Nicola Vicentino
Nicola Vicentino (
Vicenza,
1511 –
Milan,
1575 or
1576) was an
Italian music theorist and composer of the
Renaissance. He was one of the most visionary musicians of the age, inventing, among other things, a
microtonal keyboard, and devising a practical system of
chromatic writing two hundred years before the rise of
equal temperament.
Little is known of his early life. He may have studied with
Adrian Willaert in
Venice, which was close by, and he acquired an early interest in the contemporary humanistic revival, including the study of ancient Greek music theory and performance practice (about which little was known, but was then being uncovered, through the work of scholars such as
Girolamo Mei and
Giangiorgio Trissino).
At some time in the
1530s or early
1540s he went to
Ferrara, which was to become the center for experimental secular music in Italy from the middle to the end of the
16th century. Apparently he served as a music tutor to the Duke of
Este as well as some of his family members, and some of Vicentino's music was sung at the court of Ferrara.
During the late
1540s his reputation as a music theorist grew. He established his reputation as a composer with his publication of a book of madrigals in Venice in
1546, and in
1551 he took part in one of the most famous events in
16th century music theory, the debate between
Vicente Lusitano and himself in
Rome in
1551. The topic of the debate was the relationship of the
ancient Greek genera to contemporary music practice, in particular whether contemporary music could be explained in terms of the
diatonic genus alone (as Lusitano claimed) or (as Vicentino claimed) was best described as a combination of the diatonic, chromatic, and enharmonic genera, the last of which contained a microtone. The debate was rather unlike those among contemporary
musicologists, being more like a refereed prize fight, with a panel of judges; they awarded the prize to Lusitano. Unbowed, Vicentino continued his experiments, and went on to build the
archicembalo which could play the music he described in his publications.
After a short time in Rome, Vicentino returned to Ferrara, and later moved to
Siena. In
1563 he became
maestro di cappella at the cathedral in Vicenza, thus returning to his home city, but only briefly, for he accepted a position in
Milan in
1565. Around
1570 he had some connection with the Bavarian court in
Munich, though he may never have gone there. He died in Milan during the
plague of
1575–
1576, though his exact date of death is not known.
While Vicentino was known as a composer, and wrote two books of
madrigals and
motets in a harmonically sophisticated style, it was his work as a music theorist that gained him renown.
In the
1550s, in Italy, there was a surge of interest in chromatic composition, some of which was part of the movement known as
musica reservata, and some of which was motivated by research into ancient Greek music, including modes and
genera. Composers such as
Cipriano de Rore,
Orlande de Lassus and others wrote music which was impossible to sing in tune without having a system for adjusting the pitch of chromatic intervals in some way. Several theorists attacked the problem, including Vicentino.
In 1555 he published his most famous work,
L'antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica (ancient music adapted to modern practice), in which he fully explained his ideas linking ancient Greek musical theory and practice with contemporary works. In this work he expanded and justified many of the ideas which he first brought up in his debate with Lusitano. Whether or not Lusitano ever attempted to refute Vicentino's expanded version is not known; however Vicentino's book was influential with the group of madrigalists working in Ferrara in the next two decades, including
Luzzasco Luzzaschi and
Carlo Gesualdo.
Another area in which Vicentino did original work was musical
dynamics. He was one of the first theorists, and perhaps the first, to mention volume as an expressive parameter. In
L'antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica he mentioned that the strength of singing must respect carefully the text and passage being sung.
Vicentino's most famous invention was the
archicembalo, a keyboard containing 36 keys to the
octave. Using this keyboard, it was possible to play acoustically satisfactory intervals in any key, and therefore some of the recently composed music in a chromatic style, which was only in tune when sung, could be played on the keyboard. Later he applied the same keyboard layout to the
archiorgano, a microtonal keyboard for the
organ. While these keyboards did not achieve wide popularity, they did attempt to solve the difficult problem of playing music in
meantone temperament in all keys. After a long and complex history, the standard way to do that became to divide the octave into twelve equal parts, called
equal temperament. Vicentino's solution in effect divides the octave into 31 equal parts, and unlike the modern solution allows meantone tuning with good intonation for the thirds and sixths.
*
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1561591742
*
Gustave Reese,
Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0393095304
* Edwin M. Ripin: "Arcicembalo", Henry W. Kaufmann/Robert L. Kendrick, "Nicola Vicentino," Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed January 8, 2005),
Grove Music Online* Vicentino, Nicola. (1555)
L' antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica. Antonio Barre, Rome. (Gallica)
