THE BIRTH OF THE
VIOLIN
The First Violins
and their Repertoire
During the first half of the sixteenth century, the smaller members of
the bowed stringed instrument family gradually developed into an
instrument which would be referred to as a “vyolon” at the
court of Savoy in 1523. Not entirely a new invention in itself, it
retained characteristics of the rebec, lira da braccio, and the
late polyphonic vielle. In its earliest form, the violin was
the only instrument of its family; features such as its rounded
shoulders appeared on larger instruments a few years later and a
consort practice started developing, following the three ranges in use
at the time:
superius
tenor and contratenor altus: approximately one fifth
lower
contratenor bassus: approximately one fourth below the tenor
The first descriptions of these new ensembles in the 1530’s and
1540’s are all tied to northern Italy, more specifically to the
duchies of Ferrara, Mantua and Milan, as well as to the Piedmont (then
a dependant of the duchy of Savoy) and to the city of Brescia (part of
the Venetian Republic). In Venice, violins were quickly adopted within
lay religious confraternities and the Scuole Grandi of Santa
Maria della Misericordia, San Rocco, San Marco, San Giovanni
Evangelista and Santa Maria della Carità.
The violin has long been regarded as an instrument associated with
dance music in the sixteenth century, but with this recording, we wish
to call this idea into question, particularly in regards to the period
during which the instrument first appeared. Under closer inspection,
the various sources which provide evidence for the use of the violin in
dance music all appear after 1550. Prior to this, there is ample
evidence that the violin played both in a liturgical setting and at
court, placing it clearly in a context of polyphonic art music stemming
from the late-medieval Franco-Flemish school — the “musica
perfetta” performed by the Brescian violin bands in the
1530’s. In the case that dance music was performed at court by an
ensemble including one or more violins, it also most certainly would
have been of a polyphonic nature rather than a monophonic one.
Few traces of ensemble dance music survive from the 1520’s and
1530’s, although an improvised practice may well have existed. In
the same way that singers were trained to improvise one or more
contrapuntal voices against a tenor voice, instrumentalists would have
been able to invent spontaneous polyphonic compositions based on basses
danses or balli melodies. The image of the violin as an
instrument for monophonic dance music comes from a later practice,
which has nevertheless greatly (and erroneously) influenced our vision
of the instrument in the Renaissance.
The two main repertoires presented in this recording are that of the
Franco-Flemish school, which flourished in Italy from the mid fifteenth
century, and that of the Italian style, which had died out by 1430 but
arose out of its ashes before the turn of the sixteenth century.
The Franco-Flemish instrumental chansons, La stangetta, Carmen
in sol and De che te pasci Amore, all of which were
published in Ottaviano Petrucci’s Canti (1501-1504), mark
the pinnacle of their genre. These chansons employ three-part writing
inherited from the Burgundian school. Also belonging to the
Franco-Flemish repertoire, motets would have been part of the religious
ceremonies in which the violin was used from its beginning. Josquin
Desprez’ Missus est Gabriel is heard here in a
“mixed” version with voice and instruments. The composition
is a brilliant paraphrase of two plainchant melodies and is found in no
fewer than a dozen sources dating from the first decades of the
sixteenth century and spread out across Europe.
The original three-voice style found in Enguerandus Juvenis’ Salve
Regina approaches the style of the instrumental fantasias of
Heinrich Isaac and Jacob Obrecht. It is found in the manuscript Turin
I.27, which contains repertoire linked to the Piedmont, possibly even
to Brescia, as indicated by the annotation “Ex libris fratris
brixiani Laparelli Religiosi
stapharde”.
The Rusconi Codex (Bologna Q19) is another important testament to the
importance of Franco-Flemish motets in Ferrara and Mantua. Rosa
novum dans odorem by Antoine Brumel (c. 1460 - c. 1513) displays a
new kind of four-voice writing where all parts are of equal importance.
It is composed on the text of a sequence to Saint Stephen and makes use
of many two-voice sections.
Another popular genre at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the laude,
is a strophic, homophonic song intended for devotional offices and
processions. Filippo de Lurano’s (c. 1470 - c. 1520) homage to
the cross, Salve Sacrata, colourfully evoke these religious
assemblies. Bartolomeo Tromboncino (c. 1470 - c. 1534), now more known
for
his frottole, also composed several laude, including
the O sacrum convivium performed here as an instrumental duo.
The madrigal, having faded away by the 1420’s, regained
popularity in the early sixteenth century with a renewed interest in
classic Tuscan poetry, whose melancholic style contrasts rather starkly
with the earlier lighter frottola style. This change in musical
style occurred gradually, through the genres of barzellette, villanelle
and strambotti. The collections of madrigals published from
1520 onwards include the Libro primo de la Croce from which Se’l
pensier che mi strugge and Amor che me tormenti are taken.
Both are compositions by Sebastiano Festa (c. 1485-1524), who was
originally from Villafranca Sabauda, in the Piedmont. We have added
ornaments to Amor che me tormenti in the style described in
Sylvestro Ganassi’s Opera intitulata Fontegara (Venice,
1535). This treatise is a systematic manual for diminution, organised
by intervals and making use of varied rhythmic proportions in a style
inherited from the late fifteenth century.
The collection of counterpoints on La Spagna composed by
Costanzo Festa (a relative of Sebastiano, perhaps his brother) is
noteworthy because of its link to Mantua. These 125 counterpoints were
given as a gift by Festa to Ercole Gonzaga, cardinal and bishop of
Mantua, son of Isabella d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga, and
godfather to Festa’s own son. A letter in Festa’s hand
refers to this collection with the phrase:
“Le basse sono bone per imparare a cantar a comtraponto a
componere et a sonar de tuttj li strumentj...” (“The
basse are good for learning to sing counterpoint, to compose and to
play all the instruments...”)
The pieces taken from Francesco Bendusi’s Opera nova de balli
(Venice, 1553) are the only dances included in this recording. These
pieces, Animoso, Cortesa padoana, La mala vecchia,
and Il stocco, were written at the time of the first sources
describing the use of the violin in dance music, in France.
To complete the programme, no music evokes sixteenth-century Venice
better than the compositions of Adrian Willaert (c. 1490-1562). We have
included the three-voice Ricercar VII (1540), the motet for the
Octave of Christmas (Mirabile Mysterium, 1538) and an ornamented
version of the chanson, La rousée du moys de mai. This
version transmitted under the name Le rose comes from a 1591
collection by Giovanni Bassano, entitled Motetti, madrigali et
canzone francese di diversi eccellenti autori — a culmination
of sixteenth-century Venetian instrumental traditions.
Le Miroir de Musique
The image of a “Mirror of Music” is borrowed from Jacques
de Liège’s treatise (Speculum Musicae), and
reflects our goal of painting a vivid picture, in a spirit of fidelity
to original sources, of the contexts and repertoires with which early
violins would have been associated. Thanks to the work carried out by
the luthier Richard Earle, the violin and viole d’arco
played on this recording were constructed using early Renaissance
instrument building techniques. These techniques result in a rich and
concentrated sound, perfectly suited to the polyphonic lines of the
music of the period.
BAPTISTE ROMAIN
TRANSLATION: TOBIE MILLER & CATHERINE MOTUZ
