September 5, 2023
Cremona, Church of St. Bassano
Seventh Symposium of the ICTMD Study Group on Multipart Music
a lecture-performance by ITER Research Ensemble
script by Giovanni Cestino and Amina Fiallo
Emanuele Cristini sound design
Abstract
Musical sources are junction spaces where stories of listening and soundmaking are rendered visible through symbolic encoding and material evidence. Even if we often understand sources as repositories for musical content, they function more like archeological remains of social interactions that are not evident when we render their content through music-making. With this lecture-performance, ITER Research Ensemble seeks to unearth the unhearable stories behind site-specific repertoires of multipart sacred music, in which literate and oral modes of composition and transmission are tightly intertwined.
Codex Trent 91 is the first example. A late-fourteenth century manuscript belonging to the choirmaster of the Trent cathedral, it gathers not only pieces by renowned composers, but also a vast number array of simpler, orally-oriented polyphonies made for pedagogic and liturgical use. We will focus on the Liber generationis, presenting it in a concert version that highlights its inner formulaic structure.
We will then parallel this high-culture repertoire with the quite exceptional situation of sacred music in Lu Monferrato, a small hill town in Piedmont. In the 18th century, local priests wanted to provide their parishes with a specific musical repertoire, composing cantus fractus and polyphony with up to four parts. This tradition left an impression on the people of Lu, as some local amateur musicians continued composing in the style until the early 20th century. In addition to presenting unusual traces of non-professional composing, these priestly and amateur sources convey much information—often intimate or anecdotal—about the village history, its musicking, and its “sense of place.”
The last examples is the sacred repertoire of the Good Friday procession of Rovinj-Rovigno, Croatia, a solemn rite of Venetian origins that was extinguished in the early 1960s. Blending ethnography, archival research and artistic experimentation, we present our recent work with the local Italian community to recover this heritage from its relics still echoing in living musical practices.
Merging microhistory with music-making, ITER Research Ensemble offers a “thick description” of past multipart traditions, in which written sources work as “architectural drawings” bursting with social and multimedia potential.
program
Anonymous (15th century)
Liber generationis [Jesu Christi]
Trent, Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trent Codex 91
musical edition by Amina Fiallo
concert version by Amina Fiallo e Giovanni Cestino
Antonio Francesco Colli (1665-1743)
Sequentia pro defunctis (excerpt)
[Antonio Francesco Colli’s Music Book], pp. 225-227
Antonio Francesco Colli (1665-1743)
Alia sequentia defunctorum (excerpt)
[Antonio Francesco Colli’s Book], pp. 232-233
Stabat mater
[Liber] Pro ecclesia parrochiali Sancti Iacobi oppidi Lù, c. 75v
Unidentified composers from Lu Monferrato (18th century)
Sequentia mortuorum
“Dies iræ”
[Liber] Pro ecclesia parrochiali Sancti Iacobi oppidi Lù, c. 99r
Sequentia defunctorum
“Quantus tremor”
[Liber] Pro ecclesia parrochiali Sancti Iacobi oppidi Lù, c. 21v
Sequentia mortuorum
“Tuba mirum”
[Liber] Pro ecclesia parrochiali Sancti Iacobi oppidi Lù, cc. 99v
[Sequentia defunctorum.] Alio modo
“Mors stupebit”
[Liber] Pro ecclesia parrochiali Sancti Iacobi oppidi Lù, c. 22r
Antonio Francesco Colli (1665-1743)
Salve regina
[Liber] Pro collegiata de Lu in festis principalibus, cc. 98v-100r
Giuseppe Boltri (18th century)
Stabat mater
[Giuseppe Boltri’s Music Book], c. 49r
Lu Monferrato (Piedmont, Italy), Museo d’Arte Sacra “San Giacomo”
musical editions by Amina Fiallo and Giovanni Cestino
[more on this repertoire]
Giovanni Masato (1737–1826)
Venite et ploremus – Popule meus
Anonymous
Miserere semplice
Canon Corda (18th century)
Miserere
Giuseppe Peitler (19th-20th century)
Miserere [e Stabat mater] con banda
Anonymous (18th century)
Sepulto Domino
Rovinj-Rovigno, Archive of the Church of St Euphemia
musical editions by Alessio Giuricin and Giovanni Cestino
sound and audiovisuals by Giovanni Cestino (Rovinj-Rovigno, ottobre 2022)
field recording by Emanuele Cristini (Rovinj-Rovigno, 2 agosto 2023)