Musica nova
Musica nova is a collection of vocal movements by the composer Adrian Willaert , printed in 1559 on the initiative of Alfonso II. D'Este . Willaert combined stylistic elements of his Flemish homeland with the music of Italy.
The collection includes 27 four- to seven-part motets and 25 four- to seven-part madrigals , each sorted according to the number of votes. The joint publication of sacred motets and secular madrigals was previously unprecedented.
Emergence
Most of the pieces were handwritten as early as 1540, but were only known to a small circle of composers, theorists, singers and patrons. The then heir to the throne and later Duke of Ferrara Alfonso II acquired the manuscript in 1554 to have it published in Venice . The print has a preface by the composer and former student of Willaert's Francesco Viola , in which the value of the pieces for the entire musical world is emphasized.
Text structure
The texts of the madrigals are kept in the form of the sonnet , there is a break between quartets and terzets , the musical form becomes two-part. Compared to the detailed painting, the declamation of the texts in a contrapuntal network of diastematic and rhythmically free imitation predominates . The madrigal texts come down to a sonnet by Panfilo Sasso from the Canzoniere of Petrarch . For the spiritual motets, Willaert used various texts from the Old and New Testaments .
Musical structure
The modal order of the sentence is generally preserved despite individual cross positions , chromatisms and dissonant layers. Some of the motets are characterized by a cf- movement with canonical parts or by an imitation treatment of chorale melodies. The seven-part madrigals create the impression of double choirs through changing vocal groups.
literature
- Gerhard Dietel: Music history in data . Bärenreiter-Verlag , Kassel 1994.
- Martha Feldman: City Culture and the Madrigal in Venice . Berkeley et al., 1995.
- David Kidger: Adrian Willaert: a guide to research . Routledge, 2005.
Web links
- Background to Musica nova as part of a recording project ( memento from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive )