Nicola Vicentino (1511 – 1575 or 1576) was an Italian music theorist and composer of the Renaissance. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest Music theory is the field of study that deals with the Mechanics of music and how Music works Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance, approximately 1400 - 1600 He was one of the most visionary musicians of the age, inventing, among other things, a microtonal keyboard, and devising a practical system of chromatic writing two hundred years before the rise of equal temperament. Microtonal music is Music using microtones — intervals of less than an equally spaced Semitone. In Music, chromaticism is a Compositional technique interspersing the primary Diatonic pitches and chords with other pitches of the Chromatic Equal temperament is a Musical temperament, or a system of tuning in which every pair of adjacent notes has an identical Frequency ratio.
Life
Little is known of his early life. Born in Vicenza, he may have studied with Adrian Willaert in Venice, which was close by, and he acquired an early interest in the contemporary humanistic revival, including the study of ancient Greek music theory and performance practice (about which little was known, but was then being uncovered, through the work of scholars such as Girolamo Mei and Giangiorgio Trissino). Vicenza, a city in northern Italy, is the capital of the eponymous province in the Veneto region at the northern base of the Monte Berico Adrian Willaert (c 1490 &ndash 7 December 1562 was a Flemish Composer of the Renaissance and founder of the Venetian School. Venice ( Italian: Venezia, Venetian: Venesia or Venexia) is a city in Northern Italy, the capital of the Girolamo Mei ( May 27 1519 – July 1594 was an Italian Historian and humanist, famous in music history for providing the intellectual Gian Giorgio Trissino ( July 8, 1478 - December 8, 1550) was an Italian Renaissance humanist, poet dramatist
At some time in the 1530s or early 1540s he went to Ferrara, which was to become the center for experimental secular music in Italy from the middle to the end of the 16th century. Ferrara is a city in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. Apparently he served as a music tutor to the Duke of Este as well as some of his family members, and some of Vicentino's music was sung at the court of Ferrara. "Este" redirects here For the city see Este Italy. For Tolkien's fictional character see Estë.
During the late 1540s his reputation as a music theorist grew. He established his reputation as a composer with his publication of a book of madrigals in Venice in 1546, and in 1551 he took part in one of the most famous events in 16th century music theory, the debate between Vicente Lusitano and himself in Rome in 1551. Vicente Lusitano (died after 1561) was a Portuguese Music Composer and theorist of the late Renaissance. Rome ( Roma ˈroma Roma is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city with more than 2 The topic of the debate was the relationship of the ancient Greek genera to contemporary music practice, in particular whether contemporary music could be explained in terms of the diatonic genus alone (as Lusitano claimed) or (as Vicentino claimed) was best described as a combination of the diatonic, chromatic, and enharmonic genera, the last of which contained a microtone. The term ancient Greece refers to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca In modern Music and notation, an enharmonic equivalent is a Note ( enharmonic tone) interval ( enharmonic interval) or The debate was rather unlike those among contemporary musicologists, being more like a refereed prize fight, with a panel of judges; they awarded the prize to Lusitano. Musicology ( Greek: μουσική = "music" and λόγος = "word" or "reason" is the scholarly study of Music Unbowed, Vicentino continued his experiments, and went on to build the archicembalo which could play the music he described in his publications. Archicembalo was a musical instrument constructed by Nicola Vicentino in 1555
After a short time in Rome, Vicentino returned to Ferrara, and later moved to Siena. Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Siena. In 1563 he became maestro di cappella at the cathedral in Vicenza, thus returning to his home city, but only briefly, for he accepted a position in Milan in 1565. Milan (Milano Milan (listen) is one of the largest cities in Italy, located in the plains of Lombardy. Around 1570 he had some connection with the Bavarian court in Munich, though he may never have gone there. Munich (München; Minga is the capital city of Bavaria, Germany. He died in Milan during the plague of 1575–1576, though his exact date of death is not known. Bubonic plague is the best-known manifestation of the bacterial disease plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis (formerly known as
Works
While Vicentino was known as a composer, and wrote two books of madrigals and motets in a harmonically sophisticated style, it was his work as a music theorist that gained him renown. A madrigal is a type of Secular vocal music composition written during the Renaissance and early Baroque eras In Western music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions
In the 1550s, in Italy, there was a surge of interest in chromatic composition, some of which was part of the movement known as musica reservata, and some of which was motivated by research into ancient Greek music, including modes and genera. In Music history, musica reservata (also musica secreta) is either a style or a performance practice in A cappella vocal music of Traditionally a tetrachord is a series of four tones filling in the interval of a perfect fourth a 43 frequency proportion Composers such as Cipriano de Rore, Orlande de Lassus and others wrote music which was impossible to sing in tune without having a system for adjusting the pitch of chromatic intervals in some way. Cypriano de Rore or Cipriano de Rore (1515 or 1516 – between September 11 and September 20 1565 was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance, active Orlande de Lassus (also Orlandus Lassus, Orlando di Lasso, Roland de Lassus, or Roland Delattre) (1532 (possibly 1530 &ndash June Several theorists attacked the problem, including Vicentino.
In 1555 he published his most famous work, L'antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica (ancient music adapted to modern practice), in which he fully explained his ideas linking ancient Greek musical theory and practice with contemporary works. In this work he expanded and justified many of the ideas which he first brought up in his debate with Lusitano. Whether or not Lusitano ever attempted to refute Vicentino's expanded version is not known; however, Vicentino's book was influential with the group of madrigalists working in Ferrara in the next two decades, including Luzzasco Luzzaschi and Carlo Gesualdo. Luzzasco Luzzaschi (c 1545 &ndash September 10, 1607) was an Italian Composer, Organist, and teacher of the late Renaissance This article is about the composer for the Italian town see Gesualdo (town.
Another area in which Vicentino did original work was musical dynamics. In Music, dynamics normally refers to the volume of a Sound or note, but can also refer to every aspect of the execution of a given piece either stylistic He was one of the first theorists, and perhaps the first, to mention volume as an expressive parameter. In L'antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica he mentioned that the strength of singing must respect carefully the text and passage being sung.
Vicentino's most famous invention was the archicembalo, a keyboard containing thirty-six keys to the octave. In Music, an octave ( is the the use of which is "common in most musical systems Using this keyboard, it was possible to play acoustically satisfactory intervals in any key, and therefore some of the recently composed music in a chromatic style, which was only in tune when sung, could be played on the keyboard. Later he applied the same keyboard layout to the archiorgano, a microtonal keyboard for the organ. The organ (from Greek όργανον – organon "organ instrument tool" is a Keyboard instrument of one or more divisions each While these keyboards did not achieve wide popularity, they did attempt to solve the difficult problem of playing music in meantone temperament in all keys. Meantone temperament is a Musical temperament, which is a system of Musical tuning. After a long and complex history, the standard way to do that became to divide the octave into twelve equal parts, called equal temperament. Equal temperament is a Musical temperament, or a system of tuning in which every pair of adjacent notes has an identical Frequency ratio. Vicentino's solution in effect divides the octave into 31 equal parts, and unlike the modern solution allows meantone tuning with good intonation for the thirds and sixths.
References and further reading
- The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd. , 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
- Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. Gustave Reese ( November 29 1899, New York City – – September 7 1977, Berkeley California) was an American New York, W. W. Norton & Co. , 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4
- Edwin M. Ripin: "Arcicembalo", Henry W. Kaufmann/Robert L. Kendrick, "Nicola Vicentino," Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed January 8, 2005), Grove Music Online
- Vicentino, Nicola. (1555) L' antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica. Antonio Barre, Rome. (Gallica)
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