The art of Diminution in the 16th century

Footnotes:

1 [02:14] See details in the source list above. In addition, also the following two sources refer to ensemble diminutions: Hermann Finck, Practica musica (Wittenberg, 1556) [Imslp]; Luigi Zenobi, Letter on the perfect musician (MS ca. 1600) [translation].

2 [02:25] Most sources imply that in the case of a soloistic performance, an instrumental accompaniment includes all parts of the composition.This means that the accompaniment includes the diminished voice in its simple ‘unornamented’ form. Only a few sources (for example, Ortiz) suggest leaving out the diminished voice out of the accompaniment.

3 [03:48] Cipriano de Rore, La bella netta ignuda e bianca mano, first book of madrigals a 4 [imslp] [transcription on cpdl]. Historical diminutions specifically on this madrigal are available in: 1. Girolamo dalla Casa, Il vero modo modo di diminuir (1584), p. 9 [Imslp]; 2. Giovanni Bassano, Motetti, madrigali et canzone francese (1591), p. 30 [imslp]; 3. Vincenzo Bonizzi, Alcune opere...per la viola bastarda (1626), p. 66 [imslp]

4 [04:05] Solistic performance is discussed more and more toward the end of the 16th century, breaking the polyphonic structure from four or more parts into only two main parts: the solo and the accompaniment. When this is the case, a soprano solo voice may be exchanged with a tenor voice an octave lower without harming the contrapuntal base of the piece very much. Sources for such practice are found from around 1600 with rubrics such as “canto overo tenor” and similar ones.

5 [06:03] Sources that refer to such practice include: Santa Maria, Arte de tañer Fantasia (1565) [Imslp]; Giovanni Bovicelli, Regole, passaggi di musica (1594) [Imslp]; Giulio Caccini, Le nuove musiche (Rome, 1602) [Imslp]; Adriano Banchieri, Cartella Musicale (1614) [imslp]; Antonio Brunelli, Varii esercitii, Op. 11 (1616) [Imslp].

6 [08:25] This is most extreme concerning the accento. In the demonstrations in this video we refer specifically to the accento as shown in Bovicelli’s treatise (see sources above).

7 [08:45] Orazio Scaletta, Scala di musica (Como, 1585), p. 28 [link]: “Hor dunque quando non si habbi tal gratia di Iddio, si contenti quel tale cantar la parte sua come stà politamente, dandogli con ogni gratia qualche accento, che ciò basterà, e farà bel sentire.”. Luigi Zenobi writes that singers must know how to sing a piece in its simple form, that is, without passaggi but only with graces. See Zenobi’s Letter on the perfect musician: Bonnie J. Blackburn & Edward E. Lowinsky, “Luigi Zenobi and his letter on the perfect musician”, in Studi musicali, 22 (1993), pp. 61-114 [link].

8 [10:35] For example, in the following sources specific virtuosi are connected with the presented music: 1. Cristofano Malvezzi ed., Intermedii et concerti… (Venice: Giacomo Vincenti, 1591): Vittoria Archilei and Jacopo Peri; 2. Luzzasco Luzzaschi, madrigali… (Rome, 1601): the famous concerto delle donne; 3. Giulio Caccini, Le nuove musiche (Rome, 1602): Melchior Palentrotti, Francesco Rasi, and Giulio Caccini.

9 [11:13] Gioseffo Zarlino, Le istitutioni harmoniche (Venice, 1558), Lib. III, cap.45, p.204 [imslp] [transcription]: "Primieramente dee con ogni diligenza prouedere nel suo cantare, di proferire la modulatione in quel modo, che è stata composta dal Compositore; & non fare come fanno alcuni poco aueduti, i quali per farsi tenere più valenti, & più saui de gli altri, fanno alle volte di suo capo alcune diminutioni tanto saluatiche (diro cosi) & tanto fuori di ogni proposito, che non solo fanno fastidio a chi loro ascolta; ma commetteno etiandio nel cantare mille errori."

10 [11:48] Johannes manlius, Locorum communium (Basel, 1562), p. 542 [Google books]. German translation of that phrase is found in Helmuth Osthoff, Josquin Desprez (Tutzing, 1962) Vol. 1, p. 82; English translation is found in H. M. Brown, “Embellishing 16th-century music” (Oxford, 1976), p. 75.

11 [12:13] Ludovico Zacconi, Prattica di musica (Venice, 1592), p.64v [imslp] [transcription]: “anzi che io ho trouato alle votle i Compositori hauer fuggito l'occasione di far cantar alcune cose loro: per non farle cantare, & darle in mano à simili Cantori”. Later in the treatise, though, he writes that after singers sang virtuoso diminutions in such a lovely way, hearing pieces without the diminutions is unsatisfactory: “Questi tali che hanno tanta prontezza, & possanza di pronuntiar a tempo tanta quantità di figure con quella velocità pronuntiate: hanno fatto, & fanno si vaghe le cantilene; che chi hora non le canta come loro a gli ascoltanti da poca sodisfattione, & poco da cantori vien stimato.”, p.58r.

12 [12:27] Emilio de’ Cavalieri, Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo (Rome, 1600) [imslp], preface: “che il cantante habbia bella voce, bene intuonata, e che la porti salda, che canti con affetto, piano, e forte senza passaggi, e in particolare, che esprima bene le parole, che siano intese…”

13 [12:36] Giulio Caccini, Le Nuove Musiche (Rome, 1602) [Imslp]. The idea of having an accurate notation and by this prevent additional embellishments by the performers is expressed both in the music and the lengthy preface.

14 [13:02] Cipriano de Rore, “Signor mio caro” (see ending of 2nd part: “Carita di signore”], Primo libro di madrigali a 4 (1547) [cpdl].

15 [13:22] For example, Jacopo Peri, in the preface to his Euridice (1601) described the singing of the star-singer Vittoria Archilei, referring to the “vaghezze e leggiadrie, che non si possono scrivere, e scrivendole non s'imparano da gli scritti.” [“elegances and graces that cannot be written or, if written, cannot be learned from writing.”

Selected embellishment manuals:

1535 - Sylvestro Ganassi, La Fontegara [Imslp]

1553 - Diego Ortiz, Trattado de glosas [Imslp]

1562 - Giovanni Maffei, Delle lettere del Sr. Gio. Camillo Maffei [Imslp, Eng. translation]

1584 - Girolamo dalla Casa, Il vero modo modo di diminuir [Imslp]

1592 - Ludovico Zacconi, Prattica di musica [Imslp] [transcription]

1594 - Giovanni Bovicelli, Regole, passaggi di musica [Imslp]

1614 - Bartholomeo Barbarino, Il secondo libro delli motetti di.

1616 - Antonio Brunelli, Varii esercitii, Op. 11 [Imslp]

1620 - Francesco Rognoni, Selva de varii passaggi secondo l'uso moderno [Imslp]

Selected musical sources that include embellished materials (vocal):

1591 - Cristofano Malvezzi ed., Intermedii et concerti… [Imslp]

1601 - Luzzasco Luzzaschi, madrigali… [Imslp] [Despite its publication date, this publication is believed to represent part of the repertoire the so-called Concerto delle Dame were performing some decades earlier at the Este court in Ferrara.]

1602 - Giulio Caccini, Le nuove musiche [Imslp]

ca. 1600-1620 - The Carlo G Manuscript [Imslp]

Recommended secondary sources:

• Imogene Horsley, “Improvised Embellishment in the Performance of Renaissance Polyphonic Music”, in Journal of the American Musicological Society, vol. 4, no. 1, 1951, pp. 3–19 [JSTOR]
• Richard Erig & Veronika Gutmann, Italienische Diminutionen / Italien Diminutions (Winterthur, 1979)
• Howard M. Brown, Embellishing Sixteenth-Century Music (Oxford University Press, 1976)
• Bruce Dickey, “Ornamentation in Sixteenth-Century music”, in A Performer’s Guide to Renaissance Music (Indiana University, 2007)
• Bruce Dickey, “Ornamentation in Early Seventeenth-Century Italian Music”, in A Performer’s Guide to Seventeenth-Century Music (Indiana University, 2012)

Credits:

Created by Elam Rotem and Jacob Lawrence, July 2020.

Music examples sung by Jacob Lawrence and played by Elam Rotem.

Special thanks to Catherine Motuz, Josué Meléndez Peláez, and Anne Smith.