(It. ‘broken choirs’).
Singers divided into distinct groups, sometimes placed in different parts of a building; also the technique of the music composed for them.
2. Lassus, the Gabrielis and their north Italian contemporaries.
3. Rome, Spain and England; later developments.
DENIS ARNOLD/ANTHONY F. CARVER
The practice of cori spezzati goes back to Jewish and early Christian liturgical music, but the Italian term itself dates from the 16th century and the polychoral music that became popular then. Though its history may extend back to monophonic psalmody, double-choir polyphony seems to have emerged in the second half of the 15th century and to have developed in two distinct ways: through the application of polyphony to antiphonal psalmody, as in the two choirbooks I-MOe cod.late.454–5, and, in the music of such composers as Pierre de la Rue, Josquin and Mouton, through the splitting of multi-voice texture into distinct voice groups, often in a canonic or imitative relationship.
In the early 16th century psalms and canticles for cori spezzati seem to have been most popular in and around Venice: a number of composers at Bergamo, Padua and Treviso were interested in such music and several new developments came about. Psalm settings for double choir could be through-composed, as in the music for Vespers and Compline by Francesco Santa Croce, who was maestro di cappella at Treviso Cathedral for two periods between 1520 and 1551. In his polychoral music he sought a new balance between homophony and imitative counterpoint. He still used a little imitation, but for long stretches a simple chordal style prevails, giving great clarity to the words and relying for musical variety on the alternation of the choirs (seeex.1). This music is much simpler to perform than the contrapuntal Flemish works of the period, and its harmonic progressions are surprisingly modern. Ruffino d’Assisi used the technique in a mass setting as well as in psalms, illustrating that double-choir textures were no longer associated solely with liturgical antiphony.
It was probably from such works that Willaert learnt the possibilities of cori spezzati and it was, above all, his famous psalm settings for double choir published in 1550 that led to the vogue for polychoral music during the second half of the 16th century. In some ways these settings are more advanced than Santa Croce’s, though the harmony is simple and diatonic. As Zarlino was to point out (Le istitutioni harmoniche, iii, 1558), the harmony of each choir is complete in itself, an important precept if the two bodies of singers are at some distance from each other. Paradoxically, we know that at S Marco, Venice, Willaert’s psalms were performed with the performers bunched together, with one choir sung one to a part. This may account for the relative lack of effective dialogue in these works, for their little conscious use of contrasting sonorities and for their lack of tutti writing, the latter usually reserved for the conclusion of the Doxology. They were, however, highly popular, perhaps because they fulfilled the requirements of the Council of Trent concerning the audibility of the words. At S Marco itself they became something of an institution; this may explain why there are no settings of vespers psalms by the Gabrielis. Elsewhere vespers psalms were especially popular, and polychoral settings of them can be traced through the latter part of the 16th century well into the 17th. Vicentino, who dealt in detail with polychoral writing in L’antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica (1555/R), emphasized register contrast between the choirs; this was subtle in early psalms, but became dramatic in the music of the later Venetians.
The parallel emergence of polychoral textures in polyphonic writing reached a watershed in Phinot’s double-choir motets published in Lyons in 1547 and 1548 and often reprinted, particularly in German anthologies. Phinot’s technique is highly developed, with varied antiphonal pacing and impressive punctuating tuttis, although without harmonic independence of the choirs.
From the middle of the century other composers began to write for two choirs. Initially the most important of these was Lassus. He used cori spezzati for great ceremonial motets, some with secular Latin texts in praise of his patrons, and also in masses, Magnificat settings and, significantly, more intimate, expressive works such as Marian antiphons. In contrast to Willaert but more akin to Phinot, he tended to use the tutti of the two choirs a great deal, and in the pursuit of contrapuntal independence for each voice his polychoral music is sometimes very complicated in rhythm. The result is a lack of clarity in the words but a much more brilliant sound, probably made even more brilliant at times by the use of instruments. Lassus also employed cori spezzati in secular music in the vernacular and was one of the earliest composers of dialogues and echo music (see Dialogue). Hardly ever did he adhere to Willaert’s rule about the harmonic self-sufficiency of the choirs. He resembles Willaert most closely in the alternation of groups in his dialogue technique, although the alternation varies according to the construction of the text; sometimes a choir is required to take up the movement from the other with little interlocking or overlapping.
The greatest of Lassus’s pupils was Andrea Gabrieli, who combined the natural vivacity of the earlier Italian composers with Willaert’s seriousness and Lassus’s love of sonority. Like Lassus he usually set ceremonial texts rather than psalms. He composed nearly all his polychoral motets for use at the great Venetian festivals. Sometimes one choir consists of upper voices only, while the other may be a coro grave, and the tessitura of the highest and lowest parts is often such as to require instruments. In one or two works one choir is marked ‘cappella’, indicating a ripieno group of voices or of voices and instruments. That the remaining choirs were often given to a solo voice with instruments can be deduced from some of Giovanni Gabrieli’s later works and from Praetorius (Syntagma musicum, iii, 1619/R).
Bassano, Bellavere, Croce, Donato and Giovanni Gabrieli all followed Andrea Gabrieli’s example. They took for granted his harmonic and dialogue style and the sometimes pronounced contrast between his various groups of voices and instruments. It is a tribute to his modernity and imagination that few of them could add any really novel feature in an age in which innovation was almost a watchword. Only works by Giovanni Gabrieli and Croce, in fact, are at all in advance of Andrea’s Concerti of 1587. The earliest works of both composers are close to his in style. Croce employed cori spezzati in the composition of parody masses. In these, as well as in his double-choir motets, the dialogue technique and diatonic harmonies are quite clearly derived from Andrea. Giovanni Gabrieli also followed his uncle closely. Very little of his church music is written for a single choir, and most of the texts set by him were those set by Andrea in his 1587 collection. In his Sacrae symphoniae (1597) Giovanni used the choral and instrumental groupings and in general the harmonic idiom of his uncle. The contrasts between the groups are now sharper, and although he did not yet specify the precise scoring of the vocal works, he included instrumental pieces employing polychoral techniques. The motets in his Sacrae symphoniae published posthumously in 1615 show the logical development of these traits. By introducing the basso continuo, he made possible the use of the accompanied solo voice, and elaborate ornamentation now differentiates it strongly from choral style. Arresting harmonic effects involving augmented chords or mediant progressions are characteristic. The instrumental ensemble is given separate sinfonias, as well as being involved in the climactic tutti sections. In fact because of such obvious contrasts of timbre the choirs no longer need to be separated, and several of the works can be performed with the forces grouped en bloc.
With the work of Giovanni Gabrieli the fame of cori spezzati was complete. Almost every major composer of church music in Italy made use of the technique, and a Venetian influence can be traced in Germany. A further development was the separation of the soloists from each other. In his Sacri concentus (1612) Ignazio Donati recommended a method that he called ‘distant singing’. Monteverdi used effects of this kind in his famous Vespro della Beata Vergine (1610). The potential complexity of such music can be seen in Croce’s posthumously published psalm Laudate pueri. In this work the four soloists are split up to give echoes of one another, and there is a ripieno choir in another part of the church and yet a further group consisting of trombones accompanying an alto voice.
In Venice and its surrounding state, polychoral music soon declined, and by 1630 it was no longer the main form of ceremonial music, having been superseded by more flexible forms of sacred concerto. Its popularity continued for a short time, however, in both Rome and Germany. In Rome Palestrina had composed and published motets for two choirs as early as 1572. Their texts indicate that they were intended for great ceremonial occasions, but although this might denote the influence of Venetian composers the actual style shows that Palestrina was less interested in the resources of cori spezzati than in the greater sonority made possible by eight voices. There is little contrast between the choirs, and although a free dialogue style is sometimes used the main interest is in imitative counterpoint. Palestrina’s motet volume of 1575 is in a more modern style, with triple-time passages, homophonic dialogue between harmonically complete choirs, and so on. Even so, the more characteristic and powerful passages, such as the beginning of Surge, illuminare, depend on counterpoint rather than polychoral devices. There are long imitative phrases and interesting, independent melodic lines, both of which the Venetian composers completely ignored in the later part of the century.
Palestrina’s pupils and imitators continued to follow his style for some years, and polychoral music occupied a special place in the feast day celebrations of the wealthier confraternities. The forces involved were not prohibitively large, since one-to-a-part singing was common. The proliferation in the number of choirs, often in SATB range, in the ‘Colossal Baroque’ style is apparent in the music of Benevoli. There was, as also in northern Italy, a move towards more diversified textures; cori spezzati passages were contrasted with solos, duets or sections in imitative style within more sectionalized formal patterns, a style known as concertato alla Romana.
Victoria, whose first polychoral compositions were also published in 1572, began in a manner close to that of Palestrina, though in some of his later works, written after his return to Spain, he approached Venetian composers in general style. It is likely that the Spanish fondness for instrumental participation resulted in a comparable richness of colour. In Iberia as in Italy the amount of polychoral music produced during the late 16th century and the early 17th was enormous, and the idiom was exported to Central and South America.
In Germany the vogue for separated choirs was very important in the 17th century. The style was well known there from the time of Lassus and was encouraged by a number of Andrea Gabrieli’s pupils, of whom the most distinguished were Hans Leo Hassler and Aichinger. Schütz, who studied with Giovanni Gabrieli, was fond of polychoral devices and had much the same talent as his master for using space as part of the musical pattern. His earlier works, typified by the Psalmen Davids (1619), are clearly indebted to Venetian models, but he rationalized the classification of choirs, distinguishing clearly between solo [favoriti] and ripieno forces. Later he went further in the dramatic use of cori spezzati. Michael Praetorius, though not capable of such power, is important because he explored with Germanic thoroughness the possibilities accruing from the use of space and codified them in his Syntagma musicum, iii. The most complex work of all for separated choirs was written for some great ceremonial occasion at Salzburg Cathedral. This is the mass for 53 voices formerly ascribed to Benevoli but now believed to be by a later 17th-century composer such as Biber or Andreas Hofer. The performers are divided into eight groups, all constituted differently. The chordal structures are extremely simple, and the whole depends strongly on the element of surprise provided by the spatial separation.
In England church choirs were divided into two (see Decani and cantoris), but when, in music from the late 16th century on, the groups alternate and dovetail, the style is meditative with no lively dialogue and in the tuttis like parts from each side join on the same line. The only important English example of cori spezzati technique is Tallis’s extraordinary Spem in alium for eight five-part choirs, possibly composed for the 40th birthday of Elizabeth I. Tallis takes imitation systematically through all 40 voices as well as creating wave-like antiphony and stunning harmonic effects.
In Venice, the practice persisted into the 18th century. Vivaldi wrote not only church music in the idiom but also concertos and solo motets in which the orchestra was divided into groups on opposite sides of the church. Galuppi wrote masses with as many as four separated groups. Bach, too, used the device, mainly in his festival works, such as the St Matthew Passion and the motets, long after it had ceased to be generally popular in Germany. There are genuine spatial effects in these works, but in general he used such divisions more because they made for increased sonority. This also applies to the few later examples, such as the Te Deum of Berlioz and Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast, where the wide separation of performers is incidental and forced on the composer by the very size of his resources.
StevensonRB
StevensonSCM
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