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Eustachio Romano. Musica Duorum, Rome 1521. Ed. Hans T. David, Howard Mayer Brown, and Edward E. Lowinsky. (Monuments of Renaissance Music, 6.) Chicago-London: University of Chicago Press, 1975. 17 pls.+xviii+182 pp. $27.50.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Bruce Bellingham*
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut

Abstract

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Reviews
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1976

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References

1 Only a few printing errors or inconsistencies have been found: p. 36, line 17 - final ‘s’ missing on ‘Magnificat'; p. 42, n. 20 - erroneously refers to example 18, not 17, as the transcription; following the interpretation of the flat in the lower voice, an editorial B-flat should be added in m.11 of the transcription; p. 81, duo no. 17 - after the discussion (on p. 27) of the time signature C as indicating that the tempo is slower than that of most other duos in Ȼ, the footnote here suggests that the C signature is an error; p. 94, duo no. 24 - no measure numbers provided; p. 106, duo no. 30 - title should read ‘Tenor cum Basso,’ as in the Thematic Index; p. 119, duo no. 36, n. 1 - the return should be to m.31, not m.30; p. 134, duo no. 44 - the meter sign Ȼ is missing only in the Tenor part of the original; the Thematic Index appears at the end on unnumbered pages, although it is given a numbered page (181) in the table of contents.

2 Plate v is six sheets away from its transcription (no. 8, p. 62); Plate vi is even further removed from its transcription (the unique duo no. 24, p. 94), and could have been presented on p. 95 (where a copy of a painting is given as Plate xii); Plate vii could have been placed below no. 22, p. 91; Plate viii should appear preferably after its related transcription, no. 26.

3 The instrument in Plate xii called a ‘small viol’ (p. 33) appears to be a hybrid, played on the arm, in the oval shape of a vielle (called ‘fiddle’ by David) but with a pegbox, and looks similar to a fretted instrument in the upper left corner of a painting (ca. 1502-12) in Zagreb reproduced by Koraljka Kos, Musikinstrumente im mittelalterlichen Kroatien (Zagreb: Musikwissenschaftliches Institut der Musikakademie, 1972), pl. 67; see my review in Notes; The Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association, 30 (1973), 281.

4 The arched soundboard with concave hollowing near the edges is a characteristic not identified with the early instrument by Ian Harwood in his article ‘An Introduction to Renaissance Viols,’ in Early Music, ii (London, 1974), pp. 234-246. If the relaxed manner of holding the bows appears to be impossible, it is nevertheless frequently encountered; see, for example, the players in Hans Burgkmaier's woodcuts for the Triumph of Maximilian, ed. Stanley Applebaum (New York, Dover, 1964), pls. 18 and 24.

5 To the reference (p. 36, n. 1) to Dietrich Kamper's article in Die Musikforschung, 18 (1965)—which suggests that the positions of the clefs may aid in choosing the proper instruments—may be added his more extensive Studien zur instrumentalen Ensemblemusik des 16. Jahrhunderts in Italien [1480-1580], in Analecta musicologia, 10 (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 1970), which was reviewed by Carol MacClintock in Journal of the American Musicological Society, 26 (1973), 161-164.

6 Professor Lowinsky postulated his principles for musica ficta in his foreword to the first volume of this Monuments series (Chicago-London, 1964), pp. viii-xxi; but his stated intention then to write a treatise on the subject has not yet been realized. There is a real need for a scholar of his long experience and knowledge to bring forth the ‘over whelm-ing documentation’ and ‘vast materials’ (p. viii, n. 10).

7 Some distinction may be implied from the observations made by Lewis Lockwood in his two articles ‘A Dispute on Accidentals in Sixteenth-Century Rome,’ Analecta musicologica, 2 (1965), 24-40, and ‘A Sample Problem of Musica Ficta: Willaert's “Pater Noster”,’ Studies in Music History: Essays for Oliver Strunk, ed. Harold Powers (Princeton University Press, 1968), pp. 161-182.

8 Pertinent to this discussion are two statements made by Professor Lowinsky in his foreword to Monuments, vol. 1: ‘The rule of the subsemitonium modi applies to all cadential formulas, whether they occur on the finalis of the mode or on any other tone, whether the ending comes in a perfect or a deceptive cadence, and whether it coincides with the completion of a sentence or not’ (p. ix); and ‘One and the same passage can be construed, say, in Dorian with C-sharp or in transposed Phrygian with E-flat—the latter, indeed, constituting a frequently overlooked possibility’ (p. xxi).

9 Limitations of space allow only these instances to illustrate where my questioning leads me: no. 22 - in spite of the need for a B-flat in m.14, and its provision elsewhere (m.32 and no. 23, mm.32, 33, 35), leaving the flat where it was in the original would produce a C-D/E-flat-D cadence in m.13; no. 25 - passing concordances on G then D/G are given F-sharps, followed by F-natural (mm.38-41); no. 14 - a similar situation with raised B's (m.8); no. 26 - the imitations at mm.25-29 are distorted by the G-sharp at m.30; no. 31 - if this duo and no. 26 are Hypodorian on A, could the editorial subsemitonium modi alterations be B-flat rather than G-sharp?; Example 19, p. 140 (the added handwritten duo in the Vienna unicum) - do the editorial F-sharps at the medial cadences on G not weaken the F-natural/E relationship so characteristic of Phrygian mode?

10 Professor David does not mention (p. 141) that duo no. 11 also bears an incipit, ‘Haec est,’ from the contrafactum of the Rotenbucher duo produced as plate ix. For further treatment of the Lutheran practice of adding contrafacta to bicinia, see Hans Albrecht, ‘Zur Rolle der Kontrafaktur in Rhaus Bicinia von 1545; ein Vorbericht,’ in Festschrift Max Schneider zum achtzigsten Geburtstage, ed. Walter Vetter (Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag, 1955), pp. 67ff., and Bruce Bellingham, ‘The Bicinium in the Lutheran Latin Schools during the Reformation Period’ (PH.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 1971), I, 215-227. A complete edition of the largest anthology (RISM 15456 and 15457) has been prepared by this reviewer as Georg Rhau Musikdrucke, vol. 6 (Kassel: Barenreiter, at press).

11 Caspar Othmayr, Bicinia Sacra (Niirnberg, ca. 1547), dedication; facsimile in Caspar Othmayr, Ausgewdälte Werke, II. Teil, ed. Hans Albrecht [Das Erbe deutscher Musik, 26 (1956)]. 591 see also Albrecht, Hans, Caspar Othmayr, Leben und Werk (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1950), pp. 4849.Google Scholar