Chapter 7

Character of the Music

It becomes now the duty of the author to make some examination of the music of this first lyric drama. But here we unfortunately find ourselves adrift upon a windless ocean. We are driven to the necessity of deducing our information from the results of analogical reconstruction. Nothing indeed can be more fascinating than the attempt to arrive at a comprehension of the music of Poliziano's "Orfeo." All record of it appears to be lost and the Italian savants who have given us illuminating studies of the literary structure of the work, of its environment and its performance, have hazarded scarcely a remote conjecture as to the style of its music.

But we are not without a considerable amount of knowledge of the kinds of music in use at the time when this work was produced and we can therefore arrive at some idea of the nature of the lyric elements of the "Orfeo." First of all we may fairly conclude that some portions of the text were spoken. It seems, for instance, improbable that the prologue delivered by Mercury could have been set to music. If all other considerations are set aside there still remains the important fact that the hero of the play is a musical personage. He is to move the powers of hell by his impassioned song. It would, therefore, be artistically foolish to begin this new species of work with a piece of vocal solo which might rob the invocation of Orpheus of its desired effect. It is altogether probable that the prologue was spoken, and that the opening dialogue in the scene between the two shepherds was also spoken. After the lines

"Forth from thy wallet take thy pipe and we Will sing awhile beneath the leafy trees; For well my nymph is pleased with melody."

there follows a number which the author plainly indicates as lyric, for he calls it a canzona. Beginning with this it seems to me that we may content ourselves with inquiring into the musical character of those parts which were without doubt lyrically treated in the performance. In the early version of the poem we have a stage direction which shows that the Latin text beginning "O meos longum modulata" was sung by Orpheus. Again it is made plain by the text, as well as by the details of the ancient legend itself, that the hero sang to the accompaniment of his lyre when he was arousing the sympathies of the infernal powers. It is not certain that song was employed in the scene between him and Tisiphone. All the choruses, however, were unquestionably sung.

The propositions which must now be laid down are these: First, the choral parts of the work were in the form of the Italian frottola, and the final one may have approached more closely to the particular style of the canto carnascialesco (carnival song) and was certainly a ballata, or dance song. Second, the solo parts were constructed according to the method developed by the lutenists, who devised a manner of singing one part of a polyphonic composition and utilizing the other parts as the instrumental support. Third, there were two obligato instruments, the pipe used in the duet of the two shepherds, and the "lira" played by Orpheus. Fourth, there was probably an instrumental accompaniment, at least to the choral parts.

In regard to the choruses, then, we must bear in mind the well established characteristics of the madrigal dramas of the sixteenth century. In these works the choruses were set to music in the madrigal style and they were frequently of great beauty. But the Italian madrigal had not been well developed at the time of the production of Poliziano's "Orfeo," while the frottola was the most popular song of the people.

The frottola was a secular song, written in polyphonic style. The polyphony was simple and the aim of the composition was popularity. It is essential for us to bear in mind the fact that in the fifteenth century the cultivation of part singing was ardent and widespread. The ability to sing music written in harmonized form was not confined to the educated classes. It extended through all walks of life, and while the most elaborate compositions of the famous masters were beyond the powers of the people, the lighter and more facile pieces were readily sung.[22]

[Footnote 22: "During the fifteenth century the love of part-singing seems to have taken hold of all phases of society in the Netherlands; princes and people, corporate bodies, both lay and clerical, vying with each other in the formation of choral societies." Naumann, "History of Music," Vol. I, p. 318.

"The practice of concerted singing was not confined to the social circles of the dilettanti, but was also very popular in the army; and we have before alluded to the fact that Antoine Busnois and numerous others followed Charles the Bold into the field." Ibid., p. 320.]

The teachings and practice of the Netherlands masters spread through Europe rapidly, and some of the masters themselves went into Italy, where they became the apostles of a new artistic religion. The Netherlands musicians began early to write secular songs in a style which eventually developed into the madrigal. Frequently they took folk tunes and treated them polyphonically. Sometimes they used themes of their own invention. In time musicians of small skill, undertaking to imitate these earliest secular songs, developed the popular form called frottola. Later we find some of the famous masters cultivating this music of the people. Adrian Willaert, who settled in Venice in 1516, wrote frottole and gondola songs in frottola form. It was from such works that he advanced to the composition of the madrigal of which he was so famous a composer and which he raised to the dignity of an art work.

The residence of Josquin des Prés in Italy doubtless had an immense influence on the development of the Italian madrigal, but at a period later than that of Poliziano's "Orfeo" and of the best of the frottole. Josquin was a singer in the Sistine Chapel in 1484 and his first successes as a composer were obtained in Rome. Later he went to Ferrara where he wrote for the Duke Ercole d'Este his famous mass, "Hercules Dux Ferrariæ." But these activities of Josquin had little relation to the frottola.

The point to be made here is that, at the time when Poliziano's "Orfeo" was produced at Mantua, the Italian madrigal was in its infancy, while its plebian parent, the frottola was in the lusty vigor of its maturity. At the same time the popularity of part song was established in Italy and music of this type was employed even for the most convivial occasions. This is proved by the position which the variety of frottola, called "carnival song," occupied in the joyous festivities of the Italians. Note the narrative (not wholly inexact) of Burney:

"Historians relate that Lorenzo il Magnifico in carnival time used to go out in the evening, followed by a numerous company of persons on horseback, masked and richly dressed, amounting sometimes to upwards of three hundred, and the same number on foot with wax tapers burning in their hands. In this manner they marched through the city till three or four o'clock in the morning, singing songs, ballads, madrigals, catches or songs of humor upon subjects then in vogue, with musical harmony, in four, eight, twelve, and even fifteen parts, accompanied with various instruments; and these, from being performed in carnival time, were called Canti Carnascialesci."[23]

[Footnote 23: "The Present State of Music in France and Italy," by Charles Burney. London, 1773.]

Burney errs in supposing that these songs were written in so many parts. Three and four parts were the rule; five parts were extremely rare. The actual words of Il Lasca, who wrote the introduction to the collection of Triumphs and Carnival Songs published in Florence, 1559, are: "Thus they traversed the city, singing to the accompaniment of music arranged for four, eight, twelve or even fifteen voices, supported by various instruments." This would not necessarily mean what musicians call "fifteen real parts." The subject has been exhaustively and learnedly studied by Ambros,[24] who has examined the frottola in all its varieties. He has given several examples and among them he calls attention to a particularly beautiful number (without text) for five voices. This, he is certain, is one of the carnival songs which Heinrich Isaak was wont to write at the pleasure of Lorenzo.

[Footnote 24: "Geschichte der Musik" von August Wilhelm Ambros. Leipsic, 1880.]

The source of our knowledge of the frottola music is nine volumes of these songs, averaging sixty-four to the volume, published by Petrucci at Venice between 1504 and 1509, and a book of twenty-two published at Rome by Junta in 1526. Ambros's study of these works convinced him that the composers "while not having actually sat in the school of the Netherlanders, had occasionally listened at the door." The composers of the frottole showed sound knowledge of the ancient rules of ligature and the correct use of accidentals; on the other hand it is always held by the writers of the early periods that an elaborately made frottola is no longer a frottola, but a madrigal. Thus Cerone[25] in the twelfth book of his "Melopeo" gives an account of the manner of composing frottole. He demands for this species of song a simple and easily comprehended harmony, such as appears only in common melodies. So we see that a frottola is practically a folk song artistically treated.

[Footnote 25: "El Melopeo y Maestro," by Dominic Pierre Cerone. Naples, 1613. (Quoted here from Ambros.)]

"He who puts into a frottola fugues, imitations, etc., is like one who sets a worthless stone in gold. A frottola thus ennobled would become a madrigal, while a madrigal, all too scantily treated, would sink to a frottola." A typical frottola by Scotus shows observance of Cerone's requirements.

[Musical Notation]

These compositions are what we would call part songs and they are usually constructed in simple four-part harmony, without fugato passages or imitations. When imitations do appear, they are secondary and do not deal with the fundamental melodic ideas of the song. Nothing corresponding to subject and answer is found in these works. If we turn from a frottola to a motet by the same composer, we meet at once the device of canonic imitation and with it a clearly different artistic purpose. These composers evidently did not expect the people to be such accomplished musicians as the singers of the trained choirs.

"Indeed, the frottola descended by an extremely easy transition to the villanelle, a still more popular form of composition and one marked by even less relationship to the counterpoint of the low countries. At the time of the full development of the madrigal the serious and humorous elements which dwelt together in the frottola separated completely. The purely sentimental and idealistic frottola became the madrigal; the clearly humorous frottola became the villanelle. When these two clearly differentiated species were firmly established, the frottola disappeared.

"The madrigal existed as early as the fourteenth century, but its general spread dates from the time of Adrian Willaert (1480-1562). The madrigal was originally a pastoral song, but the form came to be utilized for the expression of varied sentiments and it was treated with a musicianship which advanced it toward the more stately condition of the 'durchcomponirt' motet. In the villanelle the influence of the strophic folk song is clearly perceptible. The frottola to a certain extent stood in the middle. It is sung verse by verse, but its musical scheme is almost always conceived in a much broader spirit than that of the villanelle and gives to it almost the appearance of a durchcomponirt work. But the systematic repetition of certain couplets in the manner of a refrain occasions the recurrence of whole musical periods. Thus does the frottola acquire from its text that architectural shape which places it in marked contrast to the swift-paced and fluid contrapuntal chanson of the Netherlanders. Its rhythm and accents are arranged not by the needs of contrapuntal development, but by the meter of the line and the accent of the Italian tongue. This appears most prominently in the upper voice part, where often the controlling melody seems ready to break quite through in pure song style, but only partly succeeds. In the texture of the voices all kinds of imitations appear, but only subordinated and in very modest setting.

"All this was a part of the steady progress toward monody, the final goal of Italian musical art, where, in extreme contrast to the Netherlandish subordination to school, the emergence and domination of individuality, the special and significant distinction of the Renaissance, were taking shape. Hence Castiglione in his 'Cortegiano' gives preference to the one-voiced song ('recitar alla lira') and it was quite natural that we find in the Petrucci collection frottole originally composed for four voices now appearing as soprano solos with lute accompaniment, the latter being arranged from the other three voices."[26]

[Footnote 26: This passage is not a literal quotation, but partly a paraphrase and partly a condensation of the text of Ambros.]

Castiglione (1478-1529) wrote somewhat later than the period of Poliziano. The "Cortegiano" dates from 1514, though it was not published till a few years later, and the frottola was at the zenith of its excellence in the time of Bernado Tromboncino, who belongs to the latter half of the fifteenth century. But the frottola was well established before the date of Poliziano's "Orfeo," for minor Italian composers had poured forth a mass of small lyrics for which they found their models in the polyphonic secular songs of Antoine de Busnois (1440-1482) and others of the Netherlands school, especially such writers as Loyset Compère, of St. Quentin, who died in 1518. Two of his frottole appear in the Petrucci collection, showing that he was acquainted with this Italian form, and that his productions in it were known and admired in Italy. His frottole are distinguished by uncommon grace and gaiety, for the frottola was generally rather passionate and melancholy, and full of what Castiglione called "flebile dolcezza."

In view, then, of the state of part song composition in Italy at the time when Poliziano's "Orfeo" was written we are safe in assuming that its two choral numbers were set to music of the frottola type. The use of the refrains, "l'aria di pianti" in the first, and "Ciascun segua, O Bacco, te," in the second, is an additional influence in moving us toward this conclusion because we know that it was the employment of the refrain which helped to lead the frottola toward the strophic form of the song. We are, moreover, justified in concluding from the character of the final chorus that it was a ballata or dance song and hence a frottola of the carnival song variety. No student of classic literature will need any demonstration of the probability that the Maenads in their Bacchic invocation danced; and here we have in all likelihood the origin of that fashion of concluding operas with a chorus and a dance which survived as late as Mozart's "Die Zauberflöte."