Early Word Painting

FOOTNOTES

1 [00:30] Examples of episodes that discuss word painting: Durum and Molle / Hard and soft in the music of the Renaissance; Rore / Amor ben mi credevo - Analysis; False relations in the late Renaissance.

2 [01:20] See below (footnote 10) Hans Ott’s comparison between a good painter and Josquin de Prez. For a later example of a composer being praised for their word-painting ability, Samuel Quickelberg wrote in his commentary on Orlando di Lasso’s Penitential Psalms that: “Lasso expressed these psalms so appropriately in accommodating, according to necessity, thoughts and words with lamenting and plaintive tones, in expressing the force of individual affections, and in placing the object almost alive before the eyes, that one is at a loss to say whether the sweetness of the affections enhanced the lamenting tones more greatly, or whether the lamenting tones brought greater ornament to the sweetness of the affections.” [emphasis added] trans. Albert Dunning, “Musica reservata,” Original: “qui [Lassus] adeo apposite lamentabili ac quaerula voce, ubi opus fuit, ad res et verba accomodando singulorum affectum vim exprimendo rem quasi actam ante oculos ponendo, expressit, ut ignorari possit: suavitasne affectum lamentabiles voces suavitatem affectum plus docorarint.”

3 [01:35] Quintilian writes: “There are certain experiences which the Greeks call φαντασίαι, and the Romans visions, whereby things absent are presented to our imagination with such extreme vividness that they seem actually to be before our very eyes. It is the man who is really sensitive to such impressions who will have the greatest power over the emotions. (Institutio Oratoria, VI.II.29, trans. Butler), quoted in Brian Vickers, "Figures of rhetoric/Figures of music?," Rhetorica 2, no. 1 (1984): 1-44, pp. 11–12. See also Blake Mc Dowell Wilson, "Ut oratoria musica in the Writings of Renaissance Music Theorists," in Festa Musicologica: Essays in Honor of George J. Buelow (1995): 341-68., p. 352. This idea is discussed in the early Renaissance by Rudolf Agricola in De inventione, libri tres (completed 1479 and printed frequently in the early sixteenth century).

4 [01:45] For the most thorough explanation of the role of mental imagery in religious devotions, see Michelle Karnes, Imagination, meditation, and cognition in the Middle Ages (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011); For its connection to music, see Anne Walters Robertson, “Affective literature and sacred themes in fifteenth-century music” in The Cambridge History of Fifteenth-Century Music, ed. Anna Maria Busse Berger and Jesse Rodin,(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015): 545–560; and Andrew Kirkman and Philip Weller. "Music and image/image and music: the creation and meaning of visual-aural force fields in the later Middle Ages." Early Music 45, no. 1 (2017): 55-75. For a reading that ties together early Renaissance rhetoric, devotional practices and word-painting in music, keep an eye out for Catherine Motuz, Persuasive Imitation: Music and Text 1470–1540 (PhD Diss, McGill University, forthcoming).

5 [02:05] Josquin de Prez, Nymphes des bois [also known as La Déploration de Johannes Ockeghem]. The source shown in the video is from the manuscript I-FI Acquisti e doni 666 / “Medici Codex”. Another source that also utilizes this black notation is found Tielman Susato [ed.], Septiesme livre contenant vingt & quatre chansons a cincq et a six parties (1545) [imslp], f. xiii. An early source that is written in standard notation is found in Ottaviano Petrucci [ed.], Motetti a cinque (1508) [imslp], no. 8.

6 [02:45] We discussed that in our episodes Modes in the 16th and 17th centuries [10:20].

7 [03:08] The motet “Nigra sum sed formosa” is found in Tomás Luis de Victoria [Thomae Ludovici de Victoria], Liber Primus (Venice, 1576) [link], f115.

8 [03:10] We mentioned hemiolia in our episode Tactus and Proportions around 1600 [08:48’] and showed how according to most writers it is a way to notate sesquialtera proportion locally.

9 [04:05] Josquin des Prez, “Huc me sydereo”. For a list of sources, see here on Diamm.

10 [05:18] Hans Ott, preface to Novum et insigne opus musicum (Nuremberg, 1538): “What painter could express the appearance of Christ subject to the tortures of death as graphically as JOSQUIN expressed it in his way, when he so aptly repeated that part of the verse, verbera tanta pati?” Translated by Julie Cumming and Lars Lih. [quis pictor eam Christi faciem, suppliciis mortis subiecti, exprimere tam graphice potuit, quam, modis eam expressit IOSQUINUS, cum tam apte reperit, hanc partem versiculi, verbera tanta pati.]

11 [06:43] The madrigal "Nel dolce seno" is found in: Luca Marenzio, Il quinto libro de madrigali a sei voci (1591) [imslp], no. 11.

12 [08:23] In the theoretical writings this is expressed, for example, in Vincenzo Galilei’s rant over the practices of his time. He writes that “our practicing contrapuntists say, indeed, they hold steadfastly to have expressed the thoughts of the mind and affections of the soul in an appropriate way and to have imitated the words every time when in setting to music a sonnet, canzone, romanzo, madrigals or such, in which is found a line that says, for example, ‘Aspro core e selvaggio, e cruda voglia,’ which is the first line of one of Petrarch’s sonnets, they cause the parts to make many sevenths, fourths, seconds, amd major sixths,and provoke with those means a coarse, harsh sound little grateful to the ears…”. [Dicono adunque, anzi tengono per fermo i nostri prattici Contrapuntisti, di hauere espressi i concetti dell'animo in quella maniera che conuiene, & di hauere imitato le parole, tutta volta che nel mettere in musica vn Sonetto, vna Canzone, vn Romanzo, vn Madrigale, ò altro; nel quale trouando verso che dica per modo haueranno fatto tra le parti nel cantarlo, di molte settime, quarte, seconde, & seste maggiori; & cagionato con questi mezzi negli orecchi degli asccoltanti, vn suono, rozzo, aspro, & poco grato.] Vincenzo Galilei, Dialogo della musica antica, et della modern (Venice, 1581) [imslp], p. 88.

13 [08:28] The example shown on the video is from Claudio Monteverdi’s Lamento d'Arianna. This excerpt was discussed in our episode about False relations in the late Renaissance.

14 [08:58] See our episode about Artusi and Monteverdi.

15 [09:40] Philippe Verdelot, "Con soave parlar", from Il secondo libro de madrigali, 4vv (Venice, 1534). The later edition of 1537 is available on MDZ [link]. Modern edition of the piece is available on CPDL [link].

16 [10:04] The poem is by Biagio Bonaccorsi (1472-1526). The translation is by Giovanna Baviera.

17 [11:05] See our episode about Durum and Molle / Hard and soft in the music of the Renaissance and about Modes in the 16th and 17th centuries.

18 [11:33] We mentioned the “accento” ornament on our episode The art of diminution in the 16th century, and on Aspects in Early 17th-century Monodies.

19 [14:23] See our episode Durum and Molle / Hard and soft in the music of the Renaissance.

Credits:

Created by Elam Rotem and Catherine Motuz, October 2020.

Performance of "Con soave parlar" is taken from Profeti della Quinta's album: Phillippe Verdelot / Madrigals for four voices (Pan Classics) release date: January 2021

Special thanks to Anne Smith.