ROSSI: Toccate and Correnti
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Michelangelo Rossi (1602-1656) Toccate e Correnti d'Intavolatura d'organo e cembalo (Complete Edition) The complete published works for keyboard of...
Michelangelo Rossi (1602-1656)
Toccate e Correnti d'Intavolatura d'organo e cembalo (Complete Edition)
The complete published works for keyboard of
Michelangelo Rossi, the material for this recording,
have survived in four copies: two of them, published by
G.B. Caifabri and Carlo Ricarii respectively, are
preserved at the Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale
of Bologna; the other two lack publication details and
are preserved respectively at the Biblioteca del
Conservatorio of Naples and the Musikarchiv of the
Abbey of Gottweig in Austria. While the Caifabri print
carries a title-page in movable type with the coat of arms
of the Cross of Genoa and bears the publication details
"IN ROMA a spese di Gio: Battista Caifabri in Parione
all'insegna della Croce di Genova", those of the other
editions are richly decorated copper engravings.
Ricarii shows the Aldrobrandini arms surmounted
by a crown adorned with stars (part of the family
emblem) held up by two winged cherubs seated on
trabeation sustained by two columns. A third cherub,
seated centrally on a step at the base of this elaborate
theatrical backdrop to the curtain carrying the title, holds
a cartouche with the words "ROMA, MDCXXXXXVII".
At the cherub's feet the following inscription appears
along the base of the step: "(SI) VENDONO IN
PARIONE ALLA CROCE DI GENOVA".
The Naples and Gottweig prints are identical: two
female musicians seated on a bench on either side of a
shell-shaped construction surmounted by the Barberini
arms (bees) held up by six winged cherubs and
surmounted by the Cross of Malta and a cardinal's hat.
One of the ladies plays a rectangular spinet that rests on
the bench and a wooden trestle; the other listens while
holding a violin and bow: the latter is clearly a reference
to Rossi himself, who as well as being a composer of
keyboard music was also known as "Michel Angelo del
Violino". At the bottom centre a cherub seems engaged
in a dance step while holding in his left hand a trumpet
with the letter W engraved on the bell. The date and
place of printing are added by hand: in the Naples copy
it is "1657" and "Roma"; in that of Gottweig it is "Roma
1640".
The titles given in the three editions differ slightly.
Naples and Gottweig: TOCCATE E' CORENTE
D'INTAVOLATURA D'ORGANO E CEMBALO DI
MICHELANGELO ROSSI
Ricarii: TOCCATE E CORENTI D' INTAVOLATURA
D ORGANO E CIMBALO DI MICHELANGELO
ROSSI DI NOVO RISTAMPATO DA CARLO
RICARII
Caifabri: TOCCATE E CORRENTE PER ORGANO, Ò
CEMBALO DI MICHEL ANGELO ROSSI,
The fundamental problem, therefore, is that of
establishing the chronology of the editions, for on that
issue all considerations on the sources of Rossi's
aesthetic and stylistic inspiration must depend.
Fortunately, a valuable study of the Toccate and
Correnti has been published by Alexander Silbiger,
whose article (Alexander Silbiger: "Michelangelo Rossi
and his Toccate e Correnti", reprinted for JAMS,
XXXVI, No. 1, 1983) exhaustively deals with the
problems of how to date the four surviving copies of the
volume.
Silbiger's reconstruction justly puts the
Naples/Gottweig edition first and he conjectures the date
as 1634, in consideration of the fact that Rossi's service
with the Barberini family was abruptly interrupted that
year. The absence of the publisher's name and
dedication could indeed be explained precisely by
Rossi's fall from favour and Cardinal Antonio
Barberini's withdrawal of protection and consequent
lack of interest in a dedication.
The Ricarii edition comes chronologically second.
Silbiger notes that the phrase "Di novo ristampato da
Carlo Ricarii" is evidently added later. The ink is
different and only just slotted into a rather cramped
space: in fact the publisher's name is so compressed that
a comma has been inserted to separate name from
surname. Moreover additions have clearly been made to
the last figures of the date (as from the fourth X), which
awkwardly run onto the reverse side of the cherub's
cartouche. The original figures of the date are therefore
"MDCXXX". In her preface to the Spes facsimile
edition of the Toccate e Correnti Laura Alvini refers to
research made with "suitable apparatus" with the aim of
establishing "whether, as would appear to the naked eye,
after the third X a second engraver had erased one or two
numbers so that the date could be revised to 1657. Since
no trace of underlying numbers emerged", the result was
"that one could take into consideration the hypothesis
that the date formerly engraved was M.D.XXX." If, on
the other hand, we consider the owner of the coat of
arms, Princess Olimpia Aldobrandini, a possible date for
this second edition (of which the Ricarii copy is a
reprint) is 1637/38, for in July 1638 Olimpia married
Paolo Borghese and a later date would plausibly have
required the addition of her husband's arms.
Finally, Silbiger places the Caifabri edition last.
Active between 1663 and 1695, Caifabri was a publisher
who habitually adopted earlier editions to which he
would affix his own device: this would also explain the
phrase "a spese di". Furthermore Silbiger acutely
observes that at least the first plate of the Fourth Toccata
has been changed, very likely because it had been
seriously worn from overuse. Judging from appearances,
even the Ricarii edition has various seriously damaged
plates (for example, pages 11 and 25).
As a personal contribution, I would just like to add
that the Caifabri title-page could conceivably be a
reutilisation of an edition that precedes all the others
(though I admit the likelihood is slim). There are two
reasons. First, it uses movable type and is hence oldfashioned,
compared to the engraved title-pages (though
dispensing with the services of an artist-engraver could
have been merely a decision to economize). Second, it is
strange that it has no noble coat of arms, as was
customary, but only the sign of the shop, the Cross of
Genoa. Again one could conjecture that Caifabri's
practical nature induced him to use and readapt the cross
of the Savoia family - a hypothesis that could lead us to
Rossi's first patron, Cardinal Maurizio di Savoia, and
perhaps to a date very close to 1630. These, of course,
are mere suppositions and Silbiger's intelligent
reconstruction still remains by far the most convincing.
As for the title itself, that used by Caifabri is certainly
the most summary and imprecise. It loses the
specification "D'INTAVOLATURA D'ORGANO E
CIMBALO" (which indicated not so much a specified
instrumentation as the form of notation, that of keyboard
tablature) and instead acquires the much more simplistic
and misleading indication "PER ORGANO O
CEMBALO".
As regards Rossi's style, Silbiger acutely observes
that his uncle, Lelio Rossi, was organist in the cathedral
church of S. Lorenzo in Genoa, where the maestro di
cappella was Simone Molinaro, who in 1613 had
published the Partitura delli sei libri de' madrigali a
cinque voci dell'Illustrissimo, ed Eccellentiss.(imo)
Prencipe di Venosa, D. Carlo Gesualdo. Very likely
Michelangelo studied with his uncle, a Servite friar, and
collaborated with him as organist. And during his period
in the service of Cardinal Maurizio di Savoia he would
have had ample opportunities for meeting the chief
musician of the Cardinal's chapel, Sigismondo d'India.
In Rossi, who also happened to be a distinguished
madrigalist and even the composer of two operas, the
chromatic influences of the above composers, Gesualdo
and D'India, came together and combined with a dutiful
observance of Frescobaldi's keyboard style. In the
keyboard works the result was a very personal idiom, of
the type invented by the Ferrarese master: one based on
"the manner of playing with cantabile affects and with a
diversity of passages" so that "this way of playing must
not be subject to the beat; as we see used in the modern
madrigals, which, however difficult they may be, are
made easier by means of the beat, by making it now
languid, now swift, and even sustaining it in the air,
according to their affects or meaning of the words".
In the Rossi toccata the free sections, placed above
all at the beginning and end, form a framework for the
intermediate expressive sections, which are full of
affects and resort to strongly accented lombardic
rhythms, alternating with more extended fugal
elaborations that can be traced back to the canzona. This
generates a mixed toccata-canzona genre of remarkable
appeal and originality, in which the various affects and
effects, though inspired by the new Frescobaldi genre,
are often taken to their most extreme consequences,
above all in the chromatic passages, in a manner
comparable with the vocal paroxysms of D'India and
Gesualdo. The Frescobaldi influence is revealed above
all in features such as leaps, passi doppi (passages for
both hands) and trills, of which Rossi became an
exemplary disseminator.
Below I have drawn attention to certain performing
details that are worth noticing. To identify the bars,
reference is made to the Spes facsimile editions of both
Rossi and Frescobaldi:
Toccata I: Beginning, adagio (Frescobaldi's
Avvertimento no. 3). The trill is indicated to be played
from the upper auxiliary. At the end of the first page the
music at times shows a 'compositional notation', at
times a 'performing notation' (see the notes to be held in
the imitative passage in the second bar of the last line).
Toccata II: Beginning, "adagio, et arpeggiando".
The trill is painstakingly notated from the upper note
and closes with a fermata (Frescobaldi's Avvertimento
no. 4). At the end of the first line, the trill is written with
an initial turn (equivalent of the doppelt-cadence in the
table of ornaments Bach wrote for Wilhelm
Friedemann's Clavierbüchlein). In this regard, it is
interesting to note that the French harpsichordists (with
the exception of Roberday) drew more inspiration from
the free genre of the Italian toccata than from the
contrapuntal forms of the capriccio/fantasia/ricercar,
yet while they applied its essential qualities in the free
'semibreves' of the Prelude non mesure, they also drew
up discrete and all-embracing Tables des agrements of
Cartesian clarity that freed them from the fully writtenout
notation of the Italians. At the end of page 5: an
episode with "lombardic rhythms" (inverted dotting)
typical of Frescobaldi's Elevation Toccatas. Beginning
of page 6: a repeated-note trill using Caccini's notation,
which Frescobaldi was also to employ as from the
instrument Canzonas of 1628 and in the Fiori Musicali
to which Gregorio Strozzi, Frescobaldi's last true
imitator, resorted in abundance. Page 6, line 2,
penultimate bar: the minim chord that closes the
expressive passage includes an A natural (to comply
with the standard form of unequal temperament of three
sharps and two flats), but must here be normalised to
include an A sharp with a suitable adjustment to the
tuning. This is a very frequent occurrence in the
Correnti, as we shall see below.
Toccata III: Page 7, line 3, last bar: an interesting
case of a trill clearly from the upper note. This shows
that the widely acknowledged 'rule' (in the performance
practice of early music) that the Italian seventeenthcentury
trill always started from the main note is simply
not true. Elsewhere I have demonstrated this with
examples from Frescobaldi. The documents must
always be read avec discretion! On page 9 the last
section resorts to lombardic accents.
Toccata IV: The final section has a virtuoso
figuration in the left hand evidently inspired by Toccata
IX of Frescobaldi's Second Book. The whole passage,
however, is developed in a personal way.
Toccata V: The calm opening is similar to Toccata
V of Frescobaldi's First Book. Page 13, last line, bar 1:
an elaborate trill figuration. Even the episode that begins
at page 15, line 3, is inspired by Toccata V of the First
Book, page 15, penultimate line. It is worth observing
that the notation of the unisons is not indicated by means
of rests in one hand (as, on the other hand, we find so
diligently applied in Frescobaldi).
Toccata VI: The opening trill has an evident fermata
on the last note, as in Frescobaldi's Avvertimento no. 4.
Page 18, end of line 3 and following line: an evident trill
from the upper note. The trill of page 19, last bar, is very
like a doppelt-cadence und mordant (to use the Bachian
terminology). In the final episode the thirds of the right
hand show a very interesting application of tied shared
notes: it was thought to be a performing technique
codified by Marcel Dupre, whereas it is frequent long
before that, precisely to avoid re-striking unisons. C.P.E.
Bach refers to it in his Versuch über die wahre Art das
Clavier zu spielen (facsimile Breitkopf, Leipzig, 1976),
Appendix, page 11: his example almost exactly repeats
the passage in the third movement of his father's Fifth
Brandenburg Concerto.
Toccata VII: Unquestionably Rossi's best-known
Toccata. The opening is inspired by Toccata VII of
Frescobaldi's Second Book, from which he also got the
idea for the final chromatic passage. The opening trill is
very clearly from the upper note. Line 2, bar 2: observe
the 'performing notation' in the right hand. On page 21,
bar 2, it is worth noting the modification to the last note
of the left hand: it has been corrected to a quaver,
thereby erasing a final (hypothetical) semiquaver D,
perhaps in order to avoid a unison with the right hand.
At the end of the same page, of great interest for
performance practice is the distinction between the
individually notated quavers and those joined by beams
to form groups of four. The final chromatic episode is a
passage of rare expressive power and it singles Rossi out
as a composer of the highest stature: worth noting is the
tremendo lupus in the meantone tuning between E flat
and G sharp on page 23, penultimate line, last bar.
Toccata VIII: At the beginning: E flat against F
sharp. The first minim chord at the end of the opening
episode is certainly major. End of line 3: a trill with a
deceleration and a fermata on the last note. Page 25, line,
3, bar 3: there is a case of 'performing notation' at the
third beat in the right hand: in spite of appearances it is
a run of four semiquavers (B A B C, with a held B). Also
worth noting is the galloping rhythm (quaver plus two
semiquavers) of evident Frescobaldian influence
running from the end of page 25 through the whole of
page 26. The episode in the first line of page 27 is
typically a discurso or glosa accompanied by the bass,
of which there are many examples in Frescobaldi (e.g.
Toccata VII of the Second Book, end of page 21).
Toccata IX: In the same mode as Toccata IX of
Frescobaldi's First Book. Line, 1, bar 3: the first minim
chord closing the first episode is certainly major. Page
29, line 3, penultimate bar: the keyboard with a short
octave limits the low note to C. On a full keyboard it is
preferable to play a low A. Same page, last line, bar 2: a
harsh meantone clash between F sharp and B flat in the
second bar.
Toccata X: A piece of particular breadth. Page 31,
line 3, beginning: interesting 'performing notation' for
the last series of descending semiquavers with held
notes. At the end of the same line: trill with a fermata.
The following series of impetuous and rhythmically
clashing imitative passages at the end of page 31 comes
to a close at page 32, line 1, penultimate bar, with an
instance of 'performing notation' and a printing error in
the duration of the note values of the last bar. Worth
observing is the painstakingly notated trill with a
fermata. After a fugato, there is an expressively
declaimed episode with lombardic accents at the
culmination of ascending scales. The following fugato
episode is divided into two sections: the second of these,
at page 33, line 2, bar 3, has stretto entries for the voices
and concludes with a grand descending cadenza at the
beginning of the last line, inspired by the similar
descending solo passage at the end of the first page (pag.
30) of Toccata X of Frescobaldi's Second Book. The
toccata ends with rapid, phantasmagoric figuration.
Correnti: This genre of music belongs to the galanterie
alla moderna that Frescobaldi had already used
brilliantly at the close of his First Book: the second
edition with the definitive Avvertimenti to the Reader
engraved by Christoforus Blancus in 1616. These
galanterie were then extended in 1637 (after Rossi's
edition, therefore) with his Aggiunta, consisting of
Balletti, Ciaccone and Passacaglie. Rossi's Correnti are
absolute masterpieces of their type.
Worth noting is the occasionally summary notation
at the cadences, which unquestionably requires
completion, and (in particular) the avoidance of notes
when not contemplated in the standard meantone tuning
of three sharps and two flats. There is a clear example
already at the end of the Corrente I in which the D sharp
of the dominant chord is first left without a sharp and
then omitted before the close on E (which, being a final
chord, should be major, according to Trabaci). The same
occurs in Corrente II, page 36, line 1, penultimate bar,
where the A (otherwise sharp) is omitted. At the end of
the first part, note the trill from the upper auxiliary with
a long appoggiatura: it is none other than a 4/6 trill
resolving onto a 3/5 chord according to a formula that
was to be standard in the following century, a fact rarely
grasped by modern performers. Again this close is
summarily notated, like so many others where the
harmonies need completion (as in continuo realisation).
One could infer from the chords avoided that the works
were written for an instrument of fixed meantone
temperament like the organ, but I feel that this solution
can be ruled out given the essentially secular nature of
the Corrente form. Besides, we have already established
that the phrase "d'Intavolatura d'organo e cimbalo"
referred to the tablature and not to the instrument
intended. In Caifabri's edition this specification is
omitted merely for reasons of concision and commercial
interest. Moreover, the title-pages of the
Napoli/Gottweig copies clearly show a woman playing
the harpsichord: a detail interestingly anticipated over a
century earlier in Andrea Antico da Montona's Frottole
intabulate da sonare organi of 1517, the title-page of
which even shows the composer himself playing a
harpsichord of the Italian type (with his rival Petrucci
portrayed as a peeved Barbary ape listening to him) -
again in spite of the title, which clearly indicates the use
of tablature and not the instrumentation.
An interesting detail is the way the right and left
hands distribute the middle voice at the start of the
second part of Corrente III: a similar attention to
performing matters is displayed by Frescobaldi at the
start of his own Corrente I of the First Book, where the
C sharp and, in the second line, the G sharp are again
divided between the hands. Again in Corrente V the
harmony of the penultimate bar of the first part needs to
be completed with an E. In the fourth-last bar of
Corrente VI a D natural is clearly indicated where a
dominant chord on B cadences on E. In my opinion this
is a clear case of pruderie on the part of the engraver,
whose musical knowledge (as was always the case) was
derived from experience, which meant that he was
accustomed to avoiding notes that were inappropriate
for the keyboard. Such practices also explain the
frequent attempts to 'sort out' the different voices: even
in Frescobaldi's toccatas it often happens that when an
extended passage is divided between various registers,
rests are inserted after the voice has moved into the next
register. This is the reason why Frescobaldi prefers to
use tablature for his toccatas and is forced to see it
constrained within the procrustian bed of score in the
Fiori Musicali: telling instances of such discomfort are
found in the Toccata avanti la Messa della Madonna,
bar 3, where the musical line is divided between the
tenor and bass lines even though it forms a single unit,
and in the Toccata avanti il Ricercare of the same Mass,
bar 10, where the ascending scale is divided between the
bass, tenor and soprano. But to return to the 'difficult'
notes in meantone tuning, the scores of Rossi's operas
are actually rife with such notes, but the difference is
that these scores were written for continuo players and
other instruments and not for solo performance.
In Corrente VII the engraver, who was naturally
expected to write from right to left, inadvertently
reversed the notation of the bass. The mistake is evident
if compared to a similar passage in the third bar of page
41. In the latter case, however, the notes are D C B A B
and not, as before, D C B G B (a difference, incidentally,
that I believe should be retained). A similar error has
deceived many editors and performers of Frescobaldi's
Monica of the First Book (quinta parte, page 53, bar 1),
where the sharp against the F should in fact be read as a
cancellation of the preceding E flat (not notated, but
implied because it follows a B flat). For the same reason
Frescobaldi had put a sharp (i.e. a natural) against an E
in his Corrente III of the First Book (page 68, bar 3): the
E followed a B flat and would have be flatted as a
routine measure.
Corrente X shows the same need for harmonic
completion at the end of the first part. In certain quaver
passages there is some doubt over the tritones, which are
always avoided when it is a matter of flatting the E, but
not when it is a question of flatting the A (for fear of
'meantone clashes'). The same thing happens at the end
of line 1, where the tritone is avoided in the soprano but
not in the tenor reply. The problem is very evident at the
end of the penultimate line where the alto E should
receive an additional flat, as in the bass two bars later.
This time, however, I lacked the courage to add a flat to
the A as well. As for flatting the E in the final cadence,
my solution is to add a flat in the descending passage
and omit it (it is not marked, in any case) on the last E.
For the toccatas I used a full-length (steso) Italian
harpsichord with a single keyboard and two unison
stops. It is a copy of a late sixteenth-century instrument.
For the Correnti I also used a wing spinet. Rossi's
harpsichord certainly had a short octave, as is proved in
at least two places: in Toccata VIII, page 27, line 2, the
minim D minor chord is divided between the two hands
in such a way that the left hand can negotiate a low D,
its octave and an F above that; in Toccata IX, page 29,
line 3, the lowest note would more plausibly be a low A,
but a C is written instead because the key was lacking.
In the latter case I prefer to play an A, for obvious
reasons of completeness. In similar ways the extensions
of Domenico Scarlatti adapt to the contingencies of the
instruments on which the sonatas were composed: where
possible, it is reasonable to complete the ranges. The
wing spinet was certainly known in Rome in Rossi's
day: its inventor, Girolamo Zenti da Viterbo, was one of
the Barberini suppliers. The tuning of the instruments is
strictly meantone, with the black notes made into sharps
or flats according to necessity.
Sergio Vartolo
English Translation: Hugh Ward-Perkins
Toccate e Correnti d’Intavolatura d’organo e cembalo (more info)
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Toccata I - 5:34
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Toccata II - 5:38
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Toccata III - 6:05
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Toccata IV - 6:15
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Toccata V - 7:52
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Toccata VI - 5:23
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Toccata VII - 6:06
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Toccata VIII - 6:38
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Toccata IX - 6:08
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Toccata X - 9:00
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Corrente I - 1:05
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Corrente II - 1:25
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Corrente III - 1:34
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Corrente IV - 1:11
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Corrente V - 0:58
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Corrente VI - 1:27
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Corrente VII - 1:15
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Corrente VIII - 1:17
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Corrente IX - 2:45
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Corrente X - 1:55
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