The Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music

Volume 24 (2018) No. 1

A Newly Recovered Collection of Canzonettas (1679) by Wolfgang Caspar Printz

Nieves Pascual León*

New information about the author on the 300th anniversary of his death

Abstract

Wolfgang Caspar Printz has traditionally been recognized as an important music theorist and writer. His compositional talents, hitherto unknown, have come to light, thanks to a recently recovered set of autograph canzonettas, adapted from arias by Italian composers. Through analysis of the musical works and their cultural context, as well as an evaluation of elements from Printz’s biography, a more complete picture of this talented figure emerges. The evaluation and analysis likewise contribute to our understanding of the processes of musical creation, interaction, and dissemination in late seventeenth-century Germany.

1. Printz’s Fragmentary Biography and the Recovered Canzonettas

2. Description of the Manuscript

3. Carlo Pallavicino’s Il Vespasiano: A Case Study in Musical Dissemination and Adaptation

4. Two Additional Italian Operas: Il Paride and Caligula delirante

5. Conclusion

Acknowledgement

Examples

Figures

Tables

References

1. Printz’s Fragmentary Biography and the Recovered Canzonettas

1.1 Three centuries after his death on October 13, 1717, Wolfgang Caspar Printz (1641–1717) is an enigmatic and overlooked figure. While fulfilling his duties as cantor in the modest city of Sorau (today Żaray, Poland), he published groundbreaking approaches to music history and theory, yet today perhaps only a coterie is familiar with the name and the work of this German writer. Moreover, beyond his treatises very little is known about the man himself or about his talents as a composer. Some of these lacunae appear to have been deliberately encouraged by Printz, others to have been brought about by outside events. What is left is an incomplete figure: an extremely adept music theorist, music director, and court composer for the area’s powerful noble family, yet with no surviving musical legacy. The recent and serendipitous recovery of a collection of canzonettas attributed to Printz—previously thought lost—has offered a unique opportunity to reappraise this figure on the anniversary of his death.

1.2 Printz profoundly influenced his contemporaries and the generations immediately following, becoming one of the most cited authors of the German Baroque. The frequency with which such noted authors as Johann Mattheson and Leopold Mozart, among others, cited Printz’s work—particularly his writings concerning music theory—attests to his importance shortly after his death. Mattheson, in fact, even accorded Printz a lengthy entry in his lexicon Grundlage einer Ehrenpforte.^[1] For much of the twenty-two-page compilation, Mattheson avails himself of a manuscript testimonial (“ex. autogr”) written by Printz’s son, Christophor Peregrinus, but which nearly immediately frames a first-person account by Wolfgang Printz himself. The autobiographical passages, which appear to have been extracted from the memoirs Printz had bequeathed to his offspring, offer only a cursory description of his early years and abruptly come to a halt before the tumultuous events of his time as cantor in Sorau. In his doctoral dissertation on Printz,^[2] Harald Heckmann posited that Mattheson cut short the account at Peregrinus’s behest, as the son wished to avoid antagonizing some of the more prominent Sorau officials with whom his father had been at enmity.

1.3 The information Mattheson includes from Peregrinus tallies with the autobiography Printz interpolates in his Historische Beschreibung der edelen Sing- und Kling-Kunst.^[3] Here again, any particulars concerning his time in Sorau are absent, although Printz does briefly touch on clashes he endured during this period. Both sources thus remain strikingly tight-lipped about Printz’s fifty-two-year association with the city of Sorau: from his arrival as cantor in May 1665 until his death in October 1717. In marked contrast to the detailed limning found in earlier sections of the autobiography, Printz condenses the entirety of this period into a single, terse passage wherein he merely mentions his appointment to the post of Kapellmeister at the court of Count Balthasar Erdmann of Promnitz in 1682 (a position he held concurrently with his continuing work for the city, as cantor); his immense loss of material possessions in a fire that razed the church and city in 1684; and his falling victim to poisoning (indicative of the hostilities he faced in Sorau) in 1688.

1.4 This paucity of biographical information is accentuated by the large number of historical and theoretical writings Printz published during these same years. To this corpus of surviving works must be added the musical compositions the author mentions in his autobiography. In the passage in Mattheson, he alludes to his prolific compositional output, in an effort to counter criticisms from his detractors, who had been branding him a tippler:

I can prove that, despite my official duties, which take up at least seven hours of each day, I have still worked more than all my predecessors.^[4] Over twelve years, I have composed more than 150 full concertos with all the voices.… For the kind reader to judge my diligence, what I accomplished over the following half-year will suffice. In the first place, I finished the third part of my Satyrische Componist, which consists of 32 sheets of paper in my own hand, which I also copied in duplicate. What is more, I have composed four concertos with all the voices and I have copied them twice.… I have composed 48 Italian canzonettas for seven voices, with their ritornellos, symphonies, and sonatas, and I have copied them all twice.^[5]

The “half-year” apparently occurred in 1679: it was in that year that he sent the third volume of Phrynis Mitilenaeus oder Satyrischer Componist to his publisher.^[6] As for the “48 Italian canzonettas” (actually in a six-part texture, though copied into a set of seven partbooks), we shall see presently that they too date from 1679.

1.5 This prodigious compositional output appears to align with the musical responsibilities that, in addition to teaching and choral direction, his position as cantor would entail.^[7] Yet biographers assure us that Printz’s musical compositions do not survive.^[8] It is traditionally believed—and corroborated by Printz’s own account^[9]—that these works were lost in the 1684 blaze that razed the city of Sorau, taking with it the church’s musical collection and Printz’s personal library. Even so, the apparent lack of any surviving trace of such a large body of compositions remains baffling—especially if, as Printz claimed, he was in the habit of copying his work “twice.”

1.6 Further complicating modern biographers’ assurances of total loss is evidence that a small musical collection did survive into the twentieth century. Despite the fire’s devastation, a 1902 catalog of the same church’s musical holdings, by Gerhard Tischer and K. Burchard, includes an entry concerning certain canzonettas by our cantor:

Canzonettas previously composed in Venice and sung in an opera, but now newly expanded with ritornellos, sonatinas, and symphonies, and adorned with five viole, dedicated to the Very Illustrious Count and Signore Balthasar Eidmann [sic] of G. R. J. Count of Promnitz, Baron … by Wolfgang Caspar Printz on February 25, 1679. Octavo format. Consisting of seven partbooks, sewn together at numbers 4 and 21. Entirely handwritten, the title and many works in the same hand. In total, there are 83 pieces; number 58 bears the title Melothesia Augusissimi Imperatoris Fernandi III.^[10]

According to the catalog’s authors, these pieces belonged to a collection known as the Bibliotheca Balthasaro-Erdmanniana. Established in 1703, the library merged the Sorau church’s holdings with the private collection of the recently deceased Count Balthasar Erdmann of Promnitz (1656–1703) and was subsequently expanded over the years thanks to gifts and donations.^[11] Among the musical titles it housed were some of the treatises on song and composition by Printz, which is reasonable given his teaching role as cantor at the church. Of particular interest is a first edition of Printz’s Kurzer Bericht, wie man einen jungen Knaben könnte singen lehren (“Short Essay on How to Teach a Young Boy to Sing”), a work previously unknown.^[12] The manual’s cover bears the handwritten initials B. E. G. V. P. and the year 1670, suggesting that this copy would have likely belonged to Count Erdmann himself, and that Printz’s ties to him would therefore have dated as far back as the noble’s youthful music education. That these sources were originally part of the Count’s personal library would also explain how they escaped the destruction the church suffered in the fire of 1684.

1.7 In 1902, the same year as Tischer and Burchard’s publication, Robert Eitner dedicated a section to Printz’s work in his Biographisch-Bibliographisches Quellen-Lexikon der Musiker und Musikgelehrten. The entry, clearly copied from Tischer and Burchard, makes mention of these canzonettas conserved in the Sorau church library:

Canzonettas previously composed in Venice and sung in an opera, but now newly expanded with ritornellos, sonatinas, and symphonies, and adorned with five viole, dedicated to the Illustrious Count and Signore Balthasar Eidmann [sic] of G. R. J., Count of Promnitz, Baron … by Wolfgang Caspar Printz on February 25, 1679. 7 partbooks, octavo format, MS [Sorau N. L. Kirchenbibl.].^[13]

Yet this scant trail of Printz’s music runs cold: later studies make reference to these pieces only as “formerly” in the Sorau church library, leading one to conclude reasonably that the works subsequently went missing.^[14] This continued silence over many years spurred the prevailing view that evidence would never be found of any compositional works by one of the most cited theorists of the German Baroque.

1.8 It was not until recently that new information came to light. In 2016 the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin acquired various items from the personal library of the German musicologist Georg Kinsky (1882–1951). These included seven partbooks of “canzonettas and other pieces,” now assigned the shelf number Mus.ms.autogr. Printz, W.K.1. They are clearly those described by Tischer and Burchard. Apparently the canzonettas belonging to the Bibliotheca Balthasaro-Erdmanniana had fallen into private hands during the first half of the twentieth century and were only recently made available to the public via the Berlin library’s catalog.^[15]

1.9 The study of these newly recovered canzonettas from 1679, in conjunction with an explanation and contextualization of their composition within the professional career of their author, thus affords a new opportunity to understand a chapter in the life of Printz, a chapter whose details were intentionally omitted from the aforementioned autobiographies but which nevertheless remains fundamental to understanding the author’s legacy.

2. Description of the Manuscript

2.1 The manuscript partbooks—containing 60, 60, 58, 62, 60, 62, and 62 pages respectively—bear nearly identical title pages (see Figure 1), here transcribed from Partbook 1:

CANZONETTE d’avanti in Venetia composte et in una opera cantate, ma à presente con Rittornelli, Sonatine e Sinfonie ampliate, e con cinque Viole ornate, e Al Illustrissimo Conte e Signore Sign: BALTHASAR ERDMANNO di S. R. I. Conte di Promniz, Barone della libera Baronia di Plessa Signor di Soravia, Tribella e Naumburgo dedicate e presentate da Vuolfgango Casparo Prinz di 25 di Febr. del 1679.

Partbook 4 is misdated 1678; Partbook 6 was misdated 1678 and then corrected to 1679. RISM gives the dimensions as 19 by 16 centimeters and identifies the watermark as the coat of arms of Sagan (now Żagan), with each quarter-sheet bearing either a castle gate or a lion (see Figure 2).^[16] See Table 1 for a full list of contents. Of the eighty-five pieces (one unnumbered), sixty-three present texts in Italian, five in German,^[17] and two in Latin. Fifteen pieces are instrumental; they are grouped into three suites of five movements each. The vocal pieces are, as the title suggests, fully accompanied and equipped with ritornellos and other instrumental passages. Instruments are identified only occasionally. The string parts seem to call for instruments from the violin family; presumably Printz’s “cinque Viole” can be interpreted broadly (but note his apparent distinction between “violino” and “viola da braccio” in Part 3, numbers 83 and 84).

2.2 Most of the vocal numbers are adapted from the work of other composers—as the title page indicates, mainly from Venetian opera. Nearly all of the first forty-nine pieces, and a few from later in the manuscript, have their origin in the opera Il Vespasiano by Carlo Pallavicino. Another six were inspired by Il Paride by Giovanni Andrea Bontempi. We should note the evolution of the term canzonetta: its meaning here is markedly different from its original usage to refer to a light, popular Italian vocal form. As Ruth I. DeFord writes, “In the 17th century the term ‘canzonetta’ was often interchangeable with ‘villanella,’ ‘aria,’ ‘arietta,’ ‘scherzo,’ and ‘cantata.’ It was applied to pieces of relatively serious character, as well as to songs in popular styles.”^[18] Here Printz uses it to refer mainly to da capo arias. The title page makes clear that he intends the word “canzonetta” to refer specifically to the pieces from Italian opera, as though the remainder of the manuscript was an afterthought.

2.3 The principal scribe of the part-set is the composer. Mention must be made here of the State Archives in Zielona Góra, Poland, repository of the historical records from the localities ringing Sorau, Printz’s adopted home. Despite Printz’s more than fifty years living and working under the patronage of the area’s powerful noble family, the archive yields only a single document signed by him (see Figure 3): a manuscript letter dated April 1699, addressed to Count Balthasar Erdmann, and included among the official records from a small church in Jeschkendorf,^[19] formerly an outlying rural district of Sorau. While this administrative correspondence offers no significant biographical information, the fact that it is in Printz’s hand does allow us to identify him as the principal copyist of the part-set, a finding that concurs with the RISM description. The other copyists are identified in RISM as Anon. D-B 258–261; 259 and 261 had major copying roles, whereas 258 and 260 made trivial contributions. See Table 2. Although RISM does not specify its criteria for differentiating between the hands in the partbooks, telltale traits of each copyist can be discerned, for instance, through careful scrutiny and comparison of the contours of the treble clefs, or the styling of the time signatures (see Figure 4).

2.4 Table 2 implies some sort of chronological separation between numbers 1–48 and the remainder. The assistant scribes copying Partbooks 4 and 5 both stopped at the same place, after number 48, which suggests that the rest was not available yet. This observation is supported by Printz’s reference in his autobiographical sketch, quoted above, to “48 Italian canzonettas.”^[20] As the table reveals, for numbers 1–48 Printz wrote the whole of the soprano, violin, and continuo parts (Partbooks 1, 3, and 7)—i.e., the main structural parts in the texture—presumably so that rehearsals could begin while the inner parts were being copied. As for numbers 49 to the end, Printz let his helpers deal with numbers 59–60 in several of the parts (arrangements of two arias found earlier in the manuscript) but otherwise copied everything himself.

2.5 We can only imagine the score or scores on which Printz composed these arias, marking up the original Italian arias and supplementing them with added pages. What survives is this precious set of fair copies, showing the pieces in their final form.

3. Carlo Pallavicino’s Il Vespasiano: A Case Study in Musical Dissemination and Adaptation

3.1 In the last quarter of the seventeenth century, no fewer than eighteen theaters were jostling for spectators within the city of Venice. It was in this atmosphere that—after the Teatro SS. Giovanni e Paolo (1638) and the Teatro S. Samuele (1656)—the Grimani family opened its third stage, one that would promptly become one of the great theaters of the city, contributing, in a large degree, to the popularity and grandiosity of Venetian opera. From its inauguration during Carnival on January 20, 1678—featuring Carlo Pallavicino’s Il Vespasiano, based on a libretto by Giulio Cesare Corradi—until the middle of the next century, the Teatro S. Giovanni Grisostomo (see Figure 5) concentrated its efforts on presenting serious opera.^[21] The premiere of Pallavicino’s work should therefore be understood as a musical and social watershed within Venetian cultural life.

3.2 The premiere of Il Vespasiano saw the publication of its libretto (see Figure 6), but not its score. The dissemination of the work was presumably restricted, at least initially, to the most immediate circle of the composer and performers, though Pallavicino was undoubtedly prepared for eventual requests by selected wealthy patrons for copies of the score.

3.3 Circumstantial evidence places Count Balthasar Erdmann in the theater, enjoying that production of Il Vespasiano. In the first volume of his Schlesischer Curiositäten, the chronicler Johannes Sinapius comments on a trip to Italy by the count at around that time:

In 1676 he took a trip to Geneva and from there traveled in 1677 to Italy in the company of the princes of Saxe-Merseburg, dukes Philipp and Heinrich. However, while in Venice, he received the news that he should come to power …^[22]

The chronicle of Samuel Magnus, published a decade earlier, furnishes additional details:

In 1676 he undertook a trip in the month of August to Geneva, and as at this time His Serene Highness was joined by the young princes of Saxe-Merseburg, dukes Philipp and Heinrich. His Highness traveled in the month of October 1677 in their company to Italy. In half a year he visited all of Italy, as far as Naples, reaching Venice in the month of January 1678, where he received news from His Highest Excellence, the Lord Count Ulrich of Promnitz, who was the senior Administrator at that time, that he should return home. To this he abided, taking power in the name of the Lord in the month of June.^[23]

3.4 This journey undertaken by the twenty-year-old Count Erdmann—following the completion of his studies at the University of Tübingen’s Wilhelmskollegium^[24]—should be understood as the Grand Tour, or Kavalierstour. A touristic circuit serving as a finishing school, it was immensely popular among European nobles from the mid-sixteenth century until the beginning of the nineteenth.^[25] The count’s arrival in Venice in January—an occasion combining the city’s draw as an obligatory stop along the Grand Tour with the appeal of its Carnival season—represents an important moment for the present study. The chronicles of Sinapius and Magnus allow us (hypothetically) to place the members of the Sorau entourage at a performance of Il Vespasiano—perhaps the premiere, which, as noted earlier, took place on the twentieth of that month. The opera must have pleased the young count, who would have made a record of the score or commissioned a copy of it for his return to Sorau.

3.5 The sources’ silence about Printz’s activities during this same period leaves open the possibility that he attended the event in Venice in the company of Erdmann—to whom, a year later, Printz would present new arrangements of the arias (perhaps to commemorate Erdmann’s assumption of his new role as Count of Promnitz). Part two of Printz’s Satyrischer Componist was published in 1677 by Christian Okel in Quedlinburg and Sagan (today Żagan, Poland, near Żary), but a publication in press would not have prevented him from traveling. He would only have had to obtain the town council’s permission and leave an assistant temporarily in charge of his duties as cantor.

3.6 It was presumably either our composer, a member of the young count’s traveling party, or perhaps even the count himself—who, as we know, had musical training and had apparently been schooled from Printz’s manual (see above)—who procured the musical material for Il Vespasiano after attending its Venetian premiere. On the other hand, a connection can be established between Printz and Carlo Pallavicino via the ties the latter had maintained with the German sphere since his first residence in Dresden (1666–1673). Thanks to Printz’s autobiography, we know that he had passed through the same city in 1662 to receive a letter of recommendation from Francesco Santi, contralto in the electoral chapel. This missive would facilitate the young musician’s immediate appointment as composer and music director in the court of Count Leopold of Promnitz.^[26] Although a Printz-Pallavicino encounter in Dresden is untenable given these dates, it is at least feasible that the two had mutual acquaintances among the musicians in that city, one of whom might have had a role in transmitting Pallavicino’s score.

3.7 Pallavicino’s opera contains an abundance of short arias and duets of varied expressive character, nearly all in da capo form. Printz included most of them in his partbooks (see Table 1). Apart from a small number of afterthoughts in the latter part of the collection, they appear in Printz’s manuscript in the order of their appearance in the opera as it was performed in Venice. Here we may rely on a manuscript score for Il Vespasiano conserved in the Biblioteca Estense e Universitaria in Modena: mus.f.894, a fair copy in the hand of a professional scribe that corresponds perfectly with the libretto for that production.^[27] The solo roles in the opera were sung by one basso, two female sopranos, and several castrati. Without knowing more about Count Erdmann’s household musicians (whom Printz would soon direct), we cannot know who in Sorau sang the many soprano arias—a woman? a boy? —but we can be reasonably certain there was no strong alto soloist available: parts originally written for the role of Tito (in, for instance, numbers 6 and 8/9)^[28] are routinely transposed up a fifth.

3.8 Most of the arias in Pallavicino’s opera are accompanied by continuo alone. Some are orchestrally accompanied, the instruments playing interludes and ritornellos.^[29] Printz presents them all anew, as arie concertate, with an instrumental accompaniment in five parts. The strings introduce the rhythmic-melodic material in a precorso, after which the singing voice enters.

3.9 The first aria in the collection, “Libertà, libertà,” exemplifies many of Printz’s procedures; compare Example 1, which gives the ritornello and the “A” section of the da capo form, with Figure 7, the same passage as found in the opera.^[30] The libretto for Pallavicino’s opera makes clear that the accompanying instruments were originally a pair of onstage trumpets.^[31] Printz gives those parts to the violin and the pair of violas in harmony, and adjusts this material; for instance, at the beginning of the ritornello, it is the second viola that presents the descending fourth that the voice will echo, while the violin and first viola move in thirds. Meanwhile Printz’s bass line, unlike Pallavicino’s, starts on the downbeat; this gives his version the assertiveness and confidence of a thetic beginning. Printz also adjusts the overall form: in addition to shortening the ritornello, he eliminates two of Pallavicino’s instrumental interludes as well as the brief postlude (compare mm. 21–31 of Printz’s version with the last two systems of Pallavicino’s). Along the way, he adapts the bass line, introducing changes in harmony; see, for instance, the series of dominants and secondary dominants, with suspension figures, in mm. 6–14. While Printz freely adjusts the violin part to suit his new conception, he leaves Pallavicino’s vocal melody mostly intact. Throughout the collection, while retaining the essence of the original melodies, Printz introduces small rhythmic and melodic alterations that reflect the interpretive freedom that characterized the age, and the important role of the musician in determining details; indeed, if he did journey to Venice, he might have made note of the performance style of some of the Italian singers.

3.10 In the case of the canzonettas developed from arias having only a continuo accompaniment, Printz elaborates these for an instrumental ensemble, and he creates instrumental preludes. For instance, in the second of the pieces, “Recatemi, ò scettri” (see Example 2 and Figure 8),^[32] Printz adjusts one note of Pallavicino’s bass line at the word “scettri,” to emphasize the affective descending line; he then uses an extended version of that stepwise descending bass as the starting point for a newly composed eleven-measure ritornello.^[33] The aria itself is accompanied only by the continuo, with the exception of the final cadential gesture of the “A” section (the syllabic setting of “tributi di fede”), which Printz orchestrates, including an explicit Picardy third. While the Venetian manuscript lacks figures in the bass, Printz’s are explicit; they showcase his predilection for suspensions and his concern for the expressive character of the harmony.

4. Two Additional Italian Operas: Il Paride and Caligula delirante

4.1 The text for the aria “Dolce lampo di speme,” number 81 in Printz’s collection, appears in a libretto for the melodrama Caligula delirante, for a performance in Venice in 1680.^[34] That opera, composed by Giovanni Maria Pagliardi on a libretto by Domenico Gisberti, was first performed in 1672 and was very popular; numerous reprintings of the libretto, with modifications, testify to its success.^[35] Of the known productions, only one, in Palermo in 1678, might have coincided with Count Erdmann’s tour through Italy; nevertheless, the fact that Printz copied this aria into his partbooks is a clear indication that the aria was in circulation well before its appearance in that 1680 libretto. As it happens, a setting (without attribution) appears in an undated manuscript collection of arias for voice and continuo (I-Fc B.XI.2560, fols. 33r–34r); see Figure 9. As the rests in Printz’s version show, Printz incorporates an instrumental introduction and interlude. The transposition down a tone could reflect a particular performer or possibly the difference in pitch standard between Italy and Germany; in any case, the Italian setting of “Dolce lampo” climaxes on a repeated high A, a tone higher than Pallavicino’s soprano parts.

4.2 Six pieces in Printz’s collection, including three duos, have their provenance in Giovanni Andrea Bontempi’s Il Paride. It will be recalled that Printz had journeyed to Dresden in 1662 to obtain a letter of recommendation from the contralto Francesco Santi (see par. 3.6). While there, he might have had the opportunity to attend the lavish premiere of Il Paride, presented on November 3 to celebrate the marriage of Erdmuthe Sophie, princess of Saxony, and Christian Ernst, margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth. Like Santi, Bontempi originally hailed from Perugia. From 1650 onwards, he lived in Dresden and served in the electoral chapel as castrato, composer, and eventually assistant Kapellmeister. Santi might have introduced his visitor to Bontempi, and Printz probably obtained a copy of the libretto for the new opera (also by Bontempi).^[36] Printz might even have obtained the printed score,^[37] though it was undoubtedly expensive.

4.3 This opera inspired three solos in Printz’s collection (“Si dolce,” no. 44; “Degno sei,” no. 48; and “Te finisso,” no. 61) and three duos (“Donna a gioire / Donna gentil,” no. 52; “Sol per te / Dulce ben,” no. 62; and “O fortunato,” no. 63). As usual, Printz provided accompaniment for five-part strings; in numbers 61 and 62, he also called for ritornellos featuring corno da caccia (see Table 1), though these are not notated in the surviving material. Of particular interest here is the degree of originality in the musical settings. Three of these pieces (“Si dolce,” Act 2, scene 3; “Degno sei,” Act 4, scene 5; and “Donna a gioire / Donna gentil,” Act 4, scene 11) are not found in Bontempi’s score. Their texts appear in the libretto marked with a vertical line in the margin, whose function was to indicate verses not set to music.^[38] It seems, then, that Printz’s music is entirely of his own authorship. While “Sol per te / Dulce ben” (Act 2, scene 2) and “Te finisso” (Act 4, scene 2) are included in Bontempi’s score, Printz’s treatment merely hints at their melodic curve (see Figure 10). As for “O fortunato” (Act 4, scene 2), Printz ignores Bontempi’s recitative opening and sets this text as a virtuosic aria (Figure 11). Seventeen years separated the opera’s premiere (1662) from the composition of the canzonettas (1679). Printz distanced himself from the original and created more modern settings, ones that would appeal to the vocal taste of the later seventeenth century.

5. Conclusion

5.1 It is well known that reusing their own preexistant musical material and borrowing ideas from others—even the wholesale incorporation of others’ musical pieces into their own—were common practices among Baroque composers. A piece originally composed for a particular social event could be adapted for another occasion. Singers of Italian opera might insert their favorite arias from other operas, turning every production into a pasticcio. Though original authors and performance contexts were rarely credited, the social function of music justified this process of musical reuse and adaptation; indeed, J. Peter Burkholder likens the composer more to an artisan than an artist.^[39]

5.2 The vogue for Italian styles in the German-speaking lands made adaptation particularly attractive. In the late seventeenth century, composers such as Caspar Förster, Dieterich Buxtehude, Johann Philipp Krieger, and Georg Österreich adapted sacred music by early seventeenth-century Italians—Bonifazio Graziani and Gasparo Casati, among others. Scholars such as Peter Wollny^[40] and Lars Berglund^[41] have postulated that this type of adaptation responded to three impetuses. The first was a pedagogical motivation; that is, it helped the younger generation of German composers learn the characteristics of the Italian style. Simple pragmatism was the second driver, as Italian music was adapted to the interpretive practice of the Germanic areas. The last force was the competitive rivalry between composers vying to emulate, and even surpass, the achievements and successes of their predecessors.

5.3 As for secular music, amid the unbridled craze for the new Italian opera, it is not surprising that central Europeans craved Italian arias. Printz’s canzonettas, dedicated to Count Erdmann, were most likely intended to be played alone, or interspersed between other musical pieces, as part of the court’s entertainment. To please his German audience, Printz felt the need to adjust the instrumental component and the details of form, turning these Italian theater pieces into German chamber music, designed for the particular needs and resources of his Sorau patron. As a first step, though, he had to collect the music. We have seen the likely importance of travel—his patron’s and his own—in this process. In short, the study of this newly recovered collection represents a fundamental step toward rescuing the figure of Wolfgang Caspar Printz from obscurity, while concomitantly allowing a glimpse into the mechanics of Italian musical propagation at the close of the seventeenth century.^[42]

Acknowledgement

This study is a component of the research program “El patrimonio musical de la España moderna (siglos XVII-XVIII): recuperación, digitalización, análisis, recepción y estructuras retóricas de los discursos musicales”(I+D+i project, reference number HAR2017-86039-C2-1-P), sponsored by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).

Examples

Example 1. Printz, Canzonetta No. 1: “Libertà, libertà” (excerpt)

Example 2. Printz, Canzonetta No. 2: “Recatemi, ò scettri” (excerpt)

Figures

Figure 1. Title page of Partbook 1 and title-page details from Partbooks 3–7

Figure 2. Watermark in the partbooks

Figure 3. Letter from Printz to Count Balthasar Erdmann, dated April 1699

Figure 4. Copyists of the partbooks

Figure 5. Teatro Grimani a S. Giovanni Grisostomo, Venice, 1709

Figure 6. Title page of the libretto for Il Vespasiano

Figure 7. Pallavicino, Il Vespasiano, excerpt from “Libertà, libertà” (1, 5)

Figure 8. Pallavicino, Il Vespasiano, excerpt from “Recatemi, ò scettri” (1, 6)

Figure 9. “Dolce lampo di speme” in Florence collection and Printz, Partbook 1

Figure 10.  “Dulce ben” and “Te finisso” in Bontempi, Il Paride, and Printz canzonettas

Figure 11. “O fortunato” in Bontempi, Il Paride, and Printz, Partbook 1

Tables

Table 1. Contents of the seven partbooks

Table 2. Copyists of the seven partbooks