate is not known to have employed singers on his personal behalf or in his famiglia; he was not a trained musician, and his written references to polyphony are few. Nor did the art play a major role in the aesthetic and pedagogical project of the Ambrosiana. His interest in musical life seems to have focused increasingly in the 1620s on the 3,000 nuns in his diocese. In that sense, his was a musical involvement different in kind from that of his Roman peers. Nevertheless, his models had led the way for episcopal involvement with music, as both Carlo Borromeo and Filippo Neri had considered polyphony part of pastoral practice. At the end of Carlo’s life, Toma´s Luis de Victoria had sent his latest edition of masses and other works printed in the preceding two years (the hymns and the Magnificats of 1581) to Milan (via Cesare Speciano), offering his large motet collection as well.21 Carlo took time to thank the composer personally, noting that Ponzio’s ensemble had performed the masses and Magnificats to the prelate’s satisfaction.22 The musical dedications to Carlo’s cousin trace Federigo’s own progress, starting as a relatively unsophisticated figure, honored for his cousin’s prestige (Vecchi’s masses and the massive but transparent polychoral Missa borromea of Costanzo Antegnati in 1603, the latter possibly composed for the beatification of that year). The last inscription (Rusca’s motets in January 1630) highlighted his promotion of nuns’ music. In between came the dedications related to the developing facets of his activity: the selection of musical models for devotional use, connected to the didactic scope of the Ambrosiana project (Coppini’s first contrafact volume, 1607); his role as an employer
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and prelate (Micheli’s Vespers of 1610 and Pellegrini’s Magnificat cycle of 1613); his place in standardizing Ambrosian liturgy (the double-choir edition, prepared by Pellegrini and incorporating Gabussi’s work, of Milanese Vespers and Compline items of 1619); and a final turn, in the rapidly changing 1620s, in which the prelate’s moderate classicism was seen as a bulwark against the shifting trends in sacred music (Sigismondo d’India’s four-voice motets of 1627). The inscriptions worded their salutation quite differently. Vecchi’s mass book of 1588 praised him as a new Carlo (at a time when Visconti was still archbishop), justifying the inscription “because these things [the contents] have been composed to that norm, which that holy man, your cousin, himself once prescribed to me who was in his service.”23 The edition itself consists of four imitation masses, the first a moderately florid (and non-chordal) piece explicitly on Palestrina’s Io son ferito, an indication that, whatever Vecchi understood the late archbishop’s desires to have been, they did not include banning madrigals as models or composing only block homophony. Antegnati’s preface to his edition of 1603 began again with the mention of Carlo and concluded with stereotypical wishes; his Missa borromea seems titled simply in honor of the new beato, with no particularly declamatory musical style, as a narrow view of Carlo’s taste might lead one to expect. Coppini’s first contrafact volume seems a far more sophisticated matter.24 The dedication notes Federigo’s library project, adumbrating at length the travels of Borromeo’s collaborators in search of books, and remarking on the flourishing of piety in the city, with the clerics in the Duomo’s presbytery likened to the choirs of heaven, all due to the prelate’s care.25 The collecting of books and madrigals was thus made parallel. Coppini then turned to music’s role in devotional life, praising Gabussi, adducing the standard classical examples (Achilles’ lyre and Arcas’ easing the rigors of agricultural life), and noting that God was not praised in song better in church than in theater. Describing his own work, Coppini relates that he had been induced to publish his textual experiments by the young Michelangelo Nantermi. This volume paralleled the stated pedagogical goal of the three Ambrosiana institutions (library, gallery, academy): the provision of models from previous generations in the context of a Christian optimism that aimed at both the edification and aesthetic delight of the city’s population. The official act of the Ambrosiana’s opening on 8 December 1609 was accompanied by music, as the diary of the cerimoniere records a motet sung by the cathedral’s choir, as the Senate entered, and after Federigo had prayed for divine blessing of the enterprise.26 As in the case of Coppini’s linkage of an edition to the library, other dedications highlight some decisive moments of the prelate’s career: the “Oratorian” Roman years, summarized in Soto’s inscription; his part in civic renown around 1610; and a wider recognition of his humanist leanings.27 A generation later, d’India’s dedication of the Liber primus motectorum emphasizes Federigo’s musical orbit late in life: the parallels with Roman practice (and the “classicizing” turn in sacred aesthetics due to Pope Urban VIII), the cultivation at Milan of earlier (presumably more contrapuntal) styles, and the essential Christian optimism at work: I wished (most generous Cardinal) to offer this work, whatever it might be, to your illustrious name, since, as sacred things belong to the sacred, this kind of song seemed
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to me almost extinct in the musical art. For composers of these days only amuse the ears of listeners with simple songs, and neglect more difficult and laborious matters, or those that require a more industrious technique (like these motets, which are dedicated to you by me here). . . . [mention of the composer’s mass Domine, clamavi ad te, performed for Urban VIII on 27 December 1625] . . . There are also singers in your cathedral (most vigilant pastor) among whom (I hope) these my labors will receive the happiest reception, for I have used a more cheerful style than I am wont in my other works, since I understood the task itself to require this.28
D’India’s inclusion of one piece for the relatively unusual feast of Nativity BVM linked the collection more directly to the Duomo’s titular day. The anachronistic scoring of the collection reinforces its restatement of pre-1620 aesthetic values. In light of the canonic artifice found in Pellegrini’s and Cima’s music of the preceding decade, these references to Milanese contrapuntal practice seem to refer to real stylistic features of the music. In practical matters, Federigo looked outward from the city, sending singing students to Giulio Caccini in Florence, and corresponding with Girolamo Mei in Rome. The relations with Caccini seem motivated more by the desire to train young musicians and by an appreciation of the composer’s pedagogy than by any sympathy for his compositional aesthetics.29 The missives of musicians, ranging from Carlo Gesualdo (Borromeo’s cousin) to the obscure Lucino, appear among his 30,000 letters preserved in the Ambrosiana Library.30 Federigo intervened on behalf of musicians in difficulty, notably Luzzasco Luzzaschi and Laura Peverara in post-1598 Ferrara, but also the northern Catholic exile Benedetto Re.31 His support of nuns proved crucial for female monastic music. By the middle of his tenure, he came to be the best artistic representative in all Italy of Neri’s democratic spirituality, a figure to whom a humble Vallombrosian monk in Florence could send an aria spirituale in 1607 with hopes for its reception.32 He took interest in theory as well; one of the last books he acquired before leaving Pavia was an edition of Aristoxenus and Ptolemy on music.33 Another question, then, is his knowledgeability about music. Was he an expert, opinionated patron (e.g., Guglielmo Gonzaga or Enzo Bentivoglio), or rather a philosopher-bishop distantly and disinterestedly concerned to foster musical diversity in his orbit? Borromeo seemed a Janus-like figure between the centuries: a Cinquecento potentate with sacred and secular interests, and a humanist bent on canonizing a repertory of early sixteenth-century masters; but also an enlightened leader of the Church Triumphant, and a post-Mannerist disposed toward internal mysticism and otherworldliness. Yet the intellectual mix was more complex. The classicizing tendencies coexisted with both late medieval spirituality (Bonaventure and the Rhineland mystics) and the decidedly modern influence of Neri and Loyola. Borromeo’s scientific dabblings drew eclectically on Aristotle, Plato, and Pythagoras, though they were informed by the empiricism of his correspondent Galileo. The tension between his stated goals of service on the one hand, and his social position on the other, is evident in the emblazonment of the family arms, featuring the word “Humilitas” on every symbol of Borromeo prestige, not least the cardinal’s own simple, preordained tombstone in the
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Duomo’s north transept, at the altar of his favorite devotional image, the Madonna dell’Albero, executed by Mangone and Ricchino. Precisely these contradictions render him modern and suggest the possibilities for artistic diversity in his city. Borromeo approached music’s role from an essentially Neoplatonic stance. In a miscellany of reading notes, he considered the art to be a child of arithmetic and of geometry, because of its sonorous line.34 Federigo was careful to refute Pythagorean notions of music as the mover and glue of the universe, restating instead the Platonic qualities of music’s practical effect on the soul and on behavior. In that sense, the prelate was highly orthodox. Still, Federigo attacked Pythagoras’ epigones, ancient and modern, more than the philosopher himself.35 Indeed, Borromeo’s interest in Porphyry’s account of Pythagorean doctrine again raised the issue of music’s role in cosmic harmony, all the disclaimers notwithstanding. In his speculations about the motion of angels, he came quite close to advocating number and proportion as movers of the celestial spirits. He made notes to himself about Ficino’s De vita caelitus comparanda, in order to investigate music’s parallels with celestial phenomena.36 The trajectory of the detour into musical aesthetics, found in the third chapter of Book I of I tre libri delle laudi divine (Milan, 1632; otherwise devoted to a general explication of God’s creation), is noteworthy. Borromeo began with Plato’s passages from the Timaeus: “[Plato] said that audible music . . . was enough in itself to teach persons and make them understand that inside their souls they could find another music and concord, and so they should act in such a way that, ignoring the perturbations of their souls, they would feel inside themselves a sweet sound and noble harmony.”37 Then the prelate expanded the Platonic summary: But beyond this, the human soul . . . should take advantage of the example and similarity of musical harmony for another, no lesser, purpose. Such is the nature of music, which we perceive through bodily ears, and it is of such power that it could justly be called a small portrait or a certain idea and simulacrum of the whole universe; if we look attentively at this portrait and simulacrum, we can bring ourselves to the summit of highest philosophical and divine contemplation. Among musical voices, some are high, some low, and some in the middle; and each proceeds with order and rule, and all are heard with pleasure, and rouse souls and move them in different parts; which things, also [found] in the world’s harmony and the concord of creatures so different among each other, are marvelous. . . . See how many and different effects this worldly music of creatures, all tuned with admirable proportion and measure, can move and generate in us, if a skilled singer can cause and produce such marvelous effects in our souls.38
The purpose of the treatise thus imitated the varied effects and affects of music, limning creation as a singer would employ tessitura, affetto, and contrast in the projection of a text. The wording of this passage exemplified the metaphors of music used in the intellectual world of the city around him. Borromeo’s other primary concern, however, was with the moral, not epideictic, effects of the art. Again and again, his letters returned to the effect of music in antiquity. Perhaps the most important aspect of his conception was that the surviving remnants of ancient song were to be found in chant.39 In this view, Federigo was
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evidently alone among European thinkers, and the implications for practice, Ambrosian or Roman, were important. The prelate also speculated about imitation, polyphony, and the moving of the affects. Surprisingly, at one moment he actually opposed multiple part-writing, as it obscured the meter and confused the affect with its entrances. At another, he noted the concinnity of voice, mode, affect, delivery, and meter in ancient music, all designed to move the spirit.40 Federigo’s non-musical thought suggests other avenues for understanding the music around him. The subsequent chapters of book 1 of the Laudi divine continue with a cosmological description of angels and the motion of celestial bodies. Similarly, one of Coppini’s contrafacts (from the third book of 1609), that of Rinuccini’s Sfogava con le stelle as set by Monteverdi, invoked several cosmological elements: “O shining stars, the ornaments of the heavens, who illuminate the blind darkness; O pure sun, O moon, O kindly images of Him Whom I adore, of Him Who made you and bid you shine; bless God, and praise Him Who gave delight to you and splendor to your paths; praise Him for all eternity.”41 Coppini built this text around the lover’s direct address to the stars (“O immagini belle” changed to “O imagines almae”). Compared with some of the rhetorician’s earlier efforts, the intertextuality between Monteverdi’s original and the contrafact is more labored, showing few of the obvious syntactic or phonetic links that had been exploited in other pieces, and taking almost none of the musical cues provided by Monteverdi as a moment of textual shift.42 The new version elides Rinuccini’s direct address to the stars in line 5, and eschews the syntactic ambiguity (“pietosa si”) of the poet’s last line. But to hear it with Federigo’s cosmological formulations in mind is instructive. Two chapters in Borromeo’s Laudi divine address the stars and the sun. Given the currency of astrology at the time (for instance, the canon, violinist, and maestro di coro at the Scala, G. B. Ardemanio, practiced the art), the power of the celestial bodies, invoked in both poetic texts, would have been vitally present for the madrigal’s singers and audience. It was that force, leading the ancients so far as to venerate heavenly planets, that began Federigo’s points about divine goodness in the general framework of creation’s beauty.43 Another of the prelate’s conclusions from creation was the way in which its bounty led to knowledge of God.44 In his view, the harmonious concord among the stars, and the complementarity of the sun and moon, day and night, were further proof of the Creator’s benevolence.45 A similar intellectual progression governs Coppini’s text, overriding some details of Rinuccini’s images and Monteverdi’s interpretation. In the contrafact, the opening falsobordone set a cosmological invocation as chiastic as that of Rinuccini’s starstruck lover.46 The epigrammatic reference to the stars’ power in the last line, underlined by Monteverdi’s separation of “pietosa si / come me fat’amante’, became a text projected in song as “vos eum, vos / laudate in aeternum.” The repetitions of the two pronouns, emphazing the relation between creatures and Creator, underscored the point of the final epigram. Its musical projection thus was meant to inspire those singing and hearing the contrafact with the same affect. In all, the new version was not a text directly generated by words and music (as in other cases among Coppini’s volumes). Rather, it took the positive impulse of the original (the real effect of the
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stars’ power, only hoped for in a hypothetical conditional by Rinuccini’s lover) and deployed it in the service of Christian optimism. Coppini’s texts had great appeal to local musicians, as several were reset independent of their original by city composers in the next fifteen years (besides the outsiders mentioned above). O dies infelices (1608), for instance, is found as a duet in Ghizzolo’s third book of motets (1615), while Maria, quid ploras? (1607) was recomposed almost immediately, published in the same composer’s Concerti all’uso moderno of 1611. Coppini’s reworking of Monteverdi’s Una donna fra le altre, Una es, o Maria (1609), was set by G. D. Rognoni (1615), and (by Lorenzo Frissoni) as late as Lomazzo’s Flores praestantissimorum virorum (1626). A royal counterpart to Federigo’s views on the suitability of music was provided by Della Valle’s funeral oration for Philip III, not printed until seven years after the monarch’s death (1628, probably after the dramatist’s own passing).47 Looking back on the king’s life, the playwright called on the city of Milan to mourn, mentioned Philip’s military and administrative labors, and then considered his means for rest and repose: “A most noble practice truly (and, let us say it, a heavenly one) [is music], if in the heavens, as seems right to think and as many have believed, is concord and harmony. Playing and singing were his only relief and peace.”48 Having established the celestial nature of music, Della Valle went on to consider whether it was worthy of a male sovereign: “Now let me encounter no hair-splitting rhetorician to tell me haughtily that, in the encomium that I deliver for such a great king, it would have been better to hide this art he practiced, considered feminine and weak [there follows the counterexample of Achilles’ lyre] . . . there is no doubt that our king used music to such a sublime end that through his practice it acquired, not the name of effeminate and weak, but that of wisest and divine.”49 In the same way that the example of Achilles was shared with Federigo Borromeo’s writings, Della Valle then used the archbishop’s Augustinian image of concord for the art’s scope, and for its warlike power suitable to a male ruler: “Music is a temperament and concord of voices different among themselves, and, when heard, has the force to overwhelm affects, or excite the quiet person, or calm the excited one. Whether it be moderating or moving, it cannot be called at all effeminate . . . [long examples of the Spartans and of David calming Saul].”50 After enumerating the ancient and biblical models for the royal and military masculine employment of music, the dramatist concluded his praise by noting its creation of gentleness (“mansuetudine”), which moved from the external harmony of voice and sound to the interior concord of reason and the senses. Della Valle’s analogies and vocabulary also engaged the connection of music and gender present in Borromeo’s thought in these years.51 It seems no coincidence that, as the fame of the female houses spread throughout the city and Italy, the question of music’s identity, and suitability to men of agency, should have been posed again. The polemical placement of music as not only a recreation fit for a king but also a regulator of the passions marked a new stage in the art’s specific weight. In the same way that the overall worldview and the musical environment of the prelate, the prince, and the patriciate differed, but shared basic features, so did their formations of music’s nature.
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The End of Speculative Theory The only Milanese treatises that engage music’s laws and its relation to other arts are the two by Teodoro Osio, concerned largely with numerical proportions, meter, and music’s effects. They take their point of departure from ancient thought, but Osio’s ideas about the power of number and the derivation of poetry’s force from music boast a local genealogy, the logical result of the Pythagorean, Augustinian, and numerological thought present in the city, tempered in Borromeo’s works, and unbridled after the prelate’s death. Osio’s L’armonia del nudo parlare (1637) is ultimately a treatise on poetry, albeit interpreted, grounded, and given its force by music.52 The book is divided into three parts, of which the first deals with pure poetic meter (“nudo parlare”) and its derivation from the numerical relations (both pitch and temporal) that undergird music. The second considers classical meters in the context of music’s ability to provide pitch and harmony. And the third addresses Italian versification, beginning with the standard genres and figures (Petrarch, Sannazaro, Tasso), and passing to a discussion of various classical melodic modes before concluding with its peroration on the source of poetic furor and the three faculties of the soul. Although the treatise’s closing invocation of furor has generated the only modern discussion of Osio, and reflects his quintessentially seicento blend of epistemes, his points of departure and arrival are equally interesting.53 His initial inquiry was very much of his century, inasmuch as he wished to discover an empirical basis for the superhuman effect of poetic harmony. This feature of verse, for Osio, could only be understood through music, and so the starting point of the treatise in effect reversed the progress of Augustine’s De musica. Most of the musical discussion is actually in the first part of the treatise. Osio’s reception of preceding thought was decidedly mixed. His closest approach to a definition of music has little to do with Platonic formulations, emphasizing instead the common source of sound, melodic direction, and harmony to be found in proper motion, the concrete sonic expression of which was modo. Similarly, he criticizes the inductiveness of Aristotelian judgment of verse by ear, but takes over the philosopher’s theory of motion. The dialectical nature of these definitions is clear, underlined by Osio’s placing the musician one rational level above the astronomer and mathematician, since the former had to keep unequal parts in harmony and therefore had to consider two terms in one formulation. Osio provides an essentially scientific definition of modo, relating it to the vibrations of air, and keeping it far from any discussion of (pitched) mode. His discussion of proportions leads him to define the purpose of music as the reduction of discordant parts into harmony, and the unification of separate parts, just as his definition of harmony had harks back to Puteanus and Borromeo in its moderating mixture of high and low. The mixture of scientific speculation and recourse to ancient philosophy again characterizes the essentially seventeenth-century episteme at work. After long discussion of ancient and modern melody (together with tuning systems), Osio concludes the first part by coyly raising the question of the harmony of the spheres, then backed off (“And I . . . gladly give this speculation over to a mind more Pythagorean and Platonic than mine”).
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The second part of the treatise then turns to the actual subject, the harmonic proportions and numerical bases of bare prose, extending the definition from Aristotle’s Poetics to the idea of “bare” music (essentially monodic styles), the latter more suited to epic. It was this strongly proportional, declamatory style that Osio took as a point of departure for the discussion of classical meter. He provides a musical illustration for his idea of setting heroic pentameter, and closes with a mention of the “sympathetic” effect of polyphony on the composition of human beings, and on the affects of the soul. The final section deals with vernacular versification. Only here does Osio explain the “sympathetic” action of polyphony: “for the many musical accenti, penetrating through the ear and communicating with soul, can, by virtue of their numbers, move the numbers of the latter.” In this process, number unified discordant parts, just as it did in figured music. Thus, when a musician operated one or another change (affectively severe, sweet, happy, or sad; Osio did not provide compositional formulas) in the numbers that comprised music, so the soul sympathetically changed affect in response. This is the backdrop to the eclectic discussion of poetic furor, with which the treatise ends. The pedigree of this treatise is no surprise in the intellectual mix of early seicento Milan. Its combination of scientific speculation, critical Aristotelianism, and coy Pythagoreanism includes elements found in Borromeo’s circle, but its essential antiPlatonism marks it as very much a different product. In some ways, it resembles the ideas of Emanuele Tesauro, who had been in residence at the Brera collegio for most of the 1620s, during the years in which Osio formulated his ideas.54 Although the art figured in the overall context, music was not so strongly accentuated in Osio’s other published treatise, the Cadmeia seges, which appeared in 1653, although it was written somewhat earlier.55 If L’armonia had been concerned with number, rhythm, and meter, the later work begins its essentially poetic traversal of number and sound with issues of diction and phonology. Beginning at the beginning, Osio considers God’s creation itself an act of number, and highlights the special place of triadic and sevenfold relationships; although Puteanus is not specifically cited, his solmization plan and its numerological background are criticized. Instead, Osio highlights the tonic role of ut, and then passes to a consideration of the musical presentation of phonological elements such as diphthongs. In a similar way, musical ratios explain the proportions of poetic accentuation, with parallels between beats and stressed/unstressed syllables. In many ways, Cadmeia seges reworks the procedures and dialectic of the earlier treatise, this time using poetic diction and phonology as its material.
Aesthetics in the City At the beginning of the period, one major aesthetic current in the city found its expression in the circle of the painter Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo (1538–1592) and his Accademia della Val di Blenio.56 Lomazzo’s writings on art codified an essentially mid-Cinquecento aesthetic. Before his premature death, the Duomo organist Caimo was a member of Lo-
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mazzo’s Neoplatonist academy; he was the dedicatee of one of Lomazzo’s poems and was mentioned as a “counselor” of the group. The approach of his madrigals reflects the tastes of mid-century: classic poetic texts, the value of abstract musical structure over local effects, and relatively “high” style. The academy was supported by two patrons, both interested in music, Prospero Visconti (d. 1592) and Count Pirro Visconti Borromeo (ca. 1560–1604).57 Despite the evident conflicts of Lomazzo’s circle with Carlo Borromeo’s stricter turns, Caimo continued both to work as Duomo organist and to publish a good deal of secular music. If there was any musical representation of the the grottesco style current in the Val di Blenio group, it was probably to be found in such editions as Caimo’s second book of four-voice canzonettas (1584).58 The most obvious question posed by the activities of the academy, that of the relation of Lomazzo’s theory of painting to music, received no definitive answer from the artist. He was, or pretended to be, no friend of contemporary polyphony; his sonnet to Caimo accused humans of corrupting the divine proportions of music. One of Lomazzo’s poems attacked musicians, placing them among alchemists, chiromancers, and pedants, while other grotteschi limited themselves to music’s mythical origins, or to a mention of Amphion collecting the stones of Thebes with his lyre. As would Federigo, the painter emphasized the numerical content of music, placing it with astrology and geometry, but attacking the Pythagoreans. Yet, in Lomazzo’s academic gallery of criticism for arts other than his own, the longest poem is an encomium of Merulo. This work gives a list of mid-century musical classics, starting with Willaert and continuing up to the renowned “Milanese Orfeo” of the 1570s (a trombonist, not to be confused with Orfeo Vecchi). The sum of Lomazzo’s references suggests the canonization of a group of model composers.59 And despite all his slights to the art, he could not help but note the sheer quantity of songs sung in the city’s streets, the first epigraph to this book. A similar sort of summary account of important musicians was furnished twice by Morigia.60 Looking back on the century, the friar highlighted Lucio Cavenago, Gian Giacomo Albuccio, a “Prete Egidio,” Giovanni Battista “detto il Secchione,” Caimo, and Francesco da Milano. The next circle was that of the Accademia degli Inquieti, founded by Muzio Sforza (1557–1622), the Marquess of Caravaggio, in 1594. Sforza was one of the central figures in the city’s cultural life, active in promoting drama, dance, and poetry. On his mother’s side, he was descended from Vittoria Colonna, and Pietro Vinci had dedicated his settings of the poet’s spiritual sonnets to Muzio’s great-aunt, an eponymous Colonna, in 1580.61 He was also the dedicatee of Borsieri’s Guarini-esque moral pastoral tragicomedy, L’amorosa prudenza (1610). Some of the literary activity of the Inquieti is found in Gherardo Borgogni’s Rime di diversi illustrissimi poeti (Venice, 1599), including many of the compiler’s own verses along with poems by a number of other figures. The collection includes three poems addressed to Guido Mazenta, along with a series of canzoni on the occasion of Margaret’s wedding in 1598; its dedication to Giulio Arese places it in Milanese cultural life.62 Sforza was the addressee of several of its poems, as was the painter Ambrogio Figino, but the items of most musical interest include pieces dedicated to Isabella Andreini as well as a poem on the singing of Claudia Sessa, “Questa del Ciel, non piu` del mar Sirena.”63 In general the activity of the Inquieti tended to be more literary and pictorial than musical (although Coppini would later be a member).
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The circles around Sforza and Pirro Visconti bridged the gap until the next moment of activity around 1610. The connection between music and the figurative arts was also present at the next moment of aesthetic reflection in the city’s intellectual history, in which music was far more strongly involved. Borsieri’s letters, written between 1605 and 1620, address in good part painting and poetry, as the musical asides to a variety of correspondents are concentrated in several missives. Fundamental for his aesthetics were moderate figures in literature and art, and his views may well represent those of Federigo.64 The letters were addressed to a wide variety of poets, musicians, prelates, painters, and other figures, ranging from Federigo himself to Guarini, Marino (whose practice Borsieri was far from admiring, but whose interest in music and painting he shared), Ruggiero Trofeo, Coppini, and Puteanus.65 Several provide incidental details, such as the account of Merulo’s premature demise due to his self-poisoning in alchemical experiments.66 While he was a student at the Brera, Borsieri had studied with Trofeo (who was employed at the nearby church of San Marco), probably just before the composer’s departure for Turin in 1604. He had also been in contact with Gesualdo, as a letter to Trofeo had noted. Several years later (between August 1608 and August 1610), he sent on three texts by Guarini to his teacher, noting that Gabussi would set the rest, a promise evidently never carried out.67 Borsieri also used the occasion to give his own ideas of propriety: Today it can be called a miracle to find anyone who loves only that music in which harmony has its natural rectitude, easy and appropriate to any singer (even of imperfect voice); today music is born without music, no longer based on consonance, but rather in little gestures of tremoli, rests, or breaths already over before even heard (or, if heard, normally heard with restless ears). This is especially the case if sung alla moderna by someone who has not learned to sing all’antica, and who makes those dissonances (barely tolerated by our forebearers as passing) at once the vocabulary and basis [of composition] . . . O effeminate (if not bestial) age, in accordance with which [composers] with good reason do not fill their cartelle with exquisite notes!68
Borsieri’s appeal to cinquecento norms went beyond any of Federigo’s reproaches of modern music. He transformed a group of todeschine into canzoni da sonare on the model of those of Trofeo’s teacher Francesco Rovigo, adding another attack on music that fed only the ears, not the soul.69 Borsieri’s longest outburst, in autumn 1612, was stimulated by a Roman shipment (from Father Angiolo Marini) of offensive madrigals: I deem that contemporary music could be compared to Gothic architecture, since the latter feeds the eyes and the former the ears, but neither feeds the intellect. Why have so many fourths and sevenths without preparing them from perfect or imperfect consonances? Perhaps so as to express the words? Palestrina knew how to express them well, with his simple or syncopated points of imitation, while, with amazing proportion, first he passed from one to another subject, then he resolved the middle with the beginnings or ends, or with artful double counterpoint; without confusion he mixed the subsidiary modes with the tonic ones, or the free voices with the altered
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ones . . . But these capricci will end with time, and finally the arts will reestablish themselves on solid foundations, since for a long time they have battled a weak technique or an odd reversal of fundamental principles. Father, send me no more music of this kind.70
Borsieri clearly appreciated Palestrina’s modal clarity and inventiveness with points of imitation. The target of the attack was unnamed, as the most likely candidates were Roman editions by Quagliati or G. B. Nanino, and it is unclear whether Borsieri’s criticisms extended to monodic practice. But it is difficult not to read the polemic with the Monteverdi/Artusi controversy in mind, despite Coppini’s partisanship for the composer and Monteverdi’s high standing in Milan. That Michelangelo Nantermi’s madrigal book of 1609 would also feature striking dissonance treatment, at least in some of its settings, must have added to Borsieri’s dismay.71 Borsieri’s riposte to Rome was to send poetry, possibly out of frustration at being unable to compose music: “Perhaps this music which I send will please you more, made up of only verses; since that which I sent composed of notes and words could not or should not [have done so]. Poetry, ruled with perfect and imperfect consonances according to the quantity of the syllables, is also music.”72 The passage anticipates Osio’s ideas on the musicality of “nudo verso” by a generation, and marks the first assimilation of poetry to music to be found in the writings of Federigo’s circle. Thus, there does seem to have existed a traditionalist current in the city, not articulated as completely anti-modern, but present in Borsieri’s reaction to the Roman experiments, d’India’s dedication to Borromeo, and the ongoing presence of contrapuntal artifice and cinquecento models in some of the city’s music. Still, the practical impact of Borsieri’s attitude is unclear. His attitude toward the musical world was also jaded by his abandonment of his youthful strivings in the art.73 And the direct musical links of his literary production are few; the poetry includes one “Concerto di flauti e d’organo,” while two of his madrigals made their way to Parma, to be set in Eleutero Guazzi’s Spiritosi affetti (1622).74 In light of his aesthetics, Borsieri’s listing of famous city musicians in the Supplimento was no innocent compilation, but a layered and nuanced panegyric to those whom he wanted to advance.75 The long encomium of Sessa was related to his crusade for freely chosen female vocations. In the following chapter, he excluded Gabussi from the list, for unknown reasons. His praise of Vecchi noted exclusively the composer’s productivity, not his style nor sensitivity to text. Borsieri then set up G. P. Cima and Ardemanio as organists at different stylistic poles, the former implicitly traditional, the latter having taken leave of Bariola’s style and following that of Borsieri’s teacher, Trofeo. The third organist, Biumi, was lauded as following a via mezzana that included both Palestrina and Rovigo.76 The priority of performance is evident in the next layer of those cited largely as instrumentalists: the Rognoni brothers and the lutenists Luigi Diano and G. A. Colonna, these listed without stylistic referents.77 Borsieri then began a list of those who were essentially composers (with the exception of Francesco Casati), organized by genre, thus mixing generations: madrigals (Gioseffo Biffi, Caimo, Gerolamo Casati, Michelangelo Nantermi); canzonas and canzonettas (Bariola, Soderini, Beretta, Comanedo, Varese); and church music (Cantone, Binago, Francesco Pappo, Caterina As-
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sandra, Andrea Cima).78 He finished by naming figures outstanding in more than one profession: Coppini as rhetorician and musical sophisticate, and the collaboration between musician and musical printer, Lucino and Lomazzo, responsible for the Concerti de’ diversi collection and its supplements.79 The selection was tendentious; not limited to those born in the city, most obviously it excluded Pellegrini (and the Duomo organists Borgo and Arnone, suggesting that Borsieri disliked the cathedral’s musical forces around 1615), pointedly omitted some recent editions (Comanedo’s two madrigal books) while including others from a generation before (Caimo), praised Cantone somewhat condescendingly for his “monastic” simplicity of manner, and applied the equivocal designation of “al gusto del tempo” to Andrea Cima’s works as well as the tellingly neutral expression of the “via trouata nell’accademia del Monteuerdi” to Nantermi’s compositions. The list does include most of those figures represented in the 1617 Seconda aggiunta, the most recent urban motet anthology, but its somewhat distant attitude toward its immediate musical scene would have been apparent to any attentive observer. Borsieri’s asides on music stand in contrast to his well-defined and exemplified ideas on artistic styles. But the coexistence of one aesthetic producing different ramifications in two different media highlights the relationship between music and the visual arts, dating back to Lomazzo’s poems and aesthetic writings. Federigo himself also compared the recent and brief epochs of painting and music.80 The two arts were clearly not equivalent; if music was to move the passions, operating on an internal affective level, then painting’s task, according to Federigo, was both to instruct and to delight, a more explicitly aesthetic and pedagogical goal. Like the coexistence of decoration new (and old) with music in the city’s churches, the city’s awareness of the roughly parallel aims of the two arts is evident in its reflective writings around 1610. Borsieri’s comments and practice also underscore the centrality of Guarini as an aesthetic referent in the city. The durability of the poet’s attraction was evident, not only in the sheer number of settings by city figures (some fifty-nine pieces between 1587 and 1628, forty-four from the Rime, and fifteen from Il pastor fido), but also in his representation in polyphonic settings. Almost every surviving madrigal and monody book of an urban composer in these years included at least two of his texts, often long after they had gone out of fashion elsewhere.81 The most obvious expression of the preference was in Arnone’s six-voice book of 1600, which ended with a series of nine madrigals and a sonnet, of which eight were the very first printed settings of these poems by Guarini. The collection, with its Mantuan connections, forms a musical canonization of the 1598 edition of the Rime. This volume, opening with an encomium of Duke Vincenzo, seems to be a direct source for Arnone’s madrigals.82 Another cycle of ten, taken this time from Il pastor fido, dates from Ghizzolo’s Milanese years, and was published in his second book of madrigals in 1614. Another mixed group of ten poems was set in Francesco Rognoni’s five-voice book of the previous year, and his brother’s eight-voice madrigals of 1619, written for the ducal court, continued the tradition. The traditional side of the book is reinforced by the seven settings of Guarini, five of which are the last, antepenultimate, or penultimate versions of the texts in Italy.83 Evidently Federigo’s “moderate” classicism was shared also in the ducal palace. As late as 1622, Torre
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included four settings in his monody collection, the same number as in G. B. Ala’s book of 1628, all of these pieces representing the last or penultimate printed versions in Italy. No other centre, not even Mantua, held on for so long to Guarini’s poetry. Other figures in the literary landscape had less musical resonance than Guarini: seven settings of Chiabrera and thirteen of Marino were interspersed in books by Ghizzolo, Comanedo, Torre, and Ala. Of these, the weightiest seem to be Ghizzolo’s nine items on Marino’s texts, split between his 1613 monody and 1614 madrigal books. How many of the 160-odd unattributed madrigal and monody texts set by city composers might be traced to local poets is uncertain; the number of non-Milanese concordances for many argues against any sort of local poetic school. Specifically urban and popular texts were more likely to emerge in the canzonetta repertory, such as the “Gobo nan” piece in Massimiliano Nuvoloni’s 1608 book, or Grancini’s Capriccio.84 A sacred parallel to Guarini’s influence was that of Angelo Grillo. His development of late cinquecento changes in poetic theory had clear reflection in the city.85 Grillo’s innovations, found in his Rime of 1588 and other verse scattered through the last decade of the century, consisted of the mixture of literary levels, a new immediacy and theatricality in sacred topics, unusual conceits, and a willingness to experiment with meter and diction. Most important were his detailed laments on Christ’s Passion, and his willingness to voice these sentiments through Mary, features that would be picked up by the composers who set his work. The poet’s own ties to the city, although not extensive, were constant and influential.86 The abbot passed through on his travels from his monastic posts, staying at S. Pietro in Gessate from February to April of 1602, corresponding with Giambattista Marino, and witnessing the city’s musical life.87 His letters and dedications include one to his fellow Cassinese Cantone, for whom he had penned a madrigal for musical setting, in praise of St. Hyacinth. Grillo also wrote a dedication for a sacred edition (lost or never printed) of the composer.88 Grillo’s Milanese contacts included Orsola Peretta Sforza Colonna, the dedicatee of his Essequie di Christo celebrate co ’l pianto di Maria Vergine, part 2 (Venice, 1610).89 She was the widow of Marc’Antonio Colonna, and had then married Muzio Sforza of Caravaggio. The other figures addressed in Grillo’s letters read like a directory of Milanese literary life around 1600.90 A poet strongly influenced by Grillo was the Carmelite Cherubino Ferrari, born in Milan, who became the court theologian in Mantua.91 His major poetic collection, the Rime sopra diversi bellissimi soggetti (1614), included a dedicatory sonnet from Muzio Sforza. The anti-Bemboist mixture of levels and the surprising conceits of the poetic imagery mark Ferrari as a local representative of Grillo’s and Guarini’s aesthetics. It is no surprise that the Carmelite’s poems reflect the Milanese devotional world of the Seicento’s first decades: laments and joys of the Madonna, madrigals in praise of paintings or relics, and graphic eucharistic topics.92 Ferrari’s poems to Milanese patrons, most notably the Caravaggio and their daughter Alessandra (a nun) and others, including Mantuan noblewomen, figure among the encomia organized by the addressee’s status in his Rime, while the social world of his poetry is marked by such (largely female) audiences. He also sent poems to Philip III and to Margaret, the latter unsurprisingly featuring the conceit of the pearl.93 The best-known musician among his addressees was Monteverdi, whose appended praises from Book V were reprinted in the Rime. But Ferrari’s musical world
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was larger, as the selection of musicians lauded reinforces the ties between Mantua and Milan: Lucı´no (a poem that had been prefixed to the 1608 Concerti de’ diversi), Cantone (probably for another now-lost motet book), Ardemanio, and Coppini for his contrafacts.94 Two women praised for their musicality were well known in Milan: Isabella Andreini and Chiara Tetoni (along with a subtle reference to Sessa).95 The sheer number of musicians included, and the formulaic references to the art’s power, underscored Ferrari’s own attitude toward song, expressed in the introduction to his poem on Mary’s joy at Christ’s birth.96 Ferrari also played a major role in the music of urban ceremonial life, noted below. Grillo’s aesthetics were even more important than the personal connections. The mixing of poetic levels, the theatrical nature of the poetic voice, the closer approach to popular piety, and the specifically meditative quality resulting in unusual conceits all served to bring this poetic style closer to city audiences and to formulate procedures actually more suitable for musical setting in the various styles around 1600 than had been the case before. That a modestly educated instrumentalist like Riccardo Rognoni would have set a Grillo-like Passion meditation (“Quanto, o pie Giesu`”), published in his son’s madrigals of 1613, shows that the style was embraced not only by figures from high culture like the Caravaggio, but by a far wider range of city dwellers. Hence, these principles of sacred devotional poetry, best expressed by Grillo, imitated by Ferrari, and concordant with the via mezzana of Guarini, coincided with most of the city’s aesthetic attitudes and literary production around 1600. This conjunction of new sacred aesthetics, affective themes, and a city public was most visible in the spiritual madrigal repertory. Ferrari dedicated his own Marian madrigals (not set in music) to Orsina Sforza in 1614. Other such editions featuring cycles included Vecchi’s La donna vestita da sole (1602, dedicated to Ippolita Borromeo), Limido’s Regii Concenti Spirituali (a combination of Italian and Castilian settings dedicated to Philip III in 1605, beginning with a nine-part Marian cycle on a text by Grillo), and G. B. Porta’s madrigals in praise of Carlo Borromeo (1616). The social context of domestic devotion (if not the literary aesthetics) was shared by the contrafact repertory, published in the city if not entirely reflective of its composers: the three Nova metamorfosi volumes of Geronimo Cavaglieri (1600–1610); Vecchi’s opus ultimum, the Scielta de’ madrigali (1604), and Coppini’s volumes.97 Around 1600 contrafacts emerged in other places, like Palestrina’s madrigal Io son ferito appearing as the plea of the Prodigal Son (Quanti mercenarii) in Vecchi’s Book I a 5, later used as an ornamentation model by Francesco Rognoni. In similar ways, the contrafact volumes also served as places where composers, especially young figures, could have their original motets published.98
Protection and Devotional Focus If music played a role in urban hermeneutics and in the expression of aesthetics, it also was implicated in civic and personal welfare. Borsieri had compared “good” music to medicine, and the idea that musical texts might have a role in the processes of restoring order to bodies, individual and corporate, is suggested by the Compendium artis exorcisticae of the Milanese Barnabite priest Zaccaria Visconti.99 In the third part
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(“exorcismalis”) of this handbook, Visconti provided fifteen exorcism formulas for different kinds of possession; in two, a litany was placed at the very beginning of the ritual, after the initial purgation (Asperges me and Miserere) by the priest. The (Romanrite) litany of the saints was used in the general formula, in which Ambrose’s hymn Hymnum dicamus Domino also marked the invocation of the Cross. In the formula based around Christ’s life, the Marian litany filled the same spot at the beginning of the ritual, before the demons were conjured, and the patient liberated from them.100 Antiphons and psalms were to be said after the successful expulsion of the demons. Earlier, the first of Carlo Borromeo’s clerics assigned to teach chant, Michele Sovino, had also been a renowned exorcist in the city.101 The civic function of the litany texts was most obvious on the three days (Monday through Wednesday after Ascension) of the Lesser Litanies or lettanie triduane; a similar, but shorter, version took place for the Greater Litanies on 25 April.102 The latter involved a procession of the archbishop and cathedral clergy from the Duomo to S. Vittore al Corpo (the reverse path, from the city churches to the cathedral, was reserved for the Roman-rite religious orders, and generated the inclusion of the Roman-rite litany settings in Pellegrini’s Litaniae ambrosianae, et romanae of 1623).103 However, the major processional invocation of the saints, outlining and sanctifying the sectors of the city, was the three-day cycle. On each, the archbishop, cathedral clergy, and a good part of the city spent all day processing from and back to the cathedral; the first day’s route circumscribed northern and western quarters; the second, the eastern gates, and the third, the southern ones.104 Each day involved visits to two of the seven stational churches (one for Mass) and a series of stops at other churches and intersections. On the journey back to the cathedral on the first day, for example, at the crossroads (carrubio) of Porta Ticinese, three choirs were to sing (evidently in monophony) an antiphon version of the Civitatem nostram text. Forms of the petition for protection unique to the city, the Ambrosian Litany of the Saints, were said or sung in public procession. These were organized according to a general outline of saints invoked but specific names changed on each leg of the journey. The few printed polyphonic settings of the Ambrosian sanctoral litanies reflect a much greater improvised tradition, in which the cathedral singers processed performing the litanies each day.105 Most of Pellegrini’s 1623 volume is made up of sanctoral litanies based on such simple formulae. Visconti’s therapeutic use of litanies suggests that the public performance of these texts in music also served as a prelude to the ritual purification of the city. As a genre, litanies linked the personal and the civic, in the same way in which their performance could range from the simplest speech or monophony to complex polyphony. Images, sound, and thaumaturgy interacted in the devotion to the city’s protectress. Margaret, and anyone else who entered one of the city’s six gates, passed under an image of the Virgin.106 Federigo’s own emphasis on her led to other new objects of piety, for instance the pictorial genre of the Madonna and Child in a garland of flowers. At the beginning of the period, the largest-scale motet settings by Duomo figures in the 1590s reflect Marian themes, over and above the titular feast of the cathedral. But even within urban Mariology, there were different accents. The Dominicans’ stressing of the Rosary (evident in the confraternities at Santa Maria delle Grazie and S. Maria della Rosa) stemmed from a Mariology that emphasized the
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Madonna’s shared features with humanity, while the emphasis on her queenship (evident in the many images, in both “high” and “low” culture, that featured her with a crown) represented a strain of thought stressing her transcendence and heavenly destiny. The Apocalyptic Madonna of Vecchi’s spiritual madrigal cycle of 1602 was the most narrative musical reflection.107 Its twenty-one settings, each prefaced by the anonymous text printed on the verso of the partbook folios, treated the twelve stars of her virtues, plus two attributes, followed by the seven major events of her life, from Nativity to Assumption. The protection provided by the Virgin to the city had a notable musical reflection in the early Seicento. Among the eleven major motet books between 1611 and 1627, about 40 percent of the items are in her honor. Most noteworthy are Ala’s edition of 1621 (ten of eighteen pieces) and the Flores of 1626. In the latter, fifteen of twentytwo motets have some sort of Marian topic, starting with Francesco Rognoni’s solo version of the popular sequence Ave virgo benedicta [gloriosa], stella, sole clarior.108 Just as she guarded the gates, and protected the city’s inhabitants (thus making Milan a Marian hortus conclusus), so also many of the editions, from the Seconda aggiunta (1617) through the 1640s, begin with an invocation of her and conclude (partially by printing convention) with her litanies or a large-scale motet in her honor, a notable change from the organization of such editions around 1600.109 The major civic form of her invocation, even if not normally processional, was again the litany. The link between the thirty-odd Milanese polyphonic Marian litany settings (all of the Litany of Loreto) and more domestic use was provided by simple formulas like that by Vecchi in Scaletta’s Scala. The most popular public polyphony was at S. Maria presso S. Celso on Saturday, while the female houses and other churches in the city evidently also featured the litanies in canto figurato.110 Litanies thus functioned in the city on a variety of levels: spoken (as in Visconti’s exorcism formulas); sung in simple domestic settings; and, in their most complex projection, in the four- to eight-voice versions composed by Vecchi or Stefanini for the Scala or by Della Porta for S. Maria presso S. Celso. Marian services were by no means confined to the latter church or to the female houses. In 1634, the Duomo’s governing board attempted to reinstate the pre-plague traditions of its Friday devotion to the Madonna, in the broader context of the reconstruction of the cathedral’s musical life after the contagion (Doc. 17). This practice, funded by the cathedral confraternity of S. Maria della Neve, went back to an unspecified time; some of the Marian motets published by composers working at the Duomo could well have been heard on these occasions. Composers’ approaches to Marian texts stemmed from their meanings in contemporary exegesis and liturgy. The most obvious source was the north Italian flowering of Song of Songs settings, given the canticle’s long history of Marian interpretation, present also in Federigo’s writings. Some favorite verses, notably Quae est ista? (Song of Songs 6:9) for Assumption Day, remained almost invariable over the entire period. But in the early Seicento, the simple explication of the book’s amatory and laudatory words (as reflecting Mary’s love for her Son) became increasingly more nuanced. The development of canticle exegesis began with a traditionally direct Marian interpretation, but flowered into the polyvalent explications of the mid-Seicento, such as that by the Camillan priest G. B. Novati.111
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Several motet texts highlight the changes in the city’s Mariology. One of Scarabelli’s 1592 pieces shows a formal approach: “Under your auspices, o happiest virgin, my path will be happy; hence I will praise you as my lady at all times, and may your praise be always in my mouth; let it be holy, auspicious, and proper.”112 Similar sorts of standard late medieval texts were set even as the first small-scale concertos around 1610.113 For obvious reasons, the Song of Songs was often used with clear Marian meaning in the early repertory as well, and some of the new texts around 1620 (e.g., Ala’s motets) simply combined disjunct verses from the canticle. The way in which contemporary Mariology undergirded new texts is most evident in Coppini’s Latin version of Monteverdi’s Una donna fra le altre, which, printed five years before the publication of its vernacular model, opened his third contrafact volume: You are unique, o Mary, o lovely virgin, you who surpass lilies in whiteness, and glow red with purple color, clearer than the sun’s golden splendor. O virgin, you bore a sweet light in that utterly fortunate night which, radiant with snow-like splendor, illuminated the fleeing shadows. You are powerful, you have wounded death, you broke the dragon’s heads, and kindly healed our wounds; you triumph in your humility, you are the sweet defense of the sick; you, blessed in glory, now reign.114
Its affect represents a complete inversion of the original, anonymous lament from Book VI. Coppini arranged it as a catalogue of Marian praise, typical of much to come in the next decade.115 The Saturday Office of the Virgin was invariable throughout the year (except Lent), and Cantone’s dedication to his 1625 Motetti concertati states that the book’s contents originated in such a service. Four leading singers (Lambrugo from the Scala; G. M. Brasca and Giovanni Baccino from the Duomo; and Pestagallo from the ducal chapel) gathered to sing Marian pieces on Saturdays.116 Although Cantone did not specify the place, one appropriate backdrop would have been the largest Marian image in the city, Bergognone’s Coronation of the Virgin (surrounded by choirs of musical angels), covering the apse at S. Simpliciano. Such “unofficial” Marian devotion seems to have generated much of the Marian repertory of the early Seicento. Cantone’s volume both continued the European tradition of Saturday Salve services and commemorated a repertory that must have been parallel to (if not competing with) similar musically marked services at S. Maria presso S. Celso and the Duomo. One of the texts he set shows the move toward more personalized invocation: Hail, sweetest Mary, you who nursed the infant Jesus with your virgin breasts, and, carrying Him in your arms as you wished, clasped Him to you with the kisses that you gave Him. Grant me to seek you, command me to follow you, teach me to praise you, offer me to glorify you; o Mary, how good and merciful you are, my sweet refuge, blessed virgin, holy mother of God.117
More popular literary style was apparent in an Assumption motet a 3 published a year earlier by Grancini, in a language more suitable to the Franciscan church of
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S. Maria del Giardino, with its large and socially varied public, the composer’s first employer: “O Virgin Mary, had you not been chaste and humble above all other creatures, you would never have been exalted over the angelic choirs. Since you are thus exalted, help us with the hand of your mercy, saying: ‘Come to me, all you who desire and seek me, and I will crown you’, alleluia.”118 After the plague, the major change in this highly affective language was the marked individualization of the texts. Thus, simultaneously with Novati’s long encomium of Mary, the motets of the 1640s retain the paratactic structure and cataloglike procedures of earlier pieces, while employing a newly free vocabulary. One of the duets in Della Porta’s third book of 1651 employs some the most graphic personalized vocabulary to be found in the repertory: O Mary, true charity, Mary, dear devotion, behold, your living love tortures my viscera, and, inflamed with new thirst, I seek your breasts, O Mary. Sweet mother, dear virgin, drip the milk of love, give forth your sweet-tasting honey; these are Mary’s breasts. Ah, my love, give your honey, give your milk, give me the purest fountain of your breast, that I may enjoy your sweetness forever. O Mary, true charity, Mary, dear devotion; from whom may I drink, may I live, may I, overcome, breathe, so that I may sing you as my reward. O how sweet, O how good you are, for all eternity, Mary.119
The other unifying topos, in devotion and in music, was the Eucharist, reaffirmed by Osio, who noted that the highest unity was in God, present in the Sacrament as the highest miracle perceptible to the human mind.120 Its clearest projection in the city’s streets was the annual procession for Corpus Domini [Christi], an occasion marked by music. Some of the motets for the Sacrament used the standard texts.121 But the language, parallel to Marian literature, also changed, notably a personalization of the texts in the 1620s, in which the physical presence of the Host worked miraculous transformations in the believer; its (in practice, still rare) reception, even more so. A new generation of composers responded to this, evident in another setting by Grancini that shows the use of late medieval orationes ante communionem as texts in the 1620s: “Sweet Christ, to You I come, for I burn with Your fire. Good Jesus, I hasten to You, for I waste away with Your love. Come, Lord, let my lips feel Your holy kisses; in You alone do we breathe, good Jesus; may You be my glory, and the whole delight of my soul. So take our heart, sweetest Lord, and may it remain with You for all eternity.”122 The only trace of the eucharistic piety of an earlier generation is the survival of the first person plural verbs. The individual emphasis marks a stage beyond that of Marinist sacred poetry around 1610, a personalized trend present in motet texts until mid-century. Novati’s major contribution was to combine eucharistic and canticle themes. Thus the personalized tone of Marian interpretation acquired strong eucharistic stamp, a trend reflected also in the mid-century motet.123 A piece published in 1651 by Teodoro Casati shows the fusion of Gospel parable, dialogue, Corpus Christi liturgical tags, canticle vocabulary, and even the physical maternality of the Virgin transferred to the eucharistic Christ.124 Besides the new musical forms growing up alongside, and in part generated by,
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such texts, the intersection between devotion and genre is most evident in the city’s contribution to a wider form, the dialogue. The century’s preferred form for characterization, psychological development, and interiority, its first explicitly named small-scale examples were found in Ghizzolo’s secular and sacred books of 1610 and 1611, respectively, setting the exchanges of lovers and of the Magdalen at Christ’s tomb. Others followed quickly, especially Marian pieces using the Song of Songs in the 1620s. Typical of the post-plague scene was the highly individualized colloquy of the soul and a supernatural figure (an angel, Christ, the devil).125 Like the litanies, the dialogue had both personal and corporate use, charting a soul’s penance or celebrating Marian protection of the city. The form with a strikingly low profile in the documentation, except for the public processions, was the lauda. It is evident that examples were sung during the major one-off events, but there were no printed editions after Carlo’s time, and the presence of motets seems to have been remarked far more often by chroniclers.126
Patrons of the City The city’s original protector was another image that united secular and sacred.127 In the first generation, only Gabussi’s (1586) and Cima’s (1599) O doctor optime settings explicitly mention Ambrose, while Baglione’s O pastor bone, doctor optime, alme sacerdos, protector noster (1608), one of the first unspecified (“N.”) sanctoral pieces, may also have invoked the saint. Gabussi’s piece takes on added resonance in light of the woodwork of the choir stalls of the Duomo, executed between 1567 and 1614, again to designs by Tibaldi, with seventy-one scenes from the bishop’s life.128 After the plague, the musical invocations continued. Grancini’s 1631 Festiva vox psallentium, a setting of a sequence (“Festiva vox psallentium / collaudet regem gloriae, / qui cum sanctis suis in Paradiso / glorificavit beatum Ambrosium / ubi assumptus est cum angelis . . .”) was probably written for a celebration of the Deposition of the saint; its text derives from a fifteenth-century rhymed Office for St. Vincent Ferrer.129 Another, more specifically urban, historical trope for the defense of orthodoxy was the battle between Ambrose and the Arians, treated musically in G. B. Beria’s dialogue O perfide, O infidelis (Concerti musicali, 1650). This piece uses Ambrose (B) as a symbol of the city (and of Habsburg rule), while Arianus (A; he replies in Italian to the saint’s Latin) serves as a not-so-hidden reference to Protestantism. Beria’s collection was dedicated by his student C. F. Rolandi to Bartolomeo Arese, president of the magistrato ordinario, fervent supporter of the Habsburgs, controller of the city’s finances, and arguably the most powerful man in Milan.130 The warlike image of Ambrose scattering the Arians was visible in Ambrogio Figino’s depiction of the saint painted for the chapel of the tribunale della provisione in 1590–91 in the Broletto Nuovo (now Milan, Castello Sforzesco). In contrast to Carlo Borromeo’s promotion of the pastoral and clerical aspects of the saint’s iconography, Figino’s version accentuated the civic and military attributes of the saint as the defender of the city, a conception also found on the city’s gonfalone, or processional banner, which had been designed back in 1565 and blessed solemnly on 8 September 1566 by Carlo.131 Like liturgy itself, the city’s patron shifted. In 1610 (and even in 1630), there
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were many alive (most obviously Federigo) who had known Carlo, and others had benefited from his miracles. Giuseppe Milani’s account of the festivities for the new beato in 1603 both accentuated the personal connection and noted the presence of music at both the cathedral festivities and in the city as a whole.132 Perhaps the most obvious emblems of his life were the twenty quadroni (eight were added later) commissioned by Federigo between 1602 and 1604 in honor of the new beato, a project coordinated by Cerano. For the canonization of 1610, twenty-four paintings of the saint’s miracles were produced, again under Cerano’s direction.133 All the large-scale music in the cathedral in 1610, and on every 4 November afterwards, would have sounded with all the pictures hung between the piers of both naves, reminding the audience of “their” saint and his miracles. Within a short time, Carlo had become a universal symbol of the city even to the children of those who had fought so bitterly with him back in the 1570s. He was represented as a pastor and benefactor, complementing Ambrose’s militant characteristics, and by 1640 Bernardino Bassano’s engraving of the city seen from the west depicted both saints interceding for Milano (see fig. 1.2).134 His cult spread rapidly, on a wide variety of social levels, throughout northern Italy as a whole. Although there is little trace of the polyphony sung at the elaborate canonization ceremony in Rome, the musical devotion started quickly.135 In Milan, 4 November 1610 was celebrated with a Mass (with a sermon by Paolo Aresi) including the four polyphonic choirs, and a procession in which the sanctoral litanies were sung, with Carlo’s name added for the first time. The long line entered the cathedral, singing a Marian antiphon, and the prayers prescribed by the Ambrosian pontifical were answered in (possibly improvised) counterpoint by the singers.136 The following Sunday (7 November), the Jesuits put on a pontifical Mass, as a patrician and ducal counterpart, with the bishop of Vigevano and his clergy, his choirs of musicians, and the city trombetti.137 In the following years, Pellegrini composed the Vespers items for the vigil and the feast, and added a setting of a generic text (Congratulamini omnes) in 1619. On 13 April 1614, the archbishop led a procession of clerics, confraternity members, the civic trumpeters, and “un Choro de’ migliori Musici di Milano,” accompanying sanctoral relics to the tomb of the new saint. As always in processions, the musicians sang hymns already composed in Carlo’s honor, and both the Duomo’s choirs performed before and during Vespers.138 Just three months later, the Duomo’s ensembles were brought to the edge of the diocese on Lago Maggiore. Rarely did the chapel as a whole perform outside the city, but an exception was made for Federigo’s visit to the Sacro Monte in Arona on 13 July, where he placed the first stone of the giant statue of the saint. The cathedral musicians sang Mass with five motets whose texts (all referring to holy mountains) were newly crafted from Scripture for the occasion, and the words, each carved from an Old Testament book like the inscription around a painting or statue, are preserved in the printed account.139 The sense of sacralizing the new Sacro Monte (joining those of Varese and Varollo) through music was evident in the careful selection of the verses, and the importation of the cathedral ensemble. This rare glimpse into the making of new occasional motets resonates with two pieces in Pellegrini’s 1619 motet book: Quam pulchri sunt super montes a 2 (MzB),
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which incorporates most of one of the five texts plus the first half of another, and Laudate caeli, exulta terra a 5, whose vocabulary is close to that of the “mountain” motets.140 The former suggests that Pellegrini originally wrote two pieces, which he then revised and compressed between 1614 and 1619, whereas the case of Laudate caeli points to a more extensive recomposition, with most of the text reworked.141 Both motets arose from civic identity (Milan’s place at the foot of the mountains and its pride in its new saint). Compositionally, the differences suggest the distance between the original occasion and the printed form of a piece. Perhaps the most striking musical devotion to Carlo originated in a domestic context: the Madrigali a cinque in laude di San Carlo (1616) by Gabussi’s student, the otherwise unknown Monzese G. B. Porta. Like Vecchi’s La donna vestita di sole, this series revolves around numerological symbolism (one text on Carlo’s image, four on the symbols on the Borromean shield, and thirteen covering the major events of his life). And as in the earlier cycle, the texts precede the settings. According to the edition’s dedication, they were sung by amateurs at the house of the archpriest of Monza, Gerolamo Trivulzio, and then at that of the dedicatee, Gabriele Recalcati.142 Far from the quadroni, this edition’s clear intimacy, humble poetic style, and essentially syllabic musical setting suggest the world of domestic spiritual recreation. The invocation of Carlo continued throughout the new decade, with the emphasis switched from intercession to celebration.143 The traditional Marian protection of the city was combined with its new protector; it is thus no surprise that Ignazio Donati’s mass for Carlo’s feast includes a motet for Mary. In light of such popular sentiment as the Italian version of the Ave Maria combining Carlo and Mary, unsuccessfully suppressed by the Inquisition in 1622, the polyphony clearly projected another sentiment that cut across all the divisions in the city, uniting all milanesi under protectors old and new.144 The events in which that unity was acted out, and sometimes challenged, also provided a uniquely urban setting for polyphony.
5 Rites and Rituals
The social behavior around the music included the codified actions of Ambrosian or Roman liturgy; the musically colored gestures of Marian, sanctoral, and royal intercession; and the regular processions of the civic body. But the more contingent moments of urban display—entries, funerals, and extraordinary events—were also marked by chant and polyphony. An understanding of a significant portion of the repertory involves the invocation of ritual context.
The Ambrosian Rite and Its Maintenance in the City On the symbolic level, the city’s liturgy had enormous weight. A mark of local tradition from its ostensible author onward, it was universally considered to be as ancient (if not more so) as the Roman rite, a mysterious Other in the familiar order of things.1 Its age and links to Christian origins paradoxically underscored the universality and apostolic succession of the Roman Church. For its panegyrists, its seeming “irregularity” in the post-reform world actually contributed to the universalist claims of Catholicism.2 The local liturgy influenced urban calendar time and the polyphonic year. Its festive cycles included days for widespread music-making, but also times of abstention from polyphony, such as Lent (except for the Saturday services), or October (except for the cathedral’s dedication, marked on the third Sunday).3 The annual Christological progression began with the announcement of the Incarnation (Advent, with the Ambrosian version of Annunciation celebrated on the sixth and last Sunday of the season, as the Milanese Advent started two weeks earlier than did the Roman), and ran through to Corpus Domini (Christi). This feast was also the occasion of the most representative procession, which reaffirmed the continuing presence of His Body in the streets. Meanwhile, other sanctoral cycles marked the year: Marian feasts continued from Purification to Nativity BVM, while a short summer period from the Greater Litanies (25 April) to St. Lawrence (10 August) invoked martyrs, most local.4 The spread of liturgy and ritual throughout the urban year was evident in the convenient handbook produced by Morigia, the Calendario volgare 116
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secondo il ritto Ambrogiano, first published in 1598 and reprinted in 1620. This provided a list of some sixty-four fixed feast days, together with the corporations, guilds, or civic officials that celebrated them; it also included the fifteen movable feasts. Morigia enumerated the feste di precetto (holy days of obligation), each marked by major celebrations at (and processions to) various city churches (see below, app. A).5 Eleven days had a citywide procession, not counting the occasions when only certain groups were involved (e.g., 29 April, the feast of St. Peter Martyr, when the vicario della provisione and the guilds, but no ecclesiastical officals, went to S. Eustorgio, or the litany days, reserved largely to the archiepiscopal entourage and the clergy). The festive rhythm of the Milanese year was in some ways more active and more punctuated than elsewhere.6 The city’s peculiarities were also evident in the “extended” Ambrosian carnival, lasting until the First Sunday of Lent, with its antiphons that marked a “farewell” to the Alleluia until Easter.7 The longer week also allowed for greater amounts of theatrical music to be performed than was the case elsewhere.8 The calendar prescribed the Lesser Litanies after Ascension (not before, as in Roman rite), and provided frequent days taken away from labor, thereby ensuring a potentially large audience from various social classes for music on such feasts. Carlo Borromeo’s successors all defended and promoted Ambrosian practice. In 1641, an oration by Francesco Rusca at Cardinal Monti’s episcopal table highlighted the liturgy’s singularity, its place among other pre-Roman primatial rites, and the special contribution of Ambrose’s introduction of hymnody and antiphon singing to the Western Church.9 Its texts and structures differed so greatly from Roman liturgy that untrained priests could not say Mass or the Office according to Milanese practice, but its use in the city was far more contested than the panegyrics suggest. In 1575, Carlo had won Pope Gregory XIII’s approval for its survival, since it clearly had more than the necessary two centuries’ worth of antiquity needed to escape the Tridentine suppression of local liturgies.10 Because of the episcopal backing of the Milanese rite, and the Roman tradition at the patrician religious houses, the question had a strong political tinge. Carlo’s differences with the local nobility and the Spanish occasioned ongoing diocesan vigilance against any possible changes. In the new century, liturgy was overseen by the local Congregation on Rites, a parallel to the Roman body, of which Federigo had once been a founding member.11 The long-term results were at best mixed. Part of the 1613–19 concordat with Madrid included the maintenance of Ambrosian liturgy at the Scala, and a 1623 printed memorandum noted the use of the rite there.12 But other institutions sought to escape, directly or by subterfuge; in 1618, the deputies of S. Maria presso S. Celso petitioned the curia for the right to employ priests (regulars) who knew only the Roman Ordinary, ostensibly so as to keep up with the 2,000-odd memorial Masses celebrated at the shrine.13 The request was granted, but only for the altar where Requiems were said. Later, the musical evidence of Della Porta’s publications suggests that, in practice, the liturgy was changed. Even more “problematic,” from the episcopal perspective, were the other nonAmbrosian foundations, the male and female religious houses. The mendicants, Augustinians, and new active orders (Jesuits, Barnabites, Theatines) used Roman-rite books, with a calendar and texts for their Proper feasts.14 Meanwhile, the Cassinese
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(along with the Cistercians of S. Ambrogio, the Olivetans at S. Vittore al Corpo, and the musically important female houses) adopted Paul V’s universal Benedictine breviary in 1612–16, again Roman rite with monastic Use.15 As noted above, conflicts at the confluence of monasticism and the diocese were fraught with tension: at S. Ambrogio, the church was divided into two parts, with duplicate Office and Masses.16 The Roman-rite services of the monks, simultaneous with the Ambrosian rite (secular Use) of the collegiate chapter, led to ongoing squabbles, in which music’s role was evident, part of the larger battles at the site.17 A liturgical map of urban institutions known for polyphony was thus shot through with important Roman-rite centers: most Franciscan foundations (S. Francesco, the female houses) and the other monastic or mendicant churches (S. Ambrogio [whose Cistercians hired the musicians for their own services, not the chapter’s], S. Maria della Passione, S. Marco, S. Maria dei Servi, and of course the nuns of S. Radegonda and S. Margarita). The number of composers working at such churches, and the growing renown of the female monasteries (mainly not Ambrosian), indicate that the urban polyphonic repertory was in good part shaped by Roman liturgy. Even texts set by composers working at the Milanese-rite shrines drew sparingly from local practice; the only one by G. P. Cima, for instance, is his 1599 motet Deus misereatur nobis, while Vecchi’s Ambrosian items were limited to the now-lost hymn cycle.18 The monastic and mendicant musicians completely avoided Ambrosian texts, composing items from their own liturgy. The picture was further clouded by the tendency for even “ancient” local practice to undergo change. Carlo’s changes to the calendar, liturgy, and sacraments had been carried out by his associate Pietro Galesini, with the additions appearing in printed form after 1580.19 After the first wave of publications under Carlo and Visconti (breviary 1582, sacramentary 1589, missal 1594), Federigo’s tenure marked a respite from the publication of liturgical texts until around 1610. Then, with the major political and organizational problems solved, Borromeo’s contribution to liturgy was to oversee the codification of Ambrosian rite, reversing some of Galesini’s changes, accomplished through the sometimes massive and expensive liturgical books.20 The missal was reprinted in a sumptuous edition of 1609 (with another in 1618) while the breviary was reissued in 1605, and again, with the major additions noted above, in 1625 (reprint in 1635). The Caeremoniale Ambrosianum was more of a problem, as only the first (dealing with the duties of clerics at the Duomo) of a projected five volumes was ever printed, in 1619. In line with the standardization, Federigo also had printed Camillo Perego’s treatise on Ambrosian psalmody, La regola del canto fermo ambrosiano; it had remained in manuscript since 1574. The codification came to a halt after 1623 as funds dried up in the economic crisis and Federigo’s interest turned to musical nuns. The chant and polyphonic editions are listed in the broader series of liturgical books:21 Missals: 1594 (1st rev. ed.), 1609, 1618 Breviaries: 1582 (1st rev. ed.), 1588, 1605, 1625 (rev.) Other books: 1589 Rituale, 1596 Matins, 1599 Litanies, 1613 Rituale and
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Litanies, 1618/19 Psalterium cantica et hymni; Caeremoniale, 1622 Regole d’alcuni capi necessarii Chant: 1622 Perego, La regola del canto fermo Polyphony: 1619 Pellegrini/Gabussi, Pontificalia, 1623 Pellegrini/Gabussi, Litaniae ambrosianae, et romanae The most striking feature of the list is the way in which the polyphonic codification came at the very end of the era, contemporary with the prelate’s putting his own stamp on the Office by the revision of the breviary. The music also paralleled the partial efforts at overall declamatory and ceremonial codification found in the volumes of 1619–22. The codification also included change; Federigo’s 1625 breviary added some fifteen new sanctoral feasts and borrowed the Octaves of Epiphany and Pentecost from Roman practice, much to the disgust of Ambrosian purists.22 New universal celebrations, such as the 1614 Mass of the Rosary (first Sunday in October), were recast in the Milanese rite and published.23 The Mass and Office for Carlo Borromeo’s feast day included items set in polyphony soon after the 1610 canonization, including the Vespers hymn Urbis parentem Carolem (written by Benedetto Sossago and given an eighth-mode chant melody), a text which links urban identity with sanctoral prestige. This hymn was set by Pellegrini in the Pontificalia, and again by Donati in the 1630s: “Let us his children humbly honor Charles, the father of the city, who, like a new dawn among bishops, put to flight our spirits’ night.”24 Federigo upgraded other feasts in rank, and thus expanded the occasions for polyphony. The prelate’s interest in Christian antiquity led him to employ collaborators at the Ambrosiana in search of Milanese Christian origins, paleo-Christian martyrs, and obscure early city bishops (to be patrons of the stational crosses).25 After his death, episcopal policy continued, as Monti added some reforms (including the major rewriting of hymn texts) and continued to defend the rite. After 1652, these goals were pursued with characteristic aggression by Archbishop Litta. Liturgy also had directly political uses. In Catholic Europe, Habsburg piety occasioned the new feast of the historically dubious St. Hermenegild, a Visigothic king who ostensibly died a martyr at the hands of the Arians in sixth-century Spain. After Roman approval, his Office was rewritten for Ambrosian rite and printed in 1641, and the parallels between his cult and Spanish opposition to Protestantism, in the middle of the Thirty Years War, were clear.26
Liturgical Structures The Ambrosian Office (for present purposes, Vespers, Compline, and Terce) and Mass were projected polyphonically primarily at the Duomo. As in the rest of Italy, the most important musical Hour was the first.27 The 1622 diocesan handbook did foresee polyphony for this service outside the Duomo often enough to require rules:
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at t it ude s a nd ac t i o ns When the Vespers of major feasts are sung by the above-mentioned dignitary [the archbishop], or by others in his absence or inability, if possible there should be able musicians [Musica competente] according to the orders, who will sing the psalms, and the Magnificat, and other items according to the church’s style. Furthermore, the organ (if there is one) will be played, except in Lent, a practice also to be observed at Mass and Second Vespers. Be advised, however, that prohibited musical instruments are not to be used, and the other orders concerning musicians are to be followed; especially, they are to wear a cassock, and should try to remain in their appointed place without causing tumult, or murmuring, or other acts inappropriate to the sacred place where they are. They will sing items according to our Ambrosian rite, and not otherwise.28
The strictures were broken in practice, even at the cathedral. Ambrosian Sunday Vespers were tripartite; the first section opened with a chant invariable on Sundays, the Lucernarium, consisting of an antiphon (“Quoniam tu illuminas, Domine”), verse (“Quoniam in te eripiar a tentatione”), and repeat of the antiphon. The two sections closed with the same phrase. In line with its meaning (and most of the textual references), the item was accompanied by the ceremonial lighting of the candelabra; on solemn feasts, the celebrant was to process to the altar, beginning the service on the first step of the sanctuary. The antiquity of the Lucernarium, the first polyphonic moment in sung Vespers, was also evident. After a Proper antiphon (in choro), there followed Ambrose’s hymn Deus creator omnium, and a responsorium in choro. The second, psalmodic section consisted of the five dominical psalms (109, 110, 111, 112, 113) and the Magnificat, each with a Proper antiphon. Here, too, alterity was audible, since the canticle featured five textual readings different from the Roman version.29 The third part, a stational or processional ceremony with the clerics moving to the baptismal font at the west end of the Duomo, included two sets of psallenda flanking two completoria (and sometimes a responsorium in baptisterio); it finished with prayers and the Pater Noster as they returned. If the psalmody was familiar, the surrounding texts and greater movement differentiated the Hour from Roman practice. But the major occasions for polyphony—Christological, Marian, and sanctoral feasts—featured quite different structures. The first section of festal Vespers used a Proper Lucernarium drawn from a limited corpus of nine texts. On many occasions (especially martyrs’ feasts) a responsorium cum infantibus substituted for the responsorium in choro after the hymn.30 The psalmodic section changed notably: a Proper psalm, then the two invariable items Ecce nunc benedicite Dominum (Ps. 133) and Laudate Dominum omnes gentes (Ps. 116) with a single doxology, all three sung under one antiphon. For First (but normally not Second) Vespers of most feasts, a second Proper psalm with its own antiphon followed. The days of most ancient tradition (Christmas, Purification, Easter, Dedication of the Cathedral) used the three-psalm scheme, and the two celebrations of the Cross (Invention and Exaltation) employed the same two Proper psalms (Deus misereatur nobis and Adhaesit pavimento; Pss. 66 and 118:25) for First and Second Vespers. On all occasions, the Magnificat with its antiphon, and the stational section (with its Pater Noster, and its Proper items) concluded the Hour (see below, app. B).
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The brevity of the two standard psalms (133 with four verses and 116 with two) implied that Ambrosian Vespers on feasts were shorter and less elaborate than their Roman counterpart, with more emphasis given to the spoken and chanted word as opposed to polyphonic music. The individuality of the Milanese items to be set in polyphony remained clear. The Proper psalms were normally completely different from any of the assignments for the same day (or any other feast) in Roman rite, while, of the invariable items, Ps. 133 was so associated with Milanese liturgy that those few prints to contain a setting usually titled it “Ecce nunc all’Ambrosiana.”31 The polyphonic settings normally elided it directly with the very short Laudate Dominum.32 The selection of Proper psalms also varied, with one sometimes used for both First and Second Vespers. Some of the most common included: Benedixisti, Domine (Ps. 84, for Christmas and Epiphany), or Deus, in nomine tuo and Eructavit cor meum (Ps. 53 and 44, First Vespers for Assumption and Nativity BVM), with Dilexi quoniam (Ps. 114) employed for Second Vespers of these Marian feasts (this latter psalm was used by itself on Annunciation and Purification). Assignments for sanctoral feasts were normally specific to the day, although there was a Common of Saints.33 Musical editions of Roman-rite Vespers psalms were unusable in Ambrosian churches except for Sundays (and vice versa). A special problem is that of the status of the Ambrosian-rite Magnificat text. It is not surprising that Gabussi’s printed collection of 1589, or Pellegrini’s of 1613, aimed as they were at a general market, should both set exclusively the Roman version of the canticle. But even the manuscript production of figures closely associated with the Duomo, preserved only in its archive, shows at least a balance (if not a preference for Roman-rite) between the redactions. The non-Ambrosian text is found in about half of Turati’s work, most of Grancini’s settings (MdC 20), and Donati’s festal works from the 1630s. Despite the overall liturgical efforts of a century’s worth of archbishops, the sung version of the most characteristically Milanese Vespers text seems not to have been an issue for regulation, at least after 1630. Other problems of assignment affected Compline.34 This Hour (after the opening versicle and response) consisted of another hymn by Ambrose, Te lucis (in Lent, Christe, qui lux es), followed by Pss. 4, 30 (vv. 1–6), 90, 132, 133, and 116 (again), an Epistle and short response, and the Nunc dimittis with its antiphon Salva nos.35 On major feasts, a Collect, Credo, and Ps. 12 were added, and the Hour ended with one of five Marian antiphons.36 Although an Ambrosian Compline could be cobbled together by adding Ecce nunc and Laudate Dominum to a Roman version, printed settings of its items are found only in the 1619 Pontificialia, placed at the end. Pellegrini’s two Compline hymn settings a 4 in this book seem to have been crafted quickly to cover all possibilities (Lent and Ordinary time), while Gabussi’s Te lucis a 5–6, together with Cum invocarem (Ps. 4) and canticle, both for eight voices, represent the completed portions of a larger-scale projection of this Hour (analogous to the Vespers polyphony), which death prevented him from finishing. The other psalms are given only as text, and Pellegrini set all five Marian antiphons a 5. In practice, the Hour was often sung without organ accompaniment, and its routine nature provoked relatively few annotations in the Duomo’s diary, apart from its performance
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immediately after Second Vespers on major festivities like the first titular day under Federigo (with all the hired singers evidently participating), and Annunciation shortly thereafter.37 As a minor Hour, Terce would not figure were it not for the numerous notes in the cerimoniere’s account of the polyphonic singers’ participation, evidently with ornamented falsobordoni for the psalms or counterpoint super librum. On St. Sebastian’s day (20 January) in 1589, a feast of the city’s deliverer from plague a decade earlier, the psalmody of the Hour was sung by the chapel after the chanted hymn.38 Terce functioned on special days as a polyphonic prelude to Mass, and consisted of Ambrose’s hymn (Iam surgit hora tertia), the three psalms shared with the Roman form (Legem pone mihi; Memento verbi servo tuo; and Bonitatem fecisti), a seasonal Epistolella and Short Response, a Collect, Pater Noster, and Miserere; there is no surviving polyphony from the Duomo. But the cerimoniere’s diaries do record canto figurato on major feasts.39 As at other moments, planned polyphony sometimes went awry.40 Compline and Terce became polyphonic Hours satellite to Vespers and Mass, respectively; by the 1640s, they were often sung with larger forces, and Sext was added, especially on urban or titular feasts.41 Again, the characteristic traits of Ambrosian Mass were immediately audible to audiences. Carlo’s missal retained the traditional Proper and Ordinary items: Ingressa (roughly corresponding to the Roman Introit), Gloria in excelsis (with a threefold “Kyrie eleison” at the end), an Old Testament reading (Lectio), Psalmellus (in Lent, the Cantus; roughly equivalent to Gradual or Tract, but before the Epistle), Epistle, Alleluia and Versus, Gospel, Antiphona post Evangelium, Offertorium, Credo (after the Offertory), Sanctus and Benedictus, Canon, Confractorium (an Ambrosian Proper equivalent to the Agnus Dei), Pater Noster, and Transitorium.42 Normal (Roman) polyphonic Ordinaries could easily be used, omitting the Kyrie and Agnus Dei. There is no printed setting of an Ambrosian Mass (except the Requiem), another testimony to the nonexistence of a market for such an edition. The surprising conclusion of the intersection between local liturgy and printed polyphony is that many, including the most prolific, composers who produced collections for the Roman liturgy—among them Vecchi and Grancini—actually worked in Ambrosian-rite institutions, in which much of their published music would seem to have been useless. The similarity of the items for Sunday (Vespers, with the shared psalms, and the minor changes for Mass) helped, but the major sanctoral and movable feasts were unmistakeably different and not present in the printed repertory. Part of the explanation must be the desire of these figures to seek employment or renown outside the city, and the publication of their music precisely so as not to be cast as a local composer. They must frequently have led Ambrosian-rite Vespers on major feasts featuring items that they either did not compose or did not publish. A list from the cathedral in the 1580s gives the items sung in polyphony, at least in that decade. At First (pontifical) Vespers, this included all Proper items but the first psalm and the psallendae.43 At Mass, only the psalmellus and antiphona post evangelium were not to be sung by the polyphonic singers, and at Second Vespers the two Proper psalms were chanted. This would represent an enormous amount of music in polyphony, and it seems that Office psalms, for instance, must have often been done in falsobordone. Thus the Duomo’s festal Vespers repertory in the Cin-
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quecento remains unclear, as Ruffo, Boyleau, and Ponzio left almost no Ambrosianrite items, and Gabussi’s hymn settings seem to date from after 1600. For the major events that called for large-scale polyphony, there must have been polychoral music like that of other local figures. Gabussi’s two surviving Te Deum settings (in his 1589 edition and in the winter Pontificalia of 1619), simple four-voice alternatim pieces, are the only possible candidates for the Ambrosian hymn performed for Margaret of Austria in 1598, although their modest scope gives pause as to their suitability. The published editions would cover only some items: most of the Mass Ordinary, the Magnificat and Sunday Psalms of Vespers, and motets to be used at either.44 The other surviving settings of Ambrosian Proper psalms were few: a Domine, quis habitabit? (Ps. 14) by Gabussi printed in a German Protestant anthology, and a setting of the same text plus Deus, in nomine tuo in Pellegrini’s Sacri concentus of 1619.45 Entirely missing are Ambrosian Mass Propers, suggesting that they were chanted, despite the orders of the 1580s. At Vespers, the falsobordoni for psalms, with ornaments like those of Bovicelli, must have been the daily staple of the ensemble, together with Magnificats and Pater Nosters. A special chapter on the use of the organ at the Duomo was included in the 1619 Caeremoniale Ambrosianum.46 Although as usual the book was more prescriptive than descriptive (there is a long sentence forbidding real precedence between the cathedral’s two organists), still it provides an idea of the supposed norm. Keyboards were to be used on solemn feasts, at Terce, Mass, and First and Second Vespers (also Compline on the vigils of Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, and the Octave of Corpus Domini, and Matins for the same feasts). At Terce they participated in the alternatim hymn; at Mass after the Ingressa to the incensing of the altar, after the Epistle, the Offertory, and the Sanctus (and during the Elevation), after the Pax, and at the hymn at Sext and None. For Vespers, they played at the respond of the Lucernarium, in alternatim hymn settings, and instead of the repetition of the antiphon after the Magnificat. On pontifical feasts, they were to sound after the psalmody, as well as at the entrance and departure of the archbishop (or archpriest). Allowance was made on all days for only one organ, except the feste di precetto, when both were obligatory. The Caeremoniale also mandated the close attention of the organists to both the maestro di cappella and the cerimoniere so as to avoid mistakes in the execution of the liturgy. Again, the sizable amount of repertory this must have required must have in part been improvised or sung to formulas. Elsewhere, music had a clear liturgical place. At the most solemn feste di precetto at S. Maria presso S. Celso, Mass was to feature polyphony prominently: a motet at the Ingressa, the Gloria, a motet after the Epistle (possibly substituting for the Alleluia), another before the Credo, the Credo and Sanctus, a motet after the Sanctus, and simple responses to the celebrant (Doc. 23).47 On second-rank feasts, this was reduced to Ordinary items (excluding the Agnus Dei), plus the motets after the Epistle and Sanctus. Vespers on solemn holy days was to include a motet at the beginning, the hymn, all the psalms, a motet after the first psalm, the Magnificat and a motet, and the Marian antiphon sung at the altar of Fontana’s statue. Other special services included Mass and Vespers on the first Sunday of the month, and at the blessing of candles on Purification. At S. Francesco Grande, the publication of Introits in Graziani’s 1588 collection (and such collections as Bona’s Op. 19 of 1611) suggests
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that some Proper items were set in polyphony, possibly joined by motets at Mass and Vespers. Although there is no direct evidence from the Scala, Vecchi’s and Stefanini’s enormous output of motets makes it unthinkable that such pieces were not sung there. The complexities are highlighted by the first edition that was in some sense an urban anthology, the Psalmodia vespertina put out by Tini in 1596. This volume included nine (among a total of sixteen) psalm settings by city composers, present and past, all following the normal Roman-rite selection of texts. Five stem from figures working in Ambrosian institutions (only two are dominical texts), and four from composers in Roman-rite foundations. The edition is clearly aimed toward nonAmbrosian churches. Similarly, both of Vecchi’s psalm collections (1596 and 1601), despite their composer’s employment at the nominally Ambrosian Scala, set the full Roman cursus and no Ambrosian texts. The striking conclusion, obvious already from the documentary evidence, of the intersection of liturgy with polyphony is the overwhelming importance of motets in Milan, since they could be used in either rite, and because of the practice of singing at least one at Mass at the Duomo and S. Maria.48 In terms of continuity with earlier cathedral or local repertory, however, the late Cinquecento represented a break; there are almost no texts shared by Gabussi, Arnone, Cima, or Nantermi with the settings of Gaffurius, Werrecore, or Ruffo earlier in the century, and almost no evidence of pieces before Gabussi staying in the repertory except for the occasional Pater Noster reprinted as late as the 1619 Pontificalia.49 For all the importance of the calendars and breviaries, the prescriptions only partially describe the ritual actions and music, most obviously in the female monasteries, whose public came essentially to hear the polyphony, a trend that provoked numerous curial complaints about the length of Vespers being extended by music.
The Practice of Chant The standard historiography of Borromean reform has always coexisted uneasily with the standard topos of the “decadence” of Ambrosian chant from late medieval times onward. To infer practice from the few surviving sources and references is even more difficult than is the case for ritual life or polyphony; and the place of the repertory in urban consciousness is not at all clear, as it is not mentioned in any of the panegyric literature.50 The other issue is that of cathedral practice versus the use in the shrines and parishes of the city. The manuscripts and printed sources of chant from this period are few, although Federigo characteristically had the psalter and hymns printed for general diocesan use in 1618. The codices in use were in a few cases those actually copied in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of which some thirty survive (about a third of these date from the early Cinquecento). But earlier volumes continued to be employed (in some cases there are manuscript additions for later feasts), and in fact make up the majority of chant sources, at least for the Duomo.51 Some of the newer sources are of partial Offices, such as the pre-1572 Compline book or the Lesser Litanies written in 1507 by the copyist Pietro Casola. The single largest collection of sources
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seems to stem from the cathedral, and the transmission points up the its role as the major institution preserving and transmitting the Ambrosian repertory.52 That the Ambrosian rite had different melodies for even the items shared with Roman rite (Magnificats, psalm tones, and the like) also had its effect on polyphony. Pieces based on chant, either as a cantus firmus or as melodic paraphrase, would have a distinctive melodic substance.53 The principal sources are the complete antiphoners (including Mass) for the rite. As with other sources, there is a layer of codices from Carlo’s years and several scattered ones from later. Two books date from the 1560s, when the chapter also commissioned Ludovico Besozzo to write four hymnaries and a Vesperale between 1565 and 1567.54 Another undated book from Carlo’s time contains only the incipits of antiphons, responds, and psallendae for the Ambrosian year. From Federigo’s tenure, the surviving chant books are scarse: largely the Offices for the major sanctoral vigils in two copies (again for the mazzaconici and lettori, from 1624 and 1628, respectively) written by Giacobo Mantegazza.55 The clear control exercised by the capitolo minore over the chant is evident in the number of inscriptions in the books themselves. Perhaps the ultimate authority was a mammoth fourteenth-century antiphoner clearly belonging to the chapter (BCM, F1.1). For Vespers half the year, the melodies for the major items were reproduced in the summer Vesperale (BCM, U1.5), copied by Besozzo in 1565. Although the dating of the codex might suggest episcopal intervention, the colophon clearly states that it was paid for by the sacristy funds, to be used by the notaries, mazzaconici, and boys. The continuity with the past raises the issue of which, if any, transformations took place to the melodic substance of the chant as it had been practiced in the Trecento. An examination of two versions of the Lucernarium for First Vespers of Christmas, Memento Domine David, from a fourteenth-century antiphoner and from one dated 1572, suggests that no major changes to the pitch substance of the antiphon took place up to the early years of Carlo’s tenure.56 Certainly the contents of the Lucernaria, Responsoria in Choro (cum Infantibus), and Psallenda seem largely unchanged from the earlier sources. The age of some of the manuscripts and the lack of any chant sources commissioned by Carlo or Federigo indicate that, for all of Carlo’s other reforms, no substantial intervention in the chant texts or melodies, let alone a wholesale revision along the lines of the Roman Gradual of 1614, ever took place in Milan. The hymnaries, copied for the notaries and mazzaconici and in another copy for the lettori minori, transmit the received tradition from the previous centuries.57 No other codices survive. Thus, although both Borromeos fought hard for the preservation and use of chant as part of the liturgy, the recension that they propagated was essentially late medieval, with much left to the memory of the mazzaconici, and evidently little use of the more florid items (Mass Alleluias and Offerendae, and Office responsories of various subgenres) outside the cathedral. The practice of chant (normally dismissed with brief restorationist references to its “degeneration” even under the Borromeos), has a clear explanation. Since Federigo thought that chant represented the survival of the music of antiquity, any gesture toward changing it would mean imperiling the power of ancient music (Carlo, along
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with most of his contemporaries, probably considered that it simply dated to Ambrose and was thus also unwilling to entertain modifications). It is no wonder that there was no “reform” of melodies or texts; for contemporaries, there was no “decline” in need of reform. The sources are not entirely, however, without change from the early sixteenth century. In the 1565 summer Vesperale, the Lucernarium for 1 Advent, for instance, Lux orta est, features a paste-over, shortening the melisma (on the unimportant “et” of “lux orta est justo et rectis corde’) to eight notes. The word “exultet” in the verse receives similar treatment. The changes are undated, but probably stem from Federigo’s era, when a certain effort at liturgical simplification was evident. But the shortening was unsystematic and scattershot; only a few items in all the sources show this kind of intervention. The changes seem to stem, not from episcopal intervention, but from the level of clerics actually assigned to perform the chant. The situation outside the Duomo was reflected in other books. Sixteenth-century annual antiphoners from S. Nazaro and S. Celso have been preserved, along with a Vesperale from S. Satiro. A quattrocento set from S. Sebastiano was recopied in 1657.58 None of these sources shows the shortening or paste-overs of the cathedral books, and it must be presumed that they guided clergy in the parishes in essentially late medieval redactions of the Ambrosian repertory. The aural experience in church of the average citizen was marked far more strongly by chant than polyphony.59 Although Perego provided thirty-five years of instruction to the priests and seminarians of the diocese, what actually happened in the parishes and shrines on a daily basis is very unclear.60 A 1592 list of books owned by the patrician parish of Santa Maria Beltrade lists nine items of varying size: the Office for Purification (the titular feast of the parish); an Ambrosian summer antiphoner (presumably Mass and Office combined, as was the tradition); a set of Lucernaria and Hymns for the Octave of Corpus Christi; an Ambrosian winter antiphoner; the Office for Assumption; Marian antiphons in all modes; Lucernaria and antiphons from the First Sunday of Advent to St. Stephen’s feast; and a similar book for Sundays after Pentecost and the Decollation of St. John the Baptist.61 The list, rather typical of a parish, seems slanted away from Mass and toward the Office, again especially Vespers, with an emphasis on Marian feasts. The presence of the books was needed to avoid errors that stemmed from singers’ performing the chants from memory, especially in improvised polyphony super librum, at least according to a 1574 curial note at the Scala.62 The liturgical standardization of the middle Seicento also brought some changes. Some hymns in the 1625 breviary, for Sts. John the Baptist, Martin, and Ambrose, were replaced by versions in classical meters, as would happen again under Monti, in parallel to the rewritings under Urban VIII in Rome.63 Paste-ins in polyphonic editions updated the texts of others, such as Hymnum dicamus Domino for Vespers of Holy Thursday, which became Hymnum canamus supplices. Despite the classicizing and reactionary turns of mid-century, the number of feasts kept on growing; by the time of the 1669 missal, some 245 days had a sanctoral, Christological, or Marian feast. The opportunities for occasional celebrations, greater work for Duomo singers, and general spread of musically markable days are evident.
ri tes an d ritua ls
127
Canonizing Cathedral Practice Amid the codification and changes, the 1619 Pontificalia provided a remarkable fixing of musical style and feasts. It was indebted to tradition in format (choirbook libroni), divided into two choirs (with items shared between the two choirs, for example, Lucernaria and Posthymns, printed in duplicate), and retained the medieval apportioning of antiphoners into winter and summer books. The three Vespers items set in polyphony were the most idiosyncratically Milanese chants of the Hour, again a musical underlining of local tradition.64 A section at the end of each volume contains Pater Noster settings (seven in the winter book, twelve in the summer), to be picked according to necessity or at will, along with a Te Deum and/or Compline items.65 The books cover most items for forty-one feasts, sixteen in the winter book and twenty-five in the summer book (cf. app. B). The selection did not correspond exactly to the feste di precetto, representing rather a mixture with the Duomo’s major feast days.66 That Gabussi had begun the project as a hymn cycle with other occasional items, leaving it to be finished and “annualized” (with the Posthymns added) by Pellegrini, is clear. The older maestro wrote some twenty-five alternatim hymn settings (nine added by his successor) and six of the eight Paters, but only seven Lucernaria (eighteen by Pellegrini, who also composed all forty-one Posthymns). There had been no such codified Ambrosian polyphonic repertory until Gabussi and Pellegrini set to work on creating one. The edition was not only unusable outside the diocese, but also strongly institution-specific. Certainly most other Ambrosian churches did not have the resources to perform their contents, and in that sense they represent an exception to the general liturgical standardization campaign. Thus the books functioned literally as memories of the cathedral and its rite. To understand the contents of the edition requires some explication of the liturgical details. The Lucernarium text consisted of an antiphon and verse, each of which closed with the same textual phrase (in that sense like the B section of a responsory). Pellegrini set the verse of the various Lucernaria, including the textual closing phrase, but tacked onto the end a recitation of the last few words, set to a single final chord (a longa).67 This would seem to be a second ending for the identical choral end of the antiphon and verse in the Lucernaria. The same procedure holds for the Posthymns, where it would seem to indicate a polyphonic repeat of the responsories’ B section (both in choro and cum infantibus, despite their different structure). But the voice leading is impossible if this procedure is followed (cf. the end of Ex. 5.2b, below). With the premise that the final longa would serve to replace all the polyphony to which its words were set, it might follow that Pellegrini’s gesture represents an abbreviated second ending to the polyphonic repeat of the verse (responsories) or antiphon/verse close (Lucernaria).68 Here, however, the problem arises that not all the voices arrive at this final text simultaneously, given the polyphonic fabric. Thus it seems most likely that the longa chord functioned as a cue at the end of the chanted repetition of the verse or antiphon, acting to alert the mazzaconici that the Lucernarium was over and they could proceed to the antiphona in choro, sung in chant before the hymn. The idea must have been original with Pellegrini, as Gabussi’s few
128
at t it ude s a nd ac t i o ns
Lucernaria simply set the verse, without the final recitation, and thus imply that the repeat of the antiphon was entirely in chant up to the tenure of Pellegrini. An example of the two different procedures helps clarify the relation of chant and polyphony:69 A. Pellegrini, Lucernarium Quoniam in te eripiar (Sunday feasts; Pontificalia/ pars hiemalis, fols. 5v–6, etc.; Breviarium Ambrosianum [1635], 108) [Chant:] Quoniam tu illuminas lucernam meam, Domine, *Deus meus, illumina tenebras meas. V. Quoniam in te eripiar a tentatione, Deus meus, illumina tenebras meas. Quoniam tu illuminas lucernam meam, Domine, Deus meus, illumina tenebras meas. B. Gabussi, Lucernarium Dominus regnavit (St. Sebastian; Pontificalia/pars hiemalis, fols. 21v–22; Breviarium Ambrosianum [1635], 776) [Chant:] Lux orta est justo, et rectis corde *laetitia. V. Dominus regnavit, exultet terra, laetentur insulae multa laetitia. Lux orta est justo, et rectis corde *laetitia. The “Posthymni” (here called Posthymns) were extremely short, often only a blaze of polyphony for the one to four words constituting the very short end of the respond (“B” in the ABCB form). As in the Lucernaria, Pellegrini consistently used the final recitation chord for an implied, uncued repeat of the polyphonic section. The responsorium cum infantibus, with its restatement of the respond, was lengthened (ABABCB).70 A. Pellegrini, Posthymn Ipse lignum (responsorium in choro; First Vespers, Invention of the Cross, Pontificalia/pars hiemalis, fols. 68v–69; Breviarium Ambrosianum [1635], 803) [Chant:] Agnus Dei Christus immolatus est pro salute mundi. Nam de parentis protoplasti fraude facta condolens, quando pomi noxialis mortis morsu corruit. * Ipse lignum tunc notavit, damna ligni ut solveret [A quotation from Venantius’ Pange lingua]. V. Christus factus est pro nobis obediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis. * Ipse lignum tunc notavit, damna ligni ut solveret. B. Pellegrini, Posthymn Et implevit terram (responsorium cum infantibus; First Vespers, Nativity BVM, Pontificalia/pars aestiva, fols. 61v–62; Breviarium Ambrosianum [1635], 880) [Chant:] Exiet virga de radice Jesse * Et implevit terram maiestas Domini. Exiet virga de radice Jesse. V. Et qui exurget regere gentes, in eo gentes sperabunt: et flos de radice ejus ascendet. * Et implevit terram maiestas Domini. No item in the 1619 volume (except the Pater Noster and the occasional festal psalms or Magnficat included) was exclusively in polyphony; the hymns’ strophes were sung in chant alternating with the two choirs (i.e., chant—choir I—chant—choir II, etc.).
ri tes an d ritua ls example 5.1
Lucernarium Quoniam tu illuminas (BCM, D 5.12, fol. 117v)
V œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ Quo-ni - am
œ œ œ œ
œ œ œ œ
tu il - lu- mi - nas
œ œ œ
œ œ œ œ
lu-cer - nam
me
-
am, Do
mi - ne,
De
Vœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ -
lu - mi-na
œ œ œ œ
-
us
me
me - us,
œ œ œ œ œ œ
œ œ œ
te - ne-bras
-
as.
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ Vœ œ œ œ œ œ œ V.Quo
V œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ in te
V
e - ri
-
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
pi - ar a
bras
-
-
-
-
œ œ œ -
ni - am
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ten-ta - ti - o
-
-
-
ne
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ De - us
Vœ œ œ
-
-
œ œ œ
œ V œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
il
129
me - us
il
-
lu-mi-na
te- ne -
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ me
-
as.
Unlike Gabussi’s, Pellegrini’s settings of the Lucernaria and Posthymns uniformly feature the chant as a cantus firmus in the bass, with three or four real contrapuntal parts above; the hymns were newly composed. However, the actual chant melodies were simplified. The standard Lucernarium melody, found in a fifteenth-century litany book (BCM, D. 5.12) used into our period, is given in example 5.1. Pellegrini’s setting of the text for the cathedral’s titular feast (8 September) uses an abridged version of the chant closest to that printed in the 1618 Psalterium, cantica, et hymni (ex. 5.2a–b). The actual counterpoint seems almost pedagogically simple, and suggests Pellegrini’s stylizing a tradition of improvised polyphony over a chant rather than an imitative setting, an idea that reinforces the canonical status of the 1619 book. The most obvious musical feature, the bass cantus-firmus settings, had models close and present. Costanzo Porta’s antiphon cycle existed in manuscript, while Gerolamo Lambardi’s three-volume settings of Proper antiphons for Vespers (in Roman rite) for the whole church year had been printed between 1597 and 1600 (Christo-
130
at t it ude s a nd ac t i o ns example 5.2a
Lucernarium Quoniam tu illuminas, verse (Psalterium 1618, p. 117)
? œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ V. Quo
-
-
-
-
- ni - am in te
e - ri
-
- pi - ar
? œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ a
ten
-
ta - ti - o
-
-
-
-
ne,
De-us etc.
logical, Marian, and sanctoral feasts first, then the remaining Sundays), also published in choirbook format.71 However, it is striking that the few settings by Gabussi of the Lucernaria and Posthymns do not include the chant cantus firmus in the bass, employing the plainsong only as a general point of reference for the points of imitations. By contrast, all of Pellegrini’s settings do so, a tradition continued by Donati’s polychoral works in the 1630s and Turati’s in the 1640s. The question then arises as to the origin of this practice: was it a previous improvisational tradition simply formalized by Pellegrini, or a novelty? One possible answer lies in the printed choirbook sheets bound today as Librone 23 in the Duomo’s archives. Without a title page, it consists of four four-part masses, two by Pierre Colin, G. F. Anerio’s reduction of Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli for four voices, and an Ordinary by Gastoldi. These are followed by seven antiphons, five for Visitation and two for All Saints, that use a (Roman-rite) chant cantus firmus in the bass. Although all the Proper antiphons are anonymous, they are concordant with no items in the Porta and Lambardi books, and so they are likely to have been composed by Pellegrini. That the colophon lists the same Venetian “in Coenobio Sancti Spiriti” house as had produced Pellegrini’s 1604 masses (as well as Lambardi’s antiphoners) suggests a logical chain of events. At some point, perhaps even before his selection as maestro, the canon of Pesaro had commissioned this print (a move that his income would have allowed), writing the antiphons with the cantus firmus as an example of what could be done with Ambrosian Vespers Propers, and sent it on to Milan in order to impress Federigo and the chapter. The presence of older pieces, together with his own, would then have advertised the kind of chapel he would run. After his appointment, as part of the standardization and canonization of Ambrosian chant, Pellegrini then composed the annual cycle of Lucernaria and Posthymns on this model. There seems to have been no preexistent local tradition of this kind of bass cantusfirmus composition. Pellegrini thus imported it from a wider European tradition, originating in improvisatory counterpoint, although the ensemble’s use of the Pontificalia books would enshrine the practice until the nineteenth century. Pellegrini’s approach is also evident in the manuscript choirbook miscellany containing largely his compositions, preserved today in the Duomo’s archive as Librone 24. This codex, containing the work of two hands, alternates sectional contents: mass Ordinaries from Pellegrini’s 1603 edition (or Vespers settings by older composers) flanking a total of twenty-two four-voice Roman-rite Mass Propers, all with the
example 5.2b
Vincenzo Pellegrini, Lucernarium, First Vespers of Nativity BVM (1619)
œ
? œ Quo
C
-
-
œ
œ
œ
œ
B
-
-
-
˙ ˙ ˙˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ C Ó & &C Ó˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ &C Ó˙ w
e - ri
te
A
5
w
In
te
e - ri -
& w
w
-
ne,
ta - ti
-
-
w
a
ten
? w ta
-
ri-pi-ar, e
o - ne, a
-
-
w -
-
-
ni
-
am
˙w -
˙ ˙ œ œœœ -
ta - ti - o
pi - ar,
a
ten-ta-ti - o - ne,
De
˙ w
- ne, a
a
w
-
o -
-
w - ne,
w
w
˙
˙
-
us
-
w me -
-
w -
us
œ˙ œ œœ œœ
˙
me -
Ó
-
w -
-
-
œ œ œ œ˙ De
w De
˙
ten - ta - ti -
ten - ta-ti - o - ne,
w
ten -
w
˙ ˙ œ œ˙ w
˙
˙
ten -
ta-ti - o - ne, De
w
a
˙ w
w
˙ ˙
˙˙ w w
˙
˙
Ó w
a
ten-ta-ti - o - ne, De - us
bw w -
pi - ar)
w
-
Ó
w
˙
-
ri - pi - ar
w
w
œœ œœ w
- ne, a
ti
-
œ œ œ œ bw
œ V œ œœœœœ œ w ˙ ˙ -
-
-
Ó ˙
w ˙ ˙
& ˙ ˙ w
o B
-
˙ ˙˙˙
˙ ˙ -
e
œ
Ó˙ w
˙.œ ˙ ˙
w w
∑
ta - ti - o -
T
w
w
ten
-
œ
a ten
(in te e - ri
?C w
& w
-
œ
˙ ˙˙ w ˙ ˙. œ pi-ar, e - ri - pi - ar . ˙ w ˙ w ˙ Ó ˙ Ó˙
-
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ w ˙ VC Ó
7
C
-
W
w w
In te e - ri-pi-ar, B
-
œ
˙ ˙ œ œœœ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
In te
T
œ
te e - ri-pi - ar
In te e - ri-pi-ar, in 5
-
˙˙ ˙ ˙
In te e - ri-pi-ar, in A
œ
œ
-
w -
us
example 5.2b 12
C
& ˙ ˙ w
w
& ˙.
œ˙ ˙
me 5
&
-
-
∑
V œœœœ˙ ˙
w
us
me
-
w
? w
il - lu
- us il - lu
w
-
˙
17
C
& Ó w
-
mi - na
te
A
w
w
-
- as,
& ˙ ˙ w
Ó
& w me -
5
te - ne - bras T
V ˙ ˙ w ne - bras
-
us
il - lu -
w
w
- us
il
-
- mi - na
w
B
? w ne -
w -
-
w
me
-
-
Ó
˙ me
˙
˙
˙
- bras
-
-
w
-
-
mi
-
-
ne-bras
-
-
-
˙ œ œ w -
-
-
me -
-
te
as.
us.
- as.
W
W -
-
W me -
na
W
W
-
w
W -
as.
W -
il - lu-mi - na te -
w
W
W -
œ œœ œœœœ œ w
lu
œ œœœœ œ
te - ne - bras
me
˙ ˙ w
œ ˙ œ œ œ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ œ œœ œ ˙ ˙ w il - lu mi - na il - lu mi - na œ œ œ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙˙ ˙ œ ˙ ˙ w Ó
˙
te - ne - bras
mi - na
œ œœœ˙ ˙
B
me -
-
Ó
us T
us
œœœ˙ ˙ ˙ œ œ œ œ˙ ˙ -
∑
w
œ Ó ˙ œ œ œ ˙ ˙ w
∑
w # #
A
Continued
- as.
w -
W tenebras meas.
W tenebras meas.
W tenebras meas.
W tenebras meas.
W tenebras meas.
ri tes an d ritua ls
133
(Roman) chant cantus firmus in the bass.72 Most of these are taken from the Common of Saints, normally the Introit or Alleluia.73 The use of the Roman items (and the non-Ambrosian Magnificat texts) again suggests the compilation of the contents in Pesaro. But in Milan, given the clear link to Costanzo Porta’s Proper settings provided by Pellegrini’s use of the bass cantus firmus, the arrival of such pieces could only have reminded the archbishop of the memory of the Franciscan, the only composer really desired, and trusted, by Carlo. Pellegrini’s innovations also would explain a letter in Banchieri’s Lettere armoniche (1628), in which the Bolognese monk responded (largely dodging the issue) to the maestro’s query as to whether the normal rhythmical performance of chant was measured or not.74 The question could have arisen if Pellegrini (as a non-Ambrosian outsider) had imported or invented the practice in his polyphonic settings, encountering the opposition of the polyphonic specialists and/or the capitolo minore. It would have made sense for the maestro to have sought the authority of the leading chant expert in north Italy, one with longstanding ties to the city. The aesthetics for this choice would have been clear, from certain points of view: replicating a classic Cinquecento model (Porta), highlighting Ambrosian tradition in the cantus firmus, and displaying it under performance conditions (four vocal basses plus the two organs plus the regals). The aesthetics of the archbishop were present in a more subtle sense, as well: the actual chant melodies used by Pellegrini (and Donati) also reflect a drastic shortening and simplification of the originals, even as the Lucernaria and responsory melodies were transmitted in the books used by the mazzaconici at the time. The abbreviation of the melismas is evident in the comparison of the Lucernaria. Thus the 1619 collection did indeed conform to episcopal practice: the pruning of the chant melodies used as cantus firmi (an idea Federigo had probably found in Rome), their standardization, and then their projection into the cathedral in the most audible way possible, carried out by a composer who was following models of the previous century. There was another aspect of compositional virtuosity inherent in the Vespers project as Pellegrini executed it: the varietas exemplified by the maestro’s different settings of the same cantus firmus. This was most obvious in the dominical Lucernarium Quoniam tu illuminas/Quoniam in te eripiar. Gabussi’s six-voice setting for 1 Lent (pars hiemalis) was simply reprinted in the summer volume (Pentecost), but Pellegrini’s three settings of the text in the winter book all feature different counterpoint. This sense of creating difference over the fixed chant would recur in the 1630s, with Donati’s duplicate settings of the same festal psalms, and in light of his previous compositional displays over an unchanging bass (the Madre di quattordici figli of 1629). Another aspect of the interplay between calendar and polyphony was the demarcation of seasons by scoring, sometimes in unexpected ways: the six- and eightvoice settings of Ps. 109 and the Magnificat provided by Pellegrini for 1 and 4 Lent, like a spectacular burst of polyphony marking the pontifical feasts in an otherwise penitential, chant-filled time. A typical example of a performance in the 1620s is given by First Vespers for Nativity BVM (app. C). The musical emphasis in the Hour as a whole is clear: the major polyphonic items came early, with both the Lucernarium and the responsorium cum infantibus beginning in chant and ending in canto figurato.
134
at t it ude s a nd ac t i o ns
The invariable psalms might have been sung in falsobordone, while the Pater Noster would have been selected from one of the many settings available in the edition. The splash of polyphony at the very beginning of the Hour was then balanced by the falsobordoni and chant of the middle psalmodic section and the beginning of the processional close. Finally, the Magnificat and Pater Noster provided a final burst of polyphony to close the service. The overall effect was to accentuate the specifically local items by polyphony, with the Ambrosian chant framework made prominent in the Lucernarium and Posthymn. After the plague, Donati’s massive works in the 1630s were another level of musical treatment, extended also to mass settings (app. D).75 The Vespers retain the tradition of the Ambrosian chant cantus firmus in the bass for the Lucernarium and Posthymn, and the masses do the same for the Proper items, employing normal concertato techniques for the Ordinary. Despite the large resources for the psalms and mass Ordinary items, the cantus-firmus-based Propers continue the scoring of three or four real parts above the bass. The plethora of large-scale items for the titular feast reinforces the efforts of both the composer and the chapter as a whole to restore and outdo the high points of liturgy that had seemed to be functioning so well around 1620.76 Donati’s polychoral masses are for the cathedral’s titular day, 3 May, and for Carlo’s feast; they set the Ingressa, Post Epistolam (the verse of the Alleluia), and Confractorium, along with the Gloria (Ambrosian version, with a triple Kyrie at the end), Credo, and Sanctus/Benedictus.77 The Office music covers First and Second Vespers for all three of these feasts (along with a set of liturgically problematic psalms for Sunday Vespers).78 The most striking aspect of Donati’s polychoral psalms is at once their setting of items previously sung in falsobordone (all the Proper psalms for the feasts) plus their remarkable duplication (in different toni and slightly different scorings) of such psalms far beyond liturgical necessity. This suggests that they were actually accumulated over several years’ worth of composition. Although less spectacular, Turati’s and Grancini’s Vespers music from the next decade also show at least a double-choir format, and the 1640s witnessed the next corpus of polyphony for Ambrosian Mass and Office preserved in the cathedral’s archives, due not least to the chapter’s prodding.79 The items set in the masses point to the flexibility of practice. The Ingressa for 8 September, for instance, bears a double text, Feci iudicium et justitiam, taken from the Common of a Virgin Martyr, the same source whence derive the Alleluia verse and the second text of the triply worded Confractorium, Veniente sponso prudens virgo.80 The double use, whether due to Donati or another scribe (Vimercato?) suggests the use of the setting on the cathedral’s secondary (summer) titular day, St. Thecla. The mass for Carlo is liturgically correct, but includes a Marian motet probably taken from the antiphona post Evangelium of the solemn Votive Mass of the Virgin, recalling the combined devotion to the two figures in previous decades. Finally, the Chiodo mass sets the wrong Confractorium text, Tua est potentia, taken from Circumcision, a feast with which its Post Epistolam text, Jubilate Deo, was shared.81 The liturgical anomalies of Donati’s Sunday Vespers include the double-texted Posthymn, Et anima mea cognoscit/Quia lex tua, taken from responsoria in choro derived from the lesser post-Epiphany cycle but reused in the post-Pentecost/post-Dedication
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of the Church succession of Sundays in summer and early autumn. Furthermore, the psalms lack Ps. 112 (Laudate Dominum) and have instead Memento Domine David.82 Although this combination is characteristic of no Sunday, an explanation derived from the events of 1633 is possible. If these large-scale settings were composed for the presence of the Cardinal-Infant Ferdinand at the cathedral, then Memento (which addresses God’s promises to kingly lineage) could have been substituted as a tribute to the Habsburg family member. The use of the summer-related Posthymn texts might also be linked to the Duomo’s celebration of the summer oblations from the gate districts, an attempt to make the settings fit as many major events as possible on liturgically minor Sundays. As Ferdinand was in the city from 24 May 1633 to the end of July 1634, the range of dates goes from 5 June 1633 (Pentecost 3; probably the first time he would have gone to Mass at the cathedral) to 30 July 1634 (Pentecost 8; probably the last time he would have been at the Duomo). A breakdown of items for First and Second Vespers for the various feasts shows the expansion of both the scoring and the psalm settings.83 In addition to the three items at the beginning, familiar from the 1619 book, Donati set the Proper psalms, and provided large-scale falsobordone for Ecce nunc and Laudate Dominum. The duplicate psalm settings, mainly for Second Vespers, are evidently alternate versions, depending upon the capabilities of the Duomo’s choir or the preferences of its maestro.84 The masses also interwove chant and polyphony, tradition and modernity. The Ordinary items again reflect Donati’s concertato style, with solos and duets. In performance, the styles alternated: the four-voice Ingressa was followed by the concertato Gloria; the highly ornate chant Alleluia led to polyphony for the verse, with the chant then repeated; the complex Offertorium in chant, then the concertato Credo and Sanctus; finally, the polyphonic Confractorium and, after Communion, the chanted Transitorium. Introduced under Pellegrini, the cantus-firmus settings remained one of the most striking aural markers of the cathedral’s music. No matter where one sat in the Duomo, the effect must have been stunning, especially in Donati’s pieces. For the Proper items, the chant would have been blared out by the basses of all four choirs in unison with the Antegnati, Valvasssori, and the two regals. Above this, far clearer for the cathedral clergy and the Senate than for the public in the nave, the counterpoint would have played out. There could not have been a more audible projection of Milanese liturgical tradition.
Motets and the Calendar To place the city’s motet repertory (as opposed to the Office polyphony codified in the Pontificalia) into the liturgical year is difficult because of the risk of amalgamating real temporal differences in the practice of the various churches at any given time. The Christological year around 1600 began with relatively little music for Advent, except for the Christmas Vigil responsory Consolamini, popule meus, one of only two texts set twice (a 5 and a 6) by Vecchi, once by Gabussi, and twice by Arnone, highlighting the Scala and the Duomo.85 A greater amount of Christmas music is preserved from the former.86 Despite the local importance of Epiphany, with its pro-
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cession to S. Eustorgio (the former home of the Magi’s relics), few pieces for it came from the Duomo, most in Arnone’s motets around 1600.87 For Lent in the cathedral, the Pontificalia provided demarcation of the season, with items for the First and Fourth Sundays. That polyphony was not to be heard widely during Holy Week seems to be a result of the austere Ambrosian tradition, prescribing only a few sung items, and completely excluding the readings and responses that were the foundation of the Triduum’s polyphony elsewhere.88 The only large-scale piece is Pellegrini’s 1623 setting of Mandatum novum, to be sung as the archbishop washed the feet of the clergy at Maundy Thursday services, in Ambrosian rite a ceremony completely independent of Mass.89 As the new century drew on, however, music for the week became more public through the religious orders who used the standard Roman texts.90 The Barnabites’ nocturnal procession discussed below began in 1587. Similarly, the Observant Franciscans at S. Angelo had their Good Friday “deposition” of a simulacrum of Christ’s Body accompanied in procession around the church by outside musicians, who alternated with friars singing chant.91 The sacred play of the Deposition in this church was punctuated by polyphony throughout the following century.92 The Jesuit origins of the Entierro, another ritual deposition of a simulacrum of Christ’s Body, are documented from 1633, when its confraternity was founded. But polyphony was not regularly associated with it until 1670, not unexpectedly given the small use of music made by the order.93 On Easter, despite the city’s attendance at S. Maria delle Grazie, the balance of preserved polyphony favored the Scala over the Duomo.94 The three-day celebration of the Chiodo, organized around the Invention of the Cross, marked an end to the winter part of the Christological cycle. The relatively few motets for Ascension and Pentecost were again largely from the cathedral, although a remarkable number were concentrated in Arnone’s six-voice volume of 1602, suggesting that the organist had decided (or had been commissioned) to provide pieces for these feasts over the preceding decade.95 Corpus Domini, the final event, was similar to the Chiodo days for its marking of urban space through the Eucharist (see below). Besides the eucharistic feasts, the major days for motets were Marian. The decade of the 1620s marked the first high point of the musical repertory, with the items that opened and closed motet books. Purification featured the tribunale di provvisione and all the arti in attendance at S. Maria dei Servi for the first Marian feast of the church year; in the 1620s, one of the pieces by the church’s organist G. B. Ala might have been heard.96 The equivocal status of Annunciation (Sixth Sunday of Advent in the medieval Ambrosian tradition or in the dead time of March) was resolved by the choice of the latter, resulting largely in pieces from the cathedral, in line with its celebration there and among the Lateran Canonesses at S. Maria Annunciata.97 Visitation again linked Marian protection of the city and its families with the routes of sacred geography, as the secular clergy made the procession of the seven stational churches in honor of Pope Gregory XIII’s granting the right to visit the sites; it generated at least one motet, Andrea Cima’s Vocem Mariae (1627).98 Texts for Assumption were set consistently throughout the period by figures working at a host of city institutions. The citywide festivities were obviously centered at S. Maria presso S. Celso, although the Senate went to the Scala. On this festivity,
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every musician in the city was probably able to find some church job, and the repertory outside the three main sites was still large. Nativity BVM was the Duomo’s day above all, and outsiders had their best chance of being hired as one of the supplemental musicians at the cathedral. In addition to the large-scale Proper items composed by Pellegrini and Donati, several motets are destined for the feast, the most obvious being the traditional Nativitas tua, Dei genitrix.99 The Marian year was extended by the October Rosary devotion, celebrated in Milan on the first Sunday. A 1621 piece by Ala followed the introduction and the victory of the Marian images of Imperial forces in the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620: “O happy rosary of heavenly growth, by whose leaves sinners are revived, by whose thorns sinners are tested, by whose flowers victors are crowned; let the heavens rejoice and the earth exult; declare a triumph and sing to it.”100
Sanctoral Motets Much informal devotion in the new century was to the Magdalen. No protector of the city, she functioned as a model for its inhabitants, and her role emerged in music precisely around the first flowering of the 1590s, most notably in the Scala’s composers.101 Several factors went into the devotional foundation for the musical pieces. First was the Easter Tuesday festa di precetto.102 Furthermore, the scuola in her honor, based at S. Sepolcro, was one of the most popular urban confraternities. It was founded literally on the organ loft at the church, and evidently included music in its festivities. Its patroness seems to have attracted the devotion of city women outside the cloisters, as well as inside, thus giving some idea as to the female audience outside the cloister of at least some repertory. Her prominence for all city residents is due to larger changes. First is the general flowering of her cult and its artistic reflections in Italy. The emphasis must also derive from such currents as Federigo’s use of her as model for all sinners, that is all Christians, and a musical portrayal of her prayers and experiences in the city.103 The archbishop intervened in an attempt to put his own devotional stamp on the cult, both in terms of images and in accentuating the biblical part of the legend (to the exclusion of her past life as a courtesan or her apocryphal experiences as an apostle or missionary), emphasizing the Magdalen’s suitability to be the first to greet the risen Christ. It is no surprise that almost all the musical texts focus on her search for Christ and her joy at the Resurrection, embodied in either the Congratulamini mihi omnes textual family or in one or another version of the Easter dialogue. The musical results were remarkable, to the point that the texts of early seicento motets for the Resurrection were largely written in the saint’s voice. There survive some nine pieces by the Scala’s composers alone: Vecchi’s Congratulamini mihi omnes from the 1597 book, and no fewer than four pieces in his 1598 book 3 a 6, two in Baglione’s book, and an eight-voice piece by Stefanini (1608). Many of these were set as dialogues, and the other standard text was Ardens est cor meum. One of Ghizzolo’s texts may serve as an example of the former, complete with its typical anti-Jewish slur popular among the Franciscan’s audience:
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at t it ude s a nd ac t i o ns A: O Mary, why do you weep at the tomb? What might be the cause of your pain? C: They have crucified my love, and killed Him who gave me life. A: Dry your falling tears; the treacherous Jews notwithstanding, He lives, and you will have Him. C: So He lives? A: He lives, I say, and will live forever. [a 4:] O my life, my soul, the joy of my heart, where will I find You, tell me? Let Your voice sound in my ears, that I may kiss You and enjoy You in all eternity.104
Yet the Magdalen’s cult did not survive Federigo’s death, musically. Grancini never wrote another such piece after 1628, and the only later motet in the whole repertory is Cozzolani’s dialogue of 1650, this possibly due to her house’s traditions (S. Radegonda held a relic of the saint), and to the settings that the composer knew as a young musician.105 The background to the music for the protectors of the city is formed by the translations, hagiography, and sense of institutional identity that focused on local martyrs or bishops. In the climate of the early Seicento, this was no antiquarian exercise, as new candidates for sanctity were rediscovered, officially promoted, or unofficially revered. Thus the musical repertory began to include pieces for martyrs after about 1610. The summer cycle was marked by such motets as Pellegrini’s (1619): “But if in the eyes of men the glorious martyrs Gervasius and Protasius suffered torments, their destiny is immortal; truly, they gave their bodies to death rather than worship idols. Thus crowned, they have gained the victory palm, and exult forever.”106 This piece must have been written after 1612, and would have sounded on the same day as the large procession from the Duomo to S. Ambrogio, which united the archbishop, the tribunale di provvisione, and the paratici.107 Although some of S. Maria presso S. Celso’s works seem to relate to Nazarus and Celsus, the citywide procession on 28 July to S. Nazaro seems not to have been marked musically. The feast of the Milanese martyr invoked against the plague, whose shrine was on the Via Sacra from Porta Ticinese, again joined the tribunale di provvisione with the archbishop. This protector was addressed in a motet from Grancini’s Book V of 1636, possibly composed for the first feast day (20 January 1631) after the contagion: “Rejoice, holy Sebastian, and exult in heaven, you who followed Christ’s steps; for His love you shed your blood. So with Christ you exult forever.”108 S. Sebastiano was also the church for the celebration of the furriers on St. John the Baptist’s day (24 June), a festa di precetto that seems to have generated only a few motets.109 St. Lawrence’s feast (10 August) was marked by Proper items in the Pontificalia and by two pieces in Grancini’s 1631 book.110 G. P. Cima composed one work for the early medieval martyr St. Aquilinus; his Gaudeamus omnes . . . Aquilini in the Flores of 1626, possibly for the saint’s chapel at S. Lorenzo, is scored for three canti, possibly two of his own boy soprano sons. Local devotion, and the lack of clear information about the early martyrs, also occasioned the unspecific “N.” sanctoral motet. Ardemanio’s first published concerto (1608) seems to be the earliest example: “O blessed man, whose soul possesses Paradise, whence the angels exult.”111 A feature of mid-century, starting with Donati’s Li vecchiarelli et perregrini concerti (1636), was the appearance of motets with a double text.112 At some point, G. D. Rognoni set a text for the Brera collegio or for S. Fedele in honor of a much more recent Jesuit beato, Aloysius Gonzaga; the patrons of
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monastic and mendicant orders also were honored, sometimes on special occasions of chapter meetings.113
Special Days of Christological Devotion As the most important relic in Milan, the Chiodo was a uniquely Milanese artifact. In the contemporary view, it had been given by Theodosius to the city, found miraculously by Ambrose, and had certainly been reinstalled in a reliquary sixty feet high in the apse, and celebrated on 3 May. It thus filled the role of devotion to relics of the Cross found in other Catholic cities. After the loss of the Magi’s relics (taken from S. Eustorgio to Cologne in the twelfth century), it became the leading urban relic. More recently, it had saved the city during Carlo’s procession throughout Milan in October 1576, and one of Costa’s spiritual madrigals must have been sung on its celebrations in the years immediately following:114 prima parte: O sacred, holy, fortunate nail, which pierced that hand or those feet so quick and ready for that heavy journey and my salvation, whence I hope and rejoice; I joyfully adore you, and praise and thank Him Who, showing that sacred fluid with which you are marked, has cured plagues both inside and outside in a miraculous way. seconda parte: Since He has changed that worldly pleasure (which was flaunted in so many ways) to the grief of penance and to chaste, humble prayers, so may a sweet April return through you, I pray you; and, as for Him who suffered so much for us, do not deny me the chance to see Him along with the blessed.115
This new and local text has rightly been viewed in light of Carlo’s use of the Chiodo to save the city in the penitential procession of 6 October 1576.116 The cardinal himself inaugurated the combination of the feast of the Invention of the Cross with the procession to S. Sepolcro the following 3 May, and on 18 April 1579 Rome granted an indulgence to all who participated therein. Thus the reference to “sweet April” raises other circumstances of the Chiodo’s function, in the context of the season, as Carlo attempted to channel the traditional May celebrations involving trees and branches festooning the city’s houses into the devotion to the wood of the Cross. Costa’s text seems a spring piece for either the first processional day of 1577 or possibly the first indulgence year of 1579.117 Preceded by festive First Vespers, the activity began in the morning of 3 May, with three canons receiving the keys to the reliquary in the south sacristy of the cathedral. Terce and Sext were sung while the canons ascended in the nivola, a primitive elevator on ropes; on their descent, a Pontifical Mass was sung, and followed by a procession to S. Sepolcro, with the confraternities and clerics, governor, Senate, archbishop with the baldachino for the relic, and musicians. There the Nail was displayed for a Forty Hours’ devotion, before being ceremonially returned to its position on 5 May. A modern photograph of the ascent in the capsule can be seen in figure 5.1.
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figure 5.1
The nivola carrying a priest with the Santo Chiodo, ca. 1950 (by permission of the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo, Milan)
For obvious reasons, the cathedral diaries normally chronicled the day in some detail. The first celebration of Gabussi’s term in 1583 was marked by organ music during the nivola’s journey, and by musical ensembles set up along the 300 yards of the procession between the Cordusio and S. Sepolcro.118 By 1587 Terce had begun to be sung, and by 1599 the reposition ceremony on 5 May had also acquired polyphony.119 The Vigil of the feast was added in 1605, and Federigo’s tenure showed a constant cultivation of the feast with polyphony. The normal items (excluding the psalms) for both First and Second Vespers were set in the 1619 Pontificalia. But the
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biggest display took place in the Cardinal-Infant’s presence in 1634, with singing at First Vespers, all the next day, and on the procession. If Donati’s mass and Vespers were indeed written for that occasion, they would have punctuated the largest-scale Chiodo services in the cathedral since Federigo’s tenure.120 By 1647 a normal level of polyphony had been restored.121 The preserved music consists of only a few printed pieces before Donati’s years; in line with the symbolic convergence of Nail and Cross, none of them invokes the former specifically. But the importance was evident in selected pieces, among them Scarabelli’s first eight-voice motet in his 1592 collection, O crux illa magna, which ends with the direct imperative to the city populace to adore Christ himself (possibly a reference to the Forty Hours’ devotion): “venite gentes, et adorate Dominum.”122 In the 1640s, Turati left a motet and the Vespers items, continuing the tradition of the cantus firmus settings for the Lucernarium and Posthymn, but changing the hymn setting (Vexilla regis) from strophic (with alternating choirs) to concertato, the first break in the generic tradition of setting these items.123 If the rituals of May 3 focused on the recollection of the Passion, then the celebratory side was represented by the day on which the civic body constituted itself in homage to the Body of Christ, namely Corpus Domini.124 All the civic authorities, the cathedral and collegiate clergy, major portions of the secular and regular clergy, and a good part of the city accompanied the archbishop, who processed under a baldachino. In terms of sheer participation, it was the one event that most obviously represented the corporate city. Here again, authority was mixed: the governor and Senate, as representatives of the entire city, held the baldachino for the Host.125 The procession made its way from the Duomo, through the streets adorned as at no other time in the year, to S. Ambrogio, and back, beginning early in the day, taking about two hours for the outbound part, and finishing in the late afternoon. In 1587, the cerimoniere Casati recorded instrumentalists at Porta Ticinese, as the entourage reached the outer limits of the city.126 In 1602, Cima and the singers at S. Maria presso S. Celso had to beg pardon of the deputies, as they had arrived so late at the shrine as to miss the service, which had been moved up so as not to conflict with the procession.127 The 1623 litany collection contains Gabussi’s processional music for the feast: Pange lingua and possibly the Te Deum. Settings in other editions of the standard Magnificat antiphons, O quam suavis est, Domine and O sacrum convivium (the same in the Ambrosian as in the Roman rite) were relatively few.128 But several other striking pieces from the turn of the century relate directly to Corpus Domini texts, the first being Gallo’s eight-voice reworking of Lassus’ Veni in hortum meum (1598; the original had been published in 1562). Several motets in Stefanini’s volume of 1608 combine eucharistic themes with large-scale scoring, among them the opening pieces, Gustate et videte and Respexit Elias. Many of the pieces for this day seem to be associated with the regulars’ churches or the ducal chapel, in line with the citywide nature of its observance.129 A seven-voice motet in Stefanini’s book, O sacramentum pietatis, seems to be the first setting in Europe of St. Augustine’s passionate linkage of personal salvation to the Body of Christ through the Eucharist: “O sacrament of piety! O sign of unity! O link of love! Whoever would live here has the place and means; let them come
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and believe; let them be taken in, so they may be made alive. Let this member be not withered, but fine and connected and healthy; let it be linked to the Body, let it live through and from God; now may it labor on earth, so that later it may reign in heaven.”130 The text was abbreviated from a Roman-rite Matins reading during the Octave (Monday) and had associations with the feast (as well as with eucharistic devotion in general), because of its corporate language.131 Another unusual combination of scoring and affect is found in G. D. Rognoni’s canzona-motet Quemadmodum desiderat (from his 1605 canzona collection).132 This large-scale version of the first three verses of Psalm 41, ending with the phrase “My tears were my bread day and night, when they said to me: ‘Where is your God?’ ” would seem an unlikely candidate for the kind of festive treatement implied by the genre, with its two choirs of instruments and voices. But the text was chanted (in Roman rite) at Matins, and Rognoni’s setting takes over the sixth-mode assignment of the chant. The psalm text continues: “I remembered these things, and poured out my soul, for I will go to the place of the wonderous tabernacle, unto the house of God, with a voice of exultation and praise, and joyous sound,” a direct reference to the motion and music of the city’s feast. The symbolic use of the Eucharist in rituals of the city’s self-presentation led to the use of dialogue forms in its music. One of Grancini’s (1624) opened with questions, leading to a flurry of Corpus Christi hymn tags.133 Two other adjacent motets in the same book employ the form, followed by a setting of a classic oratio ante communionem.134 Other eucharistic settings accompanied popular rituals such as the Forty Hours’ Devotion, the first European evidence for which dates to 1527 at S. Sepolcro. Carlo Borromeo had extended the service beyond the pre-Lenten Sundays and the Chiodo procession to all the city parishes in turn, with obvious special attention to Lent and the penitential adoration of the Sacrament. One Palm Sunday in 1613 saw men and women who arrived at the cathedral bearing images of death, following the standard of the Cross, greeted at the altar by palchi set up for the Duomo singers singing a Miserere alternatim with chant provided by Capuchins.135 Another account of the same day adds that the Host was raised on the nivola (otherwise used only in the Chiodo ceremonies), notes that the altar seemed “un gran teatro,” lists the concinnity of misteri (tableaux vivants), images, and music, while remarking on the local predilection for motets: “The two choirs were set up along, but outside, the walls flanking the altar; continually with excellent concord, as Milan is wont to provide, they sang motets and laude in honor of God.”136 As the new century went on, the Forty Hours also took on political implications.137 The growth and musical underlining of eucharistic ritual is evident in its spread to formerly unmusical sites that hired singers.138 It is this post1630 trend that seems to account for many of the “Del Santissimo” pieces found in the mid-century repertory.139
Litanies and Their Processions The eucharistic feasts underline the importance of music in motion in the streets. Indeed, the Lesser Litanies were marked as Ambrosian by their list of saints and
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their liturgical placement, and the place of the archbishop at their head underscored their function as the purification and sacralization of the city, conceived as three large arcs around the cathedral, by means of mobile chant and recitation. Their enactment, however, was in the hands of the two Duomo chapters. The role of the cathedral clerics is proved by the few sources that contain the chant for the antiphons plus the text of the petitions and the order of the stations. One, marked as belonging to the primicerio of the capitolo minore, contains fourteenth-century text for the first day with Cinquecento additions for the others; the two others date from the Quattrocento and from 1507.140 The sonic shaping of the litanies by chant and polyphony was one of their most typically local features. The prelate began the cycle by blessing the ashes from Lenten palms and imposing them in the shape of a cross on his own forehead as well as that of the cathedral clergy.141 Each day’s procession consisted of a journey through a different section of the city, including a visit to, and Mass at, one of the stational churches, a prayer at one of the gates’ intersections (carobbi), and a return for Vespers at the Duomo. The first day, for instance, went to the carobbio of Porta Comasina on its way to S. Simpliciano, with a Kyrie and an antiphon (Dominus Deus virtutum) chanted by the orders of the cathedral clerics: mazzaconici, seniori, vecchioni, and lettori. At the saint’s altar, the recitation of the first form of the Ambrosian sanctoral litany was divided: the names of the saints apportioned to the provost and capitolo maggiore, the “intercede pro nobis” continuation given to the mazzaconici. In this way the procession continued to S. Carpoforo, with Prime then recited at piazza Castello, Terce at S. Vittore al Olmo, stops at S. Martino, S. Vittore al Corpo, and S. Vincenzo. Mass followed at S. Ambrogio, and further stops at S. Vitale, S. Valeria, S. Naborre, the Civitatem istam antiphon at the carrubio, a stop at S. Vittore al Teatro, and a fivepsalm Vespers back at the Duomo. The progress thus circumscribed an arc from northeast to southwest. Similar sections were given to the processions of the next two days.142 The actual list of saints invoked in the litany petitions, however, varied somewhat from station to station. The one for S. Simpliciano included Mary, Sts. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, John, Peter, Paul, Andrew, Stephen, Sisinius, Martyrius, Alexander, Vigilius, Gerontius, Benignus, Ampelius, Anthony, Simplician, Benedict, Galdinus, Carlo Borromeo (after 1610), and Ambrose, thus mentioning the three martyrs whose relics were conserved in the church, several early bishops (including the titular saint), and the founder of the Cassinese whose church it was. The list invariably ended with a triple Kyrie. The litanies tended to become routine, with little mention other than their enactment given in the cerimoniere’s diaries. But clearly the cathedral’s singers performed some polyphony, possibly improvised or in falsobordone at the stops in churches. One request from S. Simpliciano, for the Cassinese to be accorded the right to hold the lectionary when the prelate read, noted that the musicians had finished the litanies at this point.143 On several counts, the polyphonic edition produced to systematize music for these days, the Litaniae ambrosianae, et romanae of 1623, represented a fusion of function and location. Given the role of the cathedral chapter in the litanies, it was obvious that Pellegrini dedicated the collection to them, attempting to paper over (quite literally) his differences with the usual praise and referring to his 1619
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volumes.144 Like the Pontificalia of 1619, the book was produced by Giorgio Rolla. It contained nine modally organized eight-voice settings of the Ambrosian Litany of the Saints. Of these, six were by Gabussi (the two settings in mode 1 plus all the plagal modes, but with only two composed Kyries); a complete set was obtained, presumably after Gabussi’s death, with additions of authentic-mode formulas by Pellegrini, Borgo, and Corradi.145 The entire project fit well into the overall standardization of polyphony occurring under Pellegrini.146 The other function of litanies in Ambrosian practice, that of preceding the Requiem Mass after the procession to the church, was also worked into the plan of the book. For this purpose, Pellegrini added the final Kyrie invocation and an alternatingchoir Miserere to all the eight-voice settings.147 Other processional music includes the hymns for Pentecost, the Chiodo, and Corpus Domini, all set by Gabussi in the same scoring. At the last minute, probably as “personal” memories, two Ambrosian litany settings a 4 by the recently deceased G. D. Rognoni and by Rolla himself were added. The opening nine litanies use a skeletal set of saints’ names: Mary, Sts. Michael, Peter, Catherine, Mary Magdalen, and Ambrose (followed by “omnes sancti, intercedete pro nobis,” “Exaudi Christe,” “Exaudi Deus,” and “Kyrie”). Although this corresponds to no list of names used in the liturgical book, the very formulaic settings of the petitions and “intercede pro nobis,” divided between the two four-voice choirs, are set off by clear cadences. In actual performance, then, the petitions set to polyphony must have acted as place holders, with the intervening saints in the actual litany sung to the music for the preceding one. Such a procedure would have enabled the polyphonic singers to use the formulas for any given combination of saints. The “bookend” place of Mary and Ambrose in the litany list underscores their role as civic protectors. That each day’s procession included nine churches suggests that the simple settings of Gabussi and Pellegrini were meant to be apportioned one per stop. More interesting is the practice of the two more elaborate litanies at the end of the 1623 volume. Rognoni’s (printed in the choir I partbooks) uses the opening of the list for the procession to S. Simpliciano, omitting Andrew, then (after Stephen) adding Tecla, Catherine, Mary Magdalen, and Francis while omitting all the local saints up to Galdinus and ending with Carlo and Ambrose (thus dating the setting after 1610). The inclusion of the Magdalen may have had something to do with her cult at his church of S. Sepolcro. Rolla’s (printed in the choir II partbooks) adds Nazarius, George, Cecilia, and Martin in various spots, for obvious reasons: he lived in the parish of S. Nazaro, his typographical mark was St. Cecilia, and Martino might have been his father’s name. Both settings again correspond to no known actual litany formula.148 It would be hard to imagine a better example of the personalized musical appropriation of the sacred, even in this seemingly preordained genre. The sanctoral invocations, important as they were to urban self-purification, hardly exhausted the form. There survive some twenty-eight Marian litanies, of both the full and short versions of the standard text, by city composers, starting with Vecchi’s (1600), representing almost all the institutions and orders of the city; more were written but have not been transmitted.149 The repertory ranges from syllabic and alternating statements of the petitions, one step above falsobordone, to complex eight-voice motet-like works. Besides those from the Duomo, the largest-scale settings
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are those of Della Porta for S. Maria presso S. Celso. Marian litanies were important at the female houses, as well, although the only editions associated with nuns are late.150
Three Kinds of Processions But many occasions for music were not so strictly dictated as was the liturgy, as the major social and political events of the time gave rise to festivals, benedictions, and more informal devotion.151 These often included the trombetti, many featured the Duomo singers, and others involved “pick-up” ensembles.152 On a larger scale, the presence of musical sound in the processions involved the public in ways different from the showing of the visual objects or icons.153 What was actually heard among the crowd is unclear: certainly chant antiphons, polyphony clear or fragmented, litany tones. The participation of all the city’s musicians, singers, and instrumentalists lent a supra-institutional quality to the performances, and the echoing of the sounds in the narrow streets must have been one of the ways in which the processions penetrated even private space, even for those unable or unwilling to see the images, floats, and standards. The auditory component thus competed with the privileged visuality of the events. An old protector was at the center of the massive 1582 translation of the relics of St. Simplician, together with those of the paleo-Christian martyrs Sts. Sisinius, Martyrius, and Alexander, and four early bishops (Gerontius, Benignus, Antoninus, and Ampelius). Its symbolism involved the political autonomy of the city, the Ambrosian tradition, and the first urban self-affirmation after the plague. It was called, however, by Carlo Borromeo. For two weeks beforehand, the trombetti of the city and of the castle played to inspire the citizens to imitate the saints, while arquebus shots reminded the city of historic battles fought with Simplician’s intercession, such as the famous battle of Legnano in 1176.154 On the vigil, the Cassinese sang Matins all night long. During the day, the procession headed by Carlo but involving almost all the urban clergy, Benedictines from all over Italy, and the city officials, along with some 100,000 onlookers, began and ended at the church, passing three musical ensembles set up for the entire day at Porta Beatrice, the stational cross of S. Anastasia, and the contrada de’ Fustignari.155 Underlining the continuity between early Christian bishops, Simplician, and Carlo himself, the route of the procession passed four stational crosses (Sts. Protasius, Barnabus, Gerontius, and Ampelius) dedicated to such prelates, making a final swing by the cross of St. Roch at the return to S. Simpliciano. In its course, antiphons and hymns for all these saints were sung, together with psalms, including new hymns composed for the occasion by various Roman figures.156 The day was the first major urban event after the 1576 plague; hence the itinerary was appropriate. At least one piece probably dates from the celebrations, Ponzio’s twelve-voice canonic Vidi turbam magnam, on an Apocalypse text fragment (7:9) referring to the multitude of the saints.157 The unusual scoring and procedure recall the eschatological choirs of angels, singing the praises of the celestial martyrs. The musical setting would
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have involved almost all of the Duomo’s singers, and its musical punctuation, whatever the actual repertory, showed the salient place of sound in the processions that marked ritual life throughout the period. The combination of the invocation with the honoring of Simplician might also have moved the recently professed Cantone to write one of his eight-voice motets published in 1599, combining a familiar sanctoral text with a cantus firmus. This latter consists of a sevenfold invocation, a fragment of an imagined sanctoral litany: Choir I and II (SAB): Behold a great priest, who pleased God in his days, and was found just. Thus the Lord by oath has made him grow in his people. Choir II (T only; Roman litany tone as an ostinato): St. Simplician, pray for us.158 Ecce sacerdos magnus/Sancte Simpliciane, ora pro nobis apparently represents the first post-Tridentine example of an ostinato motet based on a litany, anticipating by five years the first examples by Antonio Gualtieri, Donati, and Monteverdi.159 It stands at the intersection of urban devotion and monastic tradition: Cantone took a Roman sanctoral invocation, “ora pro nobis” (not the Ambrosian “intercede”), as the basis for his ostinato; he also avoided the chant melody of the Milanese litanies. But since the local figure Simplician was not named in Roman-rite litanies, Cantone thus invented an “invocation” found in no actual liturgy. The surrounding voices combine two antiphons for Lauds and the Little Hours for the Common of a Confessor Bishop in the 1584 Cassinese breviary, Ecce sacerdos magnus and Ideo jure jurando.160 In the breviary’s calendar, Simplician was the only Milanese bishop listed (besides Ambrose, of course). The compositional concept of the piece thus united Cantone’s own orderspecific tradition with the local devotion to the saint. According to a later account, the Cassinese had also sung litanies the evening after the procession, and Cantone’s piece might be a re-created memory of the combination of sanctoral invocation and litany.161 Its inclusion in the edition of 1599 underscores, as did Audite me, the novelty apparent in such a traditional genre. As often happened, Federigo’s tenure featured a smaller-scale parallel. On the occasion of the Seventh Provincial Council, the relics of St. Stephen and the paleoChristian Milanese bishop and martyr St. Calimerius (along with six recently “discovered” sanctoral bodies) were ritually brought to the Duomo and then taken to “their” churches, respectively S. Stefano in Brolio and S. Calimero. As the prelates entered the Duomo on 14 May, the choirs sang, and on the vigil of Simplician’s feast (i.e., 27 May), apparati and pyramids in honor of the six little-known and two more famous saints were set up in the city’s streets.162 Upon the arrival of the relics in the cathedral, the cathedral ensembles sang (presumably the Ambrosian sanctoral) litanies, and as Federigo went up to the altar, there was a motet. For the procession on 29 May, litanies, antiphons, psalms, and Marian psallendae were all sung, probably in chant.163 Of all the other processions noted as being accompanied by chant and polyphony, two very different kinds encapsulate music’s role. The first was the vigils of Good Friday, organized by the Barnabites as nocturnal processions through the city, first
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enacted in 1587 and then modified later (possibly as early as 1588; Doc. 2).164 They started on one perimeter of the city, at the order’s oldest church, S. Barnaba, with a stop for sermons and music in the Duomo. The first form of the vigil, that of 1587, also had visits to city churches before and after the cathedral (S. Stefano in Brolio and S. Nazaro), then returned to S. Barnaba. All the stops were marked by polyphony. Much of the procession was structured around an Ecce homo tableau. In later years, the path went from S. Barnaba directly to the Duomo, finishing at the other church of the order, S. Alessandro, and it was organized around four narratively and processionally sequential scenes, each surrounded by torches: the Agony in the Garden, Ecce homo, the Cross, and the Sepulchre (Doc. 2E). Although the actual musicians involved were not the same in both years, still the ritual enactment of urban penance and Passion contemplation employed music on both occasions as a marker of contemplation and spatial passage. The choirs of the 1587 procession were led by an Orfeo (?Vecchi), a Giovanni Maria, Orazio and Filiberto Nantermi, and Gabussi, thus the most prominent musicians in the city were hired.165 The assembly at S. Barnaba was to begin with a motet (Giovanni Maria), followed by a sermon and a motet by Gabussi’s ensemble (Doc. 2A).166 The departure was accompanied by singing as well. The singing of the penitential psalms in the streets was reserved to two choirs (the Nantermis and Giovanni Maria), while the entrance into the various churches visited was to be accompanied by music. At the Duomo, the Nantermis were to enter first, convene on the Valvassori organ loft, and sing a motet as the rest of the procession came in. Giovanni Maria’s ensemble was to go to the cantoria under the Antegnati organ, while Vecchi’s and Gabussi’s musicians were to go to the Gospel and Epistle sides of the presbytery, respectively. The Miserere was divided; after the sermon, Gabussi’s and Vecchi’s ensembles were to sing a motet together. A further halt at S. Nazaro was to be marked by a motet (Giovanni Maria), the litanies and a motet (Gabussi). The final arrival back at S. Barnaba this time was marked by the Nantermis and by Vecchi, each of whose groups sang a motet. The instructions (Doc. 2A) foresaw a total of seven motets for one choir (a 4, presumably), one motet for two ensembles, the Miserere, (?Romanrite sanctoral) litanies, and probably the Penitential Psalms a 4, and the Improperia, probably a 8. A list of pieces is also found in the files (Doc. 2B), starting with the Improperia and Roman-rite Tenebrae responsories. A series of four-voice (ATTB) antiphon texts form the third group (probably the motets sung by the adult men in the various choirs), and a fourth set is formed by another antiphonal Improperia, a Recessit pastor noster a 8, and a Miserere, these latter suggesting the division of Gabussi’s and Vecchi’s forces. There is also the text of an Ecce homo dialogue for two choirs (Doc. 2C), an obvious choice given the central image of the procession. The use of the Improperia, and the repeated questioning of the “Judaei” in the Ecce homo dialogue, take on a more sinister hue, however, in light of the political efforts, reaching their culmination in those years, to banish Jews from the entire State of Milan. The order for the later procession featured three crossbearers followed by two torch carriers and the carrier of the indulgeance for those who participated. A first musical ensemble, led by an otherwise unidentified Alessandro (Nuvoloni?), was accompanied by three torches, close to the city’s gonfalone. There followed men in
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sackcloth, the Magdalen’s ointment jar, and more penitents and torches. A second, double-choir ensemble, led by Orazio (Nantermi), flanked the tableau of Gethsemane. Next were the thirteen instruments of the Passion, while another two-choir ensemble led by Giovanni Maria accompanied the Ecce homo; a fourth group guided by Orfeo (again, presumably Vecchi) was placed near the cross, while more men in sackcloth, and a final ensemble (led by an Ercole) surrounded a tomb guarded by Spanish soldiers.167 The musicians were also to be dressed in sackcloth, and each of the five ensembles was to sing its motet before departing from S. Barnaba. The Barnabites had evidently experienced disorder on various fronts during the 1587 event. The new instructions insisted that the first choir was to sing the Penitential Psalms in falsobordone, while the other ensembles were to perform continuously only the texts given them (Doc. 2D). Silence was to be avoided, especially between the first and second double choirs, and the verses were to be repeated for the whole procession, with no falsobordoni other than those prescribed. The musicians were also to behave modestly in the streets, without chatting or joking. Finally, the clerics prescribed that the Miserere verses in the cathedral were to be sung only in the fourth mode, clear proof for contemporary perception of the unsuitable affect of other tones for such a somber event. At the procession’s major stop in the cathedral, the choirs were to remain together, each singing a motet where they were positioned. The incipits for the four double-choir motets were given: Vere languores nostri; Heu, heu mihi; Dicit Isaac; and Recessit pastor noster. Again, the texts have survived in the order’s files, together with the instructions (Doc. 2F). The Miserere was to be divided among the five groups, with three verses sung tutti. After the sermon, Vecchi’s litanies were to be sung by all, followed by three motets sung respectively by Giovanni Maria, Vecchi, and Ercole. Given the order’s inexperience with music, a set of individualized instructions for each ensemble was also prepared, with the provision that the litanies were to be sung “sweetly,” evidently with a kind of penitential affect as opposed to projecting the saints’ names as far as possible through the urban space. Possibly this latter manner characterized the other performances of the invocations on the Lesser Litany days. More unusually, a little music for the 1587 procession survives in hastily written parts.168 The Improperia and responsories sung in the streets are both set out for two choirs, the first an ATTB voci pari ensemble and the second a normal four- or fivevoice group (CAT[T]B). The entirely anonymous settings, found only in the order’s files, are normally straightforward and syllabic, geared toward projecting the texts under the very public conditions of their execution. The major exception to this is the Recessit, which features imitative polyphony (Ex. 5.3). It is hard to imagine this music being sung anywhere but at one of the stops in one of the churches, as a motet on either side of a sermon. Over the years, the increased importance of music was evident in the addition of a fifth musical ensemble to the later form of the procession, the growing expenses (Doc. 2G), but also in the sheer sonic punctuation of the event. The Barnabites were not known for music, but clearly recognized the power of polyphony echoing in the streets and in the candlelit churches, again a way in which music challenged the hegemony of visual impression. The overall effect of the procession and its music must have been striking: the city night illuminated by the torches and the tableaux,
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protected from the crimes and uncertainty of the darkness by the governor’s guards; the sheer number of the faithful following the Barnabites, with the silence broken only by the psalms chanted in falsobordone and the Reproaches. The stops in the churches used the various Passion motets as points of reinforcement for the sermon and the affect of the night, but the processional polyphony reflected the tableaux (Ecce homo) and the emotional catharsis (Miserere) much more directly. Once again, Milan became Jerusalem, the city of the Passion musically marked by antiphonal voci pari/piene sonorities. Another processional event sixteen years later reflected yet more prominent roles of music (Doc. 8). The confraternity of S. Maria del Carmine housed at the Carmelites’ church of S. Giovanni in Conca had some twenty-nine members around 1600, with Muzio Sforza of Caravaggio its prior, when it paid for a musical ensemble and organist.169 In these years, it regularly sponsored a small annual procession in honor of Mary as giver of the Carmelite habit, which took place on the third Sunday of June.170 There was no predicting, however, what would happen on 27 June 1604. The booklet describing the procession was financed by none other than Filippo Lomazzo, and the music printer signed the dedication to Muzio Sforza.171 But the real animator of the event was another musical figure in Sforza’s orbit, Cherubino Ferrari, who had been involved in previous years. Ferrari also wrote the pamphlet narrating the event. It was prepared by bells, street decorations, and a Mass at the church. Polyphony at this Mass and Vespers was sung by three choirs, after which the procession started in the late afternoon. The city’s gonfalone had been requisitioned to lead it. It was followed by the confraternity’s banner and by a group of young noblewomen, singing Marian laude and hymns. Next came an angel, a statue of the Virgin crushing the serpent, verses and emblems, and then a cherub with blond hair, dressed in silver, and carrying a lute. He was accompanied by four musical ensembles, each portraying figures: a first of eight angels, then four prophets, four martyrs, and six female virgin saints. Unusually, the pamphlet also gave the names of each musician (all men), led by the cherub, Giovanni Andrea Ferrari, hired in from the Duomo. The choir of prophets each played an instrument (David his harp, Jeremiah the cornetto and recorder, Ezekiel recorder and viola, while Isaiah also had a bass violin). At the assembly point in church, the ensembles bowed to the altarpiece of the Virgin, and then Ferrari began to play and sing a Marian intercessory text: “Gaudium mundi, nova stella caeli, procreans solem, pariens parentem; da manus lapsis, fer opem caducis, Virgo Maria.” He then turned to the choir of angels, six voci puerili, saying “All you angels, praise her,” to which they responded with a Salve regina angelorum accompanied by a string ensemble and a small regal organ. Ferrari then turned left, invited the prophets to praise her; they responded with their instruments and a Salve regina prophetarum. Then it was the turn of the martyrs, and finally Ferrari turned to the choir of virgin saints, who responded with their voices, viols and violins, and lutes. The ensembles then united for the downbeat given by Ferrari, who placed himself in the middle. They sang a text beginning “Salve regina sanctorum” and ending with a reference to the miracle and the order and the confraternity, “decor Carmeli, funde preces pro deuoto tibi hoc Collegio.” After this, the procession began, with the
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image of the Virgin raised and the city trombetti playing. Besides the decorations, Cherubino Ferrari noted almost every sort of instrument involved. The entire display recalled the processions of David in the Old Testament, and Ferrari did not fail to note the parallels with 2 Kings 6. The procession first went to the stational cross of Porta Romana, whose confraternity came to greet it. At the cross, a temporary altar had been set up with a stage, on which the ensembles performed an unspecified piece. Then G. A. Ferrari repeated his invitation to the choirs to praise the Madonna, and the performance in the church was repeated. The raising of the image was accompanied by mortars, and the procession followed the Strada Velasca, covered with decorations, where two angels placed on high recited madrigals (probably by Cherubino Ferrari). The arrival at the cross of the Bottonuto also witnessed another choir on a stage, and the journey to the cross of S. Giovanni Laterano was met by its confraternity singing laude. Coming to the cross of S. Satiro, the parade was greeted by yet another choir, this one financed by the Marian devotion of the ducal singer Pietro Francesco Cinciardi. The return to the church passed the palazzi of nobility (including Sforza’s own), and the four choirs ended the ceremony by singing another unnamed piece. What all the music was must remain unclear. No pieces with the incipits given are to be found in the local repertory. Certainly some of the selections, especially the laude, must have been improvised. Whether the various choirs doubled each other was also not stated, and who might have composed any of the prepared polyphony remains unclear, as, among the twenty-three musicians listed, only Baldassare Vialardi seems to have published an edition, much later.172 The Carmelites’ musical pageant marked a different kind of enactment, designed around the musical items, with prayers and sermons taking a very minor place. The assembly was focused on G. A. Ferrari’s invitations to the various choirs to praise Mary, and the stops at the stational crosses seem to have been dominated by polyphony. This musical tableau vivant privileged sound over anything else, and its representation of Heaven seemed designed to go one better than the paintings of musical angels praising Mary, a theme represented in the apse by Bergognone at S. Simpliciano or the famous fresco painted by Gaudenzio Ferrari at the shrine in Saronno. The involvement in patronage of a fairly prominent singer such as Cinciardi also highlights the ways in which the social worlds of musicians interacted with neighborhood confraternal devotion. But the role and taste of individuals was also crucial. The presentation of the pamphlet to Sforza shows the role of this central cultural figure in the daily ritual life of the city, even if he was far away. The most striking feature of this ambulatory concert was Cherubino Ferrari’s role as impresario and his weaving of his own person and poetry into the events. Indeed, it must have been obvious to the audience that the Duomo soprano Ferrari portrayed a “Cherubino,” as the conductor and dramatic stimulus to all the musical action; thus there was literally a “Cherubino Ferrari” both “on stage” and “backstage.” The lability of gender was also apparent, as adult men played all three (angels, male martyrs, virgins), united by song. In its necessarily urban components—the numbers of musicians employed, the use of the streets as theater, and the role of individual entrepreneurship—Ferrari’s musical spectacle was one of the most place-specific events of its time.
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Although there would never be a successor on its scale, a generation later Muzio Sforza’s widow set up a smaller repeat.173 On 24 June 1632, a few months after the public proclamation of the plague’s end, another Marian procession financed and arranged by her traced the same route, with young women, the confraternity, the trombetti, and the image of the Madonna “con la musica piu` migliore si potra` fare.” All the processions, then, generated polyphony, sometimes of an experimental kind. In some cases, the transport of objects (the Chiodo, the Host) sanctified routes and sites in the city; in others (the Lesser Litanies, 1 January), the city’s representatives themselves demarcated common pathways and goals. But, whatever the level of visual representation involved, the sonic marking of urban space was evidently absolutely essential to the completion of the ritual. In the long view, the communicative status of polyphony itself underwent remarkable transformation, from an accessory phenomenon in the 1582 events, to an increasingly important medium of affect in the Barnabites’ enactment, and finishing with its centrality in the Carmelites’ mobile spectacle.
Passages Other extraordinary events with corporate music-making were the commemorations of a sovereign’s or prelate’s passing from the earthly to the celestial Jerusalem, and their solemn entrances, like Margaret’s. Everyday funerals probably used only the chant antiphons. But the deaths of important figures evoked major funerary pomp in the cathedral and silence in the rest of the city.174 The exequies included those for Queen Anne of Austria (1581), Gaspare Visconti (1594), Philip II, Margaret, Philip III (1621), Queen Isabella of Spain (1644), Prince Balthazar (1647), and Monti.175 The 1589 Ambrosian sacramentary provided separate services for the funerals of the laity, of clerics, and of children under seven.176 For the first, six printed antiphons were to be sung by parish confraternity members accompanying the corpse to church, with another eight for the procession to the cemetery after Mass, and four more for the graveside service. Matins (three Nocturns) and Lauds featured partially idiosyncratic antiphon, psalm, and responsory texts, and were to be performed before Mass. The Ambrosian Requiem Mass also featured unique items: Requiem aeternam was the Ingressa and Domine Jesu Christe the Offertory, but the Psalmellus De profundis, the Cantus Domine exaudi orationem meam, the Confractorium Audivi vocem de caelo, and the Transitorium Ego sum resurrectio were all specific to Milan, along with the addition of text to the third petition of the Agnus Dei.177 Furthermore, Libera me, Domine was the Offertory for the Mass celebrated on the day of the actual burial, as opposed to commemorative anniversaries. Here, however, the growing importance of funerary music had tangible results; the printed Requiems are by G. D. Rognoni (1624) and Grancini (1644).178 The latter contains the Ingressa, Cantus (split so as to flank the Gospel), Offerenda, Sanctus, an Adoramus te Christe for the Elevation, Confractorium, Agnus, and the respond In paradisum/Tu Dominus.179 The most famous funeral was that of Carlo Borromeo on 7 November 1584. A large-scale citywide procession wound its way through the streets, with singers performing the psalms of the Office of the Dead.180 Most of its polyphony is not pre-
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served, but Gabussi in the three days between the death and the ceremony composed a text, Defecit gaudium cordi nostri, taken from the Prayer of Jeremiah (Lam. 5:15– 17), an eight-voice setting quite literally appropriate for the singers in the Duomo: “Joy has left our heart, our chorus has been turned into mourning, the crown has fallen from our heads; woe is us, for we have sinned; thus our heart has turned to grief in sorrow, thus our eyes have been darkened.”181 The motet’s words echoed those of the exordium of Francesco Panigarola’s famous funeral sermon given in the same service: “And behold, O Milanesi, your and my cardinal is dead; behold, our crown has fallen; our dawn has vanished, our light has been extinguished, and I am unhappy and miserable.”182 There are few better examples of the interrelation between sermons and motets, for all the many times they are mentioned together in the sources. Gabussi’s motet takes as its point of departure a descending tetrachord, undergirding the first textual phrase. The exordium ends on a secondary modal step (Bb in mode 2 transposed), and the exclamation of woe is set by long, unexpected chords as the narratio begins. The sorrow of the collective heart moved Gabussi to the furthest chromatic turns possible on the flat side in the mode (mid-phrase Abs in a passage that begins and ends on G, at “moestum factum es”; ex. 5.4), and the piece ends with the stately declamation of the beginning. It thus recalls the often surprising local chromaticism familiar from Caimo’s madrigals, inserted in formal, almost classicizing, structures for an extremely public occasion. Its gestures are very much of the moment of the 1580s in the city. Anne’s rites had set the pattern for all the royal commemorations; although the sovereign’s body was not present, the music needed to be appropriate to the rank of the departed. The catafalque and the apparato in the cathedral were designed by Tibaldi, and on 6 September the procession started from the ducal court and the archbishop’s residence.183 At the ceremony, with all the court and city officials seated around the altar (despite Carlo’s efforts to keep them out), the musical emphasis was on Matins and Lauds. After the cardinal intoned the Pater Noster, the canonico ordinario began the first antiphon of the first Nocturn. All three Nocturns featured their three lessons from Job in alternating-choir chant, and the two responsories (Accipimus bona and Antequam comedam; Induta est caro mea and Paucitas dierum meorum; and Libera me Domine and Non timebis, anima) were evidently done by the polyphonic singers in the same way, except that the canonico and Carlo intoned the opening of the last two. The Miserere that followed also sounded in polyphony, and the other psalms of Matins were in chant. The antiphons for the first three psalms and the canticle of Lauds, along with those texts, also sounded in polyphony. Carlo then said Mass, with the singers “responding,” probably the major items of the service. The striking features of the musical punctuation of the services were the large forces required relative to the Duomo’s norm (with the Scala’s ensemble probably added) and the extreme regularity of the ceremony, not to mention the amount of music involved. Margaret’s commemoration in 1611 recalled her virtues on display in the city: her devotion, fidelity, charity, and prudence.184 Her catafalque was placed under the first arch of the nave. Since Gabussi had died, someone else (Lucino, Binago, or Domenico Rognoni, the last named as maestro in the ducal court for the first time) must have been in charge of the polyphony; the ensemble did the second psalm
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(Domine, ne in ira tua) of the first Nocturn, sang all the responsories, and the rest of the Office in double choirs. Mass, said by Federigo, involved three polyphonic choirs, and the procession afterwards went to the Madonna dell’Albero and then to the catafalque, on whose corners musicians were placed. None of the music seems to have survived, unless Rognoni’s Ambrosian Requiem was composed on this occasion. Noteworthy is the greater number of polyphonic items in the ceremony, compared with earlier exequies. Philip III’s passing in 1621 took place amidst crisis, as the first wave of the financial downturn in Lombardy had begun. Still, the preparations were extensive; in April, the governor Feria called for citywide mourning, and, in the context of efforts to promote urban penance, Federigo ordered all the nuns of the city to recite an Office of the Dead every day.185 In the void created by Lambrugo’s new position at the Scala and G. D. Rognoni’s evidently failing health, Pellegrini entrepreneurially placed himself in Vecchi’s role of 1598, that of being responsible for the music and composing new pieces, employing his own (and probably all other available) singers.
155
ri tes an d ritua ls example 5.4 41
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Continued
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On 18 May 1621 he asked the court for authority to use four choirs, forty-eight singers, uniting the Scala and the Duomo, and hiring the rest, given that the church was vast, the crowd large, and no instruments, not even organ, were to be used (Doc. 13). The request was granted; four stands were set up the day before, and on 7 June an enormous procession of clergy and urban administration made its way into the cathedral, where the catafalque had been erected in the nave. In the ceremony, the second psalm of each Nocturn was again sung in polyphony, and the expanded ensemble sang the responsories, plus the Miserere, Laudate psalm cycle, and canticle of Lauds.186 After this Federigo said prayers, the final psalm Domine, exaudi was recited by the clerics, and Federigo sang the Mass, again “answered” by the ensemble. If Rognoni’s Requiem was not composed or revived for this occasion, then most of the music is lost. Pellegrini’s nine-voice Libera me, sitting oddly amidst the 1623 Ambrosian litany settings, could have been sung, probably as a motet at Mass.187 The funerary doxologies for the Ambrosian litanies appearing in the 1623 Litaniae ambrosianae, et romanae are likely to have been added by Pellegrini for the procession
156
at t it ude s a nd ac t i o ns example 5.4 46
C
A
&b ˙ ˙ w
bw
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in
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cor
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w.
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Continued
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in
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of the seven churches ending at S. Ambrogio on 16 June after the rites. One other piece, Pietro Giussani’s setting of the first three verses of Psalm 62, Deus, Deus meus (1626), may also have been composed or sung on the procession or during the exequies. On 8 July Pellegrini still had not been repaid; he sent a note to the court reminding it that Philip II’s funeral had only involved two choirs, whereas those for his successor had featured four. Payment followed two days later, despite the financial crisis of the court.188 The 1644 rites for Isabella were also marked by important visual display and the composition of new music (the catafalque and decoration are shown in fig. 5.2). Again, the date was picked so as to coincide with that of Margaret’s in 1611, and some of the decoration recalled hers. Turati composed the six eight-voice responsories that were sung. These had to be copied so fast that four or five different hands are responsible for the versions in MdC 9/6. In order, they are: Accepimus bona; Antequam comedam; Induta est caro mea; Paucitas dierum meorum; Libera me Domine Deus; Non timebis anima.189 Turati also set a four-choir Ambrosian Requiem (Missa in exequiis), actually only eight real parts with the usual choir doubling (I⫹III; II⫹IV).190
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figure 5.2 G. P. Bianchi, Catafalque for Queen Isabella of Spain, Milan, 1644 (by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University)
The most striking aspect of funerals is the extreme fixity of the actual rite, including the processions and seating ceremonies, in conjunction with the changing imagery of the catafalques, the different themes of the emblems, and the new music composed for each. Also clear is the increasing role of polyphony, not only in terms of ensemble sizes, but its function of demarcating the Office and responding to the celebrant at Mass, probably the only thing heard by the crowds in the nave around the catafalque. The series of royal or episcopal entries began with Visconti’s in 1585, continuing
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with Federigo’s in 1595, the double visit of Margaret and Isabella/Albert in 1598–99, those of the governors (Hinojosa in 1612, Ferdinand in 1633), followed by Monti in 1635 and Maria Anna in 1649). With the events and music appropriate to his status, Visconti was welcomed with a preparatory Mass (Terce and Sext also sung) in the Duomo the morning of 22 July 1585, followed by the “sacred” version of the entrance route, starting from Porta Ticinese and continuing through S. Eustorgio, as Ecce sacerdos magnus and Benedictus Dominus Deus sounded in the streets. The long procession with the civic officials was followed by an arrival in the Duomo with the usual Te Deum, possibly the setting a 4 that Gabussi would print in his 1589 edition.191 The very first motet in the maestro’s 1586 collection, dedicated to the archbishop, set another unusual text, a Passiontide responsory that seems to welcome the successor to Carlo and his efforts for the lowly of the city: “Let all who have known Your name hope in You, Lord, for you have not abandoned those who seek you; sing to the Lord who dwells in Zion, for He has not forgotten the prayer of the poor.”192 The festivities went on for a week, as the advent blended into the visit of the four Catholic Japanese daı¨myo, who arrived on their tour of Italy that 25 July, remaining until 3 August.193 Their experience at Visconti’s first pontifical Mass, on Sts. Nazarus and Celsus’ feast (28 July), must have included the Duomo’s forces, although the diary only recorded the singers at the second major celebration, that of St. Calimerius on 31 July.194 But on the very first day of their stay, they stopped for a moment of prayer in S. Maria, the church of the Jesuit college of Brera where they were lodged, and a motet was sung for them.195 Similarly, in the Castello the following day, they heard a polyphonic mass.196 Like the funerals, the entries featured different thematics and different kinds of music. Little records, and no music, of Federigo’s entrance on 27 April 1595 survive. After Margaret, the ceremonies for the return of Isabella and Albert on 5 July 1599 seem to have generated a good deal of theater and its music, all of which seems to be lost.197 The tradition ceased for a generation. After the plague, it resumed, with the 1632 entry of Teodoro Trivulzio, Ferdinand in 1633, Monti in 1635, and Maria Anna of Austria. Monti’s arrival slightly anticipated the Chiodo festivals; the artificial mountain erected for the occasion featured musicians playing instrumental genres, while Donati hired a Fra Nicola from S. Marco and Grancini’s father to fill in.198 The two visits of autumn 1624 could not have been more different. In November, Władisław IV Wasa of Poland remained a few days, largely incognito, visiting (like many foreigners) the female houses for their music.199 The first shrine he visited, however, was S. Ambrogio, and then on the evening of 17 November, he went to the Theatines’ church of S. Antonio for the beatification of Andrea Avellino, and heard music. Two days later, he went to S. Simpliciano and heard unspecified music by the best city musicians in his honor; he later visited the performance spaces in the Palazzo Ducale. Four months earlier, extraordinary measures were taken for the very public presence of Archduke Karl of Austria, Bishop of Bratislava, and his sister Maria Maddalena, the musical duchess of Tuscany. Their entrance on 19 July occasioned four-voice music, and then special rites were held on 21 July, in which they were greeted by twelve torches and double-choir music.200 The Nail was brought down in
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an unusual gesture, and Federigo gave the duchess relics of Sts. Calimerius, Martha, and Mary Magdalen.201 The visit also occasioned several dedications to the archduke, including Girolamo Ferrari’s (Mondondone) Op. 1 Vespers and Francesco Rognoni’s Missae et motecta a 4–5, Op. 9, inscribed in advance on 1 March. The titular saint of the musical duchess was the unnamed addressee of a poetic text in Rognoni’s edition, all the more appropriate for the vigil of her saint’s feast day: “The north wind blew and banished the south wind when the dew of the Holy Spirit washed the heart of the penitent Mary; the word sent [from the Paraclete] dissolved it and remade it resolute in its laments; the flow of that river filled the city of God with joy.”202 Although there is little evidence for music at baptisms, an exception was made on the feast of the Assumption in 1599 for the christening of a Jewish noblewoman from the Ottoman empire, brought to Milan by her Christian son. This was held at S. Maria Podone, and the ceremony for the newly named Maria Margarita de Campo was preceded and followed by double-choir motets.203 Music punctuated the promise of Cantone’s Audite me, the births of heirs to the throne. The festivities in 1605 for the future Philip IV began on 16 April, with a Te Deum and Marian Mass in the Duomo followed by the general procession of the collegiate chapters and the mendicants singing the Ambrosian hymn en route to S. Maria presso S. Celso. After Sunday Mass, which featured motets at the Credo, the confraternities of the disciplinati sang the same hymn and psalms, echoed by the celebrations in the female houses.204 On 27 April, however, the Scala’s canons made their own feast day, greeting the governor at the door of the church with trumpets, outdoing the Duomo by singing the same items with three choirs, with trumpets and mortars going off at the Elevation, illuminating the church at night and deploying the castle’s brass, viols, and other instruments, together with trumpets and mortars on top of the campanile for the evening feast. None of this music seems to have survived, unless it was such a piece as Limido’s setting of the text from Wisdom referring to flowering, Florete flores a 6 from Berti’s anthology of 1610. The Aggiunta nuova of 1612 opens with a solo motet by Ardemanio that boldly reworks a standard Introit text for clear welcoming purposes, in honor of such a birth, or the governor, or both: “Let us all rejoice and exult in the Lord, celebrating a feast day, for he who was desired has come, whose face the whole world desires; rejoice, you peoples, sing and exult; play to God with the cithara, with pipes and the sound of the trumpet, alleluia.”205 The celebration continued all spring; the shoemakers’ procession of 7 May featured musicians on the cart, with dialect verses for the occasion (a bosinata, which recalled Margaret’s entry) improvised by Oliviero Pietrasanta. On 14 May there was another Mass of the Holy Spirit at S. Maria, with again no obvious music from the shrine’s repertory other than the general pieces from Cima’s 1610 collection, such as the five-voice setting of the Transfiguration text Misericordias tuas, Domine. The festivities continued in June, with cornetts and masked violone players.206 The rejoicing for Philip’s son, Prince Balthasar, in 1629–30 began at S. Maria presso S. Celso, continuing at the Duomo and in the piazzas, with carts, theatrical entertainments, and music.
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The Plague and Its Aftermath These gatherings led to special occasions of ritual that none could have predicted. The measures taken to combat the plague are familiar from Manzoni’s I promessi sposi: processions, Masses, and the invocation of Carlo’s efforts against the pestilence of 1576. It would have been easiest to sing the massive catalogue of saints given in the Ambrosian plague litanies to the simple formulas of Gabussi printed in the 1623 litany collection, although no direct evidence survives for such performances in summer 1630.207 The epidemic in the city is most musically evident in the texts of four motets from Grancini’s Sacri fiori concertati of 1631. Two are for the symbolic number of seven voices (and Civitatem nostram has been discussed above): Quam vilis (a 2): O how you have become ugly and deformed, you daughter of Jerusalem; before, you were whiter than snow, milder than milk, more beautiful than sapphire, more precious than gold. Alas, now you have become blacker than carbon, for you have gone with many lovers. Seek the good, flee sin, listen to that sweetest voice.208 Vox exultationis (a 7): The voice of exultation and health has said: the right hand of the Lord has shown strength in the tabernacle of the just; His right hand has exalted me. I shall not die, but live, and tell the works of the Lord. Alleluia.209
But the text that most obviously parallels the extreme measures taken in 1630, among them the exhumation of Carlo’s body and its transportation through the city, evoked sanctoral prestige: O sol et salus Carole (a 2): O Charles, light and salvation, O light and love, O brightness and honor, O glory of Milan, saint Charles: look down from heaven, father, see your people afflicted and abandoned; how many evils they suffer, hunger, plague, and war. Good father, merciful defender, holy father, dear father, from heaven visit your people devoted to you, and free us from all evil.210
The passionate language from Jeremiah and the Song of Songs in O quam vilis linked the plague-afflicted city to two Jerusalems: that of the Old Testament and that of Christian eschatology. The origin of Grancini’s pieces is unclear: he was working at S. Sepolcro and S. Ambrogio for most of the time. The immediate occasion for Civitatem nostram and Quam vilis was the shock of deaths in summer and autumn 1630, while Vox exultationis may be a more personal thanksgiving for recovery, since the formal end of the plague was not declared in the city until 1632.211 That declaration was underscored by the first festive urban event since the 1630 celebrations: the Franciscans’ procession on 11 June 1632 for the feast of St. Barnabas, anticipating the path of Corpus Domini.212 Cocchi could have provided the music, as the Franciscans reasserted their role as urban protectors and celebrants of the corporate welfare. The order also took part in the citywide procession of thanks to S. Maria presso S. Celso two months later, on the Vigil of the Assumption; Regio noted that both the cathedral singers and the friars sang the Magnificat in the streets. The
ri tes an d ritua ls
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ceremony was capped by the cathedral’s singers performing litanies at the shrine’s high altar.213 Like the events earlier in the decade, the procession of 4 November 1638, agreed upon by both the governor and Monti as a remedy against discord among Catholic princes, again involved the new protector’s body (fig. 5.3).214 The presence of the musicians, as in Margaret’s entrance, attempted to make the city portray heaven: “After the collegiate [clergy], there came in front of the cathedral a numerous and well-organized squad of musicians, which opened an airhole to heaven for the ear with their sweet and harmonious concert, and this [Milanese] church, an important member of the Church Militant, became a simulacrum of the Church Triumphant, seeming a portable paradise under a majestic baldachino.”215 The curia ordered that Urbis parentem Carolum be sung along the route running from the Duomo to the Piazza de’ Mercanti, the Cordusio, and the contrade of the Armaroli, Ratti, Orifici, and Vitorello. The procession also marked the first swing toward episcopal control of the cathedral music after Donati’s death, as Monti reimposed the ban on instruments, in the first gesture of a somewhat more restrictive music policy: “There was eight-choir singing after Vespers in sweet and harmonious melody with only voices and organ, as the holy order of the glorious shepherd [Carlo] had recently been renewed by decree of the Most Eminent Archbishop. This prohibits all other instruments in church, which with their concert, instead of invigorating the
figure 5.3 Anonymous, Procession for Peace among Christian Princes, Milan, 4 November 1638 (by permission of Civica Raccolta delle Stampe “A. Bertarelli,” Milan)
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soul to the steep path of true virtue, weaken it to give way to the precipitous decline of vice, and taking admiration away from God, give it to His creatures.”216 These extraordinary events combined with the standing institutions to provide the opportunities for a structure on which a musician could build a career, a way in which urban practice led to urban profession.
6 Il mestiere di musico
The circumstances of a musician’s life differed, often dramatically, from the prestige of his institution, while a professional training, from choirboy to maestro, seemed anything but systematic. The arrangements, connections, and support that musicians attempted to establish rendered them dependent on employers, patrons, and printers in the city. And the grammatical gender of these sentences underscores the initial impression that most public performers, outside the women’s religious houses and the occasional theatrical event, were indeed male. But the evidence of dedications and the practice of domestic music suggest that the distribution of music between the sexes was more complex than appears.
Professionalism A musician belonged to no formal guild (paratice). Rather, an individual’s relations with an institution were governed by the concept of servitu`, even at the time a poorly defined idea that entailed major temporal commitments and basic competence for singers or organists. In 1624, the Duomo’s tenor Bartolomeo Pegacesi, who had quit in 1621–22 on the basis of unspecified “disgusto” with Pellegrini, reapplied for his job, partially contrite, and promising a new and diligent service to the choirmaster.1 This evidently meant showing up for services, obeying the maestro, wearing cassocks (at least at the cathedral), and generally contributing to the smooth running of things. Despite the obligations, the most basic aspect of employment was the antiabsolute nature of servitu`. Even the most demanding job in the city, that of maestro at the Duomo, allowed for a little outside work, teaching, and composing.2 Most documents—permissions, problems, and punishments—in the entire period have to do with absences caused by the moonlighting of singers. A formal licenza was fairly rare, but the low pay, possibility of being fired, and general uncertainty of employment led them to leave anyway, calculating the financial gain from singing at another city church (or even as far away as Monza or Bergamo), compared with the possible docking of salary for missing a feast day, and, more broadly, alienating the deputies.3 163
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Thus their status, caught between the fixed schedule of an institution and the open but insufficient market of the occasional festivity, shared traits of both the artisan and the free urban tradesperson. The earliest documentation for leaves from a regular job is found at S. Maria presso S. Celso in 1583–84. The licenza was already in place, as in the case of one singer at the shrine who was allowed to go to S. Francesco in 1590 with some regularity.4 But absences soon became a problem, especially when the maestro himself went elsewhere (as Berti did often in 1598); services fell apart, and thus licenze became much more difficult to obtain. At the cathedral, the normal fine was a scudo per miss for absences without permission, about a fifth of the monthly salary.5 As in Rome, records were kept somewhat haphazardly by a puntatore at both the shrine and the cathedral.6 In the post-plague vacuum of musicians (hence a time of increased opportunities for those who had survived), the Duomo repeatedly considered other measures to restrain singers, or to keep them from leaving early when the polyphony at Vespers (i.e., the Pater Noster) was done. On the feast of St. Joseph (19 March) of 1631, the few survivors of the plague did just that, probably in order to get to another job that evening at Second Vespers at S. Giuseppe.7 Choir size could not be guaranteed for minor feasts.8 Adding to the uncertainty of daily musical life were the disputes, professional or personal, on the cantorie, most dramatically the battle between the Nantermis and Cima at S. Maria presso S. Celso, which spelled an end to musical prominence for an entire family. Even guest singers could get into trouble, as Berti found out in 1595 by assaulting, possibly accidentally, one Bartolomeo Nava during Vespers at the parish of San Carpoforo on the feast of the Invention of the Cross.9 The references to prison time in Fabio Varese’s poetry reflect how such disputes could end, and give a sense of the precarious social status of most city singers.10 The ongoing squabbles between the two organists were another problem at the Duomo. Although Arnone and Borgo seemed to have gotten along until the latter’s death in 1623, Biumi was far more combative. Together with Pellegrini, he was bitterly opposed to the senior organist’s attempts to insert his son into the ranks of supplementary organists for major feasts in the late 1620s, and the junior organist’s complaints continued even after the cataclysm of the plague year.11 In 1636, Grancini claimed the right to the Valvassori organ, essentially demanding the position of first organist.12 The two regularly attacked each other, as the fines, petitions, and general rivalry continued until Biumi’s retirement in 1651. Conflict was also possible in the relationships between musicians and their patrons, the most obvious case being that of Pellegrini. With the amount of time he spent composing for the large liturgical settings dear to Federigo, he must have found himself caught between the demands of his supporter and those of his employer, the chapter. For the latter, the competent running of services had priority over such episcopal projects as the codification of polyphony. Given Pellegrini’s background as a canon in Pesaro, and lack of previous experience in the cathedral-confraternity system (unlike Gabussi or Donati), he may simply have made the mistake of satisfying the former, a choice that would have seemed natural given Pellegrini’s Roman ties. His dedication of the 1623 litany collection to the rector and prefects, despite its
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flattering references to the Provincia’s work in maintaining and decorating the cathedral, helped him not at all two years later when the board disciplined him severely. The difference between clerical and lay musicians, as well, had little effect on servitu`. Despite their more plebeian origin, there is no evidence of any interchange between the chanters of the capitolo minore and the specialists in polyphony. The former were perforce clerics, while the musical chapel became increasingly more lay, Carlo’s attempts to clericalize the cappella having encountered the reality of finding available and competent singers.13 That a canonry elsewhere was preferable to the daily duties was evident from Girolamo Vimercato’s departure from the vice-maestro post at the cathedral, leaving for S. Babila in May 1639.14 Although musicians normally worked as individuals, the three Roman singers that Donati brought in at the end of his tenure sometimes acted corporately. Pier Santo Gentile, Carlo Pesenti, and Giovanni Battista Rossi arrived after a week’s journey on 8 October 1637 as part of the maestro’s upgrading of the chapel. They operated as a unit for licenze, often together with Felice Mangiarotti.15 The castrato Rossi remained in service until his death or retirement, as he is documented as late as 1677.16 The opposite case of an alliance gone wrong had taken place in 1634, when the Duomo singers Deffendente Salicetti and Ottavio Tansi left for Turin, only to have Tansi to return and beg readmittance the next year, claiming that he had been “ingannato et sedutto” by his companion.17 The prerogatives were evident in a dispute between Gentile and Grancini at the Chiodo festivities of 1651, in which the singer ran afoul of the new maestro.18 The occasion became a battle between Grancini and one of the best-paid singers in the chapel, who had been brought specially by Donati and served under two other maestri without apparent problem. Gentile claimed that Grancini had promised to prefer him (i.e., apportion solos) over the guest singers, but then reneged. At Second Vespers, the maestro actually anticipated Gentile’s part, afterwards censuring him and attempting to dock his pay. The singer complained directly to the archpriest Ludovico Settala, who absolved him of any wrongdoing and paid him.19 For all the disputes, a sense of group solidarity did prevail in certain ensembles at certain times, most clearly among the highest-paid and most permanently employed singers at the Duomo. In the 1590s, Scarabelli’s dedication of his motets and Borgo’s entitling of six canzonas to various colleagues bespoke a level of common purpose. On the first anniversary of Carlo’s death, and for Margaret’s return visit to the cathedral (with a largely female audience, and the participation of Archduke Albert’s ministriles from the Brussels court chapel) on 9 December 1598, Casati noted the singers’ performance approvingly.20 Under Federigo’s tenure, the chapter approved funds for ordaining six ensemble members to the priesthood, as well as a pension for six aged singers, the only provision of its kind outside the papal chapel (Doc. 10).21 In another attack on singers’ moonlighting, candidates had to promise to take no service elsewhere. The sense of reciprocity was often subtle: the ways in which singers held together in the face of a demanding maestro (like Grancini), or the appeals of Fabio Varese to his colleagues noted below. At a higher level, the borrowing of singers and organists between the Duomo and S. Maria presso S. Celso testifies to ways in which
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city institutions tacitly cooperated for examinations, major feasts, and extraordinary events. Milan’s musical places, then, substituted in part for the cooperation that the paratici provided for the larger trades of the city. Besides the performers, the musically productive capacity of the city was reflected in its artisans. Il Cheribizo (1624), a dialect poem surveying the city’s professions, listed among its categories (after booksellers and engravers) those who made lutes, citterns, violins, organs, harpsichords, drums, and all other instruments.22 That Galeazzo Sirena, in 1609, envisioned combining the artisanal labor of an instrument-builder with the professional obligation of a maestro at the Scala gives some sense of the possible overlap among the careers.23 Still, the number of actual craftsmen seems to have been relatively low.24 But like the other trades, the centrality of family for musicians was undisputed. The transmission of the profession by clan—the Nantermis, Cimas, Rognonis, Cingardis, Arnones, and Grancinis—is clear; G. P. Cima had his sons Giulio Cesare and Carlo Antonio sing at his shrine (in 1616–18 and 1621–26, respectively), evidently in an attempt to colonize the jobs for his family as had the Nantermis. Another child, Giovanni Battista, survived the plague, published an edition in 1626, and went on to a minor career as an organist in Chiavenna.25 In the last years of his life, Arnone risked conflict at the Duomo in order to get his son a foot in the door. Family training was evidently also essential for those girls destined for lives as cloistered musicians.26 That kinship was tied to property and mores was, however, evident in the different place of illegitimate offspring. Two weeks before inscribing his motets of 1599, Cima arranged for the baptism of his first child out of wedlock, a mark not so much of personal immorality as of male behavior in his social position.27 That some of the texts he set are strongly penitential did not stop him from having at least one other illegitimate child. His behavior was actually normative (for men), and compatible with real religious sentiment.
Training and Career Although families were essential for basic music instruction, city institutions provided instruction that substituted and surpassed domestic transmission of the art. A significant portion of the Duomo maestro’s time was spent training the boys in not only the rudiments of music but also presumably reading, Latin, and liturgy. Some of the children came from relatively poor families, and their membership in the schola opened the possibility, at least, for a better career, musical, clerical, or among the other free professions.28 One case of the security provided by training at the Duomo was evident in the request by the printer Rolla, who at the end of his life reminded the cathedral deputies of his services thirty-two years before in printing the 1619 volumes, and asked for a place for his son Carlo Francesco (Doc. 24).29 The boy had learned how to sing, and had served gratis for six months, a fairly common practice among choir scholars hoping to obtain a paid place.30 By the end of the period, the system worked for some. Giovanni Ferrario, a tenor at the Duomo from 1646, and vice-maestro from 1664 to his retirement in 1676,
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had begun as a soprano from 1638 to 1644. Similarly, Giovanni Francesco Grianti, vice-maestro from 1686 to 1715, had become a putto in 1655. These men provided continuity and stability to the chapel over several generations, and their training is a testament to Turati and Grancini’s pedagogy.31 The work of the maestre di canto figurato in the female houses, together with the semi-licit importation of male musicians, gave novices and young nuns some training, for performance techniques if not usually for composition. Music education for girls not bound to the profession of religious vows was found at the Collegio della Guastalla, the institute for twenty-five young women educated for twelve years by twentytwo governesses. Marta Ferrari’s service as head of music around 1600 seems to be the only explicit testimony to instruction there.32 Once a young man had achieved professional status, salaries were sufficient to support a family in good times, especially around 1600. In 1592, several musicians lived in the prosperous metalworkers’ contrade of the parish of S. Maria Beltrade.33 Guglielmo Berti, whose other profession was as a bookseller, resided with his wife, child, and mother-in-law, and a tenant family, in the well-off section of S. Sisto.34 Others lived in the poorer districts in the southern part of town around Porta Ticinese.35 But the most striking economic effect of partial servitu` was the way in which musicians wages were often frozen for a long time, especially among the singers and organists with less bargaining power than a maestro. Furthermore, all the guesting left less trace in the documentary record (with the exception of the Salve service payments to Orazio Nantermi in the 1590s, probably important extra income for a layman with children), and so it is probably not possible to calculate any musician’s real income. The best data for inflation date from the seventeenth century, indicating a rise in food staples around 1608, a drop, and then another rise around 1629, with the same pattern repeating over the next twenty years.36 Thus the requests from Gabussi, Cima, and Pellegrini seem to relate to real loss of buying power, even though only the organist had to worry about feeding a family. In the later 1620s requests for advances became a commonplace, not only for married laymen with children but even for clerics.37 Pay at the fiscally troubled ducal institutions was often in arrears.38 Although it is difficult to chart wages against the cost of living in the city, the inevitable requests for raises synchronize roughly with the economic downturns, notably that of 1619–22; Cima started asking for advances in 1619. As the decade worsened, culminating in the disastrous famine (and Martinmas revolt) of 1629, the requests came in from all over, even from Pellegrini, the best-paid musician in the city, who had at his disposal an income from Pesaro and no family to support (Doc. 15).39 Donati noted the “difficolta` de’ tempi presenti” on 21 June 1632, while two years later Vimercato had to remind the deputies that they had not given him a salary increase, despite the raises given to other singers in 1631.40 At this point, Donati was making L. 1,500 a year, more than twice his deputy’s salary.41 The economic difficulties notwithstanding, the possibilities for social advancement are evident from the lives of two ducal performers. Francesco Rognoni’s service to the court brought him the Habsburg titles of a papal knight and count palatine, stations that mixed oddly with his more humble jobs on the title page of his 1624 masses and motets. As noted, the print was dedicated to Karl of Austria, bishop of
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Wrocław and brother of Emperor Ferdinand II (who probably conferred the awards).42 The will of G. B. Ardemanio, written toward the end of his life in 1644, testifies to his long service at the Scala, his rise in status due to his association with the ducal church, and his concern for his wife and children (Doc. 20). For both these men, servitu` meant rising from an instrumentalist to places among the better-off artisans or merchants of the city. The prestige, and needs, of the Duomo’s maestro provided him with a rent-free house in the Campo Santo, the workshop area behind the cathedral. It was normally shared with students, as a 1610 parish report lists three people in Gabussi’s dwelling, including his nephew and a Flemish Riccardo. Two singers, Giacomo Filippo Ferrari and G. B. Bonometti, the latter soon off to Graz, lived nearby, probably in a house belonging to the Fabbrica.43 Donati was able to live in the decaying dwelling with only his daughter, an evidently illiterate woman probably left destitute by his death, as her petitions for her father’s scores in the following years suggest.44 In 1634, Francesco Fedele was given living space next to the maestro’s lodgings. After his death, Turati requested to take the latter over in December 1649, at a time when his own health must have been failing (Doc. 22). Six weeks after Turati’s demise, Mangiarotti and the bass Sebastiano Lanzone asked for the room.45 The price for a maestro’s prestige was high. After Gabussi and Pellegrini’s constant problems, even Donati begged for time off, as three and a half years of intensive work had not left him the time to leave the city even once.46 The pedagogical duties were endless. Crivelli’s petition for a licenza to quit in June 1641 notes the requirement to compose (a mass, Magnificat, and Pater every month), but also the duties of teaching the eight boys (plus others) twice a day, in the small room attached to the maestro’s lodgings.47 During the transition periods between maestri, Lucino in 1611 and Vimercato in 1631 took over teaching, while Blacino served for six months in the Crivelli—Turati interim in 1641, and Agostino Guerrieri for fourteen weeks after his teacher’s death in 1650.48 The position of vice-maestro at the Duomo had no real counterpart elsewhere. From Scarabelli to Lucino, Corradi, Vimercati, and Blacino, these singers must have trained for their duties as deputies on the job before actually taking the post, and every one (after Scarabelli) had served in the cathedral chapel for some time before being selected by the deputies.49 Besides deputizing, this post included the preparation and selection of music for the archive, and evidently its composition in times of need.50 Outside the cathedral, the uncertainties of life were evident in the fate of Orazio Nantermi. After being forced out at S. Maria presso S. Celso, he disappeared from any known job. Likewise, Stefanini’s relatively brief stay at the Scala must have been so unsatisfactory as to induce him to leave the city and move somewhere around 1609. He surfaced in Rome three years later, and eventually wound up with a very modest position, directing only a few singers with important music only several times per year.51 The duties of the average organist at a “second-tier” church were evident at S. Maria Segreta. Despite the Somascans’ musical activity in their collegio, the parish continued the earlier practice of hiring an outsider.52 The contract of 1593 (Doc. 5) obliged Enrico to play at Mass and Vespers of all (duplex) feasts, and at Compline of the movable feasts (Easter, Christmas, Pentecost, Assumption, St. John the Baptist),
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and during the daily procession during the Octave of Corpus Christi, as well as on the feast of Sts. Hugh and Alexius, far from a full-time job. A year later, the equally unknown Giovanni Francesco dei Papi was hired under roughly the same conditions.53 Frequent changes among organists at this level were common. At the beginning of the period, there seems to have been an important distinction between the qualities of a maestro and those of keyboard players. The former, betterpaid and more prestigious, was essentially a singer, capable of improvisation against both canto fermo and figurato, with an excellent (often tenor) voice and the ability to run an ensemble; examples include Gabussi, Orazio Nantermi, and Vecchi. The cultural level, musical abilities, and pay scale of an organist were not the same; they were largely called on to read from parts or score, improvise alternatim, and later accompany the choir from the basso per l’organo parts that began to be produced from 1598 by both Tini and Tradate. The dispute in autumn 1629 between Pellegrini and Arnone highlighted the status of each. The maestro must have spent the few free hours of the cathedral’s titular day in writing the chapter about the “affronto notabile” he had received from the organist, who was accused of trying to take over Pellegrini’s job out of mercenary interest and against the proper servitu` of the cathedral (Doc. 16). After the death of Pietro Maria Giussani, who had played the first regal on feste di precetto and on Carlo’s feast, Pellegrini had asked the young Turati to step in, as his skills were known to the whole city. Arnone tried to employ his son, and insulted the maestro. Pellegrini noted that the junior Arnone was not particularly proficient (as evidenced by his mediocre guesting among the Cistercians of Chiaravalle the preceding 20 August, with the Duomo’s singers present), and asked for his authority to be reaffirmed. Evidently the outcome went Pellegrini’s way. Due to cost, the growth of solo singing, and such organizational moves as the replacement of the Nantermis, however, the balance began to tip in favor of keyboardists. If Pellegrini and Donati were still traditional maestri, most of the new figures of the 1620s (Ala, Ardemanio, Biumi, Turati, Grancini) were employed as organists. By the time of Grancini’s election as maestro at the cathedral, the overwhelming majority of city composers (Porta, Marini, Teodoro Casati, Francesco Bagatti) were instrumentalists first and foremost. The story that this shift tells is one of the decline of sung improvisation in the city’s chapels, and a consequently greater weight on composed and printed polyphony. It elevated a keyboard player from a figure who could attain at best a subsidiary role to that of the mainstay of a chapel. In marked contrast, the female houses kept the old tradition of the maestra di coro, as their best singers continued to lead the ensembles until the end of the Seicento, while the organists in the larger monasteries were relatively unimportant.54 Violinists, cornettists, and lutenists are much harder to trace in the records, with the occasional exception of a Riccardo Rognoni or Stefano Limido. Some, like the trombonist and metalworker called to testify in the disputes over instrumentalists at S. Ambrogio, had other trades. Outside the ducal ensemble, even their numbers in the city are unclear. The city’s lutenists must have had a large public to teach and to introduce to fashionable instruments such as the Spanish guitar for which G. A. Colonna published his tablature books with their encomiastic madrigals by, and ded-
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ications to, patrician amateurs.55 But aside from Borsieri’s mention of Colonna and Diano, the latter renowned for bringing his instrument and diminutions into churches, there is little sense of the lutenist’s trade apart from that of any other instrumentalist.56 The Franciscans provided the exception to musicians’ dependence on the city. The friars interacted little with other urban composers, largely eschewing the urban anthologies, while dedicating pieces and prints to other Conventuals.57 With its professional mobility, the order provided a constant flow of individuals and repertory to the city outside the normal channels of urban employment. Their penchant for the publication of both serious and light genres of secular music, even well into their careers, was a mark of their functioning in the world.58 All this linked them strongly to the patriciate whose tombs they housed at S. Francesco. In a different way, nuns also functioned outside this system of education, urban choice, and generic classification. Due to the provision of their dowries and livelli, they existed outside the economic channels that conditioned male musicians’ lives, and their foundations looked corporately for alms because of the renown of their polyphony. Their training and practice were bound permanently to a single institution, in which disputes could be as serious, if not more so, than in any city foundation. Far more than any male musicians, their lives and their polyphony were subject to constant scrutiny by the curia or the religious superiors, and one of the most remarkable features of the entire musical culture is that, despite all odds, they managed to achieve the pinnacle of urban musical fame. The segregation of women into the cloisters, no matter how porous their enclosure, leads to a consideration of the normative status of male music-making. The strict separation of the sexes was parallel to Carlo’s broader efforts to enforce a similar division in church and city; it represented one of the most lasting musical effects of his reforms. Still, the prescriptive writings on behavior for musicians in the city should be read against the reality of an increasingly female population of performers linked to their relatives and admirers in the patrician districts. For all that the profession was male, the renown was increasingly female. The layers of urban musical professionalism are thus partially shrouded. At the top there were maestri at the three major sites, normally with experience elsewhere (Vecchi, Gabussi, Stefanini, Pellegrini, Donati), figures of high culture and relative prominence.59 On a second level, there were singers at the same institutions, ranging (sometimes within the same ensemble) from those with literary pretensions (like Varese) to the barely literate. Organists formed a parallel, if somewhat lower, caste. Beneath this, there was an entire, largely uncharted world of singers who got occasional work at the confraternities or the less musically important shrines, or the organists who never published a piece for lack of patronage or interest.60 The parochiality of most careers and long-term prospects is evident. No city performer had the contact with Arabic or Eastern Christian musical culture vouchsafed to the Novarese composer G. F. Alcarotto on his 1588 pilgrimage to the Holy Land.61 The spectacular biography of the captured lutenist Giulio Banfi, whose skills on lute (and presumably oud) supposedly won him a favored place at the vizier’s court of Tunis, is probably apocryphal.62 The 1596 expulsion of the Jews from the
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entire State of Milan forcibly removed the only other tradition of sacred music present in the area. The limits on even a male musician’s prospects were thus real, and the essentially local nature of most careers is striking. The few natives who went on to jobs in other places were in the religious orders (the Franciscans and the Cassinese Serafino Patta), while the promotion of locals to Duomo maestri had to wait for Turati in 1642. Given the external training of such figures as Arnone, and Federigo’s shipment of singers to Caccini around 1610 (see chap. 4), Milan seemed a somewhat isolated and troubled musical scene at the beginning of the period, which then evolved into a flourishing, self-sustaining, but also insular, urban culture by the end of Federigo’s tenure.
Living and Dying in the City Amidst the social conditions of music, it is rare to find some personalized insight. Two kinds of statements came from ducal musicians, the first the twenty-four dialect poems written by Fabio Varese. As singers went, Varese had a higher level of culture than was often the norm. He was born at some point around 1570.63 His sisters married, except for Giulia, who was also musically talented and became a Benedictine at the Monastero Maggiore, contributing to musical life there. Like others, at a young age he published a canzonetta volume (1592), and at some point in the decade became a singer in the ducal chapel, which (as noted) did not prohibit him from guesting at the Addolorata confraternity in S. Maria dei Servi. His service at court lasted for more than thirty years, as he died on 17 January 1630 (at about age sixty). The verses present an idealized poetic self, witty, poor, often in sexually charged situations, anything but preoccupied with musical duties. Despite his literary pretensions, Varese had (or pretended to have) ample experience of “low” city life, spending some time in prison, and consorting with prostitutes and street idlers. The verses are filled with the sounds of the busy, often violent neighborhood around his house in the parish of S. Stefano in Brolio, near the unloading dock of the Laghetto. Varese had at least one illegitimate child, and several canzoni are addressed, in more or less ribald terms, to women both of and above his social class. The musical metaphors are most obvious in his sonnet addressed to a singing lady (Doc. 12a), starting with the obvious ambiguity of cantus mollis/cantus durus, one that links male sexuality to the most commonplace aspects of music: To a Lady Who Sang Music It’s gotten into my head, dear lady, that we should perform a duo, you and I; but because it sounds badly in cantus mollis [“co ’l B.moll”], I want us to sing it raised up a tuono, with Bn. Here I have one cleffed out that goes up to E la mi, and is also easy to ornament, with its gruppetti on the string. This is no madrigal nor canzone, but a certain kind of measure to be beaten in proportion. Hear this augmented fourth that seems harsh, so you sweetly bring it down a semitone, especially if you speed up the rhythm. Strike it without fear, practice it with the maestro di cappella, and he’ll dissolve in delight, dear sister.64
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The linking of Varese’s own sexual prowess and amatory technique to the exercise of music is quite clear. Yet other verses give some idea of other aspects of a singer’s life. His canzone to his fellows at S. Gottardo in Corte (Doc. 12b) begins with the onerous daily duties in a singer’s life. It both calls on the lowlife solidarity of the members and also uses the range of musical genres, from the most schematic falsobordone to the freest capriccio, as a metaphor for behavior and desires: To His Fellow Musicians Father Limper, I’ve had such a tremor that I can’t tune this violone [his voice]; would you please start the canzona, since I’ve been pressed into service [pun: “I have to relieve myself ’]? To me, it stinks that, when services are done, they want to make us sing another falsobordone, all full of ligatures, in the seventh tone; and I’d like to make a fugue like a capriccio [pun: “a flight at will’]. I beg you, Cingardi and Cingardetto, and you, Signor Ottavio Nicorin, Messers Ippolito, Battista, and the Spaniard; farewell, Sargent the violinist, and you, Messer Geronimo del cornetto, let’s go out to the Duomo’s steps, so close; let these other boys be bound and put in prison, if they want. Hurry, guys, let’s get out of here, I know what I’m saying, there’s no time to lose in chatter, or else I’ll be asking you in prison how the story and the canzona wound up, since you stayed around.65
Amidst all the “high” meanings of the repertory that he sang, Varese’s poems, even in an assumed voice, give some idea of the necessity and discipline experienced by a musician in a poor or impermanent job. That he also used the materials of music as a metaphor for his own range of options gives some idea of the importance of the art for identity and cultural activity in the city. In the often difficult court atmosphere, the final years of Domenico Rognoni provide another story. The ways in which others published his music in the 1620s suggest infirmities at a relatively young age. Most telling is his three-part setting of the first penitential psalm (Ps. 6), which appeared in his brother’s motet book of 1624, a text that also indirectly mentions also the difficulties of functioning in a court: “Lord, do not rebuke me in Your indignation, nor chastise me in Your ire. Have mercy on me, o Lord, for I am sick; heal me, Lord, for my bones are diseased and my spirit greatly troubled; but you, Lord, how long? . . . My sight has been troubled by Your wrath; I have grown old among my enemies . . . Let all my enemies be ashamed and greatly troubled; let them be routed and shamed very speedily.”66 This piece, published only posthumously, represents one of the saddest among the posthumous tributes to the maestro: a brother’s memorial, sitting sadly among the festive works in the edition. Domenico’s passing had been recorded on 16 March 1622, at the age of forty-eight, from fever and asthma, in his well-off parish of S. Maria Beltrade.67 In a greater catastrophe, individuals’ fates were linked to the city’s. The decimation of the Duomo’s forces under the scourge of the second plague must be reconstructed ex post facto. Through June 1630, as the contagion slowly spread in the city, life still seemed normal. But at the beginning of July, Vimercato, Giovanni Blacino (bass), Andrea Visiolo, and Mangiarotto (altos), and the choirboys Carlo
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Buonasegna, Carlo Migliavacca, Carlo Fumaso, and Gioseffo Acqua, all left Milan, not to return until the end of November.68 August took its toll, as Corradi, Ludovico Cardozo, and Pietro Dordone fell sick in the first week.69 As noted, Pellegrini signed off on Dordone’s last wages on 2 August; he must have died shortly thereafter. His will of 17 June had divided his estate among Pesaro cathedral (to endow a chapel for his titular saint), the Augustinians of S. Agostino in his native city, and another Milanese musician, a fitting sign of his split loyalties.70 Giacomo Fasolo lasted until 26 August.71 Most sadly, Vimercato later testified to the death of the young Acquaviva brothers, choirboys who died in successive months, leaving a sister, probably without any means of support.72 Arnone must also have been sick by this time. Almost unbelievably, Biumi kept going, even managing to hire a bass and a soprano to join whoever was left for the titular feast and its vigil just after the worst devastation of the plague.73 One of the most striking images of the decimation of the Duomo’s forces was Regio’s note on All Saints’ Day, after the worst was over: “At solemn Vespers the choir sang, even if reduced to three or four, and the organ played.”74 One can only wonder what was in the minds of the remaining singers, on the same cantorie that they had known all their professional lives only as filled, looking down on a cathedral denuded of clergy, laity, and most importantly the sense of optimism that had filled the city in the previous decade, a divine punishment for reasons that must have seemed inexplicable, given the general optimism of the 1620s. Things were not better by spring; on 2 March 1631 Vimercato signed off on a payment request for only four adult singers and just three boys, simply those who had returned at the end of November.75
Fasti musicorum Any citywide census of musicians at a given moment is necessarily speculative. A corporate sense of the profession was most evident at the largest funerals, and on the Chiodo or titular days at the cathedral, when large numbers of outsiders were hired. Almost every competent musician must have been involved in 1621, when Pellegrini asked for the four choirs for Philip III’s Requiem to consist of forty-eight singers (and wound up with a total of fifty).76 The combined resources of the Duomo, the Scala, and S. Gottardo did not reach this number, as the city’s subsequent permission noted.77 If, during those relatively good times, the city hosted some seventy singers, plus thirty men split between organists and instrumentalists, then some hunded residents could have been paid for making music. A more realistic view of professionals lists the ensembles discussed earlier, plus the organists and the ten or so members of the ducal ensembles, a total of about sixty men. Although this seems impressive against the 1610 reports of 355 free professionals in the city, it still only represents about 1 percent of the roughly 6,300 heads of households employed in the minor trades.78 The figures should also be balanced against the female monastic performers, greater in absolute number, given a rough mean of four singers and an organist per musically active house. Around 1620, this latter might have included twenty foundations, and
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The martyr’s prayer itself elicited widely varying responses. Again as in Gabussi’s Beata Agata, Vecchi shifts to durus sonorities for the direct address, and rescores the paratactic restatement of the first phrase, following with the shortest motive of the piece (“ut non confundar”) and a hemiola Alleluia that recalls the middle section. Still working with texture, Stefanini reserves the first tutti for the homophonic delivery of the prayer. His heightening of the restatement of the motet’s last section takes several forms: a switch of the top two parts; the only flat gestures in the piece; and a separation of the Quintus, which both limns the entire modal octave and continues to declaim “fiat cor meum immaculatum.” Pellegrini’s level of contrast is higher; the prayer receives a complete break, and “ut non confundar” a downward ninth outlined in thirds, carried through all the voices. The changes, within seemingly similar stile antico scorings, were striking. On the widest ends, Vecchi’s balance and rhetorical clarity contrast sharply with the unpredictable Pellegrini. In the middle, Stefanini’s careful handling of extremely simple textures mixes with his polyphonic deployment of the Quintus. This both articulates the modal octave at the close and repeats (running roughshod over the antiphon text) the only phrase in the antiphon to bear universal meaning for the personal devotional lives of performers and their audience: “let my heart be immaculate.”
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5
V
∑
B
? ∑
Ó ˙
-
∑
∑
&
œ œ œ œ ˙. œ
˙
can - tan -
∑
B
T
Ó
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-
A
∑
œ œ œ œ ˙. œ -
-
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- ga - nis,
˙
-
˙
-
-
∑ œ œ œ œ ˙.
- ti - bus, can - tan -
-
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- ti - bus or -
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can - tan
˙
œ ˙
-
∑
œ œ œ œ ˙. œ -
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can - tan -
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- ti - bus
˙ œ œ œ œ ˙.
w
-
∑
w
∑
Ó
-
-
œ w - ti - bus
œ
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example 6.2 13 C
6
∑
&
∑
∑
&
Continued
Œ œ œ . œJ ˙
˙ ˙
Cae - ci - li - a
vir - go
∑
Ó
Œ œ œ . œJ
∑
Cae - ci - li A
&
5
V
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#˙ œ œ œ œ ˙
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bus
or
-
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œ w
-
- ga - nis,
-
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-
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w
#˙
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? B
œ œ œ œ w or
16
C
& ∑
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Ó
˙ -
-
so - li 6
˙ ˙ & ˙ a
-
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œ œ
˙
j œ. œ ˙ ˙
Œ œ
˙
vir - go
∑
w
ga - nis,
œ œ œœœœœ
De - o can - ta
-
-
œ bat,
di - cens,
Ó œ œ ˙ œ œ
∑
Ó
∑
˙ ˙
vir - go
so - li De - o can -
A
&
∑
∑
∑
T
V
∑
∑
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5
V ∑
œ œ ˙ so - li De
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w -
Œ œ
o
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∑
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180
-
- bat,
w di
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example 6.2 19 C
œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œœœ œœœœœ œ œ œ ˙
∑
&
Continued
so - li De - o can - ta 6
& œ œœœœ œ ˙ ˙ ta
-
-
-
-
- bat, di
œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ #œ ˙
bat, di - cens,
so - li De - o can - ta
-
-
-
- bat, di
A
&
∑
∑
∑
T
V
∑
∑
∑
5
V w
Ó œ œ w
cens,
so - li
?
22
C
& w cens:
6
& w cens:
A
T
De
∑
B
& ∑ V ∑
œ œ œ. œ J
-
w
˙
o
can
˙ ˙
œ œ œ. œ œ œ J cor
cor
j œ œ œ. œ ˙
j œ œ œ. œ œ œ
" Fi - at, Do - mi - ne,
cor
œ ˙
j œ œ. œ œ œ
" Fi - at, Do - mi - ne, cor 5
V w
∑
Ó
cens: B
? ∑
œ œ œ. œ J
˙
" Fi - at, Do - mi - ne,
-
-
ta
-
bat, di -
∑
˙ œ œ œ œ ˙ me - um et cor - pus me -
j œ œ œ . œ œ œ #˙ œ œ œ œ ˙
" Fi - at, Do - mi - ne,
œ œ œ. œ J
œ
œ œœ œ œ œ ˙
∑
" Fi - at, Do - mi - ne,
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-
me - um et cor - pus me -
˙ œ œ œ œ ˙ me - um et cor - pus me -
˙ œ œ œ œ ˙ me - um et cor - pus me -
œ œ œ. œ J œ œ
˙ ˙
cor
me - um
j œ œ œ. œ œ œ
cor
181
∑
˙ œ œ œ œ ˙ me - um et cor - pus me -
example 6.2 25
C
& œ œ œ œ w um im-ma-cu - la
6
-
& œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ um im-ma-cu - la
A
-
& œ œ œ œ #œ ˙ um im-ma-cu - la
T
-
V œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ um im-ma-cu - la
5
œ
-
œ œ œ. œ J
V ∑
Continued
w
œ œ œ . œ ˙ œ œ œ . œj œ œ J
tum,
fi-at, Do-mi - ne, cor
w
œ œ œ. œ ˙ œ œ œ. œ œ œ J J
tum,
fi-at, Do-mi - ne, cor
w
j œ œ œ . œ ˙ œ œ œ . œj œ œ
tum,
fi-at, Do-mi - ne, cor
˙
œ œ œ. œ ˙ J
tum,
fi-at, Do-mi-ne,
œ œ ˙
? œ œ #œ œ w um im-ma-cu - la
-
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6
-
tum,
fi-at, Do-mi - ne, cor
me A
-
& ˙
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-
me 5
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tum,
œ œ œ œ ˙
? ˙ me
cu - la
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w
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œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙
um et cor- pus me - um im - ma - cu - la -
V œ œ #œ œ œ œ ˙ ma
B
-
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um et cor- pus me - um im - ma - cu - la -
œ œ œ œ ˙
V ˙
w
œ œ œ œ w
um et cor- pus me - um im - ma - cu - la -
œ œ œ œ ˙
me
œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙
um et cor- pus me - um im - ma - cu - la -
œ œ œ œ ˙
& ˙
et cor-pus me - um im-
œ œ œ . œ ˙ œ œ œ œj œ . J œ
œ œ œ œ ˙
me
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w
28 C
fi - at, Do-mi - ne, cor
Œœ œ œ ˙
w
B
j œ œ. œ œ œ
Œ˙
-
- tum,
Œ œ œ œ ˙ im - ma - cu - la
œ œ #œ œ w
um et cor- pus me - um im - ma - cu - la -
182
˙ w -
tum,
w -
- tum,
example 6.3 C
. &C w ˙ œ
Pellegrini, Cantantibus organis a 4 (1619), mm. 1–29
w œ œ œ œœ œ œ œ œ ˙ ˙
Can - tan - ti - bus T
∑
VC
or
∑
-
Ó
-
5 C
w ˙
? C w #˙ ˙
∑
&
-
˙.
˙ Can
Org
-
-
tan
-
˙.
˙
Ó
∑
w
- ga - nis,
œ w
œ œ œ œœœ œœœ œ
ti - bus
or
œ w
˙. œ
˙
-
-
-
w
œ œœœ œ
w
œ œœœ
A
& œœ ˙
˙ ˙
w
ga - nis, T
V
∑
∑
Ó ˙
-
B
w
˙
œ œ b˙ w
˙ œ œ œ œ œ œœœ œ #œ ˙ w
Cae - ci- li - a T
œ œ
˙
w
Cae -
˙
˙
˙ ˙
∑
&
Ó ˙
˙
∑
∑
˙ ˙ ˙
Ó
Œ œ in
A
∑
&
∑
∑
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Œ
œ in
T
V Ó
Œ œ œ. œ ˙ J Cae - ci - li - a
B
? œ. œ ˙ J ci - li - a
Org
? œ. œ ˙ J
˙
œ œ
vir - go in
˙
œ œ
œ œ œ œ bœ œ œ œ w
˙ vir
-
go in cor - de su
œ œ ˙ œ œœœ cor
-
de su
œ œœœœ œ
˙
˙ -
o,
˙
-
∑
o
Ó ˙ œ œ b˙ in cor - de su -
˙ ˙ œ œ b˙
Patrons Central to advancement was outside support. The record of city patrons is real but sporadic. That palazzi hosted high levels of music-making was evident in the 1570s, with the Londonio family’s support for Pietro Vinci.83 Another figure who spanned the early decades was Nicola Vicentino’s contact, Prospero Visconti, himself a musician skilled on various instruments and the heir of the composer’s archicembalo.84 In 1588, Graziani’s dedication of his madrigals mentions G. B. Confalonieri’s palazzo
il mestiere di musico example 6.3 20
C
& œ œ bœ œ œ œ ˙ ˙ cor - de su
A
o
so
& œ #œ œ œ œ œ ˙ ˙ cor - de su
T
-
-
o
so
Ó ˙
V ∑
so
? B
˙
Ó
∑
?
˙
w
˙
li
˙ œ œ œ. œ œ. œœ. œœ. œ
œ
Do - mi - no
-
li
Do - mi
-
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ -
li
Do - mi
de - can - ta
no
de - can - ta
˙ ˙ ˙
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
˙ œ œ w -
no
de - can - ta
∑ ˙
-
˙ œ #œ œ . œ nœ . œ œ . œ œ . œ
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
o Org
Continued
˙ ˙ ˙. -
185
∑ ˙ œ œ w
as a gathering-place for musicians, and Luis de Castilla’s disgruntled remarks in 1587 about senators who spent more time with music than administration also ring true of the scene in these years. To examine those who appear more than once as dedicatees in the early years of the formation of musical culture gives some sense of the patrician backing for different genres: an Augustinian abbot, the Scotto brothers, Count Teodoro Trivulzio, or the archpriest of the Duomo.85 Even if some of the dedicatees were not actually the financers of the editions, but only those suggested by the actual donors of money or support, the names repeat often enough to substantiate real personal interest.86 The most significant figure of the 1590s was Pirro Visconti Borromeo, the dedicatee of Merulo’s six-voice motets of 1593 and Gabussi’s madrigals in 1598. Visconti’s other dedications included poetry, academic discourses, hermetic works, and theater. He was also the major promoter of Camillo Procaccini’s rise to artistic prominence in the city, a supplier of marble for the Duomo (of whose Fabbrica he was a deputy), and a supporter of the young Giulio Cesare Procaccini.87 Of the musical inscriptions, Merulo’s is short on details but Gabussi’s dedication of the 1598 madrigals notes his interest in and knowledge of music.88 A member of another branch of this family, Ippolita Borromeo, Countess of Belgioioso, received Vecchi’s Marian madrigals of 1602. This inscription mentions not only her status (“questo piccolo dono a` gran Donna, Donna pero` giudiciosa, e gentil tanto”), but her recreation from cares as cultivated in domestic music with her children.89 Although, as noted above, the emphasis of this collection is on the eschatological Madonna, Mary’s twelve prerogatives (stars) are also compared to the stellar virtues of Ippolita herself.90 The inscription also fits clearly into the pattern of Borromean family devotion to Mary. Clearly, women outside the cloisters also had resources and skills to bestow upon music.
186
at t it ude s a nd ac t i o ns example 6.3 23
C
& œ œ ˙ & #œ ˙
T
œ w
V w ? ∑ ? w
w & Ó
˙
so - li A
& Ó w
˙
so - li T
V ˙ w
˙
bat, so - li B
? ˙ w
˙
bat, <so - li Org
? ˙ w
˙
˙
bat, <so - li
Do - mi - no
˙
œ. œ ˙ J
so - li
Do - mi - no
˙
œ. œ ˙ J
˙
26
∑
œ. œ ˙ J
Ó
Org
C
∑ ˙
˙
-
B
∑
bat,
-
-
∑
bat,
-
A
w
Continued
˙ ˙
˙. œ ˙ œ œ
de - can - ta
œ œ
-
-
œ
-
˙ - bat,
-
œ œ Ó
˙.
-
-
w di
-
œ œ œ œ
˙
de - can - ta- bat,
di
-
œ ˙
-
-
-
-
˙ -
bat,>
˙
w -
cens:
˙ #˙ w
bat, di -
œ ˙
˙.
-
œœœ œ w
-
-
œœ˙
œœœ œ w
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ #œ œ ˙
Do - mi - no de - can - ta
˙. œ ˙ œ œ
-
-
œœ ˙
Do - mi - no de - can - ta - bat,>
˙. œ ˙ œ œ
œ
œ œ
˙.
Do - mi - no de - can - ta
˙. œ ˙ œ œ
-
de - can - ta
Do - mi - no de - can - ta -
˙. œ ˙ œ œ
˙ œœœœœ
œ œ
- cens:
˙ w -
cens:
-
cens:
w di
w
w w
After 1600, several patricians sponsored domestic academies that featured both sacred and secular music: the unnamed ones frequented by the Cremonese Costanzo Ambrosino, followed by those of Luca Francesco Brivio, Prospero Lombardo, Giovanni Homodeo, G. B. Niguarda, Matteo Marco Arese, and the Simonetta family.91 Niguarda’s academy, for instance, hosted the performance of Banchieri’s Zabaione musicale, a madrigal comedy.92 These places provided sites for both secular and sacred music, especially for the Rognoni brothers and for those producing madrigals; Francesco Rognoni’s dedication of 1608 makes it clear that canzonas were also played in such venues. In conjunction with the activity of Muzio Sforza and Pirro Visconti,
il mestiere di musico
187
the sense of a critical mass of patronage supporting the city’s musical culture in the years 1590–1610 is quite clear. Not having patrons immediately available (due to the long hours and relative anonymity of the job), but also needing to advertise themselves as more than just keyboardists, Duomo organists had only one source for funding editions. Arnone asked the Fabbrica on 30 January 1625 for a contribution toward the cost of part of his efforts, both in supplementing Pellegrini’s compositions and compensating the vagaries of maintaining the organ.93 The Provincia decided to propose an award of twenty-five scudi and a possible salary increase.94 Even so, the final print was dedicated to the canons of S. Ambrogio and in Venice it was issued by the cheaper press of Magni rather than the prestigious Vincenti. Four years later, Biumi asked the same for the dedication of his Concenti musicali, receiving thanks (and possibly a payment) on 23 August 1629.95 Showing the sensitivity to archiepiscopal taste that would serve him well in the future, in 1636 Grancini noted the recently arrived Monti’s wish that a motet be sung at Mass and Vespers, indirectly criticized Donati’s supposed inactivity, and provided the chapter a dedication of his Fifth Book of Motets.96 A typology of urban patrons thus includes fundamentally different categories: canons at the cathedral or the Scala, figures in the religious orders, stranieri in and out of Italy, members of the city’s governing elites, and urban merchants. The case of Vecchi’s 1603 Common of Saints motets is not unusual in its inscriptions, different between partbooks and partitura, but the two dedicatees, Francisco Cassina and the better-known Antonio Goretti in Ferrara, seem to have shared nothing other than contact with the composer. Some of the names that surface seem rather distant from the circumstances of creation. Andrea Cima’s motet book of 1627, dedicated to the senator G. B. Arconati, highlights not the patrician’s interest, but rather the patronage and musical performance of his sister Paola Maria, a nun at Santa Maria delle Vetere (thus testifying to the shift of prestige and performance to the female houses). Others were interested audience members, and still others were intimately connected to the origins of pieces and the functioning of composers. Even later, the family traditions continued, as with Tolomeo Gallio and his son Francesco: the former was the dedicatee of Scaletta’s 1604 madrigals and a canzona in each of the Rognoni brothers’ books, while his son received G. A. Colonna’s first book of Spanish guitar intabulations (1620) and Egidio Trabattone’s third book of motets (1632). A similar continuity is evident in the Arese family, as Bartolomeo was the dedicatee of G. B. Beria’s Concerti musicali (cf. chap 4, n. 129) of 1650, Federico Pedroni’s Motetti ecclesiastici (1658), and Carlo San Romano’s Op. 2 motets (1670).97 A special thread in the city’s musical fabric was those who fit into no fixed category, technically amateur patrons and musicians who were capable of composition or judgment but drew their income from elsewhere. Three such men—Lucio Castelnovate, Francesco Baglione, and Ottavio Valera—were important around 1600. The first was the dedicatee of two important editions of 1599, Arnone’s Second Book of Motets and Borgo’s canzonas.98 As noted, his motets were published in Cavaglieri’s Nove metamorfosi, and (with some hyperbole) Arnone called him “uno de’ principali virtuosi d’Europa,” while Borgo referred to ricercari he had composed in younger days. Baglione, the father of the Scala’s organist, received the printers’ dedication of
188
at t it ude s a nd ac t i o ns
the 1598 bicinia and collected his son’s pieces for his posthumous edition of 1608. According to the parish report, he was a schoolteacher and had been born around 1547. After his son’s death, his father took only a few months to collect Gironimo’s motets, published by Lomazzo the following year. Valera, the dedicatee of Cima’s 1610 book, was evidently a virtuoso bass singer, judging from the settings that Ghizzolo dedicated to him and from his own two compositions appended (probably by Lomazzo) to Francesco Rognoni’s Selva. None of these three seems to have held an institutional job, but they moved on the high end of musical culture, and the distance between a Valera and the Genoese gentleman composer Santo Pietro de’ Negri seems small.
Print and Printers Beyond the lives of professionals, and the activity of patrons, the next level was the less visible amateur or domestic music-making. Clearly both the canzonetta and contrafacta editions, each in their own way, were designed to fill this need. The few iconographic hints seem, in contrast to the public face, to emphasize the vocal or instrumental skills of young women, often before their marriage to Christ or an earthly spouse.99 Other occasions are much more general, such as that mentioned in Cantone’s preface to his madrigal comedy.100 This domestic locus, in the palazzi and the monasteries, was hidden but central to the city’s musical life. It also represented a major part of the market for the city’s music printers, and the vicissitudes of their operations shed important light on musical life. It is still not clear why the Tini, Carlo’s preferred printers even in the face of gubernatorial opposition, should have moved out of the liturgical market into music around 1583.101 Francesco and Simone, who started by jobbing three musical editions to their Sabbio relatives in Brescia in 1583–85, were cousins of Michele; another cousin, Pietro, farmed out three secular prints involving the recently deceased Caimo’s music in 1584–86. After Simone’s death on 18 September 1584, Francesco issued a large series, the majority of which were reprints, between 1586 and 1590.102 After his unexpected death, Michele took over again temporarily (1590–92), and the unnamed heirs of Francesco and Simone issued a steady stream of about four editions per year.103 This second wave of production consisted largely of original editions, and included more (although not a majority) of local figures, including the initial series of Vecchi’s prints. In spring 1598 G. F. Besozzo bought into the partnership, and production was drastically increased; nine prints appeared in 1599. Their checklist of 1596–97 gives an idea of the publishing and stocking priorities at the moment of the first growth in local composers’ editions.104 Of the 132 volumes, about eighty were sacred: the twenty-five items including masses, and the twentytwo motet books, were balanced in quantity if not gravity by the twenty canzonetta/ instrumental canzona and twenty-five madrigal editions. Clearly the market was far from exclusively ecclesiastical. Eleven psalm and five Magnificat books, together with other liturgical items, made up the rest of the sacred stock. The list of composers represented by more than one edition in these genres was not without surprises: Asola’s seven books of masses (Palestrina, Lassus, Vecchi, and Bona all with two), or
il mestiere di musico
189
the massive 1589 collection of Victoria’s motets together with the more predictable sequence of Lassus (four), Palestrina (three), and Andrea Gabrieli (two). At some point late in 1602, one of the most active and sophisticated figures in Italian music publishing bought out Besozzo. Filippo Lomazzo (ca. 1570–1630) was first mentioned by the Tini heirs as an active gatherer of music in their preface to the second urban anthology, the pedagogical duos by Gastoldi and Milanese figures issued in 1598. As noted, he had sold editions to S. Maria presso S. Celso even before. He was evidently an organist himself, as his dedication of Alessandro Nuvoloni’s short-score basso principale for a book of Palestrina’s masses notes that he had played for polyphonic services in a church in the Milanese hinterland.105 Although his relationship to the Tini is unclear, he joined the firm under his own name (adding his mark, a siren, to the title pages starting with the 1602 edition of Scaletta’s Scala), and took over their typeface when setting up his own shop in the most prestigious and centrally located piazza de’ Mercanti, finally buying out their shares in 1613. In 1609, he lived closeby, in the Duomo parish of S. Tecla, in a house with three other families, his wife, and five children.106 The neighborhood was home to a number of musicians.107 Lomazzo’s active role in propagating certain genres developed for aesthetic as well as commercial reasons. He opened his press to important figures outside the city, the first and only time that composers of pan-Italian importance published in Milan.108 His promotion of the sacred concerto at its very beginning is striking; he printed eleven of the twelve editions, signed dedications or prefaces in four notable prints, and apparently went out of his way to collect pieces by the deceased Gironimo Baglione and the important non-Milanese Radesca and Molinaro.109 He collaborated with Lucino in the 1608 Concerti de’ diversi, and assembled its two supplements (1612 and 1617) along with another major urban motet anthology, the Flores of 1626. His sale of such prints to Cima represented another effort to circulate these genres. Outside the city, Lomazzo had enough connections to pick up a motet by Monteverdi and add it to Ala’s first book (1618). His contributions were recognized in the brilliantly original canzona by Pellegrini named for the printer and included in the Seconda aggiunta of 1617. Although very much a “middle-class” figure, Lomazzo’s production brought him into contact with important personages. The dedication of the Flores to the Calvinist patrician in Gdan´sk, Constantia Czirenberg, must have come about because of Władysław Wasa’s praise of this singer, keyboard player, lutenist, and painter, a link probably made during the prince’s 1624 visit to the city.110 Czirenberg herself probably never visited Milan, as the contemporary account of her talents, Charles Ogier’s journal of his time in Poland, mentions no such journey.111 But Ogier knew of the dedication of the motets, and of her talents in singing in the Italian style: “She has an outstanding voice and sings in the Italian style, known only in Poland and Germany. When her renown arrived in Italy, outstanding Milanese musicians judged her most worthy, dedicating a book to her called Flores praestantissimorum virorum (that is, musicians) a Philippo Lomatio delibati; they prefaced the book with an elegant letter to Constantia Czirenberg.”112 Lomazzo’s inscription of the volume refers to the “invictissimus” King of Poland and Sweden, not Sigismund III but the melomane prince Władysław, whom he could have met during Wasa’s visit of 1624. That Czir-
190
at t it ude s a nd ac t i o ns
enberg was a Calvinist did not stand in the way of the dedication of the edition, with all of its Marian motets.113 No stranger to earlier styles, Lomazzo attempted to keep Vecchi’s memory alive with his reprint of the popular Salmi intieri in 1614, as his preface to the edition notes.114 In secular music, he was able to produce about one extra-urban print a year in his first decade, attracting important editions by Ghizzolo, Radesca, D’India, and Santo Pietro de’ Negri. In his first years, he also collected important secular editions by Banchieri and Radesca, meriting Borsieri’s encomium for disseminating the works of both city and foreign musicians.115 His ties to Banchieri around 1610 seemed to be strong enough to rival the Venetian presses’ appeal. Appropriately enough for a figure dedicated to the spread of domestic music-making, his last edition (from the plague year of 1630) was of Scaletta’s Scala di musica. His editions are also remarkable for the accuracy of their musical text, even when compared with the top-line Venetian houses of Amadino and Vincenti.116 The production, audience, and social base of the Tradate firm are less clear. Agostino produced about two or three editions a year for a decade after 1598. His heir Melchiorre attempted to keep things going until the sudden cessation of activity in 1612. Compared with Lomazzo’s, the shop’s production included far more local composers. Vecchi seems to have switched to the Tradate in the last year of his life; Cantone and Nantermi used them as well.117 All the editions of contrafacts and spiritual madrigals (except for Vecchi’s posthumous Scielta) were issued by the Tradate, part of a “Borromean” turn in the shop’s overall output around 1605.118 This was true even for the Regii concenti spirituali of Limido in Madrid (1605), a monument to Philip III’s devotion and the importance of Grillo. The uniting of episcopal and royal taste around this repertory suggests how music bridged the differences between centers of power. Still, there was no musically astute and preference-oriented Lomazzo to guide the production of the Tradate. The same could not be said of Rolla, who, ten years after their disappearance, began the regular production of his music shop. In that decade (1612–22), Lomazzo continued a fairly high level of activity, issuing a mix of local and distant composers. The new situation of two concurrent music printers, when Rolla’s new firm began, was very different, as the downturn of the city’s economy was reflected in a drop of absolute output—two new editions per firm in 1622, sinking to one for 1624–26. Lomazzo produced more anthologies, plus city composers (Andrea Cima and Grancini); Cantone and extra-urban figures (e.g., Egidio Trabattone in Varese) used Rolla. As seen in his 1623 litany and his addition of his own Pater Noster to the mammoth 1619 Vespers, Rolla himself was an occasional composer. His relations with Grancini seem very close, to judge from the dedication of the expanded edition of the Op. 7 Messa e salmi ariosi.119 The last overlap between printing firms happened at the very end of Rolla’s career, after fifteen years of his being the only shop in town. Carlo Camagno began with a highly flawed edition, Zanetti’s Scolaro in 1645, and then produced large-scale works by Reina, Grancini, Marini, and Cozzi (this latter in collaboration with Rolla, as would happen for Turati’s posthumous edition). The technical level of Camagno’s shop, and the sheer cheapness of its products, marked a new low from the days of Lomazzo and Rolla.
il mestiere di musico
191
The work of these latter two was remarkable for its sophistication and continuity. Although their output could never compete with the printers of Venice (and indeed there seems to have been a tacit division of labor and market between the two centers), Lomazzo’s and Rolla’s editions were of the highest quality, and transmitted some interesting repertory through the first half of the Seicento. The propagation of the city’s musical culture owes much to these extremely musical and entrepreneurial artisans, especially Lomazzo. But the relatively small proportion (forty-two percent) of urban printers’ output due to city composers, and the number of Venetian editions, both cited above, show the ongoing attraction of the latter and the basis of the Milanese publishing industry outside the city. The ways in which music publishing made a small but prestigious contribution to the city’s political economy was reflective of the art as a whole. For a direct relationship between a partially monetarized system and musical life, the best evidence comes from S. Maria presso S. Celso, where polyphony and alms seemed directly causal. But in most of the other major sites, from the Duomo to the female houses, more subtle relations of prestige, decorum, and the sonic component of ritual seemed to obtain. The importance of institutionalized charity also underscores the sense of the music functioning as part of an urban gift economy, in which the sums spent on musicians, in regular and occasional contexts, served to create the public sonic impression of the sponsoring organization’s dignity and munificence. It thus remains to examine some sonic features of the music, often circulated by the printers, available in the city over generational moments.
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Part III MUSICAL EXPRESSIONS
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7 Models and Imitatio, 1585–1610
The music at the beginning of the period testifies to a repertory’s slow emergence. At first, the Tini’s output was comprised mainly of reprints of senior and junior composers elsewhere (Palestrina, Merulo; Asola, Giovanelli) and several new editions by Varotto in Novara. Still, in the decade following the resumption of local music printing (1584–94), composers active in Milan (excluding the Franciscans) produced relatively few, but sometimes expansive, editions.1 These included two each by the recently deceased Caimo (madrigals and canzonettas), Gabussi (motets a 5–6 and Magnificats a 5), Vecchi (masses a 5 and Sunday psalms a 8, at least), Bariola (ricercars and canzonas), Borgo (masses a 8 and canzonettas), and Cantone (canzonettas and madrigals), along with Scarabelli’s motets, and canzonetta books by Costa and Varese, less than a quarter of the overall publishing total (fifteen of sixty-seven).2 The scope, if not the quantity, underscores the actual evidence for musical life: the morale and growth of the Duomo’s forces, Vecchi’s production at the Scala, the ongoing traditions of S. Francesco, and the burgeoning but as yet unrecognized life of the female houses, not to mention the private academies of Londonio and Confalonieri.
Early Works and Their Predecessors Given such a cohort of fledgling musicians in the city, the issue of models and their imitation was central to compositional choice. One of Gabussi’s motets, Sperent in te omnes, the opening piece in his motet book of 1586, shows the relationship of such influence. The idea of beginning the volume with this setting probably came from the text’s placement at the opening of the liturgical year, as it was the Offertory (and a Matins responsory) for the Second Sunday of Advent in Ambrosian rite. It also echoed the welcome extended the year before to the edition’s dedicatee, Gaspare Visconti.3 Porta’s setting of this text had appeared just before, and Lassus’s several years earlier.4 Each composer faced two possibilities for parsing the text: either a chiastic structure around the two statements of “quoniam,” or a straightforward rhetorical 195
196
musical e xpressions example 7.1 41
C
&b C
Gabussi, Sperent in te omnes a 5 (1586), mm. 41–55
˙.
∑
Quo 5
& b C ˙.
A
-
&b C
œ ˙
ni - am non est o -
bli-tus
o - ra - ti -
˙
ni - am non est o - bli - tus
&b C Œ ˙
œ
œ
Œ œ . œj œ
Ó
j œ. œ ˙ Quo - ni - am
T
œ œ Ó
œ œ œœ ˙
œ
Quo
-
œ œ œ œ œ
œ œœ ˙
non est o -
?b C
∑
∑
˙
C
j œ. œ œ œ
&b œ œ ˙ o - nes pau
5
A
&b ˙
pe
&b ˙
˙
T
-
Ó
- pe - rum.
Œ
rum,
j œ. œ œ œ
œ
o - ra - ti - o-nes
Œ ˙
nes,
œ
œ œ . nœ œ œ
œ œ œ œ
?b
˙
˙
-
tus
-
œ œ œ œ
˙
o -
ra - ti - o - nes pau -
˙
œ œ
˙
œ. œ œ œ œ œ J
-
ni-am non
œ. œ œ œ J
˙ o
-
est o - bli -
œ œ ˙
Quo-ni - am non
est o
œ œ œ œ
nœ œ œ bœ
-
pau-pe-rum. Quo - ni-am non est
˙ Ó
-
Œ œ œ œ
˙ tus
o - ra - ti -
Œ œ
tus o - ra - ti - o - nes,
Ó
j œ œ œ. œ
œ œ œ œ nœ œ ˙
Quo - ni - am non est o - bli
&b
- bli
B
-
˙
˙
-
-
-
˙
œ œ ˙
quo - ni - am non est o -
Quo
46
œ œ
Ó
Œ œ
Ó
˙
bli - tus o - ra - ti - o -
Quo - ni - am non est o - bli - tus, B
œ
non
œ œ œ œ
œ. œ ˙ J
ra - ti - o-nes
pau-pe-rum,
œ œ œ œ œ est o - bli -
∑
division (with a major break at the end of the exordium, after “Domine”). Porta had begun understatedly, splitting the modal octave between two voices, and gradually rising up in the top voice to the modal limit g⬙ (at “psallite Domino”), also eliding the end of the text’s exordium. A subtle point in his setting is the return of the opening modal fourth at the second “quoniam,” underscoring the thrice-repeated emphasis on this concluding half-verse by means of the exposed entrance on the high g⬙ as a climax to the piece.
mo dels an d imitatio, 1585– 1610 example 7.1 51
C
&b
˙. bli
5
-
œ
œ ˙
tus
o - ra
-
˙
Œ œ
&b œ œ œ œ o - bli
A
-
tus
Continued
˙
œ
œ œ
œœ˙
ti - o - nes pau -
œ œ œ œ
o - ra - ti - o - nes
j & b œ œ œ. œ w
197
-
w
w
œ œ œ œ
˙.
ra - ti - o - nes
pau
w
- pe - rum.
˙. pau
œ œ
-
w
pe - rum.
w
o - nes pau - pe - rum.
T
œ˙ &b œ -
? B
-
b ˙ o
œ
ra - ti
˙
tus
o
-
œœœœ ˙
œ œ -
˙
-
o -
-
-
˙
˙
nes
pau
˙. -
-
œ -
w
pe - rum.
œ
w
- pe - rum.
His student Gabussi chose a different mode (5) and spent much of the piece (twenty-three of fifty-five measures) on a carefully crafted exordium. Its point of imitation used the whole modal octave and set up the high f⬙, the top of the modal range as the goal of all of the phrases. Such emphasis on the opening left less room for internal chiastic structures; however, Gabussi did borrow from his teacher the idea of the high g⬙ that highlights the second “quoniam,” here all the more striking as it pushes outside the modal octave, and comes just before the final cadence (ex. 7.1). Thus the lengthy exordium and the heightened peroration balance the piece. If Gabussi was careful to maintain his teacher’s counterpoint, still his setting reflects a different sense of internal structure, concentrating instead on a specific memorable moment. Even in such an homage-bearing piece, models did not account for all musical procedures. Such issues were more explicit in Gallo’s Veni in hortum meum, the eight-voice expansion (1598) of Lassus’s five-voice motet, originally published in 1562.5 The only piece from Gallo’s motet book to appear in the northern anthologies, it used procedures of imitatio analogous to those of the canzona-motets that the editor Ribrocchi had placed first in the volume.6 Gallo split his original into two choirs, possibly because of its explicitly eucharistic destination of the text for Corpus Domini (“In festo sacratiss. Corporis Christi” was the rubric in Gallo’s edition), with all the attendant pomp and antiphonal singing typical of that day in the city. In Lassus’s original, the jubilant verses of the Song of Songs employed the invitation of the canticle’s male Spouse to His beloved, and then shifted to congregational address at the end. Hence the festal indication in Gallo’s book marks the piece as an invitation to the individual soul to partake of the day’s ceremonies, and of the social meaning of the Eucharist in the city.
198
musical e xpressions example 7.2a
C
Orlandus Lassus, Veni in hortum meum a 5 (1562), mm. 1–7
&b C „
„
„
w
w Ve
A
T
&b C „
Ve
w
Vb C w
-
Vb C ∑
B
w
in hor - tum
w
Ó ˙
ni
in
w Ve
ni
Ó ˙ ˙ ˙
Ve - ni 5
Ó
w
w
-
? C „ b
me
˙ ˙ ˙
w
in hor - tum
me
um, ve
∑
-
5
&b Ó
˙ N˙ in
A
T
& b #˙
˙
˙.
ni
in
hor
Vb ˙
˙
w
hor - tum 5
B
hor - tum
Vb ˙
˙
-
ni
?b ˙
˙
hor - tum
nœ -
-
-
˙
in
hor
w -
- um,
ni
˙ -
tum
me
∑
-
w -
ni,
w
- ni
in
œ
w
w
-
-
-
˙
in
w
w
-
˙
- ni
w
-
w
˙
ve -
ve -
-
in
ve
˙.
-
ni
tum me - um,
˙
in
Ó
w
- um,
˙
-
um,
w
w me -
-
bœ œ ˙ -
me -
Ó
me
ve -
˙
w
˙
w
˙
um,
um, ve
w Ve
C
-
˙ œ œ œ œ ˙
hor - tum me
„
˙
˙
-
bw
˙ ˙
ni
˙ w
˙ ˙
-
-
- um,
w
w ve
-
ni
The Somascan added three new voices to Lassus, but he also did not hesitate to change or transfer original lines in order to clarify the resultant new textures. His reading of the 1562 setting took the end of the exordium (“hortum meum”) as a place to be emphasized with the end of the first two-choir tutti, but he also chose to underline some more surprising passages (“messui myrrham meam,” with its modally distant F cadence) by means of texture. The reworking also ironed out Lassus’s constantly shifting combination of voices into a directly antiphonal two-choir framework, providing a two-staff basso seguente to anchor each (ex. 7.2a–b). As he had
mo dels an d imitatio, 1585– 1610 example 7.2b
199
Giuseppe Gallo, Veni in hortum meum a 8 (1598; after RISM 16002),
mm. 1–19) C1
Ó ˙ ˙ ˙
w
&b C w
Ve - ni A1
&b C ∑ Vb C
∑
-
?b C
∑
Ó
ni
w
w Ve
B1
hor - tum
w
w Ve
T1
in
-
˙ in
w me
-
˙ ˙
um,
in
bw
˙ ˙ w
hor - tum me
-
in
∑
&b C
∑
∑
-
&b C
∑
∑
Vb C
-
um, in
ni
in
˙ w
˙
ni
in
-
∑
˙ ˙
w ∑
∑
∑
-
ni
∑
?b C
∑
∑
∑
in
w Ve
B2
-
˙ ˙ ˙
Ve T2
hor
w.
Ó ˙ Ve
A2
me
w
∑
hor - tum
w
hor - tum
Ve C2
um, in
Ó ˙ ˙ ˙
ni
∑
Ó ˙ ˙ ˙
w
-
∑
done in the canzona-motets, Gallo began with a fairly literal transcription of the original, but then expanded into new material, most notably at measures 106–18, a thirteen-measure period not based on Lassus. This section provided antiphonal parataxis in order to set the eucharistic joy of “et bibite,” and led to the return of Lassus’s music for the final point of imitation on “et inebriamini, carissimi.” Gallo standardized his original, preserving much of its thematic content but formating it into a more regular piece. Finally, the extra musical emphasis on “et bibite” suggests a special meaning for an audience of those allowed to drink Communion wine, namely Gallo’s fellow Somascans of S. Maria Segreta’s collegio. In this first decade, the most familiar employment of standard procedures was that of Vecchi’s masses of 1588. Despite the composer’s claim that they were written in accord with Carlo’s personal instructions, it is not clear how many of them actually dated back to Vecchi’s first sojourn as a maestro in the city. Along with a good part of his motet and liturgical output, some of the pieces may well stem from his time, with relatively fewer musical duties, in Vercelli. The Ordinary modeled on Palestrina’s Io son ferito is direct but not overly simple; the following three are on various
example 7.2b
. &b ˙ œ œ œ ˙ 5
C1
me
-
A1
&b w
T1
Vb ˙ ˙ w
B1
?b ˙ ˙ w
-
˙
tum
me - um,
hor-tum me
-
-
-
& b #˙ ˙ ˙ . Vb w
-
?b
w
um,
ve
&b
in
um,
ve
um,
ve
-
-
-
Ó w Ó w
T1
Vb
∑
Ó w
˙ ˙ ˙
Ó w
∑
˙
so - ror
-
T2
Vb ˙
B2
? b b˙
w
#˙
˙ w
w -
˙ w
hor - tum me
-
˙ w
hor - tum me
-
œ œ ˙.
-
ve - ni
in
w
-
˙ #˙ ∑ -
˙ œ œ ˙
me - a spon
-
˙ bw
me - a spon
∑
∑
- sa,
˙ w
- sa,
∑
w sa,
w -
∑
sa,
Ó w so
∑
∑
Ó #w
∑
∑
Ó w
so
um,
w
˙ in
w
me - a spon -
#˙
so
∑
∑
um,
˙ -
ror
˙ -
ror
˙ -
ror
˙
Ó w so
200
in
w
œœ˙
me - a spon -
˙
w
˙
w.
Ó ˙
ni,
˙
-
- um, ve - ni
w -
-
me - um,
˙ ˙
w
-
˙
ni in hor - tum
um,
w
me
#˙ ˙ ˙ n˙ -
um,
-
hor - tum me
∑
œ œ œœ œ œ˙
in hor - tum
-
so - ror
˙
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
ni
so - ror
&b
ni,
w
∑
A2
∑
um, ve
hor - tum me
&b
&b œ œ w
∑
ni,
˙ ˙ œœ
A1
C2
∑
˙
w
∑
∑
?b
∑
w
so - ror
B1
w -
Ve C1
∑
w
˙
∑
9
∑
ni,
w
-
˙
Ó
ni B2
œ #w
ni,
nœ bœ œ ˙ ˙ ˙
hor-tum me T2
-
˙
hor-tum me A2
ve
&b ˙ ˙ w
∑
w -
˙.
w
hor-tum me C2
- um, ve
bw
˙
∑
˙ ˙ ˙
˙
-
Continued
-
ror
example 7.2b 13
C1
&b
∑
Ó w
˙
so A1
&b
∑
-
Ó w
˙
so
T1
-
ror
Ó ˙. œ ˙
∑
Vb
ror
Continued
w me -
˙
˙
a,
so
˙ ˙ ˙.
œ œ #˙ ˙ ˙ -
œœ ˙
me - a spon -
#˙ ˙
ror me - a spon -
-
œœœœ
˙
so - ror me - a spon-sa, B1
?b
C2
˙. œ œ ˙ &b œ œ
∑
Ó w
˙
so
me - a spon A2
&b ˙
-
-
˙ w
me - a spon T2
˙ Vb
-
B2
b
-
˙ bw
#˙
C1
&b ˙ sa,
A1
&b ˙ -
T1
Vb ˙ -
B1
˙.
˙ ˙ ror
? b ˙ #˙ ror
-
œ ˙
<so - ror me
ror
˙
˙ ˙
me - a
w
me - a
me - a spon
-
w
w -
sa,
so
∑
∑
˙ #˙ ∑
∑
∑
∑
∑
∑
∑
sa,
- sa,
- sa,
∑
sa,
˙ -
˙
me - a
˙
ror
˙. œ œ œ
∑
w
me - a spon 17
-
- sa, so -
so
˙ w
œœ ˙ ˙ ∑
˙ ˙
me - a spon -
?
w
˙
˙ ˙ ˙ -
˙
w
a
spon
sa,>
-
w
-
-
sa,
-
-
sa,
w
w -
w spon
-
˙ . #œ nœ ˙ spon
spon
w
-
w w
w -
-
C2
&b
∑
∑
A2
&b
∑
∑
T2
Vb
∑
∑
B2
?b
∑
∑
201
-
-
sa,
-
202
musical e xpressions example 7.3
C
&C
∑
Vecchi, Missa Io son ferito a 5 (1588), Kyrie I
Ky A
&C
∑
Ky 5
T
&C
∑
& C w. ˙ VC
ri - e
-
-
- son,
∑
˙ ˙ w -
e
son,
∑
C
A
˙ w
& b˙ ˙ . œ œ ˙ lei -
& ˙ w
-
˙
-
- son. Ky
œœ
-
-
-
Ó w
lei-son, 5
w. Ky
T
& ˙ ˙ w -
B
Ó w
son.
e - lei
-
ri - e
˙
˙. œ œ œ ˙ -
son,
-
˙ ˙ w e - lei
e
˙ ˙ ˙˙
˙
e
-
son.
-
˙
˙ ˙
V ˙ ˙ w e - lei
w
w.
˙ ˙ w
e
-
Ky -
w
&
lei
Continued
w
w.
son,
& w
e B
-
& ˙ ˙ ∑ -
5
w
203
-
-
-
˙ ˙ œ œ œ œ œ
-
-
w
e - lei
son, Ky
w -
-
˙ -
ri -
∑
son,
doni’ (ex. 7.4). Foreign to Cantone’s planning was the incremental growth in musical periods of Monteverdi’s setting, which led to the long repeated climax of “Fonte d’ogni mio ben.” The monk’s deployment of motives, normally repeating every idea or textural contrast, stands in some contrast to Guarini’s condensed style, and the iterative procedure is typical of the whole edition.8 Still, for an opus primum, the edition as a whole was quite respectable, not reflective of the scene in Mantua or Ferrara, but still a new initiative, eschewing the chromaticism and surprise shifts of Caimo’s works, and attempting, in a somewhat repetitive and diffuse way, to come to terms with Guarini’s and Grillo’s new poetic tones.
A First Moment of Flowering After 1595, these beginnings in the urban compositional output were expanded by a series of editions more ambitious in their scope. The first anthology with a major representation of city composers (nine of nineteen settings) was the Psalmodia vespertina a 5 of 1596; only a few city figures had pieces in the next two anthologies, the madrigals of Vittoria amorosa (1596) and the pedagogical duos of Gastoldi and others (1598).9 In these years, Tini and Besozzo produced most of Vecchi’s numerous editions, starting with the popular intieri psalms of 1596, along with motet books by city organists (Cima a 4 and Arnone a 5–8, both 1599), and the larger-scale works by male regulars (Gallo’s book, and three prints of Mortaro between 1598 and 1602). As Tradate’s press began its own output of local composers, the stream broadened considerably. After Soderini’s and Cantone’s eight-voice motets, there followed Borgo’s canzonas of 1599, Nantermi’s motets a 5 (1601), Cantone’s Holy Week settings (1603),
example 7.3 15
C
& W
Ó w
e A
e
& w
˙.
˙ ˙
& ˙ ˙ w -
T
-
-
œœ˙
B
19
&
5
& w.
& w
son. B
V w son,
∑
-
-
son.
œœœ œ œ œ
˙.
w Ky
#˙ -
ri
-
œ œ œ ˙
e
e
-
˙ -
ri
-
lei
œ
-
e
e - lei
e - lei
˙
-
w
˙ ˙ ˙
-
son,
Ky - ri - e
e - lei
-
-
-
e - lei -
e - lei -
W -
son.
W son.
#W -
- son.
-
- son.
˙ ˙ w
e - lei-son,>
˙ w
#œ œ #œ œ
˙ #˙ ˙ œ œ -
lei
W
˙ ˙.
-
-
w -
son.
-
˙ w
˙
œ
-
˙ ˙ œ œ
w
˙.
& w son,
T
w
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
Ky
-
-
ri - e
ri - e A
˙
˙. œ ˙
˙
e - lei - son,
˙ -
-
˙
˙
e - lei -
V w. Ky
C
˙ ˙
& ˙. œ ˙ ˙ e
-
e
ri - e
œ œ w
œ œ
Ch’io
˙
w mi
o,> Ch’io
˙
w
˙
non t’a -
˙
Ch’io
C
˙ ˙
˙
o,
Ó
fi
-
œ
w
w
a,
Mor
∑
-
-
-
-
-
∑ ∑
w a,
Œ œ œ œ
te,>
mor-te non
˙ œ œ
œœœœœ œ mi
per - do-ni, mor -
∑
-
œ #œ œ
te, mor - te non
Œ œ œ œ œ œ Ó
œœœœœ œ mi
per - do-ni,
∑
w
∑
<mor
œ œœ˙ -
˙. - ni,
mor - te non
˙
˙ -
mi
Œ œ #œ œ mor - te non
œ
non
mi
Ó
˙ -
˙
œ
non
mi
œ œ
œ
ni, non
mi
j œ. œ œ œ mi
207
˙
œ
per - do
-
ni
˙ -
-
œ
-
˙
per - do
œ
#˙ ni
-
ni
-
ni
˙
per - do
#
-
-
ni
-
˙
œ #œ œ œ œ ˙
per - do
-
˙
w
per - do
ni,
#œ œ œ œ
œ
j œ. œ œ œ
mor - te non mi per - do B
-
te,
per - do
Œ œ
a,>
mor-te non
Œ œ œ œ
j & œ . œ #œ œ
-
∑
per - do -
˙
-
∑
w
w -
#w
w
œ
mor - te non
w
w
B
-
∑
a,
∑
te,
Mor
5
-
Œ œ œ œ
w
w ∑
&
-
<mor
-
-
j œ œ œ . #œ œ
w
∑
w
-
Ó
te,
& w Mor
A
-
-
œ œ ˙
œœ œœ fi
pri- ma che que - sto
32
C
fi
œœ JJ
j j œ œ œ œ
Ó
w
<pri - ma che que - sto fi
pri-ma che que-sto
j j œ œ œ œ œ
&
œ
j j œ œ œ œ œ
& ˙
w
pri- ma che que - sto
œ œ œ œ œ J J
&
œ
#œ œ œ œ J J
Ó
Continued
˙
208
musical e xpressions example 7.5a
C
&c ˙
œ œ
Vecchi, Congratulamini mihi omnes a 5 (1597), mm. 1–14
œ. œ œ œ J
Con - gra - tu - la - mi-ni mi 5
&c ˙
œ œ
œ. œ œ œ J
Con - gra - tu - la - mi-ni mi A
&c ˙
œ œ
j œ. œ œ œ
Con - gra - tu - la - mi-ni mi T
Vc ˙
œ œ
œ. œ œ œ J
Con - gra - tu - la - mi-ni mi B
?c
∑
œ œ ˙ -
˙
hi om
-
nes,
œ œ ˙ -
˙
hi om
-
nes,
œ œ ˙ -
˙
hi om
-
nes,
œ œ ˙ -
∑
˙
hi om
-
nes,
∑
Ó
j œ œ œ. œ
˙
qui
nes,
om
œ ˙ -
di - li - gi - tis
nes qui di - li
˙. ˙
œ œ #˙ œ œ ˙
w ˙
gra - tu - la - mi-
#œ œ œ œ œ ˙
˙ om
nes qui
œ
-
nes qui
œ
gi - tis
œ œ ˙
di - li - gi - tis
œ
œ. œ œ œ J
di - li - gi-tis Do -
œ
œ. œ ˙ J
di - li - gi-tis
popular on the publishing market. It reflects the composer’s absolute clarity of texture and intersection of motivic form and textual structure. Its first-person text, a responsory spoken in the voice of Mary Magdalen, was ideal for the expression of Paschal joy, and Vecchi followed the common form: ABCB, with the top two voices exchanged and with a short coda in the repeat (the opening is ex. 7.5a).11 The clear differentiation of musical gestures renders its text immediately accessible: the homophonic sections that set affect and the more imitative parts reinforce the basic ideas.
mo dels an d imitatio, 1585– 1610 example 7.5a 11
C
& œ œ œ œ œ œ œ Do
5
-
B
-
& ˙
-
-
-
-
mi
œ
mi - num,
-
-
-
˙
˙
mi - num,
num,
Do
-
-
-
œ
œ -
∑
-
-
˙
mi - num,
Al
- mi - num,
œ. -
j œ #˙ ˙ j œ w
œ ˙
˙ Al
j œ œj œ œ œ œ œ
-
w
- mi - num,
œ.
œ œ -
-
˙ œ Do
Continued
#œ
bœ
œ
-
? ˙. Do
-
˙
V œ œ -
-
j œ œ œ œ œ
Do T
-
& œ. Do
A
-
œ œ ˙
209
-
le - lu - ia,
œ ˙ -
˙ Al
œ œ
le - lu - ia,
œ ˙ -
œ
le - lu - ia,
∑
- mi - num,
Vecchi’s use of modal centers was also extremely clear in its underlining of the text. The piece is in the eighth mode, and the very first gestures underline the characteristic fourth G–C. But the diapente D, foreign as a structural pitch in the mode, serves as a moment of internal structural demarcation again and again, and its implications for the piece would follow. Given the mode, the cantus durus world of the G and C hexachords is immediately evident, but Vecchi depicted the Magdalen’s recollection of her grief by a sharp swing into mollis regions (“et dum flerem”; ex. 7.5b). The clear modal polarity underscores the affective difference between joy and lament. As most of the internal demarcations are set on D, Vecchi used the end of the repeat to provide closure to this essentially unstable modal procedure. The concluding cadence of the B-section “alleluia” is heralded by a reiteration in the bass of a foreign diapente, A–D. But the coda extends this simple downward gesture into the real fifth of the mode, D–G, anchoring the repetitions of the “alleluia” to the basic elements of the mode, and providing a satisfying conclusion, finally returning to the finalis G. There were several reasons for the popularity of Vecchi’s pieces: they were relatively easy to sing, showed the kinds of direct textual mirroring evident in the Magdalen piece, and included a majority of that form, the motet, whose liturgical and social desirability has become evident.12 The diffusion of his work seems more due to such social needs than to any markedly individual traits. Perhaps the negative side of Borsieri’s assessment had its basis in a repeated predictability of his work.
example 7.5b 29
C
Vecchi, Congratulamini mihi omnes a 5 (1597/1605), mm. 29–48
˙
&c Ó
˙
Et 5
&c Ó
b˙
˙
Et A
&c Ó
˙
˙
Et T
Vc Ó
b˙
˙
Et B
?c Ó
b˙
˙
Et
& w men -
5
-
T
-
nu-men
? w men -
fle -
b˙
w
dum
fle -
˙
˙
-
-
- rem
-
˙
b˙
w
dum
fle -
-
- rem
fle -
-
Do - mi-num
3 2 ˙ ˙ ˙
˙. œ ˙
- tum, vi - di
Do - mi-num
23 ˙ ˙ ˙
b˙ . œ ˙ Do - mi-num
∑
Ó
- tum,
210
mo
˙
ad
˙
˙
˙. œ ˙
ad
˙
w
Do - mi-num
b˙
mo
ad
- tum, vi - di
˙
ad
- rem
b˙ . œ ˙
mo - nu
˙.
˙
me - um,
w
˙
me - um,
˙
w
me - um,
w
˙
me - um,
∑
˙
˙
˙
˙
w
tum, vi - di
ad
- rem
˙
fle - rem
b˙
˙
w
23 ˙ ˙ ˙
23 w -
˙
dum
tum, vi - di
V œ œ ˙ -
B
-
& w men -
dum
3 ˙ ˙ œ 2 ˙
& œ ˙ nu-men
A
w
dum
34
C
˙
-
-
œ -
nu -
b˙ mo
˙
-
b˙
mo - nu
-
˙. œ ˙ Do - mi-num
b˙ . œ ˙ Do - mi-num
˙. œ ˙ Do - mi-num
˙. œ ˙ Do - mi-num
∑
example 7.5b 39 C
& w
#˙
me - um, 5
& w
vi
˙.
˙
#w -
di
œ ˙
Do - mi-num
∑
˙
Continued
w
˙
w
me - um,
∑
w
˙
me - um,>
w
œ ˙
Do - mi-num
me - um,>
w
œ ˙
Do - mi-num
˙ -
œ ˙
Do - mi-num
˙
w vi
44
-
w
˙
˙.
˙
˙
me - um,>
˙. œ ˙ Do - mi-num
b˙ . œ ˙ Do - mi-num
˙. œ ˙ Do - mi-num
˙. œ ˙ Do - mi-num f
˙. œ ˙
Do - mi-num
211
˙
w
˙
-
di
ra pro no
-
w.
˙ di -
e
˙ -
bus
˙ ˙
œœ w
su
-
Ó ˙ ˙ ˙
∑
qui in di -
&b W
˙.
dos
ma
˙.
-
in
bus
∑
-
˙ ˙ w
gnus,>
&b w
∑
w.
in di
˙ w
di - e
-
˙ ˙
qui
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
-
˙ ˙ w
qui
˙ ˙
œœ
-
w
- gnus,>
- gnus,
-
ce sa - cer-dos ma
w
˙
w
-
˙ ˙
<ec
-
-
w
-
n˙
w
w
ma -
-
w.
-
-
-
Ó ˙ ˙ ˙
W
w
in
w
˙ ˙ w
œœœœ w
cer
˙ œ
œœw
?b œœ ˙ w -
<ec - ce
œœ ˙ w
˙.
˙
sa - cer-dos ma
˙.
- gnus,
sa - cer - dos
w ce
ma -
˙
Sim - pli - ci - a
ma - gnus, qui B1
-
œ
ma-gnus, <ec-
dos
œœœ w
&b ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ce
-
˙ w
˙
18
-
œœ ˙
<ec - ce
˙
- dos
˙
˙ ˙
˙.
ma - gnus,
Vb w
˙
- cer
-
dos
w
-
gnus, ec
Ó
T2
-
œ œ œ ˙ ˙.
&b W &b w
-
˙ ˙ n˙ ˙
˙. œ
œœ˙
œ œ œ ˙ ˙.
˙.
ce> sa - cer
A2
-
-
sa -
C2
œœœ˙
œœ˙ ˙
-
Continued
œ
œœœ˙ -
-
-
gnus,>
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
qui
in
T2
Vb w
∑
∑
B2
?b w
∑
Ó ˙ ˙ ˙
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
∑
w
qui in di - e -
˙ w
˙ œœ˙ ˙
di - e - bus
su
-
-
-
œœ
is, qui
∑
∑
bis,
gnus>
qui in
di
225
-
˙ ˙
w
e - bus
su
w -
is,
Ó ˙ qui
example 7.11
Antonio Mortaro, Plaudat nunc organis a 8 (1599), mm. 50–82
50
C1
&b c
œ œ˙
œ
˙
Au - di-te er A1
&b c
-
œ œ˙
œ
T1
Vb c
-
œ œ˙
œ
?b c
-
œ œ˙
œ
˙
Au - di-te er C2
&b c
Ó
Œ
go,
-
Œ
œ œ œ ˙
œ œ œ . œj w
au - di - te er - go quem-ad-mo - dum
Œœ œ œ ˙
œ œ œ. œ w J
au - di - te er - go quem-ad-mo - dum
˙ Œœ œ œ
go,
œ œ œ . œJ w
au - di - te er - go quem-ad-mo - dum
œ œ˙
œ
œ œ œ . œj w
au - di - te er - go quem-ad-mo - dum
go,
˙
Au - di-te er B1
go,
˙
Au - di-te er
Œœ œ œ ˙
˙
Ó
∑
Ó
∑
∑
Au - di- te er - go A2
&b c
Ó
œ œ˙
Œœ
˙
Au - di- te er - go T2
Vb c
B2
?b c
Ó
Œœ
œ œ˙
∑
Au - di- te er - go
Ó
œ
Œœ
œ˙
œ œ œ œj œj tym-pa-ni-stri-a
∑
Ó
˙
Ó
Au - di- te er - go 56
C1
&b
∑
Ó
œ œ
A1
&b
∑
∑
w -
tym-pa - ni-stri-a
T1
Vb
B1
?b
∑
tym-pa-ni-stri-a
∑
Ó
œ œ
˙
& b œ œ œ œj œj ˙ tym-pa - ni-stri-a
A2
& b œ Jœ œJn ˙ ni-stri-a no
T2
Vb ˙
-
˙
Ó
∑
˙
∑
-
stra,
Ó
œ œ
-
jj œ œœ˙
can - ta
œ œ ˙
can-ta
-
œ œ œ ˙ J J
œ œ ˙ -
œ œ ˙
œ .n œ œ ˙ œ J
no -
œ œ
Ó
-
ni-stri-a no - stra> can - ta - ve - rit:
œ œ œ œ œ ˙ J J
∑
œœ ˙
œ œ ˙
j j œ œ œ ˙
B
? w
co - lom - ba me -
ni, Bc
? œ . œ #œ œ ˙ J
w
˙
-
ve
-
a,
œ w
w
w
ca me
-
a,
˙ ˙
w
w
-
ni,
Œ œ ˙
#˙ ni,
et
ve
w
#˙ ˙
w
˙
œ œ ˙
-
˙
˙
∑
Ó
co - lom-ba me - a,
˙
œ
<et ve -
-
Œ œ
co - lom-ba me - a,
œ œ ˙ œ œ ˙
˙
-
spe - ci -
œœœœw
ve
Ó
-
˙.
w
w
w
a,
˙
∑
me
˙
et
Œ œ œ œ ˙
ca
Ó ˙. ˙.
∑
? ∑
& ˙
w
. œœ. œœ
w
B
13
-
a - mi
o - sa me - a,
C
˙
˙
-
˙ . œ #œ œ ˙
˙ ˙ w
- ge,
œ #w
9
C
w
˙ Œ œ w
5
sur -
w
co-lom
& œ œ ˙ ?
B
œ
˙ #œ w
- lom - ba me
? Bc
œ
˙ #œ ˙
-
˙
Continued
˙.
œ -
w
Ó ˙
a,
co
w
˙ ˙
237
-
œ w -
- ba me
-
a,
ba me
-
a,
#œ œ œ œ œ œ w
-
lom
#˙
w
-
˙
w
˙ ˙
tua decora”; mm. 67–86 and 87–108). This last period is also apportioned most of the durus sonorities of the piece. Repetitions also govern much of the internal sections, the downward esclamatione for “ostende mihi” or the antiphony at “in foraminibus” recalling the echo-like associations of the canticle passage.45 If Surge amica mea shows one of the more objective sides of the collection, then (as in other motet books) the second piece, Anima mea liquefacta est, is highly affective. Its canticle text moved the composer to an opening esclamatione, and a conflict between Bb and Bn of structural import for the motet. Several moments of clear representation (a calling motive for “vocavi,” and a build-up leading to a clear internal demarcation on the now very distant Bb at “Adjuro vos, filiae Jerusalem”) propel the setting to its last gesture, a thrice-repeated chromatic anabasis (B–C–C#–D) that represents the soul’s dissolution (“ut nuncietis ei quia amore langueo”). Although the simple imitation between the voices and clear cadential demarcations represent generic norms, the local effects seem to employ new vocabulary for the moving of the affections. Baglione’s collection of the same year is not limited to its small-scale pieces, but its four- to six-voice items, written for the major feasts of Easter, Christmas, and Assumption, often break down into simple opposition of smaller ensembles.46 Some pieces share the formal freedom of the concerto, with refrain motets and the first small-scale canzona-motet, Maria Magdalene. This combines a simple homophonic Easter dialogue featuring the Magdalen with a canzona-like top part for a single instrument, probably a violin, the point being the expression of joy at the Resurrection highlighted by the “popular” use of the instrumental genre and scoring (ex. 7.14), a smaller-scale version of the same topic treated with similar means in Gallo’s Ecce angelus de caelo of a decade earlier.47 Like the variety of occasions, sites, and singers represented in its external features (dedications, sanctoral occasions), Cima’s Concerti ecclesiastici presents at first hearing a bewildering mix of styles, forms, and compositional approaches. It ranges from the solo pieces, themselves variable, through duets and trios, quartets, and the few fiveand eight-voice works for special occasions. But the thematic transformations, inganni, and surprising shifts of system found in the instrumental pieces at its end are not entirely absent from the vocal music, despite its seeming conservatism. The second solo piece, the eucharistic O dulcedo melliflua, gives some sense of
238
C1
musical e xpressions example 7.14
Gerolamo Baglione, Maria Magdalene a 4 (1608), mm. 1–13
&b C w
˙
Ma C2
&b
b˙ ra
C2
B
ri
-
˙
-
ri
˙
a
Mag
˙
˙
a
-
˙
˙.
Ma - ri
˙ a
Mag
˙
˙.
w
w -
?b ˙
˙
?b ˙
w
-
-
w
Ma - ri
˙
a
˙ -
w
-
da - le
w
˙.
Ma - ri
ra
œ w
a
w -
a
w
-
#˙
Mag - da
&b œ œ w
ra Org
-
? C w b
4
C1
-
˙
?b C w Ma
Org
ri
&b C w Ma
B
-
˙
-
le
-
bœ w -
da - le
˙
˙.
na,
et
al
˙
˙
˙.
na,
et
al
˙
˙.
et
al
˙
˙.
˙ -
bœ w
≠ ibant diluculo ad
≠ ibant diluculo ad
≠ ibant diluculo ad
w
˙
na,
˙
œ -
œ -
te -
œ -
te -
œ
w.
˙
mo -
˙
te -
-
- nu -
˙ #˙
˙
mo - nu - men
˙ b˙
w
mo - nu - men
˙ b˙
-
-
w
the broadening of generic norms.48 The piece shows the influence of monody in its escalamationi and dissonance treatment (ex. 7.15). Its tono (2) is immediately negated by the second sonority, in a common gesture moving from cantus mollis to durus, used to express the ineffable sweetness of the Host. This introduction is rounded off by a chromatic anabasis repeated down a fifth so as to cadence on the finalis. The binary oppositions of text and tonal system govern most of the motet: Cima took two such textal contrasts (“quam dulcis es . . . sed dulcior . . .” and “dulcissima . . . sed superdulcissima”) as a call for simple switches between durus and mollis. The final phrase of the opening (mm. 32–45) underscores the overarching sweetness of prayer (“sed dulcior in oratione”) by means of an catabasis in the voice down to the low c (m. 41), an asymmetrical but modally important cadential point; the end of the phrase is heightened again by a more florid anabasis that returns the center to G (m. 45). Since the motet was probably sung as a preparation to Communion, its emphasis on eucharistic “oratio” is appropriate; more subtle is the way in which Cima’s gestures for musical closure actually bring “oratione” to a satisfying end, thereby suggesting
example 7.14 7
V1
&b
C1
&b w
C2
nw -
? B
w
?b w
w
∑
∑
∑ ˙
w
V1
& b #œ ˙
œ w
C1
&b
∑
&b
∑
tum,
10
C2
∑
tum,
b w -
∑
tum,
& b ˙ #˙ w -
Org
œ œ œ œ œ œ . œJ œ . Jœ œ . œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ J
∑
men
Continued
˙
w
"Je - sum quae - ri - tis
cru
˙
˙ ˙. ˙ ˙.
?b
˙
∑
˙ ˙.
œ œ
˙
œ
?b w
w
˙
˙ ˙.
œ
∑ ˙ -
˙ bw
˙ -
-
w
xum
w - xum
w
ci - fi
˙
-
˙ ˙
cru - ci - fi -
cru
w
w
ci - fi
œ ˙
˙.
˙ bw
"Je - sum quae - ri - tis Org
b˙
˙
∑
"Je - sum quae - ri - tis B
˙
˙
∑ ˙
∑
˙
w -
xum
w
example 7.15 C
˙
w
∑
&b c
G. P. Cima, O dulcedo melliflua a 1 (1610), mm. 1–45
O Part
? c w b
#˙
˙
#w
dul - ce
˙
n˙
-
do mel - li -
w
nw
˙
8
C
& b #˙ Œ œ ˙ nœ œ #œ ˙ œ w a,
Part
dul - ce - do mi - ran
?b w
15
C
&b w
˙ ˙
w
∑
∑
-
? Part
b ˙
˙ #˙
œ
Part
œ
ti - o -
-
?w
-
w
Ó ˙
- ti - o
? Part
-
w
. &b ˙ 36
C
dul
? Part
-
b w
œ -
-
w
w
˙
œ œ
ci - or
˙.
b
˙. œ ˙
œ
˙
˙
in
-
-
˙
me-di - ta -
˙ ˙
œ
#˙ Œ œ œ œ ˙ es
˙
in
w
#˙
me-di-ta -
˙ #˙ Ó ˙ b
∑
sed
˙
˙.
-
-
˙
w
œ
œ œœœœœ œœœ œ
œ œ ˙
in or - ra - ti - o
w
n
∑
∑
- ne,
es
w
& œ œ œ œ œ œ #œ ˙ œ w
-
#˙ Œ œ œ œ ˙
dul - cis
#w
29 C
œ
˙.
quam
œ
w
˙ ˙
w
- ne,
˙.
- flu -
b˙ nœ œ #œ ˙ œ
˙
nw ˙.
w
œœœ
-
w
quam dul - cis
˙
-
dul - ce - do mi - ran
n Ó ˙
& œ œ œ œ œ œ #œ ˙ œ w -
Ó
˙.
22
C
˙
da,
da,
œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ . #œ
˙
œ bœ ˙ -
-
w
-
mo dels an d imitatio, 1585– 1610 example 7.15 41
C
&b ?
Part
Continued
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ . œ œ œ œ œ œ œ #œ œ ˙ ˙ œ œ œ #œ ne,
b ˙.
in o - ra - ti - o
œ ˙
˙
-
-
w
-
241
-
-
w
-
-
w -
ne.
w
that music was even more powerful than prayer. The motet’s last phrase, its superlative “sed superdulcissima,” parallels the opening invocation, and thus creates overall balance. The tonal range of the piece, from the B/E sonorities of “quam dulcis es” to the repeated Ebs of the final periods, is the widest in the whole collection. The shifts, besides underscoring the oppositions of the text, give some sense of the eucharistic transformation sung in the motet. Cima’s penchant for projecting familiar texts through abstract structures and using evident tonal contrasts is very much in evidence. Many of Cima’s duets are again based on simple paratactic procedures: the repetitions of Jubilate Deo, the sequences (and barely hidden parallel octaves) of measures 39–47 (“laudabunt te”) in Beati omnes, and the two echo pieces for Paola Sorbelloni at S. Vincenzo all explore the simple repetition of ideas between the voices.49 The Cor mundum setting dedicated to Corradi affixes Bovicelli-style vocal ornamentation to a bicinium structure. Similar procedures are at work in some trios, such as the Gustate et videte inscribed to Maleardo. But still, there are moments, chosen more for musical reasons than for textual ones (“columba mea,” in Quam pulchra es, mm. 15– 21), somewhat reminiscent of the sonatas.50 As might be suspected from their overlap in scoring with Cima’s earlier book of 1599, the quartets are more mixed in approach. The two for Circumcision, each dedicated to a member of the Gradignano family, set familiar texts from the motet repertory of the previous century, and show the two sides of the collection.51 On one hand, the use of the tonal system for directly representational purposes in Mirabile mysterium witnesses to the constructivist side of the book. It commences with a gesture of a leap of a minor sixth, beginning a normal imitative exordium, setting the first three lines, in tone 10, with a clear cadence on A and a rest. Then, for “id quod fuit permansit,” canto, alto, and basso switch to cantus mollis, while the tenor remains in cantus durus. The next phrase, the other side of the ontological equation (“et quod non erat assumpsit”), led Cima to switch systems in each vocal group. And the mystery of Christ’s two natures was set by unifying the two in cantus durus at “non commistionem passus, neque divisionem” (ex. 7.16). On the other hand (as might be inferred from its two-staff reduction in the partitura), Ecce Maria genuit is absolutely simple and accessible in its antiphonal duet structure, reserving its first tutti for John the Baptist’s climactic announcement, “Ecce Agnus Dei,” and containing no surprises. The larger-scale pieces each feature a structural peculiarity. Misericordias Domini, the five-voice piece possibly for the eponymous luogo pio, is a simple canzona, complete with musical and textual da capo, reinforcing the structural influence of the
example 7.16
G. P. Cima, Mirabile mysterium a 4 (1610), mm. 29–71
29
C
˙ œ œ
& c Œ ˙ œ #œ ˙ œ
w
ho - di - e in - no - van - tur na - tu A
∑
&c
∑
∑
-
Ó
rae,
˙
œ œ œ
De
w
T
Vc
B
?c w
Bc
?c w
C
& Ó
∑
∑
∑
∑
∑
-
tu
-
De
35
˙
œ œ ˙
De A
& œ ˙ œ
-
us ho - mo fac
˙
-
˙ ˙.
- tus est, T
∑
V
œ
˙ ˙
De - us
œ w
? ˙. B
fac Bc
42
& ˙ #˙ -
A
T
B
De
tus
w
#w
est.
? ˙ ˙
-
˙ ˙
∑
Ó
˙
œ œ ˙
˙.
˙ Id
Id quod fu
w
˙ b Ó
est.
Id
w
˙ b Ó
˙.
w -
œ œ ˙
it
œ
quod fu - it per-man -
œ œ ˙
242
œ œ ˙
œ -
œ
˙.
per - man
-
œ œ ˙
quod fu - it per-man-
˙
per - man
œ œ ˙
fac
œ œ ˙ ˙
-
œ w
quod fu - it
Ó
-
˙.
mo
œœ ˙
˙. œ
w
˙ ˙
˙
∑
œ œ ˙ ho-mo fac -
w
Ó
∑
˙
fac
us ho
est.>
tus
tus
-
˙
fac
∑
œœ ˙
Id
b
œ
∑
est.
w
? ˙ ˙
b
˙
est,
˙
Ó
ho - mo
œ
ho - mo
w
œ
fac - tus
tus est,
V w
-
Bc
tus
& ˙ ˙ -
∑
œ w
? ˙.
C
ho - mo
˙.
us
œ ˙ ˙
-
∑
w
Ó
w -
b
Ó
w
w
- rat as - sump
œ œ ˙
˙
˙
Ó
<et B
Ó
w œ œ
˙
˙ et
∑
˙
w Ó
w
˙
œ œ
˙ sit,>
<et
Ó
rat as - sump
-
Vb
˙
-
sit,>
∑
œ œ
∑
quod non e -
-
sit,
∑
? Bc
man
-
Ó ˙
∑
B
-
sit,>
w
rat as - sump
et
-
w
w
rat as - sump
-
-
˙ ˙
w
-
w
per
n
w
man
˙ ˙
œ œ ˙
-
˙
quod non e -
˙ #˙
man -
-
œ œ
sit,> et
w
per
quod fu - it
˙
-
˙ ˙
œ œ ˙
-
œ œ˙
per
-
œ
<si - cut
co -
∑
∑
˙
˙
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
œ
lum - bam, 5
&b ˙ V b ˙. ?
Part
<si - cut
-
˙
?b ˙
T
&b Œ
-
œ
?b ˙ b ˙.
-
œ œ
-
˙.
∑ ∑
œ -
Œ
di
œ œ œ <si - cut co -
-
œ
-
œ
-
co
-
si
lum -
co - lum
œ œ
œ
-
œ œœœ 247
-
˙
di spe - ci -
˙ -
-
˙
˙ -
-
Œ œ
bam,>
vi -
nœ w
cut co - lum
œ œœœ
si - cut
-
œ œ ˙ -
œ œ œ
vi
œ œ œœ˙
œ
bam,
œ
bam,
œ
Œ
˙
Œ ˙
˙
<si - cut
Œ œ œ
-
œ b˙
vi
Œ
-
- di spe - ci - o
˙.
œ œ œ œœœ˙
œœœ˙ Vb œ
?
œ b˙
- bam,>
&b ∑
sam Part
œ œ
w
B
co - lum
Vi -
si - cut co - lum 5
si - cut
bam,>
&b w
œ œ œ œ
œ
˙.
∑
œ
-
sam
œ œ ˙
&b œœ ˙
lum A
-
Ó ˙ bam,>
Œ œ œ
˙
∑
b
6
œ œ œ œ ˙ lum -
co -
di spe - ci - o
10
C
œ
œ œ œ ˙
Vi B
œ œ
bam,
T
Œ
˙
-
˙
bam,
œ ˙
œ
- bam vi
-
˙
˙
di
example 7.17 12
C
&b œ
œ ˙
-
-
&b œ
<si - cut co - lum
œ
sam
di
-
si - cut co - lum
Vb
-
˙
? Part
b ˙
14
C
&b œ bam,
6
-
-
di
&b ˙ -
5
T
Vb œ sam
B
œ
œ
- di
œ œœœ
œ
bam, <si - cut
œ
co - lum
˙
-
- di
œ œ
co - lum
-
˙
spe - ci - o
-
-
-
-
œ
co - lum -
∑
˙ -
˙
œ
si - cut
˙
-
˙
Œ œ
sam
-
˙
œœ œ œ ˙
œ
spe - ci - o
œ
œœ œ œ ˙
œ
˙ -
œ
sam
∑
∑
bam,>
œ -
œ
œ b˙
di
spe - ci - o
œ œ œ
œ œ œ œ ˙
si - cut co - lum
?b w ? b ˙.
œ
spe - ci - o
-
-
œ -
-
sam
œ -
œ œ œ
œ
œ œ ˙
si - cut co - lum
bam, <si - cut co - lum
∑
œ œ œ œ ˙ 248
˙
˙
œ
-
-
-
-
-
-
w
œ œ œ
∑
bam, Part
œ
œ
œ
˙
& b ˙. vi
˙
˙.
&b Ó
vi A
si - cut
˙
œ
vi
Œ œ œ
sam.
˙
˙
œ
˙.
œ ˙
spe - ci - o
bam,>
- sam,
∑
?b œ
-
∑
vi B
-
Ó
-
w
-
-
˙
-
œ œ ˙
spe - ci - o -
co - lum -
œœ ˙ œ œœ
œ œ œ œ. œœ ˙
T
œ
˙ œ œœ œ
œ
si - cut
Œ
˙
œ
œ
sam
bam,>
&b ˙ o
5
-
&b œ œœœœ œ Œ œ lum
A
Œ
w
spe - ci - o 6
Continued
w
example 7.17 16
C
&b
Œ œ œ
˙ bam,
6
œ
<si - cut
˙
&b
Ó
&b
-
˙. -
-
-
œ
œ œ
di
spe - ci
Œ œ œ
bam,
-
Πsam
o
-
Œ
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙
œ
si - cut
∑
∑
co -
-
Ó
-
?
vi Part
<si -
˙.
b
œ œ -
˙.
?b
œ b˙
di spe - ci - o
œ œ
-
<si-cut co - lum 6
&b ˙
Ó
Ó
lum 5
-
B
&b w
Part
Œ œ œ œ
-
-
bam,>
-
˙ bam,
˙.
w
co - lum
-
-
∑
˙
˙
-
bam
-
Œ
w bam,>
œ ˙
w
co-lum-bam,
œ œ ˙
œ œ
˙
<si-cut co-lum - bam, si - cut co-lum-bam>
œ œ œœœw œ
si - cut co-lum
œ
bam,>
Œ œ œ œ œœœœ œ œ ˙
Œ œ œ œ ˙
Œ œ
œ ˙ -
w
Œ œ
-
œ œ œ œ
œ
<si-cut co - lum - bam,>
cut co-lum
?b w
˙
<si- cut co-lum
˙
-
œ œ ˙ Ó
V b œ œ œœ œ œ˙ ?b w
<si- cut co-lum
bam,
bam, T
Œ œ œ
<si - cut co-lum - bam,>
& b œ œ œ œœ œ œ w
co - lum
Œ œ œ œ œ œœ œ ˙ œ
bam,>
Œ œ
œ œ œ œ
œ
si - cut
˙
˙
-
bam,> A
sam
œ b˙
& b Œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ˙
Œ œ œ
˙
18
C
-
œ
Œ
bam,> B
-
œ
œ
si - cut co - lum -
w
Vb
co - lum
˙
bam, T
˙
œ
<si - cut
˙
∑
w
- bam,>
˙
-
∑
˙
-
Œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙
&b
vi 5
˙
co - lum -
si - cut co - lum A
Continued
-
œ œ w œœœœ 249
w -
-
-
w -
w
-
bam
˙.
example 7.18 A
&b C W
w. ˙
O 5
Vb C W O
T
Vb C W
w. ˙
w
5
w. ˙
?b C W
& b Ó n˙ w
T
B
?b Ó ˙ w o
Org
?b w
-
w
o
si-gnum u
-
ni - ta
w Ó ˙
˙
˙. œ œ ˙
u - ni - ta
w ˙ ˙
o
si-gnum u
Ó ˙
w ˙ ˙
˙
˙ w
u
-
ni - ta
w ˙ ˙
˙
˙ w
w
-
-
Ó ˙
ni-ta
-
-
-
w
#w
Ó ˙
tis,
o
tis, o vin - cu-
w -
-
tis,
˙ ˙ ˙. œ
œ œ ˙. œ ˙ -
- tis, o
w
bw
˙ w
gnum,
w
˙
˙
gnum>
-
- e - ta
w ˙ ˙
-
- tis,
bw
Ó ˙
˙ ˙ w
w
w
-
tis,
œœ˙ ˙
˙
˙
w.
w
-
- e-ta -
w.
-
œ œœ˙ w
e - ta -
-
#w
- e - ta
œœ˙ œœœœ
w. ˙
si - gnum,
w
-
pi -
w -
pi
˙ ˙ w
-
˙ ˙
sa - cra - men - tum
si - gnum,
˙
W
is an example of how a sixteenth-century imitative period could be used in the service of expressivity (ex. 8.21a–b). The contrapponto of “Flavit . . . fugavit” begins by alternating fourth relations in order to set the swaying of the wind, and the next period also contrasts “lavit cor Mariae” with “imber Sancti Spiritus,” ending on the finalis G in a sort of double exordium.31 This alternation of active with meditative periods continues throughout the iteration of the contrasts and the refrain. This latter is a brief concertato period, and the entire piece a witty but completely audible tribute to the princess, one of the pieces that again made a female Habsburg’s name resound in the city or its cathedral.
from triumph to plague , 1610– 1630 example 8.21a C
&c
F. Rognoni, Flavit auster a 5 (1624), mm. 1–25
∑
œ œ œ œ. œ œ
∑
Fla 5
&c
∑
-
-
A
&c
T
. V c œ œ œ œ . œ œ œ œ #˙
∑
B
-
?c
-
-
-
- vit
-
Fla T
B
-
V œ œ ˙ ? Ó
-
Œ j j œ œ
-
vit,
-
-
-
vit
œ œ
Au
-
˙
#œ
vit
Au -
ster,
Ó
œ.
-
˙
#œ -
Au -
V œ œ ?
œ œ
-
#œ
A - qui - lo B
-
œ ˙
œ
œ
Ó
œ ˙ -
T
Œ
-
Continued
-
vit
- vit
Ó
et fu -
˙ Au
Œ œj œj
˙ -
Ó
ster
the surprising entries and motivic saturation of the conclusion balance the spaciousness of the exordium. In all this, Cantone used markedly contrasting ideas to set the various textual phrases, often quite directly representative, as in the seconds for “astrinxisti” and the short CA canon for “ut te sequar.” Amidst these pieces, there emerged a new generation around 1620. The first edition to lengthen and use new ideas is Ala’s second book of 1621, which had been prefigured by the concertos in his first volume of 1618.32 The two Easter dialogues on local texts of the 1610s, Consolare, o mater (the Coppini/Ardemanio motet) and O Maria, quid ploras? (Ghizzolo 1611), furnish some of the best examples. They renounce any kind of intertextual reference to the first settings of the words. Ala’s move beyond traditional stately and paratactic openings is clear in the first, with its quick contrast in the Risen Christ’s statements. Ideas of extension and unification are evident in the two major entries of Mary, the second considerably longer by the interjection of a free triple-time period but both beginning with an unusual Bn–b bass gesture set with unresolved dissonances (ex. 8.23). The most obvious, if not the most original, mark was due to Grancini, who published his first motet book at the age of seventeen in 1622 and rapidly put out four more in the next nine years. His overall output is remarkable; these first five books contain some 110 motets, five masses and Magnificats, and a number of canzonas. Still, much of the productivity seems a result of his schematic means of composition. Almost all of Grancini’s music was published in Milan, except for the simultaneous Venetian (Magni) and Milanese (Lomazzo) issues of the Third Book of Motets (1628), a testimony to an essentially local reputation. In addition, most of this music survives incomplete, missing a partitura or voice parts.33 In the 1620s, the parallel to the 1608 Concerti de’ diversi was the Flores praestan-
from triumph to plague , 1610– 1630 example 8.21a 13 C
∑
&
et fu-ga 5
A
∑
&
Ó Œ
& ˙
B
? Œ
Œ
et fu - ga
œ
V œ œœ œ œ ga -
-
-
œ
- vit
-
-
-
-
-
17
& w
A - qui - lo -
et fu - ga
A - qui - lo -
-
-
-
vit
œ œ
vit
A - qui - lo
- vit
œ
˙
A - qui - lo
∑
&
-
nem,
Œ œJ œJ œ œ œ œ
∑
j j œ œ œ œ œœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ -
-
-
Ó
-
lo
-
-
∑
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
œ œœ -
-
œ
- vit
-
-
œ
œ œ
-
vit
A - qui - lo - nem,
œ œ œ Œ œ œ œ œœœ œœœœœœœ JJ et fu-ga
-
Œ œj œj œ œ œ œ œ œ et fu - ga
V Ó ?
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ A - qui
Œ œj œj œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ et fu - ga
B
- vit
∑
& w nem,
T
Ó
˙
et fu-ga
nem, et fu-ga A
-
∑
nem, 5
-
∑ œ
˙
œ œ œ #˙
œ
œ
˙ -
- vit
˙
œ œ
A - qui - lo - nem,
-
œ œ
œ
j j œ œ œ œœœœ œ
-
œ
œ
œ œ œ œ ˙ J J œ œ et fu-ga
C
-
j j œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
ster T
Continued
j j œ œ œ œœ œ œ œ˙
Œ
317
-
- vit
œ œ A - qui -
tissimorum virorum of 1626. Lomazzo went out of his way to include pieces from a range of figures: Donati, working in Lodi, Domenico Rognoni, and more recently appearing composers like Frissoni.34 The opening work, Francesco Rognoni’s solo Ave virgo benedicta, applies some of the unexpectedness if not much of the virtuosity associated with the solo motet. The textual change (the traditional “gloriosa” to “benedicta”), although obviously another Marian proem, also recalls Lomazzo’s dedication of the edition to Constantia Cziremberg. Rognoni’s setting avoids any sense of melodic or hypermetric rhyme to match its literary text, doing so by sharp rhythmic
318
musical e xpressions example 8.21a
œ & œ œœ œœ
œ œ
21
C
5
&
T
œ œ ˙
et fu - ga
A-qui-lo - nem,
nem, et fu-ga -
-
-
vit
-
-
? œœœ œ œ œ lo
-
-
-
-
- vit A-qui - lo
- vit
œœœ œ œ -
-
A - qui - lo
œ - nem,
A
-
qui
w -
-
lo
nem,
œ -
w nem,
w -
nem,
-
nem,
w
˙
˙
w
w
jj & œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ #œ ˙ A - qui - lo nem, et fu-ga - vit A-qui - lo œ œ œ œ J œ Jœ œ œ ˙ œ w V Œ Jœ Jœ œ œ œ œ et fu-ga
B
œ œ œœ œœœ œ J J
jj jj j j œ œ œœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
w -
A
vit,
-
-
Œ
Continued
w
contrasts (the slow pace of “favo, mellis dulcior” and the speed of “lilia candidior”). Its textual repetitions set up connections across both the literary and musical structures (“Dei mater gratiosa,” “lilia candidior,” “in caelo candidior”; ex. 8.24). Since its pitch structure starts and ends on G, the opening species of fifth, G–D, proved important. The second half of the motet (mm. 32–59) is simply an “alleluia,” exploiting a single dotted figure. But the closing vocal flourish, the only sign of Rognoni’s ornamentation talents, simply embellishes the D in the vocal line, the pitch on which the cantus actually ends. The freedom of the genre allowed for such experiments in the imposition of an abstract design on an extremely patterned text. Ardemanio’s Quo abiit dilectus tuus? a 3 is a Song of Songs dialogue in all but name, the Sponsus the lower voice and the Sponsa the two canti. The chromatic inflections of the former and the arioso rhythms of the latter give some sense of the desire and admiration present in the exegetical meanings. Ardemanio set the urgency of the colloquy with premature entries of the voice groupings before the other had cadenced. The most unexpected moment is the combination of the voices (“Filiae Jerusalem, fulcite me floribus”), carefully elided with the preceding period (ex. 8.25). The conclusion recalls the opening (“Quo declinavit dilectus meus” echoed in “quia amore langueo”). Two versions of earlier urban texts give some sense of innovation, on both generic and interpretive levels, in the anthology. G. D. Rognoni’s resetting of Nantermi’s Visitation motet (1608) Tu gloria Jerusalem is scored for CA and violin, and it begins like a small-scale canzona-motet: a widely-spaced vocal duet period cadencing on the finalis and contrasting with an ensuing canzona motive in the instrument.35 The change from familiar procedures comes in the middle of a phrase: the violin entrance on a high a⬙ in the middle of “fabro Joseph desponsata” and another entrance in the
example 8.21b 46
C
&c Œ
Rognoni, Flavit auster a 5 (1624), mm. 46–75
œ Jœ œJ Jœ œj œ J J
œ œ œj œj b œ œ œj œj J J J J
li - que - fe - cit et re - fe - cit re - so - lu - tum in A
Vc Ó
49
C
la - men -
-
j j j j j j j j j j œ œ œ œ œj œ œ œ œ œj œ œ # œ ˙
&c Ó
li - que - fe - cit T
w
re - fe - cit re - so - lu - tum
œ œ œJ Jœ J J
j j œ œ Jœ œJ œj œ b œ œ J J J
li - que - fe - cit
et
Ó
& ˙
et
in
œ
la - men -
œ
re - fe - cit re - so - lu - tum
-
˙
œ
in
la - men -
∑
∑
tis, 5
A
& Ó
V œ tis,
B
œ œ œ œ ˙
li - que - fe - cit
in
Ó
& ˙ tis,
T
j j j j j j j j j j j j œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
? Œ
et re - fe - cit re - so - lu- tum
∑
∑
j j j j j j j j j j j j j j œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ #œ li - que - fe - cit et re - fe - cit re - so - lu- tum in la - men
œ Jœ œJ œJ œj œ J J
œ œ œ œj œ œ Jœ œ J J J J J J
˙ -
œ
li - que - fe - cit et re - fe - cit re - so - lu- tum in la - men
œ -
˙
œ -
-
li - que-fe - cit, li - que - fe - cit et re - fe - cit re - so - lu - tum in la-men 5
A
j œ œj œj œj j œj œj œj œj œj œj œj œj œj œ tis, li - que-fe - cit et re - fe - cit, et re - fe - cit, re - so j j j j j j j j œ œ & Ó œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ &
œ
? B
˙ tis,
-
j j j j œ œ œ œ ˙ -
fe - cit et re - fe - cit re - so - lu - tum in la-men
-
B
Ó ˙
w
∑
-
bum
∑
mis - sum
∑
∑
tis; 62 C
&
˙ ˙ -
5
&
?
-
∑
-
˙ -
-
-
-
-
∑
˙.
˙
-
-
˙ œ œ -
œ
-
œ
-
-
-
˙ -
li
˙ -
-
tus,
˙ -
tus,
˙ ver
w
w -
˙ -
Ó
w
Ver
˙ - li
- li - tus,
∑
∑
tus,
-
˙. -
-
˙ -
∑
w
œ œ ˙
˙ -
˙
-
w
V ˙ ˙ cae
B
cae
˙
cae - li
œ œ œ œ
sum
-
˙
˙
mis - sum
& ˙ œ œ cae
T
bum
˙ ˙ -
A
˙
˙ - bum
˙ -
˙ ver -
˙ bum
˙
˙
mis - sum
next phrase, “tu honorificentia populi tui.” Thus the violin joins the vocal imitation and becomes an integral part of the top text, reinforcing each voice in turn at the octave (ex. 8.26). At any given moment, any of the top parts, vocal or instrumental, can carry the motivic interest, and as the texture grows more complicated, Rognoni also introduces subtle recalls of Nantermi’s original setting almost a generation earlier (“o Maria, tu mater Dei”). A final recall of the opening canzona motive (m. 81; “miserere mei”) serves only to underscore the distance that the piece has traveled from its generic origin and textual predecessor.
from triumph to plague , 1610– 1630 example 8.21b 68
C
& Ó
˙
˙
li - tus,
w
tus,
-
˙ -
œ -
w -
-
w -
cae -
-
w
-
Œ ˙ œ œ ˙. œ
-
#˙
cae
˙ - li
li-tus,
w
˙
œ œ œ œ . œj w
˙
˙
œ œ ˙ -
˙
sum cae -
w cae
˙
sum cae
˙
cae - li
˙
mis - sum
V w mis
B
˙
bum
-
Continued
#˙ -
321
-
w
- li - tus,
˙ - li
w -
tus,
Finally, Frissoni’s resetting of Coppini’s contrafact Una es, o Maria shows the changes in the four-voice motet. In the exordium, the off-beat entrances of the first motive, and the surprise introduction of “o mater Dei’ stand in sharp contrast to the regularity of Domenico Rognoni’s setting of 1615. Frissoni fitted an entire poetic line to a single or double motive, reading the poem clause by clause (“quae lilio candore vincis,” “tu potens es”) as opposed to the more fragmented motivic pace of Rognoni, a trait emphasized by the reworking of the entire last line in triple meter. The Somascan also uses a sheer sense of sonority, with the top line well above the lower three parts, in order to emphasize entrances or cadences (“quae lilia candore vincis”; ex. 8.27). The Flores was no unified collection, with some of its contributors already dead by the time of publication, and its contents a tribute, almost the last one, to Lomazzo’s promotion of city composers and their motets. But the subtle modifications of local tradition evident in its contents show at least some of the changes in the city in the decade. The rhetorical structures at work in the motets and secular music of the 1620s had slowly become quite different from those of a generation earlier, and it is in these pieces that the parallels with the new kinds of sacred oratory become haltingly apparent. As a whole, the decade of the 1620s was more Janus-faced than might be expected. In the intellectual life of the city, the large projects—institutional, poetic, and liturgical—came to an end. Federigo’s interiority has been noted several times, and the major painters and architects also died or retired. Similarly, the last works of an entire musical generation sounded together with the first ones of those who would and would not survive the contagion: Ala, Cozzolani, Grancini, Turati. In some ways, the transition was prepared before the plague ever struck.
example 8.22 54
C
&c Ó
˙
#œ ˙
ut A
Vc
Bc
?c
58
& œ. -
A
T
te
œ
˙
te
se
œ ˙ J
V Ó
Œ ∑
˙
-
-
-
quar
-
di
˙
˙
Ó
∑
‰ Jœ Jœ Jœ ut te glo-
j œ ˙
œ
Œ
ri - ge,
-
œ œ ˙ J J te lau
Œ ˙
-
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ -
œ
∑
-
ri-ge,
-
?
-
œ œ œ œ œ
œ
ut
Bc
-
˙
w
w
-
?
di
ut
& œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ.
B
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
œ
se - quar
&c
T
C
Cantone, Ave suavis Maria a 4 (1625), mm. 54–75
œ
œ -
œ œ
ut
te
œ
œ œ
lau
322
œ
#œ ˙
ut
te
lau-dem
œ. œ œ œ œ
dem
œ
˙
do
-
œ #œ -
dem
˙
w
ce
me
œ œ
w
do - ce
me,
˙
w
œ œ
example 8.22 62
C
& œ
j œ ˙
œ œ œ J J .
ri - fi-cem por A
T
˙
& #œ do
V Ó
-
-
-
-
?
œ
w
ce
me,
‰ Jœ œJ œJ ∑
Ó
∑
ri - ge,
∑ œ œ œ. J J
œ
ut te glo - ri B
Continued
-
fi- cem por
‰ œJ œJ œJ œ
œ J -
ri - ge,
œ œ J J
ut te glo - ri - fi- cem Bc
? w
˙
˙
323
w œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ por
w
-
-
-
-
example 8.22
j & Œ Jœ œ œ œ 65
C
& Ó
Œ œJ œJ œ œ
Œ Jœ œ œ œ J
o Ma-ri - a, A
Continued
Œ j j œ œ œ œ
Œ Jœ Jœ œ œ
∑
Ó
Œ œj œj
Ó
o Ma - ri - a, T
∑
V
quam tu
Œ Jœ œ œ œ J
Ó
quam tu
? #œ œ B Bc
C
˙
∑
˙
69 œ œ œ & Œ J J
˙
˙ œ
Œ
& œ œ
j j œ œj œ œj Œ
V Œ Jœ Jœ œ
œ
o Ma-ri - a, B
? Ó
Œ
œ J Jœ
œ œ J J œ j œ œj œ o
? ˙
˙
œ
œ
Ma - ri - a,
œ œ œ œ Ó J JJ J quam tu cle-mens,
œ
œ
o Ma - ri - a, Bc
˙
˙
dul-cis, quamtu pi-a, T
Œ œJ œ œ œ J
Ó
Ó
quam tu san-cta,
A
cle-mens,
ri - ge,
? œ œ
∑
Ó
˙
œ œ œ J Jœ J J
˙
˙
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ J J JJ J J J J quamtu pi-a, quam tu cle-mens,
j jj j j j j œ œj œ œ œ œ œ œ quamtu pi-a, quam tu cle-mens,
j jj œ œJ œ œ Jœ Jœ Jœ œJ
quamtu pi-a, quam tu cle-mens,
œ œj œ œ œj œj œj œj J JJ
quam tu san-cta, quamtu pi-a, quam tu cle-mens,
˙
324
˙
˙
example 8.22 72
C
& œ œ œ œ œ tu
A
T
& œ
es
œ
tu
es
V œ
œ
tu
es
? œ. B
me -
?
˙
-
me
œ œ œ œ
-
-
œ œ
-
- um dul
œ ˙
˙
œ
me - um dul
œ œ œ œ ˙
tu Bc
œ œ ˙
œ
um dul
-
ce
œ -
œ
j œ œj œ . ce prae-si -
œ œ ˙ J J
ce
prae-si
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
325
œ
j œ ˙
œ.
prae - si - di - um,
œ
es me - um
˙
Continued
j œ w di - um, w
#œ -
di
œ œ œ. J J
-
œ J
um,
w
dul - ce prae-si - di - um,
œ
œ
˙
w
T
example 8.23
Giovanni Battista Ala, Consolare, o mater a 2 (1621), mm. 1–39
3 V C2 W w
W w
Con - so - la - re, Bc
? C 32 W w
7
T
V w ?
T
23 W w
W w
∑
j V œ œ œj ˙ la - re o ma
?
œ œ
-
T
mi Fi - li,
w
C
œ œ œj. œr # ˙ ˙ ∑
? ˙
Œ œ œ œj . r œ mi Fi - li
si - me Je
˙ -
-
ma - te,
o dul - ci - si -
w
∑
Ó
su,
Œ ‰ j œ œj . # œr œ
∑ ˙
Œ œj œj œ . œj
w
œ œj œj ˙ -
a
w
˙ ˙
˙
b˙
∑ #˙
∑
bw
Sur - re - xi, sur Bc
˙ b˙
mi Fi - li a - mate,
w
w
j & œ œj œ ˙ V
Œ
˙
con - so -
W.
∑
mi Fi - li,
me, dul - ci - si
œ œ
ter.
23
C
W w
W.
O
O
w
la - re o ma -
con - so - la - re,
œ œ œ œ
œ œ œ œ
?
-
C Ó Œ j œj œ
W w
W w
Ó ˙
& Ó ˙
Bc
œ Jœ œ ˙ J
C ˙ ˙
W.
w
˙
18
C
con - so
W w
23 W w
w
&
Bc
con - so - la - re,
con - so - la - re,
13 C
C Ó Œ œj œ J
W.
ter, Bc
W w
W w
b˙
˙. 326
œ
œ œ . œr ˙ J -
re - xi, sur - re
˙.
œœ
-
example 8.23 27
∑
&
T
j j r V œJ œ œ . œ ˙
o
œ œ . Jœ œ œJ . R
- xi glo - ri - o
?œ
œ
-
˙.
T
lae - ta - re, lae Bc
∑
&
o mi Fi - li, o mi
Fi - li,
Bc
œ œ ˙ V J J
œ. œ J R
ta- re o
ma - ter
? ˙
w
Œ œ j j j. r œ œ œ œ
˙
& Œ œ œj œj œj . œr V #œ œ Ó ?
˙.
œ. J Rœ
o
ma - ter
œ œ
∑
∑
mi>
Œ œ œ œj . œr lae - ta - re o
œ
Œ ˙ #˙
Ó
˙
me - a, Bc
mi,
œ
˙.
vul - ne - ra
˙
˙
330
˙
me - a,
