YEARBOOK OF THE ALAMIRE FOUNDATION

ORLANDO DI LASSO ET AL.: A NEW READING OF THE ROMAN VILLANELLA BOOK (1555)
composed villanelle for three voices – a versatile medium that permitted full expression
of his improvisatory wit, whether acting alone or collaborating with cohorts.
Since this wit was highly valued by Duke Albrecht and Wilhelm, it is possible that
Lasso’s villanelle were among the ‘artful trios’ and ‘cheerful works’ performed regularly
for their entertainment at table, according to Massimo Troiano. 41 Evidence that
Lasso sustained an interest in villanelle for three voices is found on the title page of
a miscellany (now lost), but reproduced in bookfair catalogues as having been published
in Munich by Adam Berg in 1594 or 1595. Draudius’s version of the title page
is: Musica nuova dove si contengono madrigali, sonetti, villanelle et altri compositioni
d’Orlando Lasso a 3 voci novamente da esso composte. At first Boetticher
believed that the phrase novamente da esso composte was added by an enterprising
book-fair official and that this volume contained villanelle dating from Lasso’s
sojourn in Rome. 42 Later he changed his mind and concluded that “at the close of his
career Lasso was still contributing to the most modern type of [villanella] composition
of the time”. 43
In conclusion, it should be emphasized that villanelle for three voices emanating
from the Roman presses of Dorico and Barré during the 1550s captured the attention
of arrangers in northern Europe and held it for decades to come. Yet the contents of
Dorico’s anthology of 1555 inspired more arrangements than any other, perhaps
because Lasso’s name figured prominently on the title page. 44 Significantly, the
majority of arrangements were produced by composers working along an axis that
extended from the Low Countries to Germany and ultimately to France, including
cities in which Lasso lived or visited from time to time, namely, Antwerp, Paris, and
Nuremberg (see Table 2). Clearly Dorico’s anthology had travelled beyond Italy, even
though it is not listed in northern trade lists and bookfair catalogs. 45 If copies were
not transmitted through normal channels of the book trade, then they were probably
distributed by an agent whom we might suspect – knowing Dorico’s tactics – was
either close to Lasso or the composer himself.
41 H. LEUCHTMANN, Die Münchner Fürstenhochzeit von 1568. Massimo Troiano, Dialoge, Munich,
1980, pp. 104–106.
42 BOETTICHER, Orlando di Lasso und seine Zeit, p. 584.
43 W. BOETTICHER, Anticipations of Dramatic Monody in the Late Works of Lassus, in F. STERN-
FELD et al. eds., Essays on Opera and English Music in Honour of Sir Jack Westrup, Oxford, 1975,
p. 88.
44 Of twenty-four arrangements based on models drawn from Dorico’s anthology of 1555, seventeen were
produced in northern Europe (see Table 2). An anthology Dorico published in 1557 generated ten arrangements,
while another published by Barré in the same year generated only four (RISM B, 155719 and
155720 respectively).
45 Dorico’s music books seem not to have travelled extensively beyond Rome, according to S. CUSICK,
Valerio Dorico. Music Printer in Sixteenth-Century Rome, Ann Arbor, 1981, p. 109. Only one is cited
in sale lists of the Leipzig fairs, and none in the extensive catalogs of Bolduanus, Draudius or Willer.
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