Re: "Hatikvah" and "La Mantovana"

[Hope Ehn Dennis Ehn <ehn...>]

The Giamberti is a two-part *contrapuntal* setting, which clearly affects
the way the tune was handled. It is much easier to stick to the basic
notes of a tune when you are either setting it homophonically (as Zanetti
did) or presenting the tune by itself (as in the Playford).

Giamberti clearly took more liberties with the tune, some of them melodic
and some of them in order to make cadences with the lower voice. But
anyone familiar with Renaissance ornamentation could tell you that the
melodic changes are just decorations. (This is obvious even to the
amateurs in the Renaissance ensemble I coach; although few if any of them
have had any formal musical training since high school, they have had
experience playing Renaissance tunes in various settings, and discovering
that the tunes themselves are rarely absolutely identical when set by
various composers.)

As for the changes caused by the presence of a second, contrapuntal voice,
this is a complicated matter. Although not noted by the editor, the second
voice of the "Ballo di Mantua" setting has a second tune! This tune is
related to the beginning of the tune "Fra Iacopino," #5 in the same book.

When you try to put together two tunes, or to play a tune in canon,
sometimes changes have to be made -- especially if you are trying to keep
your setting from transgressing any of the Renaissance rules of
counterpoint, or those which define which combinations of notes are
consonant. (I don't want to use the term "harmony," because Renaissance
musicians didn't think that way, even though they did evolve the bass
patterns that define harmonic movement in later times).

I tried this morning (insanity, perhaps?) to write a three-part canon on
the tune. I discovered that it isn't possible to write even a two-part
*strict* canon without writing sonorities unacceptable to Renaissance
ears. (We know what these rules are, for many treatises exist, and it is
rare in deed for Renaissance music to transgress them.)

Try looking at just the basic melodic outline of the Giamberti voice,
instead of counting the number of notes that are not quite the same as the
other settings. It really *is* the same tune!

Hope Ehn                    <ehn (at) world(dot)std(dot)com>

******************************************************************************
Dennis and Hope Ehn are 2 different people sharing one account.
Hope is the author of "On-Line Resources for Classical & Academic Musicians."
Dennis does programming (mostly C++).
PLEASE don't get us confused!                                 :-)
<ehn (at) world(dot)std(dot)com>
******************************************************************************

On 23 Dec 1994, Matthew H. Fields wrote:

> Hope, I hear an ok match on the Zanetti and a good match on the Playford,
> but the Giamberti really has cadences to too many local areas, and is
> no closer than a typical dance by GB Lully.
> Matt