Cadence formulas in instrumental music of the Renaissance and early Baroque in the context of that time’s theory of music and composition practice

Abstract

Cadence (ending) formulas are one of the most intriguing phenomena in music. They occur in works of all historical periods and styles and they have a variety of forms: from melodic and harmonic turns to rhythmic or even dynamic ones. However, this issue is important not only from the perspective of theory of music or composition technique but also performance practice as the way how a singer or instrument player understands the functioning of separate elements of a piece will impinge on the sound shape of the work presented to the public. Reading the extramusical message hidden in the structure of a piece should be regarded particularly significant for the interpretation of pieces written in times when adding precise performance guidelines in the score was not practiced. In case of compositions written in the 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries, the way how ending formulas functioned was a result of the specificity of that time’s modal system and the principles of polyphonic composition, in which the role of melodic (horizontal) thinking prevailed over the harmonic (vertical) one. The issue of cadences gains special importance while analysing instrumental works in which the absence of verbal text hinders the division of the piece into segments. It only becomes possible thanks to analysing the structure of the piece, including the allocation of modal ending formulas in separate voices of the composition. Howsoever the topic of cadences in music of the 16th and 17th centuries has been discussed many times in the literature on the subject, it has had no satisfactory presentation related to that time’s instrumental repertoire. The present article is an attempt to elaborate on the deliberations on the topic of modal cadence formulas in instrumental works from the 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries. Its first part has an introductory character and it touches on the notion of cadence in modern theoretical-musical and encyclopaedic texts compared to composition theory and practice in the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. The second part of the article is an analysis of selected instrumental works from the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries meant for different types of line-ups – the four-voice canzona by Florentio Maschera, canzona by Girolamo Frescobaldi for solo instrument with basso continuo and one of the ricercati by Giovanni Bassano meant for solo melodic instrument without accompaniment.