Score analysis #3 - Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck / Ricercar del nono tono

SOURCES OF THE RICERCAR:

• Padova, Biblioteca Universitaria, MS. 1982, fol. 128v-134r: “Ricercar del nono duono J:P:S:”

• Torino, Biblioteca Nazionale, Collezione Giordano, MSS. 7, fol. 139v-146r: “Ricercar del Nono tono. J.P.S.

Modern Editions:

• Four-part score [imslp]

• Keyboard score [imslp] (page 251 of the PDF)

RELATED AND RECOMMANDED EPISODES:

FOOTNOTES:

1. [05:40] Francesco Guami, Ricercari a due voci (Venice, 1588) [link]. In the example shown in the video from his Ricercar no. 9, Guami presents what may at first seem like an imitation with inversion, or perhaps some compromised imitation, as if his imitative technique is not polished enough. In reality, however, the excerpt is not the result of any compromise. On the contrary, it is a strict inganno: Guami shows us that the very same syllables ,ut-ut-mi-fa-mi etc., may be realized in two ways so different from one another that they seem almost unrelated. More on Guami's Ricercari of 1588 in a forthcoming article by Alon Schab (linked here in time).

2. [06:51] While mostly it was rather clear how to distribute the voices in a four-part score, it seems to me that it was not conceived in a score. For example, the ending (from m. 289) is not so consistently written in four parts (see score above).

3. ]07:04] Samuel Scheidt, Tabulatura Nova (Hamburg, 1624) [link]

Credits:

Created and performed by Elam Rotem, August 2021.

Special thanks to Enrico Coden, Alon Schab and Anne Smith.

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