A title given to a light secular vocal piece, particularly in the Italian style, from the late 16th century to the late 18th. As a normal diminutive of ‘canzone’ (song), the term may refer generically to any short, simple song. Its first appearance on a title-page was in the second edition of Orazio Vecchi's Canzonette … libro primo a quattro voci (1580). The term ‘canzonelle’ used in two collections of 1574 by Gasparo Fiorino is probably unrelated to the later term ‘canzonetta’.
The canzonetta developed in the 16th century from a fusion of characteristics of the three-voice Villanella (also called ‘canzone alla napolitana’) and the madrigal. Scholars have sometimes classified the five- and six-voice canzoni of Giovanni Ferretti, Alessandro Romano and Girolamo Conversi as canzonettas, but most of these publications were entitled ‘canzoni alla napolitana’ or ‘napolitani’. In Conversi's first book for five voices (1572) and Ferretti's second book for six voices (1575) the title is reduced to ‘canzoni’. Vecchi's term ‘canzonetta’ is derived from ‘canzone alla napolitana’, not from the poetic canzone. From 1567 to 1575 Ferretti produced six books of five- and six-voice arrangements of three-voice villanellas, using the villanella melody as a cantus firmus or in free imitation. These pieces combine the texts, melodies and stanza forms (AABB or AABCC) of the villanella with the textures of the madrigal. Ferretti's five-voice books retain the strophic forms of the villanella models, but his six-voice books reduce the texts to a single stanza, facilitating the addition of modest madrigalian word-painting. Five-voice pieces of similar character, but monostrophic and not based on pre-existing villanellas, were published in 1570–71 by Alessandro Romano and in 1572–3 by Conversi, who applied lively French chanson rhythms to the genre. Morley (1597) equated the terms ‘canzonet’ and ‘canzone a la napolitana’, distinguishing both from the more rustic ‘villanella’, but in Italian usage ‘canzone alla napolitana’ was synonymous with ‘villanella’, while ‘canzone’ and ‘canzonetta’ were associated with more modern styles.
Canzonettas of the type invented and popularized by Vecchi are shorter and simpler than the five- and six-voice canzoni of Ferretti and Conversi, but more refined and stylish than the three-voice villanellas of the 1560s and 70s. The texts are simple strophic poems of amorous, humorous or satirical character, often imitating the Petrarchistic style of madrigal verse. Each stanza consists of three to six lines, with lines of seven and 11 syllables freely intermixed; rhymes are mostly in pairs, with an initial unrhymed line when the total number is odd. Features of the older villanella form, such as refrains and linking rhymes between stanzas, became increasingly rare in the 1580s. Poems often appeared in variant versions, with stanzas added, omitted or rearranged in different settings. The musical features of the canzonetta include stanza forms of AABB or AABCC, clearly separated phrases, homophonic or lightly imitative textures, sprightly rhythms, high tessituras and madrigalian word-painting reflecting the text of the first stanza (ex.1).
From 1580 to about 1600 most four-voice pieces with these characteristics were called ‘canzonette’; three-voice pieces in similar styles were called ‘villanelle’, ‘canzoni alla napolitana’ or ‘canzonette’; and five- or six-voice pieces were known by a variety of names, including ‘canzonette’ and ‘canzoni’. Although the terminology was not consistent, the tendency to apply different generic labels to pieces for different numbers of voices reflects real stylistic differences among them: the strophic form of the poetry is retained in nearly all three-voice settings and in the majority of four-voice ones, but most five- and six-voice settings use only a single stanza of the text or combine two or more stanzas in a through-composed form. Five- and six-voice pieces are generally longer and more complex musically than single stanzas of three- and four-voice pieces, and therefore less often labelled with the diminutive ‘canzonetta’. Canzonettas, especially those for three and four voices, were extremely popular in the last two decades of the 16th century. Apart from Vecchi, the most successful composers of such pieces were Felice Anerio, Giovanni Croce, Marenzio and Giovannelli. Musical and textual borrowings between madrigals and canzonettas are found occasionally, and the mutual influence of the two genres was an important factor in the development of both. Canzonette spirituali, both contrafacta and newly composed, catered to the Counter-Reformation demand for accessible songs with more edifying words.
Italian canzonettas spread rapidly to other countries, especially Germany, the Netherlands and England, where they appeared both with the initial stanzas of their original texts and with new texts in German or English. Cesare de Zacharia's Soave et dilettevole canzonette a quattro voci (Munich, 1590) includes both Italian texts and literal, poetically awkward German translations. Other poets who wrote German texts for Italian canzonettas, including Valentin Haussmann, Abraham Ratz, Salomon Engelhard and Johann Lyttich, retained the forms and metres of the Italian originals but treated the meanings quite freely. Their poems are more familiar, folklike and morally proper than the Italian models. In some cases the music is modified slightly to conform to the rules of academic part-writing. German contrafacta of Italian canzonettas had a strong influence on the German lied, which, after about 1590, adopted Italian stanza forms, metres based on syllable count, lines of seven and 11 syllables and feminine endings. Haussmann, the most prolific and skilled author of contrafacta, also composed original German songs in the Italian canzonetta style. Jacob Regnart and H.L. Hassler wrote both Italian and German songs of the same type. Petrus Neander adapted German psalm texts to canzonettas by Vecchi, making them suitable for use in Lutheran schools and churches and in private devotion.
The English canzonet was modelled on the Italian canzonetta, but its texts were limited to single stanzas and its musical settings longer and more contrapuntal. The poems are in the Italian style, with lines of seven and 11 syllables; the musical form is usually AABCC or AABB, often with new words for the second statement of the A section. The styles of the canzonet and madrigal overlapped to a much greater extent in England than in Italy (see Madrigal, §IV); some pieces called ‘canzonets’ are madrigalian in style, and some madrigals are based on translations of Italian canzonetta texts. Canzoni by Ferretti and Conversi appeared in anthologies of Italian madrigals published in England. Morley edited an anthology of Canzonets (1597) which contains works by Felice Anerio, Croce, Vecchi and others in English translation, and he composed original English canzonets for two to six voices. Many of his texts are translations or imitations of Italian canzonettas, and the music of some of his two-voice canzonets is modelled on Anerio's settings of the corresponding Italian texts.
In the 17th century Italian canzonetta poetry often used verse forms with lines of four, five, six and eight syllables; tronco and sdrucciolo lines (with accents on the final and antepenultimate syllables respectively) were freely intermixed with classical lines accenting the penultimate syllable. These features were introduced into the canzonetta by Gabriello Chiabrera, who modelled his verse forms on the works of the group of French poets known as the Pléiade and on popular genres such as the lauda, canto carnascialesco and canzone a ballo. Musical settings of such poems typically display regular rhythms, often dance-like in character, and periodic phrase structures reflecting the rhythms and verse structures of the text. They are mostly for one to three voices with basso continuo, occasionally with one or two concertato instruments. The forms are usually strophic, but may be strophic variations or through-composed. Composers of such pieces include Giulio Caccini, Monteverdi, Antonio Brunelli, G.F. Anerio, Stefano Landi and others. Simpler settings of canzonettas with Spanish guitar accompaniment, some composed for that medium and others adapted from settings with basso continuo, were popular with amateur musicians. Remigio Romano edited collections of canzonetta poems (c1618–25) known in musical settings by G.P. Berti, Carlo Milanuzzi, Alessandro Grandi (i) and others, without the melodies (which were presumably familiar), providing guitar tablature for some of the accompaniments. Canzonettas were an important component of operas and other dramatic works, as well as independent chamber pieces. In the 17th century the term ‘canzonetta’ was often interchangeable with ‘villanella’, ‘aria’, ‘arietta’, ‘scherzo’ and ‘cantata’. It was applied to pieces of relatively serious character, as well as to songs in popular styles. After about 1640 it could also refer to chamber works combining recitative and aria styles.
During the 18th century ‘canzonetta’ was sometimes used as an alternative to Duetto notturno. In late 18th-century England the canzonetta was a musical setting of a strophic poem for solo voice with keyboard accompaniment; the music too was usually strophic, but sometimes modified strophic or through-composed. Haydn's two sets of English canzonettas (1794 and 1795), many setting texts by Anne Hunter, are the best-known examples of this type, which originated with James Hook's op.18 (c1775) and continued into the first decade of the 19th century in collections by J.P. Salomon and others. The keyboard plays a more important role in Haydn's canzonettas than in north German lieder of this period, often functioning as a near-equal partner with the voice. Vocal arrangements of themes from Haydn's instrumental works, adapted to strophic form and supplied with the texts of pre-existing poems, also circulated in England under the title ‘canzonet’ or ‘ballad’.
The term ‘canzonetta’ has also been adopted occasionally for unpretentious instrumental pieces of a songlike nature, such as the slow movement of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto and the first of Walton's Two Pieces for violin and piano.
EinsteinIM
KermanEM
VogelB
L. Landshoff: Introduction to J. Haydn: Englische Canzonetten (Munich, 1924)
J. Hol: Horatio Vecchi's weltliche Werke (Strasbourg, 1934)
E. Gerson-Kiwi: Studien zur Geschichte des italienischen Liedmadrigals im XVI. Jahrhundert (Würzburg, 1938)
W. Dürr: ‘Die italienische Canzonette und das deutsche Lied im Ausgang des XVI. Jahrhunderts’, Studi in onore di Lorenzo Bianchi (Bologna, 1960), 71–102
C. Morricone and A. Salottolo: ‘Valentin Haussmann trascrittore e le canzonette italiane in Germania’, RIM, v (1970), 73–98
J. Kurtzmann: ‘An Early 17th-Century Manuscript of Canzonette e madrigaletti spirituali’, Studi musicali, viii (1979), 149–71
S. Leopold: ‘Chiabrera und die Monodie: die Entwicklung der Arie’, Studi musicali, x (1981), 75–106
R.I. DeFord: ‘Musical Relationships between the Italian Madrigal and Light Genres in the 16th Century’, MD, xxxix (1985), 107–67
R.I. DeFord: ‘The Influence of the Madrigal on Canzonetta Texts of the Late 16th Century’, AcM, lix (1987), 127–51
C. Assenza: Giovan Ferretti tra canzonetta e madrigale, con l'edizione critica del quinto libro di canzoni alla napolitana a cinque voci (1585) (Florence, 1989)
C. Assenza: La canzonetta dal 1570 al 1615 (diss., U. of Bologna, 1990)
R.R. Holzer: Music and Poetry in Seventeenth-Century Rome: Settings of the Canzonetta and Cantata Texts of Francesco Balducci, Domenico Benigni, Francesco Melosio, and Antonio Abati (diss., U. of Pennsylvania, 1990)
G.A. Wheelock: ‘Marriage à la Mode: Haydn's Instrumental Works “Englished” for Voice and Piano’, JM, viii (1990), 357–97
C. Assenza: ‘La trasmissione dei testi poetici per canzonetta negli ultimi decenni del secolo XVI’, RIM, xxvi (1991), 205–40
W. Kumbier: ‘Haydn's English Canzonettas: Transformations in the Rhetoric of the Musical Sublime’, The Scope of Words: in Honor of Albert S. Cook, ed. P. Barker, S.W. Goodwin and G. Handwerk (New York, 1991), 73–93
R.R. Holzer: ‘“Sono d'altro garbo … le canzonette che si cantano oggi”: Pietro della Valle on Music and Modernity in the Seventeenth Century’, Studi musicali, xxi (1992), 253–306
M. Ossi: ‘Claudio Monteverdi's Ordine novo, bello et gustevole: the Canzonetta as Dramatic Module and Formal Archetype’, JAMS, xlv (1992), 261–304
R.I DeFord: Introduction to Orazio Vecchi: The Four-Voice Canzonettas, RRMR, xcii–xciii (1993)
A.P. Brown: ‘Musical Settings of Anne Hunter's Poetry: from National Song to Canzonetta’, JAMS, xlvii (1994), 39–89
R. Dalmonte and M. Privitera: Gitene, canzonette: studio e trascrizione delle ‘Canzonette a sei voci’ d'Horatio Vecchi (1587) (Florence, 1996)
R. Miller: ‘New Information on the Chronology of Venetian Monody: the “Raccolte” of Remigio Romano’, ML, lxxvii (1996), 22–33
C. Assenza: La canzonetta dal 1570 al 1615 (Lucca, 1997)
A.P. Brown: ‘Notes on Haydn's Lieder and Canzonettas’, Studies in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Music: Essays in Honor of Chappell White, ed. C. Parker (Warren, MI, forthcoming)
RUTH I. DeFORD