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• Ghiselin: 5 Instrumental Pieces

Ghiselin: 5 Instrumental Pieces

for 3 instruments.

Relatively little is known about Johannes Ghiselin, also known as Verbonnet: a Florentine register of 1492 refers to him as “da Picardia”, and one of nine years later as “fiamengo”. We know about his two surnames from yet another register, where his signature survives as “Johannes Ghiselin alias Verbonnet”. He is included in the list of distinguished composer´s in Crétin´s Déploration on the death of Ockeghem (c. 1495). He is known to have worked at Ferrara and Florence in the 1490s; the next decade finds him in France, and the last reference to him is further north still at Bergen op Zoom. He had a reputation as an expert craftsman, with highly developed contrapuntal skills.
All the pieces here are written in the rhythmically ornate style typical of the late fifteenth century. The composer seems to have had little interest in the move towards melodic simplicity and textual clarity that was characteristic of the early sixteenth century: nos. 4 and 5 presumably had texts at some stage, but it seems clear that the music, with its many melismas, made few concessions to the natural rhythms of the words.
The original note values have been halved in this edition, giving an appearance that is rather “white” for the busy rhythmic style of this music, which really needs to go fast enough for the cross-rhythms to sound like elaboration. Editorial accidentals are shown in the usual way, that is printed small above the stave, applying to the one note only.