Gioseffo Zarlino on Those who Improvise Counterpoint with ‘No Regard for the Other Voices’ (1558)
‘What Must be Observed when Improvising a Third Part on Two Given Parts: Skilled contrapuntists occasionally want to improvise a third...
Reimagining Historical Voices
‘What Must be Observed when Improvising a Third Part on Two Given Parts: Skilled contrapuntists occasionally want to improvise a third...
[fol. 22r.] Chapter two: of the definition and the division of melodía Melodía is to adorn and to grace the sounds of plainchant. Melodía...
The time table of daily duty was, 9 to 9.45, scale practice; 10 to 11, morning service; 11 to 12.30 or 1, music practice; 2 to 3.45,...
‘As for the disposition of the words under the notes, it is necessary to take great care to set them so well, that not only no barbarism...
‘But the greatest Difficulty is to sound every Note according to its due Measure of Time; and here it is that the Singers in most Country...
‘[Alemanno Benelli:] But because of the presumptuous audacity of performers who try to invent passaggi, I will not say sometimes, but...
(Summary) The Rules of Solfaing When solfaing, the singer must be aware of the mode of the piece, since this will tell them what sort of...
‘To sing with fidelity... is to sing so that anyone of those singing together should remain in the form of those notes that were...
'As for singing upon a plainsong, it has been in times past in England, as every man knows, and is at this day in other places, the...
‘Singing on the book. A Plainchant or counterpoint in four parts, which the musicians compose and sing impromptu on a single [part]:...
'Having learned these species [of intervals] and the method, here is how we ought to use them. The boy should provide himself with a...
‘Then out the People yawl an hundred Parts, Some roar, some whine, some creak like the Wheels of Carts; Such Notes the Gam-ut yet did...
‘Today, music has such great license in churches that even along with the canon of the mass certain obscene little ditties sometimes have...
‘To many in the singing profession, in fact, an investigation of past approaches seems irrelevant. Even a casual survey of recent...
‘To teach the art of singing well and elegantly to a boy, I advise first that he choose a teacher who sings pleasantly and sweetly with a...
'The fragment of recitative [below] has two effects. By the words, “Io credeva che alcuno,” Desdemona expresses the depression that...
Question. How can one remedy the fault that a choir, when it sings a well-known church chorale without sheet music, as must often happen,...
In altering or re-arranging words, or syllables, care should be taken to retain and mark the measure or accent of a melody, and only...
'Among the compositions made above a cantus firmus by the masters of the art, those [made] above introits are unique, and are used...
‘I have no doubt at all that the counterpoints above a cantus firmus from the introits by Constanzo Porta and Giovanni Matteo Asola,...