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• 12 Villotte of the early 16th century

12 Villotte of the early 16th century

for 3 voices or instruments.

These twelve villotte come from MS Magl. XIX 108 of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence, a collection consisting of twenty-one pieces in all. The description of the manuscript in the catalogue of the Florence library puts it in the second half of the sixteenth century; this seems very late for the repertoire, which is very much that of around 1510-1520. The music is in fact quite similar to other Italian villotte collections, both manuscript and printed, of about this date, except that the music appears to be in three parts rather than four. However, it would be a mistake to read too much into this: there may originally have been an altus part book in the manuscript. It is also not entirely out of the question that a fourth part could have been improvised: altus parts in many villotte, including those of Azzaiolo, have remarkably little melodic interest, and seem to exist entirely to fill in the harmony.
The apparently optional nature of the altus in this repertoire has its parallels in French music of about the same time: some of the three-part chansons published by Attaingnant in 1529 exist also in versions with added altus parts. The difference is in the relative importance of the tenor, which in the villotte repertoire is often the dominant line, and frequently starts before the other voices, as in our Bussa la porta. It is not always clear in this repertoire whether the music is written from scratch, as it were, in a popular style, or whether an actual popular melody is in the tenor, though the latter seems to be the case in Il marchese o di Salutio and Donde ne vienstu bella, both of which have melodies that occur in other settings.
The notation in the Florence MS is somewhat irregular at times, particularly in its use of time-signatures. Several pieces alternate duple and triple time-signatures, though the former are often used to notate a triple rhythm; sometimes there seems to be some logic in having two distinct tempi, but at other times the use of the time-signatures seems a little arbitrary. In the present transcriptions the original note values have generally been halved in sections written in 6/4, but retained elsewhere; the original time-signatures are given in the brief commentary below. Editorial accidentals are shown above the note in the usual way, applying only to the note to which they refer; the original accidentals are taken as applying to the whole bar, for the sake of simplicity. I have left the occasional minor deviation from normal rules of partwriting uncorrected, regarding it as integral to the unpretentious nature of the music. I am grateful to Peggy Forsyth for translating the texts of these songs.
This is unsophisticated music, which needs a direct and lively performance to make any sense at all. The songs can be sung, or played on (preferably wind) instruments; they are also well suited to plucked instruments.