Nicola Vicentino - Works

Works

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 thirty-six 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 offer a way of playing music in meantone temperament in all keys. The standard way to modulate through all keys on a keyboard instrument later became to divide the octave into twelve equal parts, called 12-tone equal temperament, in which the major and minor thirds are not well tuned. Vicentino's solution in effect divides the octave into 31 equal parts, with good intonation for the thirds and sixths but somewhat beating narrow fifths.