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The Faenza Codex:
The Case for Solo
Organ Revisited
RICHARD ROBINSON
For all that has been written about late-medievalinstruments and instrumental practices, central areas of inquiry remainshrouded in mystery. To some extent, fate has made this situation ines-capable. Although we possess many depictions of instruments, very littleinstrumental music has been preserved; similarly, instruments often sur-vive as fragments or models that were subsequently altered.1 Scholarshave thus often turned elsewhere to fill in evidentiary lacunae, particu-larly in studies on improvisatory and oral traditions that may have dom-inated instrumental practices.2
Yet the picture is not always as obscure as is sometimes assumed.Indeed, once the likely contexts of extant music manuscripts are
I am grateful for the advice of Allan Atlas, David Fallows, AndrewKirkman, Jeremy Llewellyn, Kimberly Marshall, Herbert Myers,Blake Wilson, Peter Wright, and Crawford Young. I am also indebtedto Els Biesemans, Louis Capeille, Veronique Daniels, Flavio Ferri-Benedetti, Annette Gfeller, Johannes Keller, Christopher Klein-henz, Baptiste Romain, David Rumsey, and Ryosuke Sakamoto fortheir help, knowledge, and practical expertise. Manuscript abbrevia-tions follow the sigla as indicated in Appendix 1.
1 Timothy J. McGee, Medieval Instrumental Dances (Bloomington: Indiana UniversityPress, 1990), 1–39; and Frederick Crane, Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A ProvisionalCatalogue by Types (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1972). For a famous medievalinstrument that was later altered, see James Robinson, Naomi Speakman, and KathrynBuehler-McWilliams, eds., The British Museum Citole: New Perspectives (London: BritishMuseum, 2015).
2 For a contentious example of this approach, see Michele Temple, The Middle EasternInfluence on Late Medieval Italian Dances: Origins of the 29987 Istampittas (Lewiston: EdwinMellen Press, 2001). On improvisation, see Ralf Mattes, ‘‘Ornamentation and Improvisa-tion after 1300,’’ in A Performer’s Guide to Medieval Music, ed. Ross W. Duffin (Bloomington:Indiana University Press, 2000), 470–81.
610
The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 34, Issue 4, pp. 610–646, ISSN 0277-9269, electronic ISSN 1533-8347. © 2017by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permissionto photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Reprints and Permis-sions web page, www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/JM.2017.34.4.610
established, uncertainties surrounding them begin to dissipate, such astheir probable function, instrumentation, and relationship to other con-temporary music. No source exemplifies this situation more clearly thanthe Faenza Codex (FaenBC 117; henceforth Faenza), an Italian manu-script containing the largest surviving collection of instrumental musicfrom before 1450. Previous attempts to solve this manuscript’s instru-mentation have been largely hampered by a misunderstanding of itscontext.3 As a result, scholars now generally assume that Faenza wasintended for multiple purposes and various instruments.4
A reconsideration of Faenza challenges several stubbornly held as-sumptions about medieval music, particularly the idea of a clear divisionbetween sacred and secular repertoire and the belief that intention wasalien to medieval musicians. On a broader level, such an investigationalso contributes to the study of performing traditions and instrumentdevelopment. More precisely, a re-examination of Faenza confirms a the-ory first advanced by Dragan Plamenac in 1951: that its intabulations areintended for solo organ.5
Repertoire and Context Reconsidered
Faenza’s two-voice intabulations, many of which are based on knownpolyphonic compositions, are written in trecento-style mensural notationin score format. The manuscript was probably used in performance,a hypothesis supported by the recent discovery of wear to certain folios;it may have originated in a monastery ca. 1400–25 in the Veneto, perhapsin Padua, Venice, Brescia, or Verona.6
The presence of alternatim mass movements and liturgical pieces inFaenza has led some scholars to conclude that the codex ‘‘must havebeen intended for the organ.’’7 Evidence for this theory, and for the
3 This scholarship is summarized in Pedro Memelsdorff, The Codex Faenza 117:Instrumental Polyphony in Late Medieval Italy, Introductory Study and Facsimile Edition, 2 vols.(Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 2013), 1:21–25.
4 Giuliano Di Bacco, De muris e gli altri. Sulla tradizione di un trattato trecentesco di con-trappunto (Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 1996/2001), 87; Timothy J. McGee, ‘‘UntextedRepertoire,’’ in A Performer’s Guide to Medieval Music, ed. Ross W. Duffin (Bloomington:Indiana University Press, 2000), 448–53, at 451; Kristin Holton Prouty, The Italian OrganMass: Bridging the Gap between Faenza Codex (c.1430) and Fiori musicali (1635) (D.M.A. diss.,Arizona State University, 2015), 8.
5 Dragan Plamenac, ‘‘Keyboard Music of the 14th Century in Codex Faenza 117,’’Journal of the American Musicological Society 4 (1951): 179–201.
6 Memelsdorff, The Codex Faenza, 1:77–79, 141–62.7 Howard Mayer Brown, ‘‘The Trecento Harp,’’ in Studies in the Performance of Late
Mediaeval Music, ed. Stanley Boorman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 35–73, at 56n62.
robinson
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organ’s demonstrable role in the liturgy, is extensive and widespread.8 Byca. 1400, organ alternatim performance was common and several Italiansources refer to it, in stark contrast to the absence of evidence for otherinstruments.9
Yet as other scholars have observed, Faenza’s repertory is ‘‘over-whelmingly secular,’’ with only thirteen ‘‘sacred’’ pieces out of fifty over-all.10 Even proponents of the solo organ theory have assumed thatFaenza includes music for two contexts, liturgical and non-liturgical.11
This idea of distinct collections within Faenza still persists12 and partiallyexplains the instruments chosen for recordings of this repertoire:indeed, some performers offer this justification explicitly.13
At first glance, this secular-sacred objection seems logical. Yet there isin fact considerable evidence testifying to the widespread liturgical use ofsecular music, as recent research has demonstrated.14 In particular, evi-dence from northern Italian regions—where Faenza originated—deservesattention. A well-known passage in sonnets 28 and 29 of Il Saporetto (ca.1415) by Simone Prodenzani describes organ performance of secularmusic during a Vespers service for Christmas Eve. The relevance of these
8 This has remained the consensus since the 1950s; see Otto Gombosi, ‘‘About OrganPlaying in the Divine Service, circa 1500,’’ in Essays on Music in Honor of Archibald ThompsonDavison by his Associates, ed. Randall Thompson (Cambridge, MA: Department of Music,Harvard University, 1957): 51–68; Edmund A. Bowles, ‘‘Were Musical Instruments Used inthe Liturgical Service during the Middle Ages?,’’ Galpin Society Journal 10 (1957): 40–56; andJohn Caldwell, ‘‘The Organ in Medieval Latin Liturgy, 800–1500,’’ Proceedings of the RoyalMusical Association 93 (1966/67): 11–24.
9 Peter Williams, A New History of the Organ: From the Greeks to the Present Day (Bloo-mington: Indiana University Press, 1980), 49; Ettore Li Gotti, ‘‘Il Piu Antico Polifonista Ita-liano del Sec. XIV,’’ Italica 24 (1947): 196–200, at 198n7; Caldwell, ‘‘The Organ in MedievalLatin Liturgy,’’ 18; and Frank A. D’Accone, The Civic Muse: Music and Musicians in Siena duringthe Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 197.
10 Timothy McGee, ‘‘Once again, the Faenza Codex: a Reply to Roland Eberlein,’’Early Music 20 (1992): 466–68, at 467.
11 Roland Eberlein, ‘‘The Faenza Codex: Music for Organ or for Lute Duet?,’’ EarlyMusic 20 (1992): 461–66, at 463.
12 Memelsdorff, The Codex Faenza, 1:54 (Table 6), 78–79; and Victor Coelho and KeithPolk, Instrumentalists and Renaissance Culture, 1420–1600: Players of Function and Fantasy(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 64–66.
13 For example, see Marcel Peres, liner notes for Codex Faenza, Italie, XVe siecle,Ensemble Organum, dir. Marcel Peres, Harmonia Mundi HMC 901354, 1991, compactdisc: 2–5, at 2. I have consulted ninety-three commercial recordings of Faenza intabulationsspanning the years 1957–2015; many of these appear in Todd Michel McComb’s CD indexon Early Music FAQ (http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/), accessed 5 August 2016. Of thoseconsulted, a mere thirteen treat the intabulations as solo organ music. Only three of theremaining eighty include a solo organ track; sixty-six present the intabulations as ensemblemusic.
14 Andrew Kirkman, The Cultural Life of the Early Polyphonic Mass: Medieval Context toModern Revival (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 135–64, 177–207. I amgrateful to Andrew Kirkman for his lucid and insightful comments on this aspect of myresearch.
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612
sonnets for Faenza has been noted before, but not their full implica-tions.15 This service was, of course, unique within the liturgical calendar;similarly, the alphabetical listing of pieces in sonnet 29 may also suggestthat these were taken from a no-longer-extant collection primarily forreasons of scansion and rhyme (not musical criteria).16 Yet most crucially,Prodenzani clearly deemed organ performance of secular pieces asentirely appropriate for this liturgical context:
(28)
La vigilia a lo Vesper(o) tuctifuoro
At Vespers that evening allassembled
(Che fu ’l Natal(e) di puoi assaisollenne)
(it was the solemn feast ofChristmas Eve)
La dove li cantor ciaschedunvenne,
where each of the singers came,
Tal per sonare et chi per stare incoro.
some to play and some to sing in thechoir.
Solaco nel principio fe’ dimoro At the beginning, Il Sollazzo stoodCon tenoristi e ’l biscantar
sostenne;with the tenoristi and supported the
discant;Puoi de sonar gli orgheni gli
convenne,then, he was obliged to play the
organ,Che pregato ne fo da tucti loro. for he had been begged to do so by
all.Nulla stampita ivi fo intesa, No stampita was heard there,Se none eclesiastici ordinarii, but rather the usual ecclesiastical
music,Si come antifane et altri suon di
ghiesa:such as antiphons and other church
tunes:Criste redemptor a maniere varii, Criste redemptor in various ways,Magnifica di puoi a la distesa, Magnificat next without
interruption,Benedicamo et puoi de’ suoni ylarii, Benedicamo and then some joyful
melodies,
15 F. Alberto Gallo, Music of the Middle Ages II, trans. Karen Eales (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1985), 71–74; Brown, ‘‘The Trecento Harp,’’ 56n62; MarySpringfels, ‘‘The Vielle after 1300,’’ in A Performer’s Guide to Medieval Music, ed. Ross W.Duffin (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), 302–16.
16 John Nadas, ‘‘A Cautious Reading of Simone Prodenzani’s Il Saporetto,’’ Recercare 10(1998): 23–37, at 28.
robinson
613
(29)
Come quel che se chiama Albacolumba.
Like the one called Alba columba.
Da puoi vi fece su Doi angilette, Next he did Doi angilette,Le aurate chiome ancor vi mette, Le aurate chiome and finally,L’arpa di melodia vi fece
insomma.L’arpa di melodia was performed.
Ben v’imprometto per ghiesarimbomba,
I can promise you the churchresounded
Quando Li gran disir(e), cumaltre electe
when he played Li gran disir(e) andother
Suoni vi fece, che mai nonristette,
musical selections without a pause,
Come quel che n’avia piena lagiomba.
like a man who has a full giomba.
Fecive ancora Maria virgo Dei Next he did Maria virgo DeiCon Pater alme et puoi fe’
Sacrosancto,with Pater alme and then he did
SacrosanctoPer modo tal che creso non
l’arei;so well that I would never have
believed itSe non ch’io v’era, et odilgli dar
vantoif I hadn’t been there and heard him
praised:Che ’n tucto ‘l mondo eran men
di seiin all the world there are fewer than
sixChe sı gram mastro fosse in
suoni e ’n canto.who were such great masters in
playing and singing.17
The secular pieces listed here are the madrigals Alba columba, Le auratechiome, and possibly La sacrosanta carita by Bartolino da Padova; the bal-lade Le grant desir by Matteo da Perugia; the virelai La harpe de melodie byJacob de Senleches; and possibly the anonymous madrigal Du’ ancoliti.18
17 Santorre Debenedetti, Il ‘‘Sollazzo’’ e Il ‘‘Saporetto’’ con altre rime di Simone Prudenzanid’Orvieto, Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, Supplemento 15 (Turin: E. Loe-scher, 1913), 91–121, at 106–7. I am grateful to Christopher Kleinhenz for sharing withme an unpublished translation (made with Paul Gehl) and for clarifying certain details inthe text. The organ frequently appears in the plural form in medieval sources, as here(‘‘orgheni,’’ sonnet 28, line 7). This does not indicate multiple organs: contemporaryItalian payments to a single cathedral organist frequently speak of ‘‘sonatore delgli or-ghani’’; for example, see D’Accone, The Civic Muse, 753–54. This standard Europeanconvention was explained by Konrad von Megenberg in his Yconomica (1348–52) as re-flecting the organ’s multitude of sounds and pipes; see Christopher Page, ‘‘GermanMusicians and their Instruments: A Fourteenth Century Account by Konrad of Megen-berg,’’ Early Music 10 (1982): 192–200, at 193.
18 See Leo Schrade, ed., Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century (Monaco: Editions deL’Oiseau-Lyre, 1956–91), vols. 8, 9, 19, and 20.
the journal of musicology
614
This mixture of French and Italian songs closely parallels Faenza’scontents, which include intabulations of two ballades by Guillaume deMachaut and one by Pierre des Molins; two ballatas by Antonio Zacara daTeramo and two by Francesco Landini; and three madrigals by Bartolinoda Padova alongside five by Jacopo da Bologna, among others.19 Further-more, Faenza preserves two istampittas, one of which bears a title thatperhaps even suggests organ performance, in addition to two Benedica-mus Domino settings and three Magnificats.20
Alongside Il Saporetto, liturgical organ performance of secular songsin northern Italy is documented in Summa theologica by Fra AntoninoPierozzi (St. Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence; 1389–1459), completedshortly before his death and based on the eponymous work bySt. Thomas Aquinas. St. Antoninus here condemns the singing of ‘‘songsor ballatas’’ in the Office as well as their frequent performance on theorgan:
Pr[a]ecipue aut[em] redarguendu[m] est in officiis divinis : ibi miscericantiones seu ballatas & verba vana : contra q[uod] etia[m] Hiero[ny-mus] invehit : di[stinctio]. 92. canta[n]tes. Sed & pulsatio organo[rum]vel alio[rum] instrumento[rum] ad diuinam laude[m] initium virtutishabuisse a propheta dauid : qui non solum cantores instituit in cultutempli seu tabernaculi : sed & ip[s]e etia[m] ante archa[m] dominipulsabat in psalterio vel organis : vt habetur 2. R[e]g. 6. & i[n] ps[almo]vlt[imo]. Laudate eu[m] i[n] tympano & choro : & c. pulsare ergo i[n]organis v[e]l aliis ad dei laudem: non est p[ro]hibitu[m] : & iusterecipiunt salariu[m] pulsantes : tamen pulsare ballatas : vt freque[n]terfit : valde detestabile est.
However, what must be particularly condemned is, in the Divine Of-fices, the mixing there of songs or ballatas and false words, againstwhich [St.] Jerome likewise inveighs in Distinctio 92: Cantantes. And yet
19 See Michael Kugler, Die Tastenmusik im Codex Faenza (Tutzing: Hans Schneider,1972), Notenteil V–XXV; and Memelsdorff, The Codex Faenza, 1:184–97.
20 Tupes, fols. 52v–54r; [No. 23: Untitled], fols. 54r–56r; see John Caldwell, ‘‘Twopolyphonic Istampite from the 14th century,’’ Early Music 18 (1990): 371–80. The Bene-dicamus Domino settings appear on fols. 57r–58r and 97r–97v, the Magnificat settings onfols. 95r–96v. The unexplained title Tupes (¼Tumpes) resembles the word ‘‘trompes,’’ i.e.,the large bourdon pipes found on organs across Europe from the 1380s onwards (knownItalian examples are slightly later); see Gabriele Giacomelli, ‘‘Fifteenth-Century Pipe Or-gans and Organists at Florence Cathedral,’’ in Make a Joyful Noise: Renaissance Art and Musicat Florence Cathedral, ed. Gary M. Radke et al. (London: Yale University Press, 2014), 53–61.The term ‘‘trompes’’ is of uncertain origin and occurs in French organ contracts from 1432onwards; see Kimberly Marshall, ‘‘Bourdon Pipes on Late-Medieval Organs,’’ The OrganYearbook 18 (1987): 5–33, at 28–30. Although Tupes may also be a corruption of estampie/istampitta, Italian sources usually refer to ‘‘stampita’’; see Kees Vellekoop, ‘‘Die Estampie:Ihre Besetzung und Funktion,’’ Basler Jahrbuch fur historische Musikpraxis 8 (1984): 51–65, at59–60.
robinson
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the playing of the organ or other instruments for divine praise [is said]to have had the origin of its virtue from the prophet David, who not onlyappointed singers in temple or tabernacle worship, but also played onthe psalterio or organ himself before the ark [of the covenant] of theLord: as is found in 2 Kings 6 and in the last psalm [150:4]: ‘‘Praise himwith timbrel and choir,’’ etc. Therefore playing on the organ or other[instruments] in the praise of God is not prohibited, and those who playrightly accept a salary; however, playing ballatas, as often happens, isvery abominable.21
Contemporary Italian references to secular music on an organ—this timeoutside the liturgy—also occur in sonnet 32 of Il Saporetto and in a letterfrom Teodoro da Montefeltro to the Marchesa Barbara of Brandenburg(1422–81).22 It is clear from these varied sources that Italian organ musicincluded secular repertoire, both within and outside the liturgy.
Alongside references to a solo organ playing secular music in litur-gical contexts, several sources document secular song in the liturgyacross Europe, including a prohibition against such usage by the firstVenetian patriarch, St. Lorenzo Giustiniani, in 1451.23 Given the influ-ence of French music on contemporary Italian polyphony,24 one of thesesources deserves particular attention: the inventory of books used in theducal chapel services, taken in 1420, a year after the death of John II(‘‘the Fearless’’), Duke of Burgundy. This inventory includes an entry forthree books that each contained sacred and secular polyphony, one ofwhich had ‘‘Motez, Patrens, Virelaiz, Balades et autre choses, ou l’enchantoit aux grans festes en la chapelle.’’25 The second of these books,ParisBNN 23190, has partially survived: its index includes Machaut’s Detoutes flours and Honte, paour ; Pierre des Molins’s De ce que fol; and theanonymous rondeaux Jour a jo[ur] la vie and J’ay grant [desespoir], all ofwhich are intabulated in Faenza.26
21 Antoninus Florentinus, Summa Theologica, 4 vols. (Graz: Akademische Druck- undVerlagsanstalt, 1959): 3, Title 8, Chapter 4: ‘‘De musicis’’; the translation is mine. See Gallo,Music of the Middle Ages II, 75; and Kirkman, The Cultural Life of the Early Polyphonic Mass, 243–44.
22 Debenedetti, Il ‘‘Sollazzo,’’ 109; and William F. Prizer, ‘‘Games of Venus: SecularVocal Music in the Late Quattrocento and Early Cinquecento,’’ Journal of Musicology 9(1991): 3–56, at 54.
23 Cited in Giulio Cattin, ‘‘Church Patronage of Music in Fifteenth-Century Italy,’’ inMusic in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Patronage, Sources and Texts, ed. Iain Fenlon(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 21–36, at 31.
24 See Anne Hallmark, ‘‘Some Evidence for French Influence in Northern Italy,c.1400,’’ in Studies in the Performance of Late Mediaeval Music, ed. Stanley Boorman (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 193–225.
25 Kirkman, The Cultural Life of the Early Polyphonic Mass, 245, translated at 151:‘‘motets, Patrems, virelais, ballades, and other things, from which one sang in the chapel onthe great feast days.’’
26 Ibid., 152–59. ParisBNN 23190: Pierre des Molins, De ce que fol (fols. 12v–13r);Machaut, De toutes flours (fols. 12v–13r) and Honte, paour (fol. 30v); Jour a jo[ur] la vie (fols.
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616
It is thus clear that the Faenza intabulations should be understoodwithin the context of evidence for the liturgical use of secular music inItaly. This evidence includes a number of sacred contrafacts that aredirectly based on secular models. Although known to scholars for dec-ades, these contrafacts have been overlooked in previous studies onFaenza.27 Two ballatas intabulated in Faenza—Zacara’s Rosetta che noncanci mai colore and Un fior gentil—were reworked as Glorias, directlylinking the secular context (ballata) and the sacred (Gloria/intabula-tion).28 Alongside several Italian mass movements based on ballatas,other sacred works on Italian secular songs exist in sources from Italyand beyond (tables 1 and 2).29 Landini’s ballata Questa fanciull’amor en-joyed particular fame, appearing in Italian and European sources withseveral sacred texts and also surviving in an intabulation.30 Three furthersecular pieces intabulated in Faenza—Jour a jour la vie, Aspre refus, andA discort sont desir et esperance—appear in Central European sources withsacred texts (table 3).31
In this context, the vast corpus of laudas in the cantasi come traditiondating from the late trecento onwards is also relevant.32 Among these arereworkings of two songs that also appear in Faenza: the ballata Deduto seya quel che mai, attributed to Johannes Ciconia, and Jacopo da Bologna’smadrigal Non al suo amante (table 3).33
The combination of numerous relevant contrafacts and evidence oforganists playing secular music in church in northern Italy clearly chal-lenges the assumption that Faenza includes music for two different,non-overlapping contexts: sacred and secular. Taken together, this evi-dence adds considerable weight to the solo organ theory, since only this
-30v–31r); and J’ay grant [desespoir] (fol. 32r). For details of the Faenza intabulations, seeMemelsdorff, The Codex Faenza, 1:184–97.
27 Schrade, Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century. The subject of contrafacts iscomplex; for an overview, see Christoph Petzsch, ‘‘Geistliche Kontrafakta des spaten Mit-telalters,’’ Archiv fur Musikwissenschaft 25 (1968): 19–29; and Kurt von Fischer, ‘‘The SacredPolyphony of the Italian Trecento,’’ Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 100 (1973–74):143–57.
28 See Michael Scott Cuthbert and Elizabeth Nyikos, ‘‘Style, Locality, and the Tre-cento Gloria: New Sources, and a Reexamination,’’ Acta Musicologica 82 (2010): 185–212, at187–90.
29 I am grateful to David Fallows (personal communication) for adding the Credo‘‘Scabioso’’ in BolC Q15, fols. 69v–72r.
30 It was also refashioned by Oswald von Wolkenstein with the secular text Mein herzdas ist versert (VienNB 2777, fol. 30r). On MunBS Lat. 14274, see Ian Rumbold and PeterWright, Hermann Potzlinger’s Music Book: The St Emmeram Codex and its Contexts (Woodbridge:Boydell, 2009).
31 See Memelsdorff, The Codex Faenza, 1:184–97.32 See Blake Wilson, ‘‘Song Collections in Renaissance Florence: The cantasi come
Tradition and Its Manuscript Sources,’’ Recercare 10 (1998): 69–104, at 72.33 Ibid., 73–76. Memelsdorff, The Codex Faenza, 1:190–91, attributes Deduto sey to
Zacara.
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the journal of musicology
620
instrument can be connected to alternatim mass settings, of which Faen-za preserves three.34
The Case for Solo Organ Reconsidered: Practical Issues
The thirty-two note compass of the Faenza intabulations—(B �–f2)—mustfirst of all be compared with fifteenth-century Italian organ ranges.Although sparse, surviving information indicates that the intabulationsfit such organs. The organ of SS. Annunziata in Florence, built in 1379 byFra Domenico da Siena—the only known pre-1450 Italian compass—possessed forty-one manual keys and twelve pedal keys coupled to themanual’s lowest notes.35 Although the exact notes are unknown, thisinstrument’s compass is a good deal wider than Faenza’s intabulations.36
Unsurprisingly, the earliest precise pitches that survive for an Italianorgan—Lorenzo (di Jacopo) da Prato’s organ in San Petronio in Bologna(built 1471–75), which had fifty notes (FGA–g3–a3) and a pedal probablyof seventeen notes—also easily accommodate the Faenza intabulations.37
Several further characteristics of Faenza seem to support the solo-organ theory. For example, the combination of its average folio size withevidence of wear on certain folios (probably from use in performance)suggests small (or solo) forces.38 Similarly, the score format and sporadic‘‘chords’’ in both staves suggest a polyphonic instrument.39 It is mostunlikely that score format was used simply to aid ensemble playing;indeed, many other trecento pieces written in separate parts (i.e., not inscore) require multiple voices to coordinate far more complex rhythms.40
More importantly, with respect to the performance of medieval instru-mental music written in score format, there is no evidence to exclude soloorgan.41 Likewise, the appearance of chords in both staves in sacred and
34 The alternatim mass pairs occur on fols. 2v–5r, 26r–26v, 62r–62v, and 88r–92v.35 Renato Lunelli, Der Orgelbau in Italien (Mainz: Rheingold-Verlag, 1956), 49–51.36 See Eberlein, ‘‘The Faenza Codex,’’ 462–63; and Richard Paul Benedum, Orna-
mentation in the Secular Keyboard Music of the Faenza Codex (Ph.D. diss., University of Oregon,1972), 53.
37 David Kinsela, ‘‘A Taxonomy of Renaissance Keyboard Compass,’’ Galpin SocietyJournal 54 (2001): 352–96, at 365. Peter Williams and Barbara Owen cite fifty-one notes anda compass of F1G1A1–a2 in The New Grove: Organ (London: Macmillan, 1980/1988), at 210.
38 See Memelsdorff, The Codex Faenza, 1:29, 77–79. The average dimensions are ca.244 x 174 mm.
39 The word ‘‘chord’’ here denotes two or more simultaneously sounding pitches onthe same staff; it is not intended to imply harmonic thinking. The significance of the scorelayout was noted by Plamenac, ‘‘Keyboard Music,’’ 185.
40 For example, see the ballatas Miracolosa toa sembianca and Quando necessita by Bar-tolino da Padova (FlorL Med. Pal. 87, fols. 111v and 107v–108r).
41 Adam Ileborgh’s organ tablature and MunBS 3725—both unambiguously con-nected to organ—have the parts laid over each other (the lower part[s] in tablature). Other
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secular pieces alike in Faenza is significant, since these chords are prob-lematic for most instruments that could represent ‘‘plausible’’ alternativesto the organ.42
Chromatic notes in Faenza may also indicate organ performance.43
With the exception of a single measure, only one inflection per chro-matic note is used in the intabulations:44 three sharps (c�, f�, g�) alongsidetwo flats (b � , e �).45 Unlike the organ, most instruments could play bothinflections for each chromatic note.46
Yet for all of this, Faenza also includes what has been taken asthe main objection to the solo organ theory: ‘‘frequent’’ voice-crossings and unisons, apparently requiring ‘‘awkward and all but impos-sible superimpositions of one hand over the other.’’47 Since the earliest-
contemporary organ manuscripts are discussed below; see also Frederick Crane, ‘‘15th-Century Keyboard Music in Vienna MS 5094,’’ Journal of the American Musicological Society18 (1965): 237–43; and Maria van Daalen and Frank Harrison, ‘‘Two Keyboard Intabula-tions of the Late Fourteenth Century on a Manuscript Leaf Now in the Netherlands,’’Tijdschrift van de Verenigung voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis 34 (1984): 97–108.
42 Modern reconstructions of fiddles played horizontally use tunings based on Trac-tatus de musica (ca. 1280–1300) by Jerome of Moravia, frequently a fifth higher, i.e., a d d1 a1
d2, and have an arched bridge, although he probably has little to do with Italian practice ca.1400–25 (no Italian tunings survive). Whether any Italian fiddle tuning ca. 1400 was suf-ficiently sophisticated to execute all the chords in Faenza seems debatable: followingJerome a fifth higher, ten of the twenty measures with chords are problematic for fiddle;the four measures in Soto limperio del posente prince and Aquila altera where the contratenorappears in red ink on one staff are also problematic. Similarly, of the thirteen measureswith cantus chords, as many as nine were probably too low for organetto (no organettossurvive; iconography provides an extremely tentative guide). Likewise, no known evidencesuggests the lute was played polyphonically, although it is possible to produce the chords inFaenza using the (later) tunings in Liber Viginti Artium (ca. 1460) by Paulus Paulirinus ofPrague. I am indebted to Baptiste Romain and Ryosuke Sakamoto (personal communi-cation) for sharing their practical expertise; see also Geoffrey Bridges, ‘‘Medieval Porta-tives: Some Technical Comments,’’ Galpin Society Journal 44 (1991): 103–16; ChristopherPage, ‘‘The 15th-Century Lute: New and Neglected Sources,’’ Early Music 9 (1981): 11–21;idem, ‘‘Jerome of Moravia on the Rubeba and Viella,’’ Galpin Society Journal 32 (1979):77–98; and Howard Mayer Brown, ‘‘The Trecento Fiddle and Its Bridges,’’ Early Music 17(1989): 308–29. See also appendix 2.
43 I am grateful to Herbert Myers (personal communication) for this observation.44 Measure 92 of [Kyrie (II)], fols. 88r–90r, is an alternatim setting that in any case
clearly links to organ. For the sake of clarity, I use ‘‘measure’’ rather than tempus/temporathroughout this essay. Measure numbers correspond to Dragan Plamenac, ed., KeyboardMusic of the Late Middle Ages in Codex Faenza 117, Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 57 (Dallas:American Institute of Musicology, 1972). With a few minor exceptions (e.g., mm. 1–2 in[Rosetta che non canci (I)], fols. 50v–52r, and mm. 1–2 in O ciecho mondo, fols. 72r–73r),Plamenac’s measure divisions remain faithful to the tempora of the original codex.
45 This observation relates to pitch, not notation. Various symbols are used for � and �in the codex; see Memelsdorff, The Codex Faenza, 1:43.
46 See Karol Berger, Musica Ficta: Theories of Accidental Inflections in Vocal Polyphony fromMarchetto da Padova to Gioseffo Zarlino (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987),48–55, who discusses the preference for g-sharps in keyboard music. This trend is seen inFaenza, where a flats—the preferred inflection of theorists—are totally absent.
47 These quotations are drawn respectively from William Thomas Marrocco andNicholas Sandon, eds., The Oxford Anthology of Medieval Music (New York: Oxford University
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known Italian double-manual organs date from more than a centurylater, early fifteenth-century Italian organs were presumably single-manual instruments with pedals.48 Therefore, in the intabulations withvoice-crossings in Faenza, this problem can be avoided only where thetenor stays within typical fifteenth-century pedal ranges (normally oneoctave).49
Enticing though this argument may seem, there are several problemswith it. To begin with, no evidence has been presented for the notionthat voice-crossing never occurred in medieval Italian organ music. Thisproblem is exacerbated by the presence of voice-crossings in other con-temporary European sources that are indisputably for organ. Theseinclude Adam Ileborgh’s organ tablature (Stendal, ca. 1448) containingeight pieces, three of which have incipits relating to the organ and five ofwhich include voice-crossings.50 Voice-crossings also occur in the first oftwo organ pieces in WroBU I Qu 42; the second of these bears an incipitreferring to pedals.51 The famous manuscript MunBS 3725 (ca. 1460–70),another source with organ indications, also exploits voice-crossings.52
Most significantly, this manuscript explicitly instructs the organist to playthe lowest voice on the pedals, irrespective of whether it is the tenor orcontratenor:
Item nota qu[ando] contratenor altior e[st] tenore tu[n]c lude tenor-em inferius in pedali. Sed qu[ando] contratenor ponit[ur] inferiustenore tu[n]c lude tenorem sup[er]ius et contratenorem inferius.
Also note, when the contratenor is higher [than] the tenor, then playthe tenor below on the pedal. But when the contratenor is set below thetenor, then play the tenor above and the contratenor below.53
-Press, 1977), 196; and Timothy J. McGee, ‘‘Instruments and the Faenza Codex,’’ Early Music14 (1986): 480–90, at 482. This argument is replicated in Robert Huestis, ‘‘Scribal Errors inthe Faenza Codex: A Clue to Performance Practice?,’’ Studies in Music 10 (1976): 52–61, at54–55; David Fenwick Wilson, Music of the Middle Ages: Style and Structure (New York:Schirmer Books, 1990), 383; and Keith Polk, ‘‘Chamber Musicians, Singers and Perfor-mance Practices in the Early Fifteenth Century,’’ in The Sights and Sounds of Performance inEarly Music: Essays in Honor of Timothy J. McGee, ed. Maureen Epp and Brian E. Power(Surrey: Ashgate, 2009), 185–96, at 190–92.
48 McGee, ‘‘Instruments and the Faenza Codex,’’ 489n11.49 Eberlein, ‘‘The Faenza Codex: Music for Organ or for Lute Duet?,’’ 462.50 Gerhard Most, Die Orgeltabulatur von 1448 des Adam Ileborgh aus Stendal, Altmark-
isches Museum Stendal, Jahresgabe 8 (Stendal: Franz Hohn, 1954). Transcribed in WilliApel, ed., Corpus of Early Keyboard Music I: Keyboard Music of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Cen-turies (American Institute of Musicology, 1963), 28–32; for those with voice-crossing, seenos. 33, 36, 38, 39, and 40.
51 See Apel, ed., Corpus of Early Keyboard Music I, 12–13, nos. 10 and 11.52 Twelve pieces are marked ‘‘p’’ or ‘‘pe,’’ indicating pedals; see Benedum, Orna-
mentation, 80.53 MunBS 3725, fol. 169r. The translation is mine. See the review by ‘‘D. W. S.’’ of
Bertha Antonia Wallner, Das Buxheimer Orgelbuch, Music & Letters 37 (1956): 89–92, at 90.
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Collectively, this evidence unambiguously indicates that voice-crossingoccurred in contemporary organ music. Several other fifteenth-centurymanuscripts with pieces assumed to be for organ also exploit voice-crossings, including three pieces in score notation in sources compiledin Italy: ParisBNN 6771 (early layer, ca. 1400–1410) and PerBC 3410 (ca.1470–80).54
Of course, the relevance of these manuscripts to Faenza could becontested. Only two have connections to Italy and, like Faenza, are inscore notation; the other manuscripts, by contrast, are dominated bytablature. Two further Italian fragments—AssBC 187 and PadAS 553,almost certainly for organ—lack voice-crossings.55 Furthermore, mostof the organ manuscripts with voice-crossings postdate Faenza, someby several decades, and may have been intended for double-manualorgans.56 These sources also sometimes exhibit notable stylistic differ-ences from Faenza, such as a general avoidance of fast cantus diminu-tions and, particularly in the later manuscripts, the use of three or fourvoices and voice-crossing between tenor and contratenor.57
Important though these objections may be, they fail to address thelack of evidence for the supposition that voice-crossing never occurredin Italian organ playing. Although this point may appear circular, sincethere is explicit proof in Italy neither for nor against voice-crossings inorgan music, Faenza itself provides crucial evidence in the context ofthese manuscripts: its pieces with voice-crossings include the liturgicalitems [Kyrie (I)], [Gloria (I)], [Magnificat (II)] and [BenedicamusDomino (II)].58 Since only the organ can be connected to alternatimmasses, this is clearly extremely significant. Although the tenor in thesepieces fits the pedals, thus avoiding temporary hand-crossing or lineswapping, the very fact that voice-crossing occurs here at all is problem-atic if it really was deemed so unidiomatic in Italian organ writing. Italso seems implausible that a few measures of voice-crossing in a piece
54 These three pieces are Qu[e]sta fanc[i]ulla (fol. 85r) and Je voy le bon tens (fol. 85v) inParisBNN 6771 and [Preambolum super re] (fol. g1) in PerBC 3410 (see Memelsdorff, TheCodex Faenza, 1:178–79). Other organ manuscripts with voice-crossings include: BerSB40613, BerSB theol. q. 290, ErlU 554, HamS ND VI 3225, MunBS Lat. 7755, WroBU I F687, and WroBU I Qu 438; for modern transcriptions, see Apel, Corpus of Early KeyboardMusic I.
55 See Schrade, Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century, 13:228–29 (nos. A1 and A2).56 On double-manual organs, see Kimberly Marshall, ‘‘An Introduction to Perform-
ing Late-Medieval Organ Music,’’ Journal of the Royal College of Organists 3 (1995): 1–39, at9–13.
57 In MunBS 3725, voice-crossing usually involves the lower two or three parts,although several examples involve the cantus. None of the two-voice pieces exploit voice-crossings; see Benedum, Ornamentation, 37.
58 Fols. 2r–5r, 95r–95v, and 97r–97v. See appendix 2.
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of more than 100 measures would be the determining factor regardingpedal usage.59
A detailed analysis of Faenza highlights further problems with the‘‘awkward’’ voice-crossing argument. Out of more than 3,700 measures,only 128 (i.e., just under 3.5%) exploit voice-crossing; their occurrence isthus hardly ‘‘frequent.’’60 Moreover, even the most ardent proponent ofthe ‘‘awkward’’ voice-crossing argument would struggle to conclude thatall of these instances provide satisfactory support for this idea (ex. 1).Over 75% of the measures with voice-crossings are isolated one- or two-measure passages; sometimes, the parts cross for just one note.61 Longerpassages are rare, with only one instance of a crossing that lasts morethan four consecutive measures.62
Indeed, the argument that voice-crossings are awkward receives sup-port from only a tiny handful of passages. This inevitably raises questionsabout what constitutes ‘‘awkward’’ and whether fifteenth-century andmodern musicians would agree—issues that none of the proponents ofthis argument have addressed. Yet even the strongest examples (e.g., ex.1b and exs. 2a and 2b) can at best be considered unidiomatic or illogicalfor modern organists on a single-manual instrument; they are not ‘‘allbut impossible,’’ even if voice-crossing is rigidly taken to indicate hand-crossing.63 No surviving evidence speaks against organists simply havingplayed the highest-sounding voice with the right hand when the voicescrossed; Faenza itself even hints at this possibility.64 This point also
59 [Gloria (I)] (fols. 3v–5r).60 This figure includes the near-identical Jour mour lanie [I] (fols. 43r–43v) and Jorlevie
[II] (fols. 50r–50v) as separate pieces. The total number of measures is 3,680, followingPlamenac, ed., Keyboard Music, and including the two new pieces in Pedro Memelsdorff,‘‘New Music in the Faenza Codex 117,’’ Plainsong and Medieval Music 13 (2004): 141–61.This increases to 3,713 if the ‘‘verto’’ and ‘‘chiuso’’ endings found in twelve of the intabula-tions are included as individual measures.
61 Of the 128 measures of voice-crossings, fifty-six are isolated examples; a furthertwenty-one instances are coupled (¼42 measures). Cases where the parts cross for one noteonly include Viver ne puis (fols. 43v–44v; m. 36), [Or sus, vous dormes trop] (fols. 48v–49r; m.8), Qualle lece moue (fols. 69v–70v; m. 83), La dolce sere (fols. 71r–72r; m. 67), Non ara may pietaquesta mia dona (fols. 81r–81v; mm. 16, 39), and [Rosetta che non canci (II)] (fols. 82v–83v;mm. 34, 40). Similarly, in the measures that resemble example 1a, the parts cross for onenote only.
62 In perial sedendo (fols. 74v–77r; mm. 11–16). See example 2b.63 I am indebted to Annette Gfeller and Els Biesemans (personal communication) for
checking the playability of the voice-crossings I found in Faenza. These were played strictlywith left hand for tenor and right hand for cantus. Subsequent to my investigation, Kim-berly Marshall kindly shared with me her article titled ‘‘An Introduction to PerformingLate-Medieval Organ Music,’’ where she concludes (p. 16) that ‘‘all’’ of the voice-crossings‘‘can be performed either by changing the hands which play the notes, by releasing notesearly, or by playing a common note with one hand only.’’
64 In measures 18–20 of Aquila altera (fols. 73r–74v), the contratenor appears in redink on the cantus staff at a higher pitch than the cantus (m. 18). Rigid application of thetheory that voice-crossing is equivalent to hand-crossing could apply to the fingers of one
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applies to unisons that could be considered ‘‘awkward,’’ such as occa-sional instances where the same pitch appears in one staff in long notevalues and in the other in smaller, repeated notes or as a new entranceafter rests.65 In fact, similarly ‘‘awkward’’ unisons appear in other late-medieval organ manuscripts.66 Furthermore, the virtuosity of certain
example 1. Types of voice-crossings in FaenzaA. Unison crossing to an adjacent note, then resolving: [Kyrie (I)], m. 17B. Decoration of a unison: Le ior, m. 21C. Momentary voice-crossing: [Rosetta che non canci (II)], mm. 30–31D. Independent voices with little or no interference (e.g., decoration of
thirds): [Magnificat (II)], m. 14
A
B
C
D
-hand where two voices on the same staff cross. Explicit references to hand-crossing onlyappear much later, as in the twenty-eighth variation of Walsingham by John Bull in CambriF32.g.29., no. 1 (ca. 1610–25).
65 Tupes (fols. 52v–54r) is noteworthy in that it has the largest number of such unisonsin any piece in Faenza (mm. 7, 10, 32, 71, 199, 223, and 254). Yet its large cantus range (d–c2)indirectly hints at the organ. On unisons in Faenza, see appendix 2.
66 These include Adam Ileborgh’s organ tablature, MunBS Lat. 7755, BerSB theol. q.290, and BerSB 40613.
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pieces—particularly those that are sacred and therefore indelibly linkedto organ, like [Benedicamus Domino (I)]—challenges the plausibility ofthe ‘‘awkward’’ voice-crossings and unisons argument.67 Other aspects ofthe organ manuscripts discussed above highlight the dangers of basingconclusions on stylistic assumptions,68 a point further emphasized byanalysis of surviving early keyboard fingerings, which sometimes seemdecidedly strange to modern eyes.69
example 2. Possible ‘‘awkward’’ voice-crossings (long passages)A. De tout flors, mm. 17–20B. In perial sedendo, mm. 11–15
A
B
67 Fols. 57r–58r.68 For example, without the unambiguous organ references in Adam Ileborgh’s
organ tablature, several stylistic features—like the successive groups of twelve repeatednotes in Mensura trium notarum supra tenorem Frowe al myn hoffen an dyr lyed—could seem tosupport the incorrect conclusion that it was not organ music.
69 The earliest known piece with extant fingerings is the hymn setting Quem terrapontus by Hans Buchner, from his keyboard tutor Fundamentum (ca. 1520). These bizarrefingerings have even been interpreted as how not to play Buchner’s music, a viewpoint atodds with his treatise; see Mark Lindley and Maria Boxall, eds., Early Keyboard Fingerings: AComprehensive Guide (London: Schott, 1992), 34–35 (no. 13). Italian fingerings appear later,as in the first volume of Il transilvano (Venice, 1593) by Girolamo Diruta.
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Consideration of tempo is also important here. Concrete conclu-sions are difficult to reach from Faenza’s notation, save that temposhould be oriented toward the minim, thus providing clues for intabula-tions such as Biance flour, which traverses several mensurations (quater-naria, octonaria, and senaria imperfecta).70 Similarly, very small rest valuessuggest a tempo slow enough for these to be executed and discerned.71
Further information on tempo appears in the medical treatise De febri-bus, de pulsibus, de urinis, de egestionibus, de vermibus, de balneis omnibusItaliae (Ferrara, after 1440) by Michaele Savonarola.72 Savonarola relatesthe speed of the pulse to the tempo of music and suggests that thenormal pulse is slower than quaternaria but faster than senaria imperfec-ta.73 Other Italian physicians, including Pietro d’Abano (ca. 1257–ca.1316), Gentile da Foligno (d. 1348), Jacopo da Forlı (ca. 1364–1414),Ugo Benzi (ca. 1376–1439), and Pietro Vermiglioli (fl. 1480), believedthat the intensity and duration of pulse beats corresponded to identifi-able musical proportions.74 Such evidence cannot, of course, provideabsolute tempo indications and may relate primarily to vocal music(which possibly operated under different conventions).75 Yet these writ-ings still suggest slower speeds than those often chosen by modernperformers.76 Fast note values therefore do not necessarily indicate fasttempos; ‘‘awkward’’ voice-crossings, in turn, are clearly less awkwardwhen played more slowly.
A further problem with the argument that voice-crossings are awk-ward is that they occur too randomly to draw meaningful conclusionsabout performance practice. Voice-crossing appears in thirty of the fiftyFaenza intabulations; unisons appear in all but two.77 Although unisons
70 Fols. 56v–57r.71 I am grateful to Crawford Young (personal communication) for this observation.
Notable examples occur in [Benedicamus Domino (I)], fols. 57r–58r, measures 15–19; andSoto limperio del posente prince, fols. 68r–69v, measures 3, 6, 46, and 47.
72 Werner Friedrich Kummel, ‘‘Zum Tempo in der italienischen Mensuralmusik des15. Jahrhunderts,’’ Acta Musicologia 42 (1970): 150–63, at 151.
73 Ibid., 154–56.74 Nancy G. Siraisi, ‘‘The Music of Pulse in the Writings of Italian Academic Physicians
(Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries),’’ Speculum 50 (1975): 689–710, at 693.75 Ruth I. DeFord, Tactus, Mensuration, and Rhythm in Renaissance Music (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2015), 208–9; and Siraisi, ‘‘The Music of Pulse,’’ 694: forexample, Jacopo da Forlı refers to ‘‘vocum tempore mensuratarum’’ (times of mensuratedvoices).
76 See Richard Sherr, ‘‘Tempo to 1500,’’ in Companion to Medieval and RenaissanceMusic, ed. Tess Knighton and David Fallows (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992/1997),327–36.
77 See appendix 2. These figures include Jour mour lanie [I] (fols. 43r–43v) andJorlevie [II] (fols. 50r–50v) as separate pieces alongside two pieces discovered by Mem-elsdorff, ‘‘New Music in the Faenza Codex 117.’’ The incomplete Gloria fragment (fols.12r–12v and 26r–26v) might also originally have had unisons and/or voice-crossings,
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can sometimes be explained through conventional cadential figures, nosuch logic explains why one piece exploits voice-crossing while anotherdoes not, except where voice-crossing occurs in the model. Furthermore,the twenty intabulations without voice-crossing include eleven secularpieces, several of which could theoretically seem to support the ‘‘otherinstruments’’ case (via their title or origin).78
The question of whether voice-crossing provides clues regardingintended instrumentation can be answered by applying this ‘‘problem’’to other contemporary repertoire, such as trecento madrigals andballatas—the secular songs intabulated in Faenza (table 4). What con-clusions can be drawn from such statistics regarding intended perfor-mance forces? Of the forty-two madrigals and ballatas (includingvariants) by Bartolino da Padova, for example, do the fifteen withvoice-crossings require different performing forces from the othertwenty-seven? Are different ensembles required for Jacopo da Bolo-gna’s madrigals In verde prato apadilglon tenduti and I’ senti’ gia come l’arcod’amore purely because the former features voice-crossing between con-tratenor and tenor, whereas the latter includes voice-crossing betweencantus and contratenor?79 Does Bartolino da Padova’s ballata Strince laman ognuno con fa chi salta represent possible solo organ repertoiresimply because it lacks voice-crossings and unisons?80
In summary, whereas the solo organ theory for Faenza is substanti-ated by evidence for liturgical organ performance of sacred and secularmusic in northern Italy, the main objections stem from a contextual andrepertorial misunderstanding alongside a purported practical problemthat has been grossly exaggerated.
Six Potential Counterarguments
Six potential counterarguments against the solo organ theory deserveattention. These are linked to the erroneous idea that Faenza wasa multipurpose codex. They also attempt to circumnavigate the lackof evidence and practical problems facing every other alternative
-which would alter the above statistics to thirty-one pieces with voice-crossings and/orforty-nine with unisons.
78 For example, Bel fiore danca (fols. 80v–81r) and the two based on dance tenors:[Soventt mes pas] (fol. 94v) and Biance flour (fols. 56v–57r).
79 FlorL Med. Pal. 87, fols. 14r and 15v–16r.80 Ibid., fols. 105v–106r.
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instrument: stringed keyboard,81 harp,82 lute,83 fiddle,84 organetto,85
and recorder.86 Except for the recorder,87 all these instruments havebeen linked to Faenza.88
81 Evidence for stringed keyboards in Italy ca. 1400–25 is extremely sparse and in-dicates usage as teaching or practice instruments; see Richard Robinson, ‘‘Syrena, Ciecola,Monocordum and Clavicembalum: The Case for Stringed Keyboards in Late Trecento andEarly Quattrocento Italy,’’ Early Music, forthcoming.
82 The best evidence for harp is as a solo instrument, like sonnet 25 from Il Saporetto.Several pieces in Faenza are problematic for solo harp. Iconographical depictions andreferences to a harp in ensembles without mentioning a genre are of limited use; seeBrown, ‘‘The Trecento Harp,’’ 38, 63–73.
83 The strongest evidence for lute—like that relating to Pietrobono de Burzellis (ca.1417–97) cited by McGee, ‘‘Instruments and the Faenza Codex,’’ 485–86—is all too late;sources contemporary to Faenza only demonstrate that it accompanied songs, playeddances, and participated in ensembles. See Vladimir Ivanoff, ‘‘Das Lautenduo im 15.Jahrhundert,’’ Basler Jahrbuch fur historische Musikpraxis 8 (1984): 147–62.
84 Much of the best evidence for fiddle describes one unaccompanied musicianplaying ballatas and istampittas; see Howard Mayer Brown, ‘‘Fantasia on a Theme byBoccaccio,’’ Early Music 5 (1977): 324–39; and idem, ‘‘The Trecento Fiddle.’’ Iconographyshowing the fiddle in ensembles and vague descriptions of a fiddle playing with other in-struments (naming no genre) are of limited use.
85 References to the organetto either describe ensemble usage in unrelated music,like the righoletto, or music that it played alone; for example, see Antonio Lanza, ed.,Giovanni Gherardi: Il Paradiso degli Alberti (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 1975), 115 (III, 29). Theorganetto’s range is insufficient for much of Faenza and the written pitch frequently re-quires transposition.
86 Italian evidence for the recorder ca. 1400 is poor: recorders and duct flutes areabsent from almost all trecento iconographical depictions and are mentioned rarely inwritten sources. The few literary examples that could be cited are fraught with interpre-tative difficulties, such as the ‘‘boun fiauto’’ of sonnet 32 of Il Saporetto and the ‘‘thibiis’’listed among the instruments played by Landini in the Liber de origine (ca. 1381/82, revised1395/96) by Filippo Villani. See Giuliano Tanturli, ed., Philippi Villani: De origine civitatisFlorentie et de eiusdem famosis civibus (Padua: Editrice Antenore, 1997), 410 (XXV, 14). Seealso Anthony Rowland-Jones, ‘‘Iconography in the History of the Recorder up to c.1430,’’Early Music 33 (2005): 557–74, and 34 (2006): 3–27 (the essay is divided between twoissues); and Howard Mayer Brown, ‘‘The Recorder in the Middle Ages and theRenaissance,’’ in The Cambridge Companion to the Recorder, ed. John Mansfield Thomson(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995): 1–25.
87 Scholarship has completely ignored the recorder’s dominant presence in modernperformances of Faenza. Of the ninety-three recordings consulted, thirty-three include atleast one intabulation with recorder(s).
88 For a selection, see: Lewis Jones, ‘‘Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century KeyboardMusic,’’ in Companion to Medieval and Renaissance Music, ed. Tess Knighton and DavidFallows (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992/1997), 131–34, at 132–33; ReinhardStrohm, The Rise of European Music 1380–1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1993), 91–92; Fenwick Wilson, Music of the Middle Ages, 383; McGee, ‘‘Instruments and theFaenza Codex,’’ 480–90; and Robert Huestis, ‘‘Scribal Errors in the Faenza Codex,’’ 55,60–61.
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I. Other instruments in the liturgy
There is documentation of other instruments playing in the liturgy;89
Faenza may thus have been played by other instruments, both in andoutside liturgical contexts.90
The evidence for this practice includes descriptions of instrumentsplaying in Masses at the moment of the elevation of the host, such as atthe consecration of Florence Cathedral in 1436 and the Council of Flor-ence in 1438,91 alongside references from across Europe that do notmention an exact part of the Mass.92 Fiddles, rebecs, and lutes alsoappear in religious services in the cantasi come sources of the Florentinelaudesi companies, notably Orsanmichele and San Zanobi.93 Further-more, in the passage cited above from Summa theologica, St. Antoninusseems to connect ‘‘other instruments’’ with ‘‘playing ballatas’’ in church.
Yet the relevance of this evidence is questionable. Faenza lacks Sanc-tus and Benedictus settings, the mass movements that accompanied theelevation of the host. In contrast to the political and festal occasions justdescribed, Faenza’s origins were apparently monastic; the manuscriptalso contains some material for weekly use, when other instruments weremuch less likely to be present.94 Less precise descriptions may relate onlyto the elevation of the host (not a whole Mass). In addition, these festal
89 McGee, ‘‘Instruments and the Faenza Codex,’’ 486, cites a particularly uncon-vincing example from Tischreden (Eisleben, 1566) by Martin Luther in support of thehypothesis that Faenza was for lute duo. Not only is this reference from the wrong locationand period—it relates to Luther’s days in Erfurt in 1501–9—but he also relays his amuse-ment at the strangeness of the situation and the incompetence of the lutenist.
90 This links to the outmoded belief, via Arnold Schering and Gilbert Reaney inthe 1930s and 1950s, that textless sacred and secular contratenors and tenors indicate ‘‘theundeniable role of instruments in ‘mixed’ polyphony’’ (Memelsdorff, ‘‘New Music in theFaenza Codex 117,’’ 141). It is now generally accepted that ‘‘most polyphony performed inchurch was sung a cappella’’; see Julie E. Cumming, ‘‘Motet and Cantilena,’’ in A Performer’sGuide to Medieval Music, ed. Ross W. Duffin (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000),52–82, at 65–66, 73–74.
91 See Craig Wright, ‘‘Dufay’s ‘Nuper rosarum flores,’ King Solomon’s Temple, andthe Veneration of the Virgin,’’ Journal of the American Musicological Society 47 (1994): 395–441, at 430; and Springfels, ‘‘The Vielle after 1300,’’ 304.
92 For example, see Herbert W. Myers, ‘‘Flutes,’’ in A Performer’s Guide to MedievalMusic, ed. Ross W. Duffin (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), 376–83, at 380;Craig Wright, Music at the Court of Burgundy 1364–1419: A Documentary History (Henryville:Institute of Medieval Music, 1979), 52n205; Christopher Page, ‘‘Early 15th-Century Instru-ments in Jean de Gerson’s ‘Tractatus de Canticis,’’’ Early Music 6 (1978): 339–49, at 348;and Kirkman, The Cultural Life of the Early Polyphonic Mass, 244.
93 I am indebted to Blake Wilson for encouraging research into this area and forgenerous access to several articles before publication.
94 Memelsdorff, The Codex Faenza, 1:17–18, 128, 161. The mass pair on fols. 26r–26v isbased on Vatican XI: Dominicalis Mass (Orbis factor), a chant that was apparently used ona weekly basis.
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references must be contextualized against the typical absence from theliturgy of instruments other than the organ.95
The Florentine laudesi sources indicate that fiddles, rebecs, andlutes primarily accompanied sung laudas; the sources seem to besilent regarding participation in alternatim masses and the use of in-tabulations. Furthermore, several other factors speak against Faenzaon string instruments in this context: the organ’s important presenceat Orsanmichele; the absence from Faenza of songs by composers atOrsanmichele and San Zanobi; payment records at San Zanobi indi-cating an insufficient number of string players; and the circumstancethat the cantasi come sources only indicate the use of the original song(not an intabulation).96
Likewise, in his Summa theologica, St. Antoninus explicitly distin-guishes the organ from ‘‘other instruments’’ (probably string instru-ments).97 He also does not indicate whether the ballatas were originalversions; presumably, the ‘‘other instruments’’ played idiomaticarrangements.
These sources are therefore of little relevance: they either describeaccompanied laudas, refer to the elevation of the host on festal occa-sions, or are too vague. Significantly, none of them mentions other in-struments in alternatim masses.
II. Intention as an anachronistic concept
The concept of intention may seem anachronistic: that is, ‘‘restriction ofthe repertory to any one instrument would simply have been foreign to the
95 A unique exception appears in the Novelle (1390–1402) of Giovanni Sercambi inpreparations for a journey undertaken in February 1374 by burghers and clergymen fleeingfrom the plague in Lucca. After describing how music was organized for secular activities,Sercambi explains: ‘‘Ordino alcuni pargoletti saccenti col salterio sonare un salmo et unagloria, e quando s’udia la messa et al levare del Nostro Signore uno sanctus sanctus, Deus’’(He ordered [that] some children with knowledge of the psaltery play a psalm and a Gloriaand, when Mass was heard and at the Elevation of Our Lord, a Sanctus, sanctus Deus); seeGiovanni Sinicropi, ed., Giovanni Sercambi: Novelle (Bari: Gius. Laterza & Figli, 1972), 8, lines31–33. The circumstances—on a journey, outside a church—convincingly explain the useof a psaltery here, since arranging the transportation of a positive organ would hardly havebeen a priority. For references to organ transportation indicating the significant cost andinconvenience involved, see Wright, Music at the Court of Burgundy, 111–15; and LouiseCuyler, The Emperor Maximilian I and Music (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), 85.
96 Blake Wilson, Music and Merchants: The Laudesi Companies of Republican Florence(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 79, 83, 95, 152, 162–63.
97 The passage immediately following that in n21 describes secular ‘‘laici’’ who playoutside the office in weddings and banquets. These are players of ‘‘diversa instr[ument]amusica’’ and are linked to ‘‘tibias bifferos vel alia instrumenta.’’ This mention of winds,particularly the civic pifferi, in a context so distinct from the preceding religious one fitscontemporary convention; see ibid., 152. The verb ‘‘pulsare’’ here may also suggest pluckedinstruments; see Page, ‘‘Early 15th-Century Instruments,’’ 344, 346–47.
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conditions of music-making of performers of bas instruments in the fif-teenth century.’’98
This argument ignores the evidence presented above as well as theabsence of documentation for other instruments playing intabulations oralternatim masses. Defenders of this position must also explain the unavoid-able intervention frequently required to make the intabulations playableon certain instruments (removing chords, transposition, etc.).99 Some in-tabulations could seem to be linked to a particular instrument, such as thepieces played by Il Sollazzo on a solo harp (sonnet 25) and solo fiddle(sonnet 35) in Prodenzani’s Il Saporetto, of which five (possibly six) appearin Faenza.100 Yet the harp’s diatonic tuning renders Aquila altera very uni-diomatic, thus raising doubts that the other two solo harp pieces in IlSaporetto correspond to the versions preserved in Faenza;101 similarly, thefiddle is unaccompanied in sonnet 35 and, in any case, the tenor of [Rosettache non canci (I)] is too low for it.102 Many pieces were almost certainlyunplayable on some instruments without significant doctoring.103 More
98 Keith Polk, ‘‘Vedel and Geige—Fiddle and Viol: German String Traditions in theFifteenth Century,’’ Journal of the American Musicological Society 42 (1989): 504–46, at 522.
99 Seven pieces in Faenza have already been transposed from their original (i.e.,vocal) pitch, presumably for a reason. The different pitches in the two intabulations of[Rosetta che non canci] (fols. 50v–52r and 82v–83v)—a fifth apart—are noteworthy. Similarly,[Deduto sey] (fols. 46v–48r) is an eleventh higher than the original ballata; three others area fifth higher than the original songs (Indescort, fols. 36r–36v; Hont paur, fols. 37r–37v; Detout flors, fols. 37v–38v); and the two Benedicamus Domino settings (fols. 57r–58r and 97r–97v) are a fourth higher than the normal written pitch of the chant. There are no explicittransposition instructions in Faenza—unlike, for example, Ileborgh’s tablature; see Apel,Corpus of Early Keyboard Music I, 28–32, nos. 33, 36, 37; and Gilbert Reaney, ‘‘Transpositionand ‘Key’ Signatures in Late Medieval Music,’’ Musica Disciplina 33 (1979): 27–41, at 33–35.
100 These are: three from sonnet 25 (La dolce sere, fols. 71r–72v; In perial sedendo, fols.74v–77r; Aquila altera, fols. 73r–74v) and two, possibly three, from sonnet 35 ([Rosetta chenon canci], 2 settings, fols. 50v–52r and 82v–83v; [Deduto sey], fols. 46v–48r; and perhaps [Unfior gentil m’apparse], fols. 82r–82v, assuming ‘‘del qual m’ennamoraio’’ [with which I fell inlove] is not part of the ballata’s title). See Debenedetti, Il ‘‘Sollazzo,’’ 104, 110.
101 Il Sollazzo apparently omitted the contratenor (Creatura gentil) from Aquila altera(line 7 of sonnet 25), which could seem to parallel Faenza, where the contratenor is alsoomitted (except in mm. 18–20). Yet measure 8 of Aquila altera only works if the f1 in thecantus ignores the sharp in the original madrigal (FlorBN Panc. 26, fols. 91v–92r). To playf1� in the cantus, which requires the left hand to be free to press the f1 string against theharp’s neck, the right hand must tackle stretches of tenths and elevenths and an activecantus line. Similar problems occur in measures 30 and 41 with the g1�s in the cantus andthe e in the tenor (following the ficta of the original). Passages involving fast note values inboth hands, like measure 39, also present difficulties. I am indebted to Louis Capeille(personal communication) for sharing his practical expertise.
102 Fiddles played horizontally following the tuning in n42 have a range of d–g2
(without shifting). Fiddles played between the knees can go lower, but these are absentfrom trecento iconography.
103 The cantus of Tupes (fols. 52v–54r), for example, was probably unplayable on anorganetto even after transposition, owing to the low pitch and large range (d–c2); seeGeoffrey Bridges, ‘‘Medieval Portatives,’’ 106.
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importantly, resolving problems facing one instrument by mixing andmatching several ‘‘plausible’’ instruments (e.g., fiddle, harp, organetto,and lute)104 ignores the circumstance that the organ, the only instru-ment in support of which we possess convincing evidence, can playeverything in Faenza without the need for experimentation. It is thusnot anachronistic to suggest that the compilers of a manuscript such asFaenza had clear intentions regarding instrumentation and perfor-mance context; indeed, one can find analogous examples in other con-temporary repertoires.105
III. Faenza as a record of generalized improvisatory practices common to allmedieval instruments
Instrumentalists who played polyphonic pieces, as described in Il Saporetto,possibly produced arrangements that resembled the Faenza intabula-tions.106 Modern performers should therefore play surviving medievalinstrumental works or compose new diminutions in the style of extantintabulations.107
Yet is it really likely that all instruments improvised in the same way,irrespective of context, function, and practical limitations—an organ inchurch, a fiddle at court, the civic pifferi in town, etc.? A comparison ofFaenza with contemporary Italian monophonic istampittas, salterellos,and other dances (including four dance-tenors [chanconette tedesche])in LonBL 29987 indicates that the answer to this question is clearlynegative.108 Other evidence suggests musicians probably took the origi-nal work—not a version reworked for instrumental performance—asa starting point for instrumental arrangements, as exemplified by ZorziTrombetta’s simplified versions of nine rondeaux, probably for slide
104 For representative examples of this approach, see Fenwick Wilson, Music of theMiddle Ages, 383; Coelho and Polk, Instrumentalists and Renaissance Culture, 64–65; andMcGee, ‘‘Untexted Repertoire,’’ 451.
105 David Fallows, ‘‘15th-century Tablatures for Plucked Instruments: A Summary, ARevision and A Suggestion,’’ The Lute Society Journal 19 (1977): 7–33; idem, ‘‘Specific Infor-mation on the Ensembles for Composed Polyphony, 1400–1474,’’ in Studies in the Perfor-mance of Late Mediaeval Music, ed. Stanley Boorman (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1983), 109–60.
106 Coelho and Polk, Instrumentalists and Renaissance Culture, 66: ‘‘much of Faenzarepresents music from the world of the minstrel.’’
107 Springfels, ‘‘The Vielle after 1300,’’ 307, writes: ‘‘the Faenza Codex pieces . . . canbe adapted to the idiom of the viola.’’ Sarig Sela and Roni Y. Granot, ‘‘Automatic Extractionand Categorization of Faenza Codex Figurations,’’ Early Music 42 (2014): 559–66, at 559,attempt to create a ‘‘figuration dictionary . . . to help performers improvise or composediminutions of their own in the style of those in the Faenza Codex.’’
108 Fols. 55v–63v, 74r. See Martin van Schaik and Christiane Schima, eds., InstrumentalMusic of the Trecento: A Critical Edition of the Instrumental Repertoire of the Manuscript London,British Library, Add. 29987 (Utrecht: STIMU, Foundation for Historical PerformancePractice, 1997).
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trumpet(s), in LonBLC Titus A. xxvi (ca. 1444–49).109 It is thereforemost unlikely that Faenza exemplifies a generic style of improvisationused by all instruments in all contexts.
IV. Scribal hands, copying time, and function
It could be argued that the presence of several scribes working overa relatively long period might indicate different functions andinstrumentation.110
This idea cannot be applied successfully to other medieval musicmanuscripts copied by multiple scribes. In a manuscript in which scribeA copied pieces in different genres, such as (vocal) ballatas and (instru-mental) intabulations, should we conclude that the context and ensem-ble were identical for both just because the same scribe copied them?111
In the same source, must we also conclude that the context and ensem-ble of scribe A’s ballatas were different from those copied by scribe B?
This argument also creates problems when comparing sources. Ifmanuscript X (one scribal hand) and manuscript Y (several scribalhands) both contain the same mixture of sacred and secular genres,should we conclude that more contexts and ensembles were intendedfor manuscript Y just because more scribes were involved—or that onlyone context and ensemble was intended for manuscript X simplybecause it was copied by a single scribe?112
Furthermore, literary descriptions confirm that some genres wereperformed in several ways: polyphonic ballatas, for example, could besung a cappella, with organetto, or by one singer with lute or harp accom-paniment.113 Does a manuscript copied entirely by one scribe indicateonly one of these performance options?114
109 Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, ‘‘Il Libro di Appunti di un Suonatore di Tromba delQuindicesimo Secolo,’’ Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 16 (1981): 16–39, at 29–30. Althoughthis manuscript is exceptional, other instrumentalists probably produced versions ofknown songs of which all trace has disappeared.
110 I am grateful to David Fallows (personal communication) for highlighting thispotential counterargument, implicit in Pedro Memelsdorff, ‘‘Motti a Motti: Reflections ona Motet Intabulation of the Early Quattrocento,’’ Recercare 10 (1998): 39–67, at 42; andidem, The Codex Faenza, 1:53–60.
111 As in ParisBNN 6771, where a single scribe copied ballatas and the two instru-mental pieces on fols. 35v–37r and 85r–85v. See John Nadas, ‘‘The Structure of MS Pan-ciatichi 26 and the Transmission of Trecento Polyphony,’’ Journal of the AmericanMusicological Society 34 (1981): 393–427, at 418n29.
112 Compare two sources containing both sacred and secular music: BolC Q15,copied by a single hand, and ParisBNI 568, copied by several hands.
113 See references in Il paradiso degli Alberti (ca. 1425) by Giovanni da Prato in Lanza,ed., Giovanni Gherardi, 115 (III, 29) and 120 (III, 63–64); and a sonnet by Francesco diVannozzo (ca. 1330–ca. 1389), on which see Brown, ‘‘The Trecento Harp,’’ 55–56.
114 Compare two important sources of polyphonic ballatas: FlorL Med. Pal. 87(copied by one scribe) and FlorBN Panc. 26 (copied by several scribes).
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Similarly, why must the presence of several scribal hands copyinga source over a long period of time indicate changing musical functionrather than a continuation of a single tradition?115 Faenza’s scribal handsexhibit striking similarities, even though the manuscript also displayscertain repertorial and stylistic idiosyncrasies. These similarities rangefrom features such as the use of score format to subtler details: voice-crossings, unisons, and chords, for example, appear in at least one workin every hand.116
We can therefore conclude that, as factors in isolation, the numberof scribes and copying time have little relevance to questions of perfor-mance practice. The only exceptions are those rare cases in which thescribe can be identified, as in VienNB 5094, copied in part by WolfgangChranekker, organist ca. 1441 at St. Wolfgang.117
V. Interactive performance
It could be argued that ‘‘the diminutions of Faenza 117, or at least someof them, were themselves conceived as ‘mixed’ polyphonies: instrumen-tal diminutions that not only gloss but perhaps accompanied vocalperformance,’’ i.e., an ensemble of singers (polyphonic model) andaccompanists (intabulation).118 This hypothesis has found favor inrecent years.119
Several problems with this counterargument have already been out-lined above: the assumption that Faenza was a multipurpose codex, thelack of evidence that other instruments typically participated in the lit-urgy or performed intabulations, and the necessary doctoring of themusical texts.
Other problems are specific to this counterargument. No evidencecontemporary to or predating Faenza supports the idea of combining an
115 The later binding of the Faenza intabulations and their initial preservation asindependent gatherings do not in themselves prove ‘‘different uses of the various re-pertoires’’ (Memelsdorff, The Codex Faenza, 1:80).
116 On scribal hands in Faenza, see ibid., 1:53–79. On chords, voice-crossings, andunisons, see appendix 2.
117 I am indebted to Peter Wright (personal communication) for highlighting thisexample. The score arrangement of Ce jour le doibt by Guillaume Du Fay in VienNB 5094 wascopied by Chranekker and was probably his own arrangement; see Peter Wright, ‘‘TheContribution and Identity of Scribe D of the ‘St Emmeram Codex,’’’ in Musik des Mittelaltersund der Renaissance: Festschrift Klaus-Jurgen Sachs zum 80. Geburtstag, ed. Wolf Frobenius,Rainer Kleinertz, and Christoph Flamm (Hildesheim: Olms 2010), 283–316, esp. 302–8.
118 Memelsdorff, ‘‘Motti a Motti,’’ 62–63; idem, ‘‘New Music in the Faenza Codex117,’’ 141; and idem, The Codex Faenza, 1:120. See also Faventina: The Liturgical Music of CodexFaenza 117 (1380–1420), Mala Punica, dir. Pedro Memelsdorff, Ambroisie AM105, 2007,compact disc.
119 See Ivan Moody, ‘‘Voices and Instruments in Medieval Song and Liturgy,’’ EarlyMusic 36 (2008): 323–24. See also Coelho and Polk, Instrumentalists and Renaissance Culture,1420–1600, 65n4.
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original song with its corresponding intabulation.120 Similarly, no text inFaenza even hints at an accompanimental function. Indeed, excludingtitles and indications relating to form (e.g., ‘‘clos,’’ ‘‘Secunda p[ar]s’’),text only occurs in one intabulation, where it serves merely to preventconfusion over a probable copying error.121 Although other instances ofabsent text in Faenza could seem to complicate the issue,122 there re-mains no evidence for performing simultaneously from two differentmusical sources.
Faenza also does not distinguish intabulations of songs that couldfunction as accompaniments from those that could not; examples of thelatter are pieces with altered rhythms and prolation.123 How could theaccompanist(s) know which pieces would work as accompaniments bylooking at Faenza alone? Similarly, certain intabulations are dance-related (e.g., Biance flour and Belfiore danca) whereas others lack knownmodels (e.g., Sangilio).124 If such pieces were instrumental, why are theynot distinguished from accompaniments?
Likewise, even if we ignore what contemporary theorists say regardingtempo, juxtaposition of the original song and its intabulation frequentlycreates difficulties, particularly in the madrigal settings.125 A plausibletempo for the original, vocal setting often renders the intabulation
120 Memelsdorff’s attempt to justify this is unsuccessful. In ‘‘Motti a Motti,’’ 62–63, heinterprets sonnets 28 and 29 of Il Saporetto (cited in n17, above) as proof of ‘‘interactive’’performance. Yet there is a clear separation between Il Sollazzo staying with the tenoristi and‘‘then’’ playing the organ (sonnet 28, line 7). It is unclear whether the organ accompaniedthe singers; it evidently played some pieces alone (sonnet 29). This passage does not evenimply that two different versions of a piece were superimposed. Memelsdorff elsewherecites a description by Villani of an occasion on which Bartolus de Florentia (fl. 1375–1405)abandoned organ alternatim during a Credo (Memelsdorff, Faventina, 13–18, at 16). Yet it isunclear if the organ even continued playing during the ensuing singing. The passage seemsto hint at improvised polyphony and certainly does not indicate combined singing andinstrumental diminutions; see Tanturli, ed., Philippi Villani, 408 (XXV, 3).
121 Kyrie (fols. 79r–79v), where ‘‘leyson’’ appears under the last two cantus measures(fol. 79v); on the same staff, the tenor’s last five notes then appear with the rubric ‘‘tenorfinis isti[us] kierie.’’ Memelsdorff, ‘‘Motti a Motti,’’ 56n56, initially interpreted this asindicating ‘‘use as accompaniment (and not just alternative) to the voices’’ before sug-gesting that ‘‘a vocal scoring . . . seems highly improbable’’ (The Codex Faenza, 1:38n35).
122 For example, twenty-one of the fifty intabulations lack titular incipits. Two possi-ble explanations—a scribal quirk or more frequent performance—are both problematic.The same scribal hand that omits titles copied a small number of pieces with titles; andsome pieces without titles were not so widely disseminated, notably [Deduto sey] (fols. 46v–48r). On scribal hands, see Memelsdorff, The Codex Faenza, 1:37–54.
123 This concerns some of the intabulations of French chansons like Hont paur (fols.37r–37v), where the intabulation uses major prolation in place of the original minorprolation.
124 For the former, see fols. 56v–57r and 80v–81r; for the latter, fol. 54v.125 Plamenac, ed., Keyboard Music, nos. 26–33. Plamenac makes the problem instantly
clear by overlaying the original and the intabulation. A noteworthy example is Soto limperiodel posente prince (fols. 68r–69v), particularly given Memelsdorff’s arguments about thispiece (discussed below).
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incomprehensibly fast, whereas a comfortable tempo for the intabulationis inconceivably slow for the song.
Several compositional features in Faenza also indicate the creationof new pieces rather than accompaniments to existing songs. Examplesinclude changes to the form126 and pitch127 of the original; a newlycreated tenor;128 and an intabulation that appears twice in almost iden-tical versions.129
VI. Absence of evidence and methodological interrogation
One could argue that the paucity of surviving sources renders all argu-ments inconclusive, and that missing documentation cannot be used assupport for any theory since new evidence could change the picturecompletely.130
126 Non na elso ama[n]te (fols. 78r–79r) lacks its ritornello in the intabulation, and nospace was left for it; Aquila altera (fols. 73r–74v) lacks a chiuso ending for the ritornello; andNon ara may pieta questa mia dona (fols. 81r–81v) has an extra measure in the opening.Memelsdorff speculates that the missing ritornello in Non na elso ama[n]te signifies ‘‘theparodistic use of madrigal strophes for sacred purposes’’ and therefore possible proof for the‘‘original use as accompaniment.’’ Yet this suggestion is not supported by the structure ofthe cantasi come lauda text on this madrigal, Per verita portare al mondo (FlorR 2871, fol. 59v).Furthermore, the change to Non ara may pieta questa mia dona is noteworthy, since Memels-dorff explicitly highlights this piece in relation to possible ‘‘real interactions between three-voice polyphony and diminution’’; see Memelsdorff, ‘‘Motti a Motti,’’ 56n56, 58–59.
127 Seven pieces in Faenza have been transposed; see n99, above.128 The new tenor for Soto limperio del posente prince (fols. 68r–69r) incorporates ele-
ments of the original cantus and contratenor in red ink into the original tenor. Memels-dorff’s supposition, in The Codex Faenza, 1:120, and ‘‘Motti a Motti,’’ 57–59, that the red inkserved as a ‘‘visual cue’’ for collaborating polyphonic ensembles is based solely on aninventive and unsupportable reading of the notation. Such (silent) cues hardly seemnecessary to help count rests of such small value; the original (i.e., sung) tenor had no such‘‘cues’’ and indeed was not in score format (where another voice could be followed).Conversely, if both red and black notes on the tenor staff of the intabulation were to beplayed by the accompanying ensemble, the alterations to the tenor would still lack purpose:the complete harmonic disposition would be heard without the instrumental tenor havingto double all the lowest-sounding notes. Furthermore, ‘‘visual cues’’ are absent from otherintabulations where the tenor is not always the lowest-sounding voice, as in Jay grant espoir(fols. 40v–41v) and [Or sus, vous dormes trop] (fols. 48v–49r). Thus, the new tenor in Sotolimperio del posente prince clearly indicates a new, independent piece, not an accompaniment.The red notation allowed the original tenor to remain visibly intact, but the red notes wereprobably supposed to be played as well.
129 Jour mour lanie [I] (fols. 43r–43v) and Jorlevie [II] (fols. 50r–50v) are virtuallyidentical, save slight differences in measures 18 and 30–32, mainly in the tenor. This in-tabulation was clearly viewed as a new work—a hypothesis substantiated by the differentscribal hands of each version; see Memelsdorff, The Codex Faenza, 1:60.
130 Memelsdorff, ‘‘Motti a Motti,’’ 40n4, attempts to use this e silentio counterargu-ment to debunk the so-called ‘‘English a cappella heresy’’ (i.e., the theory that most medi-eval secular song was performed by voices alone). Yet as Christopher Page has observed, thee silentio counterargument is generally advanced by those who cannot justify their ideology;see idem, ‘‘The English A Cappella Heresy,’’ in Companion to Medieval and Renaissance Music,ed. Tess Knighton and David Fallows (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992/1997), 23–29,at 27.
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Such reasoning places whimsical speculation on an equal footing withsource-based research. Indeed, one could go on to suggest that Faenza waspossibly intended for a unique purpose, that the notation perhaps borelittle resemblance to what was played, that extra copies might have beenmade for ensemble performance, or that it perhaps functioned as an aidememoire. In order to sidestep important issues, one could also interrogateterminology and methodology excessively: What is a codex? Is it not anach-ronistic to speak of voice-crossings? What constitutes evidence?131
This line of reasoning deliberately exaggerates the unknowability ofthe past in order to undermine or ignore surviving evidence.132 In par-ticular, it gives license to assume that the Faenza intabulations wereperformed by whatever instrument or instruments were to hand in anycontext one cares to imagine: a solo hurdy-gurdy (playing the cantusalone);133 a shawm and a bombard;134 a fiddle playing the cantus witha harp and female choir on the tenor;135 or an ensemble of harp, psal-tery, cane flute, bells, recorder, and fiddle.136
Conclusions
The conclusions reached here confirm the theory proposed by Plamenacin 1951, but via very different means.137 Although these findings mightappear to concern only those involved (or interested) in historicallyinformed performance, they actually have far wider implications forunderstanding medieval music and its relationship to contemporarysociety.138
To begin with, Faenza indisputably fits within a corpus of late-medieval organ manuscripts and fragments. These sources parallel
131 See Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, The Modern Invention of Medieval Music: Scholarship,Ideology, Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 218–24.
132 See Norman F. Cantor, Inventing the Middle Ages: The Lives, Works, and Ideas of theGreat Medievalists of the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: The Lutterworth Press, 1992), 30–31.
133 L’Art des Jongleurs, Vol. 2: Estampies italiennes, virelais et ballades de Guillaume deMachaut, extraits du Codex Faenza, Ensemble Tre Fontane, Musidisc 244 022, 1990, compactdisc, track 8: Constantia.
134 Music of the Angels: Italian Music of the Trecento for Alta Capella and Percussion, LesHaulz et les Bas, Christophorus CHR 77 194, 1996, compact disc, track 7: De ce que fol pense.
135 Laude Novella: Music of the Italian Middle Ages, Medieval Women’s Choir, dir.Margriet Tindemans, Medieval Women’s Choir Label, 2012, MP3 album, track 7: Ave marisstella.
136 Danze Strumentali Medievali Italiane, vol. 1, Anima Mundi Consort, Tactus 300002(2004), track 4: Bel fiore danca.
137 Plamenac, ‘‘Keyboard Music,’’ 179–201.138 Whether these conclusions will affect future recorded interpretations remains
uncertain. By way of comparison, one could consider the ‘‘English a cappella heresy’’alongside commercial recordings of secular song, which, particularly on mainland Europe,are still dominated by interpretations with instruments.
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developments that occurred throughout this period; in addition, theyreflect contemporary views on the superiority of the organ in ecclesias-tical contexts.139 Further research remains to be done on liturgical organperformance of secular music across Europe, an issue with importantramifications for how other medieval organ sources containing secularpieces should be understood.140 More globally, these organ manuscriptsshould be considered alongside the numerous surviving sources forsacred music, both monophonic and polyphonic.141
Contextual analysis of surviving medieval instrumental music alsoreflects important distinctions between clerics, the literate elite, andprofessional musicians. This social divide surely explains, at least par-tially, the dearth of surviving instrumental music.142 Furthermore, whena convenevole musico did play polyphonic songs, he probably created idi-omatic versions for his instrument, whether with melody alone, melodyand tenor, or diminutions. An instrumental arrangement of a given mad-rigal or ballata would thus probably have differed considerably in styleand ethos depending on where it was played, what function it performed,who was playing it, and on what instrument(s). Indeed, only when thecontext and likely instrumentation of a manuscript is established can webegin to understand its wider significance to both musical and culturalhistory.
ABSTRACT
Owing to gaps in the documentary evidence, the study of medievalinstrumental music remains beset with uncertainties. Yet once a contextcan be established for a given manuscript, it is often possible to establish
139 Williams, A New History of the Organ, 46–70; and Page, ‘‘Early 15th-Century Instru-ments in Jean de Gerson’s ‘Tractatus de Canticis,’’’ 348.
140 Secular music occurs in two manuscripts explicitly connected to organ—AdamIleborgh’s organ tablature and MunBS 3725—alongside several other sources assumed tobe for organ, including BerSB 40613, BerSB theol. q. 290, MunBS Lat. 7755, and WroBU I F687. To these may be added four further secular intabulations, two from ParisBNN 6771and two from GronU Inc. 70.
141 Scholars sometimes overlook sources of sacred monophony, like the numeroussurviving graduals and antiphonaries; for Italian examples, see Laurence B. Kanter et al.,Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence, 1300–1450 (New York: The Metro-politan Museum of Art, 1994).
142 Brown, ‘‘The Trecento Harp,’’ 62. Previous studies on other instrumental genreshave highlighted this point; for instance, see van Schaik and Schima, Instrumental Music ofthe Trecento; Vellekoop, ‘‘Die Estampie’’; and Christopher Page, Voices and Instruments of theMiddle Ages: Instrumental Practice and Songs in France 1100–1300 (London: Dent, 1987), 47–49, 67–69, 196–97.
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where the manuscript was probably used, what function it performed,and for which instrument or instruments it was most likely intended.
No example highlights this point more clearly than the FaenzaCodex (FaenBC 117; henceforth Faenza), an Italian manuscript con-taining the largest surviving collection of instrumental music frombefore 1450. This article re-examines the repertorial context of Faenza,challenging in particular the widely held view that the manuscript con-tains distinct ‘‘secular’’ and ‘‘sacred’’ repertoire. When combined withthe results of a comprehensive investigation of voice-crossings in themanuscript, it is possible to demonstrate beyond all doubt that theFaenza intabulations were intended for solo organ.
Keywords: Faenza Codex, liturgy, medieval instrumental music, organ,trecento and quattrocento Italy
Appendix 1. Manuscript Sigla
AssBC 187 Assisi, Biblioteca del Sacro Convento di S.Francesco, MS 187
BerSB 40613 Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, PreußischerKulturbesitz, MS Mus. 40613 (olim Wernigerode.Graflich Stolbergsche Bibliothek. MS Zb 14)(Lochamer-Liederbuch; Fundamentum organi-sandi of Conrad Paumann)
BerSB theol. q. 290 Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, PreußischerKulturbesitz, MS theol. lat. quart. 290 (WynsemManuscript)
BolC Q15 Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica diBologna (olim Civico Museo BibliograficoMusicale), MS Q 15
CambriF 32.g.29. Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 32.g.29. (TheFitzwilliam Virginal Book)
ErlU 554 Erlangen Universitatsbibliothek, MS 554 (now 729?)FaenBC 117 Faenza, Biblioteca Comunale, MS 117 (Faenza
Codex)FlorBN Panc. 26 Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Panc. 26
(Panciatichi Codex)FlorL Med. Pal. 87 Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, MS
Med. Pal. 87 (Squarcialupi Codex)FlorR 2871 Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS 2871GronU Inc. 70 Groningen Universiteitsbibliotheek Inc. 70
(olim Cf 3)
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GuardSM s.s. Guardiagrele [Chieti], Chiesa di Santa MariaMaggiore, MS s.s.
HamS ND VI 3225 Hamburg, Staatsarchiv ND VI 3225LonBL 29987 London, British Library, Add. MS 29987LonBLC Titus A.
xxviLondon, British Library, Cotton Titus A. xxvi
MunBS 3725 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,Musiksammlung, Musica MS 3725 (BuxheimerOrgelbuch)
MunBS Lat. 7755 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. Lat. 7755MunBS Lat. 14274 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,
Handschriften- und Inkunabelabteilung. MSLatinus monacensis 14274 (olim Mus. ms. 3232a;Cim. 352c) (St Emmeram Codex)
OxfBC 213 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canonici misc. 213(¼ MadanSC 19689)
PadAS 553 Padua, Archivio di Stato, MS S. Giustina 553PadU 1115 Padua, Biblioteca Universitaria, MS 1115ParisBNI 568 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale, fonds italien, MS 568ParisBNN 6771 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale, nouv. acq. fr., MS
6771 (Reina Codex)ParisBNN 23190 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale, nouv. acq. fr., MS
23190 (olim Serrant Chateau, ducs de la Tremoılle)PerBC 3410 Perugia, Biblioteca Comunale ‘‘Augusta’’, MS 3410StrasBM 222 Strasbourg, Bibliotheque Municipale (olim
Bibliotheque de la Ville) 222 C. 22VatC 266 Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Chigi
L.VII.266VienNB 2777 Vienna, Osterreichische Nationalbliothek,
Handschriftensammlung, Cod. 2777 (olim Rec.2068a)
VienNB 5094 Vienna, Osterreichische Nationalbliothek,Handschriften- und Inkunabelsammlung MS5094 (olim Jur. can. 49; ix. C. 8)
WarN 8054 Warsaw, Biblioteka Narodowa, MS III. 8054 (olimKrasinski MS 52)
WroBU I F 687 Wroclaw [Breslau], Biblioteka Uniwersytecka I F 687WroBU I Qu 42 Wroclaw [Breslau], Biblioteka Uniwersytecka I Qu 42WroBU I Qu 438 Wroclaw [Breslau], Biblioteka Uniwersytecka I Qu
438 (Sagan Manuscript)
The sigla used in this essay are based on those in Herbert Kellman and CharlesHamm, eds., Census-Catalogue of Manuscript Sources of Polyphonic Music 1400–1550,compiled by the University of Illinois Musicological Archives, 5 vols. (s.l.: AmericanInstitute of Musicology, 1979–88).
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Appendix 2. Chords, voice-crossings, and unisons in the Faenza Codex
Measure numbers are drawn from Plamenac, ed., Keyboard Music of the Late MiddleAges in Codex Faenza 117; and Memelsdorff, ‘‘New Music in the Faenza Codex117.’’ The ordering of pieces follows Memelsdorff, The Codex Faenza, 1:184–97.
Key* tenor rhythm interrupted by voice-crossings and/or unisons♥ cantus rhythm interrupted by voice-crossings and/or unisonsx2
no. of pitches where unisons or voice-crossings occur (2) in the measure inquestion (x)
C/T cantus/tenor staff♠ cantus of the model appears on the tenor staff in the intabulation♦ contratenor of the model appears on the tenor staff in the intabulation♣ contratenor of the model appears on the cantus staff in the intabulationf - g accidentals appear in one voice only; unisons almost certainly intended
Title
Chords(measure no.and staff)
Voice-crossings(measure no.)
Unisons(measure no.)
1. [Kyrie (I), Vatican IV:Cunctipotens GenitorDeus]
72T 17* 5, 17*
2. [Gloria (I) Vatican IV:Cunctipotens GenitorDeus]
28T, 58C, 63C,91C, 109C
4*, 94* 3*, 4*, 73, 94*
3. Indescort 8C, 46C 27* 2*, 4*, 18♥, 19, 22*, 27*, 45*, 49♥, 50,53*
4. Hont paur 5, 6, 7, 8, 20*,23, 24, 25,31♥, 32♥,54*
19*, 20*, 24, 31♥, 32♥, 34*, 48, 54*
5. De tout flors 5*, 6*, 17, 18*,19*
5*, 62*, 10, 18*, 19*, 20*, 21*, 28, 61
6. Aspire refus 4♥, 5*, 13, 26, 39*7. Elas mon cuer [I] 48 22, 32, 34, 47*, 52, 618. De ce fol penser 2*9. Jay grant espoir 43C 42*, 43, 51♥10. Constantia 51 6, 16*, f17*g, 243*, 252*, 27*, 29, 5211. Le ior 10, 11, 21*,
46*, 50*, 51*3*, 10, 21*, 28*, 31*, 41*, 462*, 47, 50*,
51*12. Jour mour lanie [I] 6, 7*, 12, 25, 26 5*, 7*, 8, 18*, 19, 2613. Viver ne puis 36 1, 17, 25, 30, 32, 3814. Elas mon cuor [II] 90C 16*, 37*, 62*,
66*, 95, 96,103*, 123*
16*, 17, 31*, 35*, 37*, 41*, 42, 62*, 66*,94*, 103*, 123*
15. [Deduto sey] 6*, 26*, 27, 28,29, 64*, 71*,96*, 1022*,103*
5*, 6*, 20, 26*, 40*, 59, 642*, 71*, 72*,75*, 76, 77*, 78, 80, 89*, 94, 96*,1022*, 103*
16. [Or sus vous dormestrop]
8 9*, 21*, 27, 33, 55, 61, 78, 79
17. [untitled] 8C, 22C, 28C 3, 16
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Title
Chords(measure no.and staff)
Voice-crossings(measure no.)
Unisons(measure no.)
18. Jaime la biaute 10*, 18*19. Jorlevie [II]a 6, 7*, 12, 25, 26 5*, 7*, 8, 18*, 19, 2620. [Rosetta che non
canci (I)]22*, 512*, 52*,
60, 61, 62,77*, 79*, 130
11, 22*, 35*, 36♥, 41*, 47*, 512*, 52*,54♥, 60, 62, 63, 69, 77*, 79*, 98, 108*,109, 127*, 131, 133*, 137*, 140*,141*
21. Tupes 1*, 2*, 4*, 5*,28*, 33, 34,35*, 36,164*,165*,221, 222*
1*, 2*, 4*, 5*, 7*, 10*, 13, 21*, 28*, 32*,35*, 36, 37, 70*, 71*, 90, 133*, 146*,147*, 164*, 165*, 198, 199*, 220, 221,222*, 223*, 225*, 254*, 256*
22. Sangilio 4*, 15*, 16*, 18, 21*, 23*23. [untitled] 188C 74*, 124*, 125,
160, 161,167, 168,178, 179,180, 185, 186
4, 49, 53*, 69*, 74*, 82*, 89, 91*, 96*,124*, 126, 133, 135, 137, 149, 156,157*, 158, 162, 163*, 165, 169, 181,187
24. Biance flour 15*25. [Benedicamus
domino (I)]9*
26. Soto limperio delposente princeb
45T, (47T♦) 4*♦, 39*, 47*♦ 42*♦, 5*, 7*♠, 82*♠, 9, 16*♠, 222*♦,23*, 28, 38*, 39*, 43*, 44, 47*♦,49*♦, 532*♦, 56, 58
27. Qualle lece moue 83 31*, 32, 41*, 49*, 54, 56, 59, 70, 82*,102*, 103, 107*, 108
28. La dolce sere 67 12, 21*, 22, 25*, 43*, 442*, 50*, 66*, 67,71, 75, 77
29. O ciecho mondo 11*, 68*, 71*,77*
6, 11*, 14*, f15*g, 16, 30*, 31, 63*, 64,67*, 68*, 70*, 71*, 72, 77*, 78
30. Aquila alterac (18C♣, 19C♣,20C♣)
15*, 18♣, 52*,62*
13, 14*, 15*, 17, 19♣, 46*, 48*, 49, 51,52*, 62*, 68, 69*
31. In perial sedendo 5*, 11, 12*,13*, 14*, 15,16, 36
4*, 5*, 6, 122*, 13*, 14*, 17, 34, 35*, 37,f42*g, 43, 73, 80, 92, 113*, f136*g,137
32. Io me son vno chep[er] le frasche
4, 20*, 21♥, 53, 66
33. Non na elsoama[n]te
11* 5*, 6, 10*, 11*, 16, 30, 37, 39
34. Kyrie [Vatican IV:Cunctipotens GenitorDeus]
5
35. Che pena q[ue]sta 10, 46* 32*, 4, 8*, f92*g, 10, 11, 16*, 19, 28*, 29,30, 34, 38*, 39*, 43*, 45, 46*
36. Bel fiore danca 2537. Non ara may pieta
questa mia dona16, 39 19, 20*, 21, 32, 36, 45, 49
38. [Un fior gentilm’apparse]
21 8, f9*g, 10, 17, 21, 22, 25*, 29, 39, 42,47♥, 49, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55♥
39. [Rosetta che noncanci (II)]
30, 31, 34, 39,40, 66, 71
6, 11, 17*, 18♥, 24*, 27♥, 30, 32, 39, 40,502*, 55, f58*g, 59♥, 66, 71
40. [Kyrie (II) VaticanIV: CunctipotensGenitor Deus]
36T, 103T 33, 52, 68*, 86
41. [Gloria (II) VaticanIV: CunctipotensGenitor Deus]
27C, 65T,105T
f72*g, 73*, 169*
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Title
Chords(measure no.and staff)
Voice-crossings(measure no.)
Unisons(measure no.)
42. [untitled] 7*, 33, 45*, 81*43. [Soventt mes pas] 10, 16*, 202, 232*, f242*g, 3044. [Magnificat (I)]45. [Magnificat (II)] 14 13*, 1546. [Magnificat (III)] 3347. [Ave maris stella] 15*, 1648. [Benedicamus
domino (II)]41* 7*, 9, 16, 20, f35*g, 36, 41*, 42
49. [Digitally restoredKyrie Orbis factor,Vatican XI:Dominicalis Mass]
fol. 62r: 9*, 21*, 22*, 23; fol. 62v: 12*
50. [Digitally restoredGloria, Vatican XI:Dominicalis Mass:fragment, fols. 12r–12v and 26r–26v]
a Copy of no. 12; slight differences (cantus, m. 32; tenor, mm. 18, 30–32) donot change the information on chords, voice-crossings and unisons.
b Although largely based on the original tenor of Jacopo da Bologna’s mad-rigal Soto l’imperio del posente prince, the tenor of the Faenza intabulation alsoincorporates fragments of the original cantus and contratenor lines into thetenor, above which the cantus has a free diminution. In measure 47, this effec-tively produces a ‘‘chord’’ on the tenor staff.
c In measures 18–20, the contratenor of the original appears with the cantuson the cantus staff; these measures have accordingly been indicated in the‘‘chords’’ column.
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