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Evidence of Lay Patronage in Sacred Music in a Recently Discovered Document of 1631
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Extract
It is common practice in the Catholic Church for friends and relatives of the deceased to have religious services held for their souls. That is, a donation is offered to a priest, a church or a monastery so that one or more Masses may be said in their remembrance. This is certainly not a surprising tradition in a religion which believes in life after death, in the value of prayer, and in the possibility that the prayers of the living may lessen the punishment of the sins of the dead. As musicologists we are, of course, all aware that many Requiem Masses were written over the centuries for just this purpose, but recent research suggests that there were yet other important musical consequences of this particular religious belief and practice.
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- Copyright © 1988 Royal Musical Association
References
1 The copy made by the notary for the church runs to 49 folios and is to be found in the archives of San Giovanni Battista kept in the pastor's houseGoogle Scholar
2 Some idea of the quantity of sacred music composed and published in the seventeenth century may be had from Jerome Roche's studies, North-Italian Church Music in the Age of Monteverdi (Oxford, 1984) and ‘Anthologies and the Dissemination of Early Baroque Italian Sacred Music’, Soundings, 4 (1974), 6–12Google Scholar
3 In truth, individual examples of private patronage in church music have been mentioned in other studies, but how widespread this practice was has not previously been made clear They may now be cited as confirmation of the regularity and frequency of lay patronage in sacred music For example, Denis and Elsie Arnold, in The Oratorio in Venice (London, 1986), when discussing music at S Maria di Consolatione (also known as S Maria della Fava) in Venice, write ‘The fathers were much occupied in saying Masses for the dead, being left legacies for the purpose which they then invested for continued income’ (p 3) They used the money to perform oratorios Moreover, ‘the growing number of legacies, to judge from the miscellaneous documents preserved today, were to make the community distinctly wealthy’ (p 11) Even the composer Legrenzi ‘had left them a legacy from his quite opulent estate’ (p 12) According to Graham Dixon in ‘The Pantheon and Music in Minor Churches in Seventeenth-Century Rome’, Studi musicali, 2 (1981), the cappelle of S Maria in Trastevere and S Lorenzo in Damaso ‘received financial support from funds administered by their titular cardinals’ (p 266), it being remembered that cardinals were not always priests The titular cardinal of S Lorenzo from 1623 to 1632, Cardinal Ludovisi, gave 430 scudi each year, as a charity, for music (p 269) In addition to the wealth of its titular cardinals, S. Lorenzo also enjoyed ‘the rents from vineyards and donations from the Confraternità delli Credenzieri’ to support ‘a flourishing musical tradition’ (ibid) John Burke, ‘Musicians of S Maria Maggiore, Rome 1600–1650’, Note d'archwio, nuova serie, 2 (1984), supplemento p 38, reports that the chapel maestro di cappella Francesco Soriano left money for an anniversary Mass and for the musicians who were to sing it Burke also mentions properties bequeathed which contributed to the finances of the cappella, such as those of Cardinal Francesco Landi (pp 48ff)Google Scholar
4 Musical distinction between a simple and a solemn feast was made everywhere, beginning with the papal chapel Jean Lionnet in ‘Performance Practice in the Papal Chapel during the 17th Century’, Early Music, 15 (1987), 4–5, writes that for simple feasts ‘only the Sanctus and Agnus Dei were sung in polyphony, and the psalms of the Office were recited For solemn feasts, the whole Mass setting was sung, and the singers improvised the counterpoint on the chant of the Offertory and a number of antiphons, particularly the one preceding the Magnificat at Vespers’ At a somewhat earlier date, 1566, Jerome Nadal advised Jesuit colleges in Vienna in the following manner ‘In the Mass, only the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus, and the response to the Ite Missa tst may be sung in polyphony In Vespers, let the psalms be sung in falsobordone, as it is called – or in a similar way Let all else be sung in Gregorian Chant Exceptions on greater feasts may be made in the matter of singing – on which days more may be sung in polyphony’ (cited by Thomas Culley, ‘Musical Activity in Some Sixteenth-Century Jesuit Colleges’, Analecta musicologica, 19 (1979), 1–29 (p 7)Google Scholar
5 In 1676 in Venice, the doge and senate passed legislation ‘against foreigners in religious orders’ which meant that musician–priests could not take part in the governing of the order (Arnold and Arnold, The Oratorio in Venice, 11) As will be seen, the cappellani in Chiavari were not, in fact, regular members of the churchGoogle Scholar
6 This was a normal duty of a maestro, see, for example, Roche, North-Italian Church Music, 18.Google Scholar
7 In the papal chapel, ‘the senior singer of each voice range was responsible for the conduct and performance of his colleagues’ (Lionnet, ‘Performance Practice in the Papal Chapel’, 5)Google Scholar
8 In the papal chapel the puntatore, the singer who gave the demerits, was elected yearly by the other members of the chapel (ibid, 4)Google Scholar
9 A period of apprenticeship seems to have been normal in cappelle In the papal chapel, new singers were given opportunity to learn the repertory and manner of singing before being requested to participate in polyphonic music (ibid, 12)Google Scholar
10 See above, note 4Google Scholar
11 Differences in this regard existed from chapel to chapel ‘The maestro in the Papal Chapel was responsible for the running of the whole cappella, and dealt with both musical and disciplinary matters He also had to select the music for papal ceremonies, the choice of the daily repertory was left to one of the senior singers, who fulfilled this task for a week at a time’ (Lionnet, ‘Performance Practices in the Papal Chapel’, 4)Google Scholar
12 Arnold, and Arnold, , The Oratorio in Venice, 3, found that in the Confraternity of St Philip Neri in Venice there were two singers per part Roche, North-Italian Church Music, 18, offers a table of the number of singers at S Maria Maggiore in Bergamo for several years between 1614 and 1653, it would seem that two or three people sang each polyphonic part The basilica of S Antonio in Padua had 16 singers during the period 1606–8 (p 22) Modena Cathedral had ten adult singers plus a number of boy sopranos in 1604–14 (p 25), the number increasing to 15 in 1615 but reducing in 1618 (p 19) According to Dixon, ‘The Pantheon and Music’, 266–8, however, music at the Pantheon was provided by only two or three singers, whereas S Lorenzo in Damaso had eight singers permanently attached to the chapel (p 274) Lionnet affirms that ‘recent research in Roman archives has shown that a number of churches in the city had regular liturgical music during the 17th century, and that the standard formation of their cappelle was four sopranos, two altos, two tenors and two basses, with an organist and a maestro di cappella’ However, they did not all always perform, but ‘were divided into two groups who performed on alternate weeks, everyone was expected to attend on Sundays and feasts’ (‘Performance Practice in the Papal Chapel’, 3) In the papal chapel, in short, ‘the usual practice with polyphonic music was to sing at sight with only one singer to each part’ (p 12). At S Maria Maggiore in the first half of the seventeenth century the chapel consisted of four boy sopranos, two altos (young men with broken voices), two tenors and two basses (Burke, ‘Musicians of S Maria Maggiore’, 69)Google Scholar
13 In Parma, the Compagnia della Steccata, a confraternity, had a splendid fanfare of trumpets to announce the Feast of the Annunciation (Roche, North-Italian Church Music, 26)Google Scholar
14 Roche (ibid, 16–17) says that Italian confraternities of laymen saw to the running of small churches, their services and music. Large churches of cathedral status could also have been administered by a council of lay people (as was the case in St Mark's, Venice, and S Maria Maggiore, Bergamo) which organized and maintained the cappella As stated earlier, the Costaguta brothers were also responsible for investing the monies which were to support the chapel of San Giovanni Battista of Chiavari.Google Scholar