Recercare 2007 - Patrizio Barbieri

PIETRO DELLA VALLE: THE ESTHÈR ORATORIO (1639) 87
Purificazione contains a manuscript note hinting at his hope to extend the number
of instruments: 38
Nel basso continuo di questa parte si sono notate
le mutationi delle tre accordature dell’istrumento
con questi segni ordine grave, ordine
mezano, ordine acuto, acciocché si possa anche
sonare sopra la tiorba triarmonica del sig.r
Nicolini, detta il Cerbero, e sopra l’arpa triarmonica,
che pur pensiamo di fare, e si chiamerà
il Gerione.
In the basso continuo of this part, changes in
the three instrument tunings are marked as follows:
ordine grave, ordine mezano, ordine
acuto, so that it can also be used for playing the
tiorba triarmonica of sig. Nicolini, known as
the Cerberus, and for the triharmonic harp,
which we are also thinking about making,
which will be called the Geryon.
Della Valle considered that one of the reasons why the new compositions spread
so little was due to the fact that “in the churches, where music is most employed
nowadays” (“nelle chiese, dove è oggidì il maggiore uso della musica”), no triharmonic
organ was yet available. Consequently, he hoped to induce Father Girolamo
Rosini, to whom he dedicated his Dialogo della Purificazione, to have one built for
the Vallicella Oratory; a hope that, as we shall see, did not materialise. 39
As early as 1635 Doni had maintained that, in employing an organ, the differentiation
of the tonoi would have been more marked even from the point of view of
timbre, and proposed to make use of flue pipes presenting the following diameterlength
ratio: small (and thus with greater harmonic emission) for the phrygian,
normal (like those of the Principale stop) for the dorian, and large (i.e. with a more
muffled sound) for the lydian. 40 These characteristics could be strengthened by using
— respectively in the three cases — copper, tin, and lead (in accordance with
the acoustic beliefs of the time). 41 In 1640 his project seemed close to being made
concrete: indeed, in a letter dated July 22 nd , addressed to Mersenne, we read that
38. ADDAMIANO – MORELLI, “L’archivio della cappella musicale di Santa Maria in Vallicella”, p. 56
(c. 12 of the continuo partbook). The “Cerbero” was a three-necked theorbo belonging to the
famous bass Bartolomeo Nicolini, which Doni mentions in a letter to anonymous, perhaps dating
to 1647: BANDINI, Commentariorum, col. 225. Nicolini died in Rome on 11.10.1672 (PAUL KAST,
“Biographische Notizen zu römischen Musikern des 17. Jahrhunderts”, Analecta musicologica, I,
1963, pp. 38-69: 55). Della Valle also mentions these instruments in a letter to Doni, dated
23.3.1641, in which he changes the name of the harp: “Io ho pensato i nomi a tutti gli strumenti;
cioè l’organo o il cembalo chiamarlo il Gerione; la tiorba il Cerbero, come già si disse; l’arpa la
Trinacria; la chitarra la Trivia; e così di mano in mano si anderanno pensando gli altri e V.S. riderà
un poco dei miei spropositi” (ANGELO SOLERTI, “Lettere inedite sulla musica di Pietro della
Valle a G.B. Doni ed una veglia drammatica-musicale del medesimo”, Rivista Musicale Italiana,
XII, 1905, pp. 271-338: 294).
39. See his letter to Doni dated 17.12.1640 (S, 286-8).
40. GIOVANNI BATTISTA DONI, Compendio del Trattato de’ generi e de’ modi della musica, Roma, Fei,
1635, p. 54.
41. DONI, Annotazioni, p. 32. On such beliefs, see PATRIZIO BARBIERI, “Alchemy, symbolism and Aristotelian
acoustics in Medieval organ-pipe technology”, The Organ Yearbook, XXX, 2001, pp. 7-39:
11-7.