Andrea Gabrieli 1532/3–1585
Missa Dominicalis* 19 Introito – Kyrie alternatim 20 Gloria alternatim
Complete Keyboard Music Compact Disc 1
7’14 9’53
*Schola Gregoriana Scriptoria / Don Nicola Bellinazzo
67’09
Roberto Loreggian organ
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Intonationi d’organo: Libro primo (Venice, 1593) Intonazione del primo tono Intonazione del secondo tono Intonazione del terzo tono Intonazione del quarto tono Intonazione del quinto tono Intonazione del sesto tono Intonazione del settimo tono Intonazione dell’ottavo tono Toccata del quinto tono Toccata del sesto tono (I) Toccata dell’ottavo tono Toccata del nono tono Toccata del sesto tono (II) Toccata del decimo tono
1’37 1’42 1’34 1’53 1’27 1’42 1’39 1’15 1’36 5’41 3’38 6’00 4’00 2’48
15 16 17 18
Anon., attr. A. Gabrieli Praeambulum quarti toni Praeambulum primi toni Praeambulum tertii toni Toccata primi toni
3’58 1’52 2’07 5’20
Compact Disc 2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Ricercari: Libro secondo (Venice, 1595) Ricercar del primo tono Ricercar del primo tono alla quarta alta Ricercar del secondo tono alla quarta alta Ricercar del terzo tono Ricercar del quarto tono Ricercar del quinto tono Ricercar del sesto tono Ricercar del settimo tono Ricercar del nono tono Ricercar dell’undecimo tono Ricercar del duodecimo tono
Missa Dominicalis* 12 Credo alternatim
59’51
5’40 4’39 4’20 3’36 5’12 4’01 5’00 4’13 4’52 2’34 4’03
11’33
*Schola Gregoriana Scriptoria / Don Nicola Bellinazzo Roberto Loreggian organ
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3
Compact Disc 3 Il terzo libro de ricercari (Venice, 1596) Ricercar del primo tono† Ricercar del secondo tono † Ricercar del quinto tono (I)† Ricercar del quinto tono (II)† Ricercar del nono tono (I)† Ricercar del nono tono (II)† Cantate Domino (on a 5-part motet by A. Gabrieli)† Fantasia allegra del duodecimo tono‡ Canzon ariosa‡ Ancor che col partire‡ (on a 4-part madrigal by de Rore) 11 Io mi son giovinetta (on a 4-part madrigal by Ferrabosco)‡ 12 Pass’e mezzo antico
3’12 3’36
Anon., attr. A. Gabrieli 13 Canzon primo tono‡ 14 Toccata sexti toni‡
3’13 6’16
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Roberto Loreggian organ† & harpsichord‡
4
55’40
2’51 3’30 5’34 2’24 4’06 7’48 3’20 2’59 3’10 3’34
Compact Disc 4
62’15
1 2 3 4
Missa de Beata Virgine Kyrie eleison alternatim Gloria alternatim Sanctus alternatim Agnus Dei alternatim
8’32 14’27 4’15 3’48
5 6 7 8
Missa Apostolorum Kyrie eleison alternatim Gloria alternatim Credo alternatim Sanctus alternatim
6’15 8’36 12’47 3’30
Schola Gregoriana Scriptoria / Don Nicola Bellinazzo Roberto Loreggian organ
Compact Disc 5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Canzoni alla francese et ricercari ariosi (Venice, 1605) Susanne un jour (on a 5-part chanson by Lasso) Frais et gaillard (on a 4-part chanson by Clemens non Papa) Martin menoit (on a 4-part chanson by Janequin) Ricercar sopra Martin menoit Orsus au coup (on a 4-part chanson by Crecquillon) Ricercar sopra Orsus au coup Pour ung plaisir (on a 4-part chanson by Crecquillon) Ricercar sopra Pour ung plaisir
54’20
3’47 4’11 3’45 5’58 2’41 4’26 2’31 5’12
5
9 10 11 12
Ricercar Ricercar Ricercar Ricercar
arioso arioso arioso arioso
I II III IV
Missa Dominicalis* 13 Sanctus alternatim 14 Agnus Dei alternatim
3’45 3’46 3’25 4’55
15 Je ne diray mot bergiere (on a 4-part chanson by Passereau) 16 Con lei foss’io (on a 4-part madrigal by de Ponte) 17 Ricercar sopra Con lei foss’io
2’08 3’33 6’00
*Vocal compositions by A. Gabrieli transcribed for keyboard and published in Intavolatura di Torino 3’08 2’44
Roberto Loreggian harpsichord
*Schola Gregoriana Scriptoria / Don Nicola Bellinazzo Roberto Loreggian organ
Compact Disc 6
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
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Canzoni alla francese: Libro sesto (Venice, 1605) Qui la dira (on a 4-part chanson by Anon.) O belli e vaghi pizzi* Ung gay bergier (on a 4-part chanson by Crecquillon) Pastori fuor fuori a sì bel canto* Petit Jacquet (on a 4-part chanson by Anon.) Asia felice* Je prens en gré (on a 4-part chanson by Clemens non Papa) Canto, canto! Fest (Choro de putti)* Le bergier (on a 4-part chanson by Anon.) Febo noi cantiamo* Orsus (on a 4-part chanson by Crecquillon) Gratie che ’l mio Signor largo destina* Qui la dira (on a 5-part chanson by Willaert) [Madrigal] (for three voices; no title; attr. A. Gabrieli)*
58’51
3’56 2’33 3’48 2’12 4’08 5’20 4’45 1’33 4’22 1’28 2’22 2’59 3’46 3’47
Recordings: October 2014, Duomo di Valvasone, Italy (organ); January 2015, Abbazia di Santa Maria delle Carceri d’Este, Padua, Italy (harpsichord) Producer & recording engineer: Fabio Framba Harpsichord: F. Gazzola, 1990, after Domenico da Pesaro Translations: Kate Singleton Organ photos: Elio Ciol & 2015 Brilliant Classics
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Andrea Gabrieli: Complete Keyboard Music Andrea Gabrieli is one of the foremost musicians of the second half of the 16th century. Largely unmatched by those of his contemporaries, his extant compositions bear witness to his remarkable importance as a composer. We know little about Gabrieli’s life, however. He was born in the Cannaregio district of Venice around 1533, and his first published work appeared in 1554, in a collection by Vincenzo Ruffo: the five-part madrigal Piangete, occhi miei, lassi. By the mid-1550s he was the organist at the local parish church of S. Geremia, and in 1557 unsuccessfully applied for the post of organist at St Mark’s – a position that was ultimately awarded to Claudio Merulo. Records show that by 1562 he had headed north, with Orlando di Lasso, first in Bavaria and Bohemia, and then in Frankfurt, to attend the coronation of the Emperor Maximilian II. By 1566 he was certainly back in Venice, because he was appointed second organist at St Mark’s, apparently without having to contend with others for this position. In these years he also supported his sister Paola and her offspring, since her husband, the weaver Pietro di Fais, was unable to provide for his family. In fact Paola’s progeny, including her talented musician-son Giovanni, adopted the surname Gabrieli. Andrea first moved to lodgings in the S. Maurizio district, in the house that today corresponds to the street number S. Marco 2733, and later to the neighbouring district of S. Vidal. In all likelihood a number of Andrea’s compositions would have been played to celebrate important political or religious events of the Serenissima Republic of Venice, such as the victory at the Battle of Lepanto (1571), the visit of Henry III of France (1574), the inauguration of Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza (1585), and the visit of the four Japanese ambassadors (1585). Andrea Gabrieli died in Venice on 30 August 1585. Over 100 pieces of sacred vocal music, around 180 secular vocal works, 10 or so pages of instrumental compositions and a good 60 keyboard works by Andrea Gabrieli have come down to us in collections and anthologies published during his own lifetime as well as posthumously. Outstanding among his liturgical compositions are the masses and psalms for six voices, published in 1572 and 1583, whereas the two books of madrigals published in 1574 and 1580 take pride of place in his secular output. The works he wrote for instrumental ensembles comprise two important eight-part compositions, the Aria della battaglia and the Ricercar per sonar. As for his keyboard works, they constitute the most important heritage of music for harpsichord/organ of the entire
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Cinquecento. Only the keyboard oeuvre of his contemporary and colleague, Claudio Merulo, for two decades organist at St Mark’s, can be said to compete in quantity and quality with Gabrieli’s compositions. The collection is uniquely rich, comprising all the various forms in vogue at the time: toccatas, ricercars, diminished-scale tablatures, variations, verses for mass, along with experimental pieces such as the Canzon ariosa, the Fantasia allegra, ricercars on madrigals and chansons. Andrea’s nephew Giovanni, who inherited the bulk of his uncle’s unpublished works, duly established a publishing plan for them, to the great benefit of posterity, since numerous of these compositions would no doubt otherwise have been lost. Almost all Andrea Gabrieli’s keyboard compositions were collected and edited by Giovanni, and printed in Venice after the composer’s death by Angelo Gardano. Published between 1593 and 1605, they consisted of six volumes, the fourth of which has been lost. This volume comprised the verses to be played in alternatim for three masses. Fortunately these works survive in the volume Giordano 3 of the German organ tablature kept in Turin, in alphabetic German notation. Two toccatas (CD1, tracks 13 and 14) also feature in Girolamo Diruta’s treatise Il Transilvano published in 1593. The intonations and toccatas relate to the practice of improvisation, to fingering techniques, and to the pleasure of alternating slow passages in chords with rapid scales. Indeed, chords and rapid figurations are the main features of the Venetian toccata, which Andrea Gabrieli did not invent, but certainly handled with unsurpassed mastery. As Girolamo Diruta declared in Il Transilvano, ‘the Toccatas are all Diminutions’, and on occasions the use of diminutions can go against the rules of counterpoint, for example by ‘striking bad notes at the beginning, or in fluctuations of the beat’. With remarkable pragmatism, Diruta himself justifies these errors: ‘the speed of the diminutions is such that nothing wrong is heard, indeed the wrong notes often give grace to the right notes’. The author also adds aesthetic appraisal to legitimise the practice: ‘with diminution there is more likelihood of creating elegant, graceful passages than by observance [of the rules of counterpoint]’. Of exceptional importance for Andrea Gabrieli’s music, given the proximity of the two musicians, Diruta’s observations belong to a well-established tradition of treatises: suffice it to recall the notes of Diego Ortiz (‘es una cosa que importa poco por que con la prestezza no se pueden entender’ – ‘it’s something that matters little because they cannot be heard when played fast’), or the considerations of Silvestro Ganassi in his work La Fontegara, written a good 60 years before Il Transilvano. The point was that speed justified error, which was tolerated for the beauty of the
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outcome. Three of Gabrieli’s six toccatas (Sesto tono, Nono tono, Sesto tono: CD1, tracks 10, 12 & 13) begin with a free section followed by one in imitative style, a true ricercar, which is then followed by a return to the toccata style. In the volume Giordano 2 of the German organ tablature kept in Turin, there are five anonymous pieces in the toccata style, preambles and toccatas (CD1, tracks 15–18; CD3, track 14) that are attributed to Andrea Gabrieli on the 18th-century frontispiece. The 17 extant ricercars by Andrea Gabrieli are to be found in the second and third volumes published by Gardano. These keyboard compositions have a more marked focus on counterpoint and reveal a number of refined expedients such as double counterpoint, contrary motion, augmentation and double augmentation. The keyboard ricercar would thus seem to resemble the vocal motet, whereas in fact they are two very different genres. Apart from the fact that the ricercar does not involve verse, the individual voices of the motet have to comply with the constraints of the chosen vocal tessitura, which is not the case for the ricercar. Sometimes the four-part keyboard ricercar involves one or two more voices, while with the motet each part is obviously attributed to a particular voice. Moreover, in a motet one section may flow into the next, whereas in the ricercar it is common for each section to end with cadenza-like bars in an idiom typical of keyboard compositions. During Gabrieli’s lifetime, a further difference with respect to the motet came to the fore: the tendency towards fewer subjects, and indeed the single-theme ricercar. Andrea himself experimented with this latter genre, as the five included in this recording go to show (CD2, tracks 1, 2, 3 & 10; CD3, track 1). In all probability the function of the ricercar was liturgical, and the instrument the composer had in mind was the organ. The publication in 1605, a couple of decades after Gabrieli’s death, of Adriano Banchieri’s L’organo suonarino supports this hypothesis, which is further reinforced by Giovanni Battista Fasolo’s Annuale (1645), as well as Frescobaldi’s Fiori musicali (1635), where the offertory is always accompanied by the ricercars of the three masses. The first of the three exams for the post of organist at St Mark’s also suggests the liturgical function of the ricercar: ‘to test the organists intending to compete for the position of organist in the Church of St Mark’s in Venice’, the manuscript declares, the organist needed to know how to improvise a four-part ricercar on an incipit of a vocal composition, and ‘play this fantasy in an orderly fashion, not confounding the parts, as though four Cantors were singing’. The case of the Ricercar del settimo tono (CD2, track 8) is revealing: the nature of the first subject, its general development and the character of the piece all transcend the normal confines
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and suggest the genetic mutation investing the ricercar as it turns into a canzona. Further indication of the same process is to be found in the four ricercars that Gabrieli qualified as ‘ariosi’ (CD5, tracks 9–12), with their lively subjects, joyful mood and advanced harmony, all of which are features we meet again in the Fantasia allegra (CD3, track 8) and in the Canzon ariosa (CD3, track 9), his most successful composition, published by Gardano and included in the German tablatures of Bernhardt Schmid (1607) and Johann Woltz (1617), as well as in the manuscript tablatures of Berlin, Turin and Vienna. The German organ tablature kept in Padua (Ms. 1989) includes an important variant of the third Ricercare arioso (CD3, track 13), variously attributed to Hans Leo Haßler or to Claudio Merulo: the rhythmical development of the subjects is new, and the diminutions are handled differently. Essential to Andrea Gabrieli’s 17 compositions is the art of creating tablature for the keyboard on the basis of existing pieces, which are then enriched with diminution. The models adopted are motets, madrigals, chansons françaises and canzoni using a number of instruments. What follows gives an overall view of this procedure, though three chansons have still not been identified. CD3, CD3, CD3, CD5, CD5, CD5, CD5, CD6, CD5, CD6, CD6, CD6, CD6, CD6, CD6, CD6, CD6,
track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track
7 10 11 1 2 3 5 11 7 1 3 5 7 9 13 15 16
Cantate Domino Anchor che col partire Io mi son giovinetta Susanne un jour Frais et gaillard Martin menoit Orsus au coup Orsus au coup Pour ung plaisir Qui la dira Un gai berger Petit Jacquet Je prens en gré Le bergier Qui la dira Je ne diray mot bergiere Con lei foss’io
Andrea Gabrieli Cipriano de Rore Domenico Ferrabosco Orlando di Lasso Clemens non Papa Clément Janequin Thomas Crecquillon Thomas Crecquillon Thomas Crecquillon Anon. Thomas Crecquillon Anon. Clemens non Papa Anon. Adrian Willaert Pierre Passereau Jacques de Ponte 11
The model of Qui la dira (CD6, track 1, not to be confused with Willaert’s chanson of the same name, CD6, track 13) probably derives from an instrumental canzona, and it is interesting to compare it with a composition of the same name in the Cod. MCXXVIII at the Biblioteca Capitolare in Verona, where there are sections that coincide with the Gabrieli tablature, and others that differ. In four cases (CD5, tracks 2 & 3; CD6, tracks 3 & 7) we known Gabrieli’s source, the Musica di diversi autori printed in Venice in 1577, which are some of the earliest published scores. The addition of diminutions reflects the practice exemplified in a treatise written in those same years, and in the same professional sphere: the work Il vero modo di diminuir (Venice, 1584) by Girolamo Dalla Casa, concertmaster and cornett player at St Mark’s. In four cases Andrea Gabrieli composed ricercars with subjects derived from elements of a vocal model (CD5, tracks 4, 6 & 8; CD6, track 17): these polythematic ricercars are along the lines of those written by Girolamo Cavazzoni, and the operation as a whole is reminiscent of the parody masses. Gabrieli’s versetti for the ordinary of the Mass occupy a special place in his considerable output for keyboard instruments, providing us with an interesting insight into alternation, a practice that dates back to early times and different places. Curiously enough, although within the organ repertoire it is relatively easy to contextualise the versetti, they are not often performed today, largely because they no longer feature in liturgical services, which is where they would fit in most naturally. The three organ Masses published in Italy in the Cinquecento are those for Sunday, for the Madonna and for the Apostles (respectively XI, IX and IV of the current Graduale Romanum), great favourites of the Italian liturgical tradition from which the organ versetti by Girolamo Cavazzoni, Claudio Merulo and Andrea Gabrieli derive. For the Missa Dominicalis, Gabrieli prescribes the Credo Dominicalis (Credo I); for the Missa de Beata Virgine he does not include a Credo; and for the Missa Apostolorum he elaborates the Credo Apostolorum, which does not feature in the current Gradual but was always present in the Graduals of the 1500s. Andrea Gabrieli’s versetti for organ probably represent a further development, or rather a refinement, of those composed by Cavazzoni and Merulo. The books of organ tablature and the above-mentioned trials set up for candidates competing for the position of organist at St Mark’s bear witness to the fact that in Venice in Gabrieli’s day alternation of the ordinary in the Mass was common practice. Further evidence is to be found in the instructions for ecclesiastical ceremonies and in the vade mecum for the organist. Fortunately we have a surviving Graduale Romanum printed by Angelo
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Gardano in 1591, put together by Ludovico Balbi, Orazio Vecchi and Andrea Gabrieli himself, which probably represents the source of the Gregorian chant texts used during that period. Outstanding among the particular features of the verses composed by Gabrieli is the compositional and textual genesis of the Gloria of the Mass for the Madonna. Gabrieli (like Cavazzoni and Merulo) bases his framework for alternation on the trope version of the Gloria, in use until the directives of the Council of Trent forbade the inclusion of the six tropes in the canonical text. When Giovanni Gabrieli went through his uncle’s tablatures for the edition of the Masses, between 1604 and 1605, he had to make a decision regarding the versetti composed by Andrea for the Gloria della Messa della Madonna: should he discard them because they no longer complied with the Tridentine rulings, or rework them in keeping with the new practice, completing them with items composed ad hoc? In the end Giovanni opted for a third solution: to publish the versetti Andrea composed for the earlier alternation, but with the addition of titles based on the incipit of the verses in keeping with the new alternation. Thus Giovanni recycled his uncle’s compositions, duly modified and described as follows: The music composed on: Qui tollis, suscipe Qui sedes Mariam gubernans Mariam coronans
Becomes: Domine Deus Qui tollis, suscipe Quoniam Tu solus altissimus
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The Capriccio sopra il Pass’e mezzo antico in cinque modi variati (CD3, track 12) constitutes one of the first notable examples of variations on a dance for the keyboard. This recording also comprises seven madrigals in tablature, included in the volume Foà 4 of the German tablature kept in Turin: one untitled madrigal attributed to Andrea (CD6, track 14) and six untitled madrigals from the posthumous collection Madrigali et ricercari a Quattro voci, Venice 1589 (CD6, tracks 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 & 12), on anonymous texts, with the exception of Gratie che ’l mio signor largo destina, which is attributed to Stefano Colonna. The Shepherds’ Chorus Fuor fuori a sì bel canto (CD6, track 4) is a wedding song; the madrigal Asia felice, the Putti chorus Canto, canto! Fest and Febo’s chorus Febo noi cantiamo were composed for the 1572 Carnival Masquerade, in celebration of the victory at the Battle of Lepanto (7 October 1571). Giuseppe Clericetti A note from the performer For this recording of the complete printed keyboard works of Andrea Gabrieli I have sought to render the quality of Venetian sonority of the late 1500s as faithfully as possible. To this end I have chosen to play the organ built by Vincenzo Colombi in 1532 for the cathedral in Valvasone, near Pordenone in northern Italy, the only surviving example of a 16th-century Venetian organ, and a copy of a Domenico da Pesaro harpsichord built by Florindo Gazzola in 1990. My studies of performance technique have largely focused on Venetian praxis of the late 1500s, leading me to adopt the fingering described by Girolamo Diruta in his treatise Il Transilvano (1593). Diruta advocates the use of the second and fourth fingers for marked rhythmical accents, such that in the right hand fingering for ascending passages should be 2 3 4 3 4 3 4 etc., and in descending passages 4 3 2 3 2 3 2 etc., whereas in the left hand ascending passages should be 4 3 2 3 2 3 2 etc, and descending passages 2 3 2 3 2 3 etc. This type of fingering produces a highly distinctive sound that ties the note on the weak rhythmic accent to the note on the strong rhythmic accent. In this it recalls to some extent the prosody of the Venetian language. With regard to organ registration, I have also followed Diruta’s instructions in the attribution of different expressions and emotions to the different modes by means of different registrations. To this end I registered the eight pitches of the Libro primo (CD1) in keeping with Diruta’s indications, thereby enabling performance of the individual pieces in relation to the affetti conjured up by the various modes. I have also adopted organ registrations from a plate by Colombi kept in the
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library in Valvasone that gives instructions for the various timbre possibilities of the Valvasone organ. Another important element is the use of the semitone ¼ temperament that gives rise to diversity of semitones (low sharps and high flats), which adds interest to melodic succession, investing the eight major thirds that are thus produced with highly marked sonority. Apart from finding Diruta’s Transilvano particularly illuminating in this respect, I have also taken advantage of other treatises, including the work of the late 16th-century musician and monk Adriano Banchieri, who suggests how to vary refrains in French songs: ‘The first expression should be played adagio, like a perusal with its own bridled repetition, so as to make this variety a source of pleasure, with further repetition.’ A splendid case in point is the French canzon known as Petit Jacquet (CD6, track 5). On occasions I have initially played the melody slowly in the 16’ diapason, then repeating it in a more lively fashion in the octave above. Roberto Loreggian The Valvasone organ The recently restored organ at Valvasone (Pordenone) occupies an extremely important place in the history of Italian organs because it is the only surviving Venetian instrument of its time. In terms of sound it thus provides us with an ideal support for the rich heritage of organ works composed in and around Venice in the Cinquecento. Although the instrument has not come down to us in its entirety, meticulous study has allowed us to restore the existing parts and recover what was missing, so that the instrument now bears witness to the musical civilization that reached its zenith in Venice during the Renaissance. This civilization is reflected in the sound quality of the Valvasone organ, with its intensely melodious tenor registers, the rounded, incisive voice of the flute and the solemnity of the ripieno: features that express the taste for magnificence and luminous colour also found in Venetian painting of the period. The recovery of the original voice of the instrument thus testifies to the soundscape of a highly refined musical sphere. The organ was built by Vincenzo Colombi (c.1490–1574), who would have worked closely with the foremost musicians, theoreticians and artists of the period, absorbing their suggestions and drawing on their cultural models. The gorgeous case of the Valvasone organ also speaks for the importance of the instrument: its design, the astounding inlay and the painted decorations all constitute the most singular and complete example of organ casing of the entire Venetian Renaissance.
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Historical vicissitudes The contract for the construction of an organ was stipulated between Vincenzo Colombi ‘fabricator de organj’ and certain representatives of the parish of Valvasone on 5 December 1532, at the Rialto Bridge in Venice. The aristocratic Valvasone family represented the cultural, artistic and musical centre of the small town in Friuli, and it was the Count who promoted and helped finance the project for the new organ. The organ was already working by 1533, albeit enclosed in what was still a ‘rough’ or unfinished case. At this point not only did Colombi receive the second instalment of his fee, but the organist was also paid. Two years later, the carpenter Stefano di Venezia completed and defined the architectural elements of the case, and some time later Girolamo di Venezia applied the carvings that Tommaso da Udine then proceeded to gild. The works were finished for Christmas 1538. In the meantime, Giovanni Antonio da Pordenone had been commissioned to paint the doors, which he intended to decorate with scenes relating to the Eucharist. Two years later (1539) he died, however, leaving his work unfinished. The decorations were continued ten years later by Pomponio Amalteo, who was also commissioned to embellish the five panels of the choir and paint the frescoes on the sides of the case. Twenty years later, on the day of the Feast of Corpus Domini in 1552, the organ was completely finished, in keeping with the most refined concepts of beauty of the period. Continuous use of the organ soon meant that the instrument required a complete overhaul: in June 1558 Vincenzo Colombi himself worked on it for 12 days, adding the fiffaro. In all likelihood it was on this occasion that the famous organ builder proposed the important registration table now kept in the parish archive: Tutti li modi di sonar con l’organo. In the following decades a number of fairly prominent organ builders were involved in maintenance and restoration of the instrument. Alas, at the beginning of the 18th century Lorenzo Canciani and Angelo Morassi began to adapt it to the canons of Enlightenment music in Venice. Despite the modifications, however, the original look of the organ was not radically changed until Gaetano Tolfo began working on it in 1834. The alterations he introduced included reducing it to an 8-foot structure and replacing Colombi’s original wind chest with one with a sliding shutter. He also rebuilt the stop register in ‘modern style with piano and forte’, the rods, the Tromboncini and some of the Ripieno; Colombi’s flute was recycled to create the Flauto in VIII. Other slight changes were also introduced in the course of time, before the organ was disassembled and abandoned.
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Between 1972 and 1974, the organ builder Alfredo Piccinelli from Padua undertook an initial restoration of the organ, returning it to its original 10’ soundscape and preserving, where it was still possible, the registers and mechanical parts that had been added over the centuries. On this occasion the case and painted elements were also restored. Current restoration In 1999 the organ builder Francesco Zanin effected further reconstruction of the instrument, in keeping with new documents that had come to light and in accordance with state-of-the-art criteria. Given the exceptional historical and artistic value of the organ, and the surviving phonic and structural elements, it made sense to recover the original look of the instrument, shelving the additions and modifications that in the course of time had altered the nature and sound of the original 16th-century instrument. These works were preceded by extensive studies that drew on the expertise of Italy’s foremost organ specialists and were supported by the Udine Authority for Artistic and Cultural Heritage. It was thus possible to identify within the case every single element pertaining to Vincenzo Colombi’s original design, and to fully understand certain aspects of the wind chest reintroduced in Gaetano Tolfo’s renovations in the 19th century. Backed up by sophisticated scientific analyses carried out in specialised laboratories, these studies provided a much more detailed picture of the instrument, revealing how and in what order it had been built. It was thus possible to reconstruct the missing parts with great precision. Central to this restoration was the building of the wind chest: during the drafting stage various of the surviving elements were studied in depth, along with Colombi’s construction technology, such that it was then possible to achieve a remarkable degree of verisimilitude. The most important part of the restoration of the organ regarded the sound system, including the completion of the surviving phonic elements with new parts in keeping with the original design (Tenori, Ottava, Flauto in quintadecima and certain of the quintadecima pipes), the reconstruction of the missing ripieno registers, and the meticulous attention to pitch aimed at recovering the ‘historic sound’ of the instrument. Loris Stella
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Technical features – Organ built in Venice by Vincenzo Colombi between 1532 and 1533, restored and renovated by Francesco Zanin of Codroipo (Udine) in 1999. – Locality: Valvasone (Pordenone), Duomo of S. Corpo di Cristo, in the choir attached to the wall in cornu epistolae of the single nave. – Prospect: made up of 41 tin alloy pipes from A_1 of the tenor register; divided into five ranks (7/11/5/11/7) with organetti morti. – Keyboard: 47 notes (F_1–F4, without F#_1 and G#1); the diatonic notes are faced in boxwood with lunette-shaped fronts, the chromatic notes in ebony. – Pedalboard: radiating, with 20 short walnut pedals (F_1–D2), constantly connected to the keyboard. – Stops: activated by means of draw knobs arranged horizontally in a single line to the right of the keyboard: Tenori [10’] Ottava Quintadecima Decimanona Vigesimaseconda Vigesimasesta Vigesimanona Flauto in XV – Accessories: Tremolo in the flue (=fiffaro) – Bellows: three wedge-shaped bellows activated with pulleys and cables; electric fan blower. – Wind chest: in walnut, with 8 pettini corresponding to the following registers beginning at the front: Tenori, Ottava, XV, XIX, XXII, XXVI, XXIX, Flauto in XV. – Pipe rack: in leather with the pipe mouths beneath – Pipes: Tenors in tin alloy with mitred upper lip; the pipes of the Ripieno and Flauto registers are in lead; almost no, or very small ‘teeth’ on the core. – Wind pressure: 43mm WC – Tuning: median tone temperament, ¼ comma; choir A=492.5 Hz at 22°C.
Restoration of the case, the instrument and decorations was carried out under the direction of the Authority for Architectural Heritage and the Landscape and the Authority for the Historic, Artistic and Demo-ethno-anthropological Heritage of the Friuli-Venezia Region.
Painted embellishments and decorations Doors: Giovanni Antonio da Pordenone and Pomponio Amalteo, Gathering Manna (doors closed), Sacrifice of Abraham and Sacrifice of Melchisedek (1535–1539; 1549–1551) Choir and friezes: Pomponio Amalteo (1551–1552) Case: carving by Girolamo da Venezia, gilding by Tommaso [di Vincenzo Mioni] da Udine (1535–1538).
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