Composer at Work

COMPOSERS

AT WORK

COMPOSERS

AT WORK

The Craft of Musical Composition 1450-1600

Jessie Ann Owens

Oxford New York

Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Bombay Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul

Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw

and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan

Copyright © 1997 by Oxford University Press

First published in 1997 by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1998 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,

electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Owens, Jessie Ann.

Composers at work : the craft of musical composition 1450-1600 / Jessie Ann Owens.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-509577-4 ISBN 0-19-512904-0 (pbk.)

I. Composition (Music)-—History. 2. Music—~i5th century—-History and criticism. 3. Music—16th century•—'History and criticism.

I, Title. ML430.094 1997 781'.3'09031—dc20 95-38533

The publication of this book has been supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency, and by the

American Musicological Society.

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America

PREFACE

I

first began work on "compositional process" while I was writing my disserta-tion on Cipriano de Rore and had the opportunity to examine the set of autograph partbooks in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan in 1975. Perhaps because of the intense interest in compositional process that characterized musi-cology in general during the 1970s (for example, Robert Marshall's The Compo-sitional Process of J. S. Bach: A Study of the Autograph Scores of the Vocal Works appeared in 1972, and many of the fundamental studies of Beethoven's compo-sitional process came into print following the "Beethoven" year in 1970), and my training in particular (I participated in Lewis Lockwood's Beethoven sem-inar at Princeton University), I was able to recognize what had apparently gone unnoticed before: the revisions and cancellations meant that the Milan partbooks were Rore's composing manuscripts. The changes were not easy to interpret, and since the manuscript was not central to my dissertation, I put the topic aside until 1979-1980 when I had the luxury of a year at Villa I Tatti and the oppor-tunity to spend more time with the manuscript. In 1980 I presented a prelim-inary study of the partbooks at the annual meeting of the American Musico-logical Society. I argued that Cipriano de Rore was able to compose by writing in separate parts, without using a score. But it was not until the summer of 1981 that I finally solved the most important and revealing of the corrections and not until 1984 that the study appeared in the Journal of the American Musicological Soci-ety. In some ways, this book fleshes out ideas that I could only hint at in a short article and indeed only barely understood. The Milan partbooks now are just one small piece of a much larger picture. The evidence assembled here leaves me more convinced now than I could ever have been earlier of the correctness of my hypothesis. At the same time, I came to see that the picture is far more com-plex than I had imagined: this book is presented not as the last word, but as a first attempt to sketch some of the principles that govern how composers from roughly 1450 to 1600 composed.

Since in effect I have been working on this topic during my entire career, I have the pleasure of thanking virtually all the granting agencies that have given me generous financial support: in 1975-1976 the Martha Baird Rockefeller

Fund, in 1979-1980 the Leopold Schepp Foundation to support my fellowship at Villa I Tatti, during the summer of 1981 the American Philosophical Society, in 1983 - 1984 the American Council of Learned Societies, and in 1991 -1992 the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Mazer Fund at Brandeis Uni-versity provided research support in 1990, 1992, 1993, and 1995. My work was interrupted from 1987 until 1990 while I served as Dean of the College at Bran-deis University; I am grateful to the University for administrative leave in 1990. I thank the staff of the many libraries and archives where I have worked; I am grateful for permission to reproduce photographs of their holdings (as specified): Augsburg, Staats- und Stadtbibliothek (pl. 3.4);Barcelona,Biblioteca de L'Orfeo Catala (pl. 7.3 -4); Basel, Offentliche Bibliothek der Universitat (pl. 6.4 and 7.5); Bergamo, Biblioteca Civica "A. Mai" (pl. 7.7); Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, PreuBischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung (pl. 7.23 and 10.1); Bologna, Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale; Bologna, Archivio Musicale della Fabbriceria di San Petronio; Bruges, Stadarchief (pl. 6.3); Cambridge, Harvard University, Houghton Library (pl. 4.1) and Harvard Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum (pl. 5.5, gift of Belinda L. Randalla from the collection of John Witt Randall); Ca-stell'Arquato, Chiesa Collegiata, Archivio parocchiale (thanks to Prof. Lina Pagani for allowing me to spend parts of two days in the archive; pl. 7.6, 7.14-7.20); Chicago, Newberry Library (pl. 5.10); Coimbra, Biblioteca Geral da Universi-dade (pl. 7.9); Dublin, National Museum of Ireland (pl. 5.3); Erlangen, Univer-sitatsbibliothek (pl. 7.24); Florence, Archivio San Lorenzo (pl. 8.1); Florence,Bib-lioteca Nazionale Centrale (pl. 7.8,8.2-8.8); Florence, Duomo, Archivio Musicale dell'Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore; Hradec Kralove, Muzeum vychodnich Cech (Museum of East Bohemia) (pl. 6.1 -2); Leiden, Rijksuniversiteit, Prentenkabinet (pl. 5.4); Lille, Archives departementales du Nord (pl. 7.20); London, British Library, Reference Division, Department of Manuscripts (pl. 7.1-2); Mantua, Archivio di Stato (thanks to Dott.ssa Daniela Ferrari); Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, courtesy of The Medieval Institute of the University of Notre Dame (pl. 9.1-3); Milan, Biblioteca del Conservatorio di Musica (thanks to Dott.ssa Agostina Zecca Laterza); Modena, Archivio di Stato; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Musikabteilung (pl. 7.10-11); New York, Hispanic Society of America (pl. 3.7); Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek (pl. 5.1); Parma, Archivio di Stato; Rochester, Eastman School of Music, Sibley Music Library (pl. 2.1 and 5.9); Rome, Biblioteca Musicale Governativa del Conservatorio di Musica "Santa Cecilia" (pl. 11.2 - 3); Rome, San Giovanni in Laterano, Archivio Musicale (thanks to M.o Giancarlo Rostirolla for arranging limited access to the archive, pl. 11.4-5); Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket (pl. 7.12, 7.21 -22);Vatican City, Bib-lioteca Apostolica Vaticana (pl. II.I);Vienna, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek (pl. 5.11); Washington, Library of Congress, Music Division (pl. 2.2-4, 3.1-3, 3.5-6, 3.8, 5.6-8, 7.25);Wells (Somerset),Wells Museum (pl. 5.2). I benefited a great deal from the expert assistance of Ross Wood (Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester), Kathryn Bosi (Biblioteca Berenson, Villa I Tatti), John Howard (Isham Memorial Library Harvard University), and Robert Evensen,Vera Deak, and Bradley Short (Creative Arts Library, Brandeis University). I am grateful too for the very profitable time I spent at the

Musico-P R E F A C E IX

logical Archives for Renaissance Manuscript Studies at the University of Illinois and for the help I received from Herbert Kellman and Jerry Call. This project would not have been possible without these superb libraries and their dedicated staff.

The list of people to whom I am indebted is so long that to record the specifics of my indebtedness would have doubled the length of the footnotes. I take the liberty of listing them here and ask their understanding: Carolyn Abbate, the late Courtney Adams, M. Elizabeth Bartlet, Phyllis Benjamin, Lawrence Bernstein, Stanley Boorman, Susan Boynton, the late Howard Mayer Brown, Jerry Call, Tim Carter, Matthew Cron, Frank D'Accone, Carroll Durand, Margot Fassler, Alan J. Fletcher, Wolfgang Freis, Margareta Fulton, Irving Godt, John Griffiths, James Haar, Frederick Hammond, Donna Cardamone Jackson, Peter Jeffery, Robert Judd, Herbert Kellman, Robert Kendrick, Ursula Kirk-endale, Warren KirkKirk-endale, James Ladewig, Harry Lincoln, Robert Marshall, Roberta Marvin, Timothy McTaggart, Scott Milner, Oscar Mischiati, Christo-pher Mossey, Arthur Ness, Noel O'Regan, Daniel B. Page, Claude Palisca, Pier-luigi Petrobelli, Adriana Ponce, Harold S. Powers, Isobel Woods Preece, Mary Rasmussen, Owen Rees, Christopher Reynolds, Joshua Rifkin, Emilio Ros-Fabregas, Gregory Shesko, Richard Sherr, H. Colin Slim, Debra Sowul, Louise Stein, Edmond Strainchamps, Gary Towne, Andrew Wathey, Tom Ward, and Charles Warren. A special word of thanks to the graduate students in musicology at Brandeis who took a crack at some of the autograph manuscripts, and in par-ticular to Roberta Marvin, Wendy Heller, David Farris, Beverly Stein, Matthew Cron, Dana Dalton, Craig Thomas, Rachel Golden, Megumi Nagaoka, and Jen-nifer Stinson.

A number of scholars sent me material in typescript in advance of publication or shared other research materials. I would like to acknowledge their generosity: Jane Bernstein, Bonnie J. Blackburn, Margot Fassler, Wolfgang Freis, Paula Hig-gins, Peter Jeffery, Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, Lewis Lockwood, John Milsom, Megumi Nagaoka, Lilian Pruett, H. Colin Slim, and Gary Towne. I would like to offer special thanks to John Kmetz, M.Jennifer Bloxam, and Daniel B. Page, who participated in a symposium at Brandeis University, "The Creative Process in Renaissance Music," in 1992 and allowed me to refer to their unpublished papers.

There are a few colleagues whose special assistance I would like to recognize. Lewis Lockwood, a friend and mentor for many years, offered encouragement from the beginning; his careful reading of individual chapters and then of the entire first draft (completed in October 1993) was extremely helpful for the final shaping of the book. My friend and colleague Jane Bernstein read several chap-ters in their earliest stages and listened countless times to just about everything in the book and much else besides. My European "families"—Egon and the late Maggie Hanfstaengl in Munich, Edvige Masini and Alberto Spisni in Parma— offered warm hospitality and assistance on many occasions. Two graduate stu-dents were very generous with their time: Megumi Nagaoka read the entire first draft—especially the musical transcriptions—with great care and offered help-ful criticisms; Susan Boynton read portions of the revised draft, with particular

attention to the translations and to prose style. The three anonymous readers for Oxford University Press turned out to be Lewis Lockwood, M. Jennifer Bloxam, and Bonnie J. Blackburn. Their detailed and substantive criticisms challenged me to rethink major elements of the book's structure.

Oxford University Press received two generous subventions to help finance the publication of this book. I am indebted to the American Musicological Soci-ety and to the National Endowment for the Humanities for their support.

The material in Chapter 10 first appeared in Music in the German Renaissance:

Sources, Styles, and Contexts, ed.John Kmetz (Cambridge University Press, 1994).

It is presented here by permission of Cambridge University Press.

There are a number of people whom I thank for helping turn the manuscript into a book. Hyunjung Choi showed uncommon resourcefulness in designing and producing the very complicated musical examples. Patrick Fairfield helped to prepare the final typescript. L. A. Holford-Strevens corrected and improved many of the translations. The editorial and production staff of Oxford University Press worked with exemplary professionalism at every stage of the process. Bon-nie J. Blackburn contributed in many ways to this book: as a colleague respond-ing to my inquiries and requests for unpublished material, as a reader for Oxford University Press, and as the copy editor (a title that in no way describes the extent of her contributions). Her profound understanding of the field and her generosity in helping me shape my arguments have greatly improved this book. The final stages of work coincided with the death of my father, William A. Owens, on 8 December 1990 and then just over a year later of my mother, Ann W. Owens, on 31 January 1992. I am sorry that they did not live to see this book published; without their encouragement and love it would never have been written. I thank Alice Kearney and Gertrude Schlachter, their neighbors in Nyack, for their kindness to them and to me during difficult times.

Jinny Fitzgerald, my partner these last six years, has helped me in countless ways. I dedicate this book to her with my thanks.

CONTENTS

List of Plates xiii List of Musical Examples xvi

Abbreviations xviii

ONE

Introduction 3

PART I. EXPLORING THE EVIDENCE

TWO

Teaching Composition II THREE

Reading and Writing Music 34 FOUR

Composing without Writing 64

FIVE

Erasable Tablets 74 Appendix:

Selected Documents Concerning Erasable Tablets (Cartelle) 101

SIX

Autograph Composing Manuscripts 108

SEVEN

PART II. FOUR CASE STUDIES EIGHT Francesco Corteccia 205 NINE Cipriano de Rore 244 TEN Henricus Isaac 258 Appendix:

Isaac, Sanctissimae virginis votiva festa 277 ELEVEN

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina 291 Appendix:

Excerpts from the Correspondence between

Palestrina, the Duke of Mantua, and Annibale Capello 311 Postscript 313

Bibliography 315 Index 334 Index of Manuscripts 343

PLATES

2.1 Philomathes, De nova domo (1512), sig. e iiiv 18

2.2 Aaron, Thoscanello (1523), sig. K 2r 25

2.3 Lampadius, Compendium musices (1554), sig. F viir 26

2.4 Lampadius, Compendium musices (1554), sig. F viiv 29

3.1 Gaffurius, Practica musice (1496), sig. dd iir 35

3.2 Lampadius, Compendium musices (1554), sig. B iiiv 40

3.3 Lampadius, Compendium musices (1554), sig. Biiiir 41

3.4 Agricola, Musica instrumentalis deudsch (1529), foldout 43

3.5 Sebastiani, Bellum musicale (1563), sig. N Iv-2r 47

3.6 Burmeister, Musica poetica (1606),

P- 58 49

3.7 Valderrabano, Libro de musica de

vihuela, intitulado silva de sirenas

(1547),fol. 42V 53

3.8 Bermudo, Declaration (1555),fol. I34v 63

4.1 Balint Bakfark, Intabulatura (1553), title page 72

5.1 Anonymous, Music Lesson in Latinum

ideoma Magistri Pauli Niavis

(1501) 83 5.2 Slate:Wells 84

5.3 Slate: Smarmore 84

5.4 DirckVolkertszoon Coornhert (after Maarten van Heemskerck), Allegory

of Good and Bad Music (detail) 85

5.5 Johann Sadeler (after Martin de Vos), Annunciation to the

Shepherds 86

5.6 Gregor Reisch, Margarita philosophica (1508), sig. n iir 87

5.7 Ornithoparcus, Musice active

microlo-gus (1517), title page 88

5.8 Banchieri, Cartella musicale (1614),

pp. 12-13 90-91

5.9 Coclico, Compendium musices (1552), sig. K iir 92

5.10 Diruta, Seconda petite Ad Transilvano (1609), p. 3 94

5.11 Gumpelzhaimer, Compendium

musi-cae (1625), portrait (woodcut by

Lucas Kilian, 1622) 96 6.1 Matous Radous, Music Scribe,

HradKM 13 114

6.2 Radous, Music Scribe (detail) 115 6.3 BrugS 538, leaf Cr: anonymous,

chansons, sketches and drafts 118 6.4 BasU F.VI.26H, fol. 4". Fabri,

unidentified compositions, sketches 119

7.1 LonBLR A23,fol. 43r: Gerarde,

unidentified composition, sketch 137

7.2 LonBLR A23,fols. 43v-44r: 7.20

Gerarde, unidentified composition, sketch 138 7.21 7.3 BarcOC 28, fol. 57b: Pujol, Kyrie,

sketch 142 7.22 7.4 BarcOC 28, fol. 2: Pujol, Kyrie,

draft 142 7.23 7.5 BasU F.VI.26d, fol. 4r: Fabri,

Magnificat, draft 143

7.6 CastellC 2 [= Slim fasc. I], fol. 2V: 7.24

anonymous, unidentified keyboard piece, sketch 145

7.7 BergBC 1143,fols. 37v-38r: 7.25

Fogliaris, organ versets, sketches and drafts 146

7.8 FlorBN II.I.295, fol. 51v: Del Rio(?), 7.26

ricercar, sketch 148

7.9 CoimU 48, fols. 21v-22r:

anon-ymous, Magnificat, draft 149-150 8.1 7.10 MunBS 267, fol. 32r: anonymous

(Herwart?), ricercar, fair copy with 8.2 revisions 152

7.11 MunBS 267, fol. 48': anonymous

(Herwart?), ricercar, sketches 152 8.3 7.12 UppsU 76b, fols. I45V-146r:

Morlaye(?), Nul n'est, drafts in

tablature, sketch in mensural 8.4 notation 153-154

7.13 VatV 5318, fol. 245r, cantus and

tenor: Spataro, Ave gratia plena, fair 8.5 copy 156

7.14 CastellC 47, tenore I, fol. Ir:

Rosso(?), Magnificat, sketch 165 8.6 7.15 CastellC 32c,fol. [6v]:Rosso(?),

unidentified composition,

sketch 166 8.7 7.16 CastellC 32a, fol. [6V]: Rosso(?), De

utero matris meae, draft 166

7.17 CastellC I2a, fol. [6v]:Rosso(?), 8.8

unidentified composition, keyboard score 167

7.18 CastellC 33, fol. 5v: Rosso(?), 8.9

unidentified composition, open score 167

7.19 CastellC 33, fol. IIv: Rosso(?), 9.1

unidentified compositions 168

LilleA 1081: Bouchel(?), A quo

passerai, draft 170

UppsU ?6a, fol. 77v: Anonymous,

En contemplant, draft 172

UppsU 76a, fol. 78bisv: Anonymous,

En contemplant, fair copy 175

BerlS 40021, fol. 257ar: Anonymous,

In grandi cenaculo, sketches and

draft 176

ErlU 473/4, fols. 242v-244r:

Othmayr, Der Tag der ist so

freuden-reich, unfinished fair copy 180-183

Frosch, Qui de terra est, segments:

R e r u m musicarum, sig. E iv-iir

194

Frosch, Et testimonium (2.p. of Qui de

terra): Rerum musicarum,

sig. E iiiv-iiiir 195

FlorASL 2129, fol. 72r-v: Corteccia

autograph 206 - 207 FlorBN Magl. 117, fol. 37r:

Corteccia, Amanti i 'I vo pur dir, sketches 212

FlorBN Magl. 117, fol. 39v:

Cor-teccia, Amanti i 'I vo pur dir, draft 212

FlorBN Magl. 117, fol. 2Or:

Corteccia, unidentified composition, sketch 216 FlorBN Magl. 117, fol. 44r:

Cor-teccia, Fammi pur guerr'Amor, sketch 223

FlorBN Magl. 117, fol. 29': Cor-teccia, Fammi pur guerr'Amor and

Con quel coltel, sketches 226

FlorBN Magl. 117, fols. 58v-59r:

Corteccia, Fammi pur guerr' Amor, sketches 230

FlorBN Magl. 117, fols. 38v-39r:

Corteccia, Con quel coltel, sketches 236

FlorBN Magl. 117, fol. 34V:

Corteccia, Con quel coltel, sketches 238

MilA 10, fol. 17V: Rore, textless

PLATES XV 9.2 MilA 10, fol. 10v: Rore, Miserere mei,

Deus (cantus), draft 250 9.3 MilA 10, fol. 4r: Rore, Sub tuum

praesidium (tenor), fair copy 257 10.1 BerlS 4.0021, fols.255v-256v:

Isaac, Sanctissimae virginis, fair

copy 264-266 II.I VatV 10776, fols. 55V-56r:

Palestrina, Dixit Dominus, fair copy 298 - 299

11.2 RomeSC 0.232, tenor (chorus

secundus): Palestrina, Omnis pulchritudo, fair copy 300 11.3 RomeSC 0.231, tenor (chorus

secundus): Palestrina, Beatus es (2.p. Ave Maria), fair copy 301 11.4 RomeSG 59, fol. Ir (after Casimiri):

Palestrina, Lamentation,

Miserere mei 304

11.5 RomeSG 59, fol. 94v: Palestrina,

MUSICAL EXAMPLES

NOTE ON MUSICAL EXAMPLES

I retain the original note values but change the clefs to conform to modern usage. The text is underlaid as it appears in the source. Earlier versions are given on a small staff above the main staff.

CIC3c4F4 indicates system (cantus mollis/cantus durus) and cleffing (the clef

and the line of the staff on which it appears, counting from the bottom). 2.1 Philomathes, De nova domo 18

2.2 Lampadius, Compendium musices: (a) "Exemplum cuiuslibet regulae": ten-line staff, with literal transcription of note values; (b) realization of verbal rules, based on version (a) (black notes = altus) 27

2.3 Lampadius, Compendium musices: (a) "simplex concordantiarum compo-sitio": transcription of version on ten-line staff; (b) "resolutio": transcription of version in parts 28

2.4 Buchner, "Fundamentum": (a) chant melody; (b) chordal setting; (c) florid version (Buchner, Samtliche

Orgelwerke, 22-23) 31

5.1 Coclico, Compendium musices: (a) good counterpoint; (b) bad counterpoint 93

7.1 [Gerarde], unidentified

composition 140-141

7.2 Spataro, Ave gratia plena 157-162

7.3 Anonymous (Rosso?), Magnificat 165

7.4 Anonymous (Bouchel?), A quo

passerai 171

7.5 Anonymous, En contemplant 173 7.6 Anonymous, In grandi

cenaculo 178-179

7.7 Othmayr, Der Tag der ist so

freuden-reich (4 vv.) 184-186

7.8 Othmayr, Der Tag der ist so

freudenreich, melody: (a) two-voice

setting; (b) four-voice setting 187 7.9 Pujol, Kyrie 188-192

7.10 Anonymous (Frosch?), Et

testimo-nium (2.p. of Qui de terra): motet and

"aliud" segments 197-202 8.1 Corteccia, Amanti i 'l vo pur dir, mm.

1-20 213-215

8.2 Corteccia, unidentified composition from FlorBN Magl. 117, fol. 2Or 216

8.3 Corteccia, Fammi pur guerr'Amor 218-220

MUSICAL E X A M P L E S XVII 8.4 Corteccia, Fammi pur guerr'Amor,

mm. 1-7 224-225

8.5 Corteccia, Fammi pur guen'Amor, mm. 8-14 228

8.6 Corteccia, Fammi pur guerr'Amor, mm. 19-29 231

8.7 Corteccia, Con quel coltel, mm.1-12 234 8.8 Corteccia, Con quel coltel,

conclusion 239

9. 1 Rore, textless composition, mm. 66-73 247

9.2 Rore, textless composition, mm. 1-13 248

9.3 Rore, Miserere mei, Deus, mm. 113-122 252

9.4 Rore, Sub tuum praesidium, mm. 1-4 254

9.5 Rore, Sub tuum praesidium, mm. 21-37 255-256

10.1 Sanctissimae virginis votiva festa: (a) Graduale Pataviense, fol. 267r

and (b) Isaac, discantus (and tenor), BerlS 40021, fols. 255V-256V

262-263

10.2 Isaac, Sanctissimae virginis votiva

festa 277 - 290

11.1 Palestrina, Christe redemptor , , ,

ABBREVIATIONS

A f M w Archiv fur Musikwissenschaft

CC Census-Catalogue of Manuscript Sources of Polyphonic Music 1400—1550

CEKM Corpus of Early Keyboard Music CMM Corpus mensurabilis musicae

CS Charles Edmond Henri de Coussemaker, Scriptores de musica medii aevi CSM Corpus scriptorum de musica

EM Early Music

JAMS Journal of the American Musicological Society MD Musica discipline

MGG Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart MQ Musical Quarterly

MSD Musicological Studies and Documents

NG New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Library and Manuscript Sigla1

BarcOC Barcelona, Biblioteca de L'Orfeo Catala 28 Item 12-VII-28

BasU Basel, Offentliche Bibliothek der Universitat F.I.8a MS EI.8a

EVI.26 MS EVI.26

BergBC Bergamo, Biblioteca Civica "A. Mai" Misericordia Maggiore (MIA)

989, 1143, 1207, 1208, 1209 BerlS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin

1175 Mus. ms. theor. 1175

Dressier Mus. ms. autogr. theor. Dressier

1. The sigla are taken from the Census-Catalogue (CC) or are newly created in accordance with the principles followed in the catalogue.

A B B R E V I A T I O N S XIX

PreuBischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung 40021 Mus. ms. 40 021

40027 Mus.ms. 40 027 40028 Mus.ms. 40 028

BolC Bologna, Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale B57,B140, Q25,Q116

BolSP Bologna, Archivio Musicale della Fabbriceria di San Petronio 29,31,38,40,45,46

BrugS Bruges, Stadarchief 538

BrusC Brussels, Bibliotheque du Conservatoire Royal de Musique 27731

CastellC Castell'Arquato, Chiesa Collegiata, Archivio 2,3,5,6,123,32,33,47

CoimU Coimbra, Biblioteca Geral da Universidade 8, 18, 33, 36,48, 242

EdinNL Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland 5.I-I5

ErlU Erlangen, Universitatsbibliothek 473/4

FlorSL Florence, Archivio San Lorenzo 2129

N

FlorBN Florence, 6iblioteca Nazionale Centrale AG MS Ant. di Galileo

I, 6, 9

Magl. Magliabechi XIX. 1o6bis, 107, 117 II.I.295 II.I.295 (=Magl.IO7)

FlorD Florence, Duomo, Archivio Musicale dell'Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore

GdanPAN Gdansk, Biblioteki Polskiej Akademii Nauk E.2165

GottU Gottingen, Niedersachsische Staats- und Universitatsbibliothek IV.3000 Mus. IV 3000 Rara

103 Ms. Philos. 103

GuatC Guatamala City, Catedral, Archivio Capitular I

HradKM Hradec Kralove, Muzeum vychodnich Cech 13 MS II A 13

JenaU Jena, Universitatsbibliothek 33

KonS Konigsberg, Stadtbibliothek Gen. 2.150

KrakPAN Krakow, Biblioteka Polskiej Akademii Nauk 1716

LilleA Lille, Archives departernentales du Nord 1081 MS 4G 1081

LonBLPv London, British Library, Reference Division, Department of Manuscripts

A MSS Royal Appendix

17-22, 23-25, 26-30, 31-35, 49-54, 74-76 MilA Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana

10 MSA.10.sup.

MilC Milan, Biblioteca del Conservatorio di Musica "Giuseppe Verdi" MS Santa Barbara

42, 55,109,142, 143, 164,166,195/17,195/18 ModE Modena, Biblioteca Estense e Universitaria

C.311

MunBS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Musiksammlung Musica MS

239,266, 267,1503f, 1627,2987, 3155, 9437 OaxC Oaxaca Catedral

OxfB Oxford, Bodleian Library MSe.42o-2 MSS Music School e.420-2

ParBN Paris, Bibliotheque nationale, Fonds du Conservatoire 429 Res. 429

ParA Parma, Archivio di Stato, Raccolta manoscritti 75/2 Busta 75,n.o 2

RegB Regensburg, Bischofliche Zentralbibliothek 205-210 Butsch 205-210

RomeSC Rome, Biblioteca Musicale Governativa del Conservatorio di Musica "Santa Cecilia"

G.384 MSS G.384 0.231 G.MSS O.23I 0.232 G.MSS 0.232

RomeSG Rome, San Giovanni in Laterano, Archivio Musicale 59

SegC Segovia, Archivio Capitular de la Catedral s.s.

Sib Sibton Abbey, private possession (J. E.Levett-Scrivener) HA3 H.A.3:50/9/i5-7(i)

UppsU Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket MS Vokalmusik i Handskrift

76a, 76b, 76c, 87, 412

Vat Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana G MS Cappella Giulia

XIII.24, XV. 19

A B B R E V I A T I O N S XXI S MS Cappella Sistina

42,57

V MS Vaticani Latini 5318,10776

VienNB Vienna, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Handschriften- und Inkunabelsammlung

MS 5094,11883, 18744

WashF Washington, Folger Shakespeare Libraries Vb.28o

WolfA Wolfenbuttel, Herzog August Bibliothek

499 MS 499 (=W3)

WoodS Woodford Green, private Collection of Robert Spencer YorkM York, Minster Library

COMPOSERS

AT WORK

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

I

n the past two or three decades, studies of "compositional process" have become a familiar staple of musicology. In a paper entitled "Sketch Studies," presented at the American Musicological Society meeting in 1981,Joseph Kerman traced the development of this sub-discipline within musicology.1 Listing some twenty

com-posers whose sketches had received scholarly attention—none earlier than Bach—he noted, "Then there was Jessie Ann Owens's paper last year about Cipri-ano de Rore.Who would have thought of sketches surviving from that period? It just goes to show that if you know what you are looking for, you may find it."2

Kerman's remark reflects the view that prevailed until recently that none of the manuscripts actually used in composition of music from before 1600 had survived. Some composer autographs, of course, were known.3 During the late

eigh-teenth and nineeigh-teenth centuries, autographs had become valuable objects, desired by collectors. Peter Jeffery, in his study of Francesco Cavalli's autographs, traced the emergence of this phenomenon, and offered a useful overview of autographs or manuscripts alleged to be autograph from Cavalli's period or earlier.4 Despite

the fascination with composer autographs, there was relatively little interest in seeing what clues they might hold for understanding compositional process.5 The

1. Joseph Kerman, "Sketch Studies," in Musicology in the 1980S: Methods, Goals, Opportunities, ed. D. Kern Holoman and ClaudeV. Palisca (NewYork, 1982), 53-65.

2. Kerman, "Sketch Studies," 57.1 presented the paper to which he referred at the American Musicological Society meeting in 1980 and published it in 1984 ("The Milan Partbooks: Evi-dence of Cipriano de Rore's Compositional Process,"JAMS 37 (1984): 270-298).

3. See, for example, the surveys given by Heinrich Besseler and Peter Gulke, Schriftbild der mehrstimmigen Musik, Musikgeschichte in Bildern 3/5 (Leipzig, 1973), 152-155; and by Wilhelm-Martin Luther, "Autograph," MGG.

4. Peter Jeffery, "The Autograph Manuscripts of Francesco Cavalli" (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1980), 1-2. Working with what was then thought to be the earliest substantial collection of composer autographs, Jeffery developed a rigorous methodology for identifying and authenticating autographs, and offered an important interpretation of their use in the process of composing and producing operas.

5. Raffaele Casimiri's investigation of the Palestrina autograph PvomeSG 59, Il "Codice 59" dell'Archivio Musicale Lateranense, Autografo di Giov. Pierluigi da Palestrina (Rome, 1919), and H.

lack of a systematic consideration of the manuscript evidence did not keep schol-ars from speculating about how composers worked. The primary concern was the format employed by composers for writing their music. Otto Kinkeldey, for example, thought that they were able to read music in separate parts and might therefore have composed in parts; he believed that scores for composition first came into use toward the end of the sixteenth century.6 Rudolf Schwartz

chal-lenged this view, finding it implausible that composers or performers could read in parts; he believed that they must have used scores.7 Edward Lewinsky, in

sev-eral controversial but influential articles, affirmed Schwartz's position and added evidence of his own in support. In a 1948 article he drew attention to the exis-tence of a score in the 1537 treatise (actually a textbook) by the German school-teacher Auctor Lampadius.8 The role of the score became one of the

corner-stones of his view of music history. He believed that there was a major distinction between music conceived "successively" and that conceived "simultaneously"; he argued that composers began to use scores in about 1500 as a means of control-ling the new complex style of imitative polyphony found in the works of Josquin des Prez. He supported this hypothesis with a study (published in 1960) of six-teenth-century manuscripts notated in score.9 As it turns out, however, only one

of these manuscripts shows evidence of use in composition, and only two others can be linked to composers.10

Other evidence was beginning to turn up that revealed important informa-tion about some of the tools composers used for their work. Suzanne Clercx's discovery of an erasable slate tablet led her to speculate that composers worked not in score but in a kind of score without barlines ("partitions sans barres"), a format that is sometimes referred to as "pseudo-score" or "quasi-score."11 Siegfried

Hermelink made a major contribution to our understanding of slates—he called them "tabulae compositoriae"—linking their use to actual composers through

Colin Slims of Veggio's manuscript in CastelTArquato, CastellC 2, "Keyboard Music at CastelT-Arquato by an Early Madrigalist,"JAMS 15 (1962): 35-47, are important exceptions.

6. Otto Kinkeldey, Orgel und Klavier in der Musik des 16. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1910), 188. 7. Rudolf Schwartz, "Zur Partitur im 16. Jahrhundert," AfMw 2 (1919-1920): 73-78. 8. "On the Use of Scores by 16th-Century Musicians," JAMS I (1948): 17-23; reprinted with minor changes in Edward E. Lowinsky, Music in the Culture of the Renaissance and Other Essays, ed. Bonnie J. Blackburn (Chicago, 1989), 797-800. The article generated an acerbic exchange between Ruth Hannas and Lowinsky in ensuing issues of JAMS.

9. "Early Scores in Manuscript," JAMS 13 (1960): 126-173, reprinted with minor changes in Music in the Culture, 803 -840.

10. Portions of FlorBN Magl. 106bis may have been used for composing keyboard music; see chap. 6. Three manuscripts are composer autographs not used for composition: FlorBN AG 9 (Vincenzo Galilei) and BerlS 40027 and BerlS 40028 (Adam Gumpelzhaimer). BolC B140, a manuscript Lowinsky believed to be an autograph of Costanzo Porta, was not written by Porta; see chap. 2.

11. Suzanne Clercx, "D'unc ardoisc aux partitions du XVIe sicclc . . . " in Melanges d'histoire et d'esthetique musicales offerts a Paul Marie Masson (Paris, 1955), I: 157- 170. This article contains an extensive bibliography of the older secondary literature on the use of scores.

I N T R O D U C T I O N

documentary evidence and assembling information about them that he culled from the writings of music theorists.12 Working only from the German

theoret-ical evidence and from what he considered common sense, Hermelink con-cluded that composers wrote either on a ten-line staff (a staff large enough to incorporate the entire tonal system) or in score. Since the publication of Her-melink's article, other slates have been discovered, some with music, some with-out: none use score or the ten-line staff format; the one with most legible music is in quasi-score.13

In the past decade, perhaps partly as a consequence of the great interest in sketch studies for other periods of music history, a number of scholars have begun to study the manuscript evidence for compositional process in music that dates from before 1600. In the 1984 study to which Kerman alluded, I argued that Cipriano de Rore had used a set of autograph partbooks for drafting three compositions and hypothesized that he was able to compose even complex, five-voice polyphony without using a score.14 In the years since then other

compos-ing manuscripts have come to light, none of them in score. In 1987 Howard Mayer Brown discovered a draft of a three-voice chanson in a manuscript now in Uppsala (UppsU 76a).15 In 1991 I identified a Florentine manuscript (FlorBN

Magl. 117) that Francesco Corteccia had used for sketching several madrigals, a motet, and other unidentified compositions.16 In 1992 John Kmetz and

M.Jen-nifer Bloxam reported on their discovery of early sixteenth-century manuscripts containing sketches and drafts of polyphonic music found in Basel and Bruges.17

As this brief account indicates, more manuscripts actually used in composi-tion have survived than anyone had ever suspected. Including these recent dis-coveries and others presented here for the first time, I can identify manuscripts in the hands of over thirty composers. This work has been aided in no small measure by the publication of new bibliographical tools that allow better access to the sources and of modern critical editions that make the music itself

avail-12. Siegfried Hermelink, "Die Tabula compositoria. Beitrage zu einer Begriffstimmung," in Festschrift Heinrich Besseler zum sechzigsten Geburtstag (Leipzig, 1961), 221-230.

13. Judith Blezzard, "The Wells Musical Slates," Musical Times 120 (1979): 26-30; A. J. Bliss, "The Inscribed Slates at Smarmore," Proceedings of the Royal [Irish Academy 64 (1965 -1966), Section C, 33 -60; and Jacques Chailley, "Tabulae Compositoriae," Acta musicologica 51 (1979): 51-54.

14. "The Milan Partbooks."

15. Howard Mayer Brown, "Emulation, Competition, and Homage: Imitation and Theories of Imitation in the Renaissance," JAMS 35 (1982): 1-48.

16. I first presented my findings at a colloquium at the University of Illinois (Urbana) in December 1991, and subsequently at a symposium at Brandeis University, "The Creative Process in Renaissance Music" in February 1992, and finally at the American Musicological Society meeting in Pittsburgh in November 1992.

17. John Kmetz, "The Drafts of Jodocus Fabri and Company: New Evidence of Comp-ositional Process from Renaissance Basel," presented at the 1992 Brandeis symposium and at the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society, 1994; M. Jennifer Bloxam, "Newly-discovered Fragments of Renaissance Polyphony in Bruges: A Glimpse of Sixteenth-Century Composers at Work," presented at the 1992 Brandeis symposium and at the 1992 meeting of the American Musicological Society.

able.18 I fully expect that many more composer autographs will be identified as

we learn how to look for them.

The core of this book is an examination of the extant autograph manuscripts used for composing. The focus on manuscript evidence compels me to set the early boundary of this study at roughly 1450; most of the manuscripts in fact date from the sixteenth century. Before 1450 the manuscript evidence appears to be too sparse to permit well-founded conclusions.

I set the late boundary at roughly 1600. The fundamental changes in musi-cal style taking place during the second half of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth toward a strong soprano-bass polarity character-istic of "baroque" music suggest different (and in fact, score-based) methods of composing.

The temporal boundaries of this study—1450 to 1600—invite use of the term "Renaissance." It is a term I would like to avoid because it better reflects the views of the nineteenth-century German cultural historians who first coined it than it does any particular period in music history.19 I believe that some of the

observations that I make about music during the period 1450 to 1600 may well be valid for earlier music. Indeed, I think it is helpful to see the period from 1250 or 1300 to 1550 or 1600 as being unified, in a general way, by systems of nota-tion, pitch, and harmonic organization (namely, by the Guidonian diatonic, the mensural system, and counterpoint, the weaving together of lines to form har-monies). Setting the boundary at 1450 reflects the evidence currently available about music manuscripts, not a stylistic divide.20

Manuscript evidence tells only part of the story. Other evidence comes from documents, from iconography, and from music treatises and textbooks. The evi-dence is fragmentary, and often requires special consideration of its limitations. Rarely, for example, do we have more than one manuscript for any given com-poser, making generalizations risky. Perhaps the biggest limitation of all is that we are trying to capture something that is inherently elusive. At best we may be able to see the craft of composition, the "poetics" in the sense of making something. Trying to pin down the imagination or the spark of creativity is doomed.

The work on compositional process for music of this period is in its infancy. My goal is to examine the existing evidence systematically and to weave it together to construct a paradigm about how composers worked. While I have tried to cast the net widely and assemble a variety of different kinds of evidence, I know full well that there are many manuscripts, treatises, and documents that

18. For example, Census-Catalogue of Manuscript Sources of Polyphonic Music 1400—1550, Ren-aissance Manuscript Studies I, 5 vols. (American Institute of Musicology, 1979-1988), and the editions in the series Corpus mensurabilis musicae and the Corpus of Early Keyboard Music, published by the American Institute of Musicology.

19. I have addressed this view in my study, "Music Historiography and the Definition of 'Renaissance,'" MLA Notes 47 (1990): 305-330.

20. Scholars who have worked more than I have with sources from before 1450 may be able to identify additional autograph manuscripts. Like many other "Renaissance" musicologists I have concentrated on the period from ca. 1430 to 1600, surely one of the drawbacks of the traditional definition of "Renaissance."

I N T R O D U C T I O N

I have not considered. Since this is the first attempt at a synthesis, the conclusions are inevitably provisional.

The book consists of two parts. In the first I explore the evidence concern-ing compositional process and address some of the basic questions about how composers worked: how they learned; how they read music and wrote it down on the page; how they planned their music in the earliest, unwritten stages; what kinds of tools they used, especially the erasable tablet; what sorts of manuscripts they used for composing; and finally, what their sketches, drafts, and fair copies looked like. In the second, I try to apply the results of these investigations in four case studies. The four composers are different from one another not only in musical style and structure but in their working methods as well. So while the first part of the book seeks to establish certain norms, the second challenges the norms by revealing the complexity of individual approaches.

There is no single "compositional process" in music of this period, but there are certain overriding principles and approaches that in turn reveal basic attitudes about the construction of music and the relationship among the voices. The most fundamental is the fact that composers of vocal music did not use scores for composing, but instead worked in separate parts or quasi-score. Only keyboard composers, who were accustomed to performing from score, composed in score. It is hard for us to imagine composing without scores: we are accustomed to thinking in terms of scores, and our modern editions of early music invariably translate separate parts into score format. I believe that composing in separate parts reflects the basic character of the music: lines woven together to form har-monies, and not a series of sonorities. Composers heard harmonies but did not see them arrayed in columns on the page. As we shall see, the implications of this basic fact vary from repertory to repertory, from decade to decade. The challenge is to see how composers "composed," literally, "put together" their music.

PART I

CHAPTER TWO

TEACHING COMPOSITION

My teacher Josquin . . . never gave a lecture on music or wrote a theoretical work, and yet he was able in a short time to form complete musicians, because he did not keep back his pupils with long and useless instructions but taught them the rules in a few words, through practical application in the course of singing. And as soon as he saw that his pupils were well grounded in singing, had a good enunciation and knew how to embellish melodies and fit the text to music, then he taught them the perfect and imperfect intervals and the different methods of inventing counterpoints against plainsong. If he discovered, however, pupils with an inge-nious mind and promising disposition, then he would teach these in a few words the rules of three-part and later of four-, five-, six-part, etc. writing, always pro-viding them with examples to imitate. Josquin did not, however, consider all suited to learn composition; he judged that only those should be taught who were drawn to this delightful art by a special natural impulse.1

I. "Item Praeceptor meus losquinus de Pratis nullam unquam praelegit aut scripsit rnusicam, brevi tamen tempore absolutes musicos fecit, quia suos discipulos non in longis & frivolis prae-ceptionibus detinebat, sed simul canendo praecepta per exercitium & practicam paucis verbis doce-bat. Cum autem videret suos utcunque in canendo firmos, belle pronunciare, ornate canere, & textum suo loco applicare, docuit eos species perfectas & imperfectas, modumque canendi contra punctum super choralem, cum his speciebus. Quos autem animadvertit acuti ingenii esse & animi laeti his tradidit paucis verbis regulam componendi trium vocum, postea quatuor, quinque, sex &c appositis semper exemplis, quae illi imitarentur. Non enim omnes ad componendi rationem aptos iudicavit losquinus, eos tantum eam docendos statuit, qui singulari naturae impetu ad pulcherrimam hanc artem ferrentur . . ." Compendium musices iescriptum ab Adriano Petit Coclico disdpulo Iosquini de Pres in quo praeter caetera tractantur haec: De modo ornate canendi, De regula contrapuncti, De compositione (Nuremberg, 1552; reprint, Kassel, 1954), sig. F iiv. This translation, adapted from Smijers, is found

in Gustave Reese and Jeremy Noble, "Josquin Desprez," The New Grove High Renaissance Masters (NewYork, 1984), 20. The passage concludes with the sentence: "because he said that many pieces had been composed with great sweetness, than which scarcely one out of thousands could compose something similar or better" ("quia multa dulciter composita esse aiebat, quibus similia aut meliora, vix unus e millibus componere posset").

With these words the German theorist and composer Adrianus Petit Coclico explained how Josquin taught music: first singing, then counterpoint, and finally composition. Whether or not Coclico was actually a pupil of Josquin and an eyewitness, his account shows us how a sixteenth-century musician thought composition should be taught—and, possibly, had been taught by one of the great composers of the period. Despite the promise of Coclico's remarks, we have remarkably little direct evidence about the teaching of composition. No diaries have survived to record an actual course of study, no manuscripts preserve compositions marked with a teacher's corrections.

Yet we do know something about the social and institutional structures in which music education—and, by implication, its most advanced topic, compo-sition—took place.2 Many students learned music in schools, some of which

were associated with cathedrals. The character both of the institution and the curriculum varied according to the region as well as the religious doctrine.3

Stu-dents could also receive private instruction, serving as apprentices to professional composers or performers. A number of contracts recording various kinds of pri-vate instruction have survived.4

2. Music education in general remains an area badly in need of further investigation. For a gen-eral overview, with bibliography, see Iain Fenlon, Nan C. Carpenter, and Richard Rastall, "Edu-cation in Music (II and III)," NG. See also Bernarr Rainbow, Music in Edu"Edu-cational Thought and Practice: A Survey from Boo BC (Aberystwyth, 1989), chs. 4-5; J. Smits van Waesberghe, Musik-erziehung: Lehre und Theorie der Musik im Mittelalter, Musikgeschichte in Bildern 3 /3 (Leipzig, 1969); and the papers and discussion of the round table "La musica nella storia delle universita," in Atti del XIV Congresso della Societa Internazionale di Musicologia (Turin, 1990), I, 27-89. Kristine Forney, "'Nymphes gayes en abry du Laurier': Music Instruction for Women in Renaissance Antwerp," paper read at the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society, 1992, shows the wide vari-ety of institutions in which education took place in sixteenth-century Antwerp.

3. As an example of music education in a cathedral school, see Craig Wright, Music and Ceremony at Notre Dame of Paris 500-1550 (Cambridge, 1989), 174-180. For education in Protestant Germany, see K. W. Niemoller, Untersuchungen zu Musikpflege und Musikunterricht an den deutschen Lateinschulen vom ausgehenden Mittelalter bis um 1600 (Regensburg, 1969). See also Edith Weber, "L'Enseignement de la musique dans les ecoles humanistes et protestantes en Allemagne: Theorie, pratique, pluridi-sciplinarite," L'Enseignement de la musique au Moyen Age et a la Renaissance (Fondation Royaumont, [1987]), 108 -129. Jeremy Yudkin, in his translation and edition of the chapter on music in Johannes Thomas Freig's Paedagogus (Basel, 1582), MSD 38 (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1983), described the place of music in a four-year school curriculum; Freig's schoolbook was intended to be an introduction to all the subjects the student was to learn. On music education in the Jesuit schools, see Thomas D. Culley, S.J., Jesuits and Music I: A Study of the Musicians connected with the German College in Rome during the 17th Century and of their Activities in Northern Europe (Rome, 1970). Concerning music edu-cation in England, see Jane Flynn, "A Reconsideration of the Mulliner Book (British Library Add. MS 30513): Music Education in Sixteenth-Century England" (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1993) and Flynn, "The Education of Choristers in England during the Sixteenth Century," in English Choral Practice, 1400—1650, ed. John Morehen (Cambridge, 1996).

4. They include: a 1478 contract for instruction in organ in L. Frati, "Memorie per la storia della musica in Bologna dal secolo xv al xvi," Rivista musicals italiana 24 (1917): 451; a 1594 contract for instruction by Giovanni Maria Nanino in singing, counterpoint, and composition in A. Carnetti, "L'insegnamento privato della musica alia fine del Cinquecento," Rivista musicale italiana 37 (1930): 76-77; a 1504 contract for teaching organ repertory in Renato Piattoli, "Un documento fiorentino di apprendistato musicale dell'anno 1504," in Collectanea Historiae Musicae 2 (Florence, 1957), 351-353.

T E A C H I N G C O M P O S I T I O N 13

One particularly interesting document concerning music instruction in mid-sixteenth-century Italy comes from legal proceedings taken against Pietro Pon-tio, a composer, music theorist and maestro di cappella.5 In 1566, a number of

wit-nesses—Pontio's colleagues, pupils, and other musicians—were called to testify in an investigation. There were evidently serious concerns that he had not fulfilled adequately his obligations as maestro di cappella at Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo, one of which was to teach counterpoint and canto figurato. Pontio was obligated to teach ten of the young clerics as part of his responsibilities, but he also took on private students. There were several complaints about his teach-ing. One was that he gave his private students more attention, making the other students sing in a group, not individually (despite a bribe of pigeons and arti-chokes by the father of one of the aggrieved students). Another was that he did not teach properly: one student explained that he had marked with an 'x' passages that were perfectly good and left errors uncorrected.6 The comments of the

wit-nesses reveal the expectations of the students: that Pontio would hear them sing their part by themselves, not in a group; that he would correct their exercises; and that he would meet with them daily.

A number of manuscripts have survived that record the activities of students.7

Several of them contain compilations of rules, which are in effect notes from counterpoint lessons. One of these, BolC B140, was previously thought to be an autograph by Costanzo Porta.8 The title—"Trattato di Contrapunto, o sia

Instruzioni di contrappunto date dal P. Costanzo Porta al P. Tomaso Gratiano da Bagnacavalla. Est liber domini Innocentii de Ravenna"—led both Oscar Mis-chiati and Paolo Fabbri to speculate that it was written by (as well as owned by) Innocenzo da Ravenna. However, comparison of the manuscript with BolC Q116, a choirbook signed by Tomaso Graziani, reveals that BolC B140 was in fact written by Graziani, and may be a record of his studies with Porta.9 It contains

several different sections of counterpoint rules as well as music that would have

5. The document was discovered by Russell E. Murray; the full text is found in his dissertation, "The Voice of the Composer: Theory and Practice in the Works of Pietro Pontio" (Ph.D. diss., University of North Texas, 1989), 2: 23-50; see also his article, "On the Teaching Duties of the Maestro di Cappella in Sixteenth-Century Italy: The Processo against Pietro Pontio," Explorations in Renaissance Culture 14 (1988): 115 -128, parts of which I draw on here.

6. Although the original does not survive, we know that Palestrina wrote comments and crosses on the music of his royal pupil, Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga; see chap. II.

7. These sources merit further study both individually and as a group.

8. Lowinsky, "Early Scores in Manuscript," Music in the Culture, 824-825, including several fac-similes.

9. Oscar Mischiati, "Un'antologia manoscritta in partitura del secolo XVI. II ms. Bourdeney della Bibliotheque Nationale di Parigi," Rivista italiana di musicologia 10 (1975): 271. (Lowinsky, in a long footnote added to the 1989 version of his article (823, n. 51a), disputed Mischiati's assessment and continued to adhere to his original interpretation. Paolo Fabbri, "Vita musicale nel Cinquecento ravennate: Qualche integrazione," Rivista italiana di musicologia 13 (1978): 44, noted that Innocenzo was in Ravenna between 1592 and 1595 and possibly longer (both earlier and later pay registers are missing); he proposed a possible date for the manuscript of 1594- 1596, the dates when Graziani was teaching counterpoint. See also Fabbri, Tre secoli di musica a Ravenna dalla controriforma alla caduta dell'Antico Regime (Ravenna, 1983), 16. Graziani's role as scribe of BolC B140 was sug-gested to me by Bonnie Blackburn and confirmed by Robert Kendrick.

been useful for a church musician (settings of Miserere, Benedictus, psalm into-nations, tuning for the violin and viola). Another example is the manuscript RomeSC 0.384. Written in several different hands, it contains a music treatise ("Pvegule de contrapuncto"), extensive examples of cadences for two to four voices, and consonance tables with numbers on the staves. Portions of the manu-script have the appearance of a workbook, with erasures and corrections. There are also collections of musical phrases ("punti diversi").10 Other examples include the

notebook of Georg Donat, a student from Wittenberg, and the Basel manuscripts recording some aspects of Amerbach's studies with Piperinus.11

A few manuscripts may record actual counterpoint exercises. The fragments of polyphonic music recently discovered in the binding of a mid-fifteenth-century account book in Bourges contain music that appears to be counterpoint exercises (two-voice, with a cantus firmus sometimes in long notes).12 Another

example, FlorBN Magl. 117, has brief examples of two-voice counterpoint, writ-ten probably in the middle of the sixteenth century by two unknown musicians; one of them wrote in score, while the other used quasi-score format (without alignment or barlines).13 A third example is the score manuscript kept by an

organist at the Santa Cruz Monastery in Coimbra (CoimU 48).14 For example,

fol. 126r contains fragmentary four-voice sketches of counterpoint exercises over

a cantus firmus in long notes.

The manuscript evidence does not reveal as much as we would like about music instruction. The best evidence that has survived consists of the music textbooks used in instruction, as well as the treatises aimed at a more sophisticated audience. The discussion of "composition" is typically found in the counterpoint sections of

musica practica treatises or, within the German tradition, in musica poetica treatises.15

But neither textbooks nor treatises offer the kinds of practical advice about the craft of composition that we would like to find. Even a treatise with the promis-ing title "Rules How to Compose" offers elementary instruction in counterpoint

10. The manuscript, to my knowledge, has not received close scrutiny, beyond a brief mention because of a canon by Costanzo Festa. It does contain several pieces in score that seem to be later additions (e.g.,fols. 68V, 21r).

11. Adolf Abert, "Das musikalische Studienheft des Wittenberger Studenten Georg Donat (urn 1543)," Sammelbande der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft 15 (1913-1914): 68-98; John Kmetz, "The Piperinus-Amerbach Partbooks: Six Months of Music Lessons in Renaissance Basle," in Music in the German Renaissance, ed. John Kmetz (Cambridge, 1994), 215-234.

12. Paula Higgins, "Music and Musicians at the Sainte-Chapelle of the Bourges Palace, 1405-1515," Atti del XIV Congresso della Societa Internazionale di Musicologica (Turin, 1990), 3: 692. Professor Higgins plans a detailed account of the fragments; the pages carry the names of two clerks, Jean du Bois and Robinet Paindavoine.

13. See Table 8.1. 14. See chap. 6.

15. "Treatise" is the conventional term for a book that deals with music theory; in reality, most of the books are textbooks intended for use by schoolboys. The principal systematic account of theoretical writings about composition is Ernst Apfel's Geschichte der Kompositionslehre von Anfangen bis gegen 1700 (Wilhelmshaven, I981);he offers synopses of many of the treatises. As limited as this study is, it nevertheless offers a useful point of departure. See also Hans Haase, "Komposition," MGG.

T E A C H I N G C O M P O S I T I O N 15

and not advice about composition.16 As Howard Mayer Brown has noted, "no

treatises on 'free composition,' no books that tell the budding composer precisely how to go about his craft were written so early as the first half of the sixteenth century."17 Still, some of the writers were composers themselves—Tinctoris,

Aaron, Coclico.Vicentino, Zarlino, Pontio, Galilei, Cimello, to name a few; they may have left reflections of their teaching (if not of their own compositional methods) in their writing.18

It is difficult to make generalizations about instruction in "composition" because it differs dramatically according to the length of the treatise, its intended audience, and the purposes and attitude of the writer. Nevertheless, certain fea-tures of these treatises were standard both in Italian and German traditions over a number of decades. Many, perhaps most, of the treatises/textbooks contain rules to govern both the vertical and horizontal aspects of music. There are rules (often eight) for voice-leading (prohibitions against parallel perfect consonances, for example) and for constructing chords (sometimes expressed as tables). There are also rules governing distinct segments of compositions (beginning, middle, end) as well as the various components or techniques found in Renaissance music (fuga, canon, cadences). Still others concern the text on various levels (meaning, structure, syllable length).

The table of contents of "Praecepta musicae poeticae" by the mid-sixteenth-century German composer and theorist Gallus Dressier is both characteristic in its contents and exemplary in its clarity:

Dividimus praecepta musicae poet

icae

in XV capita.

I. caput agit de definitione et divisione contrapuncti

II. de sonis et consonantiis III. de dissotiantiis et syncopatione

IV. de differentia inter vera et falsa intervalla

V. de usu sextae et quartae VI. de partibus cantilenarum

We divide the precepts of musica poetica

into fifteen chapters.

I. The first chapter addresses the definition and types of counterpoint

II. Concerning sounds and con-sonances

III. Concerning dissonances and suspensions

IV. Concerning the difference between true and false intervals V Concerning the use of the fourth and the sixth

VI. Concerning the parts [or voices] of songs

16. John Coprario, Rules How To Compose: a facsimile edition of a manuscript from the library of the Earl of Bridgewater (circa 1610) now in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California, introduction by Manfred F. Bukofzer (Los Angeles, 1952).

17. "Emulation, Competition, and Homage," 9-10.

18. James Haar addresses the issue of the composer-teacher in "Lessons in Theory from a Sixteenth-Century Composer," in Altro Polo: Essays on Italian Music in the Cinquecento, ed. Richard Charteris (Sydney, 1990), 51 - 81, a study of a treatise attributed to the Neapolitan composer Giovan Tomaso Cimello. Murray, "The Voice of the Composer," offers an interesting view of Pontio as both teacher/writer and composer.

VII. de commixtione consonantiae VIII. de constitutione et divisione clausularum

IX. de usu clausularum X. de pausis

XI. de inventione fugarum

XII. de fingendis exordiis

XIII. de media parte cantilenarum constituenda

XIV de fine harmoniarum XV. qua ratione tyrones in hoc studio cum fruge progredi possint.

VII. Concerning the combining of consonances

VIII. Concerning the structure and types of cadences

IX. Concerning the function of cadences

X. Concerning rests

XI. Concerning the construction (inventione) of points of imitation (fuga)

XII. Concerning the composition of the opening (exordium) of a com-position

XIII. Concerning the construction of the middle part of songs (canti-lenarum)

XIV. Concerning the end of compositions (harmoniarum)

XV. By what methods students may progress with profit in this subject.19

The opening seven chapters deal with the basic vocabulary of music—conso-nance, dissomusic—conso-nance, suspensions, voices or parts, and chord formation. Within chapter 6, which addresses the range and function of the four voices, two other topics of great interest are considered: "which voice is the first of all to be made?" and "how many lines do poetae (i.e., creators and thus composers) use on which to compose?" The next four (8 - 11) discuss music in terms of its structural components—cadences, imitation, and rests. Dressier concludes the treatise with three chapters on how to write the beginning, middle, and end of a composi-tion, and a final chapter that gives five recommendations on how to proceed in learning musica poetica.

It would be interesting to compare systematically all the "rules how to com-pose" and to trace the changes over time.20 I suspect that the recommendations

will prove to illustrate the accepted norms of style—how the voices relate to one another, what musical space they occupy, what relationship music has to the words—and show us what music teachers thought beginners needed to know about musical language. Far from being literal accounts of how to compose, they instead reflect the prevailing views about music.

19. "Praecepta musicae poeticae," praefatiuncula; the treatise was completed in 1564 but never published. For an edition, see Bernhard Engelke, Geschichtsblatter fur Stadt und Land Magdeburg 49-50 (1914-1915): 214-250. A new edition and translation are sorely needed; a translation of part of chap. 13 is found in Ellen Beebe, "Text and Mode as Generators of Musical Structure in Clemens non Papa's Accesserunt ad Jesum" in Music and Language, Studies in the History of Music I (New York, 1983),

93-20. For example, a study comparable to Ann Moyer's Musica scientia: Musical Scholarship in the Italian Renaissance (Ithaca, 1992) would be very welcome.

T E A C H I N G C O M P O S I T I O N IJ

To illustrate this point, let us consider one of the topics that most of the writ-ers included: which voice to compose first. The early sixteenth-century German theorist Venceslaus Philomathes offered the following advice, using the hexam-eter verse that is characteristic of much didactic writing:

De ordine vocum formandarum

Incipe sic: trahe per pluteum bis quinque lituras: In certisque locis signatas construe clavis: Demum que primum tibi vox ponenda videtur: Pone, sed in primis mediam posuisse licebit. Nam basis est vocum: sine qua tepet omne poema. Qua recta posita: tractu perpendiculari

(Ne seducaris) distingue a tempore tempus. Supremam cura vocem posuisse subinde: ut Cum media resonet quovis in tempore recte. Turn gravis harmoniam vocis suppone decenter: Sic ut cum media sonet et cum voce suprema. Postremum tandem vocem formabis acutam: Ut cum voce gravi tantummodo consona fiat. Et forme coeant ubi congruit: utque videtur.

[margin:] Concerning the order for forming the voices Begin this way: draw on the

board twice five marks [lines], and draw the signed clefs at the specified places. Then place the voice you think should go first, but you may place the media [tenor] first, for it is the foundation of the voices, without which every composition \poema, i.e., thing created] is lukewarm. Once it has been correctly placed, divide the tempora from one another with per-pendicular lines lest you be deceived. Then take care to place the suprema [discantus] immediately so that it will sound correctly with the media [tenor] in whatever tempus. Then place below the harmony of the gravis [bassus] properly such that it will sound with the media and the suprema. Finally, you will form the acuta [altus] so that it makes consonance only with the gravis. And let the forms meet where it is suitable and as you see fit.21

A nearby example illustrating the construction of cadences helps to clarify the instructions concerning the order of voices (see plate 2.1). The example shows a ten-line staff ("twice five lines") with the customary clefs (Gamma, b, F, b, c, g, b, dd);22 it has four voices, labeled (from top to bottom) suprema, acuta, media,

and gravis (see example 2.1).

The advice seems simple enough. While the student can begin with any voice, Philomathes offers directions that start with the tenor. Once the entire tenor has been written, barlines are added. Then the discantus is added to the

21. De nova domo musicorum libri quattuor compendioso carmine elucubrati (Vienna, 1512), sig. e iiiv-ivr.

PLATE 2.1 Philomathes, De nova domo (1512), sig. e iiiv

tenor, reaching a cadence at the octave. Then comes the bassus, which must go with both. Finally the altus is added, fit into the small space that remains.

In reality, the recommendations are quite complex—and therefore difficult to interpret—because they serve several different functions. Taken quite liter-ally, they seem to describe the order in which the parts were to be composed. Such a view does not sufficiently account for the complexity of musical thought. The actual steps taken in creating a composition or even an exercise must be considerably more complex. A process that involves notating first one part in its

T E A C H I N G C O M P O S I T I O N

entirety and then another does not necessarily mean that the composer was lit-erally hearing the music the way he wrote it down.23 Even a raw beginner

writ-ing down a tenor could have been thinkwrit-ing about the possibilities for its paired discantus or for the other voices. Every note, every line has a potential harmonic context.

Philomathes, while apparently prescribing an order, is also explaining the function and character of the voices. The tenor serves as point of departure, the bassus as the foundation. The voices work in pairs: the altus goes with the sus in the same way that the discantus goes with the tenor, but unlike the bas-sus, which must go with both discantus and tenor, the altus needs to go only with the bassus. (In other Words, the interval between the altus and bassus must be a consonance, while the interval between the altus and the other two voices could be a fourth.)

In early music, as a rule, something—a line, a motive, a canon, in short, a "subject," the term used by the mid-sixteenth-century Italian theorist Gioseffo Zarlino—served as the compositional point of departure. Zarlino's explanation reflects the great diversity not only of technique but also of kinds of "subject" found in sixteenth-century music:

Incominciando adunque dalla prima dico, che il soggetto di ogni composi-tione musicale si chiama quella parte, sopra laquale il compositore cava la inventione di far le altre parti della cantilena, siano quante si vogliano. Et tal soggetto puo essere in molti modi: prima puo essere inventione propia, cioe, che il compositore Fhavera ritrovato col suo ingegno; dipoi puo essere, che l'habbia pigliato dalle altrui compositioni, acommodandolo alla sua cantilena, & adornandolo con varie parti, & varie modulationi, come piu gli aggrada, secondo la grandezza del suo ingegno. Et tal soggetto si puo ritrovare di piu sorte: percioche puo

Beginning then with the first re-quirement [i.e., the subject], I say that the subject of every composition is that part of a composition upon which the composer exercises his inventiveness to produce the other parts, however many voices these may be. The subject may be one of several kinds. It may be a creation of the composer himself, a product of his genius. It may be taken from a com-position of another, fitted to his own and adorned by various parts, as he pleases to the best of his talent. Such a subject may be of several kinds: it may be a tenor or other plain-chant part, or a part from a polyphonic

23. Thus, Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, "Machaut's Rose, Us and the Problem of Early Music Analysis," Music Analysis 3 (1984): 10:"Is it conceivable that a composer of the calibre of Machaut was unable to imagine a piece of music; that, rather, he had to assemble it a line at a time according to a set of rules ... in the hope that the result would sound acceptable? And must we therefore assume, as has been usual, that he and his contemporaries somehow managed to perceive polyphony principally in a single horizontal dimension, remaining largely insensitive to vertical coincidences? So simplistic a view of medieval polyphony could never adequately explain the complexity of much of the surviving music." See also his Compositional Techniques in the Four-Part Isorhythmic Motets of Philippe de Vitry and his Contemporaries (New York, 1989). My views have been shaped to a large extent by Leech-Wilkinson's arguments.