The Ripresa, the Ritornello, and the Passacaglia

Abstract

A SPECIAL STYLE OF composition for dances and instrumentally accompanied songs developed in Italy early in the sixteenth century. The style spread to other European countries and persisted as the basis for this particular type of music until the middle of the next century. A large repertoire of such music remains in manuscript and printed books for lute, bandora, vihuela, cittern, the stringed keyboard instruments, various ensembles, and, beginning in the seventeenth century, the Spanish guitar. Associated with this style throughout its history are small musical units that occur before, after, or between repetitions of the music for a dance or song. In the Intabolatura de leuto de diversi autori (Milan: Giovanni Antonio Casteliono, 1536) such units are called riprese, and unmarked examples occur even earlier. The term changes to ritornello in II ballarino (Venice, i581) of Fabritio Caroso,' and in I6o6 Montesardo describes the passacaglia, one of the Spanish forms that entered Italy along with the guitar, as that which in his country is called a ritornello.2 The musical construction of the ripresa, ritornello, and passacaglia is based on the compositional techniques of the Italian dance style. Therefore I will summarize briefly the special features of this style, and then discuss the various types of riprese: internal or concluding (in regard to location), standard or double in length. Finally, I will describe the particular ostinato technique that operates in the chains of concluding riprese and ritornelli, and ultimately leads to the great Baroque sets of variations on the passacaglia and ciaccona. In the Italian dance style, musical organization on the most fundamental level is essentially harmonic in nature. Ex. I shows my concept of the basic chordal relationships for the modes per B quadro and per B molle, the two dance modes which, during the course of the Baroque period, gradually evolve into the tonal major and minor modes.3 Each