Spirit of the Renaissance—Trovatori and cantori a liuto; The Florentine Ars nova; Landino; caccia, ballata, madrigal—The fifteenth century; the Medici; Netherland influence; popular song forms—Adrian Willaert and the new madrigal—Orazio Vecchi and the dramatic madrigal.
We have learned in the previous chapters how music, an incipient art fastened in the bondage of religious mysticism, groped through the blackness of the mediæval night; how, bound by dogmatic rule, it became the object of intellectual lucubration, the scholastic medium of pedants, who reared their stupendous structure of Gothic intricacy beyond the reach of ordinary man, ‘that tower of Babel, in the building of which tongues were confounded, till no one understood what he sang nor what he heard.’ And we have seen how this edifice, in adapting itself to the use of the denizens, softened its lines and its angles, broadened its spaces and became a thing of beauty—a process in which we see reflected the dawn of a new era, when humanity breathes a freer air; that glorious spiritual awakening which found its religious expression in the Reformation, its æsthetic revelation in the Renaissance. We shall presently consider the influence of the former upon the course of music in Germany; our immediate purpose is to follow the path of the parallel process accomplished through the Renaissance in Italy.
In the words of J. Addington Symonds, the history of the Renaissance is ‘the history of the attainment of self-conscious freedom by the human spirit manifested in the European races.’ In politics it meant the breaking down of the reactionary forces vested in the church and the empire, in science it meant the substitution of knowledge for superstition, the fearless exploring of new continents and the demonstration of the infinity of the universe; in art it meant the firing of man’s imagination, the stimulation of his creative faculties by the Revival of Learning, ‘that rediscovery of the classic past which restored the confidence in their own faculties to men striving after a spiritual freedom, ... which held up for emulation master works of literature, philosophy and art, provoked inquiry, shattered the narrow mental barrier imposed by mediæval orthodoxy.’
Just as the artist ‘humanized the altar pieces and the cloister frescoes upon which he worked’ and so ‘silently substituted the love of beauty and the interest of actual life for the principles of the church,’ so the musician ‘humanized’ the service of the church, brought beauty, expression and emotion into his masses and motets, imbuing them with the dramatic spirit, the spirit of passion, which had never been absent from the secular music of the people, the music that is always indigenous to the soil. It is in this music that we must first seek the embodiment of the Renaissance spirit, which means the direct expression of human emotions in terms of oral beauty. That spirit has been associated in the history of music with two things: the ‘invention’ of monody[98] and the rise of opera, both of which are placed about the end of the sixteenth century. But recent research has shown these apparently sudden events to be the outcome of a development extending back nearly three hundred years, so that they become the objective rather than the starting point of our account, which will aim to trace the steps by which this momentous reform was accomplished.
Our story has a direct connection with Chapter VII, where we spoke of the art of the Provençal troubadours. Though their influence was not felt in Italy till late in the twelfth century it bore a fruit as rich as it had in France. In the middle of the thirteenth a number of troubadours and jongleurs visited Frederick II at Milan, in the train of Raymon Berengar, Count of Provence. The Emperor extended his patronage to them, as did also Charles d’Anjou, the king of Naples. They became known among the people as uomini di corti, and ciarlatanti (because their chief theme was the exploits of Charlemagne), and the natives taught by them were called trovatori and giocolini. These soon cultivated native poetry in the Italian vernacular, the volgar poesia, which spread its influence to northern Italy as well and found representatives especially in Florence and Bologna. The thirteenth century records the names of Quittona d’Arezzo, Guido Guincelli and Jacopone da Todi, and upon the threshold of the fourteenth stands Dante (1265-1321), one of the greatest poets of all times, who with Petrarch (1304-1374) and Boccaccio (1313-1375) finally demonstrates the power of the Italian language as an artistic medium. In these three, Symonds says, ‘Italy recovered the consciousness of intellectual liberty.’ What is more to our purpose, they so clarified and amplified the Italian tongue that it became the vehicle for a national literature, in which were produced not only epics after the classic models, but also lyric gems in new and spontaneous forms, which would inspire the creation of melody.
Among these poetic forms we frequently meet with canzone and madrigals (then called mandriale, from Ital. mandra = hearth), which were evidently written to be sung. Their melodies, however, were no longer composed by the poets themselves but by a class of musicians characteristic of Italy during the Renaissance, the cantori a liuto, lutenists, who were essentially composers and singers, as distinguished from the trovatori, who were poets primarily. One of these cantori a liuto was Dante’s friend, Casella, whose name he has perpetuated in the Purgatorio.[99] The importance of the lutenists in this and succeeding periods of music calls for a brief explanation of their instrument. The lute was a plucked string instrument, somewhat resembling the guitar. Its origin was oriental. The favorite instrument of the Arabs, it reached Italy by way of Spain, and thence spread all over Europe. In the fifteenth to the seventeenth century it came to hold a place relatively as prominent as our pianoforte to-day—it was the household instrument par excellence and an important member of early orchestras. In shape the lute resembles the mandolin rather than the guitar, but it was made in various sizes, varieties, and ranges (chitarrone, theorbo, etc.). The number of strings was variable. Five pairs running across the fingerboard and an additional single one for the melody were fretted; the rest running outside were used only as open strings. The tunings varied at different periods, and, as in the case of the organ, a special kind of notation, or tablature, was used (cf. Vol. VIII, Chap. II).
It must not be supposed, however, that these lutenists were learned musicians in the sense of the contrapuntists who, at this same period, flourished in the Netherlands, and who had already begun to invade Italy. They were not familiar with the complicated musical science of the time. The ecclesiastical modes, mensural science, notation and its ramifications, ligatures, prolation and proportions, the theory of consonance and dissonance, the laws of voice progression, etc., all combined to form a science so formidable as to baffle all but those devoting their lives to its study. A boy put to school in childhood could achieve only in manhood the knowledge of a ‘cantor.’ As for composing, he would first have to be, as Kiesewetter says, a ‘doctor of counterpoint.’ The lutenists were none such; they were essentially dilettanti and hence their art, which was transmitted from ear to ear, has not been preserved to us. To gain a knowledge of the nature of their music we must turn to the more learned native musicians, who, we know, cultivated the same forms in the fourteenth century.
Here we meet with the most remarkable revelations. We will recall how music in its course of development under the guidance of the church ‘chose a path which led directly away from the solo style of the folk song or the song of the troubadours and into the realm of polyphonic imitation.’ It has been supposed, therefore, that the vocal solo had no place in the system and never appeared in the art music of the time. But recent investigators have unlocked for us a treasure of song by a school of Italian musicians of the early fourteenth century who perpetuated not only the solo style, but the solo song with instrumental accompaniment, which is the supposed ‘invention’ of the Florentine monodists of 1600! Fétis was the first to make known to the world the existence of the precious manuscript of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, dated 1375, which contains the specimens of these early Renaissance masters, among whom we should mention Jacopo da Bologna, Giovanni da Cascia (1329-1351), Francesco Landino (1325-1397) and Ghiradellus de Padua. Their worth was appreciated not only by Fétis who, in speaking of Giovanni da Cascia, says that ‘Guillaume de Machault, who was the most celebrated French musician of the same epoch, does not show greater ability,’[100] but also by other historians. Ambros says, ‘If their (the Italians’) works take an inferior position to that of the Netherlanders the reason is not lack of talent, but the fact that because of a disposition deeply rooted in the Italian nature and character, which later bore the richest fruits, the Italians were to develop certain sides of the art, before it had to be subjected to the indispensable school of contrapuntalism.’ But none of the historians were aware of the full significance of this music until Johannes Wolf’s[101] study of mensural notation appeared and until Hugo Riemann’s deductions[102] for the first time placed it in its true light. It is this school, which he characterizes as the Italian Ars nova, whose influence upon the French Ars nova and its chanson literature we have already emphasized.
The centre of this art is Florence, which Fétis calls ‘the cradle of modern music.’ Its principal representative is Francesco Landino, mentioned above. The facts of his life are brief. He was born in Florence about 1325, the son of a painter of some reputation. Having lost his sight in his youth, he sought consolation in the study of music. He learned to play all the instruments then in vogue and, it is said, even invented others. But it was his ability on the organ that made him famous. In this he surpassed his contemporaries to such an extent that he was aptly styled Francesco degli organi. The chief musicians of his time united to bestow upon him a laurel wreath, with which the king of Cyprus crowned him in Venice. He died in his native city in 1390.
What is true of his music applies in a great measure to that of his contemporaries—those named above and a number of others. The three principal forms into which their compositions are cast are the caccia, the ballata and the madrigal. The caccia is the one indigenous form of the three, being of truly Tuscan origin. It is a canon for two voices, with or without a third as bass foundation, which does not participate in the canon (like the drone bass of ‘Sumer is i-cumen in’). As its name implies (caccia = chase) it is a hunting song, though later it is applied to the humorous description of a market scene. The ballata is clearly derived from the dance songs of the troubadours. Its form as cultivated by the Florentines shows at the beginning a phrase whose text and melody serve as a chorus refrain (ripresa). This is followed by a middle section which is repeated (piedi) over a different text; then the opening section is again taken up with fresh text as a volta, after which it is repeated as refrain. Often there are a number of strophes (copla) which are alike except for the texts of the piedi.
The madrigal, too, originated in Provence, being derived from the pastourelle. While the latter, however, recounts amorous adventures with rural belles, the madrigal poems of Dante and his successors have for their subject the contemplation of the beauties of nature, with a whimsical, philosophical or sentimental conclusion. Its musical form is similar to the ballad and rondeau; it is divided into two parts with repeats and its melodic phrases are usually not of greater length than would be required for about five text lines. We shall see later a new development of the madrigal in the polyphonic a capella style, which became significant for the development of opera; the present form is, however, entirely monodic and accompanied.
Herein indeed lies the most remarkable feature of these early forms of secular music; in that they present a definitely thought-out combination of vocal and instrumental music, whose existence at this period was until recently unsuspected. But the latest research has definitely shown that the doubtful melismatic figures without words which precede and follow the individual phrases are nothing but instrumental preludes, interludes and postludes. Riemann[103] calls attention to the surprisingly definite harmonic basis of these songs; which seems far in advance of diaphony, faux-bourdon and all the primitive forms of polyphony. There is a remarkably varied combination of intervals—octaves, sixths, fifths, thirds, also sevenths and ninths used in the nature of passing notes or over a pedal—foreshadowing the manner of a much later day. Consecutive fifths and octaves occur rarely, and when they do are used in a way which is not very objectionable even to modern ears. A strictly modal character is avoided by the frequent use of chromatics. ‘Indeed this Florentine “ars nova” of the fourteenth century has no connection with the laborious attempts of the Paris school. This is evident from the fact that it does not build “motets” upon a tuneless tenor, or construct rondeaux and “conducts” in the clumsy manner of the organum, but that it appears with entirely new fundamental forms, and with such a certainty and natural freshness, that a theoretical process of creation seems absolutely out of the question. No, this Florentine New Art is a genuine, indigenous flower of Italian genius. If we nevertheless insist upon tracing its roots beyond the rich soil of Tuscan literature, we can only find it in the troubadour poetry of Provence.’[104]
According to our authority, there took place in the second half of the fourteenth century an active exchange of the achievements between the Florentines and the Paris school, in which France took from Italy a greater rhythmic variety, while Italy gained from France the manner of writing over a faux-bourdon foundation, the result being a decided detriment to the Florentine school, which lost much of its freedom in the invention of independent voices, though it gained in harmonic purity, while of course the consecutive octaves and fifths naturally disappear entirely. Examples of madrigals, cacci, etc., of the Florentine school may be examined in Johannes Wolf’s Geschichte der Mensuralnotation. A notable specimen by Giovanni da Cascia is ‘The White Peacock,’ quoted by Riemann (I²). The cantori a liuto, who flourished probably throughout the fifteenth century, performed, no doubt, the compositions of these masters, no less than their own inventions and the popular songs of the day, the frottole, the canzone, villanesche and villanelle, which resounded through the streets and the campagna of Renaissance Italy.
The fifteenth century saw Italy well advanced toward the state in which it has been compared to ancient Greece. The work begun by Petrarch had made mighty strides, the recovery of ancient learning and ancient art had become the great passion of the age, and the worship of beauty was the second, if not the first, creed of a people but recently emerged from the broils of civil war and settled down to a prosperous period, under a benevolent tyranny of which the rule of the Medici at Florence was the arch-type. Learning and culture had become a badge of nobility and the patronage of the arts an instrument of power. That music shared in the boon which came to art is unquestionable; a musical education was once again, as in ancient Greece, an essential part of a gentleman’s equipment; poets and musicians shared the patronage of princes, who themselves had no greater ambition than to be accounted men of genius—in truth, Florence had become the Athens of the modern world.
Cosimo de Medici returned from his Venetian exile in 1434 and, once installed in power, we see him surrounded by such men as Donatello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti and Luca della Robbia. Gemistos Plethos, the Byzantine Greek, fires his passion for Plato’s philosophy and Marsilio Ficino is trained under his patronage to translate the works of the sage. Vespasiano assures us of his versatility as follows: ‘When giving audience to a scholar, he discoursed concerning letters; in the company of theologians he showed his acquaintance with theology, ... astrologers found him well versed in their science, ... musicians in like manner perceived his mastery of music, wherein he much delighted.’
Cosimo’s grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492), far surpassed his grandsire in talent and culture. He was a writer of prose and poetry, gave the impulse to the revival of a national literature, and may be said to have raised popular poetry to the dignity of an art, in writing new verses for the canzone a ballo which the young men and girls sang and danced upon the squares of Florence to celebrate the return of May, and the canti carnascialeschi, the songs that the Florentine populace sang, masked, at carnival times. He organized for these occasions great pageants in which he himself took part, engaging the best artists for the embellishment of chariots and the designing of costumes, while he himself wrote songs appropriate to the characters represented on the cars, causing new musical settings to be made by eminent composers. ‘Every festivity,’ says Symonds, ‘May morning tournaments, summer evening dances on the squares of Florence, weddings, carnival processions, and vintage banquets at the villa, had their own lyrics with music and the Carola.’
Lorenzo’s famous academy constituted perhaps the greatest intellectual galaxy of the age, for at his table sat Angelo Poliziano, Cristoforo Landino, Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Leo Battista Alberti, Michelangelo Buonarrotti, Luigi Pulci. Surrounded by these companions we behold him in the streets of Florence, not disdaining to perform his own songs, in the midst of an approving populace, or, perchance, ‘when Florence sleeps beside the silvery Arno and the large Italian stars come forth above,’ accompanied by a few kindred spirits, lute in hand, singing the verses of a Dante or a Petrarch to the accompaniment of soft Italian zephyrs; or, again, in his villa ‘on the steep slope of that lofty hill crowned by the mother city, the ancient Fiesole,’ with Michael Angelo, ‘seated between Ficino and Politian, with the voices of prophets vibrating in his memory and with the music of Plato sounding in his ears ... till Pulci breaks the silence with a brand-new canto of Morgante, or a singing boy is bidden to tune his mandoline to Messer Angelo’s last-made ballata.’[105]
To such gatherings of boon companions and to the small domestic circle the cantori a liuto were finally relegated, for, as we shall see, their usefulness had been outlived. Such men as these were the perpetuators of their art and the last, perhaps, to cultivate the spontaneous monodies of their Florentine forbears, for it is unthinkable that these worshippers of beauty, these æsthetic sentimentalists should have escaped the charm of that school and have forgone it in favor of that which followed. For meantime the musicians of the Netherland school continued to spread their propaganda in Italy, and so successfully, that their contrapuntal works began to supersede the native monodic style.