Italian madrigal

Resumo: O Maneirismo artístico se destaca como uma revisão estética do Renascimento em suas décadas finais. O ideal de equilíbrio e simetria do período foi substituído por uma visão deturpada e dramática da realidade. De forma específica a música, temos os madrigais compostos pelo italiano Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613) com sensíveis aproximações com esta estética. Baseado nesta premissa, o presente artigo identifica e analisa três características do Maneirismo no madrigal Io Parto do compositor com o intuito de melhor entender esta aproximação estilística. Abstract: The artistic mannerism stands out as an aesthetic revision of the Renaissance in its final decades. The ideal of balance and symmetry of the period was replaced by a distorted and dramatic view of reality. Specifically in the music, we have the madrigals composed by the Italian Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613) with sensitive approximations with this aesthetic.Based on this premise, this paper identifies and analyzes three characteristics of Mannerism in the madrigal Io Parto of the composer in order to better understand this stylistic approach.

Performance score of Francesco Landini's madrigal, " Musica Son - Già Furon - Ciascun Vuol" transcribed from the Squarcialupi Codex (121v-122r). For a video of the score with a performance see the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNcfZSBF9ow

This study applies Kofi Agawu's proposed method for analyzing texted music (1992), in which the music and the text are analyzed separately before they are considered together, to an early madrigal by Willaert. Focusing primarily on counterpoint, I offer a detailed study of Willaert's complex compositional technique. I show that he responded to the poem in many ways, but at the same time he made many purely musical decisions. Finally, I consider what his motivations for these decisions might have been and enumerate musical means he used to respond to the different aspects of his text.

Keywords:
Poesía lírica del Siglo de Oro en España y en la península ibérica – métrica y versificación – estudios de las formas y géneros poéticos clásicos – poésie lyrique ibérique de la première modernité – early modern poetry in Spain – Espagne – Portugal – libros de vihuela – vihuelistas – early music and text – musique ancienne – poésie lyrique Siècle d’Or – poéticas y retóricas de los siglos dieciséis y diecisiete – madrigales – madrigaux – madrigals – madrigali – Renacimiento – barroco – clásico – seizième et dix-septième siècles – XVIe siècle – XVIe siècle – sixteenth and seventeenth centuries – 16th century – 17th century – silva – ballata – ode – canción alirada – Cetina – Quevedo – Góngora – Faria e Sousa – Soto de Rojas – Alcázar – Barahona de Soto – Acuña - Luis Martín de la Plaza – Antonio Alvares Soares – Violante do Céu – María de Zayas – Francisco Pacheco– Fuenllana – 1554 – tesis – thesis (PhD) – Cancionero – Cancioneiro – Rinascimento - Poesia do Século de Ouro Espanhol – Barroco português – Renascimento - Il Gareggiamento poetico del Confuso Accademico Ordito [Carlo Fiamma] – Tasso – Giovan Battista Marino (le Cavalier Marin) – Michelangelo Buonarroti – Marenzio, Luca – Monteverdi – Guarini (Guarino), (Giovanni) Battista - Barocco – Prosody – Scansion – Poetics – Poétique – Rhetoric – Rhétorique des passions – Affects – Afectos – Affetti – Metrics – Métrique

Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613), prince de Venosa, est l’un des musiciens les plus excentriques de la fin du XVIe siècle et du début du XVIIe siècle. La musique sacrée et profane de ce « prince des musiciens » intrigue et passionne par ses effets expressifs exceptionnels, elle a marqué les compositeurs de son temps et au-delà. Gesualdo est en effet l’un des principaux artisans d’un style musical particulier destiné à abasourdir l’auditeur.
Cette conférence avant-concert donnera un panorama de sa vie et de son œuvre, en particulier de la production musicale à la fin de sa vie, période où il publie ses Répons des Ténèbres (1611). Elle montrera les liens entre musique et noblesse, dans le sud de l’Italie, ainsi que les ressorts de l’originalité et de la modernité de ses compositions qui font de lui l’un des plus importants musiciens de son temps.

https://www.arts-florissants.org/programmation/gesualdo-repons-2021.html

The Italian composer Carlo Gesualdo dedicated a considerable part of his work to the genre of the Italian madrigal. In his six books, which contain 125 madrigals altogether, we have the primary source of significant information on the intrinsic relation between the conception of music and the meaning of the texts. Though this feature is common for the period, the relationship has unique elements in the work of Gesualdo, such as his growing use of textual manipulation. Throughout his work, Gesualdo begins to increasingly change the texts to the point of assuming the writing of the poems himself in the later books. Comparing the alterations he made in the first books with the final texts attributed to him, it was possible to establish a set of characteristics that indicate his predilections, here called his poetic ideal. The madrigal Luci serene e chiare is at the center of Gesualdo’s maturation process. Its unique characteristics are an important parameter to distinguish this ideal. Based on these assumptions, this paper describes the four main features of Carlo Gesualdo’s poetic ideal and proves the existence of these predilections, as well as his relevant approach to the madrigal poem Luci serene and chiare.

A escrita musical do compositor Carlo Gesualdo transforma-se ao longo de seus seis livros de madrigais. Enquanto nos aspectos que integram os dois primeiros livros encontramos principalmente características da tradição polifônica do Renascimento, nos madrigais dos terceiro e quarto livros predomina o experimentalismo harmônico, ao passo que nos dois últimos há maior ocorrência dos procedimentos tipicamente associados ao compositor maduro – a escrita cromática e dissonante. O principal elemento que faz a ligação desta escrita ao longo das três fases é a relação entre a música e o texto. Observando o tratamento que o compositor fez em relação a dois termos recorrentes nos madrigais – as palavras amor e morte –, em obras de diferentes fases, foi possível constatar o estreitamento desta relação textual da música, bem como suas implicações no resultado sonoro final. Na primeira fase, Gesualdo utilizava os procedimentos mais comuns na escrita musical para ressaltar estes termos, como a escrita contrapontística, contrastando com a escrita homofônica. Nas fases seguintes, ele passou a procurar elementos musicais mais sofisticados que permitissem explorar diferentes sonoridades. Por meio deste processo, o compositor destacou, de forma mais contundente, palavras e narrações dos poemas, recorrendo principalmente a resultantes

Renaissance historians have long documented the efforts of early Quattrocento humanists to revive classical Roman literature and art. Musicologists have more recently studied the crucial contributions of composers, performers, and music theorists to this burgeoning humanist culture. Anne Hallmark and Margaret Bent in particular have published incisive studies that link the polyphony of renowned composer Johannes Ciconia (c. 1370–1412) to the neoclassical rhetoric practiced by Francesco Zabarella, Ciconia’s patron at the Padua Cathedral, and other contemporaneous humanists. Ciconia’s music-theoretical works seem to reinforce his dedication to the humanist movement. Most notably, the prologue to the first book of Nova musica proposes a large-scale revival and renovation of “antique” musical authority. And indeed, the treatise names no authors or repertories more recent than the eleventh century. Yet, a closer inspection reveals that most of Ciconia’s authorities hail not from ancient Rome, but from the period following the Carolingian Renaissance. Is Nova musica truly a product of humanistic reforms if its authorities are not primarily “classical”?

One may attribute Ciconia’s reliance on Carolingian models simply to the fact that neither a substantial music-theoretical repertoire nor a practical system of musical notation existed before the reforms of Charlemagne. Nevertheless, certain epic poems, as well the historical chronicles of Leonardo Bruni, Pierpaolo Vergerio, and especially Giovanni Conversini da Ravenna suggest that the humanists in Ciconia’s circles not only possessed some historical awareness of the Carolingian legacy, but also claimed it as a part of their Italo-Roman heritage. Others, such as Poggio Bracciolini and Niccolò Niccoli, used neo-Carolingian scripts as a powerful visual tool to disseminate their classicizing agenda. It is within these contexts, then, that I will examine Nova musica’s preference for Carolingian authorities, references to Charlemagne, and renovation of Carolingian musical “scripts” (i.e. neumatic, paginula, and proto-Guidonian staff notation).