Abstracts - American Musicological Society

SOME NON-CONFLICTING ATTRIBUTIONS,
AND SOME NEWLY ANONYMOUS COMPOSITIONS
FROM THE EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Stanley Boorman, New York University
Saturday morning
A surprisingly large number of rnadrigals frorn the
first generations of composers, including Arcadelt,
Festa, Verdelot and Willaert, survive rvith conflicting
attributions in their various sources. The maj ority of
the names are attached to the compositions in printed
sources, principally the work of Gardane and the
Scottos (with Antico) during the 1530s and 1540s.
The manner by which the printers entered the
composers' names was largely a matter of printing-house
routine. The practices a11or,red for specific types of
rnistake, and, when they rrere changed, allowed for
misunderstanding and inconsistencies. As a result, a
number of the conflicting attributions can be shown to
be the probable result of printer's error, and not of a
deliberate change of opinion.
This paper will outline the techniques followed by
the printers, in particular when three madrigals appear
on an opening, and will demonstrate the rnanner in which
mistakes arose; it will also indicate some forty cases
in r,rhich specifie attributions nay be disregarded,
involving (among other narnes) Arcadelt, Alfonso de11a
Vio1a, Corteccia, Festa, Mr Jhan, Layolle , Naich, de
Silva, Verdelot, Willaert and Yvo.
Alfred Mann
BACH
Eastman School of Music Chair
TUTTI-SOLO ALTERNATION IN THE
CHORAL MOVEMENTS OF BACH CANTATAS
Richard Benedum, University of Dayton
In recent years scholars have debated the size of
Bach' s chorus . Bach hirnself gives several clues , thus
far largely neglected, that shed light on this issue
and the related matter of solo - tutti alternation ' In
six cantatas, he marks "so1o" and "tutti" alternations
clearly in the perforning parts and gives occasional
clues in the scores as we11. In these cantatas the
following conditions accompany Bach's explicit rnarking
of "so1o" or "tutti" in the vocal parts:
1) orchestral forces are greatly reduced,
generally to continuo a1one, when solo voices are
specified.