Riviste Polifonie/119_2005 n 2.pdf - Fondazione Guido d'Arezzo

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MARCO GOZZI havrò per grandissimo favor poter haver il remanente del canto fermo poi ch’è così ben purgato da barbarismi et da i mali suoni et se l’Altezza vostra si contentarà si mandaranno in stampa con il graduale che nostro signor mi ha comquin Graduale ipsum praestantibus et pulcherrimis imaginibus, suis locis positis, in lucem prodiret. Quampropter hunc meum laborem vultus hilaritate, laetaque fronte accipietis, atque illamet religione, quae cantibus ecclesiasticis et spiritualibus debetur, amplectamini; me ultro offerens pro usu et commodo Ecclesiae Sanctae, in aliis et similibus operibus perseveraturum. Valete. wakefulness and effort for the Gradual to appear with extraordinary and beautiful images, positioned in the right place. Hence accept this effort of mine with a well-disposed, joyful mind and embrace it with the same devotion due to the ecclesiastical and spiritual chants; and may I, in offering it first for the use and benefit of the Holy Church, persevere in other similar works. Keep well. This conclusion expresses the publisher’s strong editorial and financial commitment, but also the hope to enter the market successfully and to be able to continue with the publication of other chant books (in aliis et similibus operibus perseveraturum). The expensive iconographic apparatus consists of sixteen large framed woodcuts (two are repeated): on the title-page (King David in prayer with Jerusalem in the background; FIGURE 6) and on fols. 13 (Nativity; In Nativitate Domini), 24 (Adoration of the Magi; In Epiphania Domini), 71 (Entrance into Jerusalem; Dominica in Palmis), 78 (Last Supper; Feria quinta in Cena Domini), 81 (Crucifixion; Feria sexta in Parasceve), 92 (Resurrection; Dominica Resurrectionis Domini), 105 (Ascension; In Ascensione Domini), 107v (Pentecost; In die Pentecostes), 113 (Trinity; In festo sanctissimae Trinitatis), 115v (Last Supper, the same as fol. 78; In solemnitate Corporis Christi), 143 (Church Triumphant; beginning of the Proprium Sanctorum: FIGURE 7), 149 (Presentation in the Temple; In festo Purificationis B. M.), 155 (Annunciation; In festo Annuntiationis B. Mariae virginis), 169v (Assumption of the Virgin; In Assumptione B. Mariae virginis), 176v (Church Triumphant, the same as fol. 143; beginning of the Commune Sanctorum). There are also many embellished initials. In short, the central concept of the preface concerns the need for a revision of the plainchant, rendered indispensable (as then believed by all) by the presumed incorrectness of the liturgical books. Let us now consider the actual musical and textual substance of the revision carried out in the 1591 Gradual. I would like to emphasize the spirit with which the composers of polyphony tackled the revision of plainchant, and I will do so through the testimony of Palestrina, who in an autograph letter dated 5 November 1578 wrote as follows to Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga concerning the Masses he had been commissioned to compose: 42
THE VENETIAN EDITION OF THE GRADUAL (1591) mandato ch’io emendi. [I will very greatly appreciate having the rest of the plainchant since it is so well purged of barbarisms and bad notes; and if Your Highness approves, they will be printed with the Gradual that our lord has commanded that I should emend]. 10 This letter provides a valuable clue to Palestrina’s attitude to the revision and clarifies that his work neither adopts philological criteria nor contemplates comparisons with ancient manuscripts. Instead the chant is to be purged of its presumed “barbarisms” as best can be done and with scant conviction, to the extent that as soon as Palestrina realizes that the Mantuan Kyriale has already been purged by someone else (and “well purged” at that), he proposes to the duke, without giving the matter a second thought, to publish it exactly it stood in his own edition commissioned by the pope (at the time author’s rights were given little consideration). The term “barbarisms” is perhaps that which recurs with the greatest frequency in all the polemical literature on the matter. We have already come across it in the pope’s Breve, but it is also found in a celebrated passage from Gioseffo Zarlino’s Istitutioni harmoniche (first edition: 1558), it concerns the way to set a text respecting the correct accentuation and pronunciation (“Il modo che si ha da tenere nel porre le figure cantabili sotto le parole”): 11 “La prima regola adunque sarà di porre sempre sotto la sillaba longa o breve una figura conveniente, di maniera che non si odi alcuno barbarismo ... il che si osserva etiandio nel Canto fermo” [The first rule is that of always putting the appropriate note value under a long or short syllable so that one hears no barbarism … which is also to be observed in plainchant]; further on, in the ninth rule, the same concept is developed: the penultimate syllable “potrà havere alquante delle figure minori sotto di sè, pur che la detta penultima sillaba sia longa, et non breve, percioché, se fusse breve, si verrebbe a commettere il barbarismo” [may have several of the shorter note values under it provided that the said penultimate syllable is long and not short, for if it were short, one would be committing a barbarism]. It is precisely these passages that suggest a correct interpretation of the concept: the term “barbarism” merely indicates a violation of the laws that must govern the correct text-music relationship, a violation found systematically in the Gregorian melodies transmitted by the medieval codices. The neumatic groups, for example, often lie above short syllables, which, according to the contemporary rules on aesthetics and musical rhetoric, could only be set to a single note. Corrections therefore consisted in shifting atonic syllables of the text to single notes and consequently antici- 10 MOLITOR, Die Nach-Tridentinische Choral-Reform, I, p. 300. 11 GIOSEFO ZARLINO, Le istitutioni harmoniche, Venezia 1558, IV parte, cap. 33, pp. 340-341. 43
Page 4 and 5: Fondazione Guido d'Arezzo Fondatori
Page 6 and 7: Fondazione Guido d’Arezzo Centro
Page 9: POLIFONIE V, 2 - 2005 Saggi / Artic
Page 12 and 13: MARCO GOZZI teca, e svolgeva anche
Page 14 and 15: MARCO GOZZI suo Graduale, si rivols
Page 16 and 17: MARCO GOZZI ga: Paul Kauffmann, 159
Page 18 and 19: MARCO GOZZI maxima discrepantia et
Page 20 and 21: MARCO GOZZI laborem vultus hilarita
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Page 24 and 25: MARCO GOZZI molti libri di canto li
Page 26 and 27: MARCO GOZZI FIGURA 2. ORAZIO VECCHI
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Page 43: Mutinensi canonico Corrigiensi, a q
Page 49 and 50: RODOBALDO TIBALDI I mottetti di Ora
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RODOBALDO TIBALDI The motets of Ora
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THE MOTETS OF ORAZIO VECCHI: AN ANT
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THE MOTETS OF ORAZIO VECCHI: AN ANT
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CECILIA LUZZI musicali, ma anche di
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CECILIA LUZZI cal forms and genres
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CECILIA LUZZI PAOLO BON, Poetica e
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CECILIA LUZZI «Studi Musicali», X
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CECILIA LUZZI XXXII, 1, 2004, pp. 9
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CECILIA LUZZI Repertoire of the Ivr
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CECILIA LUZZI XXIV, 2005, pp. 213-2
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CECILIA LUZZI 21. «Music Analysis
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Norme per gli autori La rivista «P
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Finito di stampare nel mese di dice
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Riviste Polifonie/119_2005 n 2.pdf - Fondazione Guido d'Arezzo

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