[+] Slim, H. Colin. “Some Puzzling Intabulations of Vocal Music for Keyboard, c. 1600, at Castell’Arquato.” In Five Centuries of Choral Music: Essays in Honor of Howard Swan, ed. Gordon Paine, 127-51. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1988.
Housed in the Chiesa Collegiata at Castell’Arquato are keyboard intabulations of vocal works (among them transcriptions of madrigals and sacred pieces) that were crafted by a single, anonymous hand. Three pieces within Fascicles IV and VI of these intabulations, along with their models, can be used to demonstrate that the intabulator performs multiple functions that range from transcription to interpolation and recombination. The seventy-year transmission of the four-voice hymn Fit porta Christi displays numerous stylistic changes. Magnificat was modeled upon two different Magnificats, with odd-numbered verses modeled after an unknown source and even-numbered verses modeled upon a Magnificat by Lasso. O gloriosa domina stitches together borrowings from Willaert. Consequently, each of these three pieces maintains an idiomatic relationship with its models.
Works: Anonymous: Canti donque (133-35), Assumpta est Maria (135-37), Ego dormio (137), Adoramus te, Christe (138-39), Fit porta Christi (139-43), Magnificat (143-45), O gloriosa domina (145-49).
Sources: Anonymous: Fit porta Christi (139-42), Magnificat (143-45); Lasso: Magnificat primi toni (143-45); Willaert: O gloriosa domina—Maria, mater gratie (145-49).
Index Classifications: 1500s, 1600s
Contributed by: Jaime Carini
