This video seems to be one of the best video , all matters confused , I ever saw. All the information is in and there are some humour in the visual . Over the top !!!
Thank you for your fantastic musicology. Highly informative presentation . I laughed out loud when you showed Jimi Hendrix as an experienced improvisor!!! How true is that. And a basso continuo of the highest order. Just one more thing....to me, this channel and all associated with it, is the "promise of the Internet". That we can have access to this kind of important research and inspired music, is truly a blessing. I studied music in school before this kind of information was available, All I had were the urtext documents (thank you God for that) to pour over and try to absorb. Without your excellent reflection to listen to and learn from. It certainly would have helped everyone, so it makes this all the more fantastic for me to see the appreciation of early music come to a place in history that it deserves. Cheers
I just happened to be listening to Luzzaschi for the first time and looked him and Ferrara up, landing here after that, noting I had listened to much of this episode 6 months ago...but now it's really sinking in :) And I can appreciate your wonderful presentation much better. Plus I'm ready for another "Borgia" episode ;)
Fascinating! Your videos are helping me come to grips with Renaissance pieces and their quirky composers. Thank you for your creative energy and sense of humor!
What a wealth of information and source of fascination! I only knew of his piece "I' mi son giovinetta" but I will seek out more -- as I am eager to hear those simultaneous multi-voiced diminutions at cadences!
I must say, I loved studying for my medieval and Renaissance music exam, but thanks to you I'm having a better understanding of some aspects. It would be great if you did some videos about composers (especially the flemish generations). I loved, above all, Ockeghem. In his compositions one can find all the late medieval topoi: canons, modes (Missa cuiusvis toni), measures (Missa prolationum), cantus firmus and his chansons are great too... Ok, now I have a dream! 😍
Would really be interested to see you do an episode on the role of women in music-making in Early music. Did they sing in opera at all? Are there examples of women adding to the voices in liturgical settings? Loved Mafei's early paraphrasing of "Less is More".
Gracias por estos videos! Tengo que rendir un examen de historia del barroco y tus videos me ayudan a entender las cosas técnicas y específicas de una manera muy fácil. :)
Thank you very much for yet another both insightful and entertaining video! Side note: I also enjoy the Italian accent, especially its positive impact on making the English understandable: it is more comprehensive than English spoken by most native Americans or Englishmen.
Ensembles used to stand in circle facing each other hearing each other, not facing the public. The spectators were let in the treasure whatever part of it escaped the creative vortex.
At 8:33 is that curious depiction of the woman playing the viol on her arm with the bow in the left hand historically accurate? (Maybe the picture is reversed from being transferred from the engraving).
You are very probably right - although it would seem rather strange from an engraver’s point of view : having to reverse the image is one of the first rules in this technique, even when it involves no written characters : left and right are not equal in visual arts. But in this particular case the engraver just copied a preliminary drawing, possibly made by himself although engravers often were sort of subalterns in printing shops, busy with copying other artist’s work. ‘
...You’ll notice that most of the musicians an workers in this engraving are left-hand ! I took a screenshot of it and inverted it. You’ll notice that the image now seems less bizarre to a musician’s eye ! But to me the composition of the image itself (shadows and light, angle of the keyboard, positions of the characters and even placement of the different images (that were engraved on different copper plates and printed together) is less pleasant to the eye. And less significant to the mind : we occidental read images beginning by the centre or brightest part, then proceeding from left to right and up to down. On the left of the printed image, you have the consort’ then the (left handed) viola da braccia player, then the furnace of what I guess is where the (left-handed!) blacksmiths prepare the copper plates for the engraving. This last image is rather surprising in a music book, thus confirming that the use of copper plates to print music was indeed a luxurious and sophisticated novelty and was worth mentionning. Here is the inverted image I prepared from a screenshot so you can compare. Sorry for the bad definition... cjoint.com/c/IElnCJk6SpD
It might indeed be accurate; you can find instances of people playing on either side in the iconography for multiple instruments, flutes, recorders, bowed strings. (And in the same image, meaning that someone would be playing left-handed whether the image were reversed or not.) The instruments were more symmetrical, and people really cared much less if you played on the left side. Some method books even show two drawings of how to hold a recorder or early flute for example, depending on which hand you put on the bottom. It's only semi-recently that classical music got uptight about playing left-handed.
Is nice that you put Jimi as an illustration of "an accomplished musician", but the Spanish subs ironically translate "accomplished" as "diestro", which also means "right handed".
Thank you for your great videos! I have a question. From what I understand of what you said in this video, it is your opinion that the Luzzaschi pieces notated in the high clefs should be transposed down. So for example O Primavera is "too high" as it is, with the highest note an A, and would be transposed down a fifth (I think?). If that was the intention, why not just notate that way to start, in the end using fewer accidentals--is it because the score would then include both an occasional B-flat and an occasional F-sharp? Would that be any worse than the F-sharp and C-sharp that the high-clef score contains? Aura soave is not notated in a high clef, and the notation allows some notes on ledger lines below the staff; wouldn't it be OK to do the same for O Primavera? I had always assumed that the different pieces were written for individual voices with differing capabilities. In your own recording of Aura soave I noticed you used A-415; assuming that pitch is a good choice, why would an A in O Primavera be too high for a soprano voice? I do think it makes sense for anyone to sing it where it is comfortable and sounds good, but isn't it possible that the notated range could be the best tessitura for some people? Transposing down a fifth could pose its own range issues with the lower register, with diminutions in a chest range approaching the lowest notes in the soprano voice (and in turn not using the higher ones). Did I understand correctly, and could you elaborate on these concepts please?
Hi! Have you seen the episode dedicated to High clefs and transpositions? here is a link: ruclips.net/video/qBmBuMsiIt0/видео.html In this period in Italy the norm was that pieces that are written in a set of high clefs are to be transposed down in performance. The amount of evidence is immense (even if we don't know the reason for composers to notate it like that). If in Luzzaschi's publication it was meant that the pieces would not be transposed, it would be an extreme exception. However, on a practical level, in my opinion, you can be more flexible and find something that will work for you (experiment with transposition down a fourth, or even a third if it makes sense). A tone here a semitone there might be also related to pitch decision (as you mentioned), but performing it as high it is, doesn't matter the pitch, seems to be too much of an exception in my opinion.
@@EarlyMusicSources Thank you for responding! I see what you mean, because the pieces notated in high clefs in this 1601 score show an overall tessitura that is higher than the ones notated in C clefs, by about a fourth. For a soprano, transposing down a fifth seems much too low to me if the pitch is around A=415. And transposing down a fourth seems like it would present some temperament problems and at least a few instrument-transposition problems because the instruments are/were not easily compatible with certain "keys" (in quotations because this music is not in keys)--even if the musician might have had no problem transposing, the instrument might. According to what we can gather from sources and the extant Este harp, it seems the instrument was capable of certain chromatic demands, while others would disrupt the flow of the music due to the need to reach through the strings for certain notes (or use the other hand to reach them, compromising the range). I could see the pieces notated with G as the pitch center being transposed to F or C easily on that instrument, but not as easily to D. C just seems too low for the vocal range, especially in repertoire renowned for its use of the soprano voice, unless the pitch they were using at that time is something higher than the 415/440 range we use now. But if the pitch in Ferrara was on the low side or even among the lowest in Italy, as some evidence suggests (in his book Bruce Haynes cited a letter from the late 16th century linking flute pitch between Ferrara and Naples), then in my opinion D would also be getting pretty low! Maybe F would be the best choice, down a 2nd, but that still also leaves the G-clef pieces a little higher than the C-clef ones. There is lots to consider, and until I can travel back in time to be a guest of the court, I suppose I will never know. If you have any thoughts to share on any of this I'd love to know them! Thanks again for your great videos.
I’ve played several versions of Mille Regrets on the lute and there you understand how these diminutions are simply composer’s work. They almost make you forget the josquin’s original. Many people play all these thousands of lute pieces never realizing that they are actual songs with vocal, the lute being mere intricate accompaniment to the missing voice. The skeletal structure of these lute pieces is more or less the other voices put to lute strings. Also, josquin’s original definitely sound heavier and almost medieval compared to the elegant derived lute versions.
Hello, I am a composer in Vienna, I usually compose in the baroque style, but I would also lile to learn to compose in classical, renaissance and ars nova styles, and improve my skills in baroque omposition. I thought you may have some contacts, so I asked you.
CaptainBohnenbrot hehe, it has been there for as long as i can remember. I always find my eyes drawn to it. Early in this video I thought it was a logo superimposed in the corner.
I always thought that Italian composers *disguised* forbidden parallels by introducing voice crossings, as a dirty fix. Do you think there were legitimate artistic reasons why they wrote passages which audibly sound like they contained parallels?
As far as I understand, these were not considered as parallels at all. In some sources they say quite clearly that it is only the parts of the composition that should be free of parallels, and one most not worry otherwise (that is, about how it looks). It's a thing that happens in the process of taking polyphony and transforming or arranging it unto one instrument; it's less related to the composition.
BTW, if I am not wrong - Jimmy Hendrix didn't know to read notes ... so, this would not be a difficult "challenge" for him !..... ;-)
5 лет назад+1
Elam, could you please make a video on the most confusing aspects of mensural notation? The several figures, the tempus, prolatio, perfectus, imperfectus, the circles, broken circles, circles with a dot, etc.. I’m trying to read the treatises but it is still difficult!
Incredibly interesting, great transparency with the footnotes as always, just great. Also the editing is superb and I personally like it much more that you use mostly cut-outs from Renaissance paintings as illustrations and memes, and less famous comics. It makes it more professional, more your own thing, timeless, not like trying to appeal to present day pop culture. These Videos will also be great in 15 years and then the Rick and Morty cut-outs might seem out of place, I think.
This video seems to be one of the best video , all matters confused , I ever saw. All the information is in and there are some humour in the visual . Over the top !!!
Thank you for your fantastic musicology. Highly informative presentation . I laughed out loud when you showed Jimi Hendrix as an experienced improvisor!!! How true is that. And a basso continuo of the highest order. Just one more thing....to me, this channel and all associated with it, is the "promise of the Internet". That we can have access to this kind of important research and inspired music, is truly a blessing. I studied music in school before this kind of information was available, All I had were the urtext documents (thank you God for that) to pour over and try to absorb. Without your excellent reflection to listen to and learn from. It certainly would have helped everyone, so it makes this all the more fantastic for me to see the appreciation of early music come to a place in history that it deserves. Cheers
Excellent, thank you! This book is priceless thank you very much indeed for your splendid introduction!
I just happened to be listening to Luzzaschi for the first time and looked him and Ferrara up, landing here after that, noting I had listened to much of this episode 6 months ago...but now it's really sinking in :) And I can appreciate your wonderful presentation much better. Plus I'm ready for another "Borgia" episode ;)
Fascinating! Your videos are helping me come to grips with Renaissance pieces and their quirky composers. Thank you for your creative energy and sense of humor!
Thank you so much!
What a wealth of information and source of fascination! I only knew of his piece "I' mi son giovinetta" but I will seek out more -- as I am eager to hear those simultaneous multi-voiced diminutions at cadences!
Fabulous site!
Qué grandes sois y qué bien lo explicas! No paro de aprender!
Just brilliant, I am so in love with your content
Wonderful!!!
I must say, I loved studying for my medieval and Renaissance music exam, but thanks to you I'm having a better understanding of some aspects. It would be great if you did some videos about composers (especially the flemish generations). I loved, above all, Ockeghem. In his compositions one can find all the late medieval topoi: canons, modes (Missa cuiusvis toni), measures (Missa prolationum), cantus firmus and his chansons are great too... Ok, now I have a dream! 😍
Would really be interested to see you do an episode on the role of women in music-making in Early music. Did they sing in opera at all? Are there examples of women adding to the voices in liturgical settings? Loved Mafei's early paraphrasing of "Less is More".
favorite channel in all youtube
I always learn about the most interesting things here -- glad to have found this channel.
Gracias por estos videos! Tengo que rendir un examen de historia del barroco y tus videos me ayudan a entender las cosas técnicas y específicas de una manera muy fácil. :)
Another fantastic video!
That is extremely interesting and informative. Thank you!
Great!
Amazing video!
very very good video thanks a lot !
Thank you very much for yet another both insightful and entertaining video! Side note: I also enjoy the Italian accent, especially its positive impact on making the English understandable: it is more comprehensive than English spoken by most native Americans or Englishmen.
It's an Israeli accent.
Ensembles used to stand in circle facing each other hearing each other, not facing the public. The spectators were let in the treasure whatever part of it escaped the creative vortex.
At 8:33 is that curious depiction of the woman playing the viol on her arm with the bow in the left hand historically accurate? (Maybe the picture is reversed from being transferred from the engraving).
You are very probably right - although it would seem rather strange from an engraver’s point of view : having to reverse the image is one of the first rules in this technique, even when it involves no written characters : left and right are not equal in visual arts. But in this particular case the engraver just copied a preliminary drawing, possibly made by himself although engravers often were sort of subalterns in printing shops, busy with copying other artist’s work.
‘
...You’ll notice that most of the musicians an workers in this engraving are left-hand ! I took a screenshot of it and inverted it. You’ll notice that the image now seems less bizarre to a musician’s eye ! But to me the composition of the image itself (shadows and light, angle of the keyboard, positions of the characters and even placement of the different images (that were engraved on different copper plates and printed together) is less pleasant to the eye. And less significant to the mind : we occidental read images beginning by the centre or brightest part, then proceeding from left to right and up to down. On the left of the printed image, you have the consort’ then the (left handed) viola da braccia player, then the furnace of what I guess is where the (left-handed!) blacksmiths prepare the copper plates for the engraving. This last image is rather surprising in a music book, thus confirming that the use of copper plates to print music was indeed a luxurious and sophisticated novelty and was worth mentionning. Here is the inverted image I prepared from a screenshot so you can compare. Sorry for the bad definition... cjoint.com/c/IElnCJk6SpD
It might indeed be accurate; you can find instances of people playing on either side in the iconography for multiple instruments, flutes, recorders, bowed strings. (And in the same image, meaning that someone would be playing left-handed whether the image were reversed or not.) The instruments were more symmetrical, and people really cared much less if you played on the left side. Some method books even show two drawings of how to hold a recorder or early flute for example, depending on which hand you put on the bottom. It's only semi-recently that classical music got uptight about playing left-handed.
Is nice that you put Jimi as an illustration of "an accomplished musician", but the Spanish subs ironically translate "accomplished" as "diestro", which also means "right handed".
Thank you for your great videos! I have a question. From what I understand of what you said in this video, it is your opinion that the Luzzaschi pieces notated in the high clefs should be transposed down. So for example O Primavera is "too high" as it is, with the highest note an A, and would be transposed down a fifth (I think?). If that was the intention, why not just notate that way to start, in the end using fewer accidentals--is it because the score would then include both an occasional B-flat and an occasional F-sharp? Would that be any worse than the F-sharp and C-sharp that the high-clef score contains? Aura soave is not notated in a high clef, and the notation allows some notes on ledger lines below the staff; wouldn't it be OK to do the same for O Primavera? I had always assumed that the different pieces were written for individual voices with differing capabilities. In your own recording of Aura soave I noticed you used A-415; assuming that pitch is a good choice, why would an A in O Primavera be too high for a soprano voice? I do think it makes sense for anyone to sing it where it is comfortable and sounds good, but isn't it possible that the notated range could be the best tessitura for some people? Transposing down a fifth could pose its own range issues with the lower register, with diminutions in a chest range approaching the lowest notes in the soprano voice (and in turn not using the higher ones). Did I understand correctly, and could you elaborate on these concepts please?
Hi! Have you seen the episode dedicated to High clefs and transpositions? here is a link: ruclips.net/video/qBmBuMsiIt0/видео.html
In this period in Italy the norm was that pieces that are written in a set of high clefs are to be transposed down in performance. The amount of evidence is immense (even if we don't know the reason for composers to notate it like that). If in Luzzaschi's publication it was meant that the pieces would not be transposed, it would be an extreme exception. However, on a practical level, in my opinion, you can be more flexible and find something that will work for you (experiment with transposition down a fourth, or even a third if it makes sense). A tone here a semitone there might be also related to pitch decision (as you mentioned), but performing it as high it is, doesn't matter the pitch, seems to be too much of an exception in my opinion.
@@EarlyMusicSources Thank you for responding! I see what you mean, because the pieces notated in high clefs in this 1601 score show an overall tessitura that is higher than the ones notated in C clefs, by about a fourth. For a soprano, transposing down a fifth seems much too low to me if the pitch is around A=415. And transposing down a fourth seems like it would present some temperament problems and at least a few instrument-transposition problems because the instruments are/were not easily compatible with certain "keys" (in quotations because this music is not in keys)--even if the musician might have had no problem transposing, the instrument might. According to what we can gather from sources and the extant Este harp, it seems the instrument was capable of certain chromatic demands, while others would disrupt the flow of the music due to the need to reach through the strings for certain notes (or use the other hand to reach them, compromising the range). I could see the pieces notated with G as the pitch center being transposed to F or C easily on that instrument, but not as easily to D. C just seems too low for the vocal range, especially in repertoire renowned for its use of the soprano voice, unless the pitch they were using at that time is something higher than the 415/440 range we use now. But if the pitch in Ferrara was on the low side or even among the lowest in Italy, as some evidence suggests (in his book Bruce Haynes cited a letter from the late 16th century linking flute pitch between Ferrara and Naples), then in my opinion D would also be getting pretty low! Maybe F would be the best choice, down a 2nd, but that still also leaves the G-clef pieces a little higher than the C-clef ones. There is lots to consider, and until I can travel back in time to be a guest of the court, I suppose I will never know. If you have any thoughts to share on any of this I'd love to know them! Thanks again for your great videos.
Great, now i know how they made publications in that manner (I'm talking about engraving).
I’ve played several versions of Mille Regrets on the lute and there you understand how these diminutions are simply composer’s work. They almost make you forget the josquin’s original. Many people play all these thousands of lute pieces never realizing that they are actual songs with vocal, the lute being mere intricate accompaniment to the missing voice. The skeletal structure of these lute pieces is more or less the other voices put to lute strings. Also, josquin’s original definitely sound heavier and almost medieval compared to the elegant derived lute versions.
Hello, I am a composer in Vienna, I usually compose in the baroque style, but I would also lile to learn to compose in classical, renaissance and ars nova styles, and improve my skills in baroque omposition. I thought you may have some contacts, so I asked you.
Do you have anything online I can look up?
19:44 If it's any consolation, in 1601 the English themselves were dropping their aitches, too: ruclips.net/video/gPlpphT7n9s/видео.html
Did I never notice before? Was that pineapple lamp always there?
CaptainBohnenbrot hehe, it has been there for as long as i can remember. I always find my eyes drawn to it. Early in this video I thought it was a logo superimposed in the corner.
The real Medieval Baebes.
I always thought that Italian composers *disguised* forbidden parallels by introducing voice crossings, as a dirty fix. Do you think there were legitimate artistic reasons why they wrote passages which audibly sound like they contained parallels?
As far as I understand, these were not considered as parallels at all. In some sources they say quite clearly that it is only the parts of the composition that should be free of parallels, and one most not worry otherwise (that is, about how it looks). It's a thing that happens in the process of taking polyphony and transforming or arranging it unto one instrument; it's less related to the composition.
BTW, if I am not wrong - Jimmy Hendrix didn't know to read notes ... so, this would not be a difficult "challenge" for him !..... ;-)
Elam, could you please make a video on the most confusing aspects of mensural notation? The several figures, the tempus, prolatio, perfectus, imperfectus, the circles, broken circles, circles with a dot, etc.. I’m trying to read the treatises but it is still difficult!
I did, and I hope it'll help you:
ruclips.net/video/otgXoa8QEWg/видео.html
Diminution are like blues runs nowadays 😛
delle dame or delle donne?
Incredibly interesting, great transparency with the footnotes as always, just great. Also the editing is superb and I personally like it much more that you use mostly cut-outs from Renaissance paintings as illustrations and memes, and less famous comics. It makes it more professional, more your own thing, timeless, not like trying to appeal to present day pop culture. These Videos will also be great in 15 years and then the Rick and Morty cut-outs might seem out of place, I think.