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Judy
Kadar: Trecento Polyphony
Published in the Journal of The Historical
Harp Society, Fall 2002-Winter 2003
by Nancy Hurrell
The Italian Trecento period of 1325 to 1425 was described by
the scholar Nino Pirrotta as "A beautiful island rising out of the sea". Almost
nothing survives before 1325 and very little music survives from 1425 to 1500,
so the Trecento provides a wealth of musical material. In the Trecento period
there were three generations of composers. The first generation included Jacopo
da Bologna and Maestro Piero (who wrote cacce) with a source being the Rossi
Codex. The second generation of composers can be seen in the Squarcialupi Codex
with the work of Landini. The third period was centered in the court at Avignon
with a blending of the Italian and French notation with works by Dufay and
Josquin. The musical developments from the Trecento were: the madrigal
and the caccia.
In the class we began playing a madrigal, 'Bella Granata'
from the Rossi Codex with Judy offering comparison obsevations of the different
transcriptions available. Typical of the early Trecento, the piece ends with a
cadence of a minor third to a unison. In Landini's 'Che fai? Che pensi?' we
tried playing the left hand in harmonics to accommodate the ranges of the two
voices. The class had several opportunities to divide into groups, each playing
a voice, to hear three-part polyphony in pieces such as 'Aquila Altera' by
Jacopo da Bologna and the lovely 'Musica son' by Landini. We investigated ficta
and discussed each accidental in the editions and made decisions whether or not
to sharp the strings. Our fingers soon became accustomed to the interesting
rhythmic patterns in the pieces, and it was very satisfying to hear rhythmic
repetition in the various voices.
From the third generation, Judy showed copies of the
facsimiles of a 'Kyrie' (c. 1400, anonymous) and also a piece from the Faenza
Codex. The 'Kyrie' facsimile was particularly interesting in that notes were
crossed out and added, which may indicate how people were thinking or perhaps
how they prepared the piece for performance. In 'Bel fiore danca' we determined
which melodic patterns repeated in the piece. We learned that the Italians
tended to compose the upper voice first and then write the other voices,
whereas the French usually wrote the tenor voice first (or used a pre- existing
tenor) and then wrote the voices above it.
There was a wealth of information given about the Trecento
period, but the focus of the class was on actually playing the music. Members
of the class obviously had an interest in the Trecento 'sound' and our harps
blended beautifully. We played through entire pieces several times and seemed
to feel the same way about them. Everyone in the class, including Judy, felt it
was a very special experience playing together, a highlight of our week.
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