Choral Music in Italy and the Germanic Lands
Music was constantly changing in the seventeenth century. Yet even those who acknowledge this evolutionary condition often overlook the sources and inspirations for Baroque musical style. There is little that is unprecedented: practically every feature of the style evolved directly from some sixteenth-century musical practice. The stile antico did not expire operatically with the development of monody, continuo playing, and the highly figured Baroque style; rather, all lived on side by side, and composers of the seventeenth century, Claudio Monteverdi, Heinrich Schütz, and others, wrote music in both styles with equal fluency.1 The opposition of the two styles in larger works enriched the new aesthetic of contrasting affects, and these contrasts contributed further stylistic freedom to already well-defined national and regional styles. Baroque innovations particularly reinforced traditional bonds of musical influence between Italy and Germany.
Geographical proximity, ancient political ties, and continuing intellectual exchange had always bestowed common features upon music in Italy and the German-speaking countries. In the seventeenth century, expanding cities, exhibitionistic churches, profligate nobility, and burgeoning numbers of middle-class amateurs supported a rich profusion of new musical styles in both sacred and secular music. The stabilization of Protestantism in the north added further diversity. These groups demanded a rich menu of vocal ensemble works to display their standing. Such works ranged from large-scale festival works for major churches and the ruling class to smaller works for private gatherings, school choirs, and the day-to-day celebrations of city churches throughout Italy and the north. The rich variety of genres and styles obliges a modern performer to investigate a work’s musical construction in its original context.
The resolution of both stylistic and contextual issues addresses many questions: size and constitution of ensembles, vocal type and production, ornamentation and improvisation, tuning and pitch, tempos and rhythm, to name only the musical factors. Architectural venue, liturgical interactions, and dramatic or social contexts add further elements for consideration, which can only be alluded to here. Modern performance practice thus depends on the model emulated as much as on the type of music or the apparent size of the ensemble indicated in the score. We are most familiar with large and celebrated ensembles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: the Sistine Chapel, the chapel of Saint Mark’s in Venice, Michael Praetorius’s ensemble specifications, the Cathedral of Salzburg, the Habsburg Court, and performances at Hamburg’s Gertrudenkapelle.2 But smaller ensembles were much more common, and the ubiquity of part singing meant that the music had to be very adaptable.3
Jerome Roche estimated that in the Po valley alone there were at least seventy-three institutions employing a church composer as maestro di cappella, a significant indicator of the widespread use of polyphony.4 A city’s reputation rested partly on its church music, but these musical institutions were only the most visible ones in a culture well enriched by private music making and patronage among noble and wealthy citizens. The plethora of performing organizations explains the frenetic activity of Venetian (and other) music publishers required to supply them.5 Catholic areas of Germanic countries had similar social and ecclesiastical structures; and in Protestant areas, school music supplemented burgeoning civic, ecclesiastical, and private musical patronage. Considering all of these situations, we can postulate hundreds, perhaps thousands of singing organizations. The presence of so many models implies considerable variation in local practice and context within certain general parameters.
One key general principle is concertato practice. This principle arose from two significant developments of the sixteenth century: the advent of monody in the Florentine Camerata, and the use of cori spezzati in Venice and other Italian cities.6 The monodic style enshrines a wide range of emotional contrast, while the works of Giovanni Gabrieli and other polychoral composers manifest contrasts of musical textures, timbres, dynamics, and spatial placement. Often, Gabrieli’s large works include choirs marked voce and cappella. The former were intended for a soloist on each line, the latter for a larger group of singers.7 A clear example of this practice, in which the two clearly labeled vocal choirs have dramatically different musical styles, is Gabrieli’s In ecclesiis. This principle of a choir of soloists (favoriti) versus a ripieno (full) choir became fundamental to seventeenth-century music throughout Italy and Germany, but it was influenced locally by the size of the available ensemble. At Saint Mark’s, where the number of singers grew from about twenty to forty in the first half of the century, alternation could still involve two choirs totaling only four and eight singers apiece; and even the normal maximum would have contrasted two solo quartets with two ripieno choirs of only sixteen voices each. Thus the normal ripieno would have used between two and four voices on a part.8 In Rome, for dedicatory celebrations in Saint Peter’s in 1600, multiple choirs included from three to six adults on a part, with more boys on the soprano and numerous instrumentalists whose roles are unspecified.9
These were relatively large, opulent performances—exceptions to general practice. The Sistine Chapel’s thirty-odd members did not always perform together, and performances by extracted solo quartets may have been quite common.10 Even more common were small-to-middle-sized churches, like the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo, the chapel of the city. In the first decade of the seventeenth century, regular singers generally numbered around eighteen, with twelve to fourteen instrumentalists. Others were occasionally brought in, up to a total of twenty-five singers. This fell off in the second quarter of the century to under ten singers, with about six instrumentalists. Part music was required on non-Lenten Sundays, some forty-six saints’ days, special occasions in Lent, and various vigils and processions.11 Similarly, at the beginning of the century, at the Basilica of San Antonio in Padua, there were three adults on each lower part, with unspecified numbers of boy sopranos.12 In the third quarter of the century, the numbers at Santa Maria di Campagna in Piacenza were even smaller, with eight to ten singers and six instrumentalists in toto. In this case, the addition of a second singer on each part constituted the ripieno.13 By the end of the century, the cathedral of Messina had nineteen singers and ten instrumentalists.14 Thus, after subtracting four favoriti, the ripieno choirs normally used only two to four singers on a part.
When even smaller churches cultivated part music, they went so far as to use singers on some parts and organ on the rest, as described by Lodovico Grossi da Viadana.15 Monasteries and convents used polyphony, too, often with performance practices that astonish us. Practically any sacred polyphony was judged accessible to choirs of either gender. In male establishments, the presence of falsettists and occasionally boys and castratos permitted the use of the full vocal range in performance of virtually any liturgical polyphony. But female houses got around the physical vocal limitations we might allow to limit repertory by adopting expedients that would raise eyebrows today but that permitted them wide repertorial flexibility. They did not hesitate to perform polyphony not specifically composed for women, as well as occasional solo works. It was usually possible to find women who could sing in the normal tenor range, and—rarely—one who could sing bass. Otherwise, the problem of the bass part was solved by singing it up an octave or playing it at pitch on a bass instrument or the organ, or by transposition of the work upward by a fourth, fifth, or more. Yet even such tortured adaptations retained the distinction between favoriti and ripieno so characteristic of the Baroque concertato style.16
This distinction also obtained in Germany. Praetorius (1619) said that the numbers following the title of a piece indicate the most essential voices first (favoriti) and that the remaining numbers indicate ripieno choirs, which can be omitted.17 He also described a wide variety of alternative performance arrangements.18 Aside from his own works, music like his most opulent prescriptions was also heard at the cathedral of Salzburg and the Habsburg court.19 At the former, the episcopal court supported over forty singers and thirty to forty musicians, who performed concerted music with as many as ten different spatially separated groups or as many as thirty-two separate parts.20 The imperial court’s musical establishment was of comparable size and supported performance of the grandest post-Venetian works, as well as more intimate motets and Masses in the stile antico.21 Such grand works cannot be discussed individually, but their rich textural variety displayed the usual contrast between favoriti and ripieno, with rich flourishes of contrasting vocal and instrumental timbres in every choir. Nevertheless, in the Germanic countries, as in Italy, such grandiosity represents only the most elaborate manifestation of a part-singing performance tradition that, in a simpler medium, was widespread in households, cities, and churches.
The smaller city church was more like that of Dieterich Buxtehude. Most of his surviving “choral” works seem to have been for a choir of soloists, although a few works employ ripieno voices, beyond the ten to fourteen musicians on strings and winds.22 But the presence of Latin school choirboys should not deceive us into imagining a large ripieno here any more than in Italy. In many German cities, the Latin school’s obligations required dividing its choristers among three or four churches, so the number of choristers employed in any one church was between four and twelve.23 And a substantial increase in the use of polyphony in the seventeenth century, from as seldom as six times a year to weekly, put further strain on available vocal resources.24 Solo ensembles represented a universal practice in sacred choral music of the seventeenth century, with ripieno doubling of voices employed only where performance forces permitted.
Thus, even in large performances, it is very clear that nothing like our modern “concert choir” of fifty to eighty voices on four parts ever existed. Even six voices on a part would have been extraordinary, and the contrast between favoriti and ripieno was usually between soloists and a choir of two to three on a part, often with instrumental doubling. When larger forces were available, the number of parts and spatially separated choirs grew, rather than the number of performers on any one part. The disposition of these forces was most variable.
The fame of Saint Mark’s in Venice arose from the erroneous belief that its choir balconies inspired spatially separated choirs in music for cori spezzati. The musical style itself actually seems to have originated in Padua, although Venetian documentary and iconographic evidence supports the city’s renown soon afterward as a center for multiple-choir music.25 But Venetian and other evidence also supports performance of double-choir works with both groups in the same place next to each other.26 Even though churches, cities, bishops, and lords undoubtedly enjoyed the self-congratulatory opulence of music with singers and musicians scattered all about, it is unlikely that a restricted performing space ever prevented the performance of a major work. Flexibility of placement was merely one more part of the repertory of expedients for adapting works, like the elimination of ripieno parts doubling the favoriti, or their replacement by instruments.27 Such adaptation according to the group’s particular needs, although an imprecise rendering of the composer’s fullest intentions, was and remains a permissible approach to works by Gabrieli, Praetorius, Heinrich Ignaz Biber, Schütz, or others with otherwise daunting scoring.
Instruments generally mingled with the voices in three guises, continuo, obbligato, and colla parte. The use of continuo was ubiquitous throughout the seventeenth century, even when it was not specifically called for. Right from the beginning of the century, the presence of even a simple basso seguente line (an unfigured bass line for organ made up of the lowest sounding pitches from each chord) should be interpreted as some sort of continuo part.28 Although church continuo instrumentation usually included the organ, combinations involving regal, harpsichord, theorbo, bassoon, violone, or even greatbass Pommer (shawm) were not unknown, and any effective combination of the above is suitable for both sacred and secular music, as long as some kind of continuo is used, for Praetorius awards continuo a nearly universal role in leading a performance.29
Obbligato instrumental parts can be divided into three types: the first, like some choirs in Gabrieli’s music, have instrumental lines similar to the vocal lines, that is, a second choir of contrasting timbre (and perhaps location) but similar musical characteristics.30 The second type is a variation on this, namely, accompanying instrumental parts in a choir having one solo vocal part. The third type of obbligato instrumental part has an independent figuration or a ritornello function that makes it more distinctive from the parts around it, exemplified by duets for treble instruments in the works of Monteverdi, Schütz, and others. Clearly, obbligato parts of the third type are much more essential than those of the first or second, which can be replaced by a keyboard part or sometimes even omitted.
Colla parte doubling of vocal parts is less universally documented, but it was probably very common. In some Italian churches, the practice of doubling some or all voices of sacred polyphony appears to have continued at least into the seventeenth century.31 In German-speaking countries, it remained common throughout the century, as is documented at the Habsburg court, the cathedral of Salzburg, and in Buxtehude’s works.32 A common combination for such doubling was cornett and trombones, even up to J. S. Bach’s time, although string doubling seems to have been preferred by Buxtehude.33 The actual indication of such doubling was less common than was the practice itself.34 It is unclear whether a similar ensemble might have supported congregational singing in Protestant worship.
Performance practices such as those mentioned above are discussed mainly for large-scale works. Small-scale works, like sacred concertos and secular madrigals, lieder, and the like, would seem to require only one singer to a part, especially in light of the choir of favoriti as the most universal ensemble, even in larger works. The use of solo ensembles was probably standard as late as the madrigals of Alessandro Scarlatti.35 Solo performance is certainly indicated where a singer represents a particular character, for example, a shepherd in a pastoral drama or one of the characters in a biblical representation, like Schütz’s Christmas Story or the cantatas performed for papal Christmas entertainments, in which closing choruses were probably sung by the collected characters, as in opera seria.36
Even beyond such clearly dramatic works, the quest for a historical performance practice should also take into consideration other possible liturgical or dramatic contexts. In Catholic sacred works, this includes the place of Gregorian chant, or organ versets in appropriate alternation with liturgical polyphony. In Lutheran works, it suggests the alternation of chorale verses between organ and choir, and perhaps with a large congregation singing the tune monophonically.37 In some cases, reconstruction of an entire liturgical service or secular festival offers a thrilling performance montage. Research can uncover equivalent contexts for secular works, as well, for interpolation of musical numbers in dramas as intermedii, set pieces, or melodramas. Such an expanded performance context can be further enriched by architectural investigation in order to locate musical forces as they might have been in a period performance for the best aural effect.38
The music’s sound also depends very much on the types of voices used. At no other time prior to the present has there been such an array of different voice types, vocal productions, and vocal techniques. And now all vocal types prevalent in the seventeenth century except the castrato have been rediscovered and revived, including female tenors as well as male altos and sopranos, both boys and adults. Most of the vocal techniques used by these voices have also been rediscovered. Different voices were associated with different contexts, however. Choir schools in both Germany and Italy trained boys. When they grew older and their voices changed, they provided tenors and basses. Adult males also sang alto, or occasionally soprano, in falsetto. But neither boys nor adult falsettists could surpass the expertise, technical ability, and power of the great castratos.
Castrato voices became more common in Italy in the first part of the seventeenth century but diminished in number toward the century’s end.39 Female voices, while accepted in secular music, were not permitted to sing with men in Catholic churches, although they may have sung occasional special solos in aristocratic chapels.40 The reverse was true in Italian female convents, as previously discussed, where women sang all parts—through transposition of the works, instrumental doubling of lower voices, or the use of rare female basses and tenors. Such flexibility extended to the selection of voices for various parts of any vocal music, which was based less on fixed classifications (i.e., castrato versus falsettist versus boy soprano) than on the ranges needed, the voices available, and their ability and training.
The training of voices seems to have been largely by private lessons, even in the choir schools. This is documented in sixteenth-century Bergamo by the trial of Pietro Pontio, who was indicted for, among other things, teaching the boys in groups.41 As music became more challenging and soloistic, solo instruction remained the method of choice in the seventeenth century.42 That the same type of instruction was the rule in female convents might explain the continual controversy over their use of male music teachers when no sister was sufficiently competent.43 The training of women’s voices outside the convent faced no such problems, though. Although performance opportunities were more restricted than for men, in the Mantuan ducal chapel, female virtuosos took their places among men, boys, and the finest castratos money could hire.44 This practice can already be seen in the performances of the concerto delle donne in Ferrara. Documentation of vocal training is sparse, though, perhaps because patrons preferred to hire singers already trained.
The type of vocal production taught has been controversial, at least partly due to the modern entrenchment of nineteenth-century operatic technique in which vibrato provides the only safety valve for loud, high-pressure tone production.45 Since most seventeenth-century vocal training began in choir schools, with Gregorian chant, the singers’ technical foundation was quite different. Modern “historically correct” singers have rediscovered how to produce a clear, beautiful tone that is fully relaxed but has minimal vibrato. But such tone production is emphatically not the blended half voice cultivated by many modern choir directors. Since seventeenth-century vocal ensembles were collections of little more than a few singers, usually performing in large spaces, there could be little or no difference in volume between favoriti and ripieno singers, even when lack of independent parts indicates that the former doubled the latter in tutti sections. Singers of either type would utilize a tone production centered around a solid forte in any sacred or spectacle music designed for public performance.
Nevertheless, within such a well-supported tone production, good interpretation demands shaping each individual note, as well as the larger phrasing of the melodic line. All singers’ interpretation requires clear understanding, enunciation, and interpretation of the text. Modern singers may also wish to research historic pronunciation of the music.46 For non-soloists, these skills, plus good intonation, would have been much more essential than complex ornamentation.47 But the final interpretive layer for soloists must also include improvisatory ornamentation using throat articulation, which demands a relaxed but vibrato-free technique (although vibrato can itself be used within the repertory of ornaments).48 Soloists who have fully mastered this technique can improvise using elaborate passaggi and diminutions like those described by the theorists dalla Casa, Rognoni, Bovicelli, Bassano, and others presented elsewhere in this volume.49 Such ornamentation is essential for soloists among the favoriti, even if ripieno singers should avoid it to concentrate on enunciation, shaping, phrasing, and intonation.50
Intonation is one of the most critical aspects of this style; florid lines require harmonic clarity which only good intonation can give. Nevertheless, intonation and tuning would themselves have varied with the performance context. When singers were unaccompanied, they would likely have sung simultaneous octaves, fifths, and thirds as close to pure as possible. But when they performed with instruments, we must assume that they adopted the instruments’ tuning. This is of particular concern with regard to the fretted strings and keyboard instruments, especially the organ, on continuo parts. Fretted strings such as lutes and viols can make some concessions to just intonation through the use of double fretting or variable finger placement and pressure at the frets, but keyboard instruments are completely inflexible, and any instruments or voices performing with them must match their pitches.
In the early seventeenth century, matching keyboard pitches often meant performing in quarter-comma meantone, which provides perfectly lovely pure thirds as long as one keeps to the right keys. By the time of Buxtehude, however, the use of a wide variety of well-tempered tunings were coming into vogue in Germany, especially the temperaments of Andreas Werckmeister.51 The greater chromatic flexibility permitted by these temperaments was balanced by the fact that more chords were slightly out of tune, although not as badly as the wolf chords of the meantone system. Although singing frequently with such instruments may have affected singers’ tuning ability, nevertheless, seventeenth-century singers probably had an excellent sense of just intonation, which we should try to duplicate in our performances of this music. [Editor’s note: for a more in-depth look at this topic, see Chapter 19, “Tuning and Temperament.”] Pitch, however is another question.
There was no single pitch standard in the seventeenth century, but by a very ancient tradition, many organs in Germany and Italy were built higher than today’s standard pitch; the so-called hoch Chorton in Germany was about a tone higher than a'=440, and Italian organs were quite variable, anywhere from slightly to a third higher.52 The reason for this is the considerable savings in metal derived from omitting one or two of the instrument’s longest pipes and adding the same number of the shortest ones at the upper end of the keyboard without changing the instrument’s keyboard compass. This made more difference in the performance of works than we might suppose, since organists playing a meantone-tuned instrument had a limited range of transposition possibilities. As the century progressed, the widening ranges of written voice parts may have required more frequent transposition by the organist, which undoubtedly spurred the adoption of more equal temperaments.
Aside from the variations in pitch and tuning imposed by the physical limitations of accompanying instruments, certain clef combinations had long been used to indicate transposition downward, usually to a fourth or a fifth below the written notes. That such a practice lingered into the seventeenth century has recently been documented and demonstrated in performance.53 The clef combinations used to indicate these transpositions were collectively known as chiavette, and they might appear in isolated movements within a larger work. Where chiavette appear, within the allowances for adaptability and flexibility described above, transposition as the chiavette indicate should be regarded as obligatory for the “most correct” performance of a work. The conductor or performer should be vigilant in searching for these clefs, since many editors (including this author) may have presented the music as notated, with or without annotation of the directed transposition. In Chapter 20 of this book, “Pitch and Transposition,” Herbert Myers discusses the issue at greater depth, and The New Grove Dictionary includes a very concise and clear explanation of the clef combinations to look for in the original source.54 In a modern edition, a movement with a bass line that does not descend below c or B should definitely spur further investigation.
In addition to pitch and tuning, the seventeenth century saw the advent of the new considerations of tempo, dynamics, and sectionalization. By the end of the sixteenth century, the old mensural system, which had defined both tempo and meter for centuries, was breaking down. The 2:1 relationship between 
and 
had virtually disappeared, and the two mensurations were roughly equivalent, with slightly slower.55 A triple proportion or triple time signature could signify either a 3:2 or 3:1 relationship with a preceding duple meter, depending on context.56 The presence of characteristic dance rhythms can also indicate the tempo, even where no verbal marking appears.57 Toward the end of the century, verbal tempo markings did begin to appear. But these merely confirm the tempo suggested by the prevalent note values in the music, just as dynamic markings of the period merely signal to players the size of the ensemble playing at any given moment.58 Over-interpretation of either of these types of signs should be avoided. [Editor’s note: for a more in-depth look at this, see Chapter 18, “Meter and Tempo.”]
Tempo, dynamics, rhythmic variety, and melodic invention combined with timbral and spatial contrasts to provide seventeenth-century music with unprecedented sumptuousness. The rich variety of musical effects provided essential vehicles for the abundant and powerful emotional affections so central to seventeenth-century aesthetics. The expressive means inherent in the notes themselves—rhythm, melody, and harmony—provided the most essential components. Augmented by clever dynamic and tempo contrasts and judicious ornamentation, these primary elements acquired more expressiveness, even in a relatively small performance. But in a musical institution that was richly endowed, infinite timbral variations and enveloping reverberations over, under, and around must have provided an experience closer to the ninth circle of paradise than anyone in the seventeenth century (or now) would have any reason to expect. Whether our ensemble is a modest chamber group or the large, imperial size, whether we perform this music from modern editions, original parts, or something in between, the electrifying contrasts of seventeenth-century music in all their richness, variety, and affect must be the final aim of all our interpretive skills.
NOTES
1. Kurtzman, Monteverdi Vespers.
2. Lionnet, “Performance Practice,” with essential background in Sherr, “Performance Practice”; and Sherr, “Competence and Incompetence”; Moore, Vespers at Saint Mark’s; Praetorius, Syntagma III: 102–139 (119 recte), 169–197 (see also the translation of this volume, Kite-Powell, Syntagma: 113–128, 172–194); Gable, “Saint Gertrude’s”; Chafe, Biber; Saunders, Cross.
3. I translate as “part singing,” or “part music” the term cantus figuratus (figured song), which can indicate mensural polyphony, monody, or homophonic falsobordone.
4. Roche, North Italian: 16.
5. Ibid.: 15.
6. The root of the description of monodic works as concerti seems to be in Viadana, Cento concerti: 419–423. Indeed, the term concerto was deemed appropriate for any work in the continuo style. The characteristic which merits such description is more difficult to pin down. Caccini, Le nuove musiche: 45–47, emphasizes the superiority of the new style for interpretation of affect. In Caccini, Nuove…scriverle [xxxiii], he advocates affective contrasts. (Pages are cited from the Hitchcock edition.) Extrapolating from these, contrasts could encompass the mixture of instruments with voices, either simply, as in monody with continuo, or in grandiose polychoral performances. These latter could also provide contrasts of placement or magnitude of forces.
7. Charteris, “Performance”: 336–338. See also Bryant, “Cori Spezzati”: 169; Moore, Vespero: 275–276, and Moore, Vespers at Saint Mark’s: 97–99.
8. Moore, Vespers at Saint Mark’s: 85–110.
9. Rostirolla, “Policoralità”: 36–42.
10. Lionnet, “Performance Practice”: 3–15. Sherr, Competence, clarifies factors which reduced the number of paid singers who were singing at a given moment.
11. Bergamo, see Padouan, “Santa Maria Maggiore”: 73–85, 91–94; Padouan, “Modello”: 137–139.
12. Billio D’Arpa, “Amadio Freddi”: 245–247.
13. Mischiati, L’organo: 91–93.
14. Donato, “Policoralità”: 147.
15. Viadana, Cento concerti: 419–420. This practice parallels that in works by Giovanni Gabrieli, noted in Charteris, “Performance”: 343–344.
16. Kendrick, Genres: 332–358. For documentation of such practices in the eighteenth century, see Talbot, “Tenors.”
17. Praetorius, Syntagma III: 196; trans. in Kite-Powell, Syntagma III: 193, and Snyder, Buxtehude: 361ff (Schirmer, 1st ed.); 365ff (Rochester Press, 2nd ed.).
18. Praetorius, Syntagma III: 169–197, trans. in Kite-Powell, Syntagma III: 172–194, and referred to in Chafe, Biber: 55.
19. Chafe, Biber: 31–69; Saunders, Cross: 18–57, with discussion of particular groups of works following.
20. Chafe, Biber: 37–51.
21. Saunders, Cross: 18–22, 61–151.
22. Snyder, Buxtehude: 90–93, 361–366 (1st ed.); 93–95, 365–370 (2nd ed.).
23. Butt, Music Education: 110–111; David/Mendel, Bach Reader: 116–124.
24. Butt, Music Education: 16–23.
25. D’Alessi, “Precursors”: 210, notes that Treviso, Verona, and Bergamo shared with Venice the distinction of being the first performance sites of music for cori spezzati after Padua. Regarding the spatially separated performance practice, see Bryant, “Cori Spezzati”: 181–185; Moore, Vespers at Saint Mark’s: 106–110.
26. Bryant, “Cori Spezzati”: 170–172; Moore, Vespers at Saint Mark’s: 103–106. My own research in Bergamo suggests similar closely spaced choirs there, at least in the sixteenth century. Spatial experimentation may have increased after the construction of new organ balconies above the choir in the 1590s.
27. Charteris, “Performance”: 343–344, describes scoring like this. Even so, it is probably wise to research the work’s context. Publication of works (like Praetorius’s) often included explicit statements about their adaptability in the composer’s view. Nevertheless, exercise of some discretion seems advisable.
28. Charteris, “Performance”: 339–343. See also Bartlett/Holman, “Gabrieli”: 27–28.
29. Moore, Vespers at Saint Mark’s: 84–110; Snyder, Buxtehude: 371, 377–382 (1st ed.); 374, 380–385 (2nd ed.); Praetorius, Syntagma III: 144–145 (recte 124–125); see Kite-Powell, Syntagma III: 133–134.
30. In the seventeenth century the word “choir” can refer to a group consisting of voices, instruments, or a mixture of the two.
31. Bartlett/Holman, “Gabrieli”: 27, advocate caution. See also Moore, Vespers at Saint Mark’s, 100–101. The list in Rostirolla, “Policoralità”: 40–41, indicates instruments in at least one choir but does not discuss doubling or independent parts.
32. Saunders, Cross: 28–29; Chafe, Biber: 49, 54; Snyder, Buxtehude: 364–366, 382–384 (1st ed.); 368–70, 385–387 (2nd ed.).
33. Snyder, Buxtehude: 364–366 (1st ed.); 368–370 (2nd ed.); Chafe, Biber: 49; Saunders, Cross: 29.
34. Saunders, Cross: 28.
35. Jürgens, “Madrigale.”
36. Gianturco, Cantate: 6.
37. Alternatim practice in Catholic liturgy is fairly well known and understood. See Higginbottom, “Alternatim,” and Higginbottom, “Organ Mass.” Bonta, “Uses,” discusses the substitution of instrumental music for portions of the organ mass in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Chorale verse alternation in Lutheran services is discussed in Gotsch, “Organ: 10,” as cited in Kazarow. Snyder, Buxtehude: 98 (1st ed.); 100 (2nd ed.), observes that alternatim practice existed in Lübeck from the fifteenth century, that later it may have included organ chorale interludes, and that organ chorale accompaniment appears in documentation of 1703.
38. Gable, “Gertrudenmusik.”
39. Hucke, “Besetzung”: 386–392, discusses the replacement of soprano falsettists by castratos in the Sistine Chapel, beginning in the late sixteenth century and continuing through the seventeenth. See also Rosselli, “Castrati”: 156–158.
40. Talbot, “Tenors”: 129–130, discusses the prohibition of mixed choirs. Parisi, “Ducal Patronage”: 21–36, 64–68, 129–135, 233, 288, discusses the hiring of female singers for the ducal chapel. It is not clear whether they actually participated in sacred music.
41. Murray, “Teaching Duties”: 118–122.
42. Padouan, “Santa Maria Maggiore”: 42–43.
43. Several allusions in Kendrick, Genres.
44. Parisi, “Ducal Patronage”: 21–36, 64–68, 129–135, 233, 288.
45. Gable, “Observations”: 93–94. See also Uberti, “Vocal Techniques”: 486.
46. Caccini, Nuove musiche: 46–48; Sanford, “French Language”: 1–3; Hilse, “Treatises”: 20–21; Praetorius, Syntagma III: 126 (recte 106), 196, trans. in Kite-Powell, Syntagma III: 115, 193 and in Butt, Music Education: 96–97, 108. Reconstruction of archaic and regional pronunciations is becoming a common performance practice. For vernaculars, consultation of a local college’s foreign language department may be helpful. See also Duffin, “Pronunciation Guides,” and McGee, Singing Early Music. For Latin variants, begin with Duffin, “National Pronunciation,” and Copeman, Singing.
47. Sanford, “Seventeenth-Century”: 64–68, discusses the essential nature of good intonation; see also Chapter 16, “Ornamentation in Early Seventeenth-Century Italian Music” for more information here.
48. Ibid.: 56–61, 71–78.
49. Ibid., 56–59.
50. Butt, Music Education: 110–112, 138–141, discusses the problem of simultaneous ornamentation by more than one singer on a part, and its contribution to retarding the adoption of multiple singers to a part in some areas of Germany. He also notes the intense opposition to all musical ornamentation associated with the Pietist movement.
51. Snyder, Buxtehude: 85 (1st ed.); 84 (2nd ed.), postulates 1683 as the date Buxtehude’s organ was retuned to Werckmeister’s temperament.
52. Ibid. The variability of Italian organs in the sixteenth century is well documented in Mischiati, “Documenti”: 42–43.
53. Andrew Parrott has demonstrated in performance the appropriateness of chiavette-based transposition in works dating from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. Although effectively implemented, his conclusions have spawned a controversy continuing over twenty-five years, documented as follows: Parrott, “Transposition”; Kurtzman, “An Aberration”; Bowers, “An Aberration”; Parrott, “Monteverdi: Onwards”; Johnstone, “High Clefs”; Kurtzman, “Clefs High”; Parrott, “Scholarly Support”; Kurtzman, “Transposition.” Especially in view of contemporary attitudes to transposition, as demonstrated in the adaptation of works for women’s convent choirs discussed above, and the variability of absolute pitch continuing through this period, objections to Parrott’s conclusions may seem excessively fastidious.
54. Barbieri, “Chiavette.”
55. Boal, “Purcell’s Clock Tempos”: 32–34. See also Boal, “Timepieces.”
56. Boal, “Purcell’s Tempo Indications”; New Grove, “Tempo.”
57. New Grove, “Tempo.”
58. Ibid.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bartlett/Holman, “Gabrieli”; Boal, “Purcell’s Clock Tempos”; Boal, “Purcell’s Tempo Indications”; Boal, Timepieces; Billio D’Arpa, “Freddi”; Bonta, “Uses”; Bryant, “Cori Spezzati”; Butt, Music Education; Caccini, Nuove musiche; Caccini, Nuove…scriverle; Chafe, “Biber”; Charteris, “Performance”; Copeman, Singing; D’Alessi, “Precursors”; David/Mendel, Bach Reader; Donato, “Policoralità”; Duffin, “National Pronunciations”; Duffin, “Pronunciation Guides”; Gable, “Saint Gertrude’s”; Gable, “Some Observations”; Gianturco, “Cantate spirituali”; Gotsch, “Organ”; Hilse, “Bernhard”; Hucke, “Besetzung”; Jürgens, “Scarlatti”; Lionnet, “Performance Practice”; Kazarow, “Luther”; Kendrick, Genres; McGee, Singing; Mischiati, “Documenti”; Mischiati, L’organo; Moens-Haenen, Vibrato; Moore, “Vespero”; Moore, Vespers at Saint Mark’s; Murray, “Teaching Duties”; New Grove, s.v. “Alternatim”; New Grove, “Organ Mass”; New Grove, “Tempo”; Padouan, “Modello”; Padouan, “Santa Maria Maggiore”; Parisi, “Ducal”; Praetorius, Syntagma III; Roche, North Italian; Rosselli, “Castrati”; Rostirolla, “Policoralità”; Saunders, Cross; Sherr, “Competence”; Sherr, “Performance Practice”; Snyder, Buxtehude; Talbot, “Tenors”; Uberti, “Vocal Techniques”; Viadana, Cento concerti ecclesiastici.
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Italian Traditions
A Venetian Coronation, 1595: Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli. Gabrieli Consort and Players; Paul McCreesh. Virgin Classics VC 7 911102.
Carissimi: Jephte, Jonas. Consortium Carissimi, Vittorio Zanon. Naxos B0007ORDVS.
Carissimi: Mass for Three Voices, Six Motets. Consortium Carissimi. Naxos B00005COXV.
Carissimi [and Cazzati]: Ten Motets. Consortium Carissimi, Vittorio Zanon. Naxos B00005N8DO.
Giovanni Gabrieli: Music for San Rocco. The Gabrieli Consort and Players, Paul McCreesh. DGG Archiv B0000057FO.
Gabrieli—Monteverdi—Vivaldi: Venetian Church Music. Taverner Consort and Players, Andrew Parrott. EMI Classics B000051A23.
Giacomo Carissimi: Cantata e Messa “Sciolto havena dall’ alte sponde.” Verona, Le istituzioni armoniche, Marco Longhini. Stradivarius B000F9RLP1.
Giacomo Carissimi: Judicium Extremum / Jonas / Jephthe. His Majesties Sagbutts and Cornetts, Monteverdi Choir, Members of the English Baroque Soloists; John Eliot Gardner. Erato 2292454662.
Giacomo Carissimi: Motetti e Sacri Concerti. Ensemble il cantar novo. Tactus Records B000E8ZLYS.
Giacomo Carissimi: Oratorios: Dialogo del gigante Golia. Musica Fiata Köln, Musica Ficta, Roland Wilson. Cpo Records B0007XHL3E.
Monteverdi: Madrigali guerrieri ed amorosi. The Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley. Virgin Veritas B00000J2PZ.
Monteverdi: Madrigals, Book 5. Delitiae Musicae. Naxos B000FGGKEE.
Monteverdi: Madrigals, Book 6. Delitiae Musicae, Marco Longhini. Naxos B000L43MXC.
Monteverdi: Mass for Four Voices, Mass for Six Voices ‘In illo tempore.’ The Sixteen, Harry Christophers. Hyperion UK B00009WQVB.
Claudio Monteverdi: Vespri di S. Giovanni Battista. Netherlands Chamber Choir, Chorus Viennensis, Monteverdi Ensemble Amsterdam; Gustav Leonhardt. Phililps 422 0742
Monteverdi: Vespro della Veata Vergine, 1610. Taverner Consort and Players, Andrew Parrott. EMI Classics B000032WJB.
Giacomo Antonio Perti: Messa a otto voci per soli, ripieni e strumenti. New College Choir di Oxford, Cappella Musicale di San Petronio: Sergio Vartolo. BonGiovanni GB 20392.
Sigismondo d’India: First Book of Madrigals. La Venexiana. Glossa B00005B14H.
Venetian Vespers: Monteverdi, Rigatti, Grandi, Cavalli. Gabrieli Consort and Players; Paul McCreesh. DGG Archiv Produktion 437 5522.
Vespri Concertati della Scuola Bolognese di P. Franceschini, G. Torelli, D. Gabrielli. Coro e Orchestra della Cappella Musicale di S. Petronio, Tölzer Knabenchor, Ensemble Vocal d’Avignon: Sergio Vartolo. Tactus TC 650001.
Central and East Central European Traditions
Festal Mass at the Imperial Court of Vienna, 1648. Yorkshire Bach Choir, Yorkshire Baroque Soloists, Baroque Brass of London: Peter Seymour. Novello Records NVLCD 105 (includes Christoph Straus’s Missa Veni sponsa Christi and works by Andreas Rauch, Girolamo Fantini, Antonio Bertali, and Giovanni Priuli).
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber: Requiem in F minor / String Sonatas. New London Consort; Philip Pickett. Editions de L’Oiseau Lyre 4364602.
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (attributed): Missa Salisburgensis. Escolania de Montserrat, Tölzer Knabenchor, Collegium Aureum; P. Ireneu Segarra, O.S.B. EMI Deutsche Harmonia Mundi CDC 7 49236 2.
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber: Vêpres. Choeur et Orchestre Studio de Musique Ancienne de Montreal; Christopher Jackson. REM <E,ACU>ditions REM 311207.
Johann Heinrich Schmeltzer: Vesperae sollennes; Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber: Missa Alleluya à 36. Gradus ad Parnasum; Konrad Junghänel. BMG / Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 05472 77326 2.
Northern European Traditions
Dietrich [sic] Buxtehude, “Ein Starken Music…“ Six Cantatas. Orchestra Anima Eterna, Collegium Vocale; Joos van Immerseel. Channel Classics CCS 78951.
Dieterich Buxtehude: Membra Jesu Nostri (BuxWV 75). The Monteverdi Choir, the English Baroque Soloists, Fretwork: John Eliot Gardiner. DGG Archiv Produktion 427 6802.
Buxtehude: Sacred Cantatas, Vol. 2. Purcell Quartet. Chandos Chaconne B000AA4JA2.
Buxtehude: Vocal Music 1. Soloists. Naxos B000M2DNRS.
Dietrich Buxtehude: Vocal Music 2. Copenhagen Royal Chamber Choir, the Dufay Collective, Ebbe Munk. Naxos B000Y1BQXK.
Johann Pachelbel: Easter Cantatas. Capella Ducale, Musica Fiata Köln, Roland Wilson. Cpo Records B0001M64WK.
Palestrina/Bach, Missa sine nomine / Kuhnau, Pezel, Reiche. Concerto Palatino. EMI Classics CDC 7 54455 2.
Michael Praetorius, Mass for Christmas Morning. Gabrieli Consort and Players; Paul McCreesh. DGG Archiv 439 2502 (also includes works by Samuel Scheidt and Johann Hermann Schein).
Johann Rosenmüller: Weihnachtshistorie. Cantus Cölln, Concerto Palatino. Harmonia Mundi Fr B00061QJ80.
Sacred Music by Johann Schelle. The King’s Consort, Robert King. Hyperion UK B00005COXO.
Sacred Music by Sebastian Knüpfer. The King’s Consort, Robert King Hyperion UK B00004TARW.
Samuel Scheidt: The Great Sacred Concertos. Musica Fiata Köln, Roland Wilson. Cpo Records B000MRP1PA.
San Marco in Hamburg: Motets by Hieronymus Praetorius. Weser Renaissance, Manfred Cordes. Cpo Records 777245–2.
Heinrich Schütz: Cantiones Sacrae. Weser Renaissance, Manfred Cordes. Cpo Records B000001S1J.
Schütz: Die sieben Worte Jesu Christi am Kreuz. Ensemble Clément Janequin, les Sacqueboutiers, Dominique Visse. Harmonia Mundi Fr B00005B6RV.
Schütz: Geistliche Chormusik, Op. 11. Collegium Vocale. Philippe Herreweghe. Harmonia Mundi B0000007A2.
Schütz: German Requiem: The Seven Words of Jesus Christ on the Cross. Abfelder Vokalensemble, Barockorchester Febiarmonici, Wolfgang Helbich. Naxos B0001Z65IU.
Heinrich Schütz: Historia der Auferstehung Jesu Christi. Weser Renaissance, Manfred Cordes. Cpo Records B00097DKO2.
Schütz: Opus Ultimum—Schwanengesang. Collegium Vocale, Philippe Herreweghe. Harmonia Mundi B000N6U1EG.
Heinrich Schütz, Psalmen Davids SWV 2247. Kammerchor Stuttgart and Soloists, Musica Fiata Köln; Frieder Bernius. Sony Vivarte S2K 48042.
Heinrich Schütz: Symphoniae Sacrae, 1629. Concerto Palatino, Accent Records B000004433.
Schütz: Symphoniae Sacrae III. Cantus Cölln, Concerto Palatino, Conrad Junghänel. Harmonia Mundi Fr B000BTE4L6.
Thomaskantoren vor Bach: Knüpfer, Schelle, Kuhnau. Cantus Cölln; Konrad Junghänel. BMG / Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 05472 77203 2.