Theory of Interval Affect

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Adrian Willaert and the

Theory of Interval Affect

Timothy R. McKinney

TheMusica novaMadrigals and theNovel Theories of Zarlino and Vicentino


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ADRIAN WILLAERT AND THE

THEORY OF INTERVAL AFFECT


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To Cyndi


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Adrian Willaert and theTheory of Interval Affect

TheMusica novaMadrigals and theNovel Theories of Zarlino and Vicentino

TIMOTHY R. McKINNEY

Baylor University, USA


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Timothy R. McKinney 2010

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 the publisher.

Timothy R. McKinney has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,

1988, to be identied as the author of this work.

Published by

Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

McKinney, Timothy R., 1956

Adrian Willaert and the theory of interval affect : the Musica nova madrigals and the novel

theories of Zarlino and Vicentino.

1. Willaert, Adrian, 1490?1562. Musica nova. 2. Madrigals, Italian Italy 16th century

Analysis, appreciation.I. Title

782.430945dc22

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McKinney, Timothy R., 1956

Adrian Willaert and the theory of interval affect : the Musica nova madrigals and the novel

theories of Zarlino and Vicentino / Timothy R. McKinney.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7546-6509-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Willaert, Adrian, 1490?1562.Musica nova. 2. Madrigals, Italian Italy 16th century History and criticism. I. Title.

ML410.W71M35 2009

782.0092dc22

2009011256

ISBN 9780754665090 (hbk)ISBN 9780754696728 (ebk)

Bach musicological font developed by Yo Tomita


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Contents

List of Tables viiList of Musical Examples ixAcknowledgements xv

1 Contexts 1

2 Denition, Evaluation, and Validation of the Theory of Interval Affect 41

3 Expressive Functions of Harmony in theMusica novaMadrigals 97

4 Willaerts Other Madrigals and the Theory of Interval Affect 191

5 The Compositional Legacy of Willaerts Theory of Interval Affect 225

Select Bibliography 295Index 311


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2.1a Major modes and harmonic quality inMusica novamadrigals 492.1b Minor modes and harmonic quality inMusica novamadrigals 492.2 Melodic interval affect as dened by Vicentino 512.3 Affective associations for the imperfect consonances 84

3.1 Representative fth successions fromMusica novamadrigals 101

5.1 Sixteenth- and eighteenth-century classications of interval affect 291

List of Tables


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1.1 Adrian Willaert,Liete e pensose, mm. 15;Musica nova(Venice:Antonio Gardano, 1559) 14

1.2 Baldassare Donato,Mentre questalme et honorate rive, mm. 1216;Il primo libro de madrigali a cinque, et a sei voci, con tre dialoghia sette di nuovo riveduti, & con somma diligentia corretti(Venice:Plinio Pietrasanta, 1557; rst edn 1553) 16

1.3 Guillaume Dufay,Ave Regina caelorum, mm. 7796; Bibliotecaapostolica vaticana, San Pietro B80 18

1.4 Orlande de Lassus,Psalmus Tertius Poenitentialis, verse 21, mm.15;Psalmi Davidis poenitentiales, modis musicis redditi, atqueantehac nunquam in lucem aediti ...(Munich: Adam Berg, 1584) 21

1.5 Hard and soft B 23

1.6 Willaert,Aspro core e selvaggio e cruda voglia, mm. 122;Musicanova(Venice: Antonio Gardano, 1559) 26

1.7 Willaert, Contebor tibi Domine, mm. 13440;Musica nova

(Venice: Antonio Gardano, 1559) 39

2.1 Zarlinos exemplar of harsh harmony 45

2.2 Willaert,Lasso, chi ardo, mm. 11721;Musica nova(Venice:Antonio Gardano, 1559) 46

2.3 Interval qualities above each pitch-class of the basic gamut 60

2.4 Major, minor, and dubious sonorities 61

2.5 65 or 56 motions 62

2.6 56 or 65 motions over adjacent positions of similar quality 62

2.7 Willaert,Aspro core e selvaggio e cruda voglia, mm. 122 642.8 Melodic lines from harsh and sweet sections ofAspro core 672.9 Willaert,Io amai sempre, mm. 1732;Musica nova(Venice:

Antonio Gardano, 1559) 692.10 Shared voice-leading strands in opening ofAspro core 702.11 Analytical reductions of sections A and B in opening ofAspro core 712.12 Willaert,Aspro core, mm. 10316 742.13 Willaert, Giunto mha Amor, mm. 519;Musica nova(Venice:

Antonio Gardano, 1559) 772.14 Willaert, Giunto mha Amor, mm. 9098 792.15 Willaert, Giunto mha Amor, mm. 12432 802.16 Willaert, O invidia, nemica di virtute, mm. 7093;Musica nova

(Venice: Antonio Gardano, 1559) 81

List of Musical Examples


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Adrian Willaert and the Theory of Interval Affectx

2.17 Girolamo Parabosco,Aspro cor, mm. 117;Madrigali a cinquevoci di Girolamo Parabosco discipulo di M. Adriano novamenteda lui composti & posti in luce(Venice: Antonio Gardano, 1546) 86

2.18 Giaches de Wert,Aspro cor, mm. 114;Il primo libro de madrigalia cinque voci novamente posti in luce et da lui proprio corretti alla

stampa(Venice: Girolamo Scotto, 1558) 882.19 Cipriano de Rore, Sfrondate, o sacre dive, mm. 5761;Di

Cipriano il secondo libro de madregali a cinque voci insiemealcuni di M. Adriano et altri autori a misura comune novamente

posti in luce(Venice: Antonio Gardano, 1544) 902.20 Jacques Arcadelt,Perch non date voi, donna crudele, mm. 812;

Il primo libro di madrigali dArchadelt a quatro con nuova giontaimpressi(Venice: Antonio Gardano, 1541; rst edn 1538) 91

2.21 Arcadelt,Benedetti martiri, mm. 1924;Il primo libro dimadrigali dArchadelt a quatro con nuova gionta impressi(Venice:Antonio Gardano, 1541; rst edn 1538) 91

2.22 Rore, Strane ruppi, mm. 17;Di Cipriano il primo libro demadregali cromatici a cinque voci con una nova gionta delmedesmo autore novamente ristampato & da inniti errori

emendato(Venice: Antonio Gardano, 1544; rst edn 1542) 922.23 Wert,Dura legge, mm. 110;Madrigali del ore a cinque voci,

libro secondo (Venice: Girolamo Scotto, 1561) 932.24 Analytical reductions for Examples 2.7, 2.22, and 2.23 94

3.1 Willaert,Laura mia sacra;Musica nova (Venice: AntonioGardano, 1559) 124

3.2 Willaert,I vidi in terra angelici costumi;Musica nova (Venice:Antonio Gardano, 1559) 138

3.3 Willaert,Mentre chel cor;Musica nova (Venice: AntonioGardano, 1559) 151

3.4 Willaert,I piansi, hor canto;Musica nova (Venice: AntonioGardano, 1559) 164

3.5 Willaert,Cantai: hor piango;Musica nova (Venice: AntonioGardano, 1559) 177

4.1 Willaert,Madonna, il bel desire;Madrigali a quatro voci diAdriano Willaert con alcune napolitane et la canzon de Ruzantetutte racolte insieme ... (Venice: Girolamo Scotto, 1563) 194

4.2 Willaert, Qual dolcezza giamai, mm. 5675;Di Verdelot le dotte eteccellente compositioni de i madrigali a cinque voci, insieme conaltri madrigali di varii autori, novamente ristampati, & ricorretti(Venice: Antonio Gardano, n.d.) 200


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List of Musical Examples xi

4.3 Willaert, Gi mi godea felice, mm. 133;Madrigali a quatro vocidi Adriano Willaert con alcune napolitane et la canzon de ruzantetutte racolte insieme... (Venice: Girolamo Scotto, 1563) 203

4.4 Willaert,Rompi de lempio cor, mm. 147;La piu divina, et piubella musica, che se udisse giamai delli presenti madrigali, a seivoci composti per lo eccellentissimo Verdelot, et altri musici...(Venice: Antonio Gardano, 1541) 207

4.5 Willaert, Se la gratia divina, mm. 114;Di Cipriano Rore et dialtri eccellentissimi musici il terzo libro di madrigali a cinquevoce novamente da lui composti et non piu posti in luce(Venice:Girolamo Scotto, 1548) 212

4.6 Willaert,Ne le amare freddonde, mm. 111;Di Cipriano Rore etdi altri eccellentissimi musici il terzo libro di madrigali a cinque

voce novamente da lui composti et non piu posti in luce(Venice:Girolamo Scotto, 1548) 215

4.7 Willaert,Piangetegri mortali, mm. 120;Musica spirituale libroprimo di canzon et madrigal a 5(Venice: Girolamo Scotto, 1563) 218

4.8 Willaert,Piangetegri mortali, mm. 4872 221

5.1 Nicola Vicentino, Capitolo de la passione di Christo, mm. 98109;Madrigali a cinque voci per theorica et pratica da lui composti al

nuovo modo dal celeberrimo suo maestro ritrovato. Libro primo(Venice, 1546) 2285.2 Vicentino,Alma gentil, mm. 3542;Madrigali a cinque voci per

theorica et pratica da lui composti al nuovo modo dal celeberrimosuo maestro ritrovato. Libro primo(Venice, 1546) 230

5.3 Vicentino,Fin che mamasta mai arsi, mm. 1642;Madrigali acinque voci per theorica et pratica da lui composti al nuovo mododal celeberrimo suo maestro ritrovato. Libro primo(Venice, 1546) 232

5.4 Vicentino,Capitolo de la passione di Christo, mm. 20620 2365.5 Vicentino,Fiamma gentil, mm. 7793;Madrigali a cinque

voci per theorica et pratica da lui composti al nuovo modo dalceleberrimo suo maestro ritrovato. Libro primo(Venice, 1546) 238

5.6 Vicentino,Occhi lucenti e belli, mm. 4048;Madrigali a cinquevoci di larcimusico Don Nicola Vicentino pratico et theorico etinventore delle nuove armonie(Milan: Paolo Gottardo Pontio, 1572) 243

5.7 Gioseffo Zarlino,Amor mentre dormia, mm. 4671;I dolci etharmoniosi concenti fatti da diversi eccellentissimi musici sopra

varii soggetti. A cinque voci. Libro primo(Venice: GirolamoScotto, 1562) 246

5.8 Zarlino, questol legno, mm. 10710;I dolci et harmoniosiconcenti fatti da diversi eccellentissimi musici sopra varii soggetti.

A cinque voci. Libro primo(Venice: Girolamo Scotto, 1562) 251


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Adrian Willaert and the Theory of Interval Affectxii

5.9 Zarlino,Lauro gentile, mm. 326;Di Cipriano Rore et di altrieccellentissimi musici il terzo libro di madrigali a cinque vocenovamente da lui composti et non piu posti in luce(Venice:Girolamo Scotto, 1548) 253

5.10 Zarlino,Spentera gi lardor

, mm. 2332;I dolci et harmoniosi

concenti fatti da diversi eccellentissimi musici sopra varii soggetti.A cinque voci. Libro primo(Venice: Girolamo Scotto, 1562) 254

5.11 Zarlino,I vo piangendo, mm. 19;I dolci et harmoniosi concentifatti da diversi eccellentissimi musici sopra varii soggetti. A cinquevoci. Libro primo(Venice: Girolamo Scotto, 1562) 259

5.12 Zarlino,I vo piangendo, mm. 3142 2605.13 Zarlino,I vo piangendo, mm. 5363 2635.14 Rore,Quanto pi mavicino, mm. 10812;Di Cipriano il primo

libro de madregali cromatici a cinque voci con una nuova giontadel medesmo autore novamente ristampato & da inniti errori

emendato(Venice: Antonio Gardano, 1544; rst edn 1542) 2675.15 Rore, Quel sempre acerbo et honorato giorno, mm. 110;Di

Cipriano il primo libro de madregali cromatici a cinque voci conuna nuova gionta del medesmo autore novamente ristampato & dainniti errori emendato(Venice: Antonio Gardano, 1544; rst edn1542) 269

5.16 Perissone Cambio, Gionto mha Amor, mm. 6978;Il segondolibro di madregali a cinque voci con tre dialoghi a otto voci &uno a sette voci novamente da lui composti & dati in luce (Venice:Antonio Gardano, 1550) 273

5.17 Parabosco, Solo e pensoso, mm. 120;Madrigali a cinque voci diGirolamo Parabosco discipulo di M. Adriano novamente da luicomposti & posti in luce(Venice: Antonio Gardano, 1546) 275

5.18 Parabosco, Solo e pensoso, mm. 918 2775.19 Francesco dalla Viola,Deh perche non credete, mm. 1518;

Il primo libro de madrigali a quatro voci novamente con ognidiligentia dal proprio autore corretto & dato in luce(Venice:Antonio Gardano, 1550) 279

5.20 Francesco dalla Viola,Poi che nostro servir, mm. 110;Il primolibro de madrigali a quatro voci novamente con ogni diligentia dal

proprio autore corretto & dato in luce(Venice: Antonio Gardano,1550) 280

5.21 Francesco dalla Viola, Siepi chel bel giardin, mm. 1519;Il primo

libro de madrigali a quatro voci novamente con ogni diligentia dalproprio autore corretto & dato in luce(Venice: Antonio Gardano,1550) 281


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List of Musical Examples xiii

5.22 Donato, Qual sera mai si miserabil pianto, mm. 2132;Il primolibro de madrigali a cinque, et a sei voci, con tre dialoghi a settedi nuovo riveduti, & con somma diligentia corretti(Venice: PlinioPietrasanta, 1557; rst edn 1553) 283

5.23 Gioseffo Guami,Giunto mha Amor

, mm. 90101;Il primo libro

di madrigali a cinque voci novamente da lui composti(Venice:Antonio Gardano, 1565) 286

5.24 Guami, Occhi amme damore, mm. 1930;Il primo libro dimadrigali a cinque voci novamente da lui composti(Venice:Antonio Gardano, 1565) 288

5.25 Vincenzo Bellavere,Pria si vedr nellarenoso lido, mm. 1116;Ilsecondo libro de madrigali a cinque voci novamente posti in luce(Venice: Girolamo Scotto, 1575) 289


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Acknowledgements

In the spring of 1985, while doing research for a graduate seminar at the University

of North Texas, I encountered what struck me as a curious assertion in GioseffoZarlinos famous statement in Book 4, Chapter 32 of Le istitutioni harmonicheon how harmony may be accommodated to words: that the intervals of the major

and minor sixths bear opposing affective meanings. Being more familiar with

nineteenth-century repertoire than that of the sixteenth century, and being poised

on the verge of pursuing a dissertation on the songs of Hugo Wolf, I had no doubt

that major thirds could be happy and minor thirds could be sad. But I wonderedif the major and minor sixths really meant different things in the sixteenth century,

and, if so, how that might play out in compositional practice. These thoughts led

to a term paper for Benito Rivera, whose seminars on the history of theory and on

mode opened up new vistas for me and sparked my interest in Zarlino and AdrianWillaert. Though I stuck to my plan to study Hugo Wolf and music of the nineteenthcentury, the question prompted by Zarlino continued to occupy me over the years.

When I initially posed it while standing among the stacks in the library in Denton,

I had no idea of the ever-broadening scope of the journey it would spur, nor thatit would eventually lead to this book. I am grateful rst and foremost to BenitoRivera for starting me down this path and for providing assistance and guidance as

I have made my way along it. He has generously shared his wisdom and the fruits

of his research with me, and graciously gave of his time and expertise to read and

comment upon an earlier draft of this book.Because most of my formal training focused upon another era, I am particularly

grateful to those specialists in the history of theory or early music who have

provided encouragement, direction, constructive criticism, or source materials for

my work in the Renaissance over the years: Bonnie J. Blackburn, Lester Brothers,David E. Cohen, Jeffrey Dean, Ruth DeFord, Willem Elders, Michle Fromson,

Christine Getz, James Haar, Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Cristle Collins Judd,

Andrew Kirkman, William Mahrt, Stefano Mengozzi, Russell Murray, Jessie AnnOwens, Graham Phipps, Keith Polk, Katherine Powers, Katelijne Schiltz, AnneSmith, Grayson Wagstaff, and Rob C. Wegman. In addition to many of those just

named, I am grateful to others whose work has taught me much and rendered minefar more feasible, particularly Howard Mayer Brown, Robert Durling, Martha

Feldman, Edward E. Lowinsky, Maria Rika Maniates, Clement Miller, ClaudePalisca, and Leeman Perkins. I also thank the anonymous reviewers engagedby Ashgate for the excellent advice and critical commentary they provided for

this project. None of the folks mentioned above should bear any blame for myremaining shortcomings.


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Adrian Willaert and the Theory of Interval Affectxvi

I beneted much from the intellectual stimulation and collegiality providedby the inaugural Mannes Institute for Advanced Studies in Music Theory in

2001, which focused upon the history of theory, and particularly Cristle Collins

Judds course on Zarlino and Sarah Fullers course on early modal theory. I thank

Wayne Alpern for founding and directing the institute, Joel Lester and ThomasChristensen for co-chairing its faculty in 2001, those providing nancial support,and the Mannes College of Music for hosting the event.

Research for this book drew upon the resources of numerous librariesfartoo many to mention them allbut I wish to acknowledge the BayerischeStaatsbibliothek in Munich, the Bibliothque Nationale in Paris, the AccademiaFilarmonica in Verona, the University of California system, SUNY Binghamton,

the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of

Kentucky, and the University of Washington. My work was greatly facilitated by

the holdings, services, and staff of the Baylor University libraries; I appreciate thesupport for my research given by Sha Towers, ne arts librarian, Kenneth Carriveau,access services librarian, and Janet Jasek and her interlibrary loan team.

I am grateful as well to the Center for the History of Music Theory and

Literature at Indiana University (Thomas J. Mathiesen, director, Peter Slemon,

associate director) for providing the Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarumandsaggimusicali italiani(Andreas Giger, Louisiana State University, project director), andto the University of Utrecht for sponsoring TMIWeb, the online version of the

Thesaurus musicarum italicarum (Frans Wiering, project director). The searchfeatures of these online databases of historical Latin and Italian treatises on musicyield in seconds what might take months to track down manually. Also helpfulin tracking down the source of several madrigal texts was the online database

Antologie della Lirica Italiana Raccolte a stampa(ALI RASTA) hosted by theUniversity of Pavia.

The musical examples in this study contain my own transcriptions from

fteenth- and sixteenth-century print and manuscript sources, though I consultedthe modern editions listed in the Select Bibliography for second opinions on text

underlay and musica cta. In some cases, a later edition than the rst to appearserved as my source; the exact edition used for each transcription is given in the

List of Musical Examples. I present the examples in the original note values rather

than in reduction, so that they correspond to references to note values contained

in quotations from contemporaneous theoretical sources. Following standard

editorial procedure, an accidental placed before a notehead indicates that that sign

appeared in the source being transcribed, while all editorial accidentals appear

above the noteheads to which they apply; this distinction is especially signicant

in the present study because of my focus on interval affect and potential symbolicuses of accidental inections. The question of text underlay, paramount to anystudy hinging upon text-music relationships, seldom presented problems in most

of the current transcriptions because of the care exercised by Willaert and those

under his inuence in this regard. I have generally preserved the original spelling


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Acknowledgements xvii

and punctuation of the poetic texts in the transcriptions, though I have used modern

spellings and the modern alphabet at times in the interest of clarity.

In preparing my own translations of madrigal texts given herein, I often

consulted those in Robert DurlingsPetrarchs Lyric Poemsor Martha Feldmans

dissertation and herCity Culture and the Madrigal at Venice

. Mine are in no waysuperior to theirs in a poetic sense; in fact, mine are far more stilted. I have sought

to place English equivalents as close as practical to their Italian counterparts and

to use cognates whenever possible, even if a more attractive or precise translation

were possible, in order to assist those relying on the translations to match concepts

expressed in the poetry with their corresponding musical setting. Once again I

must express my appreciation to Benito Rivera for his suggestions concerning

several of the translations.

Generous nancial support for my project has been provided by Baylor

University in the form of summer research sabbaticals. I am grateful also tograduate assistants Aaron VanValkenburg and Sharon McCarthy for help inpreparing the musical examples for Chapter 3 and for assistance with microlmand other library materials.

I have appreciated working with Ashgate Publishing on many levels, butparticularly in regard to their uncommon generosity concerning the number and

length of musical examples that could be included in this book. I especially thankHeidi Bishop, Senior Commissioning Editor, for her support of my project, and

both her and Rosie Phillips for their editorial assistance in bringing it to fruition.I thank my daughter, Erin Gonzales, for her willing and able proofreading of

the initial draft, and my son, Brian, for helping me keep things in perspective.I thank them both for their understanding when work impinged upon our timetogether through the years. To my parents, James Carroll and Elizabeth Richmond

McKinney, I owe a debt of gratitude for nurturing my love of music and encouraging

and supporting my studies. To them I also owe the fascination with word-music

relationships that has informed most of my scholarly efforts. Professors of music

themselves, they made such relationships come alive for me, he singing, she at the

piano. Finally, I thank my wife, Cynthia, for her unfailing belief in and support forme and her assistance in innumerable ways with this project. It is to her I dedicate

this volume.


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Chapter 1

Contexts

He who has no imagination for such things has no understanding of the meaning,

the purpose, and the very life of the madrigal.

Alfred Einstein1

In the writings of Nicola Vicentino and Gioseffo Zarlino, two of the most

signicant music theorists of the sixteenth century, we nd for the rst time

a systematic means of explaining musics expressive power based upon themelodic and harmonic intervals from which it is constructed. This theory of

interval affect originates not with these theorists, however, but with Venice-based Flemish composer Adrian Willaert, and receives its clearest expression in

the madrigals of hisMusica nova, as I shall show in the current study. The titleof Willaerts legendary collection of motets and madrigals refers not as much to

music that is new as to a new approach to composing music.Though completed

by the 1540s, it was kept from public view before its eventual publication in 1559

and was rst known and understood only by its intended audience, the cognoscentiof the Venetian intellectual circles in which it was performed and discussed.2Themadrigals of the collection have become famous for their coupling of serious

poetry of high quality with a grave musical stylecharacterized by meticuloustext setting, dense polyphony, restrained melodic and rhythmic writing, and

unusually low voicingand for the relatively sophisticated readings of thepoetic texts they embody, in comparison to the madrigal repertoire up until that

time. Signicant in these readings were the musical analogues Willaert forgedfor the frequent antitheses encountered in the sonnets by fourteenth-century poetFrancesco Petrarch, which provide all but one of the texts for the 25 Musicanovamadrigals. In crafting these analogues, he established two broad categoriesof musical affect that segregated major and minor interval qualities. As has

often been suggested, Willaerts affective categories may have been inuenced

1 Alfred Einstein, The Italian Madrigal (3 vols, Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1949; reprint 1971), vol. 1, p. 330.

2

On the dating and publication history ofMusica nova, see, among others, HelgaMeier, Zur Chronologie derMusica NovaAdriano Willaerts,Analecta musicologica12(1973), pp. 7196; and Jessie Ann Owens and Richard J. Agee, La stampa dellaMusica novadi Willaert,Rivista italiana di musicologia24/2 (1989), pp. 219305; and Ignace Bossuyt,O socii durate: A Musical Correspondence from the Time of Philip II,Early Music26/3(1998), pp. 4367. On the cultural context ofMusica nova, see principally Martha Feldman,City Culture and the Madrigal at Venice(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).


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Adrian Willaert and the Theory of Interval Affect2

by literary theorist Pietro Bembos similar categories of expressive quality in

poetry, calledgravitandpiacevolezza, which Bembo based upon his studies ofPetrarchs vernacular works.3Willaerts compositional and pedagogical practicein turn was inuential on the sudden appearance of systematic theories of interval

affect in two of the most important treatises devoted to music theory in thesixteenth century, VicentinosLantica musica ridotta alla moderna pratticaof1555 and ZarlinosLe istitutioni harmonicheof 1558.4

While much of this has been more or less assumed for some time now, several

questions remain unanswered: How highly developed was Willaerts own theory

of interval affect? What was the precise nature of his inuence upon Zarlino andVicentino in this regard? How does the theory of interval affect interact with

the pitch system and principles of counterpoint in use by mid-sixteenth-centurycomposers, and how deeply did Willaert ponder these matters? Through what

specic means did Willaert emphasize certain intervals, and how might thesemeans affect the ow and course of a composition? Did he apply the affectiveuse of intervals only to individual words or phrases on a local level, as commonly

thought, or might he wield it to project a broader-arching reading of a text in partor in whole?

Because Willaert left no theoretical writings of his own as far as we know,evidence pertinent to addressing these questions must be recovered from his

compositions. In this book I reconstruct from Willaerts music traces of his

innovative theorizing concerning how extramusical ideas might be communicated,and examine the inuence of this theorizing on the way he wrote music and onthe work of subsequent theorists and composers in his circle of inuence. UsingtheMusica novamadrigals as my nexus and working outward from there, I shall

3 Pietro Bembo,Prose della volgar lingua(Venice, 1525). See Dean Mace, PietroBembo and the Literary Origins of the Italian Madrigal,Musical Quarterly 55 (1969),pp. 6586; Claude Palisca, Humanism in Italian Renaissance Musical Thought (New

Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985), pp. 35568; Howard Mayer Brown,Words and Music: Willaert, the Chanson and the Madrigal about 1540 inFlorence andVenice: Comparisons and Relations: Acts of Two Conferences at Villa I Tatti in 19761977, organized by Sergio Bertelli, Nicolai Rubinstein, and Craig Hugh Smyth, vol. 2,Cinquecento (Florence: La Nuova Italia Editrice, 197980), pp. 22931; and MarthaFeldman, City Culture and the Madrigal at Venice, pp. 12355, 1846, andpassim. Seealso nn. 75 and 81 later in this chapter. The potential connection between Bembos theory

of word-sound and Willaerts theory of interval affect will be examined in Chapter 3, inrelation to Willaerts setting ofMentre chel cor.

4

Citations from Lantica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica and Le istitutioniharmonichewill be made by book, chapter, and page or folio followed by the page numberof the English translation in parentheses; e.g., Zarlino, 3.10, p. 156 (21). English translationshave been altered in some instances to maintain consistency of terminology in the present

study or to more closely reect the original context. Vicentinos treatise contains a book onmusic theory followed by ve books (numbered one through ve) on music practice.All references in the current study come from the practical books.


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Contexts 3

demonstrate that Willaerts new music articulated a new theory of musical affect

more complex and forward-looking than currently recognized. I shall uncoverspecic details of compositional technique demonstrating that the madrigals of

Musica nova comprise a grand experiment in writing music that seeks both to

project the composers reading of a text and to move the listeners affections byutilizing inherent properties of musical sound as well as affective conventions. I

shall show that these madrigals represent a proving ground for testing theories

about musics expressive effects, and that they do indeed instantiate a new way of

writing music in which harmony steps closer to the fore and inuences melodicand contrapuntal techniques to an unprecedented degree.

The Principal Players and a Venetian Backdrop5

Adrian Willaert lived from around 1490 to 1562 and in many respects was the most

inuential composer of the post-Josquin generation.6Although northern-Europeanby birth, as with so many of his Franco-Flemish musical brethren, he spent mostof his professional life in Italy. Probably born in Bruges or Roulaers, both now in

modern-day Belgium, he rst studied law in Paris before switching to music andstudying composition with Jean Mouton. He may have been in Rome by 1514 and,

beginning around 1515, served the inuential dEste family in various capacities in

Ferrara and Hungary. In 1527, Willaert obtained the ofce of maestro di cappellaat San Marco cathedral in Veniceat this time one of the more important musicalposts in Europeand held it until his death in 1562.

Willaert was renowned as a composer and as a teacher both during his lifetime and

by subsequent generations. Though it is difcult to establish precise relationshipsin many instances, in addition to Zarlino and Vicentino, his pupils are thought to

have included signicant gures such as Cipriano de Rore, Girolamo Parabosco,Perissone Cambio, Baldassare Donato, Costanzo Porta, and Francesco dalla Viola,

among many others. His extant works encompass most of the principal genres ofhis day, including motets, masses, psalms, hymns, chansons, madrigals, lighter

Italian genres such as the canzona villanesca, and instrumental ricercars, and he

5 The biographical information on Willaert, Zarlino, and Vicentino given here is

intended only to place these men succinctly in historical context and comes for the most

part from standard sources; I do not claim to augment the known details of their lives.6 For a current overview of Willaerts life, see Lockwood, Lewis, Giulio Ongaro,

Michle Fromson, and Jessie Ann Owens, s.v. Willaert, Adrian, Grove Music Online. Other important biographical details may be found inIgnace Bossuyt,Adriaan Willaert (ca. 14901562): Leven en werk: Stijl en genres(Leuven:Universitaire Pers Leuven, 1985); Giulio Ongaro, The Chapel of St. Marks at the Time ofAdrian Willaert (15271562) (Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina, 1986); andfurther sources listed in the biographical section of David Kidger,Adrian Willaert: A Guide toResearch(New York and London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 3815.


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was responsible for signicant stylistic advances in many of these. In the proem ofLe istitutioni harmonicheof 1558, arguably the most signicant treatise devoted tomusic theory in the sixteenth century, Zarlino styles Willaert as a new Pythagoras

who corrected many errors in the art of music.7 Zarlinos homage in such an

inuential theoretical work helped to extend Willaerts reputation well beyond hislifetime and well after performance of his works largely had ceased, and cementedhis historical position as a leading gure of the sixteenth century. Writing indefense of his famous brother Claudio in the Artusi-Monteverdi controversy some45 years after Willaerts death, Giulio Cesare Monteverdi credited Willaert with

having perfected the compositional style (and Zarlino the theoretical rules) of theprima prattica, the older rst practice gradually supplanted by the more modernsecond practice stemming from Rore and mastered by Claudio Monteverdi.8

In her City Culture and the Madrigal in Venice,Martha Feldman has traced

the weave of the rich tapestry of vigorous humanistic discussions taking place inVenetian academies and the inuence of trends in literary theory upon Willaertsmusic.9We know of his interest in more arcane music theoretical matters fromtwo primary sources: (1) his enigmatic setting of Quid non ebrietas (probablywritten by 1519 and thus predating his time in Venice), which ends on a notatedseventh that actually sounds as an octave due to successive hexachordal mutations

that eventually lead to enharmonicism;10 and (2) his apparent participation in a

7 Gioseffo Zarlino,Le istitutioni harmoniche(Venice: Francesco Franceschi Senese,1558; facs. edn New York: Broude Brothers, 1965), pp. 12. (Nondimeno l ottimo Iddio, acui grato, che la sua innita potenza, sapienza, & bont sia magnicata & manifestata dagli huomini con hinni accompagnati da gratiosi & dolci accenti, non li parendo di comportarpi, che sia tenuta a vile quell arte, che serve al culto suo; & che qua gi ne fa cenno di quantasoavit possano essere i canti de gli Angioli, i quali nel cielo stanno a lodare la sua maest;ne h conceduto gratia di far nascere a nostri tempi Adriano Willaert, veramente uno de pirari intelletti, che habbia la Musica prattica giamai essercitato: il quale a guisa di nuovo

Pithagora essaminando minutamente quello, che in essa puote occorrere, & ritrovandoviinniti errori, ha cominciato a levargli, & a ridurla verso quell honore & dignit, che giella era, & che ragionevolmente doveria essere; & h mostrato un ordine ragionevole dicomponere con elegante maniera ogni musical cantilena, & nelle sue compositioni egli neh dato chiarissimo essempio.)

8 Giulio Cesare Monteverdi, Dichiaratione della lettera stampata nel quinto libro de

suoi madregali, in Giulio Cesare Monteverdi (ed.), Scherzi musicali a tre voci di ClaudioMonteverde[sic] (Venice, 1607); trans. in Oliver Strunk (ed.), Source Readings in MusicHistory; rev. edn Leo Treitler (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1998), pp. 53644.

9 See also the extensive reviews of Feldmans City Cultureby James Haar, EarlyMusic History16 (1997), pp. 31828; Brian Mann,Journal of the Royal Musical Association122/1 (1997), pp. 10919; and Laura Buch,Journal of the American Musicological Society52/1 (1999), pp. 18393.

10 See Dorothy Keyser, The Character of Exploration: Adrian Willaerts Quid non

ebrietas, in Carol E. Robertson (ed.),Musical Repercussions of 1492(Washington, D.C.:Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), pp. 185207; further bibliography there. The piece


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Contexts 5

discussion of the genera of ancient Greek music theory, along with music theoristsGiovanni del Lago and Giovanni Spataro, at the house of the Venetian ambassador

of English king Henry VIII, Giambattista Casali, in 1532.11 His humanisticpondering of the more esoteric theoretical aspects of his craft, which would have

included the legendary ability of ancient music to move the human soul, coupledwith his immersion in a Venetian culture fascinated with questions of style and

decorum, gave birth to theMusica novamadrigals and the theory of interval affectthey embody.

Gioseffo Zarlino (151790) was a native of Chioggia, located on a islandin the Venetian Lagoon less than 20 miles south of the city proper. Other than

what has been gleaned from surviving archival documents and the occasional

autobiographical comment in his writings, most of the sketchy details we knowof his life come from a biography written by mathematician Bernandino Baldi,

who claimed the facts therein were told to him by the theorist himself.12Zarlinoremained in Chioggia until 1541, receiving his early training from Franciscans

there and earning a series of promotions in his studies toward the priesthood. He

is known to have been a singer at the cathedral in 1536 and its organist from1539 until 1540. In 1541 he moved to Venice and sometime thereafter began

study with Willaert, though we do not know precisely when or for how long. Heeventually succeeded Willaert and Cipriano de Rore as maestro di cappella atSan Marco in 1565, and remained in that post until his death in 1590.13Although

caused quite a stir in theoretical circles from at least 1524, as documented in correspondence

between theorists Giovanni Spataro and Pietro Aaron and others (seeA Correspondence ofRenaissance Musiciansin the following note, letters 1214 andpassim), and continues togenerate theoretical discussion in the twenty-rst century; see Roger Wibberly, Quid nonebrietas dissignat? Willaerts Didactic Demonstration of Syntonic Tuning,Music TheoryOnline10/1 (2004), . In his paperAdrian Willaerts Revenge: A Further Reexamination of His Celebrated Duo, presented

for the 2009 meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Richard Wexler argued that

the duo was intended to confound the papal singers of the Sistine Chapel in retaliation for a

perceived slight described by Zarlino,Le istitutioni harmoniche4.36, p. 346 (107).11 See letters 46 and 98 in Bonnie J. Blackburn, Edward E. Lowinsky, and Clement

A. Miller (eds),A Correspondence of Renaissance Musicians(Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1991); see also the commentary by Lowinsky on pp. 554 and 9278.

12 The biographical sketch given here depends largely on Claude V. Palisca, s.v.Zarlino, Gioseffo, in Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (eds), New Grove Dictionary ofMusic and Musicians, second edn (London: Macmillan, 2001). The biography of Zarlinoby Bernardino Baldi was included in the lattersLe Vite de Matematici. In unpublishedmaterials generously shared with me, Benito Rivera has been able to conrm many detailsof Baldis account, yet notes that the whole should be approached with caution.

13 See Rebecca Edwards, Setting the Tone at San Marco: Gioseffo Zarlino Amidst

Doge, Procuratori and Cappella Personnel, inLa Cappella musicale di San Marco nelletamoderna:Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Venezia, Palazzo Giustiniani Lolin, 57settembre 1994(Venice: Fondazione Ugo e Olga Levi, 1998), pp. 389400.


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Zarlino composed both sacred and secular music, continually served the church,

and pursued scholarly interests in other disciplines, by far his most signicantaccomplishments were as a music theorist. When one surveys the history of the

eld, Zarlino stands out as a giant who produced a corpus of theoretical worksof immense value; few theorists before or since approach his inuence on thesubsequent ow of theoretical discourse.

Active on the Venetian intellectual scene like his mentor, Zarlino sought toposition himself as Willaerts successor and thus as the leading musical authority

in the city, a quest in which he ultimately succeeded; between the two of them,

Willaert and Zarlino held the principal musical post in Venice for sixty years.

Zarlinos monumental Le istitutioni harmoniche of 1558 may have played apivotal role in his ascension. Cristle Collins Judd suggests several career-related

reasons why the treatise emerged when it did and was then reissued in 1561 and

1562: (1) Willaert took a leave of absence at San Marco in 1556 in order to returnto Flanders and was known to be in poor health, raising the possibility that hewould not return and a successor might be needed (exacerbated by the fact that

he overstayed his leave), (2) Zarlino needed to respond more generally to thethreats posed by fellow Willaert disciples Rore and Vicentino, the former for his

success as a composer and the latter for the appearance of his Lantica musicain 1555, and (3) Zarlinos afliation with the Accademia Veneziana della Fama,in which he had assumed a leadership role by 1560.14In the treatise he sought to

display his erudition and to unite speculative and practical theory in one volumeon an unprecedented scale, with its rst two parts being devoted to mathematical,philosophical, and historical considerations, and the third and fourth parts to the

practical concerns of counterpoint and mode.15He continued to pursue theoretical

matters throughout his lifetime, and, though later editions of Le istitutioniharmonichewere produced with some revision in 1573 and 158889, renementsto his ideas and responses to his critics appear principally in two further treatises,

14

Cristle Collins Judd,Reading Renaissance Music Theory: Hearing with the Eyes(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 1968; further bibliography there.See also Iain Fenlon, Gioseffo Zarlino and Venetian Humanism, introductory essay to

Gioseffo Zarlino, Le istitutioni harmoniche (Venice, 1561; facs. edn Bologna: ArnoldoForni, 1999), pp. 712; and Feldman, City Culture, pp. 1716. The short-lived tenure ofthe Accademia is described in Paul Rose, The Accademia Venetiana: Science and Culture

in Renaissance Venice, Studi veneziani11 (1969), pp. 191242. For more on Willaertsillness and the effects of his absence on San Marco, see Ongaro, The Chapel of St. Marks,pp. 1434 andpassim; and Edwards, Setting the Tone at San Marco, pp. 3912.

15

Paliscas Humanism, pp. 24450, his New Grove article on Zarlino, and hisintroduction to the translation of Book 3 (The Art of Counterpoint) provide a readilyaccessible overview of the intellectual context of theIstitutioni. See also Cristle CollinsJudd, Reading Renaissance Music Theory, pp. 18892; and Jairo Moreno, MusicalRepresentations, Subjects, and Objects: The Construction of Musical Thought in Zarlino,Descartes, Rameau, and Weber(Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,2004), pp. 2543.


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Contexts 7

Dimostrationi harmonicheof 1571 and Sopplimenti musicaliof 1588.16Because itremained Zarlinos principal statement on compositional practice in general, and

on the theory of interval affect in particular, and because of its closer temporal

proximity to his studies with Willaert, the 1558 edition of theIstitutioni will be the

principal source for Zarlinos ideas used in the current study.

17

Though Zarlino makes reference to a number of classical authorities aswell as composers and theorists of his own and preceding generations in the

Istitutioni, it is clear that Willaerts teaching and compositional practice form theprincipal foundations upon which his theory rests, as he explicitly states in the

later Sopplimenti musicali.18Martha Feldman suggests that his focus on Willaertmay have been inuenced by Bembos single-model theory of imitation; in hisown work, Bembo chose Petrarch as his principal model for Tuscan poetry, andBoccaccio for prose.19In a similar vein, Zarlino frequently cites Willaerts works

in his discussions of counterpoint and mode inLe istitutioni harmoniche, and it hasbeen suggested that, through these citations and the overt homage paid to Willaert,

he hoped not only to establish authority for his theory, but also to suggest Willaerts

approval of it.20The citations include manyMusica novaworks and demonstrate

16 Gioseffo Zarlino,Dimostrationi harmoniche(Venice: Francesco Franceschi Senese,1571; facs. edn New York: Broude Brothers, 1965); Gioseffo Zarlino, Sopplimenti musicali(Venice: Francesco Franceschi Senese, 1588; facs. edn New York: Broude Brothers, 1979).All references to Zarlinos writings in the current study are toLe istitutioni harmonicheunless otherwise specied.

17 The differences between the 1558 edition and later editions ofLe istitutioniharmonichewill be taken into account here as they are relevant to the topic at hand. For acomparison of the 1558 edition with the nal edition produced during Zarlinos lifetime in158889, see Paolo Da Col, Tradizione e scienza: LeIstitutioni harmonichedi GioseffoZarlino, introductory study to Gioseffo Zarlino,Le istitutioni harmoniche (Venice, 1561;facs. edn Bologna: Arnoldo Forni, 1999), pp. 5495; also appears in English translation byHugh Ward-Perkins as The Tradition and Science: TheIstitutioni harmonicheof GioseffoZarlino, pp. 3555.

18 Gioseffo Zarlino, Sopplimenti musicali, p. 9. (Ne fu mai ne anco mia intentionedi scriuer luso della Prattica secondo l modo de gli Antichi, Greci, Latini, se bene alle

ate la v adombrando; ma solamente il modo di quelli, channo ritrovato questa nostramaniera, nel far cantar insieme molte parti, con diverse Modulationi, & diverse Aria, &specialmente secondo la via & il modo tenuto dAdriano Vuillaert, prattico eccellentissimo,di giudicio grande, di felicissima & fecondissima memoria, & di grande, isperientia nellaMusica, & nelle cose della Prattica mio Precettore.)

19 Feldman, City Culture, pp. 129 and 1724.20 See Cristle Collins Judd,Reading Renaissance Music Theory, pp. 179261 for a

penetrating examination of the factors inuencing Zarlinos choice and use of citationsof musical works inLe istitutioni harmoniche, and of the origins, theoretical and culturalcontexts, and publication history of the treatise. See also Paolo Da Col, Tradizione e

scienza; and Katelijne Schiltz, Self-Citation and Self-Promotion: Zarlino and theMiserereTradition, in Mark Delaere and Pieter Berg (eds), Recevez ce mien petit labeur:Studies


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that he was thoroughly familiar with this collection prior to its publication (which

occurred after that of his treatise).While Zarlino largely was a codier and defender of tradition, balance, and

order, Nicola Vicentino (151176) styled himself, and is known today, primarily as

an innovator who based his experiments in chromatic and enharmonic theory andcomposition on his supposed reconstruction of the music of the ancient Greeks,as he makes clear in the title of his treatise Lantica musica ridotta alla moderna

pratticaof 1555, translated by Maria Rika Maniates asAncient Music Adapted toModern Practice.21He spent his early years in his birthplace of Vicenza, less than40 miles west of Venice, and thus in fairly close proximity to Willaert.22Though it

is generally assumed that he studied with Willaert in Venice in the 1530s, the extent

and nature of those studies have not been established, nor do we currently have

solid evidence establishing a relationship between the two, other than Vicentinos

claim to be Willaerts disciple (discussed below) and his obvious familiarity withWillaerts methods. We know little about his formal training except for the factthat he had been ordained to the priesthood, and we know virtually nothing of hislife before he emerged as a singer in the employment of the powerful dEste family

in Ferrara, principally for Cardinal Ippolito II. It has not been established when

this service began or ended, but it could have begun several years before he is

known to have been in Rome in the company of the cardinal in 1549, and perhapsended by 1561 when Vicentino announced his availability for a new position in

a published broadside describing an instrument of his design.23

By 1563 he hadreturned to Vicenza and assumed the post of maestro di cappellaat the cathedral,yet he resigned from this post in January of 1565. In a letter dating from 1570,

he refers to himself as the rector of the church of Saint Thomas in Milan,24and

documentary evidence examined by Davide Daolmi suggests that he was granted

this post during 1565, the year of his departure from Vicenza.25Vicentino was

in Renaissance Music in Honour of Ignace Bossuyt (Leuven: Leuven University Press,

2008), pp. 21125.21 Nicola Vicentino,Lantica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica(Rome, 1555; facs.

edn, Kassel, Basel, London, and New York: Brenreiter, 1959); trans. Maria Rika ManiatesasAncient Music Adapted to Modern Practice(New Haven and London: Yale UniversityPress, 1996).

22 The principal biographical study of Vicentino remains Henry Kaufmanns TheLife and Works of Nicola Vicentino (American Institute of Musicology, 1966). See alsoManiatess introduction to her translation of his treatise. Documents relating to Vicentino

and his time in Milan have been gathered and studied extensively in Davide Daolmi,DonNicola Vicentino: Arcimusico in Milano (Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 1999). Thebiographical sketch presented here is drawn primarily from these sources.

23 See Henry W. Kaufmann, Vicentinos Arciorgano: An Annotated Translation,

Journal of Music Theory5 (1961), pp. 3841.24 Facsimile and translation in Kaufmann,Life and Works, pp. 4041.25 Daolmi,Don Nicola Vicentino, pp. 6370 and 15961.


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Contexts 9

long thought to have died in Milan during an outbreak of the plague in 1576, yetDaolmi revises the date of his death precisely to April 11, 1577.26

Vicentino never secured a major post such as that held by Willaert and Zarlino

at San Marco, and of necessity was a vigorous self-promoter of his speculative

theories and experimental music. He designed microtonal instruments to play inthe chromatic and enharmonic genera and to teach and accompany the specially

trained singers with whom he traveled about Italy in order to perform his music.27

He did achieve a fair degree of fame for his experiments, though even his own

musicians had difculty performing his music on occasion and little of it hassurvived, both facts suggesting that it would not have been in widespread use.

Yet Vicentinos innovations and instruments were inuential on other progressivecomposers active in Ferrara at the time such as Luzzasco Luzzaschi and Carlo

Gesualdo.

Documentary evidence indicates that by 1549 Vicentino was teaching his ideasabout the chromatic and enharmonic genera and that a treatise on the subject was

in the works or at least planned.28Maniates asserts that the treatise was originallyintended to establish Vicentinos authority and prepare the way for publication

of his compositions in these genera.29 Vicentinos plans and the treatise itself

were affected greatly by his 1551 debate with Vicente Lusitano over whether the

music of their time was written in the diatonic genus of ancient Greek theory, or amixture of the diatonic with the chromatic and enharmonic genera, with Lusitano

arguing the former position, and Vicentino the latter.30

The judges of the debate

26 Ibid., pp. 1014. Daolmi also questions whether Vicentino died of the plague orfrom another cause.

27 Vicentinos chromatic and enharmonic music has been studied extensively; see

primarily Kaufmann,Life and Works; Karol Berger, Theories of Chromatic and EnharmonicMusic in Late 16th Century Italy (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1980); Maniates,introduction toAncient Music Adapted to Modern Practice; and especially Manfred Cordes,Nicola Vicentinos Enharmonik Musik mit 31 Tnen (Graz: Akademische Druck- undVerlagsanstalt, 2007), which contains audio recordings of the genera and musical examplesfrom Vicentinos treatise.

28 See Kaufmann, Life and Works, pp. 212; Maniates, Ancient Music Adapted toModern Practice, pp. xvxvii and 4456; and Richard J. Agee, The Privilege and VenetianMusic Printing in the Sixteenth Century (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1982),pp. 814 and 1012.

29 Ibid., p. xvii.30 On the debate and its aftermath, see Kaufmann,Life and Works; Maria Augusta

Alves Barbosa, Vincentius Lusitanus: Ein Portugiesischer Komponist und Musiktheoretikerdes 16. Jahrhunderts(Lisbon: Secretaria de Estado da Cultura, 1977); Berger, Theories ofChromatic and Enharmonic Music; Ann E. Moyer,Musica Scientia: Musical Scholarshipin the Italian Renaissance (Ithaca and London: Cornell, 1992); Maria Rika Maniates,introduction to Nicola Vicentino,Ancient Music Adapted to Modern Practice; GiulianaGialdroni, introduction to Vincenzo Lusitano,Introduttione facilissima et novissima dicanto fermo, gurato, contraponto semplice et in concerto(Venice, 1553; facs. edn Lucca:


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ruled in Lusitanos favor, much to Vicentinos chagrin. In his treatise, Vicentino

summarizes the circumstances and arguments of the debate, and it often pulses

with his resentment over the outcome and functions as an apology for his position.

It is interesting that the debate centered on the same topic discussed by Willaert,

Spataro, and del Lago in Venice some 19 years before. According to Spatarosaccount of that discussion, the conclusion they reached would support the position

Vicentino later argued: that modern music represented a mixture of the genera.31

Vicentinos treatise has traditionally been regarded as a manifesto for his

experimental compositional practice, and certainly it fullls this purpose. Manyaspects of the treatise are rmly grounded in the common compositional practiceof his day, however, as it was also his purpose to explicate how modern music

related to ancient music. Though Vicentino mentions no composers by name in his

treatise, in his rst book of ve-voice madrigals, published in 1546, he declareshimself a disciple of Willaert, and claims to have written the madrigals thereinaccording to the theory and practice of his master.32

While both Vicentino and Zarlino declare allegiance to Willaert, and while

both discuss interval affect in a manner largely consonant with his practice (with

the exceptions noted below), they could not agree upon which intervals shouldbe used in composition. Vicentino the progressive embraced microtonal intervals

Libreria Musicale Italiana Editrice, 1989); and Timothy R. McKinney, Point/Counterpoint:Vicentinos Musical Rebuttal to Lusitano,Early Music33/3 (2005), pp. 393411; furtherbibliography in these sources.

31 See A Correspondence of Renaissance Musicians, letter 46, pp. 54853, andparticularly Lowinskys commentary on p. 554, which notes the similarity between thewording of Spataros letter and Vicentinos statement of his position. See also LowinskysAdrian Willaerts Chromatic Duo Re-Examined, pp. 1213; reprinted inMusic and theCulture of the Renaissance and Other Essays, vol. 2, pp. 6856. Vicentino presented theview that the presence of the major third indicated the enharmonic genus and the minor

third the chromatic genus, arguing that these intervals did not occur between adjacent tonesin the diatonic genus. Zarlino criticized Vicentino, though not by name, on this very point,

among others, in Chapters 7280 of the third part ofLe istitutioni harmoniche, publishedthree years after Vicentinos treatise. Zarlinos position, like that of Lusitano and GhiselinDanckerts before him, was that, while intervals such as the major third and minor third maybe components of the enharmonic and chromatic genera, respectively, their presence alone

does not mean that one is writing in those genera, as these intervals occur as well between

non-adjacent tones in the diatonic genus; he argued that one must see the chromatic semitone(such as CC) to have the chromatic genus, and a quartertone to have the enharmonic.For more on the tacit relationship between Zarlinos and Vicentinos treatises, see Michael

Fend, Theorie des Tonsystems:Das erste und zweite Buch der Istitutioni harmoniche (1573),Europische Hochschulschriften 36/43 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1989), pp. 3979and 42333.

32 Del unico Adrian Willaerth Discipulo / Don Nicola Vicentino / Madrigali a cinquevoci per theorica / et pratica da lui composti al nuovo modo / dal celeberrimo suo maestro/ ritrovata. Libro primo(Venice, 1546).


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Contexts 11

that Zarlino the conservative clearly rejects in the nal chapter of the counterpointportion of his treatise, entitled A rebuttal to the opinions of the chromaticists

(Opinioni delli Chromatisti ributtate) and tacitly directed at Vicentino. Thoughtheir general philosophical stances and their views of what music should be like

are often widely divergent, the notion of interval affect nonetheless proves to bea common thread linking their theories and compositional practices with thoseof Willaert. As we shall see in the following chapters, in Willaerts expressive

shadings of harmony we often nd embodied the core tenet upon which Vicentinosand Zarlinos theories of interval affect agree: that the major and minor imperfect

consonances are suitable for the expression of antithetical affects.

The Novelty of the Theory of Interval Affect

The notion that music can convey thoughts and stir emotions is perhaps as old

as music itself. From ancient Greece onward learned authorities have asserted

that the expressive character of music yoked to words should be appropriate tothe meaning and mood of these words, and that mode and rhythm were principal

means by which this could be accomplished.33The Greek concept of ethos wastransmitted by Boethius to the Middle Ages,34where writers ltered it throughthe musical repertoire they knew and adopted it for their own purposes, though

they were unknowingly grappling with a different modal system. Sometimes theirdiscussions provide vague clues about practical aspects of mode or melody thatmight contribute to musics expressive power, such as range or characteristic

melodic gures;35 in particular, plagal modes tended to be viewed as more

33 See, for example, Platos famous call for harmonia (which means more thanmerely scale type) and rhythm to follow the words and his coupling of certain harmoniaito sorrowful, convivial, or warlike subjects in his Republic (excerpt translated in Oliver

Strunk, Source Readings in Music History, pp. 1011). See also Thomas J. Mathiesen,Greek Music Theory, in The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory; Thomas J.Mathiesen,Apollos Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages(Lincoln, Nebraska: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1999); and Warren Anderson and ThomasJ. Mathiesen, s.v. Ethos inNew Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second ed.(London: Macmillan, 2001).

34 Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius,De institutione musica(c. 505); modern editionby Gottfried Friedlein (Frankfurt: Minerva, 1966); trans. Calvin Bower asFundamentals ofMusic(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989).

35

For example, Johannes Afigemensis refers to the well-bred high spirits and thesudden fall to the nal of the fth mode and the hoarse profundity of the second in hisDe musica(c. 1100), Chapter 16, in Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica sacra potissimum,edited by Martin Gerbert (3 vols, St. Blaise: Typis San-Blasianis, 1784; reprint edition,Hildesheim: Olms, 1963), vol. 3, p. 253; translation from Warren Babb inHucbald, Guido,and John on Music: Three Medieval Treatises(New Haven and London: Yale Univ. Press,1978), p. 133. He also advises composers to compose chant so aptly that it seems to


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somber than their authentic counterparts. Driven by theoretical tradition and

a renewed interest in recapturing the legendary expressive power of ancient

music, discussions of modal ethos continued in the sixteenth century, yet nothing

resembling a universally consistent theory developed, and modern attempts to

establish connections between the prevailing affect of a text and a composerschoice of mode have met with mixed results at best.36 I am not aware of any

evidence suggesting that music theorists discussing polyphonic music prior to

the 1550s were concerned with the affective quality of intervals in a systematic

way, whether in the abstract or in relation to an intervals position within a mode.

Previous theorists attended to intervals primarily for their propaedeutical value

as fundamental building blocks of musical structure, necessary for constructingtheoretical pitch systems such as tetrachords, hexachords, modes, and so forth, or

for addressing melodic, harmonic, or contrapuntal concepts. Although the terms

major and minor, or their equivalents, were applied to certain intervals,37theseterms were understood more quantitatively than qualitatively, as typied in this

express what the words say (uti ita proprie cantum proponat, ut quod verba sonant, cantus

exprimere videatur) in Chapter 18;Hucbald, Guido, and John on Music, p. 137.36 An extensive historical survey of comments on modal ethos occurs in Steven Charles

Krantz, Rhetorical and Structural Functions of Mode in Selected Motets of Josquin des

Prez, (2 vols, Ph.D. dissertation: University of Minnesota, 1989). Other representative

samples from a large body of literature that touches upon this topic include Claude V.Palisca, Mode Ethos in the Renaissance, in Essays in Musicology: A Tribute to AlvinJohnson (Philadelphia: American Musicological Society, 1990), pp. 12639; BernhardMeier, The Modes of Classical Vocal Polyphony Described According to the Sources , trans.Ellen Beebe (New York: Broude Brothers, 1988; original German edition 1974), pp. 385405 andpassim; Bernhard Meier, Rhetorical Aspects of the Renaissance Modes,Journalof the Royal Music Association115/2 (1990), pp. 18290; Manfred Cordes, Tonart undAffekt in der Musik des 16. Jahrhunderts,Jahrbuch alte Musik2 (1993), pp. 925; AngelaJane Lloyd, Modal Representation in the Early Madrigals of Cipriano de Rore (Ph.D.

dissertation, Royal Holloway College, University of London, 1996), pp. 28192; Harold S.Powers and Frans Wiering, s.v. Mode inNew Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,second ed. (London: Macmillan, 2001); Wiering, The Language of the Modes: Studies inthe History of Polyphonic Music (New York and London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 1315,160, andpassim; and Hartmut Krones, Secundus tonus est gravis et ebilisTertius tonusseverus est: Zur Semantik der Modi in Trauermotetten der Zeit um 1500, in Stefan Gaschand Birgit Lodes (eds), Tod in Musik und Kultur: Zum 500. Todestag Philipps des Schnen,(Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 2007), pp. 15788.

37 Carl Dahlhaus has examined the numerous ways the terms durum and molle

have been applied to music over the centuries in his Die Termini Dur und Moll,Archivfr Musikwissenschaft12 (1955), pp. 28096. See also David E. Cohen, Notes, scales, andmodes in the earlier Middle Ages, in Thomas Christensen (ed.), The Cambridge History ofWestern Music Theory(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002), pp. 30763. BernhardMeier notes that, although not yet widespread in written sources, the Latin terms tertia

dura and tertia mollis for the major and minor third, respectively, begin to appear in

theoretical treatises written in Germany in the early 16th century;The Modes, p. 406.


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denition drawn from the inuential Contrapunctus (1412) of Prosdocimo deBeldomandi: An interval is said to be major because it is extended over a greater

distance, minor because it is extended over a lesser.38As for employing these

intervals in polyphonic composition, the choice of major or minor is made upon

the basis of contrapuntal progression: for you should always choose that form,whether major or minor, that is less distant from that location which you intend

immediately to reach.39 Traditionally, no particular expressive function was

assigned to the imperfect consonances beyond their tendency to seek perfection bymoving to perfect consonances,40and no general distinction between the emotive

properties of major and minor was made.41

In their published theories of interval affect stemming from Willaerts

compositional and pedagogical practices, on the other hand, Vicentino and Zarlino

ascribe specic expressive characteristics to certain intervals, ascriptions which

in their simplest and most familiar guise survive until the present day: majorintervals are suitable for happy affections, and minor intervals for sad ones.

Perhaps the most clear-cut example of the compositional conation of the happy/sad and major/minor dichotomies in WillaertsMusica novaoccurs in the oft-citedopening of the seven-voice dialogue Liete e pensose (Example 1.1).42Here the

38 Prosdocimo de Beldomandi, Contrapunctus (1412), ed. and trans. Jan Herlinger;Greek and Latin Music Theory 1 (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press,1984), 3.7, pp. 545. (et dicitur maior combinatio quia per maiorem distantiam dilatatur,minor vero quia per minorem.)

39 Prosdocimo, 5.6, pp. 823. (quoniam illam semper sumere debes que minus distata loco ad quem immediate accedere intendis )

40 On the history of this notion, see David E. Cohen, The Imperfect Seeks ItsPerfection: Harmonic Progression, Directed Motion, and Aristotelian Physics,MusicTheory Spectrum23/2 (Fall, 2001), pp. 13969.

41 Though one interval may be described as more or less harsh or sweet than another,

as in Stephanus Vanneuss description of the effect of ending on a minor third as being lesssweet (suavis) than ending on a major third;Recanetum de musica aurea(Rome 1533; facs.edn Kassel, Basel, Paris, and London: Brenreiter, 1969), 3.37, fol. 91r.

42 See, for representative samples, the discussion of Liete e pensose in ErichHertzmann, Adrian Willaert in der weltlichen Vokalmusik seiner Zeit: Ein Beitrag zurEntwicklungsgeschichte der niederlndisch-franzsischen und italienischen Liedformen inder ersten Hlfte des 16. Jahrhunderts(Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hrtel, 1931), p. 53; ArmenCarapetyan, TheMusica Novaof Adriano Willaert: With a Reference to the HumanisticSociety of 16th Century Venice (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1945), pp. 1856;

Mace, Pietro Bembo, pp. 8083; Bernhard Meier,The Modes, p. 415; David Alan Nutter,The Italian Polyphonic Dialogue of the Sixteenth Century (Ph.D. dissertation, Universityof Nottingham, 1978), p. 55; Maria Anne Archetto, Francesco Portinaro and the Academiesof the Veneto in the Sixteenth Century (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Rochester, 1991),pp. 18490; Martha Feldman, City Culture, pp. 2534; and Paul Christopher Schick,Concordia Discourse: Polyphony and Dialogue in Willaert, Wert, and Monteverdi (Ph.D.

dissertation, Yale University, 1997), pp. 6685.


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word liete (happy) is set with two sustained major sonorities, and the followinge pensose (and pensive) with three minor ones.43Though the affective contrastin this example might be viewed by some as nave or shallow, we shall see in the

course of this study that, in Willaerts expert hands, the dichotomy between major

and minor intervals provides the basis for far more subtle and profound expressiveinterpretations of texts.

Text-Music Relations in General

It will be helpful to distinguish between different ways in which music and text

may interact, and in doing so I shall draw upon the useful categories of text-musicrelations suggested not long ago by Leeman Perkins.44In addition to declamatory,

43 Similar contrasts occur at Ov la vita (where is [my] life) and ove la mortemia, (where [is] my death) in mm. 1425 and Liete siam (we are happy) and Dogliose([we are] sad) in mm. 3744. Willaert uses several expressive devices other than harmonicsonority in these passages, such as the bright Fand predominantly ascending motion at

vita and a darker Band descending motion with morte, and the vigorous octave leap atvita in thesettima partein m. 21 versus the much more somber minor sixth leap into Bat morte in m. 23. See also the discussion of the former passage in James Anderson Winn,

Unsuspected Eloquence: A History of the Relations between Poetry and Music(New Havenand London: Yale University Press, 1981), pp. 1468.

44 Leeman Perkins, Towards a Theory of Text-Music Relations in the Music of theRenaissance, in Andrew Kirkman and Dennis Slavin (eds), Binchois Studies(New York:Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 31329. See also the lists of sixteenth-century expressivedevices in Bernhard Meier, The Modes, pp. 23747; and James Haar, Essays on ItalianPoetry and Music in the Renaissance, 13501600(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University ofCalifornia Press, 1986), pp. 1345; the extensive catalogue of associative devices in Irving

Example 1.1 Adrian Willaert,Liete e pensose, mm. 15


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Contexts 15

formal, and syntactical levels of text-music relations, he denes three expressivelevels: rhetorical, mimetic, and affective. In a broader sense, of course, each of

Perkinss categories intersects with some aspect of rhetorical theory, yet the categoryhe calls rhetorical expression describes an emphasis on signicant words of

the text by the manner of their presentation, which can be considered separatelyfrom either their intrinsic meaning alone or their possible affective resonances.45

The mimetic level encompasses the concept of word-painting and consists of twoprincipal types: (1) sonorous mimesis seeks to imitate an actual sound, such asbirdsong or a trumpet call, that is specically mentioned or referenced indirectly inthe text; and (2) cognitive mimesis establishes a conceptual link between a textualelement and a musical element or elements, such as the use of quick note valueswith a word such as ee, or a rising line with and ascended into heaven.46Theaffective level comprises the representation and communication in music of the

emotional content of the text.Perkins notes that the affective level is by far the most problematic category

in which to pin down compositional intent because contemporary treatises do not

explain how to manipulate musical affect, at least prior to the writings of Vicentino

and Zarlino, and because there seemed to be no coherent doctrine or theory

concerning affective response during the Renaissance.47 It is only beginning

with the Willaert school that the presence of an intentional affective level in text-music relations can be established beyond a reasonable doubt because there we

have not only the evidence provided by Willaerts music, but also the testimonyof the treatises of Vicentino and Zarlino that explicitly encourage the affective

deployment of specic musical devices in the precise manner found in Willaertsmadrigals.48

Another potential problem is the ease with which rhetorical emphasis of words

or phrases may be mistaken for affective expression, particularly by observers fromanother era. The methods of rhetorical emphasis Perkins lists include an abruptinterruption of the rhythmic pace, a shift in the mensuration, a change in voicing or

Godt, A Systematic Classication for Madrigalism,Ars lyrica7 (1993), pp. 7881; and thelist of affective devices for weeping in Ute Ringhandt,Sunt lacrimae rerum: Untersuchungenzur Darstellung des Weinens in der Musik, (Sinzig: Studio, 2001), pp. 467.

45 Perkins, Towards a Theory, p. 323.46 Ibid., pp. 3247.47 Perkins, Towards a Theory, p. 327.48 After citing Zarlinos famous comments in Book 4, Chapter 32 of Le istitutioni

harmoniche(quoted in Chapter 2 below), Perkins suggests that the practice they describerepresents an extension of cognitive mimesis; that is, musical devices are applied toindividual happy or sad words or phrases with descriptive intent rather than a truly affective

one; they imitate the emotion mentioned in the text rather than convey it, at least in the

sense meant by Vincenzo Galilei in reference to setting the overall affection of the text

rather than painting its details only; pp. 3289. Perkins nonetheless considers the practiceZarlino describes as affective, though as a sublevel of the mimetic.


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register, or modication of the prevailing contrapuntal texture.49To illustrate howrhetorical emphasis might work in connection with harmonic quality, a possibilitynot specically mentioned by Perkins yet falling well within his parameters, I drawupon an example from one of Willaerts disciples, Baldassare Donato.50Donato

dedicated his rst madrigal book to the Cardinal of Santo Angelo, whom MarthaFeldman identies as Ranuccio Farnese.51An interesting use of major harmonicquality to emboss this dedication in the music itself occurs in the rst madrigal,

Mentre questalme et honorate rive, the text of which names Rinnuccio (seeExample 1.2). The name is stated and repeated in long note values primarilywithin a major sonority over F that is sustained for three full measures, ankedon either end with major sonorities over C.52In this case the major sonorities and

static harmonic rhythm serve a general rhetorical function rather than an affective

one: they make the name stand out clearly for the dedicatee and others to hear. 53

49 Perkins, Towards a Theory, p. 324.50 See the further discussion of Baldassare Donato in Chapter 5, pp. 27982.51 Feldman, City Culture, pp. 39091, gives the entire dedication and her translation of it.52 Throughout this study I shall employ the modern convenience of referring to

specic locations within Renaissance musical works by measure numbers and beats.53 A well-known earlier example of musical embossing of a dedicatees name, yet

without the emphasis on major harmonic sonority, occurs in Dufays chansonResvelliesvous et faites chiere lye, written for the marriage of Carlo Malatesta and Vittoria Colonnain 1423. Dufay set Charle gentil with four homorhythmic sonorities in equal slow note

values with a fermata over each, a sharp contrast to the consistent use of faster note values

throughout the chanson, except at major cadence points, in order to ensure that Carlo heard

his name (in its French equivalent). Other examples of this and other means of rhetoricalemphasis of certain words are cited in Perkins, Towards a Theory, pp. 3234.

Example 1.2 Baldassare Donato,Mentre questalme et honorate rive, mm. 1216


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Contexts 17

Donato enhances this musical embossing of the name through the ascending octave

and fth leaps in the bass and quintothat mimic shouts of acclamation.While we are not likely to confuse this particular rhetorical use of harmonic

sonority with an affective one, such distinctions can be difcult to make. A well-known and much

earlier passage from Guillaume Dufays four-voice setting of

Averegina caelorumprovides a case in point (see Example 1.3).54Dufay composedthis work in 1464 with the intention that it be sung at his deathbed, interjecting atintervals into the Marian text portions of his trope Miserere tui labentis Dufay

(have mercy on your perishing Dufay). In two passages Perkins observes theintroduction of an Eat Miserere that sounds in sharp contrast to the pitches

of the natural hexachord with which the preceding phrases conclude their melodic

lines, yet rightly passes over the fact that the Echanges what would be a C major

sonority into a C minor one.55He views the pronounced effect of the Eas but one

element in a compositional strategy intended to give rhetorical emphasis to thetextual change from Marian text to personal trope, and, though he acknowledgesthat such rhetorical emphases may result in an emotional impact upon the listener,

he concludes that such gestures must be distinguished from those that are truly

affective.

Others have seized upon the change in harmonic/modal quality in this particular

case as an end in itself. Heinrich Bessler claimed that Dufay intended to interpret

the text in a very personal way by making a striking turn from C major to

C minor.56

Leon Plantinga later echoed this sentiment, noting that the distinctemotional connotations of major and minor modes have been in evidence for a

very long time and calling the trope inAve regina caelorumperhaps the earliestclear demonstration, because the music at that point abruptly (and, to our modern

ears, appropriately) shifts from major to minor.57It is true that the harmony shiftsfrom major to minor from Besslers and Plantingas twentieth-century audialperspectives, and appropriately so to those steeped in the affective modal contrasts

of Schubert songs, or the minor-mode funeral-march and major-mode triumphant-march topics used by Beethoven, Chopin, Mahler, and many others, or the related

large-scale nineteenth-century tragic or tragic-to-triumphant expressive genres,

54 See Guillaume Dufay, Opera omnia, vol. 5, Compositiones Liturgicae Minores,ed. Heinrich Besseler, Corpus mensurabilis musicae 1 (Rome: American Institute of

Musicology, 1966).55 Perkins, Towards a Theory, p. 324. The rst passage begins in m. 21. I give the

second passage in Example 1.3 because it is the more striking of the two, and it is the oneto which Besseler refers in his comments (see below).

56 Heinrich Besseler, introduction to Guillaume Dufay, Opera omnia, vol. 5,Compositiones Liturgicae Minores, p. iv.

57 Leon Plantinga, Poetry and Music: Two Episodes in a Durable Relationship, in

Nancy Kovaleff Baker and Barbara Russano Hanning (eds), Musical Humanism and ItsLegacy: Essays in Honor of Claude V. Palisca(Stuyvesant, New York: Pendragon Press,1992), p. 327.


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Example 1.3 Guillaume Dufay,Ave Regina caelorum, mm. 7796


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Contexts 19

dened by Robert Hatten, that may span an entire multimovement work,58 orin myriad other affective uses of mode in music for concert, theater, lm, andtelevision. But the question in relation to Dufays Ave regina caelorum shouldbe How would the E sound to fteenth-century ears, and to what would its

expressive effect be attributed?The answer to this question does not lie in anachronistic concepts such as

major and minor modes or triads; from our modern perspective these entities

might be apparent, yet their mere presence does not elucidate their coeval intent or

interpretation. In his setting ofAve regina coelorum, Dufay naturally would havebeen aware that the at would change the sound of the interval above C. Yet the atand its sonic effect are better understood rhetorically, and not from the standpoint

that the harmonic minor third or a minor mode were considered inherently sad

at the time and therefore appropriate to a deathbed plea for mercy.59As Alejandro

Planchart has said, the nature of the music, with its uncommon setting of the twomiserere tropes and the ecstatic ending of both partes plainly points to thecontrast, more than implied in the tropes, between earthly despair and the hope

of salvation.60Dufay reects this contrast by suddenly and unexpectedly shiftinginto a different pitch-space, a softer one in both sound and symbol (as discussedfurther below). The minorness of the resulting sonority certainly contributesto the effect of the passage, but one cannot safely conclude that this minorness

was the primary intent behind introducing the ats, nor that minorness would be

taken affectively in and of itself at the time (i.e., detached from the accidentals).Furthermore, minorness does not persist throughout the passage; rather, itemphasizes the entry of the trope and its textual contrast.

One might more protably speculate that a tradition of expressive manipulationof pitch-space could have prompted a composer such as Willaert to experimentwith utilizing harmonic interval quality systematically for expression of emotional

affects. From a purely practical standpoint, given that two basic harmonic qualities

predominate in sixteenth-century music, given the growing concern with expressingthe text that characterizes vocal music of the century, given the long taxonomic

tradition of using harsh/sweet and hard/soft oppositions in music theory61(as well

58 Robert Hatten, Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, andInterpretation(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), pp. 79, 290, andpassim.

59 See also the discussion of a similar striking accidental in another of Dufays worksin Don Michael Randel, Dufay the Reader, inMusic and Language(New York: BroudeBrothers, 1983), p. 72.

60 Alejandro Planchart, Notes on Guillaume Du Fays Last Works, Journal ofMusicology13/1 (1995), p. 60. Planchart (p. 56) remains open to the possibility that thechanges in harmonic color were intended affectively. See also Robert Nosow, Song and

the Art of Dying,Musical Quarterly82/34 (1998), pp. 5426.61 For example, Boethiuss basic descriptions of the diatonic genus as aliquanto durius

while the chromatic genus is mollius (1.21, p. 21213), and consonance as suaviter whiledissonance is aspera (1.8, p. 195) are replicated again and again down the centuries.


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as in philosophical thought more generally), and given the prevalence of suchoppositions in the Petrarchan poetry that attracted Willaert and many subsequent

madrigalists, it seems inevitable that the major and minor harmonic qualities

would eventually be assigned to opposite sides of an affective spectrum.

In my examination of the extant madrigals of Verdelot, Arcadelt, Willaert,Rore, Parabosco, Vicentino, Zarlino, Wert, and others, I have found that

expressive uses of harmonic intervals that can be documented through recurring

usage generally derive from one or more of three basic techniques: (1) contrastbetween contrapuntally consonant and dissonant intervals; (2) contrast betweenve-three and six-three sonorities (root-position and rst-inversion triads inmodern terminology); and (3) contrast between major and minor intervals.62Ofthese three techniques, instances of the rst two are found far more frequentlyand consistently in the works of a broader spectrum of composers, yet it is the

rst and third techniques upon which Vicentino and Zarlino focus their theoreticalattention, as we shall see in the next chapter, and they do not even mention the

second as such. In the madrigal repertoire, numerous examples exist in which

textual ideas such as harshness, torment, or sorrow call forth a series of harmonic

major and minor sixths without any noticeable attempt to emphasize one quality

over the other (see, for instance, Example 2.19 in the following chapter, p. 90). Insuch cases, composers utilize the generic harmonic instability of the sixth and its

ability to move in parallel motion (as compared to the fth in both regards) rather

than its specic quality.Pulling back to a broader point of view for a moment, we may recall thatvarious expressive uses of fauxbourdon or fauxbourdon-like successions of sixthchords have been recognized from the time of Dufay in the mid-fteenth century,and that in sixteenth-century sacred and secular vocal music they frequently occurat textual references to anguish, harshness, bitterness, hardness, sorrow, weeping,

weakness, antiquity, sin or other bad quality, and so forth.63In isolated cases

62

As we have just seen in relation to Dufay, a related technique involves manipulationof pitch-space through accidental inection. Although such manipulations affect harmonicintervals, the primary expressive intent may lie in the alteration of the pitch-space itself orin the creation of expressive alterations to melodic intervals.

63 To cite but a few examples from the literature, see Theodor Kroyer, Die threnodische

Bedeutung der Quart in der Mensuralmusik, in Bericht ber den MusikwissenschaftlichenKongress in Basel (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hrtel, 1925), pp. 23142; Fritz Feldmann,Untersuchungen zum Wort-Ton-Verhltnis in den Gloria-Credo-Stzen von Dufay bis Josquin,Musica Disciplina8 (1954), especially pp. 16064; Willem Elders, Guillaume Dufays Concept

of Faux-Bourdon, in Symbolic Scores: Studies in the Music of the Renaissance(Leiden, NewYork, and Kln: Brill, 1994), especially pp. 28 and 4041; Patrick Macey, Josquin and MusicalRhetoric, in Richard Sherr (ed.), The Josquin Companion (Oxford and New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 2000), especially pp. 490 and 50713; Bernhard Meier,The Modes,pp. 2467;Bernhard Meier, Affektives in Komposition und Ausfhrung von Vokalmusik der Renaissance,in Hartmut Krones (ed.),Alte Musik und Musikpdagogik, (Vienna, Bohlau, 1997), pp. 12737;Ellen S. Beebe, Text and Mode as Generators of Musical Structure in Clemens non Papas


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Contexts 21

the change from a normal contrapuntal texture, featuring many stable ve-threesonorities, to an emphasis on lessstable six-three sonorities and parallel voice-leading perhaps constitutes sonorous mimesis by imitating the rise and fall of the

voice of one who weeps and wails. Most instances, however, represent cognitive

mimesis, depending as they do upon the listener making the association betweenthe harmonic instability and weakness in the music and the emotional or physicalinstability or weakness mentioned in the text, or on associating a waywardnessin voice-leading with sin or some other digression from natural order, or onassociating an outdated musical style with times past, and so forth.

Expressive contrasts between ve-three and six-three sonorities do not dependentirely upon associations with fauxbourdon, though, but can be based simply on

harmonic strength alone. Consider the passage from Lassuss Penitential Psalmsshown in Example 1.4, where the text translates as They that return bad for good.

What modern theory would call a root-position triad, perhaps decorated with asuspension, accompanies every syllable of every word in the passage, except the

two