Lodovico Viadana s Missarum at Marsh s Library, Dublin

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1 Lodovico Viadana s Missarum at Marsh s Library, Dubin Louise Dukes Department of Music In his cataogue compied in 1982, Richard Charteris ists forty-eight printed voumes of music in the hodings of the Marsh s Library. Among these is a book of poyphonic masses for four voices by the Itaian composer Lodovico Grossi da Viadana, entited Missarum Quatuor Vocum. Cum Basso Continuo ad Organum, Liber Primus. Item Missa pro Defunctis Cementis non Papae, printed in Antwerp by Pierre Phaèse in This book is one of the tweve voumes of sacred music in the ibrary, four of which contain music for the Angican church whie the remaining eight contain Cathoic church music. Four of the voumes of Cathoic music were printed in Antwerp in the eary seventeenth century by Pierre Phaèse. These were incuded in a donation of twenty-five books to Marsh s Library by Christopher Ussher in The 1625 voume of Viadana s masses is a re-edition of the composer s first book of masses for four voices, Missarum cum Quatuor Vocibus... Liber Primus. Lodovico Grossi da Viadana was born in Viadana near Parma about 1560 and died in Guatieri near Parma in He was a member of the order of the Minor Observants and hed posts of responsibiity for music in churches around northern Itay. At the time of pubication of his first book of masses in 1596, he was maestro di cappea at Mantua Cathedra. In order to appreciate the significance of the 1625 edition of his masses hed by Marsh s Library, five important issues must be addressed: (a) this voume is the ony known compete copy of the edition and thus a unique source that merits investigation; (b) it incudes a part for basso continuo, not present in the origina edition of 1596; (c) in addition to the masses incuded in the 1596 edition, the Marsh s Library voume aso contains two masses not composed by Viadana; (d) the circumstances surrounding its donation to Marsh s Library in 1727 are sti amost competey unresearched; (e) the impact of this particuar voume on the few and incompete modern editions of these masses must be ascertained. (a) The Marsh's Library copy is the ony known compete 1625 edition. The music was originay issued in a separate part-book for each part, and these part-books were bound together at a ater date. The ony other isted 1625 edition, hed by the British Library, is incompete. In this, the cantus and bassus part-books are absent, and the atus part-book acks its tite page and one page of music (fo. aaa. 4). Seven earier editions of

2 Viadana s first book of masses printed by Vincenti in Venice have been traced. The ony edition printed in Antwerp was that of 1625; since the Marsh s Library copy is the ony known compete one, it therefore constitutes a unique origina source that faciitates the study of differences in the printers approaches to the editing of the music and to textsetting, as we as differences in their printing techniques. (b) The subject of the basso continuo part is one that raises many questions. Of the eight known eary editions of these masses, that of 1625 is the ast of ony three that contain a part for basso continuo. The generay accepted definition of basso continuo is as foows: [The basso continuo] is a bass ine which may be figured and which impies or denotes to the keyboard payer the harmonies he is expected to pay above it (iiams, 1980b, p. 685). The basso continuo in the 1625 edition ceary does not conform to this definition. The foowing excerpt from the basso continuo part of the Audi Fiia mass (Figure 1) shows it to be competey acking in any figures. Figure 1. Lodovico Viadana, Missa Audi Fiia, basso continuo, Credo excerpt, fo. CC 4, non-figured basso continuo. Nothing is provided with the part to indicate to the organist which interva is required over any note. By way of comparison a norma basso continuo is given in Figure 2. The reaisation of this bass ine, from suggested figures and accidentas, into an actua keyboard part is aso given.

3 Figure 2. Michae Praetorius, Syntagma Musicum III, p The top two staves (bassus generais) show the continuo part, compete with figures. Underneath a reaisation (resoutio) of the continuo ine is provided. The above exampe is from the Syntagma Musicum III, a theoretica work by Michae Praetorius who was a younger German contemporary of Viadana. Viadana s music in these masses is conceived in terms of smooth poyphony in which each voice moves independenty and is of equa importance in the composition as a whoe. Styisticay, organ support does not constitute an integra part of the compositiona process in this music. It is in a ate sixteenth-century post-tridentine stye in which the church s requirements reating to sacred music at this time are ceary met. These requirements, in brief, were that carity and inteigibity of text shoud take precedence over a ese. Lengthy text repetition was to be avoided and, generay, settings of iturgica texts were to be cear and concise. Instead of being used purey for the sake of its beauty and to dispay the ski of the composer, the music was to serve to

4 enhance the text and not to obscure it. In effect, the concusion reached [by the Counci of Trent] was that music must serve to upift the faithfu, that the words shoud be inteigibe [...] (Roche, 1984, p. 9). It is acknowedged that in other compositions, Viadana did contribute to the eary deveopment of the basso continuo in its generay accepted form; in fact, he has often been credited with its invention. His Cento Concerti Eccesiastici (Venice, 1602), for exampe, are chronoogicay the first pubication to incude a basso continuo with sacred voca music (Mompeio, 1980, p. 692). The Cento Concerti beong to the transitiona period between the ate Renaissance and the beginning of the Baroque era, in which experimenta and innovative musica styes were emerging and repacing traditiona styes. One of these new compositiona styes invoved writing for one or few soo voices with harmonic support provided by the basso continuo. The atter soon became a fashionabe musica accessory and, as a resut, was even appended to music in which such support was not required: Once estabished, basso continuo soon exceeded its origina functiona designation and became fashionaby de rigueur, as prima prattica works of the 16th century were re-issued with redundant but styish continuo parts (Johnston, 1998, p. 51). An exampe cited by Johnston is a 1619 edition of four Renaissance-stye masses one by Giovanni Francesco Anerio and three by Paestrina: Messe à 4 voci: Le tre primo de Paestrina [sic] cioè, Iste Confessor, Sine Nomine & di Papa Marceo, ridotta à quattro da Giov. Franc. Anerio, & quarta dea Battagia de'istesso G. Fr. Anerio. Con i Bc per sonare (Rome, 1619). This edition of the masses with figured basses was reprinted severa times. A three-voume anthoogy of prima prattica church music, Promptuarium musicum, was compied by the Speyer rector, Abraham Schadaeus, and pubished in Strasbourg between 1611 and Caspar Vincentius, Schadaeus s coaborator, pubished a suppementary voume in 1617 containing figured bass parts to go with the preceding voumes. These pubications iustrate the reaity that basso continuo parts, even if unnecessary, were marketabe. In 1625, the same Vincentius prepared and pubished a figured bass part for Lassus s Magnum Opus Musicum (Munich, 1604). Vincentius stated in his preface that the addition of basso continuo parts to poyphonic music had become common throughout Itay and Germany. Heinrich Schütz wrote in the preface to his Cantiones Sacrae of 1625 that the basso continuo part he provided was wrested from him by the pubisher, thinking that this sight work woud be more agreeabe [to the pubic] (Johnston, 1998, p. 56) in other words, to make the work se better. It is evident that the part cannot have been essentia to the music if Schütz had to be persuaded to suppy it. Hence its appearance in Viadana s masses of 1596, athough, as shown, this music too ceary does not require it. The foowing excerpt from his Missa Cantabo Domino (Figure 3) shows that the basso continuo merey doubes the owest voca part, suppying nothing that is not aready provided in the voca ines.

5 124 ================================ & w b w 4 2 # est per Pro - phe ================================ & 4 - tas, w 2»»» _ w w #_ w est per Pro - phe ================================ 4 - tas, w w 2 Ó w w est per Pro - phe - tas, ================================? 4 «««Et «u - nam san ««- w 2 w w est per Pro - phe - tas, Et u - nam san - ctam Ca - ================================? w w 4 ««««««2 w Figure 3. Lodovico Viadana, Missa Cantabo Domino, Credo, measures The basso continuo doubes the owest voca part. The basso continuo part given with a four masses is ikewise a doubing of the owest voca part and as such is technicay superfuous. The nature of the basso continuo part shown in the Phaèse edition is evidence that attempts were made to reconcie the oder practice of organ accompaniment to sacred voca music with the emerging basso continuo stye. The very tite of Gregory Johnston s recent study (1998), Poyphonic Keyboard Accompaniment in the Eary Baroque: an Aternative to Basso Continuo, sets poyphonic organ accompaniment as a musica practice decisivey apart from the basso continuo. Organ accompaniment to sacred voca music was a practice dating from ong before the advent of the basso continuo and there were various different methods of notating it. Johnston notes that these incude the formation of keyboard tabatures or scores, as sanctioned by contemporaries of Viadana such as Adriano Banchieri and Giroamo Diruta. He aso quotes Banchieri who, in his Concusioni de suono de organo pubished in Boogna in 1609, states: So that, in short, we sha soon have two casses of payers: on the one hand Organists, that is to say, such as practice good paying from Score and improvisation, and, on the other hand, Bassists who, overcome by sheer aziness, are content with simpy paying the Bass [i.e. basso continuo]. i Finay, he observes that Giroamo Diruta, in I Transivano (Venice, 1609), advised organists to make scores of poyphonic works and to pay as many of the voca parts as possibe (Johnston, 1998, p. 51). In the transitiona period between the Renaissance and the eary Baroque, attempts were being made to accommodate the performance of traditiona Renaissance-stye poyphonic works to the new monodic stye. Viadana s own preface to his Cento Concerti Eccesiastici of 1602 provides a description of how this was done:

6 There have been many reasons (courteous readers) which have induced me to compose concertos of this kind, among which the foowing is the most important: I saw that singers wishing to sing to the organ, either with three voices, or two, or to a singe one by itsef, were sometimes forced by the ack of compositions suitabe to their purpose to take one, two or three parts from motets in five, six, seven or even eight; these, owing to the fact that they ought to be heard in conjunction with other parts, as being necessary for the imitations, coses, counterpoints, and other features of the composition as a whoe, are fu of ong and repeated pauses; coses are missing; there is a ack of meody, and, in short, very itte continuity or meaning, quite apart from the interruptions of the words which are sometimes in part omitted, and sometimes separated by inconvenient breaks which render the stye of performance either imperfect, or wearisome, or ugy, and far from peasing to the isteners, not to mention the very great difficuty which the singers experience in performance. ii Viadana thus provides evidence of the serious concerns of one eminent composer regarding a practice which adversey affected the proper performance of sacred poyphony. This examination of the so-caed basso continuo part provided in the Phaèse edition of the Viadana masses heps to estabish the nature of the basso continuo as understood by at east some musicians of the eary seventeenth century, and reveas that the foowing features are particuary noteworthy: 1. The basso continuo in the Phaèse edition cannot serve aone as a guide for the organist. As expained above, no figures are provided to indicate the intervas required over the bass, nor at which pitches these intervas are to occur. 2. The accidentas in this basso continuo part-book are not paced under the notes. They are paced on the basso continuo stave, before the notes over which infection is to occur. However, instead of being paced directy opposite the basso continuo notes, the accidentas appear on the ine or space corresponding to the note that is to be infected (Figures 4 and 5).

7 Figure 4. Lodovico Viadana, Missa Audi Fiia, Basso continuo, Credo, fo. CC 4. An accidenta (sharp sign) is paced on the stave, before the breve E, in the third space to denote an E major chord.»» ================== & w» # w w»»» ri - fi - ca - tur ================== & _ _ w w ««««- ca - tur ================= w w ««con- go - ri - fi - ca - tur =================? w «ri - «fi - ca - tur =================? w Figure 5. Lodovico Viadana, Missa Audi Fiia, basso continuo, Credo, measure 112. Transcription of the basso continuo part in Figure 4 together with the four voice parts showing the E major chord. 3. Not a of the sharpened notes in the cantus, atus and tenor part-books are signaed with an accidenta on the basso continuo stave. 4. hen an indication of a note to be sharpened appears on the basso continuo stave, it often occurs in the context of a suspension. However, there is no indication of these suspensions in the basso continuo part. 5. The accidentas which refer to infected notes in the cantus atus and tenor voices are aways sharps, never fats. 6. A sharpened F over the bass is indicated in the basso continuo part at the end of the first section of the Goria of the Missa Audi Fiia. Measures 42 and 43 (Figure 6), a transcription of this section, show that the note F is absent from the voca parts.

8 =========== &! - tris.! =========== &! - tris.! ===========! - tris.! ===========?! - tris. ===========?! # Figure 6. Missa Audi Fiia, Goria, measures 42 and 43. Basso continuo suppies major third (F sharp) absent in voca parts. If the organist were to foow this indication and sound the F sharp, he woud contribute more than a mere doubing of the voca parts. In this case, the organ functions more cosey as a true basso continuo. A simiar instance is aso found in the Goria from the Missa Cantabo Domino, measures 36 and 37. There is aso an occasion in the Credo of the Missa Cantabo Domino, measure 131, in which the basso continuo adds to what is aready present in the voca parts. Here the two upper voices sing as a duo and make a moda cadence on D at the end of the text ine, with an atus 2-3 suspension under the cantus. Under this, the basso continuo moves independenty instead of doubing one of the voca parts. It provides a rising fourth to the cadence tone, thus producing with the two voca parts the tona V-I cadence that is associated with seventeenth-century harmony and the true basso continuo (Figure 7).

9 »»»» 131 &»» - &» #_ - Ó «? Ó ««? w» ce - si - am Con - ce - si - am Con - Con - Con - Figure 7. Lodovico Viadana, Missa Cantabo Domino, Credo, measure 131. Addition of rising fourth A-D in basso continuo part. These are, however, isoated instances, not enough to make a basso continuo out of a basso seguente. These isoated instances, none the ess, point to the ack of uniformity of approach as the basso continuo began to evove in the eary seventeenth century. 7. The 1625 edition shows irreguar barring of the basso continuo part (the voca parts are not barred). 8. Cooration, an archaic notationa practice by 1625, is found occasionay in this basso continuo part (Figure 8). Cooration was a method used since the time of French ars nova notation to indicate imperfect (binary) division of note vaues within a section in perfect metre (with ternary division of note vaues). The concept of tripe metre as perfect time and dupe metre as imperfect time stems from the medieva concept of the number three as being the symbo of perfection. By the eary sixteenth century, the practice of indicating dupe divisions within a tripe metre section by means of cooration was disappearing, and by the mid sixteenth century the most commony used metre was the dupe aa breve metre. Tripe metre was generay introduced as an eement of contrast. Cooration within a section signaed a contrasting rhythmic passage such as a change from ternary to binary division of note vaues, syncopation, or (as in this case) the hemioa rhythm (Figure 9).

10 Figure 8. Lodovico Viadana, Missa Audi Fiia, Goria (Phaèse, 1625), basso continuo, fo. CC 4, cooration (backened breves and semibreves). «===================? 3 w w 1 w b w. w _ w _ w. «_ w w w ===================? w w 4 w w 2 Figure 9. Transcription of Figure 8 showing that cooration is used here to notate the hemioa rhythm in the context of tripe metre. This study of the basso continuo in the 1625 Antwerp edition highights the importance of the Viadana masses as a source for the study of the evoution of basso continuo and of changing performance practices in the eary seventeenth century. (c) The two masses not composed by Viadana that are incuded in the Antwerp edition are the Missa pro Defunctis by the mid-sixteenth-century Franco-Femish composer, Cemens non Papa, and the Missa Gregorij Zuchini. Gregorio Zucchini was an Itaian composer and Benedictine monk, a contemporary of Viadana. Since neither of these works features prominenty esewhere and since they were not incuded in the earier editions of Viadana s first book of masses, an examination of the reasons that ed to their presence in this edition is necessary. The Requiem by Cemens non Papa has aready appeared in a modern edition (Bernet Kempers, ). iii The other mass, the Missa Gregorij Zuchini, has not yet been edited. Zucchini was known for his functiona church music (itzenmann, 1980); iv

11 unike the earier Cemens work, it is not surprising that this mass was incuded in a voume of equay functiona compositions. No information has yet been found regarding when or where it was first pubished or from which coection it may have been taken. The 1625 edition of Viadana s masses is consequenty a vauabe starting point for an investigation of this music. (d) The circumstances that ed this book of Itaian ate Renaissance-stye sacred music to be brought to Ireand, and to be donated to Marsh s Library by a member of the Ussher famiy in 1727, are, despite proonged research, currenty unknown. (The incompete edition hed by the British Library provides itte hep in tracing the history of the Marsh s Library voume. The British Library copy was purchased in January 1886 from an Antwerp coector or deaer, Jos Kockx, among 103 Phaèse part-books.) Ony the name of the donor and the date of the donation are inscribed in the beginning of the tenor part-book of the voume (Figure 10). Figure 10. Lodovico Viadana, Missarum Quatuor Vocum, tenor part-book, fy-eaf, handwritten inscription: Gift of Christop[her] Ussher Gente[man] to the pubic ibrary of St. Sepuchre, A. D So far, it has been possibe to ocate more than one Christopher Ussher in Ireand in the eary eighteenth century. Precisey which one may have been the donor has yet to be identified. The means by which the book entered Ireand, the date of its arriva, and whether these masses were ever performed in Dubin in the eighteenth century, aso need to be estabished with certainty. The very presence, in Ireand in 1727, of such a voume of sixteenth-century Cathoic music originating in Itay, pubished in Antwerp, is intriguing and merits further research.

12 (e) This 1625 edition exempifies the type of music that was in demand in ate sixteenth-century northern Itay, and even in this context aone deserves examination. These masses were issued seven times in the ate sixteenth and eary seventeenth centuries subsequent to their first pubication. That they were considered worth pubishing there by an eminent printer, and as far away as Antwerp, is proof of the esteem in which this music was hed. The music iustrates the extent to which the High Renaissance poyphonic stye, as exempified by the mature works of Paestrina, was sti in use. It demonstrates aso the extent to which the stye had been imbued with modern traits by the time these masses were composed prior to No evidence has been found to suggest that the 1625 Marsh s Library edition has been used in the preparation of eary twentieth-century performance editions of individua masses, nor in Häber s ate nineteenth-century incompete coected edition. This voume, consuted in conjunction with the Vincenti editions of the masses, provides a vauabe source from which to prepare a new modern edition. To concude, the issues raised above confirm the vaue of the 1625 Phaèse edition of Viadana s first book of masses as an authentic source of sixteenth-century poyphony. The impications of the existence of a basso continuo part that is totay different from what we normay associate with Viadana s basso continuo have been noted. New ight is shed, by means of a critica examination of this part, on the different interpretations of this term in the eary decades of the seventeenth century. It is thus important for our understanding of the evoution of figured bass in its eary stages. The Phaèse edition of Viadana s masses is a rare and surprising source for the as yet unpubished Zucchini mass, and a wecome additiona source for the Cemens Requiem. The edition offers the possibiity of a new ange for the study of the Ussher famiy in Dubin in the eighteenth century and points to the richness of the resources of Marsh s Library in the history of an extensive range of subjects. A voume of such importance ceary merits a modern edition, which woud add to the repertoire of sacred chora music currenty avaiabe and woud faciitate further research. BIBLIOGRAPHY PRIMARY SOURCES Viadana, L. (1596), Missarum cum Quatuor Vocibus... Liber Primus, Venice, G. Vincenti. Viadana, L. (1625), Missarum Quatuor Vocum. Cum Basso Continuo ad Organum, Liber Primus. Item Missa pro Defunctis Cementis non Papae, Antwerp, P. Phaèse.

13 SECONDARY SOURCES Abraham, G. and Coates, H. (1968), Latin Church Music on the Continent 2, in The New Oxford History of Music, Vo. IV, The Age of Humanism , edited by G. Abraham, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp Ape,. (1953), The Notation of Poyphonic Music, , fifth edition, Cambridge, Massachusetts, The Medieva Academy of America. Bernet Kempers, K. P. ( ), Cemens non Papa: Opera Omnia, in Corpus Mensurabiis Musicae, Vo. IV, edited by A. Carapetyan, Rome, American Institute of Musicoogy. Bukofzer, M. (1947), Music in the Baroque Era, London, J. M. Dent & Sons. Charteris, R. (1982), A Cataogue of the Printed Books on Music, Printed Music and Music Manuscripts in Archbishop Marsh s Library, Dubin, Cifden, Co. Kikenny, Boethius Press. Eders,. (1980), Cemens (non Papa), in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vo. IV, edited by S. Sadie, London, Macmian, pp Fenon, I. (1980), Music and Patronage in Sixteenth-century Mantua, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Haar, J. (1980), Lassus, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vo. X, edited by S. Sadie, London, Macmian, pp Johnston, G. (1998), Poyphonic Keyboard Accompaniment in the Eary Baroque: an Aternative to Basso Continuo, Eary Music, 26/1, McCarthy, M. and Sherwood-Smith, C. (1996), Echoes of Spendour: An Exhibition of Music Manuscripts and Eary Printed Music Books in Marsh s Library), Dubin, Marsh s Library. Mompeio, F. (1980), Viadana, Lodovico, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vo. XIX, edited by S. Sadie, London, Macmian. pp Parrish, C. (1957), The Notation of Medieva Music, New York,.. Norton & Company/Pendragon Press. Praetorius, M. (1619), Syntagma Musicum III, ofenbütte, facsimie edition, 1988, Bärenreiter Kasse. Rasta, R. (1983), The Notation of estern Music, London, J. M. Dent & Sons. Redich, H. F. (1968), Eary Baroque Church Music, in The New Oxford History of Music, Vo. IV, The Age of Humanism , edited by G. Abraham, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp Robinson, C. S. and oodward, J. (1980), Editions, Historica, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vo. V, edited by S. Sadie, London, Macmian, pp Roche, J. (1984), North Itaian Church Music in the Age of Monteverdi, Oxford, Carendon Press.

14 Strunk, O. (ed.) (1950), Source Readings in Music History, New York,.. Norton & Company. iiams, P. (1980a), Basso Seguente, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vo. II, edited by S. Sadie, London, Macmian, pp iiams, P. (1980b), Continuo, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vo. IV, edited by S. Sadie, London, Macmian, pp itzenmann,. (1980), Zucchini, Gregorio, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vo. XX, edited by S. Sadie, London, Macmian, pp ACKNOLEDGEMENT The photographs taken from the 1625 edition are used with the permission of the Governors and Guardians of Marsh s Library, Dubin. i Quoted in Johnston, 1998, p. 52. ii Strunk, 1950, pp iii Eders, 1980; Robinson and oodward, iv Functiona church music refers to music that was suited to meet practica, oca needs. It was reativey simpe and did not put undue demands on an ordinary choir.