(It.; Fr. ballet; Eng. ballett).
An Italian dance of the 16th and 17th centuries, occasionally called ‘bal’ or ‘ballo’. There seem to be three periods of development, two instrumental and one vocal: for lute during the second half of the 16th century; for voice from 1591 to about 1623; and for chamber ensemble from about 1616 to the end of the 17th century.
The term ‘balletto’ was also applied at the same time in a more general sense. It was used as early as 1581 by Fabritio Caroso as a heading for some of the choreographies published in Il ballarino, and Cesare Negri (Le gratie d’amore, 1602) used it alongside the apparently similar ‘ballo’ and ‘brando’ as a title for his created social and theatrical dances (see Ballo). In Barbetta’s Intavolatura di liuto (1585) ‘balletto’ indicates a dance from a foreign country. Some late 16th-century references use the word ‘balletto’ for theatrical or dramatic dances that would have been called ‘ballets’ in France (see A. Solerti: Gli albori del melodramma, 1904–5/R, iii, 277ff; the commonest usage in modern Italian is as a translation for the French ‘ballet’). In the 17th century the word was sometimes used by musicians to mean simply ‘dance’, as in Montesardo’s Nuova inventione d’intavolatura per sonare li balletti (1606). This article, however, is concerned with the instrumental and vocal development of the specific dance called ‘balletto’ as it originated in Italy and spread to England and Germany.
RICHARD HUDSON (1), SUZANNE G. CUSICK/R (2)
The Italian instrumental balletto appeared from about 1561 to 1599 (mainly for lute) and from 1616 to 1700 (for chamber ensemble). During the second half of the 16th century, ‘bal’, ‘ballo’ or ‘balletto’ was a generic name in Italy for various foreign dances, such as the bal boemo, ballo francese and baletto polaco. Barbetta in 1585 referred to them collectively as ‘baletti de diverse nationi’. The most numerous were those indicating Germanic origin: the bal todescho (in Gorzanis’s lutebooks of 1561, 1563 and 1564), the ‘todescha’ or ‘tedescha’ (Mainerio’s ensemble collection of 1578), balo todesco (Gorzanis, 1579), baletto todesco (Barbetta, 1585), ballo tedesco (Terzi, 1593) and finally ballo or balletto alemano (Terzi, 1599). Similar terminology continued in the guitar books of the first half of the 17th century. Some of the earlier chamber examples are also entitled ‘balletto alemano’ (Biagio Marini, 1617, 1626 and 1655, Farina, 1627, and Gandini, 1655). During the second half of the 17th century such pieces were called simply ‘balletto’ (or occasionally ‘ballo’), and the non-German types (for example, a balletto francese of 1692 by Corelli) occurred very rarely.
A balletto alemano in Terzi’s 1599 book is based on an earlier baletto todesco by Barbetta, thus suggesting that the sources from 1561 to 1599, in spite of changing terminology, represent a unified Italian development of the native German dance called ‘tantz’, ‘tanz’, or ‘dantz’ in 16th-century German lute and keyboard tablatures. Furthermore, the three pieces designated ‘tedescha’ or ‘todescha’ in Mainerio’s volume of 1578 were each called ‘almande’ in Phalèse’s collection of 1583, thus revealing some sort of connection between the Italian balletto and the Franco-Flemish allemande. It is difficult to assess the influence on the Italian instrumental balletto exerted by two other forms using the same name: first the French ballet, which began during the 1570s and later produced lute pieces entitled simply ‘ballet’ (Besard, 1603 and 1617, Ballard, 1611 and 1614, Vallet and Fuhrmann, 1615); and second, the vocal ballettos beginning with those of Gastoldi, whose 1594 book of three-voice examples also includes intabulations for lute.
Curiously, vocal ballettos seem to have appeared mainly between about 1591 and 1623, thus filling the gap, as it were, between the 16th-century lute and 17th-century chamber developments. Earlier, Mainerio’s balli (1578), though without text, were, according to the title-page of the book, ‘accommodati per cantar et sonar’. A number of sources from the early 17th century contain both vocal and instrumental examples. Antonio Brunelli’s Scherzi, arie, canzonette, e madrigali, libro terzo (1616) includes two vocal ballettos that are each followed by ‘il medesimo ballo per sonare solo senza cantare’, as well as an ‘altro ballo per sonare solo senza cantare’ for which no vocal version is given. Benedetto Sanseverino, in Il primo libro d’intavolatura per la chitarra alla spagnuola (1622), printed four chordal examples, one of which has a text. The Terzo scherzo delle ariose vaghezze of Carlo Milanuzzi (1623) contains 12 ballettos for solo voice and continuo, as well as seven for guitar alone. As late as 1639 Martino Pesenti presented ‘correnti, gagliarde, & balletti da cantar, & da sonar’.
A few instrumental ballettos appeared for keyboard, by Picchi (1621), Frescobaldi (1627 and 1637), Pesenti (1635, 1639, 1641 and 1645) and Bernardo Storace (1664) and by anonymous composers in manuscript sources (such as the I-Rvat Chigi MSS ed. in CEKM, xxxii/2 and US-LAum manuscripts, formerly 51/1); and for the five-course guitar, by Calvi (1646) and Granata (1646, 1659 and 1680). Most Italian instrumental ballettos of the 17th century, however, occur in some 70 publications for continuo chamber groups. The earliest are the books of Marini (1617, 1620 and 1626), Lorenzo Allegri (1618) and Farina (1626, 1627 and 1628). Marini was the first of them to use the word ‘balletti’ in the title of a book (in 1626). In a collection of 1667 G.B. Vitali made a distinction between balletti per ballare and balletti per camera. In 1666 he entitled a book Correnti e balletti da camera; Giuseppe Torelli in 1686 used the title Concerto da camera, B.G. Laurenti in 1691 Sonate per camera, Giorgio Buoni in 1693 Allettamenti per camera. The balletto thus became firmly established in Italy above all as a chamber-music form.
The balletto sometimes occurred, especially before 1675, as a separate dance, either singly or with as many as 12 in succession. It was occasionally coupled with another dance, usually a corrente; Marini in 1626 used the same musical material for each. Although generally the opening dance of a pair, the balletto occasionally appeared as the second movement (Gasparo Zanetti, 1645, and Cazzati, 1651 and 1660). It is associated with two or more dances in suites by Brunelli (1616), Allegri (1618) and Cazzati (1651) and in most sources from 1677 to the end of the century. Usually the balletto is the opening dance of a suite, followed by a corrente, sarabanda, giga or other dances. In suites from later in the century an introductory movement without dance associations precedes the opening balletto.
The balletto almost always consists of two repeated sections, each with a variable number of bars. Occasionally the initial statement of the music is followed by variations (Fantini, 1638, Marini, 1655, and the keyboard works of Frescobaldi, 1627, and Storace, 1664). Later examples also include a piano marking at the end to indicate a petite reprise, the exact repetition of several bars of music (Torelli, 1686, and G.B. Brevi, 1693); Domenico Gabrielli’s ballettos (1684) sometimes have such a repeat at the end of both sections. The balletto is usually in duple metre but may be in triple metre (as with Fantini, 1638, or Cazzati, 1660). The music has a simple, homophonic, tuneful quality, with short, animated rhythmic motifs, repeated notes and immediately appealing melodic patterns (as in ex.1, a brief ballo that follows an aria).
Tempo markings vary widely. Brunelli in 1616 marked a ballo grave; Marini in 1655 indicated allegro and Cazzati in 1660 adagio. Pirro Albergati (1682) marked two ballettos largo and three allegro or spiritoso. Gabrielli (1684) indicated largo for five, allegro for five, adagio for one and presto for one. Salvatore Mazzella (1689) included an example in which the opening section is largo and the second section presto and another such piece which returns to largo at the end. Laurenti (1691), Brevi (1693) and Buoni (1693) all indicated allegro or presto. Italian composers seem to have been far less concerned with uniformity of tempo than the French, for they also subjected other dances to wide tempo variation.
The allemanda, which is likewise largo or presto in these sources, bears a close relationship to the balletto. Each is in duple metre, and each occupies the position as first dance in a suite. Often, however, both dances appeared in the same collection, usually in different suites (Torelli, Laurenti, Brevi) but sometimes coupled together, as in Gabrielli’s balletto with sua alemanda. It is difficult to perceive any musical differences between the balletto and the allemanda as they appear in these late 17th-century suites.
Instrumental ballettos also occurred in other countries, especially Germany, where the earliest examples appeared in 1617 in the collections of the Englishmen Thomas Simpson and William Brade. These were followed by other examples, usually entitled ‘ballet’, by composers such as Widmann, Peuerl, Johann Schop (i), Hammerschmidt, Vierdanck, Nicolaus Bleyer, Drese, Rosenmüller, Rubert, J.R. Ahle, Lüder Knop, Hans Hake, Esaias Reusner (ii), Löwe von Eisenach, J.H. Schmelzer, Biber, Pezel, Meister and J.C.F. Fischer. Purely instrumental examples of the form had been preceded earlier in Germany by vocal pieces which, under the influence of Gastoldi, could often be played on instruments as well as sung.
Both Morley and Praetorius (Syntagma musicum, iii, 1618, pp.18–19) considered the Mantuan composer G.G. Gastoldi to have invented the vocal balletto as a musical genre with his publication in 1591 of the Balletti a cinque voci con li suoi versi per cantare, sonare, & ballare (ed. in Le pupitre, x, 1968). These works enjoyed great popularity, being reprinted many times in Italy and northern Europe up to the mid-17th century. In most of his ballettos Gastoldi set strophic texts in a homophonic texture, with sections of nonsense syllables (‘fa-la’, ‘na-na’, ‘li-rum’) interpolated at the ends of couplets or tercets. Nearly all consist of two repeated strains (AABB) and the nonsense syllables, sometimes set contrapuntally, act as a refrain at the end of each section. The songs are syllabic and rather repetitious, the strophic form limiting the opportunities to depict the content of the verses, and all are highly rhythmic. It is likely that Gastoldi’s songs were originally part of a costumed dance, perhaps performed at the theatrically active Mantuan court or at an academy; the title-page states that they were for ‘singing, playing and dancing’. Each has a descriptive title (e.g. L’innamorato, Il premiato, Caccia d’Amore) on which the text (but not the music) elaborates, and several texts suggest the kind of costuming or dance that might have been used (as in Amor vittorioso: ‘Tutti venite armati, O forti miei soldata, fa-la-la’, etc.). The order of texts in the collection suggests that it follows that of a performance, opening with an Introduttione a i balletti exhorting the listener to enjoy the delights of the mythical ‘Cucagna’, ‘ove chi più lavora men guadagna’ (‘where the more one works the less one earns’) by dancing, singing and playing, and concluding in the dialogue-like Concerto de pastori for eight voices, with a conventional reference to the returning golden age. The six-voice Mascherata di cacciatori, more complex than the usual simple form and style of the ballettos, is the only piece that shows any musical reflection of the presumed spectacle.
Gastoldi’s later collection, Balletti a tre voci (1594), also opens with an exhortation to sing and dance, but it does not seem to represent the music of a particular event as the five-voice collection does. Neither the descriptive titles nor the texts present an obvious performing order. Like the five-voice ballettos, these consist of two or three repeated strains in a simple homophonic texture and a strongly rhythmic style; the phrasing of several immediately suggests particular dance types (e.g. La Cortegiana, ‘La mia amorosa bella’, has the characteristic three- and six-bar phrases of a branle). Only the last balletto in the set uses nonsense syllables, and then only at the end of the second strain.
Vocal ballettos continued to be written in Italy during the 17th century, often in madrigal comedies and particularly by Banchieri and Orazio Vecchi, usually retaining the villanella- or canzonetta-like style of Gastoldi. Some, notably those in Gioseffo Biffi’s Della ricreatione di Posilipo (1606), Francesco Lambardi’s Canzonette a tre … libro terzo (1616) and Sigismondo d’India’s Le musiche e balli a quatro (1621), can be traced to choreographed dances performed at court festivities. D’India’s multi-movement ballettos originated as entertainments at the wedding of the Duke of Savoy in 1621, when they were performed by a boy soprano soloist accompanied by ‘violino tiorba’, ‘basso di violone’ and ‘clavicembalo’. Like the ballettos of Gastoldi and Vecchi, they consist of two repeated strains of chordal, highly rhythmic music cast in regular phrases. Their original conception as music for one voice with instrumental accompaniment may be seen in the rhythmic independence of the upper part, and d’India’s habitual concern for detailed text setting occasionally enlivens the otherwise almost utilitarian style. The publication of d’India’s solo ballettos with texts to all parts, and with specific indications of passages to be rendered by one voice with instruments, testifies to the continuing Italian use of published ballettos as light vocal household music. His informative description of the appropriate performing practice for his pieces, printed at the end of the book, is justified with the remark that they represented an unusual style in Italy (‘si tratta di stile inusitato in Italia’), suggesting, in view of the book’s dedication to the Duke of Savoy’s mother-in-law, Maria de’ Medici, Queen of France, that the spectacle represented by the collection was related to the nascent ballet de cour.
Gastoldi’s first set of ballettos enjoyed enormous popularity north of the Alps, spawning imitations in Germany (H.L. Hassler’s Lustgarten neuer teutscher Gesäng, Balletti, 1601) and England, where the ballett as cultivated and transformed by Morley and Weelkes produced a small repertory of enduringly popular vocal music. Morley’s Balletts to Five Voyces (1595, published in both English and Italian) deliberately imitated the structure of Gastoldi’s five-voice collection, replacing the Introduttione with a madrigal and the concluding Concerto de pastori with an echo dialogue (the seven-voice Phillis, I faine wold die now), the only English work of its kind; each ballett is a free parody of an existing Italian balletto, canzonetta or villanella. Morley’s seven parodies of Gastoldi ballettos are fairly close to their models, as a comparison of Sing wee and chaunt it with A lieta vita clearly shows; the English version is metrically re-arranged and boasts a considerably more sophisticated texture, particularly in the inevitable ‘fa-la’ sections. More interesting are Morley’s adaptations into the ballett form of canzonettas by Croce, Ferretti, Marenzio and Vecchi; by inserting ‘fa-la’ sections at the ends of the two couplets of Marenzio’s Le rose fronde e fiori, Morley stretched his model to twice its length and regularized the phrasing, creating a quite new work in Those dainty daffadillies. Ex.2 compares the superius of Morley’s Now is the month of maying with that of its presumed model, a balletto by Vecchi (So ben mi c’ha bon tempo, Selva di varie ricreatione, 1595), and that accompanying a pavan-derived choreography for the tune published by Cesare Negri (Le gratie d’amore, 1602, pp.222–3), revealing how far afield Morley’s melodic inventiveness and clear harmonic thinking led him in even so simple a work.
Although Morley knew the tradition of dancing to such songs (to which he referred in A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke), it is now generally assumed that neither his balletts nor those of his English successors were intended for dancing, hence their greater attention to musical and textual refinements. Weelkes’s balletts (Balletts and Madrigals to Five Voyces, 1598) were clearly influenced more by Morley than by Gastoldi, for the often brilliant counterpoint and expressive text-setting owe little to the Italian form. Welcome sweet pleasure and To shorten winter’s sadness are straightforward enough to have accompanied a dance, but Hark all ye lovely saints and Lady, your eye my love enforceth, and also I love, and have my love regarded, are transformed into vocal chamber music by eliding contrapuntal phrases and, in particular, by madrigalian devices that render both rhythms and phrasing erratic. The six balletts Henry Youll included in his Canzonets to Three Voyces (1608) follow Weelkes’s and Morley’s example to some extent, for example in the use of strict canon in In the merry month of May and Now the country lasses hie them, but his balletts are more regular in form than those of the better-known composers. Other early 17th-century composers of the English ballett include Greaves, Pilkington, Tomkins and John Hilton (ii).
BrownI
EinsteinIM
KermanEM
MGG2 (‘Ballo, Balletto’; S. Dahms, J. Sutton)
SartoriB
VogelB
R. Schwartz: ‘Hans Leo Hassler unter dem Einfluss der italiänischen Madrigalisten’,VMw, ix (1893), 1–61
D. Arnold: ‘Gastoldi and the English Ballett’, MMR, lxxxvi (1956), 44–52
R. Rasch: ‘The Balletti of Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi and the Musical History of the Netherlands’,TVNM, xxiv (1974), 112–45
W.T. Marrocco: Inventory of 15th-Century Bassedanze, Balli & Balletti in Italian Dance Manuals (New York, 1981)
R. Hudson: The Allemande, the Balletto, and the Tanz (Cambridge, 1986)
D. Harrán: ‘Salomone Rossi as a Composer of Theater Music’, Studi musicali, xvi (1987), 96–131
S. Balestracci: ‘Influenze francesi sui balletti di Filippo D’Aglié (con particolare riguardo a Il gridelino)’, Studi musicali, xxv (1996), 329–44