diverdi.com
raumklang / asinamusic.com
musicweb-international.com
Raumklang RK 24010
2011
grabaciones de 2002 a 2007
1. Chjama è rispondi [3:39]
Improvisierte Poesie: Roccu Mambrini & Francescu Simeoni, Pigna
(2004)
2. Tent'a l'ora ruzenenta * [3:38]
anonym, Ms. Paris VM 676
3. Strambotti [3:55]
Text: Leonardo Giustinian, Musik: Francesco Varoter (1460-1502),
Adaption: Gloria Moretti
4. Ottave a contrasto [3:16]
Improvisierte Poesie: Nello Landi & Emilio Meliani, Buti (2002)
5. Turcho, turcho e Isabella - La Tricotée * [4:43]
anonym, Ms. Paris VM 676 - anonym, Ms. Escorial IVa 24
6. Ay me' sospiri [2:48]
Text: Leonardo Giustinian? (1387-1446), Musik: anonym, Ms. Escorial IV
a 24
7. Non peccando altri che il core [3:51]
Marchetto Cara zugeschrieben (ca. 1470- ca. 1525)
8. Ogni cosa ha el suo loco [4:42]
Text: anonym, Musik: G. B. Zesso (frühes 16.1h.)
9. El bon nochier (live) [3:32]
Text: Angelo Poliziano (1454-1494),
Musik: anonym, in: Frottole intavolate, F. Bossinensis (1511)
10. Stanze dal »Maggio d' Orfeo ed Euridice«
[2:05]
Text : Dino Landi & Mario Filippi (2005),
Sänger: Mario Filippi & Andrea Bacci, Buti (2007)
11. Ottave dal »Transito di Carnevale« [3:45]
Text: Gasparo Visconti (ca. 1461-ca. 1499),
Musik: basierend auf einer traditionellen toskanischen Melodie,
Adaption: Viva Biancaluna Biffi
12. Pianzete done [3:03]
Text: Leonardo Giustinian, Musik: anonym, Ms. Escorial IV a 24
13. Romanesca * [4:27]
anonym, Ms. Pesaro B. O. 1144
14. Ottave dal »Maggio d' Orfeo ed Euridice«
[1:42]
Text: Dino Landi & Mario Filippi (2005), Sänger: Enrico
Baschieri, Buti (2006)
15. O gratiosa viola mia gentile [4:51]
Text: Leonardo Giustinian, Musik: anonym, Ms. Escorial IV a24
16. Gratioso * [2:57]
Guglielmo Hebreo da Pesaro (1420-1481)
17. Perla mia cara [3:11]
Text: Leonardo Giustinian, Musik: anonym, Ms. Cordiforme, BNF Roth. 2973
18. Trista che spera [4:06]
Text: anonym, Musik: Pere Oriola (1440-1480)
19. Ottave dall' »Orlando furioso« [2:52]
Text: Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533), Sänger: Dolando Bernardini,
Buti (2006)
* instrumental
LUCIDARIUM
(www.lucidarium.com)
Gloria Moretti - Gesang
Viva Biancaluna Biffi - Gesang
Avery Gosfield - Flöten, Einhandflûte und Trommel
Marco Ferrari - Flöten, Doppelflöte
Francis Biggi - Viola da mano, Colascione
Elisabetta Benfenati - Renaissancegitarre
Massimiliano Dragoni - Hackbrett
Perkussion
I CANTORI DI BUTI / TOSCANA
Dolando Bernardini, Mario Filippi, Enrico Bascheri, Andrea Bacci
I POETI DI BUTI
Nello Landi, Emilio Meliani
I POETI DI PIGNA / CORSICA
Roccu Mambrini, Francescu Simeoni
This recording is dedicated to the memory of Dolando Bernardini (1920-2006)
IMPRESSUM
Produktion/Tonaufnahme: Sebastian Pank
Tonaufnahme Titel 4, 10, 14 und 19 (Buti): Enrico Fink
Schnitt: Benjamin DreBler
Aufgenommen vom 6.-9. Dezember 2004 in der »Casa Musicale«
in Pigna/Korsika
Koproduktion mit »Festivoce« Pigna/Korsika
Redaktion: Susanne Ansorg
Titelbild: Raffael (1483-1520), La Fornarina (Roma, Galleria Nazionale
d' Arte Antica)
@ Photoservice Electa/Anelli su concessione del Ministero per i Beni e
le Attivita Culturali
Foto Lucidarium: Emmanuel Mathez
Grafische Gestaltung: KOCMOC.NET
Presentazione e annotazioni in italiano disponibili sul sito www.lucidarium.com
/ Best.-Nr.: RK 2410
© und ® Raumklang 2011
Una musa plebea
Everyday Music from Renaissance Italy
In the 15th Century, a new style, fusing the international polyphonic
technique with the peninsular penchant for flowing melodic lines and
clear counterpoint was developed in the Italian courts. This style
would influence the musical aesthetic of all of Europe throughout the
next century. Patron and Nobleman alike outspent one another in an
attempt to attract the most famous musicians, who, at the time, came
predominantly from Northern Europe. Yet the splendid, complex
constructions of these ultramontani flourished side-by-side
with local or "municipal" repertoires. The surviving musical production
of the day bears strong witness - in contrast to the more imposing,
"serious" genres - to the development of an abundance of popular-style
forms written in a colorful, characteristic style that would last
throughout the century and beyond. Eventually, even the great masters
were obliged to familiarize themselves with this repertoire. Historical
sources allow us to reconstruct the path that the two distinct
traditions took before eventually arriving at a common language. This
was a "trickle-up" process: it didn't come from the great motets, which
continued to follow the canons typical of a long-established form. The
sheer scope of the motets' structure, like the importance of the
official occasions they were intended for, kept them from being judged
in terms of musical taste. Instead, they were defined by the symbolic,
ritual function they filled.
The process would be reversed for the "light" music of the era. The
secular compositions of a great master such as Josquin were judged on
equal grounds with the Giustiniane, a form which represented
the last flourishing of the trecento school, marked by archaic
traits rooted in a long and uninterrupted vocal tradition. The major
collections of the late 15th and early 16th centuries hold a varied
sampling of these musical genres: for example, the frottola,
the latest development of the Italian style; or the quodlibet,
a virtuosic compositional exercise favored by Northern composers, where
complicated polyphonies are constructed around melodies drawn from
simple, popular (or popular-like) songs. Often, these compositions are
anonymous: not surprising for a repertory considered minor, especially
in an era where most among the intellectual milieu, in full Humanist
fervor, looked upon polyphony, and above all the international ars
musica style with mistrust, as a remnant of the artificial,
barbaric medieval world.
Later, the mass of compositions "all'italiana" would diversify,
breaking up into many different forms, whose "popular" origins (usually
more fantasy than reality), were underscored by the coloristic use of
regional or local dialects. In addition, there is frequent recourse to
satirical or descriptive themes, marked by a theatricality that
prefigures the Commedia dell'Arte.
Public and communal occasions, like Carnival or theatrical
performances, helped to spread the fashionable songs or dances that
gave birth to arie and ostinati: the melodies and bass
lines that formed the basis of a myriad of new songs and instrumental
variations, such as the Bergamasca, Romanesca, Ballo di Mantova,
Aria della Monica, Ruggero and the Folia. These structures
became extremely popular throughout Italy and beyond, and were widely
adopted by popular musicians, eventually becoming interlaced with the
popular tradition. Indeed, the force of this assimilation was such that
many of these airs survived until very recently in the Italian popular
tradition.
In this heterogeneous fresco, this unabashed exchange between art and
popular music, between noble and common muses, a unique place is
reserved for the immense repertoire made up of strophic declamatory
forms, such as the capitolo, the ode, the strambotto,
as well as sung poetry all'improvviso. Much more popular than
any of the great motet or madrigal composers of the era, the canterini
(a kind of ballad singer) were specialists in a genre of monody that
has left few traces in musical literature. These poet-musicians were
specialists in the improvisation of elegant verses over pre-established
melodic models, called aere, frequently paired with a term
specifying a particular usage or geographic origin, such as aria da
strambotti or aere venetiano. These verses were declaimed
without accompaniment, in a way that allowed the dramatic, emotional
and rhythmical aspects of the text to shine through, or were sung by
someone accompanying himself on a stringed instrument such as a lira
da braccio, viol or lute.
The Humanists considered this style the Renaissance equivalent of
classical poetry, the art of the aedi, sung by a performer not
concerned with the artifices of musical writing but with the
psychological or emotional content of the verses he was performing. The
intellectuals and poets of the 15th century were conscious of the fact
that this manner of extemporized singing ("sul testo") was an offshoot
of an oral tradition widespread throughout the entire peninsula. The
desire to capture the natural essence of poetic and musical experience
pushed the Humanists to exalt the simplicity of popular expression: a
voice from a more innocent age, one closer to the spontaneous purity of
its origins. A letter written by the Milanese gentleman Ambrogio
Traversari in 1429 to the famous poet Leonardo Giustinian demonstrates
this. In it, he praises his friend for his ability to sing very
pleasant airs, a skill which he says "now, as opposed to the time of
our ancestors, belongs more to the common people than to any erudite."
Although we know that this way of performing by "via naturalis" was so
popular that it became a widely disseminated cross-class phenomenon,
destined to endure the passage of centuries, it has not left us a
single direct written musical trace. It was an art entrusted wholly and
solely to human memory.
Occasionally, in the frottola collections destined for an
amateur public, cadential formulas alternate with psalmodic recitation,
perhaps a performance style partially derived from the popular
tradition of the era, a simple technique that could be adapted to
practically any poem with the same metric form. This gave skilled
performers the flexibility to bend the melody to the expressive demands
of the text, employing a series of dramatic artifices designed to
enhance the contents: the alternation of syllabic passages, almost
spoken, with virtuosic melismae at pauses and cadences, in a
constant varying of the original melody.
Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian Humanists have handed down
passionate, detailed descriptions of the art of the canterini,
who performed on street corners; and of the court poets who improvised
in the presence of local lords. Indeed, the intellectuals of the time
considered the art of sung declamation equal to that of composing
polyphony. One of many examples of this attitude is that towards
Serafino Aquilano: courtly poet and famous author of strambotti.
Very few of his literary texts have come down to us set to music, the
rare exceptions all preserved in polyphonic collections. Although it is
likely that he had a thorough musical education, Serafino probably did
not compose the polyphonic settings: these are the work of specialists
of the genre known as the frottola. Still, during his own time,
Serafino was considered the greatest representative of secular music
for his unequaled skill in singing verses, able to bring out even the
smallest emotional or symbolic implication of the text. For this, he
was regarded as an equal of Josquin, the great maestro of
sacred polyphony.
This Arcadia, sung in the vernacular, calling for the natural
simplicity of Antiquity and pitting itself against the excessively
artificial manner of the polyphonic musicians of the epoch, was a theme
dear to the heart of the Renaissance New Man. A myth that made its
presence felt with a tenacity engendered by the rapprochement of
Italian culture with the arts of declamation and poetic improvisation.
It was a style of singing and a way of interpreting beloved not only by
intellectuals, but by cantimpanca (wandering entertainers) and canterino:
unremitting creators and transmitters of chivalric poems, of
adaptations in verse of episodes from Greek mythology or Christian
literature and hagiography, equally appreciated in the streets or open
markets of the plebian masses, the genteel residences of the
bourgeoisie or the palaces of the nobility.
For the more than three centuries between the Middle Ages and the
Baroque Era, it was an art common to all levels of society. However,
with the changes in thought and aesthetics, as well as the new poetic
language that became popular in the 18th century, Brandolini's artful
declamation, and the formal structures associated with it - such as the
illustrious and solemn verses of the ottava rima (in both its
Tuscan (ABABABCC) and Sicilian (ABABABAB) configurations) or the capitolo
in "terza rima," - fell into disuse among serious poets, surviving only
as a purely formal exercise.
Nevertheless, the ottava rima, and with it, a few other forms,
such as quatrains or sextets of eight syllable lines, continued to
prosper in the popular tradition. Marginalized, reduced to a local
practice, looked down upon and considered a curiosity by literary poets
and "official" culture alike, declamation, and in particular poetic
improvisation, continued to draw from an important humanistic and epic
cultural background, developing over the centuries to become a unique
feature of Italian popular culture. From Montaigne to Rousseau, from
Goethe to Baretti, through the end of the 19th century and the
beginnings of the rediscovery and study of popular culture, generations
of foreign intellectuals were amazed by the ability of the inhabitants
of the peninsula to improvise verses, often using models and citations
drawn from an impressive mythological and literary repository. A
witness to a shared and deep-rooted culture, this practice has survived
primarily in central Italy, but was once common throughout the land. A
culture whose profundity and complexity was such that it could only be
grasped from the end of the 19th century on, using D'Ancona's studies
of Italian popular poetry.
The tradition of singing improvised poetry and verses of mythological
and chivalric poems has been preserved in the popular tradition in some
areas of central Italy, Sardinia and Corsica, the last closely tied to
Italy by its history, language and tradition. Although there are not
many different meters used in these forms of improvised poetry, the few
that have remained in use demonstrate a notable vitality and a
tenacious will for survival. In central Italy the ottava rima
flourishes profusely, together with many other forms and musical
structures, such as the octosyllabic quatrains (four lines of eight
syllables) used for the Maggio drammatico or the tercets of
double octosyllables favored in Corsica. People from all walks of life
participate in this age old poetic tradition, highly regarded and
complex; cultivated and renewed with care. It's a tradition that calls
for an impeccable technique, solid rhythmic and metric skills, musical
talent, an acute ear and a good voice, and above all a special gift,
one that Nature distributes with parsimony. Tuscan poets, together with
those from Sardinia or Corsica, enjoy singing about this Muse that
moves their hearts, their intellects and their tongues. A few of them
have revealed, with characteristic discretion and modesty, the secrets
of their Art. For example, the Corsican poet Roccu Mambrini, also known
as U Russignolu (the nightingale), explained in a 1985
interview that, during the "Chjama è Rispondi," a form of
improvised poetical debate: "He listened to the other poet, all the
time thinking about how he would respond. As the other's song went on,
he would choose one or more words that he would respond to, preparing
his final rhyme (or rhymes) as well as those of the first and second
verse. That if the rhymes were what gave a sense to his response, the
meaning itself would influence his choice of rhymes: however, the
meaning was the most essential element. That if the other's final rhyme
suited him, he would use it as a basis for his argument, even repeating
it in order to give himself, while still singing, the time to prepare
his own rhymes and response. That singing slowly allowed him the time
to gather his thoughts, and that he didn't count the syllables, because
this came to him naturally from the rhythm and melody".Almost 20
years later, Nello Landi, great master of the Tuscan school, explained
that, in order to improvise the ottava: "one listens to the
adversary's argument - you need to wait until at least the penultimate
verse" (in Tuscan improvised ottava competitions, the last rhyme of
each ottava must be used for the first. third and fourth lines by the
following contender, following the rhyme scheme ABA BABCC, BCBCBCDD
etc.) Then, "once you decide on the direction of your argument, you
can prepare the third and fifth line while singing the first one, and
the fourth and sixth while singing the second. The last two, rather,
come by themselves (!,) prompted by the subject matter. In any case,
you have to hear the hendecasyllable with your ear: there's no point in
tallying up syllables on your fingers". "Singing slowly, and
lingering on the melody give you more time to think about what you want
to say..."
However, this similarity in concept and purpose does not necessarily
mean that a uniform tradition, common to all of Italian culture,
exists. In reality, the forms of declamation found throughout Italy,
Sardinia and Corsica all use different (if related) poetic structures
and melodies. Still, their similarities underline - in populations that
share, albeit in different measure, a common history and culture dating
back one thousand years - the deep-rooted establishment of a particular
relationship with poetry and its power. Poetry's force, the gift that
the poets have received from Nature and the Gods, is recognized in the
poets' role as the voice of the World, as the guardians of the
historical and critical memories of their communities. Poetry has an
important function, a function that neither modern society nor global
communication has been able to wipe out. On the contrary, today,
declamatory and improvisatory poetical and musical forms such as rap,
slam or the dozens have propelled this tradition, at the same time
noble and plebeian, into the 21st century. Poetry, and in particular,
improvised poetry - that created following the emotions of the moment,
the excitement of battle, or the urgent need to communicate, to share
feelings and views with our peers - is a formidable weapon when used
for summing up or analyzing the world around us.
It was the same for the poets of the Italian Renaissance. Although the
gifts of an improvisatory or declamatory poet did not guarantee fame or
fortune, in many cases, it brought him (or her) long-lasting
recognition. Their Art was the mirror of their World. It was a society
capable of bringing together, without apparent contradiction, a
nostalgia for a mythologized version of the chivalric, feudal universe;
the enthusiastic rediscovery of the Greek and Latin classical
tradition; and a "common" style that, to our eyes, often seems to pass,
willingly, close to the limits of vulgarity. Some, such as Boccaccio,
Boiardo, Ariosto and Tasso, citing only the most famous, knew how to
transform the verse form of the ottava rima into an instrument
of expression of the sublime, rendering their work immortal.
Our voyage in this no-man's land goes from Serafino dall' Aquila to
Gasparo Visconti, from Angelo Poliziano to the Corsican improvisers and
the poets of Buti, a Tuscan town where the art of improvised poetry,
the declamation of the great chivalric poetry of the Renaissance, and
the incessant and continual composition of "Maggi drammatici", sung
verse dramas staged by the entire community, written in octosyllabic
quatrains and sung "a capella" using archaic melodies, all flourish
vibrantly. We follow a path that pays homage to the masters, unknown
beyond the close-knit circle of their own community, who have provided
us, during our by now long journey of research and discovery in the
world of early music, with irreplaceable models: not for their style,
nor for their way of singing, but for their coherence and profundity.
From these "ordinary people": a farmer, a mason, a carpenter, a post
office worker, a schoolteacher, we have learned the fundamental
hierarchy in singing verses: the importance of becoming one with the
text, of believing in what one says. This fusion of speaking and
singing, so close that it is impossible to clearly discern one from the
other, was characteristic of the poetic declamation of the Renaissance
and became the cornerstone of the recitar cantando style of the
17th century. Their concept of beauty is that of an intimate and
indivisible bond between text, performer and way of singing, bending
the melody to the needs of poetic expression and rhetoric, the
preferred instrument of communication. A culture where, just as for the
Italian Humanists, the truth can only be expressed through beauty,
balance, proportion, and the mastering of artistic means.
Francis Biggi