Concerti Ecclesiastici

x
were the first ones to call themselves inventors of the new recitar cantando 25 . In those years
continuo practice was at an early stage 26 and in the following two centuries became one of
the most important parts of baroque music.
From this context arose the collection that Giovanni Paolo Cima (ca. 1570 –
1630) 27 — organist at the Milanese church of S. Celso28 from 1595 to his dead and from
1614 also choir conductor — published in 161029, the same year in which Claudio Monteverdi
printed his famous Vespro della Beata Vergine 30 .
The Cima’s printing31 is composed of about forty motets for 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 voices
and one piece (Assumpta est Maria) for 8 voices divided into two choirs, the first one characterised
by a melismatic writing while the second one uses a much simpler style, so maybe
the first chorus was composed by solos and the other by a schola cantorum.
The collection contains also a mass, two complete magnificat settings and six instrumental
pieces that are the most studied and performed part of Cima’s production and
that conclude the printing (as in Viadana’s Concerti, the last piece is a Canzon Francese in Risposta
for violin, cornett and two sackbuts).
25 Cf. Giulio Caccini, L’Euridice, Firenze 1600, preface; Iacopo Peri, Le musiche sopra l’Euridice, Firenze 1601,
preface.
26 The first texts about continuo are printed in these years: a part for the preface of Viadana, see A. Agazzari,
Del sonare sopra ’l basso con tutti li stromenti e dell’uso loro nel conserto, Siena 1607; F. Bianciardi, Breve regola per imparar’a
sonare sopra il basso con ogni sorte d’istrumento, Siena 1607.
27 Cf. Renato e Rossella Frigerio, Giovanni Paolo Cima organista nella Madonna di S. Celso in Milano: documenti inediti
dell’Archivio diocesano di Milano, in «Il Flauto Dolce» XVI (1987), pp. 32 – 37; J. Roche, R. Tibaldi, s. v. Cima,
Giovanni Paolo in The New Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second editino, London 2001, V p. 848;
G. Morche, s. v. Cima, Giovanni Paolo, in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, zweite Ausgabe, Personenteil,
IV coll. 1118 – 1122; R. Tibaldi, I mottetti a quattro voci (Milano 1599) di Giovanni Paolo Cima e lo stile “osservato”
nella Milano di fine ’500: alcune osservazioni, in «Polifonie» II, 1 (2002), pp. 7 – 69.
Only after the article by Frigerio (see), who found his testament and the payment lists of the church of S.
Maria in S. Celso, it has been possible to state that Cima died between 25 June and 30 September 1630.
28 About the importance of S. Celso as musical centre cf. G. Riccucci, L’attività della cappella musicale di S. Maria
presso S. Celso e le condizione dei musici a Milano tra il XVI e il XVII secolo, in Intorno a Monteverdi, a cura di M.
Caraci Vela e R. Tibaldi, Lucca 1999, pp. 289 – 312 e L. Ghielmi, Contributo per una storia degli organi del Santuario
di S. Maria dei Miracoli presso S. Celso, in «L’Organo» XXII (1984), pp. 3 -22.
29 Modern editions: n. 1 in A. Adrio, Die Anfänge des geistlichen Konzerts, Berlin 1935; n. 43 in F. Commer, Musica
Sacra, XIII, Regensburg 1882; the three sonatas n. 47 - 49 are edited by K. Grebe (ed. Sikorski); nn. 47 and
48 are also published by London Pro Musica; a complete editino has been edited by R. Hofstötter and I.
Rainer, Wien 1998 (Wiener Edition Alter Musik, 1). Fac-simile edited by Piero Mioli published by S.P.E.S,
Firenze 1986.
30 Claudio Monteverdi, Sanctissimae Virgini missa senis vocibus ad ecclesiarum choros ac vespere pluribus decantenda cum
nonnullis sacris concentibus as sacella sive principum cubucula accomodata, Venezia 1610.
31 Among the music by G. P. Cima, there are also compositions by Giovanni Andrea Cima (c. 1580 – after
1627), brother of Giovanni Paolo and organist at the church of S. Maria della Rosa in Milan around 1617
and than maestro di cappella in Bergamo. Apart for his music printed here, he published two collections of motets
(Concerti [a 2-4 voci], Milano 1614; Il secondo libro delli concerti [sempre a 2-4 voci], Venezia 1627) and three
canzoni, a mass (4 voices) and seven other motets in contemporary anthologies.
Cf. H. Smither, The Latin Dramatic Dialogue and the Nascent Oratorio, in «Journal of American Musicological Socierty»
(1967), p. 412; J. Roche, s. v. Cima, Andrea in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, London
1980., IV p. 397; G. Moroni, s. v. Cima, Andrea, in Dizionario della Musica e dei Musicisti, Torino 1985, II p. 246.