Vincenzo Bonizzi (?-1630)
Complete works for viola bastarda (Venice 1626)
Paolo Biordi (viola bastarda), Andrea Perugi (harpsichord)
rec. 2022, Rosso Fiorentino Audio, Florence, Italy
Reviewed as a download
Dynamic CDS8045 [50]
Before listening to a disc, I usually have a look at what New Grove has to say about a composer, if little-known, and sometimes the repertoire, if that is specific and outside the mainstream. Both are relevant here; I had never heard of Vincenzo Bonizzi, and music for the viola bastarda is certainly not mainstream. I had heard such music before, but as I knew that there is no unanimity about it, I was curious to read what the author of the entry on the viola bastarda had to say. That was even more important, as I noticed that Paolo Bordi, in his liner-notes to the disc under review, talks about an instrument with that name, whereas Lucy Robinson, in her article in New Grove, treats it as a way of playing rather than a particular instrument. More about that later. Let’s first have a look at Bonizzi.
He was born in Parma; the year of his birth is not known. The dedicatory letter in the collection of pieces which is the subject of this disc, and which was printed in 1626, reveals that he was the pupil of Orazio Bassani, a renowned virtuoso on the viola bastarda, who played an important role in the development of the genre of the diminution. In 1595 at the latest he was in Ferrara, where he was in the service of Lucrezia, Duchess of Urbino and sister of Alfonso II d’Este. She had her own concerto delle dame, which performed on its own, alongside the Concerto delle Dame, which sung under the direction of Luzzasco Luzzaschi. They were “three aristocratic sisters of the Avogari family”, which were joined by “an excellent organist”; the latter was almost certainly Bonizzi. One of these ladies “played the viola bastarda divinely”. That was Giulia, Countess of Rollo, whom Bonizzi mentions in his dedication. In 1599 Lucrezia died, and Bonizzi moved to the court in Parma; for the rest of his life he acted there as organist and maestro di cappella.
Time to turn to what this disc is about: music for the viola bastarda. In New Grove we find this definition: “A style of virtuoso solo bass viol playing favoured in Italy from about 1580 to about 1630, which condensed a polyphonic composition (madrigal, chanson or motet) to a single line, whilst retaining the original range, and with the addition of elaborate diminutions, embellishments and new counterpoint.” Although this technique could be applied to any instrument, the viola da gamba was particularly suited to this technique because of its wide range of three and a half octaves. The result is that the ornamented part jumps up and down through the whole range of the piece, from bass to treble and back.
There is nothing controversial about this. However, the opinions differ with regard to the identity of the instrument. According to New Grove, ‘viola bastarda’ refers to a style of playing on in particular the viola da gamba. In contrast, Paolo Biordi, in his notes in the booklet, points out that “Francesco Rognoni, in his “Selva de varii passaggi” (1620) states that the viola bastarda is “neither a tenor nor a bass viol, but, in size, stands in between them”. He continues: “The pieces for viola bastarda by Girolamo Dalla Casa, Riccardo and Francesco Rognoni, and Aurelio Virgiliano can be played on an instrument with its lowest string tuned in D, like a normal bass viol, which at the time was generally called a tenor viol; the viola bastarda of Vincenzo Bonizzi and Orazio Bassani (nicknamed “Della Viola”), instead, extends in the lower register as much as by a fourth and, in some works, a fifth, even though it reaches F3 in the high one.”
No such instrument has survived from the time this music was written. Biordi plays the reconstruction of an instrument mentioned by Michael Praetorius in his treatise Syntagma Musicum of 1619. He then refers to tables in Praetorius’ book showing the tuning of all the instrumental families of the time, including the viola bastarda. “Some of them reach A in the bass, fundamental information for performing Bonizzi’s works.” And here we have another issue where opinions differ. Lucy Robinson writes: “References to the viola bastarda by Praetorius and Adam Jarzębski are misleading. Praetorius, in his Syntagma musicum, ii (1618, 2/1619), gave a variety of tunings that would appear to be more appropriate to the lyra viol than the viola bastarda.” Obviously, I am not in a position to decide who is right in these matters. Given that Biordi is a specialist on this instrument, and his recording is of recent date, I tend to think that he must be the one who knows best.
For the assessment of the music and its performance it hardly matters. The collection of 1626, which Biordi has recorded complete, consists of nine pieces, which – as the reader may have observed – are madrigals and chansons by some of the most famous composers of the Renaissance. Most of them were already dead. Thomas Crecquillon died probably in 1557, Pierre Sandrin after 1560, Adrian Willaert in 1562 and Cipriano de Rore in 1565. However, their works were still popular among performers and composers, who liked to use them as the subject for diminutions and other kinds of arrangement. Only Alessandro Striggio was still alive during Bonizzi’s formative years, as he died in 1592. Whereas diminutions usually concerned the top line of a polyphonic piece, the viola bastarda included the entire composition, which makes the music for the viola bastarda a genre of its own. The above-mentioned Francesco Rognoni defined it ‘the queen of instruments’ for its ability to pass between one voice to the next of a polyphonic work during a soloist’s improvisations, in ways that from the very beginning were typical and characteristic of this instrument. (booklet)
The listeners in those days may not easily have recognized these arrangements, even though the pieces were familiar, because the viola bastarda “in turn plays the voice that is melodically more relevant, that is to say freely courses through the entire vocal spectrum of the composition”, as a modern study puts it. That may be the experience of listeners of our time as well. They may know Sandrin’s chanson Doulce mémore, which is one of his best-known pieces, but it is usually the upper voice that is best recognized, and here the viola bastarda also moves to lower parts.
It is fascinating stuff anyway. Diminutions are always great to listen to, and the virtuosity of these pieces, as they can be found in treatises from around 1600, is astonishing and admirable, but what we have here adds a whole new dimension. Paolo Biordi is a brilliant player of the instrument, and knows how to bring this repertoire to life. He produces a beautiful tone, and his differentiated treatment of tempo and dynamics does full justice to the vocal origin of these pieces. If you like Italian music of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, this is a disc not to be missed.
Johan van Veen
www.musica-dei-donum.org
twitter.com/johanvanveen
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Contents
Doulce memoire (Pierre Sandrin)
Invidioso amor (Alessandro Striggio)
Jouissance vous donneray (Adrian Willaert)
D’Amour me plaine (Anonymous)
En voz adieux (Cipriano de Rore)
En voz adieux – Altro modo (Cipriano de Rore)
Pis ne me peult venir (Thomas Crequillon)
La bella e netta ignud’e bianca mano (Cipriano de Rore)
Helas, comment (Cipriano de Rore)
