Music in the Collective Experience in Sixteenth-Century Milan.

Rice, Stephen

Music in the Collective Experience in Sixteenth-Century Milan. By Christine Suzanne Getz. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. [xii, 313 p. ISBN 0-7546-5121-5. $99.95]. Illustrations, music examples, appendices, bibliography, index.

Christine Suzanne Getz, professor at the University of Iowa, has in recent years made notable contributions to the history of music in the Duchy of Milan during the sixteenth century (including articles in Musica disciplina, Studi musicali, Early Music History, and the Journal of the Royal Musical Association). The present volume builds on these studies (repeating parts of their content on occasion) and provides a comprehensive view of music making in the region. Getz draws on much previously unknown archival material, as well as discussing significant quantities of music, most of it unavailable in modern editions.

Judging from the book's title, the reader-would expect to find a study in the radically democratizing vein of Reinhard Strohm's Music in Late Medieval Bruges (2d ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990]), in which the historical agenda is wrested away from an elite culture that had dominated earlier musicology, to focus instead on the "soundscape" of the city in its exuberant patchwork. The titles, preambles, and conclusions of Getz's chapters point strongly in this direction. That the rest of the book largely does not do so is in itself no weakness: much of the information she provides is extremely valuable, and some of it fascinating. The majority of what she has to say in the body of each chapter concerns archival discoveries (of which there are many) linked with a thorough command of secondary literature; as such her book can more readily be viewed as a contribution to, rather than a rethinking of, existing scholarship. The attempt to situate the study in the revisionist camp therefore gives rise to a somewhat uneasy historiography, in which archival material that by its nature casts light more on courtly culture than demotic is pressed into the service of the "collective consciousness" of the book's title.

An example of the chapter headings, compared with its contents, will illustrate this point. Chapter 3, "The Civic Ceremonial at the Duomo of Milan," discusses (as might be expected) the maestri di cappella and the fluctuating forces of the cathedral choir, proceeding to examine in detail two sets of music generated in the service of the institution: Hermann Matthias Werrecore's motet book published in 1555, and the Mass settings of Vincenzo Ruffo. All of these aspects of the cathedral's music are essential to any such study: what is not clear is how Getz's claims about them are substantiated. Of Werrecore's motet book she writes:

 the motet cycle, a genre that was associated specifically with
 Renaissance Milan, functioned, by its very nature, as an expression of
 Milanese civic identity, and this particular expression of artistic
 patriotism was fostered at the Duomo 'in medio ecclesiae' (p. 108).

The notion that the motet cycle was peculiarly Milanese arises from the short-lived subgenre of the motetti missales; in Werrecore's collection, however, there are no such pieces (and Getz acknowledges this, p. 105). Instead the book contains a setting of the hymn Ave maris stella--unusually, of all seven verses--and a multipartite Improperia, as well as the sequence-motet Inviolata, Integra et casta es, Maria, in which Werrecore, like most sixteenth-century imitators, follows Josquin Desprez in dividing the text into three sections. Since all of these texts are quite frequently set at this time, as are the majority of the unipartite pieces contained in the motet book, no specifically Milanese agenda emerges from its contents, and it is still unclear how they might unite the "collective consciousness" rather than simply serving the cathedral's liturgy.

The term in medio ecclesiae, moreover, is taken to embody the daily function of the Duomo (irrespective of whether particular services were in fact held in the center of the building) in contrast to the cathedral's role as the physical center of the city (in medio civitatis) and hence, following the book's title, its spiritual heart as well. The notion that the Duomo operated in the minds of the Milanese in both these ways may seem unexceptionable, but--since it is advanced in several places as an apparently significant insight (the terms are used on pp. 79-80, 92, and 110 as well as in the passage quoted above)--requires justification from outside the cathedral archives, which is not forthcoming. If Ruffo's masses represent, more than any other single body of sacred vocal literature, the deleterious effects in medio civitatis of unbridled post-Tridentine fervor' (p. 110), we are entitled to know what this has to do specifically with the city rather than purely with the liturgical landscape.

Viewing music making in political terms is more successful when applied to instrumental and secular genres: it is after all undeniable that music at triumphal entries was intended to underscore the prestige of the ruler, and easily arguable that it functioned additionally to boost public morale. Getz's descriptions in chapter 5 of the extracurricular activities of civic musicians are particularly intriguing: here we find ample-evidence of instrumentalists spying on behalf of the Milanese court (Pietro Paolo Borrono), and getting involved in brawls and lawsuits, including several homicides (table, pp. 176-77). At this point the relationship between music and the populace is vividly brought to life. The frequently recurring figure of St. Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan between 1560 and 1584, is one who underscores Getz's theme through his clear agenda for the city's spiritual renewal, including the use of music where appropriate to unite citizens in a suitable devotional attitude.

In drawing together archival data to create a historical narrative, then, Getz's project is more often successful than not, even if (as mentioned above) her material does not always pull in the direction that the book's title indicates. In her discussion of music, however, the author appears more reticent: on several occasions she draws back from exploring Milanese music with the thoroughness that she brings to archival material. The discussion on p. 63 of Orfeo Vecchi's role at the church of Santa Maria della Scala, for instance, mentions a great deal of music that he composed, much of it presumably for immediate liturgical use, but goes no further, bemoaning instead in a footnote its unavailability in a modern edition. Elsewhere, Getz refrains from commenting on Simon Boyleau's second madrigal book, on the grounds that only the tenor book survives (p. 200); this is reasonable enough, though some indication of the nature of the collection's contents might have been useful, since few readers are likely to have the opportunity to examine it. That Hoste da Reggio's first five-voice madrigal book is missing a single voice would not seem to make it "impossible to evaluate the full effect of the musical setting," however (p. 212). Ultimately, it is not for the reviewer to criticize what is absent, so I shall only express the hope that other scholars are stimulated by Getz's study to take up the challenge of editing the music of Vecchi, Werrecore, Hoste, and others.

The editorial standard of the book is poor. As well as significant quantities of typographical errors, the reader is confronted with a lack of consistency as to orthography: names are sometimes Anglicized, sometimes not, for instance on p. 62, where we read of "Carlo V and Philip II." Surely father and son merit the same treatment; the former especially suffers from this inconsistency, being referred to as both "Charles V" and "Carlo V" within the space of three lines on p. 3, and on consecutive lines on p. 141. (In the index, presumably not compiled by the author, he is referred to as "Charles V of Spain," a title neither he nor anyone else has ever held.)

Even if such matters are minor irritations, the book's authority is undermined by their presence, and those engaged in persuading undergraduates to write well will not be encouraged to add it to their reading lists as a result. A more serious problem is caused by errors in interpreting the archival material that Getz cites. Psalters are confused with psalteries on p. 63, for instance, and in several places passages given in translation are rendered in rather tortured English, obscuring the sense:

 for greater convenience, particularly when the signory is also
 present, twelve sacerdotes, of which eight are invited outside of the
 house from the royal cappella, perform [the service] (p. 64).

It would have been much clearer here to talk of "court" rather than "signory," "priests" instead of "sacerdotes," and "chapel" instead of "cappella": the point of the passage is simply that the presence of the court prompted more elaborate ceremony.

Professional scholars of sixteenth-century music will find this book useful: beneath the veneer of its collectivist agenda there lies much of value. For undergraduates it is harder to recommend, if only because the typographical errors, poor translations, and limited engagement with the music may well leave them confused or frustrated. This is a shame, since the quality of Getz's archival work is deserving of better presentation.

STEPHEN RICE

Wolfson College, Oxford/University of Southampton