18 The ‘Other’ Coastal Area of Venice: Musical Ties with Istria and Dalmatia (original) (raw)
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Music for the Doge in Early Renaissance Venice
Speculum, 1992
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Knowledge and debate in the field of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Venetian music has greatly benefitted in recent decades from studies of major institutions, composers, repertories and sources, as also from investigations of the quantitative aspects of musical life in what was one of the largest, richest and most commercially oriented cities on the Italian peninsula: the Venetian musical phenomenon includes, on the one hand, regular or sporadic musical activities in the city’s many churches and private palaces (activities which provided significant earnings for large numbers of musicians, whether or not salaried members of the ducal cappella) and, on the other, the auxiliary trades of music printing and instrument making. The transmission of the musical repertories has also received notable attention: in particular, the contemporary and later reception of Venetian musical repertories in different political, linguistic and/or confessional areas. Central, too, have been questions of ‘sound’, both with regard to the particular interaction between musical composition, the spatial peculiarities and the specific liturgical and ceremonial traditions of the Venetian ducal chapel, and in the context of music-making at large. This collection of essays on the life, times and works of a composer who ranks among the most outstanding musical personalities of his day variously unites these strands in an albeit partial attempt to interpret Giovanni Gabrieli’s output and activities in their Venetian context and, at the same time, cast light on their broader historiographical significance: on the one hand Gabrieli as point of synthesis of a complex Venetian musical tradition, on the other his interaction with and impact on contemporary musical life, his influence on later generations of composers both at home and abroad, the rediscovery of his achievements by nineteenth- and twentieth-century historians and performers, the revisitations of his music by twentieth-century composers. Reviews: – Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 53 (2018), p. 285–291 (Michelangelo Gabbrielli) – Early Music 46 (2018), p. 167–169 (Eleanor Selfridge-Field); reply: Early Music 46 (2018), p. 367–368 – Renaissance Quarterly 71 (2018), p. 776–777 (Tim Shephard) – Music & Letters 100 (2019), p. 543–546 (Tim Carter)
Paolo Britti: il "cieco di Venezia": street music in seventeenth century Venice
De musica disserenda, 2018
The blind street singer Paolo Britti (fl. 1619-ca. 1660), who performed in the piazze and calle of Venice during the third and fourth decades of the seventeenth century, composed poems of popular nature which were published for the most part in Venice and Treviso. Printed to be sold at the time of their performance, some two hundred of these ephemeral works have survived up to today. In over forty cases (this number does not not include reprints) Britti indicates on the title page the ‘arias’ to which the poems should be sung. In some cases they are airs of a popular nature: some with titles in dialect - and some others of obviously popular derivation, such as the aria di Codognella, which can be identified with the Aria di Codognella published in Francesco Corbetta’s De gli scherzi armonici trovati, e facilitati in alcune curiosissime suonate sopra la chitarra spagnuola, published in Bologna in 1639. But others, unexpectedy, derive from works which we can identify as being by such composers as Tarquinio Merula, Francesco Cavalli, Claudio Monteverdi and Carlo Milanuzzi, That is to say, they derive from monodies and operatic arias by these composers, which is most unusual for the performance of popular poetry sung by a blind musician in the piazze of Venice A setting of the aria dimandata Quando volsi l’altra sera can be found in Tarquinio Merula’s Curtio precipitato et altri capricii, published in Venice in 1638. Moreover, Britti cites two arias from Francesco Cavalli’s opera Gli amori di Dafne e Apollo which was produced in Venice in 1640: Gradita povertà, from Act One, scene one, and Ben da dovero stolti, from Act One, scene seven. Both can be found in a manuscript collection of arias today held by the Biblioteca Comunale of Jesi, together with another aria cited by Britti, Supplice penitente. But the best known of Britti’s aria dimandate is certainly Monteverdi’s Eri già tutta mia, from his Scherzi musicali (1632), cited by Britti in a Bellissima canzoneta of 1633. Carlo Milanuzzi’s Sesto libro delle ariose vaghezze ... opera decimaquinta (1628) contains two works which can be identified as arie dimandate: Vedilo là, and Che mi val che tu mi ami. Moreover, its very last work is an instrumental Veneziana sopra l’aria di Catte: Catte is one of Britti’s personages in his ‘serial’ works which revisit characters in a number of poems. Britti’s publications open our eyes to a world of Venetian street music which we could not have imagined without his extraordinary testimony. The article concludes with an index of arie dimandate cited by Paolo Britti.
This paper will discuss the results of a survey on the soni, the centuries-old tradition of instrumental music performed by musicians from all over Italy gathered at L’Aquila every year, both in May and in August, on the octave of the feasts of Saint Peter Celestine. The accounting documents preserved to this day hand down the payment records of most of the sixteenth century feasts and a significant percentage of the seventeenth, allowing us to uncover more than a thousand names of popular musicians between ensembles and soloists. In this case I will analyse the share of mid-Adriatic provenance – from the Marche to the northern Apulia, with a specific attention to the Abruzzi –, focusing on the respective instrument combinations and their possible repertoires.
Research into Venetian Music and Musicians: Old Gaps Filled and New Gaps Created
Venezia, citta' della musica (1600-1750). Stato delle ricerche e prospettive. Venezia, 29 giugno 2012. Atti della giornata di studio, pp. 6-11, 2013
A brief survey of the state of research into Venetian music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This paper was read to a study day held in Venice in June 2012. The paper emphasizes the important role of search engines, when used imaginatively, in turning up new data.
Many treatises on the history and arts of Venice lament the loss resulting from the capitulation of the last doge to Napoleon’s forces in May 1797, when many records and manuscripts from its institutions were lost. Yet, fortunate discoveries have since filled in much detail and have allowed re-evaluation of the Republic of Venice’s role in history and culture by historians working since the mid-1800s. Antonio Vivaldi, now one of the most famous and well-regarded composers of the Baroque as well as of Venice, was for some time remembered mainly as a composer who was famous in his own time, and as an important influence on J.S. Bach’s keyboard style. A prolific and innovative composer, Vivaldi in fact made major and lasting contributions to instrumental music that helped shape the orchestra itself. This paper will examine how the unique environment of his native Venice shaped Vivaldi's work and thus his impact.
Venice, City of Music. Festivities and Entertainment in the Early Modern Age
Musik und Vergnügen am Hohen Ufer. Fest- und Kulturtransfer zwischen Hannover und Venedig in der Frühen Neuzeit, hg. v. Sabine Meine, Nicole K. Strohmann und Tobias Weißmann, pp. 35-48
Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek: Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.dnb.de abrufbar.
Musical Networks in Bergamo and the Borders of the Venetian Republic, 1580–1630
2020
"Musical Networks in Bergamo and the Borders of the Venetian Republic, 1580-1630," examines the mediation and circulation of northern Italian music through social and professional networks with an emphasis on Bergamo, a thriving musical center during this period. In so doing, I challenge established narratives of early modern history that limit centers of influence to larger cities such as Florence and Venice. A trend towards teleology has shifted musical histories towards the innovators, especially in those cities. I demonstrate through the study of musical institutions like Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo and forgotten composers such as Giovanni Cavaccio, who worked there as maestro di cappella (chapel master) from 1598 to 1626, that a reductive narrative of Florentine and Venetian innovation ignores the musical quotidian in the early modern period. The focus on perpetual innovation has obfuscated the reality of musical life-particularly sacred musical life-and how it relates to the larger political, cultural, and religious climate in early modern Italy, anachronistically relegating smaller cities like Bergamo to peripheral status. In addition to bringing neglected musical repertoires to life, I contribute a more robust notion of regional and interregional communication than currently recognized in musicology, thereby revealing a complex and supraregional network of musicians, composers, artists, poets, patrons, religious figures, and diplomats engaged in musical production. I additionally investigate cultural exchanges between, and exports from, Venice and Germanspeaking lands. The mobility of composers, musicians, and musical objects in and out of the Venetian Republic recasts the static idea of a city-centered music history into a fluid network of reciprocating influences. 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My deepest gratitude goes to my advisor, Linda Austern, who has been a supporter of my work since my first day at Northwestern. Linda is an impeccable scholar, devoted mentor, and possesses an endless capacity for enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity. It has been a pleasure to work closely with her and she has read and commented on almost every word I wrote in the past seven years. I am tremendously thankful to the rest of my committee members, Drew Davies, Jesse Rosenberg, and Ed Muir, all of whom have supported this project at every stage. I remain in awe at the depth of Drew's knowledge and his feedback consistently helped me keep track of the big picture. Jesse has the singular ability to ask an absolutely perfect question and possesses a keen eye for detail. I am also appreciative for his help with many of the trickier Seicento Italian translations. As I began considering an Italianist project for my dissertation, Ed agreed to my request for an independent study. Those weekly meetings were a highlight of my time at Northwestern and he taught me to think like an historian. My committee has helped shape my identity as a scholar and provided four unique models not only of exceptional scholarship, but pedagogy, mentorship, collegiality, and kindness. My sincere thanks to Jeffery Kurtzman, Gary Towne, and Mara Wade, scholars outside Northwestern who read and offered valuable feedback on chapter drafts. A number of other faculty have invested their time and expertise into my development, and I am thankful for their guidance. At Northwestern,