(It.).
(1) A repeat or repetition in a general sense, including the repetition of an opera or play.
(2) The refrain of the 14th-century ballata and the poetic and musical forms that adopted the ballata scheme, such as the lauda (see Lauda) and the Frottola, §2. It is linked, both metrically and musically, to the last section of the strophe, the volta, and was originally repeated after each strophe. 14th-century theorists regarded the ripresa as the element that characterizes the ballata and distinguishes it from other poetic forms. Different types of ballata are defined by the number and length of the lines composing the ripresa (see Ballata).
The choreographic function of the ripresa is illustrated by Giovanni del Virgilio, a contemporary of Dante. In the third Eclogue of his Diaffonus (1315–16) he described the performance of a ballata sung and danced in a square in Bologna. The refrain (recantus) is sung by a soloist, and is immediately repeated by the choir. At the end of each strophe (presumably performed by the soloist) the whole choir resumes the ripresa. Dante (De vulgari eloquentia, 1305) called the ballata refrain responsorium. The term, which belongs to the liturgical repertory, may refer to the practice of alternating choir and soloist described by Giovanni del Virgilio. It may be also connected to the Provençal respos (answer), from which the term responsum, used by Francesco da Barberino (commentary to his Documenti d'amore, c1296–1312) and by the anonymous author of Capitulum de vocis applicatis verbis (first half of the 14th century), seems to be derived. The word represa appears for the first time in Antonio da Tempo's Summa artis rithmici dictaminis (1332), where it is introduced as the equivalent of the Latin repilogatio (‘ballata quaelibet dividitur in quatuor partes, silicet quia prima pars est repilogatio quae vulgariter appelatur represa’). Subsequent vernacular adaptations of da Tempo's treatise propose different translations of repilogatio: resposa (Gidino da Sommacampagna, c1380); repilogatione (Francesco Bartella, 1447); and replication or replicatione (I-PAVu 441, second half of the 15th century, and US-NYcub Plimpton 180, end of the 15th century). Such variants probably reflect changes in the use and function of the ripresa (Gallo, 1980). With the transformation of the ballata from a dance-song of popular origins to a poetic form, often monostrophic, cultivated by Petrarch, Cino da Pistoia and by the followers of the stil novo, the ripresa lost its choreographic function. However, the original performing practice probably survived in popular musical contexts, and this, in turn, might have influenced the musical settings of ballatas of higher literary quality. Traces of the old distinction between choral and solo sections may still be found in a group of ballatas in I-Fc Basevi 2440 (c1515–20), where the text is fully written out in all voices in the ripresa but appears in only the discant in the strophes.
In Renaissance poetic theory the term ripresa, along with the other components of the ballata, was applied to the analysis of the frottola because of their clear structural analogies (see, for example, Antonio Minturno, L'arte poetica, 1564).
(3) In 15th-century dance treatises the term denotes a dance step. Domenico da Piacenza, the author of the earliest of these treatises, included the ripresa among the ‘natural steps’, which are distinguished from the ‘accidental’ ones by being related to the natural movements of the human body (De arte saltandi et choreas ducendi, after 1416). Domenico gave no information on how a ripresa is to be performed, and mentioned only that it lasts one tempo, like the dopio and the reverentia. The dance manuals of Antonio Cornazano (Libro dell'arte del danzare, 1465) and Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro (De pratica seu arte tripudii, 1463; ed. B. Sparti, Oxford, 1993), who both declared themselves disciples of Domenico, add no significant detail. It may be deduced from choreographies in Guglielmo's treatise, however, that the ripresa was a sideways step, frequently used to ‘change the direction of the dance, or to bring one dancer round to face his partner, or to come beside his partner and facing in the same direction’ (Daye, 1987). Special types of ripresa, whose meanings are not always clear, are the ripresa in gal(l)one, the ripresa portoghalese and the ripresa ghaloppata.
The term reappears in late 16th- and early 17th-century Italian dance manuals, apparently signifying a more elaborate dance-step. Fabritio Caroso described two types, the grave and the minima (Il ballarino, 1581). The first occupies a battuta perfetta while the second is to be performed within the time of a battuta minima. Cesare Negri followed Caroso's division (Nuova inventione di balli, 1604), but his choreographies seem to include riprese of the value of two perfect bars (Jones, 1986). Negri's manual also contemplates two other variants: the ripresa in sottopiede and the ripresa minuita.
(4) In the 16th and 17th centuries the term was applied to small instrumental units that appear, sometimes paired or in groups, before, after or between repetitions of the main music for a song or dance. The word first appears in G.A. Casteliono’s Intabolatura de leuto de diversi autori (1536), and unmarked examples occur even earlier, in Attaingnant’s Dixhuit basses dances (1530) and Quatorze gaillardes (1531), and possibly in Dalza’s Intabulatura de lauto, libro quarto (1508). The name changed to ‘ritornello’ in Caroso’s Il ballarino (1581), but both terms were used during the first half of the 17th century (during which time ‘ritornello’ began to be used also in a different sense to refer to an entire instrumental section alternating with other music).
The main music of a dance or song was based on certain fixed progressions of root position triads (see Ground, §1). The chordal scheme could be varied by activating the bass or upper voices melodically or by adding new chords that related to one of the framework chords as dominant or subdominant–dominant to tonic. A ripresa is structurally a repeat or return of the final tonic chord of a main scheme, with this chord varied by the same technique of variation used in the scheme, but applied independently, so that the music is melodically and harmonically different from the main piece. Internal riprese (those between repetitions of the main chordal scheme) usually appear in pairs; concluding riprese (at the end of a dance or a pair of dances) consist of longer chains of as many as 20 or 30 phrases. Most occupy the time of two framework chords from the main scheme (the ‘standard’ type); others are twice as long (‘double’).
The semibreves in ex.1a show one of the basic harmonic frameworks of the standard ripresa (other distributions of the two framework chords also occur). Alternative triads may be added to the framework as shown, resulting in a number of different progressions, the most common being that in ex.1b. Similarly, ex.1c shows the usual framework and some alternative chords for the double ripresa, ex.1d a specific internal example and ex.1e a concluding one in which the opening phrase is repeated a variable number of times. Most riprese are in triple metre, with each of the four structural chords occupying a single three-beat unit. Hemiola, however, is not uncommon, and duple metre is possible. During the 16th century most triads used in riprese were major, since chordal schemes for both modes ordinarily end with a major tonic chord or one without a 3rd. In the following century, however, pieces in the mode per B molle may end with a ripresa in which the bass line of ex.1b supports the progression subdominant (minor)–dominant–tonic (major or minor). Ex.1f shows a rare type of double ripresa based on the central chordal idea of the mode per B molle.
All the notes are roots of major triads, except the semibreves in bars 5–8 and the blackened one in bar 5 of f, which may be major or minor. In a, c, and f, a semibreve represents a framework chord, a blackened semibreve an alternative triad.
Riprese occur in music for lute, bandora, vihuela, cittern, stringed keyboard instruments, ensembles and guitar. The internal standard type is often attached to the French gaillarde, to the Italian saltarello or gagliarda paired with a passamezzo, to the Romanesca, the Folia and the aria per cantare. The usual type of internal double ripresa is found with the passamezzo moderno (the earliest example is by Hans Neusidler, 1540; ed. in DTÖ, xxxvii, Jg.xviii/2, 1911, p.40), the English ‘quadran’ pavan on the same chordal scheme (by Byrd, Bull, Morley and others) and dances paired with them. Concluding double riprese occur in works by Mainerio (1578), Facoli (1588), G.M. Radino (1592) and Picchi (1621). The double B molle ripresa appears occasionally with the romanesca, as in Frescobaldi’s partite of 1615 and 1637.
A sense of ostinato is sometimes established by repeating the opening half of ex.1e. Ostinato is more extensive, however, in the chains of standard riprese that conclude the saltarello or gagliarda paired with a passamezzo or pavana. There are also several independent sets of riprese (by Balletti, 1554), reprinse (Michael Praetorius, 1612) and ritornellos (Castaldi, 1620). The characteristic procedure is to alternate from one harmonic formula to another within a single chain of riprese. Successive phrases may therefore differ markedly from one another. The ostinato, then, is rhythmic, in the sense that a short, four-bar phrase length is repeated; it may be harmonic if the composer wished to repeat one particular progression for several phrases, or used different formulae that all began or ended with the same chord; it may also be melodic, especially in the 17th century, if a composer chose to use the same bass line for successive phrases. The special sense of ostinato that characterizes this technique, however, comes from the random recurrence of formulae that were derived by the principles of construction prevailing in the Renaissance dance style and were selected by the composer from phrase to phrase according to his wishes. In this context, see Passacaglia and Chaconne.
W.H. Rubsamen: Literary Sources of Secular Music in Italy (ca.1500) (Berkeley, 1943)
W.H. Rubsamen: ‘From Frottola to Madrigal: the Changing Pattern of Secular Italian Vocal Music’, Chanson & Madrigal 1480–1530: Cambridge, MA, 1961, 51–87
N. Pirrotta: ‘Ballate e “soni” secondo un grammatico del Trecento’, Saggi e ricerche in memoria di Ettore Li Gotti, iii (Palermo, 1962), 42–54; repr. in Musica tra Medioevo e Rinascimento (Turin, 1984), 90–102
M. Pazzaglia: ‘Ripresa’, Enciclopedia dantesca (Rome, 1973)
S. Schmalzriedt: ‘Reprise/ripresa (vor 1600)’ (1979), HMT
F.A. Gallo: ‘Ballata (Trecento)’ (1980), HMT
F.A. Gallo: ‘Sulla fortuna di Antonio da Tempo: un quarto volgarizzamento’, L'Ars Nova italiana del Trecento, ed. A. Ziino, v (Palermo, 1985), 149–57
M. Dolmetsch: Dances of Spain and Italy from 1400 to 1600 (London, 1954)
S. Schmalzriedt: ‘Reprise/ripresa (vor 1600)’ (1979), HMT
W.T. Marrocco: Inventory of the 15th Century Bassedanze, Balli and Balletti in Italian Dance Manuals (New York, 1981)
P. Jones: ‘Spectacle in Milan: Cesare Negri's Torch Dances’, EMc, xiv (1986), 182–96
A. Daye: ‘Towards a Choreographic Description of the Fifteenth Century Italian Bassa Danza’, Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro e la danza nelle corti italiane del XV secolo: Pesaro 1987, ed. M. Padovan (Pisa, 1990), 97–110
R. Hudson: ‘Chordal Aspects of the Italian Dance Style 1500–1650’, JLSA, iii (1970), 35–52
R. Hudson: ‘The Music in Italian Tablatures for the Five-Course Spanish Guitar’, JLSA, iv (1971), 21–42
R. Hudson: ‘The Ripresa, the Ritornello, and the Passacaglia’, JAMS, xxiv (1971), 364–94
R. Hudson: Review of W. Kirkendale: L’Aria di Fiorenza, id est Il ballo del Gran Duca (Florence, 1972), JAMS, xxvi (1973), 344–50
R. Hudson: The Folia, the Saraband, the Passacaglia, and the Chaconne: the Historical Evolution of Four Forms that Originated in Music for the Five-Course Spanish Guitar, iii: The Passacaglia, MSD, xxxv/3 (1982), pp.xxv–xxvi, 1–17
GIUSEPPE GERBINO (2, 3), RICHARD HUDSON (4)