Durum & Molle - Hard and soft in the music of the Renaissance

Sources presented in the video:

- Gioseffo Zarlino, Le Istitutioni Harmoniche (Venice, 1558) imslp

- Giovanni Padovani, Institutiones ad diversas... (Verona, 1578) BNF

- Johann Herbst, Musica poëtica (Nuremberg, 1643) imslp

Music:

- Cipriano de Rore, "Mia benigna fortuna" from Secondo libro de madrigali a 4 (Venice, 1557) cpdl

- Giovanni Palestrina, "Introduxit me rex" from Motettorum liber quartus ex Canticis canticorum (Rome, 1584) cpdl

- Claudio Monteverdi, L'Orfeo (Venice, 1609) imslp

- Claudio Monteverdi, "Zefiro torna e il bel tempo rimena" from Sesto libro de madrigali (Venice, 1614) imslp

The recordings of Zefio torna and Mia benigna fortuna are taken from a live concert of Profeti della Quinta (August 2015)


Art works:

- Sandro Botticelli, La Nascita di Venere (ca. 1485)

- Niccolò dell'Arca, Compianto sul Cristo morto (1463-1490)

- Sandro Botticelli, Compianto sul Cristo morto con i santi Girolamo, Paolo e Pietro (ca. 1490)

- Giovanni Bellini, Pieta (ca. 1505)

- Michelangelo Buonarroti, Giudizio universale (1536-1541)

- Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Testa di Medusa (1597)

- Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Sacrificio di Isacco (1603)

- Jusepe de Ribera, Maddalena Penitente, o Vanitas (1609-1611)


Footnotes:

1 [01:45]: For a recent and friendly presentation of Solmization and its sources see Anne Smith's Performance of 16th-century music: learning from the theorists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

2 [10:39]: Last bars of the motet "Introduxit me rex" by Giovanni Palestrina (Motettorum liber quartus ex Canticis canticorum, Rome, 1584). Notice how the "soft" g-minor harmony on the penultimate bar is unique in the context of all the "Durum/hard" surrounding (especially "hard" is the A-major G-major transition between the fifth and sixth bars).