Talk:Madrigali a 5 voci, libro primo (Carlo Gesualdo)

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Three observations

  • The order of succession of this book's madrigals seems to be inconsistent with at least two sources consulted. Bella Angioletta seems to be the last piece, rather than earlier on, as it appears to be here, as well as in the partitura of 1611.
  • As far as the numbering is concerned, I am somewhat perplexed as to whether prima and seconda parts within madrigals should be treated as individual pieces or not. Personally I tend to treat them individually, which would make a total of 20 rather than 16 pieces. The reason behind this argument is that in the sources' indexes they appear to be individual, with a side-note (prima or seconda parte). I don't see why eliminate that, but then again I might be wrong.
  • The last madrigal titled Queste fur già ninfe e pastori doesn't seem to exist in any of the available sources. I also haven't come across it in any recording whatsoever. Could this be an erroneous addition? --Chrysalifourfour (talk) 16:45, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
Hi! Thanks for the comments. A few thoughts:
  • I believe the source used for the piece listing was the Nuovo Vogel (Bibliografia della Musica Italiana Vocale Profana Pubblicata dal 1500 al 1700) entry for the original 1594 edition. In terms of primary sources, the piece order matches the index given here. Only trouble there is that I have no idea what edition that is -- there is some major weirdness with the title pages (they claim to be the second book of madrigals, not the first).
  • Piece numbering is something I've never been able to make up my mind about, so I could go in either direction. On the one hand, if you had a book of, say, string quartet reductions, would you consider each movement a separate piece, or as part of some bigger conceptual unit? On the other hand, it seems unlikely that madrigal sets would have originally been conceived as being as unseparable as multi-movement works are today. So I'm not sure where I stand. Any idea if there is a standard for this in the musicological field?
  • You're right about "Queste fur già" -- it does not appear in any of the editions that are online, and I could see it just being a mistake in the Nuovo Vogel, especially since I can't find any mention of any such piece anywhere online. It looks like it might just be a corruption of the text of another piece in the book, "Questi leggiadri odorosetti fiori":
Questi leggiadri odorosetti fiori
fur già ninfe e pastori
ed or de’ miei pensieri
etc.
I'll take it out. Thanks!
-- Wboyle (talk) 17:52, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for the swift response.

  • The sources are quite inconsistent to begin with, the particular one you mention is mislabelled as book 2. In any, case I'll stick with the fore mentioned one for the time being, which is actually the very same source, but a different page. Poor musicologists...
  • Piece numbering - you gave the answer yourself. Madrigals are not very comparable to sections of larger works. In effect, madrigal books are anthologies put together, intended to allow performers to select at will - at least it sounds reasonable. But your're right, there isn't a particular standard among musicologists, so I guess we can sort of vote (I'll stick to my proposal for my own editions only for now).
  • Glad to see I wasn't totally wrong about the last one! Thanks for removing it, we can always add things if there's some future discoveries.
  • One last thing: would you know of any online source for Gesualdo's Tenebrae? I've searched the internet inside-out, yet no luck. I would like to do the Responsories for Maundy Thursday and Friday (Saturday's already beautifully done here), and ideally I'd like to find the 1611 edition in pdf. I should be grateful if you let me know of any ideas!

Best regards, --Chrysalifourfour (talk) 19:49, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I think I am more swayed by the individual numbering method than group numbering. But, that's a lot of effort to go back and fix them all... A project for another day.
I had some luck looking for the Responsories after checking RISM for holding institutions - it looks like the Spanish National Library has digitized its copy. The bad news is that they only have the S, B, 5, and 6 books. Better than nothing, I suppose.
Original copies are also held at a library in Italy and the British Library, but neither of them seem to have made scans. Why the British Library hasn't done that yet I have no idea.
Best of luck!
--Wboyle (talk) 20:45, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

New edition

Dear all, I have been preparing a new edition of Gesualdo's first four madrigal books; each book is now done as a single pdf file that contains all of the volume's madrigals, rather than having an individual file per madrigal. The new edition also addresses poor layout issues and some errata that went previously unnoticed. I am not sure as to how to proceed; can we get rid of my old (single file) editions and post the new one, or is it better to not delete anything, for archival reasons? Thank you in advance, --Chrysalifourfour (talk) 14:37, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Scores can occur on Music publication pages, see examples here and here. These would all be in both categories: Music publications and Sheet music. I would recommend you retain your single file editions; you can amend them to include your recent revisions if you wish. To add your single pdf (and transcription) file, edit a publication to include the line [[Category:Sheet music]] at the bottom of the page. When you save it, the "add new edition" tab will appear at the top of the page. Then complete the form that appears. If you need help, add a note to this thread or put a note on my talk page. — Barry Johnston (talk) 03:45, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Lyricists

The attributions of poetry here and on the individual work pages differ; it's perhaps a copy-paste error and highlights the value of a hand maintained list for such comparisons. I've taken a little time to do some double checking but haven't finished the cleanup; help appreciated! Richard Mix (talk) 04:54, 21 August 2021 (UTC)