• Startseite
• Literatur
• Noten
• Noten 4-stimmig
• Donato, Baldassare / Nasco, Giovanni: 2 Villanelle

Donato, Baldassare / Nasco, Giovanni: 2 Villanelle

for 4 voices or instruments.

These two villanelle, or villotte (the distinction is somewhat blurred around 1550) are both skilful arrangements of existing pieces. With Nasco´s Vorria che tu cantassi una canzona the exact model is a little problematic: the most likely one is an anonymous setting that has come down only as a tenor part in an anthology of 1555; another related setting has survived, by Azzaiolo. Chi la gagliarda is more straightforward: it is based on a three-part villanella alla napolitana by Nola.
Little is known about Giovanni Nasco. Baldassare Donato, on the other hand, spent most of his working life at St. Mark´s Venice, starting off as a singer, and eventually working his way up to rnaestro di cappella in 1590.
Vorria che tu cantassi una canzona is printed here after Di Giovan Nasco il printo libro di canzon villanesche alla napolitana a quattro voci (Venice, 1558); Donato´s piece is after his Il primo libro de canzon villanesche alla napolitana, 1550. The second verse for Nasco´s piece is taken from the Azzaiolo setting mentioned above.
In this edition the original note values have been preserved. However at bar 26 of Chi la gagliarda the time-signature changes to a 3, and the crotchets in the transcription correspond to black minims in the original. Theoretically this produces a proporation of minim = dotted minim; however, I am sceptical about this, and suggest a constant crotchet instead – villotte/villanelle collections of this time were often notationally unorthodox. Editorial accidentals appear in the usual way, that is printed small above the stave, applying to the one note only; the original accidentals are taken as applying to the whole bar.