Canons regular in post-Tridentine musical landscape: Floriano Canale’s Sacrae cantiones of 1581
2015/04/17-19
Department of Music · University Park, University of Nottingham (UK)
Palma Choralis® · Research Group
Marcello Mazzetti
Livio Ticli
We presented this paper at the Mapping the Post-Tridentine Motet – Conference.
Abstract
The Canon Regular Floriano Canale (?1541–1st Oct. 1616 Brescia), more known for instrumental works such as Canzoni da sonare (1600), also published three motet-books for four (1581), five (1602) and six (1603) voices respectively, besides several collections that gather music for the Mass and the Office.
Our paper explores the possibility that, after long apprenticeships in Venice (where he was Willaert’s pupil perhaps between 1559-62), Genoa and Gubbio (where he was organist also outside of the Canons Regular Congregation), Canale started setting new trends in Italian printed sacred music, both influencing compositional techniques (as seen in the works by P. Falconio and O. Tigrini) and editorial strategies (as shown in prints’ frontispieces from the 1570-80s). Furthermore, we will argue that Canale’s Sacrae Cantiones of 1581 covered a central position within music publishing in Brescia: indeed, beyond three motet-books by G. Contino (Venice 1560) and two motet-books by C. Antegnati (Venice 1575, Brescia 1581) – these latter unfortunately incomplete, Canale’s collection appears to be the only extant exemplar representing this particular genre in Brescia in the 1580s.
Along these lines, the present paper will present the Sacrae Cantiones (1581) focusing on specific textual choices, stylistic and liturgical peculiarities, the context which produced them (the role of the Canons Regular in relation to patronage, circulation and reception of the repertoire, e.g. in Venice), Canale’s recommendations regarding organ accompaniment and their implications before the ‘invention’ of the bassus pro organo.
This paper has been realized within our project Canons Regular Music and Liturgy (included in the Main Research Area Italian Sacred Music).
