composer
Where Giovanni Ferretti was born is not certain. It may have been Venice or Ancona. His first appearance in documents was his employment as maestro di cappella (choirmaster) at the ...
related works
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir
Scoring:
GK
Padre Nuestro : for mixed choir a cappella / Aleksandra Chmielewska
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir
Scoring:
GK
Pas de Quatre : for four vocal quartets / Bernard van Beurden
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir
Scoring:
GK4
A thin place : 3 prayers from the Carmina Gadelica, for mixed choir, 2002 / Lowell Dijkstra
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir
Scoring:
GK4
composition
The Second Book of Songs : for 6 voices / Giovanni Ferretti; transcribed and edited by Cees Wagemakers
Other authors:
Wagemakers, Cees
(editor)
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