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Chelys 7 (1977), article 4
Ex. III. Opening of Palestrina’s madrigal ‘Vestiva i colli’
In view of a similar connection between one of Ferrabosco’s six-part
fantasias and Wert’s madrigal ‘Chi salira per me’, also included in Musica
Transalpina, 4 it is possible that Jenkins deliberately used Palestrina’s
theme, though it is of course equally possible that both composers happened
to light on identical ideas which, after all, are conventional enough.
However, this makes a mockery of North’s comment cited earlier: ‘He
chose for his points more ayery passages than had bin ordinary’, though
smooth contrapuntal fluency is a Palestrina characteristic too, and the ‘song’
aspect of a madrigal agrees with Jenkins’s essential lyricism.
There are no contrapuntal tricks in the opening fugue (beyond a few
stretto entries), but there is no need for any: the contrapuntal texture is in
itself a sufficient contrast with the dotted rhythm section which follows,
where various instruments are highlighted in turn, and where there is a much
more fragmented sense of line. Tucked away in the textual commentary is
our suggestion that all the pairs of repeated quavers in this section should be
played dotted; certainly [59] this seems the most convincing way to
perform this passage and the practice ought perhaps to be extended to
include the final three bars of the work. 5 Rhythmic inconsistencies of this
kind are always problematical—where does one stop?—but it is
interesting to note a tendency to write the dotted rhythm for the leading
instrument and leave the non-dotted notation for the imitating part(s).
Were the latter expected to copy the leader? I do not know how
consistent this practice is in seventeenth century sources, but the matter
seems worth further investigation (Example IV)
Ex. IV. Trebles 1 and 2, bars 33-5 from Fantasia no. 10.
At bars 27-8 is a beautiful and quite startling harmonic progression
(Example V) which one meets from time to time in Jenkins’s music. As
here, it results from a cadence in a major key followed immediately by
4 See Joan Wess’s review of an edition of this Ferrabosco piece in Early Music, v (July,
1977), p. 423. She hopes to pursue these relationships further.
5 I am indebted to Arthur Marshall for this suggestion.