Musica reservata ( Italian: reservata secret, secret, reserved) is a term applied to a special kind of (complex, sophisticated) music, intended for connoisseurs, for “initiates”. It is used in Italian (mainly) and Latin written monuments (notes, musical-theoretical treatises, epistolary, etc.) of the second half of the 16th - the first third of the 17th centuries.
Brief
For the first time appears in the title of the collection of motets by Adrian Petit Kokliko (Coclico) - “Consolationes piae ex psalmis Davidicis” (“Gracious consolations [taken] from the psalms of the David”, Nuremberg , 1552), and then in his same preface to the “Music Compendium” (“Compendium musices”) - to describe the music of Zhosken and his followers, as opposed to the music of the previous period ( Okegem , Obrecht , Izak ); then in the letters of Dr. Zeld (GS Seld) to the Duke of Bavaria Albrecht V , which date back to 1555; with Vicentino in the treatise "Ancient music brought to modern practice" ("L'antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica", Rome , 1555); on the title page of Vincenzo Ruffo's “New Works entitled Heavenly Music”; in the Preface to the Introduction to Astrology by the astrologer and mathematician Jean Tenier (Astrologiae iudiciariae ysagogica Jean Taisniers, 1599). A detailed description of musica reservata was given by Samuel Quickelberg (S.Quickelberg) in the commentary on the “Penitent Psalms” by Lasso (1560); the title of musico reservato stands for Italian violinist and composer Biagio Marini, where he is most likely referred to as a “reservato” soloist.
Such a diverse use of the term indicates its widespread use in this era. The four values of musica reservata are the most important:
- New types of composition, primarily chromaticity , which became madrigals and motets in the 1550s;
- The use of musical rhetorical figures that display verbal text;
- The manner of performance, with additional decorations or other emotional methods (including melismatics, variation with the help of dimination, the so-called. Note negre);
- Music for connoisseurs, for initiates who can truly appreciate it. On this occasion, Vicentino wrote:
[Many gentlemen and people of noble birth, especially in the glorious city of Ferrara, where I am now], really understand that (as ancient writers testify) chromatic and enharmonic music was deservedly reserved ( riserbata ) for other uses than diatonic music; the first - in public festivities in public places - was intended for the ears of ordinary people, the second - in the private pastime of gentlemen and princes - was intended for subtle hearing and was performed in honor of outstanding personalities and heroes ” [1] .
- Vicentino. Prattica I, 4
The concept of musica reservata is closely related to the characteristic of mannerism , but the term “mannerism” defines the style of the late Renaissance and is used only by analogy in music, and musica reservata is a specific term (and phenomenon) that refers only to music ; mannerism extends to different eras, being, as a rule, the end of a period, and musica reservata indicates a specific historical period (2nd half of the 16th century).
Notes
- ↑ [...] perche con effetto comprendono che (come li scrittori antichi dimostrano) era meritamente ad altro uso la Cromatica & Enarmonica Musica riserbata che la Diatonica, perche questa in feste publiche in luoghi communi à uso delle vulgari orecava siant fra li privati sollazzi de Signori e Principi, ad uso delle purgate orecchie in lode di gran personaggi et Heroi s'adoperavano.
Literature
- Musical aesthetics of the Western European Middle Ages and Renaissance (translations of fragments of treatises into Russian) / Comp. and introductory article by V.P. Shestakova). M., 1966.
- Meier B. Musica reservata // MGG 1.
- Maniates MR Mannerism in Italian music and culture, 1530–1630. Manchester (NC), 1979.
- Vicentino N. L'antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica. Roma, Antonio Barre, 1555.