Genre and meaning in Orazio Vecchi's "Selva di varia ricreatione" (1590).
Item
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Title
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Genre and meaning in Orazio Vecchi's "Selva di varia ricreatione" (1590).
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Identifier
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AAI3187358
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identifier
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3187358
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Creator
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Schleuse, Paul.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Ruth I. DeFord
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Date
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2005
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Music | Biography
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Abstract
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Orazio Vecchi's Selva di varia ricreatione (1590) represents a decisive turning point in the composer's career. Breaking with the tradition of publishing books of a single genre---a tradition to which Vecchi had contributed four books of canzonettas and two books of madrigals in the 1580s--- Selva is the first Italian secular music print to contain works in a wide variety of genres, for ensembles ranging from three to ten voices or instruments. The genres represented include conventional madrigals and canzonettas, popular dialect songs, and larger-scale ceremonial dialogues. The collection also includes various representational pieces which hint at the dramatic possibilities Vecchi explored in his next collection, L'Amfiparnaso (1594, pub. 1597).;The variety implicit in Selva's title derives from Vecchi's aesthetic association of variety with pleasure and the imitation of life. In the dedication Vecchi teases out some of the metaphoric implications of the title, which has resonances with other books titled "Forest" going back to classical literature, usually connoting a book of great size or variety. The dedication is addressed to the brothers Joseph and Jacob Fugger of Augsburg, figures who could have supported Vecchi's unsuccessful bid for employment at the court of Duke Wilhelm V in Bavaria.;The arrangement of pieces in Selva reinforces the emphasis on variety, with popular or humorous pieces consistently placed after serious, elevated works for the same ensemble-size. These juxtapositions sometimes suggest a narrative or thematic reading of pieces or groups of pieces, one of the earliest instances of such organization in a secular music print. The individual pieces reveal a wide range of influences, and even specific models, including music by Andrea Gabrieli, Giovanni Ferretti, Luca Marenzio, and especially Orlando di Lasso, whose canzoni villanesche and moresche are a clear influence.;Like Selva, Vecchi's three subsequent secular works employ metaphorical titles and use variety and imitation. Although the term "madrigal comedy" has been used to describe these works and also a handful of collections by Banchieri, Croce, and others, both the term and the assumptions underlying its definition must be reevaluated in the light of a careful examination of Selva.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
