O. Vecchi. Madrigali e Canzonette, 1594

Orazio Vecchi

Piu è diversi Madrigali è Canzonette à 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. & 10. voci, per avanti separatamente iti in luce, & ora insieme raccolti. Canto. Nuremberg: Gerlach, 1594; bound with an early seventeenth-century German manuscript of Italian vocal pieces

Cantus part only (of 6), 57 leaves, 4to (18.8 x 15.1cm), aa-oo⁴ pp¹, woodcut initials, type-set music, final leaf with table of contents, later limp vellum binding reusing a leaf of medieval manuscript, two pairs of ties, cut close at head, first quire slightly loose, title-page with repair in gutter, bb4 slightly frayed and tipped in

bound with an early seventeenth-century German manuscript of cantus and altus parts including for pieces by Viadana, Agazzari, Leoni and others, with texts mainly in Italian and Latin (occasionally German), including “Barbara [...] darii ferio baralipton celantes dabitis", "Vola", "Musica noster amor", "Anchor che col partire" (after Rore's madrigal), "Te Deum laudamus frisch auf frisch auss currebant", "In convertendo Dominis", "Converte Domine", "Haec dies quam fecit"; together with treble and alto parts for "Angelus ad pastores", "Ave Iesu parvule coeli rex sublimis nobilis infantule" (after "Jesu Rex admirabilis" by Bernard of Clairvaux), "Angelus ad pastores", "Preces nostras virgo mirabilis", a "Salve regina" setting ("Salve vita dulce et spes nostra"), "Romana terris dissipat sati vetustum", "Stabunt justi in magna constantia", Viadana's "Miserere mei Deus", Leoni's "Exaudi me Domine", Agazzari's "Veni Domine, et noli tardare", Spinello's "Hodie Chrstus natus est" and many others 

39 leaves, 4to, hand-ruled with up to 6 staves per page, bound at the end of the volume

RISM records no copy of the Vecchi edition in Britain and only one (a quintus part) in America. 

This volume also includes an apparently unrecorded early German manuscript of mainly Italian music. Such sources are rarely encountered at auction. The composers named in the manuscript are principally Italian, from the early part of the seventeenth century: Lodovico Viadana (c.1560-1627), Leone Leoni (c.1560-1627), Agostino Agazzari (1580-1642), Nicolo Spinello, Giovanni Damasceni Uffereri and Urban Loth (c.1580-1636). 

There are one or two parts here for pieces of two to six voices. Besides sacred texts, there are also settings of some curious Latin mnemonics and tags; “Barbara celarent darii ferio baralipton Celantes dabitis..." appears to be part of a famous Latin mnemonic regarding logic. 

LITERATURE

RISM V 1047; VD16 ZV 19593 (entry for all voice parts, listing 2 copies, in Vienna and Wolfenbüttel)