related works
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir
Scoring:
GK
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir
Scoring:
GK
Prayer of Nicholas of Flüe : for mixed choir / Rens Tienstra
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir
Scoring:
GK
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir
Scoring:
GK
composition
The Second Book of Songs : for 6 voices / Giovanni Ferretti; transcribed and edited by Cees Wagemakers
Other authors:
Wagemakers, Cees
(Editor)
Ferretti, Giovanni
(Composer)
Contains:
Com’ al primo apparir (4’30”)
Un nuovo cacciator (1’45”)
Ancor che col partir (2’45”)
Non è dolor (2’30”)
O saporito volto (2’00”)
Ogn’ un s’ allegra (1’45”)
Occhi leggiadri (1’45”)
Qual donna canterà (Canzona) (5’15”)
Bon cacciator (2’00”)
Metetevi in bataglia (1’30”)
O faccia (2’15”)
Dolci colli (2’00”)
Depon l’arco e l’orgoglia (2’00”)
Consia caldari (Mascherata à 8) (2’30”)
Voi che te dica (1’30”)
Mirate che m’ ha fatto (1’45”)
Ho’ inteso dir (2’00”)
Sù, sù, sù non più dormir (2’15”)
Ecco ch’ io lass’ il core (Anon.) (2’45”)
Occhi, non occhi (1’45”)
Nasce la gioia mia (3’00”)
Description:
Unlike most secular vocal music from Italian composers in the last decades of the 16th century, this book with compositions by Giovanni Ferretti (c.1540 - c.1609) contains no madrigals but canzoni, songs. More than madrigals the songs follow a solid scheme in the lyrics a-a-b(-c)-d-d. And furthermore there is a difference in the content of the lyrics: while in the madrigals the subject is suffering from love unfulfilled, deceived, disrupted, unattainable, in short: doom and gloom - in these songs the subject is love itself.
The songs breathe a happier and more optimistic atmosphere. Ferretti’s songs show a largely syncopic style of composition, thus producing a festive, cascading, dance-like idiom, that must be very challenging and pleasant to sing. The polyphony is not very intricate, while there is much homophony of four voices alternating with another combination of voices. There are some small melismata, but most of the lyrics are syllabic. These aspects together make the songs - although for 6 voices - very easily accessible.
The last song in this bundle is a mascherata for eight voices. The four main voices have the same text, the other voices repeat a small sentence, the meaning of which is obscure to me. One could hear a resemblance to Ludwig Senfl’s ‘Das Glaut zu Speyer’, a funny song with unimportant meaning.
Cees Wagemakers, 2016