Ruffo - Bassano - Virgiliano. Ricercate & Capricci

RUFFO – BASSANO – VIRGILIANO RICERCATE E CAPRICCI

Carmen Troncoso

Elke Zeiner - Sergio Candia

- Recorders alto in G [1], tenor in C [2,3] and bass in F [4], according to Rafi, 16th century / A=494 Hz

• Francesco Li Virghi, Italy, 2003.

- Alto recorder in G [5], according to van Eyck (Bassano – Virgiliano), 16th -17 th century / A=440 Hz

• Francesco Li Virghi, Italy, 2009.

- Alto recorder in G [6], after Ganassi, 16th century / A=440 Hz

• Bodil Diesen, Norway, 1994.

- Temperament: Meantone ¼ comma

• Pitch: A=494 Hz

The recording for this publication was made in Santiago de Chile, March 2011. The sound recording and digital audio editing was done by Félix Rodríguez Betancourt.

Vicenzo Ruffo

Capricci a tre voci. Studio per Edizioni Scelte, Firenze, 1979.

Giovanni Bassano

Ricercate / Passaggi et Cadentie, 1585. Pelikan Edition, Zürich, 1976.

Aurelio Virgiliano Thirteen Ricercate fronm Il Dolcimelo for solo treble instrument, London pro Musica Edition, 1980.

The initial motivation for this recording is the overwhelming beauty of this music, born in the midst of the most splendid period of Italian music in the 16th century. But beyond that, it should be taken into account what D. Kämper said about Ruffo’s Capricci in musica (1564): “perhaps the most important collection of music for instrumental ensemble around the middle of the fifteenth century” (in: Marco Materassi: notes to the CD “Vincenzo Ruffo. Capricci a tre voci”. Accademia

STR33337, Milano, 1994).

Indeed, Ruffo’s capricci are a marvellous testimony to the integration of compositional techniques and musical styles cultivated by the composer during his long musical life. On the one hand, his composition of vocal counterpoint, madrigals and motets, and of instrumental counterpoint in ricercares and fantasias must be considered, evidencing a highly sophisticated and sensitive development of the compositional techniques of the Flemish composers who marked the stylistic directions of Italian music in the first half of the 16th century. On the

Strumentale Italiana - Alberto Rasi. Stradivarius, Dulcimer

other hand, the capricci integrate the developments of his religious composition as a chapel master in different centres of northern Italy, particularly in Milan. In addition, Ruffo’s compositional technique includes the art of diminutione, of which there are several testimonies in his time, mainly the treatises by Silvestro Ganassi (1535, 1542) and Diego Ortiz (1553). It should be noted that the techniques of diminuire and passeggiare do not appear in Ruffo’s caprices as a superficial and possibly dispensable ornamentation, but are properly integrated into the counterpoint, forming part of the essential musical material of each caprice. The direct relationship with the first treatises on the art of diminuire is evident in several of the capricci, but above all in Capriccio V: La Gamba in tenor and XIII: La Gamba in basso e soprano, which

are built on dance tenori from the “Tratado de Glosas” by Diego Ortiz, dedicated primarily to the viola da gamba. It has therefore seemed appropriate to present Ruffo’s works alongside some ricercate for solo instrument by Giovanni Bassano (1585) and Aurelio Virgiliano (ca. 1600), which, although written for instructional purposes for learning virtuosity, also show the passaggi integrated into small works with a certain freedom and autonomy with respect to a canto diminuito, showing a striking resemblance to the jazz solos of our time, with an ingenious use of the techniques of imitative counterpoint and various elaborations of motifs. Paradoxically, these are monodic pieces whose listening evokes an imaginary polyphony, a rare kind of “counterpoint alla mente” that

converses very well with listening to the masterly three-voice counterpoint of the capricci.

In relation to the instruments used in this recording, composed only of renaissance recorders, it could be said that it corresponds to a “minimalist” conformation, without being historically unsuitable, since both the instruments owned by the Accademia Filarmonica of Verona (to which the capricci were dedicated) and the publications of Bassano and Virgiliano expressly indicate the recorder as one of the instruments for which these musical works were intended.

Vincenzo Ruffo (ca. 1508 - 1587)

One of the main positions held by this Veronese composer during his long career was that of maestro di cappella in the Dome of Milan, appointed in 1563 by Cardinal Carlo Borromeo. But equally

important is his link with the Accademia Filarmonica in Verona. It was precisely for the virtuoso musicians of this academy that he dedicated his collection of capricci, also considering their performance in “concerto” with the numerous string (28) and wind (37) instruments that the academy had Giovanni Bassano (1558 - 1617)

This composer and cornetto player became the leader of the wind ensemble of the Venice Dome in 1601, succeeding the famous Girolamo Dalla Casa. He also led or was involved in the practice of music with various groups of wind instruments, which were called “piffari”. His fame as a virtuoso performer and his first publication in 1585, “Ricercate, passagi et cadentie” (from which the ricercate in our record is taken), overshadowed his skills as a composer. Not much

is known about Bassano’s life before his arrival at San Marco as an instrumentalist in 1576.

As a composer he produced music in a variety of genres in vogue at the time, such as madrigals, motets, canzonettas and concerti ecclesiastici. Some of his instrumental works show an ingenious counterpoint, whose workmanship and style possibly have their source of inspiration in some of his monodic ricercate of 1685.

Aurelio Virgiliano (fl. ca.1600)

Little more is known today about this 16th-century Italian musician than his incomplete manuscript with solo ricercate and various exercises in ornamental techniques mysteriously entitled “Il Dolcimelo”, which may allude to both a “sweet apple tree” and a “sweet melody”. Among the instruments he names for the execution of his exercises and

ricercate is the recorder, in a late Renaissance or early Baroque (ca. 1600) version or model, perhaps similar to the type of recorder still employed by Jacob van Eyck (ca. 1590 - 1657), the last of the Renaissance masters of the art of “a solo” divition. The second part of “Il Dolcimelo” contains examples of canzonas and diminuiti madrigals, together with a good number of ricercate for solo instrument, of which we include three in our recording.

Sergio Candia La Compañía de Céfiro

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