Musical term found with various definitions and implications in sources from 1552 to 1625.
ALBERT DUNNING
Ever
since the term ‘musica reservata’ was discovered at the end of the 19th
century, its interpretation has been of major concern to musicologists. It is
generally assumed to refer to a central aspect of the style or performance of
music in the second half of the 16th century. Since the term appears relatively
rarely, and explanations are sometimes obscure or altogether contradictory,
great care is needed when attempting a clearcut definition. The sources that
mention the term are as follows: 1552 A.P. Coclico: Compendium
musices and Consolationes piae
1555 Two letters from G.S. Seld to Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria
N. Vicentino: L'antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica
P. de Tyard: Solitaire second
1559 J. Taisnier: Astrologiae iudiciariae isagogica
c1560 Samuel Quickelberg's comments on Lassus's
penitential psalms
1571 Anonymous treatise from the Synod of Besançon
1582 E. Hoffmann: Doctrina de tonis
1610 A. Brunelli: Regole et dichiarationi de alcuni
contrappunti doppii
P. Maillart: Les tons, ou Discours sur les modes, a
copy of Tyard
1611 R. Ballestra: Sacrae symphoniae
c1623 Reference to Biagio Marini at the Neuburg court
1625 J. Thuringus: Opusculum bipartitum, a copy of
Hoffmann
Those sources that do more than mention the term, and include details that could help to achieve an understanding of it, suggest that four aspects of music may be involved: musical expression of the meaning of the text; rhythm; chromaticism or the use of chromatic notes; performing practice.
The best-known description of musica reservata is that given by Samuel Quickelberg, a humanist of Dutch extraction living at the ducal court in Munich. He made the following comment (printed in Crevel, 300, and in vol.xxvi of the new Lassus edition, 1995) on Lassus's penitential psalms (composed c1560):
Thus the illustrious prince commissioned his most excellent musician, Orlande de Lassus, more distinguished and polished than any our century has produced, to compose these psalms, mostly for five voices. Lassus expressed these psalms so appropriately in accommodating, according to necessity, thoughts and words with lamenting and plaintive tones, in expressing the force of the individual affections, and in placing the object almost alive before the eyes, that one is at a loss to say whether the sweetness of the affections enhanced the lamenting tones more greatly, or whether the lamenting tones brought greater ornament to the sweetness of the affections. This genre of music they call musica reservata. In it, whether in other songs [carminibus], which are virtually innumerable, or in these, Orlande has wonderfully demonstrated to posterity the outstanding quality of his genius.
Here musica reservata is presented as the expression of the affect and meaning of the words. However, the frequency and intensity of these features appear to be no greater in Lassus's penitential psalms than in the rest of his works. The value of Quickelberg's definition of musica reservata is reduced for two reasons: first, such musical word-painting and portrayal of affect were precisely the central characteristics of most music written around 1560; second, he omitted any mention of the specific compositional techniques used in this period. Moreover, it has been pointed out that Quickelberg's description has much in common with musical ideals which for some time had been widely held in such humanist circles as that around Thomas More.
A short anonymous treatise in the acts of the Synod of Besançon from 1559 to 1571 (see Bäumker) seems to imply that musica reservata was concerned with rhythm; part of the text suggests that a characteristic was the practice of ‘fuggir la cadenza’. The pupil is given the following rule:
One should tend to make voices progressing in diverse and (as far as possible) contrary motion unite at last in perfect consonances and return to a certain mode. However, in a continuous rhythm you will avoid the cadence [clausulam] so that there might result what is called musica reservata.
Musica reservata was used in three sources to mean the use of the genus chromaticum. It first occurs in this sense in a treatise by the astrologer and mathematician Jean Taisnier, who had travelled widely and was also active as a musician at the court of Charles V and elsewhere. In his treatise, Astrologiae iudiciariae isagogica (Cologne, 1559), he listed alongside other classifications of music a category of music both ‘ancient and modern – called new or “reservata” by some who have held that the application of one or the other diesis or diaschisma in a secular song or motet turns the diatonic genre into the chromatic’. The second source is Eucharius Hoffmann's Doctrina de tonis (Greifswald, 1582), which was copied word for word by Joachim Thuringus in his Opusculum bipartitum (Berlin, 2/1625). The relevant passage runs as follows: ‘Today, however, it [the chromatic genre] is being restored to singing by certain people and by them this is called musica reservata, since it is almost entirely reserved for certain musical instruments and has not been accepted or practised in singing’. Although the source of Hoffmann's description of the chromatic genre was clearly Nicola Vicentino's L'antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica (Rome, 1555/R), Hoffmann stands alone in his distinctly questionable etymological explanation of the word reservata. There has been much controversy about the correct interpretation of a phrase in this passage from Vicentino's L'antica musica:
…they understand that (as the ancient authors prove) the chromatic and enharmonic music was fittingly reserved [reservata] for another purpose than [was] the diatonic, for the latter was sung, for the benefit of ordinary ears, at public festivals in places for the community: the former was used for the benefit of trained ears at private entertainments of lords and princes, in praising great personages and heroes.
Some scholars (Jeppesen and Lowinsky) have suggested translations of the critical section in the following manner: ‘the chromatic and enharmonic musica reservata deservedly had a different application from that of the diatonic’. However, well-founded grammatical objections have been raised to this translation by Schrade, Palisca and others. Vicentino was certainly indicating that the use of diatonic as opposed to chromatic and enharmonic music was determined sociologically. His works are echoed in a passage on the genera from the Solitaire second, ou Prose de la musique (Lyons, 1555) of Pontus de Tyard, who stated that the diatonic was generally current, whereas application of the enharmonic required such exquisite skill as to seem to be reserved for the learned. Tyard was later quoted verbatim by Pierre Maillart in Les tons, ou Discours sur les modes de musique (Tournai, 1610/R).
Two statements in documents have been brought forward as evidence for the view that musica reservata means performance by soloists. In 1611 Reimundo Ballestra's Sacrae symphoniae appeared in Venice; in a document (see Federhofer, 1952) the pieces are described as Musicalische Symphonien und Harmonien, ausser etlicher reservata. As well as works written in the concertato style (Symphonien) and others in the a cappella and the polychoral (Harmonien) styles, there are some in which sections for soloists with organ continuo alternate with passages for the full ensemble. It is these last works that some musicologists identify as the ‘etlicher reservata’ group. The second piece of possible evidence for this interpretation is the title ‘musico riservato’, given about 1619 to Biagio Marini when he was a violinist at the Neuburg court. In a document described by Clark it is decreed that ‘Marino … will be “musico riservato” and with his violin should not be in the midst of the concerti grandi where he cannot be heard well’. From this it would appear that Marini was a soloist, not one of the ripieno players. ‘Musico riservato’ may, however, mean no more than a special musician, that is, one who is ‘reserved’ for special purposes, and it is unlikely to have any connection with musica reservata.
On the other occasions when the words musica reservata appear in contemporary documents the texts explain no more than do those discussed above, either about the technical character of compositions or about their performance. According to some of these sources musica reservata was in the 1550s both a new and a controversial kind of music, clearly distinguishable from other contemporary repertories. Georg Sigmund Seld, an imperial vice-chancellor resident in Brussels, was commissioned to find musicians in the Netherlands for the chapel of Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria, his former sovereign. In a letter of 22 September 1555 (Crevel, 295) Seld recommended to him Philippe de Monte, describing him as ‘incontrovertibly the best composer in the whole land, especially in the new manner and “musica reservata”’. Even though the terms ‘new manner’ and ‘musica reservata’ cannot necessarily be equated, Seld's remark on the replacement of Cornelius Canis by Nicolas Payen as imperial Kapellmeister seems to indicate the relative novelty of the fashion: ‘and so “musica reservata” will become still more the fashion than heretofore’. Seld's statement that ‘Canis could not well reconcile himself to it’ provides sufficient grounds for thinking that musica reservata was not greeted with universal approval. Novelty and controversy are also apparent in Taisnier’s comments: in the passage quoted above, the terms musica moderna, musica nova and musica reservata are all used to mean the same thing. Taisnier’s objection to this new music becomes clear in the course of his declarations. He sharply attacked the way the ‘moderns’ contravened the rules of traditional modality, their disregard for the intricacies of mensural theory, their use of certain figures (semiminima runs, canons and repetitions) to express the sense of the text and their new notational techniques. What Taisnier missed in the way of complex mensural practice in modern compositions and what he complained about in part-writing were precisely what Coclico praised in his Compendium musices of 1552 as the new musical ideals: the rejection of mensural subtleties and the rise of a text-setting style that laid greater emphasis on the content of the text. There are, however, difficulties about Coclico's declaration in the Compendium musices that he wrote his treatise ‘in order to call to light again [in lucem revocare] this music that they ordinarily refer to as reservata’. This passage suggests a revival of an ancient musical practice that had fallen into disuse, but such an interpretation is highly suspect in view of the humanists' fondness for images of revival and restoration. The words musica reservata also appear on the title-page of Coclico's Consolationes piae, a collection of motets dating from 1552 (ed. in EDM, 1st ser., xlii, 1958). The pieces reveal in fact a tendency to extreme word-painting, and some of the motets, with their extensive use of accidentals, have links with the similar chromatic experiments in some of Josquin's work. Coclico claimed to have been taught by Josquin and to be handing on his compositional practice and thinking.
Seld had mentioned musica reservata earlier in 1555 (letter of 28 April; Crevel, 294), reporting that he had invited a singer named Fux to his home with others after an audition: ‘As we sang all sorts of “reservata” and music unknown to him, I consider that he is secure enough in all of them so that he, as all the others say, can compare favourably with any alto of the imperial chapel’.
An explanation of the word riservato to mean a complicated manner of composition seems to be suggested by a passage from Antonio Brunelli's Regole et dichiarationi de alcuni contrappunti doppii (Florence, 1610), in which he referred to ‘regole piu riservate e recondite’. Although additional confirmation of this interpretation of reservata can be inferred if one includes among Ballestra's ‘etlicher reservata’ the elaborate, two-text homage motets in his Sacrae symphoniae (Federhofer, 1952, 1957) it is quite possible that, by associating riservato with recondito, Brunelli was using the word in a different, more general, sense. Whether it is possible to equate ‘osservata’, which occasionally occurs, with reservata remains questionable (see Sandberger, Crevel, Meier in MGG1 and ReeseMR). It is perhaps misleading to mention here the words ‘reservato ordine’ found in Vincenzo Ruffo's Opera nova di musica intitolata Armonia celeste (Venice, 1556); they may mean no more than ‘restrained orderliness’ (see Osthoff, EinsteinIM, Palisca).
As they have gradually become known in musicological circles, these sources have given rise to various contradictory interpretations. Many musicologists, accepting Quickelberg's definition, have been of the opinion that musica reservata is music with heightened expressiveness, presenting the text to the listener with a greater intensity, although they have been unable to agree on any specific devices that might have been cultivated to this end (Sandberger). In this connection, the relationship between musica reservata and rhetorical figures has been examined in various ways (Brandes, Unger, Meier, Leuchtmann). Others have understood musica reservata as music that is restrained in its expression (Bernet Kempers), as music that is characterized by its restraint in the use of figuration (Ursprung) or as a musical style with improvised ornamentation (Huber). It has also been linked occasionally with what is known as mannerism in music (Palisca, Hucke). Later research (e.g. that of Meier, HMT) has stressed sociological aspects that had already been considered occasionally by Lowinsky and others. These authors agreed that musica reservata was reserved for a particular section of the public, whose members regarded themselves as connoisseurs. Lowinsky held that view because of his interpretation of the passage from Vicentino discussed above, Federhofer (1952, 1957) did so on the grounds of the description of works in reservata style in Ballestra's publication, while Meier (MGG1) stressed the musical education of that particular class.
Thus musica reservata does not appear to be characterized by a single musical technique, but rather by many factors, namely by ‘the use of unusual means, by striking modulations, lavish use of chromaticism, enharmonic changes, musica ficta, affected artistic counterpoint or mannerist and eccentric traits’ (Federhofer in RiemannL12), or else by ‘special refinements in its musical structure, such as the intensive portrayal of the imagery and affect of words, the use of chromaticism or else just complex contrapuntal structures’ (Meier in MGG1). This interpretation of the term musica reservata has the advantage that contemporary statements that may appear contradictory can be related to a single (if somewhat unspecific) concept of a relatively exaggerated means of expression. The question whether musica reservata is ‘a term whose significance has been overestimated’ (Federhofer in RiemannL12) is one that can be answered satisfactorily only when a definitive interpretation of the term is reached. Recent research accepts that this is a problem which is still open-ended and which will perhaps never be finally resolved.
BoetticherOL
EinsteinIM
MGG1 (B. Meier)
ReeseMR, 511ff
RiemannL12
A.P. Coclico: Compendium musices (Nuremberg, 1552/R1954 in DM, 1st ser., Druckschriften-Faksimiles, ix)
W. Bäumker: ‘Über den Kontrapunkt: eine kurze Anweisung aus dem XVI. Jahrhundert’, MMg, x (1878), 63–5
A. Sandberger: Beiträge zur Geschichte der bayerischen Hofkapelle unter Orlando di Lasso, i, iii (Leipzig, 1894–5/R)
K. Huber: Ivo de Vento (Lindenberg in Allgäu, 1918)
K.P. Bernet Kempers: Jacobus Clemens non Papa und seine Motetten (Augsburg, 1928), 77
H.J. Moser: Die mehrstimmige Vertonung des Evangeliums (Leipzig, 1931)
O. Ursprung: Die katholische Kirchenmusik (Potsdam, 1931/R)
H. Brandes: Studien zur musikalischen Figurenlehre im 16. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1935)
T. Kroyer: ‘Von der Musica reservata des 16. Jahrhunderts’, Festschrift Heinrich Wölfflin zum siebzigsten Geburtstage (Dresden, 1935), 127–44
L. Balmer: Orlando di Lassos Motetten: eine stilgeschichtliche Studie (Berne, 1938)
H. Osthoff: Die Niederländer und das deutsche Lied, 1400–1640 (Berlin, 1938/R)
M. van Crevel: Adrianus Petit Coclico (The Hague, 1940)
H.-H. Unger: Die Beziehungen zwischen Musik and Rhetorik im 16.–18. Jahrhundert (Würzburg, 1941/R)
H. Leichtentritt: ‘Musica riservata’, BAMS, vi (1942), 18–19 [abstract]
E.E. Lowinsky: Secret Chromatic Art in the Netherlands Motet (New York, 1946/R); see also review by L. Schrade, JRBM, i (1946), 159–67, esp. 165–6
H. Federhofer: ‘Eine neue Quelle der musica reservata’, AcM, xxiv (1952), 32–45
W. Boetticher: ‘Neue Lasso-Funde’, Mf, viii (1955), 385–97
K. Jeppesen: Review of G. Reese: Music in the Renaissance (New York, 1954), MQ, xli (1955), 378–91, esp. 390
B. Meier: ‘Eine weitere Quelle der musica reservata’, Mf, viii (1955), 83–5
B. Meier: ‘The Musica Reservata of Adrianus Petit Coclico and its Relationship to Josquin’, MD, x (1956), 67–105
W. Clark: ‘A Contribution to Sources of Musica Reservata’, RBM, xi (1957), 27–33
H. Federhofer: ‘Monodie und musica reservata’, DJbM, ii (1957), 30–36
B. Meier: ‘Reservata-Probleme: ein Bericht’, AcM, xxx (1958), 77–89
H. Leuchtmann: Die musikalischen Wortausdeutungen in den Motetten des Magnum opus musicum von Orlando di Lasso (Strasbourg and Baden-Baden, 1959)
C.V. Palisca: ‘A Clarification of “musica reservata” in Jean Taisnier's “Astrologiae”, 1559’, AcM, xxxi (1959), 133–61
H. Hucke: ‘Das Problem des Manierismus in der Musik’, Literaturwissenschaftliches Jb der Görres-Gesellschaft, new ser., ii (1961), 219–38
H. Federhofer: Musikpflege und Musiker am Grazer Habsburgerhof der Erzherzöge Karl und Ferdinand von Innerösterreich (1564–1619) (Mainz, 1967)
B. Meier: ‘Musica reservata’ (1976), HMT
N.C. Carpenter: ‘A Song for all Seasons: Sir Thomas More and Music’, Comparative Literature, xxxiii/2 (1981), 113–36
W. Kirkendale: ‘Alessandro Striggio und die Musik: neue Briefe und Dokumente’, Festschrift Othmar Wessely zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. M. Angerer and others (Tutzing, 1982), 325–53
E. Kolyada: ‘Ponjatie “musica reservata” v renessansom iskusstve’ [The concept of musica reservata in Renaissance art], Musica antiqua VIII: Bydgoszcz 1988, i, 517–26