Contrafacta of Palestrina’s works printed in Milan (1597-1605)

From 1587 several of Palestrina’s collections were reprinted in Milan thanks to the initiative of the publishers Tini, later in association with Filippo Lomazzo. In line with the tendencies of the local press, influenced by the counter-reformist climate of the Ambrosian archdiocese, preference was given, when choosing which of Palestrina’s collections to reprint, firstly to those of motets and secondly to his masses, as well as one book of litanies and one of madrigals, now lost. A key role in the dissemination of Palestrina’s works in Milan was also played by the collective editions, to the extent that almost all of Palestrina’s works included would reappear, in variously re-elaborated versions (with passaggi or alternative texts), in subsequent Milanese editions. The reworkings with passaggi and the contrafacta made by some well-known composers and local clerics highlight the vital and receptive approach to Palestrina’s music in Milan, at the same time giving a clear indication of the fame that the selected works of the composer must have reached. In the decade following Palestrina’s death, five compositions by Palestrina would be published in Milan with substitute texts, either by Orfeo Vecchi or by Geronimo Cavaglieri: the motet Pulchra es amica mea, taken from the famous fourth book of five-voice motets on the Song of Songs, and the madrigals Io sono ferito ahi lasso, Vestiva i colli (of which two contrafacta have survived, with two different texts adapted respectively by Vecchi and by Cavaglieri), Saggio e Santo pastor and Io felice sarei. Not by chance, four of these five compositions by Palestrina had been reprinted shortly before in Milan, while the madrigal Vestiva i colli, with its second part Così le chiome mie, had circulated thanks to various successful collective editions printed elsewhere. Unlike Aquilino Coppini, who in his contrafacta created new lyrics each time, allowing himself to be guided by the emotions provoked by listening to the madrigals with their original text, and giving rise to organisms in which the relation between text and music was no less meaningful than it had been in the original composition, the procedure adopted by Vecchi and Cavaglieri, who moreover most likely came into mutual contact, competing with each other in the retexting of the same madrigals, was quite different. Both, in fact, adapted pericopes or centonizations from the Bible to the music. The article undertakes a detailed examination of the modus operandi of Orfeo Vecchi as an adapter, focusing in particular on his approach to the madrigal Io sono ferito, reproposed with the text of the parable of the prodigal son taken from the Gospel of St Luke (Quanti mercenarii). Although the result of this operation lacks the precise adhesion to the music found in Coppini’s contrafacta, it nevertheless reveals the musical sensitivity and cultural depth of their author, placing the stress on the relation established between the substitute text and the original one. Finally, Vecchi’s approach is compared with that of Cavaglieri, whose contrafacta are less interesting in terms of the relation between the original and the substitute text, and between the new text and the musical texture of the model, while not lacking, however, in aspects of the adaptation of the text and of its single words beneath the notes that reveal a certain care and mastery of the craft.