Il primo libro de madrigali a cinque voci by Girolamo Frescobaldi; Charles JacobsReview by: Alexander SilbigerNotes, Second Series, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Mar., 1985), pp. 577-578Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/941180 .

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MUSIC REVIEWS Compiled and edited by NINA DAVIS-MILLIS

Girolamo Frescobaldi. II primo libro de madrigali a cinque voci. Edited by Charles Jacobs. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1983. [Introduction, facsims., 3 p.; score, pp. 5-150; notes, bib- liography, pp. 151-65; cloth; $18.50]

Although Frescobaldi's fame rests chiefly on his instrumental works, he wrote a sub- stantial amount of vocal music. His first publication was, in fact, a collection of nineteen madrigals for five voices without accompaniment. They were written in Brussels, where the composer had accom- panied his patron, Guido Bentivoglio, on a diplomatic mission, and were published in 1608 by the noted Antwerp firm of Pierre Phalese.

Until the appearance of the volume un- der review, Frescobaldi's madrigals had never been republished in complete form, probably because, up to a few years ago, the only publicly accessible copy, in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, lacked one of the part books. An edition of six of the madrigals, with the missing part recon- structed, appeared in 1920, but the edition by Charles Jacobs, based on a complete set of part books recently acquired by the Bib- liotheque nationale of Paris, is the first modern one to include all nineteen mad- rigals.

Although not everyone may agree with Jacobs's claim that "the unavailability of Frescobaldi's madrigals . . . has consti- tuted one of the most serious lacunae in the literature of music" (p. 1), the first modern publication of these works during the quadricentennial anniversary year of the composer's birth would be a welcome event, were it not for some puzzling circumstan- ces regarding this edition and certain claims made by its editor.

The blurb on the dust cover of the vol- ume states that "the alto part . . . disap- peared sometime after publication in 1608 and only recently was recovered by the ed- itor," and in the introduction the author

confirms that he located the complete copy "after a lengthy search" (p. 1). A rather more dramatic report of the recovery ap- peared in the music pages of The New York Times (24 April 1983, Section 2, p.2): "Dr. Jacobs's 7-year search took him through- out Europe and South America, and kept him running up against dead end after dead end, with only the occasional uncovered clue to keep him on track. And, last month [hence, during March 1983], Dr. Jacobs's patience paid off."

These claims and the Times story (cited by Jacobs, without comment, on p. 159) are rather baffling, in view of the earlier his- tory of this copy, which is recounted in the introduction (p. 159, note 3). In an article in the 1961 volume of Hinrichsen's Early Music Book (p. 146), the well-known musi- cologist and collector, Genevieve Thibault, announced that some twelve years earlier (hence around 1949), she had acquired a complete set of part books of the publica- tion and had transcribed the madrigals. After her death in 1975, the volumes ended up in the Bibliotheque nationale, and were listed in a catalogue published in 1980.

Among Frescobaldi scholars, the exis- tence of this copy and its location have, in fact, been common knowledge for years, and several had the opportunity to exam- ine the part-books while they were still in Thibault's possession. Although the Paris copy is not mentioned in the New Grove ar- ticle on Frescobaldi (which does not pro- vide locations for any printed sources), it is listed in the catalogue of works in Fred- erick Hammond, Girolamo Frescobaldi (Cambridge, 1983), p. 131. It is also com- mon knowledge that a complete critical edition of the madrigals by Lorenzo Bian-

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MLA Notes, March 1985

coni has been in preparation and is sched- uled to appear during the present year (1984), as a volume of Frescobaldi's Opere complete (Milan, 1970- ). The "scooping" of this volume of the complete works by a competing edition is regrettable-espe- cially in view of the ever-increasing costs of scholarly editions and the resulting pres- sures to library budgets-and contrary to customary scholarly practice. (In this light, one cannot help wondering why the nu- merous acknowledgements-pp. ix-x-do not include one to the Bibliotheque nation- ale for permission to publish this volume.)

The Jacobs edition gives, in fact, the impression of having been rushed to the press (its publication date is given as 28 De- cember 1983, little over nine months after Jacobs's apparent "recovery" of the part- book). Although it is published as a critical edition, by a university press, it provides only a very brief commentary, which makes no attempt to discuss these works in the context of the history of the genre or of the composer's compositional develop- ment. The extensive bibliography (pp. 163- 165)-while including many items of ques- tionable relevance to the editions-ignores almost all the products of the active Fres- cobaldi scholarship of the last decade. Al- though the title of a study highly relevant to the background of these works (An- thony Newcomb's The Madrigal at Ferrara 1579-97 [Princeton, 1980]) is cited, the ci- tation is accompanied by the note "not seen by the editor"! A biographical note on the dedicatee of Frescobaldi's publication, Guido Bentivoglio (p. 161, note 3), makes no ref- erence to Bentivoglio's crucial role in Fres- cobaldi's life during the composition of the madrigals. A further sign of haste is the editor's failure to make a thorough attempt to identify the authors of the texts of the madrigals. The bibliography includes a substantial number of literary collections and reference works (I counted a dozen items), but the identifications of four of the five texts for which authors are listed are simply taken from a common reference II nuovo Vogel. (Seven additional texts iden- tified by Lorenzo Bianconi are listed in Hammond, pp. 261-62.)

These reservations aside, the edition presents a generally accurate transcription according to currently fashionable princi- ples: clefs have been changed to those fa-

miliar to present-day singers, the signature "C" has been changed to 4 with barlines in- serted at the semibreve, modern practices with regard to accidentals are observed. As is the case with most editions of seven- teenth-century music, the most critical ed- itorial decisions regard missing accidentals and mensuration changes. Jacobs's policy on accidentals is generally sound, although some of the suggested ficta seem unneces- sary or even undesirable (compare, for ex- ample, no. 6, mm. 2, 4, and 6 with the analogous passage in mm. 3-4 of the can- to); and I would have added sharps at the resolution of some major cadences, in ac- cordance with the aesthetic of the period. I disagree more strongly with Jacobs's transcriptions of emiola maggiore-brief si- multaneous passages of black breves, semi- breves, and minims in all voices, some- times, but not always, preceded by the numeral "3." Jacobs indicates that the blackened notes should be treated as trip- lets with respect to their white equivalents (hence reducing each note value by one- third). This solution, which is difficult to realize in practice, requires moving back and forth between quarter notes and triplet whole notes, resulting in an unreasonably slow tempo for these passages. An alter- native that is musically more satisfactory, simpler to execute, and in line with recent conclusions on mensuration and tempo in Frescobaldi's keyboard music, is the equa- tion of the black breve to the white semi- breve, the black semibreve to the white minim, and the black minim to the semi- minim (from which it is visually indistin- guishable). In Jacobs's edition this requires that the triplet brackets be ignored and the note values halved in these passages (no. 2, m. 29; no. 5, mm. 10-11; and no. 6, mm. 33-35).

This edition in itself is not unsatisfac- tory, but the prospective purchaser may well wish to wait, and compare it with the forth- coming Opere complete edition (which, un- doubtedly, will provide more detailed background information). Possibly, the price of the Jacobs edition may turn out to be more attractive, although at $18.50 (and requiring multiple copies for a perfor- mance), it is hardly a bargain.

ALEXANDER SILBIGER

University of Wisconsin, Madison

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