Stealing-Borrowing-Composing: Thomas Weelkes (1597)

FOOTNOTES

1. [01:36] The first study to note the similarities between Rossi’s Canzonette and Weelkes madrigals is Judith Cohen, “Thomas Weelkes's borrowings from Salamone Rossi”, in: Music & Letters vol.66 (1985), pp.110-17 [link]. Another study focused more on the textual side: Eric Lewin Altschuler and William Jansen, “Thomas Weelkes and Salamone Rossi: Some Interconnections”, in The Musical Times, Vol. 145, No. 1888 (2004), pp. 87-94 [jstor]. Recently, a study focusing on the contrapuntal similarities also came to light: Alon Schab, “Rossi and Weelkes: Examining a Knot in the Italian-English Contrapuntal Network”, in: Min-Ad: Israel Studies in Musicology Online (Vol. 20, 2022) [link]. 

2. [01:52] Joel Newman hypothesized that Rossi was 19 when publishing his canzonette based on the fact that it was signed on 19 August, contained 19 pieces with the first 7 items forming the acrostic VIVAT S R ("long live S. R."). Don Harran believes that even if this is not true, this is within the range of reasonable age Rossi must have been at that time. Joel Newman, The madrigals of Salamon de Rossi (PhD Dissertation, Columbia University, 1962), p.109 [ProQuest]. Don Harrán, Salamone Rossi: Jewish musician in late Renaissance Mantua (Oxford, 1999), p. 12. 

3. [02:25] A way to find multiple settings of the same texts is by examining the “Indice dei capoversi” [index by titles] of madrigals found in Emil Vogel, Bibliografia della musica vocale profana pubblicata dal 1500 al 1700 (Staderni, 1977). The list shown in the video of settings of “Cor mio deh non lingerie” is taken from Nicholas R. Jones, A Poetry Precise and Free (2018), Appendix 2. 

4. [02:47] Gastoldi’s Canzonette were published in 1592 [imslp], three years after Rossi’s. However, it is very likely that even if published later, they preceded the very young Rossi, and it was Rossi who copied Gastoldi’s texts and not the other way. See Judith Cohen, “Bild und Abbild: Rossi - Gastoldi - Weelkes”, in: Schweizer Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft, Band 3 (1983) [link], p. 57. 

5. [03:28] An interesting detail about Weelkes’ renditions which we don’t mention in the episode is the fact that he wrote out the repeats. Typically in Rossi’s canzonette the form is an A section and a B section, each with a repeat sign. Weelkes writes the repetition out, and for variety’s sake, he is interchanging the lines of the two upper parts. In two cases also the lower inner voices are interchanging. For the sake of simplicity, this detail is omitted in the score shown in the video, and repeat signs are employed. 

6. [06:38] “...let him [the beginner improviser] practice transposing pieces by means of all the accidental pitch signs that can be played, and at the same time, let him endeavor to extract from them subjects of particular melodic grace, and to memorize these that he may later play polyphonic fantasies based upon them.” Warren Earle Hultberg, The art of playing the fantasia (Latin American Literary Review Press, 1991), p. 391. Other Early Music Sources episodes that cover Santa Maria are How to improvise polyphony in four voices according to Santa María [YouTube] and Consonances according to Tomás de Santa María [YouTube]. 

7. [09:09] The way that Weelkes put text syllables under so many eighth notes (called Fusa or Chroma at the time) is something Rossi wouldn’t do in his compositions, and might be one of the differences in styles between an Italian and an English vocal piece. 

8. [13:08] In the video we show only the beginning, but not only the first subject is borrowed by Rossi, see a full comparison in See Judith Cohen, “Bild und Abbild: Rossi - Gastoldi - Weelkes”, in: Schweizer Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft, Band 3 (1983) [link], p. 58-9. 

BONUS

Elam Rotem’s setting of “Vattene pur da me cruda lontano” with subjects from Rossi’s Canzonetta as shown in the video [link].

CREDITS

Created by Elam Rotem, Alon Schab, and Iason Marmaras, May 2025

Singing by Giovanna Baviera, Tessa Roos, Doron Schleifer, Jacob Lawrence and Elam Rotem.

Special thanks to the singers, as well as to Sean Curtice, Marty Morell and Anne Smith.