Giovanni Battista Vitali - Artificii Musicali

Artificii Musicali

Artificii musicali ne quali si contengono canoni in diverse maniere contrapunti dopii, inventionj curiose, capritii e sonate, Opus 13 (1689) is one of the most comprehensive studies of counterpoint before Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge and Musicalisches Opfer. The sixty pieces are an impressive display of contrapuntal technique for a variety of scorings, arranged in order of increasing difficulty. The collection contains canons for anything from two to twelve voices, many incorporating additional compositional devices (e.g., canon 25. Canon à 2, at the fifth above, which ascends a step on repeating). Vitali also employs similar compositional devices in the non-canonic pieces in the collection – for example, a balletto in three different metres simultaneously, a passacaglia which modulates from B flat major to B major through the cycle of fifths, and another balletto for two treble instruments which has one line written in G and the other in F.