For the Adiantum Bardic Championship
20 October 2012
Harvest Celebration Bardic Competition
Ortiz: Recercada - solo cello, Caccini: "Non piu guerra" Voice and cello
Recercada 1 - Ortiz
Diego Ortiz (1510-1570) was a Spanish composer working in Italy. His main position was at the chapel maintained by the Spanish viceroy in Naples. He is best known for his 1553 Trattado de glosas from which this piece comes. This treatise is one of the first written for bowed string players and concerns ornamentations of cadences, which it teaches by rote example. Also included in the Trattado are several solos showing the implementation of these ornamentations. Of the 26 pieces present in the second volume of the work, all but four are for solo and accompaniment. I have chosen one of the four unaccompanied Recercadas to play.
Recercada is the Spanish equivalent of the better known (though still uncommon) Italian term ricercar. This translates to "to search for," and is one of the predecessors of the fugue. A ricercar can be merely a prelude, or it can be a fairly complex imitative work.
This Recercada is somewhere in the middle of that range; the others in Ortiz's collection are more contrapuntal, especially the accompanied ones. This piece is somewhat imitative, there are several intervallic and rhythmic motives that weave together throughout the piece. It is in the most common mode of the time, dorian, which is related to what we now call minor, though somewhat different in inflection.
These pieces were designed for viols - viola da gambas - and the cello is not, strictly speaking, a gamba. The cello is from the violin family, was first written for in 1665, and wasn't common until after 1700. The viola da gamba belongs to the viol family, a slight distinction in name which produces a huge difference in sound, player, and culture. After the introduction of the violin, the viol family was more often used by leisure musicians - those with enough wealth and standing to have free time. The shape, tone, tuning, and bowing style are all different between violins and viols.
"Non più guerra" - Caccini
Giulio Caccini, also known as Giulio Romano (1551-1618), was one of the most famous singers in Florence and one of the biggest names of the early Baroque era. His best known work is Le nuove musiche, a collection of solo songs with accompaniment, but also one of the most complete essays on vocal ornamentation of the day. His most well-known employers were the Medici family.
Le nuove musiche was written in 1601 and published in 1602, but the songs and the style Caccini describes are a product of the Florentine Camerata of 1573-1587. This meeting of intellectuals of all stripes is most famous for leading to the invention of opera. The focus of the musical style of the Camerata and Le nouve musiche is the text of the song, so the accompaniment is much reduced from what was previously expected in that era. Also, this means that the meter can be somewhat flexible.
The first edition of Le nuove musiche contains twelve madrigals and ten airs. A madrigal is the renaissance term for secular song; it is most often associated with four-voiced madrigals but can also be solo songs. Airs or arias are usually more flashy, complicated pieces, and are usually associated with a particular form.
"Non più guerra" is one of the madrigals from Le nuove musiche. True to renaissance standard, the poetry uses war and imagery of fighting as metaphors for love. The text is as follows:
Non più guerra, pietate,
Piatate, occhi miei belli!
Occhi miei trionfanti à che v'armate?
Contro un cor ch'è già preso, e vi si rende?
Ancidete i rubelli,
Ancidete chi s'arma e si difende,
Non chi vinto v'adora.
Volete voi ch'io mora?
Morrò pur vostro, e del morir l'affanno,
Sentirò, sì, ma vostro sarà il danno.
Which translates to:
No more war!
Have pity on me, O lovely eyes.
You triumph, so why go armed?
Against a heart already taken?
Kill whom you like,
but not him who, if defeated,
adores you.
Would you have me die?
You shall have me dead, then,
but the loss will be yours.
Caccini performed songs in this style as entertainment in nobel houses by singing the aria and accompanying himself on lute or a similar instrument. I will be using my cello in a similar manner for this performance.
Sources:
Ortiz, Diego. 4 recercdas per viola da gamba sola, 6 recercadas sopra La Spanga: per viola da gamba e basso: dal Trattado de glosas (Roma 1553). Edited by Carlo Denti. Bologna: Ut Orpheus Edizioni, 2003.
Caccini, Giulio, and H. Wiley Hitchcock. Le nuove musiche. Middleton, Wis: A-R Editions, 2009.
Sadie, Stanley, John Tyrrell, and Laura Williams Macy. GROVEmusic: Welcome to www.Grovemusic.com. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshite, England: Macmillan Online Pub., 2001. <http://www.grovemusic.com/index.html>.
“Caccini: (1) Giulio Romolo Caccini”
“Camerata”
“Ortiz, Diego”
“Ricercare”
“Viol”
“Violoncello”