Re: Meantone keyboard music -- Fabio Colonna treatise (1618)

Hello, there, Graham Breed and everyone, and please let me celebrate
the conclusion of the paper which provided the occasion for my
moratorium from this list by adding a bit to the Monz's comment on
Fabio Colonna. This could also be an item for my planned FAQ draft on
"Meantone keyboards with 19 or more notes, 1550-1618."

First of all, in addition to the resources already mentioned, there is
a complete facsimile reprint of his _La Sambuca Lincea_ (1618),
including all of the original musical compositions and examples, plus
a fine introductory commentary in Italian and English by Patrizio
Barbieri, a scholar of such instruments, plus transcriptions of the
music into modern notation:

Fabio Colonna, _La Sambuca Lincea, overo Dell'Istromento Musico
Perfetto, con annotazioni critiche manoscritte di Scipione Stella
(1618-1622)_, ed. Patrizio Barbieri, Musurgiana 24 (Lucca: Libreria
Musicale Italiana, 1991), ISSN 1121-0508, ISBN 88-7096-026-9.

With Colonna, as with Vicentino, it may be helpful to distinguish
between their theoretical uses of various just ratios, simple and
complex, and their 31-note meantone divisions of the octave likely
based on 1/4-comma meantone, and modelled as a division of the tone
into five equal dieses or fifthtones.

Here I'll give a bit of a summary, and also refer interested readers
to my archicembalo article of October 1999, which has some material on
Colonna's instrument and some of his enharmonic special effects:

/tuning/topicId_5609.html#5609 (Pt. 1)
/tuning/topicId_5621.html#5621 (Pt. 2)
/tuning/topicId_5646.html#5646 (Pt. 3)
/tuning/topicId_5670.html#5670 (Pt. 4 -- notes)

Basically the _Sambuca Lincea_, or "Lynxian Sambuca," a harpischord
named after a triangular Greek harp because of the resemblance in
shape, and likely also in honor of the _Academia dei Lincei_ or
Academy of Lynxes, a select scientific association to which the
astronomer Galileo belonged, is a 31-note instrument similar to
Vicentino's archicembalo in its first tuning (based on a 31-note
cycle).

For some reason, two articles in the latest release at my local
university library of the _New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians_ state that Colonna divided the instrument into _17_ parts,
and I'm not sure how this misconception got started. The correct
number is 31.

While Vicentino's two-manual instrument might be seen as a kind of
extension of the typical split-key arrangement -- in fact, his
archicembalo in its ideal 38-note form might be described as two
typical 19-note split-key manuals -- Colonna tries to improve keyboard
ergonomics by coming up with an early 17th-century version of what
might now be termed a "generalized keyboard." If I understand
correctly, it might be rather similar to Adriaan Fokker's scheme
implemented on his 31-tone organ.

Scipione Stella, an associate of Don Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa,
had done some enharmonic experimenting of his own, and devised a
keyboard somewhat resembling Vicentino's, but with eight ranks and
some redundant notes to permit easier fingering choices.

Just who invented what became a hot issue, but Colonna's instrument
featured five ranks of seven notes spaced a fifthtone apart, thus like
Stella's instrument offering redundant keys for some notes as an
ergonomic measure for the keyboardist.

Colonna's enharmonic notation is a bit different than Vicentino's: in
addition to the usual sharps and flats which both theorists retain,
Colonna introduces some new symbols, and sometimes uses a natural sign
to show a note _lowered_ by 1/5-tone. Personally I lean toward
Vicentino's system of usual sharps and flats plus a dot to show a note
raised by a diesis -- using an asterisk for the dot, C-C*-C#-Db-Db*-D
-- but this is a matter of taste.

Like Vicentino, Colonna tells us that the usual notes of his
instrument are tuned as in common practice, implying meantone, with
the 31-note cycle implying something very close to 1/4-comma
temperament. Reflecting the popularity of 19-note chromatic
harpsichords around Naples, Colonna remarks that the 19 notes shared
with these instruments (Gb-B#) are tuned in the same manner.

His book includes some examples of enharmonic counterpoint by the
composer Ascanio Mayone, as well as his own short pieces and examples,
including an "Example of Circulation" with cadences visiting each of
the 31 steps along the cycle of fifths and returning to the original
sonority (here C Ionian).

He also gives examples of various modes transcribed to remote
locations in his 31-note cycle, using solmization syllables to show
the whole-tones and semitones (e.g. re-mi-fa-sol-re-mi-fa-sol for the
Dorian mode).

While the logic of a 31-note meantone cycle determines the tuning of
the Sambuca Lincea, Colonna advocates of a style of ornamentation and
embellishment in keeping with adventurous trends around 1600 which
features a use of such intervals as a fourth-plus-diesis at around 544
cents, not too far from 11:8. In Vicentino's music, melodic fifthtone
steps are typically managed so as to maintain usual Renaissance
concords, with this composer's declared taste for a near-11:9
(9/5-tone) a notable exception; Colonna, however, regards a bolder use
of "unusual" intervals as charming rather than "dissonant" in an
unpleasant sense.

This is again a matter of taste: I might have preferred modern
transcriptions with some equivalent of either Vicentino's or Colonna's
fifthtone notation rather than the use of double flats or sharps, but
a classically trained musician accustomed to such accidentals might
take a different view. Since this facsimile edition includes all of
the original 1618 notation, the reader can turn to either version, or
even use the transcriptions as a guide to getting acquainted with the
original (by this period, musical notation is not too far from current
conventions, at least from my curious historical perspective).

Barbieri's commentary also delves into Colonna's theory of just ratios
presented in this treatise, featuring such ratios as 17:12. This
theory is a very interesting part of just intonation or rational
intonation history, as is Vicentino's theory extensively and artfully
summarized by Bill Alves; I do want to clarify that Colonna's 31-note
instrument, however, is based on a 31-note meantone cycle.

In other words, I would place both Vicentino and Colonna in the same
general category as Lemme Rossi (1666), Christiaan Huygens (later 17th
century), and Adriaan Fokker as advocates of a meantone cycle with 31
equal or "virtually equal" dieses or fifthtones. Whatever could be
played on Fokker's organ could also be played on the keyboards of
Vicentino or Colonna, albeit with somewhat less precisely equal
fifthtone steps if one uses likely 16th-17th century tuning methods
(Ed Foote's principle of period technology).

In the introduction to his "Example of Circulation," which deserves to
be a xenharmonic monument much better known, Colonna this composition
as proof that the tone divides evenly into five parts without any
commas or other complications suggested by other theories. Of course,
as we might add, this assertion implies a rather specific range of
tempering, outside of which quite different equal or near-equal or
notably unequal divisions may obtain.

However, this assertion, like Vicentino's observation that all
intervals are available from all 31 steps in the meantone cycle tuning
of his archicembalo, suggests a _conceptual model_ equivalent to
31-tone equal temperament; and the slight difference of about 6.07
cents between 31 meantone fifths at 1/4-comma and 18 pure octaves,
again somewhat modified in practice because of the imprecisions of
tuning by ear, might likely be small enough as not to modify a
listener's impression of a symmetrical division.

Most respectfully,

Margo Schulter
mschulter@value.net

Margo Schulter wrote:

> First of all, in addition to the resources already mentioned, there
is
> a complete facsimile reprint of his _La Sambuca Lincea_ (1618),
> including all of the original musical compositions and examples,
plus
> a fine introductory commentary in Italian and English by Patrizio
> Barbieri, a scholar of such instruments, plus transcriptions of the
> music into modern notation:

I may yet want to track that down. But if John Chalmers says "I spent
some time with Colonna and the best I can do is guess ... what is
meant..." I'm probably better off starting with the high-level
summary. A few more Xenharmonikons should be worth getting, but I'll
hold off a while to see if the exchange rate improves.

> While the logic of a 31-note meantone cycle determines the tuning of
> the Sambuca Lincea, Colonna advocates of a style of ornamentation
and
> embellishment in keeping with adventurous trends around 1600 which
> features a use of such intervals as a fourth-plus-diesis at around
544
> cents, not too far from 11:8. In Vicentino's music, melodic
fifthtone
> steps are typically managed so as to maintain usual Renaissance
> concords, with this composer's declared taste for a near-11:9
> (9/5-tone) a notable exception; Colonna, however, regards a bolder
use
> of "unusual" intervals as charming rather than "dissonant" in an
> unpleasant sense.

It sound's like something worth finding out more about. And I did
find one example of a chord progression in a post you mentioned.

I remember, in my formative years around the time I worked out
1/4-comma meantone and 31-equal, hearing a radio programme that
mentioned a fashion for small intervals and their relation to Greek
theory. It seems, all these years later, that I'm starting to find
out the details of it.

> Barbieri's commentary also delves into Colonna's theory of just
ratios
> presented in this treatise, featuring such ratios as 17:12. This
> theory is a very interesting part of just intonation or rational
> intonation history, as is Vicentino's theory extensively and
artfully
> summarized by Bill Alves; I do want to clarify that Colonna's
31-note
> instrument, however, is based on a 31-note meantone cycle.

What on earth is 17:12 doing in such a tuning? It may be the use of
31 notes is more valuable then the theoretical justification.

> In other words, I would place both Vicentino and Colonna in the same
> general category as Lemme Rossi (1666), Christiaan Huygens (later
17th
> century), and Adriaan Fokker as advocates of a meantone cycle with
31 ...

I see Rossi gets a few mentions in the archives, mostly as a
commentator on Vicentino. Did he go beyond that?

While I'm posting something almost related, I'll say that I picked up
a Palestrina CD at the weekend. It certainly is JI, and the best
example I've heard. It's called "Music for Good Friday" by Musica
Contexta and Simon Ravens. Did I get lucky, or is Palestrina always
this good?

I'm no further with Gesualdo. Couldn't find any CDs and didn't get to
the library while it was open.

Graham