Vincenzo Galilei Drags Geoseffo Zarlino

Della musica antica et della moderna   1581

In which Galelei anchors in Greek monody v the polyphony of Zarlino

Source: Wikipedia

Born on 3 April 1520 in Tuscany, Italy, Vincenzo Galilei was a lute player and music theorist bridging the latter Renaissance to early baroque in which he was a major influence. He was largely a secular composer of polyphonic songs, ricercari, madrigals, fantasias, passamezzos, romanescas, saltarellos, gagliardas, arias and tunes for lute, et al. Galilei was also a member of the Florentine Camerata, a group of Renaissance intellectuals amongst which he was critical of counterpoint as it had come to be addressed by popular composers at the time, and emphasized a return to Greek monody on scholastic and scientific grounds, the latter per studies in acoustics such as the mathematics of string vibrations.

The lute was the darling of medieval secular music as compared to the organ of sacred. The instrument dates back to about 3100 BC Mesopotamia and is related to the Arabian oud ("wood") via which it entered into European culture. Preceding the guitar, lutes were originally fretless. Though Galilei is thought to have played lute from an early age, next to nothing else is known about his youth. He is thought to have married into an aristocratic family some time before 1562. It was 1563 when he went to Venice to study with music theorist, Geoseffo Zarlino (1517-90), with whose conservative polyphonic methods he would later raise plaint as he became the more convinced that true music was in greater study of Greek antiquity together with acoustics. Zarlino's latter works heading toward baroque are too obscure to sample, but as he is chief among complaints that Galilei had among his contemporaries, it may be well to present a few samples of earlier Zarlino during the mid to latter Renaissance below:

'Nigra Sum'   Motet a 5 by Geoseffo Zarlino   1549

Setting for 'Song of Songs 1:4-6'

Ensemble Plus Ultra

'Bicinium Primo Modo'   Bicinium (composition a 2) by Geoseffo Zarlino

From Part IV of 'Le Istitutioni Harmoniche' pub in Venice 1558

Ensemble Ancor

'O quam gloriosum' ('O How Glorious')   Motet a 6 by Geoseffo Zarlino

No.13 of 'Modulationes sex vocum' pub in Venice 1566

Corvina Consort w Dodecachordon

'Pater noster' ('Our Father')   Motet a 7 by Geoseffo Zarlino

No.23 of 'Modulationes sex vocum' pub in Venice 1566

Grupo Vocal Solo Voces

'Doppia Consequenza' ('Double Consequence')   Geoseffo Zarlino

From 'Le Istitutioni Harmoniche' pub 1573

Calvin Ransom

Galilei had published his first volume of music in 1563, 'Intavolature de Lauto' ('Lute Tablature'), the same year he began studies under Zarlino. Also referred to as Galilei's 'First Book of Lute Music', that edition contains 24 polyphonic songs for voice and 6 ricercari. Wikipedia has tablature, as compared to standard notation, emerging in Germany not for string instruments, but organ, about 1300, a little later than the emergence of the four and five line staff (stave) in Italy. Galilei arrived to a second edition of ''Intavolature de Lauto' in 1584. 'Calliope' below seems to present that gagliarda from the 1563 edition. The aria below that, 'La Caccia', is from the 1584 edition following Galilei's major study including Greek monody called 'Dialogo della musica antica et della moderna' published in 1581.

'Calliope'   Gagliarda by Vincenzo Galilei

From 'Libro d'Intavolatura de Lauto' pub in Rome 1563

Lute: Valery Sauvage

'La Caccia'   Aria by Vincenzo Galilei

From 'Libro d'Intavolatura de Lauto' of 1584

Lute: Valery Sauvage

Galilei was 44 years of age in 1564 when his contemporary, Michelangelo, sculptor of the high Renaissance died. That same year his wife gave birth to the first of six children, the astronomer, physicist and engineer, Galileo Galilei on 15 February. Galileo also played lute. Galilei's first edition of 'Fronimo Dialogo' ('Wise Dialogue') appeared in 1568, his second book treating tablature containing 95 polyphonic songs, 8 ricercari, 8 fantasias and a duo. A second edition of 'Il Fronimo' would arrive in 1584, again, following his treatise of 1581 calling upon the monody of classical Greece toward a more substantial musical experience than could be supplied by contemporaries like his insufficiently Greek teacher, Zarlino.

'Duo tutti di fantasia'   Vincenzo Galilei

From 'Fronimo Dialogo' of 1584

Lutes: Thierry Meunier & Jean-Marie Poirier

Galilei's 'Primo libro di Madrigali a 4 e a 5 voci' saw print in 1574. His second edition would appear in 1587. Another of Galilei's sons was composer and lutenist, Michelagnolo Galilei, born in 1575. As mentioned above, Vincenzo's major treatise, 'Dialogo della music a antics et della modern', appeared in 1581 in which he raised multiple issues with methods by Zarlino which he thought superficial, broadly explained as missing a firm comprehension of Greek music. Dedicated to Count Giovanni Bardi of Vernio, this carried forth the torch which was the humanist ideal during the Renaissance and of which such as Zarlino were wayward in Galilei's estimation. If Europe had become Greece all over again (excepting democracy), in music Vincenzo's arguments drew from harmony as understood by schools of Pythagoras, Aristotle and Ptolemy while addressing such as consonance, dissonance, temperament and modes. For Galilei, reason itself was of essence in the experience of true music, Zarlino's hegemonic contributions toward baroque counterpoint esteemed as but clever manipulations of polyphony. Zarlino's response to Galilei's criticisms appeared in 'Sopplimenti musicali' in 1588. He, too, had studied Aristotle and Plato, only not to Galilei's results.

As mentioned, second editions of 'Intavolatura de Lauto' and 'Fronimo Dialogo' appeared in 1584. Galilei was hardly inimical to counterpoint itself, only means of achieving it, like Zarlino's, which failed the real spirit of Greek music. Galilei wrote numerous contrapuntal works including fugues. It was also 1584 when Giorgio Marescotti published Galilei's 'Contrapunti a Due Voci' in Florence, that containing 29 pieces.

'Contrapunto Primo'   Vincenzo Galilei

From 'Fronimo Dialogo' of 1584

Lutes: Thierry Meunier & Jean-Marie Poirier

'Contrapunto Secondo'   Vincenzo Galilei

From 'Fronimo Dialogo' of 1584

Dulciana: Paolo Tognon   Lute: Pier Luigi Polato

Come Galilei's second volume of 'Madrigali a 4 e a 5 voci' in 1587. 'Discorso intorno all'opere di messer Gioseffo Zarlino' arrived in 1589, dedicated to the same Zarlino whom he was in the habit of roasting. Galilei died on 2 July 1591, his career an attempt to discourage forces heading toward baroque counterpoint without due grasp of the past in Greek harmonics and of the future in acoustic science. His return to Greek monody would find prestige among baroque composers but a blink ahead with the calendar rolling into the 17th century.