Travelling music: the madrigal Morir non può 'l mio core by Giovanni Battista Nanino and its textual and musical transformations

Among Giovanni Maria Nanino’s compositions, the madrigal Morir non può 'l'mio core, published in his first book of madrigals (reprinted in Venice in 1579), constitutes an exceptional catalyst for intertextual phenomena of various kinds. Reprinted at least twice together with all the other madrigals of the first book, it not only reappeared in a number of collective printed collections of the time, but also underwent various subsequent reworkings, including a reply by the author himself (the second part of the madrigal, published in his third book) and a canzonetta by his pupil Felice Anerio, which almost exactly reproduces its text, tracing the outline of most of its motifs. Several ritestualised versions of the first and second parts of the original madrigal and a contrafactum of the canzonetta derived from it are also known. The investigation of this composition, music in voyage par exellence, and its European dissemination, reception and assimilation, has revealed a kaleidoscope of different reworking processes.