Event Program

The Seicento, simply defined, is the Italian word for the seventeenth century. In cultural terms, though, it refers to a period defined by scientific advancement, philosophical exploration, and mechanical and artistic adventure. In music, composers began to shift away from strict note-against-note counterpoint and began to experiment with contrasting dynamics, drastic changes in tempo, and the wild world of dissonance. Referred to as the stile moderno, or the “modern style,” the resulting music opened up new vistas of emotional expressivity and technical virtuosity.

The stile moderno was coined by Giulio Caccini, a voice pedagogue whose famous teaching manual Le Nuove Musiche marked a turning point in vocal style. Prior to this work, singers and instrumentalists used diminutions—the practice of improvising or ornamenting a pre-composed melody by breaking longer notes into shorter ones—to enhance the music. In diminutions, ornaments are long, fast-moving, and fluid, evoking the shapes of hills and valleys. A beautiful example of this is Giovanni Bassano’s diminution on Cipriano de Rore’s haunting chanson Ancor che col partire. Caccini moved away from these flowing passaggi and introduced shorter ornaments called graces. The modern style used these graces to emphasize the emotional impact of a work. This is wonderfully demonstrated in the famous aria Amarilli mia bella.

Other composers were exploring new ways of using the expressive capabilities of instruments. The trombone had already been popular since the late fifteenth century because of its technologically advanced double slide. Since there were no keys or valves yet, the slide made the trombone the only brass instrument of its time capable of spontaneously adjusting to any note, pitch, or temperament. As a result, trombonists were included in nearly every type of ensemble through the seventeenth century, from vocal consorts to chamber music, and composers made no distinction between the virtuosic capabilities of the slide, the bow, or the human voice. This is perhaps no better illustrated than in the music of Dario Castello, whose flashy sonatas push the player to extremes of technique and emotional expression.

The violin, by contrast, was a new player on the scene. Until the seventeenth century, the cornetto—an instrument made of wood with a cup-shaped mouthpiece and holes like a recorder—was the star of the show. However, composers such as Biagio Marini wrote music that brought the violin into the forefront of the new instrumental style. His works require the violinist to explore new techniques such as double-stops, or the practice of playing two notes at once. The ambitious Sonata quarta demonstrates many of Marini’s violin innovations, as does the more conservative duet for violin and trombone by his uncle, Giacinto Bondioli.

Rebecca Cypess, whose scholarly work has profoundly influenced modern performances of this music, has noted that even these newer instrumental techniques are rooted in vocal practice—indeed, that the vocal ornaments and graces used to express profound emotion are paralleled in instrumental music. Examples of this overlap can be found in Francesco Rognoni Taeggio’s diminution Canzon del Mortara detta la Porcia, the only solo diminution based on an instrumental work; Angelo Notari’s Girate occhi, girate a miei, a spritely canzonetta for two soprano voices performed with soprano and violin; and Pietro Andrea Ziani’s Exultate gaudete, a sacred vocal duet performed with voice and trombone.

Keyboardists played a major role in the Seicento. Perhaps the most versatile musicians of all, they appeared as soloists, accompanists, and basso continuo players in various capacities throughout Italy and beyond. The foundation of the ensemble, keyboardists would play the lowest note of the music along with its harmonic accompaniment. At the turn of the seventeenth century and after, organists and harpsichordists played a crucial part in accompanying the new monodic style—that same style as expressed by Caccini in Amarilli mia bella. Much of this playing was improvisatory—an observer would only see a single line of music, sometimes punctuated by figured bass numbers. Keyboardists also joined their instrumental counterparts in expressive and virtuosic playing. This included variations on popular melodies, such as Peter Philips’s variations on Amarilli mia bella, and the toccata genre, magnified by the innovative composer Girolamo Frescobaldi. Frescobaldi epitomized the inventiveness of the stile moderno. As noted by scholar Alexander Silbiger, he took traditional forms and “played with them, confronted them, crossed them, recreated them, and turned them upside down.” Toccata prima is just the start of his vast collection of surviving works.

Jubilate Deo, by Milanese nun Claudia Francesca Rusca, brings all of these elements together. The trombone joins the keyboard to become part of the continuo section, the soprano voice weaves beautiful textual lines, and the violin plays a virtuosic obligato line to enhance the vocal text. The music communicates, for all its playful inventiveness, an ornate yet refined beauty that will eventually herald the high Baroque era.