Analysis of a 16th century madrigal book

A single book of madrigals condenses a vast number of cultural and social practices: madrigalists took poetry from eminent authors to construct their own narratives, used music as a tool to interpret and criticize the texts, and dedicated their prints to powerful patrons to maintain social relationships. In addition, editorial work and performance added further layers of meaning to such publications. Recent trends in musicology (see Leach et al. 2015) show how research has shifted towards themes that were previously not considered, such as improvisational techniques, relationships between oral and written music traditions, performer-oriented studies, and analyses of the relationships between musical style and its material contexts. Following a multidisciplinary approach, this project interprets the first book of the Calabrian composer Giandomenico Martoretta in this way as a source for cultural history. Although currently overlooked by scholarly research, Martoretta was considered in his lifetime among the most prominent composers of his age: his madrigals appear in important collections and he is mentioned in the Libraria del Doni along with De Rore and Willaert. Martoretta published his own book of madrigals in Venice in 1548, followed by the second and the third books in 1552 and 1554 respectively. A collection of motets with instrumental accompaniment appeared in 1566. The first book of madrigals is for four voices, of which only the cantus and the tenor partbooks survive. Martoretta dedicated his acerbi frutti (unripe or bitter fruits, so he refers to his compositions) to the Sicilian count Francesco Moncada. The collection consists of 33 madrigals, 17 of which are taken from or related to the Orlando Furioso. It also contains verses by Petrarch and Cassola as well as poets connected to a Neapolitan environment such as Luigi Tansillo and Dianora Sanseverino. Martoretta’s use of Ariosto in particular is significant: he was among the first musicians to compose cycles based on the Orlando Furioso. Ariosto’s original texts are used both literally and modified in a variety of ways to suit new expressive needs. The Furioso was in fact quite popular in the kingdom of Naples in the first half of the 16th century (cf. Genovese, 2010). We also know from coeval sources that Ariosto’s octaves were sung by street performers and cantastorie (Degl’Innocenti, 2019) and therefore were part of a widespread oral tradition. This cultural background could explain Martoretta’s choice of composing cycles inspired by the Orlando Furioso. In Martoretta’s collection it is possible to identify four cycles based on Ariosto’s poem connected through a thematic link or by textual continuity in the Furioso. The first cycle consists of madrigals 2 to 4 and includes octaves from canto 32: these octaves are linked through the same theme i.e. an invective against an unfaithful lover. The second cycle consists of madrigals 13 to 15: they all use the literary image of the bella fiera. The third cycle, composed by madrigals 8 to 11 and 29 set octaves 11 to 15 of canto VII to music, describing Alcina’s beauty, although in a different order with respect to the original position in the poem (cf. Balsano, 1988). The fourth and last cycle consists of five madrigals dedicated to Rodrigo Mendoza for the death of his daughter Angela Maria. It stands out for several reasons: it has a separate heading in the index page; it clearly shows a narrative construction; and it reworks Ariosto’s poetry in a variety of ways to express Rodorico’s grief. These features seem to offer a key for the interpretation of the book as a whole: a collection of rime sparse unified in a coherent plan through their mutual relationships. I will try to decipher this narrative and show how this literary construction is entwined with the social and cultural context that produced it. This general aim can be formulated in four specific research questions: How do Martoretta’s texts relate to each other and to external literary sources? How does music interact with the poetic texts and with the oral tradition related to Furioso’s settings? How does the editorial design of the print interact with authorship and what was the meaning of using and possessing a music book for its public? How did performance contribute to complete the meaning of the musical-poetic text? Addressing the research questions above requires an interdisciplinary approach that includes not only musicological analysis, but also methods from literary and cultural studies. Firstly, the study of the book’s dedications (Chartier, 2010) will allow me to reconstruct Martoretta’s social milieu in the early stages of his career thus making possible to place the composer in a more detailed cultural context. Regarding the literary aspect, the main focus will be on the Furioso through the study of the so-called tramutazioni (i.e. the practice of writing poetry based on Ariosto’s octaves; see Lucini, 2020), that Martoretta used extensively in his collection. I will also try to identify other literary sources used in the book through a close reading of the texts aiming at identifying literary images and formulaic passages that could be related to other authors. I will consequently analyze the interrelations between texts in order to show the narrative and rhetorical construction of the collection (cf. Calcagno 2012). The musical setting can offer further elements that pinpoint relationships between madrigals: through the study of features like keys used, transpositions, modal organisation and recurring melodic structures it is possible to identify common elements suggesting links among the compositions. Modal analysis is particularly useful to explore how interiority is represented in music (McClary, 2004 and Meier, 1988) and how the composer interacts with the poetic text (Donnelly, 2009). Since music based on Ariosto’s poetry has a strong relationship with oral tradition (Balsano and Haar, 1981 and Donnelly, 2009) I will also take into consideration the Arie upon which Ariosto’s octaves were sung in order to ascertain how pre-existing melodic material has been incorporated in Martoretta’s music (cf. Balsano and Haar 1981). Subsequently, I will analyze the surviving partbooks materially: printers, editors and book-sellers “made the books upon which authorship depended” (Van Orden, 2014). This study will aim at understanding the dialectics between the editorial plan of the composer and the actual constraints dictated by printing technology, patronage issues and marketing requirements. Finally, through a bibliographic and iconographic analysis of the sources related to partbooks in the 16th century, I will try to understand how people used them and in which contexts (see McKenzie, 2004) thus linking the actual objects to performance practice. As G. B. Pigna (1554) explicitly states, Ariosto’s poetry is best understood when read aloud. This means that performance is essential for fully appreciating the text. As Furioso’s settings are deeply rooted in declamation, I will analyze how the music composed by Martoretta relates to the way in which the poetic text can be understood by the intended audience, most often the performers themselves. I will thus take into consideration the experience of performing from partbooks as a way of exploring the textual content of poetry through music. The four main subdivisions of this research form an interrelated series of investigations into the main aspects involved in the conception, production and usage of the book, situating each aspect within the broader social, linguistic, and musical context of cinquecento Italy. Such an approach should return a comprehensive image of a complex and multifaceted phenomenon like the madrigal, undoubtedly one of the most original forms of expression of Renaissance culture.