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The Sacred Polyphony of the Italian Trecento

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1973

Kurt Von Fischer
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Extract

As recently as two decades ago it was generally assumed that the liturgical music of fourteenth-century Italy consisted of only a few Mass movements in madrigal style, and that the motet appeared—with a few exceptions—only in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, that is, at the time of Ciconia. Such a view can no longer be maintained, now that scholars like F. Alberto Gallo, Ursula Günther, William Layton, Nino Pirrotta, Dragan Plamenac, Giuseppe Vecchi and others have presented the results of their research. The music in square notation and early mensural notation was published in facsimile in 1968, and an edition of the liturgical pieces in partly mensural and mensural notation will appear in 1976.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 100 , 1973 , pp. 143 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © 1975 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

1 See the inventories and bibliography of the Italian sources in Handschriften mit mehrstimmiger Musik des 14., 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts, ed. Kurt von Fischer (RISM, B IV3–4), Munich, 1972.Google Scholar

2 I più antichi monumenti sacri italiani, ed. F. Alberto Gallo and Giuseppe Vecchi, Bologna, 1968. This excludes the already known mensural compositions of the middle and late trecento.Google Scholar

3 Italian Sacred Music, ed. F. Alberto Gallo and Kurt von Fischer (Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century, xii).Google Scholar

4 Cf. F. A. Gallo, ‘Cantus planus binatim. Polifonia primitiva in fonti tardive’, Quadrivium, vii (1966), 79–90.Google Scholar

5 Italian Sacred Music, Appendix II, list 1.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., Appendix II, lists 3, 6 and 7.Google Scholar

7 Ibid., Appendix I, and Appendix II, list 1.Google Scholar

8 See M. Lütolf, Die mehrstimmigen Ordinarium Missae-Sätze vom ausgehenden 11. bis zur Wende des 13. zum 14. Jahrhundert, Bern, 1970, pp. 113–32; Manuscripts of Polyphonic Music: 11th-Early 14th Century, ed. Gilbert Reaney (RISM, B IV1), p. 609.Google Scholar

9 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fonds ital. 568, ff. 131v–133, 133v–138 (RISM, B IV2. 482–4); Italian Sacred Music, Nos. 3, 12, 15, 20 and 27. See Kurt von Fischer, ‘The Mass Cycle of the Trecento Manuscript F-Pn568 (Pit)’, Festschrift for Warren Fox (in preparation).Google Scholar

10 The Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus were written between 1340 and 1360, the ‘Benedicamus’ by Paolo some decades later.Google Scholar

11 See Wolf, J., ‘Florenze in der Musikgeschichte des 14. Jahrhunderts’ Sammelbānde der internationalen Musikgesellschqft, iii (1901–2), 611.Google Scholar

12 ff. 81v, 82v–85; Italian Sacred Music, Nos. 8 and 13. See RISM, B IV4. 652.Google Scholar

13 Italian Sacred Music, Nos. 6 and 17. See RISM, B IV4. 991–2.Google Scholar

14 See RISM, B IV1. 789–91.Google Scholar

15 Speculum musicae, Liber primus, ed. Roger Bragard (Corpus scriptorum de musica, iii/1), Rome, 1955, p. 54. See also G. Pietzsch, Die Klassifikation der Musik von Boethius bis Ugolino von Orvieto, Halle, 1929 (reprinted Tübingen, 1968), pp. 107 ff.Google Scholar

16 Martin Gerbert, Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica sacra potissimum, St. Blasien, 1784, iii. 121.Google Scholar

17 See Gallo, F. A., Prosdocimus de Beldemandis Opera: Expositiones tractatus practice cantus mensitrabilis magistri Johannes de Muris, Bologna, 1966; U. Michels, Die Musiktraktatae des Johannes de Muris (Beihefte zum Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, viii), Wiesbaden, 1970, pp. 27 ff. On the date of the treatise, see Gallo, ‘La tradizione dei trattati musicali di Prosdocimus de Beldemandis’, Quadrivium, vi (1964), 57 ff.Google Scholar

18 See Prosdocimus Opera: Expositiones, p. 163, and Gallo, ‘La tradizione’, loc. cit. The rhythmic interpretation of cantus planos is also described by Hieronimus de Moravia in his Tractatus de musica (ed. S. M. Cserba, Regensburg, 1925, pp. 179 ff.; E. de Coussemaker, Scriptorum de musica medii aevi novam seriem, Paris, 1864–76, i. 89 ff.).Google Scholar

19 La cappella musicale del duomo di Milano, ed. Gaetano Cesari, i: Fabio Fano, Le origini e il primo maestro di capella: Matteo di Perugia (Istituzioni e monumenti dell' arte musicale italiana, nuova series, i), Milan, 1956, p. 25.Google Scholar

20 See Kurt von Fischer, ‘Die Rolle der Mehrstimmigkeit am Dome von Siena zu Beginn des 13. Jahrhunderts’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, xviii (1961), 167–63; also A. Ziino, ‘Polifonia nella cattedrale di Lucca durante il XIII secolo’, Acta musicologica, xlvii (1975), 16–30.Google Scholar

21 See footnote 8 above; facsimile, I più antichi monumenti, Pl. XXIV.Google Scholar

22 See the only music example given by Cotton: Johannes Affligemensis, De musica cum tonario, ed. J. Smits van Waesberghe (Corpus scriptorum de musica, i), Rome, 1950.Google Scholar

23 Berlin, Staatsbibliothck der Stiftung preussischer Kulturbesitz, Ms. mus. 40563 (RISM, B IV2. 327); cf, Liber usualis, p. 134.Google Scholar

24 RISM, B IV4. 1030, 1036, deest; Italian, Sacred Music, Nos. 10a and too. See also G. Cattin, O. Mischiati and A. Ziino, ‘Composizioni polifoniche del primo quattrocento nei libri corali di Guardiagrele’, Rivista italiana di musicologia, vii (1972), 153 ff.Google Scholar

25 See Kurt von Fischer, ‘On the Technique, Origin and Evolution of Italian Trecento Music’, The Musical Quarterly, xlii (1961), 46 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 RISM, B IV4. 1028; Italian Sacred Music, No. 11a; facsimile, I più antichi monumenti, Pl. XXXI.Google Scholar

27 Italian Sacred Music, No. 12; The Music of Fourteenth Century Italy, ed. Nino Pirrotta (Corpus mensurabilis musicae, viii), American Institute of Musicology, 1954 ff., i, No. 1.Google Scholar

28 For details see the author's article cited in footnote 9 above.Google Scholar

29 Italian Sacred Music, No. 32; facsimile, I più antichi monumenti, Pll. LXIX-LXX.Google Scholar

30 Italian Sacred Music, No. 23; facsimile, I più antichi monumenti, Pl. CXX.Google Scholar

31 Liber usualis, p. 126.Google Scholar

32 Italian Sacred Music, No. 28; facsimile, I più antichi monumenti, Pl. LXXVII.Google Scholar

33 Italian Sacred Music, No. 31c; facsimile, I più antichi monumenti, Pll. CXVI-CXVII.Google Scholar

34 See footnote 9.Google Scholar

35 Italian Sacred Music, No. 20; Corpus mensurabilis musicae, viii/1, No. 22.Google Scholar

36 See Italian Sacred Music, critical commentary.Google Scholar

37 Ibid., No. 27 (for other editions, see critical commentary).Google Scholar

38 ‘Benedicamus’ for first Vespers on solemn feasts: liber usualis, p. 134.Google Scholar

39 See Kurt von Fischer, ‘Paolo da Firenze und der Squarcialupi-Kodex (I-Fl 87)’, Quadrivium, ix (1968), 21–94; Italian Sacred Music, No. 30.Google Scholar

40 This sort of technique must derive from the improvised practice of melis matic singing over a plainchant melody. Other examples of this type in Italian fourteenth-century music are the ‘Benedicamus’ in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Can. Pat. lat. 229, f. 53v (33v), and a short anonymous ‘Benedicamus’ recently discovered in Messina. See Ziino, A., ‘Nuove fonti di polifonia dell'ars nova,’ Studi musicali, ii (1973), 244–5; Italian Sacred Music, No. 26a.Google Scholar

41 Italian Sacred Music, No. 37; see Gallo, F. A., ‘Marchetus in Padua und die “franco-venetische” Musik des frühen Trecento’, Archie für Musikwissenschaft, xxxi (1974), 42–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 Italian Sacred Music, No. 40.Google Scholar

43 Cf. ibid., No. 15.Google Scholar

44 Ibid., No. 1.Google Scholar

45 Italian Sacred Music, No. 8 (for other editions see critical commentary).Google Scholar

46 Ibid., No. 5. See Pirrotta, N., ‘Church Polyphony Apropos of a New Fragment at Foligno’, Studies in Music History: Essays for Oliver Strunk, ed. Harold Powers, Princeton, 1968, pp. 113–26; O. Strunk, ‘Church Polyphony Apropos a New Fragment at Grotteferrata’, L'ars nova italiana del trecento, iii (Certaldo, 1970), 305 ff.; U, Günther, ‘Quelques remarques sur des feuillets récemmeni dicouverts à Grottaferrata’, ibid., 315 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 Foligno, Biblioteca comunale, Frammenti musicali, f. A; Grottaferrata, Biblioteca dell' Abbazia, Collocazione provisoria 197, ff. iv-2.Google Scholar

48 Kurt von Fischer, ‘Eine wiederaufgefundene Theoretikerhandschrift des späten 14. Jahrhunderts’, Schweizer Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft, i (1972), 23–24.Google Scholar