Tourney

(Fr. tournoi; Ger. T(o)urnierspiel; It. torneo, torneamento).

A musical introduction to a tournament as well as music for the tournament itself. The genre was cultivated particularly in the 17th century at the ducal courts of northern Italy and at Paris, Munich and Vienna. The tournament was presented in a highly stylized form amounting to little more than ballet, usually by small squadrons of horsemen. Some tourneys, however, were for individuals and some (e.g. Il torneo a piedi, 1631, Ferrara) were performed on foot. The performance often celebrated a royal wedding or birthday, with members of the family taking part, and was an occasion for lavish pageantry and feasting.

The quasi-operatic introduction to the 17th-century tournament appears to derive from the divise (‘devices’) of the medieval tournament. The word ‘divisa’ denoted not only a heraldic device but also a short phrase or sentence in poetry or prose (perhaps originally the motto of the knight or his family), declaimed or sung as he entered the arena. During the 15th century the divise grew longer and more complex and gradually were welded into a quasi-dramatic whole; in a giostra (‘joust’) at the court of Queen Giovanna II at Naples in 1423 they are known to have been sung. At the same time the combat degenerated into a pre-arranged contest with the semblance of a plot which it was partly the purpose of the introduction to explain.

These trends continued in the 16th century, real combat disappearing altogether after the fatal accident to Henri II of France in 1559. One of the most important landmarks in the history of the genre was the tourney at Ferrara two years later (Il castello di Gorgoferusa) to celebrate the elevation of Luigi d’Este to the purple. It included all the ingredients of the normal Baroque tourney – an introduction set to music; a pre-arranged contest, in an arena surrounded by spectators, between a number of squadrons on horseback accompanied by many supernumeraries, possibly in chariots or carriages; a raised stage with movable scenery; music and musicians, some in costume – and was the model for countless later tourneys in Italy and elsewhere.

In the 17th century the contest became increasingly stylized and developed into the equestrian ballet. The word ‘torneo’ denoted either the introduction plus the contest or the contest only, and was often replaced by terms such as ‘ballo’ or ‘balletto a cavallo’, ‘festa a cavallo’ and ‘carossello’ (carousel). It is clear from the librettos, which often include plates of the performance, a list of the riders’ names and occasionally their coats of arms, that the most important ingredients were extravagant spectacle and skilled horsemanship. The riders were almost invariably members of the nobility, especially in Germany, and sometimes included women.

Various types of subject were used – allegorical, classical, mythological, fantastic – but they were alike in providing a symbolic arena for a dispute over the relative merits of the contestants, who might represent, for example, the four seasons (La gara delle quattro stagioni, 1652, Modena), childhood, adolescence and youth (I trionfi di virtuosa bellezza, 1668, Munich), or a number of different colours (I colori geniali, 1669, Munich). The libretto was normally divided into short scenes or ‘azioni’ which were performed by groups of musicians, actors and dancers as the contestants made their way into the arena. Other scenes might be inserted later in the ‘contest’ or at the end. In La gara de gli elementi (1660, Parma), for example, the ‘contest’ was followed by a sung conversation between Pace and Discordia (victor and vanquished, respectively) and a number of dances, including a ‘ballo de’ Cavaglieri’, before Pace finally led the knights in procession out of the arena.

The music for tourneys, of which little seems to survive, appears to have been of two main kinds: music for the introduction and similar scenes, and music for the ‘contest’ or ballet. To judge by Francesca Caccini’s La liberazione di Ruggiero (1625, Florence), the former was virtually indistinguishable in style from early opera. The libretto of La gara de gli elementi suggests that solo recitatives and arias, the dialogue mentioned above and choruses were included in the performance, and says that Benedetto Ferrari composed the music. The difference between this and the ‘contest’ or ballet music is illustrated by the libretto of Erote ed Anterote (1686, Munich), which indicates that Apollo was accompanied by ‘varij stromenti alla mano’ and the horsemen by trumpets and drums. These instruments provided the carousel music at the court of Louis XIV, and it seems safe to assume that they were the normal accompaniment elsewhere, especially since the horses were accustomed to respond to their sounds for military purposes. It should be noted, however, that the music for a Rossballett (‘carousel’) at Vienna in 1667 calls for antiphonal ‘clarin.’ and ‘violin.’, and Cesare Tinghi (see SolertiMBD, p.183) said that the ‘ballo a cavallo’ that followed La liberazione di Ruggiero was performed by ‘viole et violini et canto’. If he was right and no other instruments were used, the ballet music was more lightly scored than the introduction, which calls for, among other things, four trombones, and may have been barely audible above the noise of the horses’ hooves and tackle.

There is evidence that some tourneys were performed indoors, possibly, as in the case of Monteverdi’s Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (which, however, is not a tourney), with the aid of hobby horses. The ‘gran balletto et torneo’ at Turin in 1621 was given in the Salone delle Feste, and operas at Vienna were often followed by an equestrian ballet on stage (e.g. the ‘Dantz der römischen Ritter zu Pferd’ that followed a performance of Antonio Draghi’s Curzio in 1679). Full-scale tourneys on real horses were of course performed out of doors, in the town square or palace courtyard or garden, but many tourneys are said to have taken place in a ‘teatro’ or ‘palazzo’, which might have been indoors or out. The ‘torneo a piedi’, however, was not a tourney on hobby horse and seems normally to have been performed out of doors.

The tourney appears to have been cultivated most assiduously, in the early 17th century, at Turin and Florence. The success of the form at Turin may be attributed to a long tradition of horsemanship, the high favour in which ballet was held and the exertions of the indefatigable Count filippo d’Aglié. Florence was the setting for a number of important tourneys, including the Ballo e giostra de’ venti (1608), the Guerra di bellezza (1616), with music by Jacopo Peri, a ‘festa a cavallo’ in 1637 for the wedding of Grand Duke Ferdinando II and Vittoria della Rovere, Princess of Urbino, and Il mondo festeggiante, with music by Domenico Anglesi, for the wedding of the future Cosimo III and Marguerite Louise d’Orléans in 1661. La liberazione di Ruggiero was anticipated by a Ruggero liberato, with music by Girolamo Giacobbi, at Bologna in 1620, and the wedding of Duke Odoardo Farnese to Margherita de’ Medici was celebrated by Mercurio e Marte (1628, Parma), a ‘torneo regale’ with music by Monteverdi. Of the other Italian courts, the most important appear to have been Ferrara, where the tourney had an enthusiastic champion in Pio Enea II degli Obizzi (1605–74), Modena (two tourneys in 1652) and Milan (1669).

In France the tourney fell completely under the influence of the ballet and became the carousel. The first great carousel at the French court took place at the Hôtel du Petit-Bourbon, Paris, in 1605. The form quickly established itself as a favourite with the Bourbon monarchs, who mounted tourneys on an increasingly lavish scale. Among the most extravagant were the carousel in the Place Royale for the wedding of Louis XIII in 1612 and that in the Place du Carrousel in 1662. Soon after this, performances were moved to the more spacious grounds of Versailles, where the most sumptuous carousels were those of 1683 and 1686. For the latter Lully composed a suite for four oboes, in addition to the normal four trumpets and drums, consisting of a prelude, minuet, gigue and gavotte; the work epitomizes the ballet-like character of the French carousel.

The tourney in Germany and Austria was inevitably modelled on that in Italy and France. Although the main centres were Munich and Vienna, it was also cultivated at other courts (e.g. Dresden and Prague) in the 16th and especially in the later 17th century. The rise of this form, as of opera, was assisted by the many Italian librettists, architects and musicians, as well as French dancing-masters, who emigrated to Germany after the end of the Thirty Years War. At Vienna the tourney and Rossballett were cultivated side by side. The most important tourneys appear to have been the magnificent Contesa dell’aria e dell’acqua (1667; libretto by Francesco Sbarra, music by J.H. Schmelzer and Bertali; see illustration) and La Germania esultante (1667; Sbarra and Antonio Cesti). The music of two Rossballette of the same year consisted of suites of dances and indicates the extent to which the form had been influenced by the French carousel. The tourneys at Munich were, if anything, more numerous than at Vienna and adhered more closely to the Italian torneo. The tournament was more often a stylized ‘contest’ and might be tightly integrated with the introduction. There were at least ten tourneys between 1666 and 1690, the heyday of the form, written by court librettists (Domenico Gisberti and Ventura Terzago) and set by court composers (J.C. Kerll, Ercole and G.A. Bernabei, Steffani and Pietro Torri).

The tourney became virtually extinct in the early 18th century, but the carousel presumably continued to flourish in France until the death of Louis XIV, and there was a Rossballett at Vienna in 1708, a torneo at Munich in 1702 and a carousel there (the only one recorded) in 1722. There is little evidence of later tourneys, but Beethoven’s music for a Ritterballett at Bonn in 1791 suggests that equestrian entertainments were given, on and off, throughout the century. The bicentenary of the royal Piedmont cavalry regiment was celebrated by a torneo at Turin in 1892, and the last Bolognese ‘maggio’ took place in 1920. The torneo may be said to have survived in Britain in the shape of the Royal Tournament and the Edinburgh Royal Tattoo.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ES(‘Torneo’; E. Povoledo)

FürstenauG, i

SolertiMBD

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COLIN TIMMS