Romanesca in Oxford Music Online

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1.6.2016 Romanesca in Oxford Music Online

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Romanesca

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Romanesca.

A melodic-harmonic formula used in the 16th and 17th centuries as an aria for singing poetry and as a subject for

instrumental variations. Ex.1 shows the structural notes of the romanesca pattern: a descending descant formula

supported by a standard chordal progression whose bass moves by 4ths. This scheme is to be viewed as a flexible

framework, rather than as a fixed tune; it provided, though often disguised by elaborate ornamentation, the melodic and

harmonic foundations for countless compositions labelled ‘romanesca’.

Ex.1 Hypothetical reconstruction of the romanesca formula

The origin of the romanesca is uncertain. Although the name would seem to suggest a connection with Rome, the earliest

extant musical examples are found in non-Italian sources. The term appears for the first time in 1546, in Alonso Mudarra’s

Tres libros de musica en cifra para vihuela (Romanesca, o Guárdame las vacas) as well as in Pierre Phalèse’s Carminum

pro testudine liber IV . A set of variations on Guárdame las vacas, with no mention of ‘romanesca’, had appeared earlier in

Narváez’s Los seys libro del Delphin (1538). In 16th-century Spanish collections of instrumental music, the romanesca

remained associated with the text Guárdame las vacas, the first line of a popular villancico, at times indicated simply as

Las vacas (e.g. Valderrábano, Libro … intitulado Silva de sirenas, 1547; Pisador, Libro de musica de vihuela, 1552;

Venegas de Henestrosa, Libro de cifra nueva, 1557; Antonio de Cabezón, Obras de música, 1578). In Italy, instrumentalsettings and variations on the romanesca began to appear in the second half of the 16th century, in Antonio di Becchi’s

Libro primo d' intabolatura de leuto (1568), in Antonio Valente’s Intavolatura de cimbalo (1576) and in various

manuscripts, including pieces by Vincenzo Galilei and Cosimo Bottegari (see Palisca, 1969, and Apfel, 1976 and 1977).

The relationship between Spanish and Italian traditions has never been adequately explained. For Francisco de Salinas,

the melody that the Spanish called Las vacas and the melody that the Romans used to sing stanzas commonly called

‘romaneschae’ differed in metre only (De Musica libri septem, 348). The two descant tunes cited by Salinas are identical

except for their rhythm; it is likely that the variants are due to the practice of accommodating the romanesca formula to

different texts (Bella citella de la magiorana in Salinas’s example).

Although our knowledge of the 16th-century romanesca depends almost exclusively on surviving examples of

instrumental music, in Italy the romanesca seems to have been primarily an aria for singing poetry, especially stanzas in

ottav a rima (the metre favoured for epic poetry), to the accompaniment of the lute or a bowed instrument. Scholars havedebated for many years whether the aria di romanesca was an ostinato bass or a descant tune. The scant testimonies of

the theorists appear to support the descant-tune hypothesis. Like Salinas, Galilei treated the romanesca as a melody by

mentioning it among other popular airs, the soprano of which ‘principally provides the air, even when six or eight others

are singing in harmony’ (Dubbi intorno a quanto io ho detto dell’uso dell’enharmonio, I-Fn Gal.3, trans. Palisca, 1960).

The chord progression of the romanesca is virtually identical to that of the passamezzo antico (see PASSAMEZZO), with the

exception of the opening chord (usually III in the romanesca and i in the passamezzo antico). This has generated some

confusion about the nature of such formulae, confusion also fostered by the fact that there has been a tendency in

modern scholarship to equate these formulae with their bass progressions. In all probability the romanesca, like many

other stock tunes and dances of the Renaissance, was defined not by a simple chord sequence but by a complex of

elements including metric patterns, reference pitches, characteristic melodic and rhythmic gestures and stylistic

conventions tied to performance practice. Although deceptively similar in their bass lines, the romanesca and the

passamezzo must have differed in other respects, equally vital to the identification of the genre. A clue may be found in

Galilei’s Primo libro della prattica del contrapunto (1588–91), where the excited sound of the romanesca is compared with

the quiet one of the passamezzo. The bass traditionally associated with the romanesca probably represents the standard

accompaniment that the tune acquired over the years. It is not to be confused with the aria itself, however. Unfortunately,

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because of the improvisatory nature of the solo singing over discant formulae, no written examples of this vocal practice

are extant.

At the beginning of the 17th century the unwritten romanesca tradition entered a new phase. Most of the composers

cultivating the new monodic style began publishing solo songs and duets on the romanesca formula, continuing to set

stanzas in ottava rima ( AB AB AB CC ). Ex.2 shows the first two lines of a romanesca by Antonio Cifra. Each of the four

couplets forming the ottava rima coincides with a statement of the romanesca formula. Thus the music unfolds as a series

of strophic variations, each of which is entrusted with the declamation of two lines. The articulation of the text is further

emphasized by the repetition of the second line of each couplet.

Ex.2 A Cifra: Aria di Romanesca (Li diversi scherzi, libro V, 1617)

Unlike 16th-century instrumental examples, which are characterized by a clear ternary rhythm, 17th-century romanescas

are usually noted in duple time. They tend to exhibit some rhythmic ambiguity, however: the phrase structure at times

suggests different metrical groupings and the diminutions are often irregular in rhythm (Silbiger). Romanescas for one or

two voices appear in most Italian songbooks of the first half of the 17th century, including pieces by Giulio Caccini

(1601/2, 1614), D′India (1609), Cifra (1613, 1615, 1617, 1618), Pietro Pace (1617), Francesca Caccini (1618), Puliaschi

(1618), Filippo Vitali (1618, 1622), Monteverdi (1619), Stefano Landi (1620), Rontani (1622), Banchieri (1626), Severi

(1626), Frescobaldi (1630) and P.F. Valentini (1657). Sporadic examples for three and four voices may be found in Cifra

(1613), Pietro Pace (1615 and 1616) and Giovanni Valentini (1621). Many of these pieces are titled aria di romanesca

even though in some cases the vocal part does not seem to follow the romanesca tune. The tendency to isolate and use

only the bass line in ostinato fashion may be observed in Sigismondo D′India, who explicitly names one of his songs

‘Musica sopra il basso della romanesca’ (Le musiche da cantar solo, 1609). Sets of variations for keyboard were

composed by Ercole Pasquini (I-RAc 545), Mayone (1609), Frescobaldi (1615–37), Michelangelo Rossi (1657), Bernardo

Storace (1664) and Gregorio Strozzi (1687); for guitar by Domenico Pellegrini (1650); for ensemble by Biagio Marini

(1620), Salomone Rossi (1622, 1623) and Buonamente (1626); and for chitarrone by Kapsberger (1604). Anonymous lute

and keyboard sets also survive in several Italian manuscripts (see Apfel, 1976 and 1977, and Silbiger).

Many dances of the 16th and early 17th centuries (in particular gaillards, pavanas and passamezzos, beginning with a

gaillard in Attaingnant’s Dixhuit basses dances, 1530) are structured according to a scheme similar to that of the

romanesca. The same scheme occasionally appears also under different titles such as la FAVORITA, FANTINELLA, La

gasparina, Ballo del fiore, La canella, La comadrina, La desperata, L′herba fresca, El poverin, Il todeschin (or La

todeschina), Tre damme alla francesa, La monella and El traditor , and, in England as Greenleeves, Hewyn anf earth,

Queen Marie’s Dompe (or simply Dompe; see DUMP). These may not have been associated with the romanesca, although

scholars today tend to connect them. The chordal progression that forms the bass of ex.1 is widely used in the music of

the Renaissance and cannot be considered exclusive to the romanesca formula.

Bibliography

MGG2 (M. Cafini)

J.M. Ward: The Vihuela de mano and its Music (1536–76) (diss., New York U., 1953)

C. Palisca: ‘Vincenzo Galilei and Some Links between “Pseudo-Monody” and Monody’,MQ, xlvi (1960), 344–60; repr. in Studies in

the History of Italian Music and Music Theory (Oxford, 1994), 346–63

C. Palisca: ‘Vincenzo Galilei’s Arrangements for Voice and Lute’, Essays in Musicology in Honor of Dragan Plamenac , ed. G. Reese

and R.J. Snow (Pittsburgh, 1969), 207–32; repr. in Studies in the History of Italian Music and Music Theory (Oxford, 1994), 364–88

E. Ferrari Barassi: ‘A proposito di alcuni bassi ostinati del periodo rinascimentale e barocco’, Quadrivium, xii/1 (1971), 347–64

E. Apfel: ‘Rhythmisch-metrische und andere Beobachtungen an Ostinatobässen’, AMw , xxxiii (1976), 48–67

E. Apfel: Entwurf eines Verzeichnisses aller Ostinato-Stücke zu Grundlagen einer Geschichte der Satztechnik , iii: Untersuchungen

zur Entstehung unf Frühgeschichte des Ostinato in der komponierten Mehrstimmigkeit (Saarbrücken, 1977)

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Copyright © Oxford University Press 2007 — 2016.

A. Silbiger: Italian Manuscript Sources of the 17th Century Keyboard Music (Ann Arbor, 1980) 39–44

D. Gagné: ‘Monteverdi’s Ohimè dov’è il mio ben and the Romanesca’, The Music Forum, vi (1987), 61–91

L.F. Tagliavini: ‘Metrica e ritmica nei “modi di cantare ottave”’, Forme e vicende: Per Giovanni Pozzi , ed. O. Besomi, G. Gianella, A.

Martini and G. Pedrojetta (Padova, 1989), 239–267

G. Predota: ‘Towards a Reconsideration of the Romanesca: Francesca Caccini’s Primo libro delle musiche and Contemporary

Monodic Settings in the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century’, Recercare, v (1993), 87–113

J.W. Hill: Roman Monody, Cantata, and Opera from the Circles around Cardinal Montalto(Oxford, 1997), 203–34

Giuseppe Gerbino
http://www.oup.com/

Romanesca in Oxford Music Online

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