Spagnoletta

July 2, 2012 8:21 AM

Any early music experts out there who can explain an anomaly for me? The Old Spagnoletta is a piece listed in the Fitzwilliam Book (289) as by Giles Farnaby. But it also appears to be in the Mulliner Book anonymously - and isn't the Mulliner Book too old for Farnaby? It is clearly the same music, not just a weird similarity of name. Did Farnaby nick it? From Frescobaldi?
posted by Segundus to Society & Culture (5 answers total)

Best answer: Well according to Wiki the Mulliner book:

Of the 121 keyboard pieces over half are based on Catholic liturgical chants, and most of the rest are transcriptions of part songs and anthems, some twenty or so of which are secular. There are only two dance pieces and no variations. There are also nine pieces for the cittern, the earliest extant music for this instrument. The sixteen named composers represented are among the most important of the time, including Thomas Tallis (18 pieces), John Redford (35 pieces), John Blitheman (15 pieces), John Taverner (1 piece) and Christopher Tye (2 pieces). Nineteen pieces are unattributed.

The music was not original, but recorded in a book. Considering that the Farnaby version is called The Old Spagnoletta, it is likely that it was old and he arranged it or even copied it down as is, and the anonymous piece became attributed to Farnaby.

I did not listen to the version in the Mulliner book, and assume that it is the same. Best way to compare would be to have a look at the scores, but all in all if does not seem like such a mystery.
posted by snaparapans at 12:28 PM on July 2, 2012

Also if you notice that the Frescobaldi piece is a Capriccio sopra la Spagnoletta, or Whim on the tit, the tit being the old Spagnoletta.
posted by snaparapans at 3:36 PM on July 2, 2012

Best answer: It may not even have been Farnaby that nicked it. Attribution is often problematic in sources from this period. All we can say with absolute confidence is that the copyist who put the book together believed it to be by Farnaby. There are a whole host of reasons this could be the case - for instance if the copyist had access to a copy in Farnaby's hand (remember that copying by hand was the primary way of disseminating music).
posted by monkey closet at 1:58 AM on July 3, 2012

Response by poster: Thanks, snaparapans: (Whim on the tit is possibly my new user name) no doubt you're right.

It seems that this was a dance tune which was sort of around quite widely, and as you say by Farnaby's time had been so long enough to have become the Old Spagnoletta.

Just to lower the tone a bit I have been advised separately that if one asks a modern Italian lady for a Spagnoletta one is um, offering her a pearl necklace. Possibly that says something about the times in which we live.
posted by Segundus at 1:58 AM on July 3, 2012

Also from the Oxford Grove Dictionary of Music:

Spagnoletta: A late 16th-century Italian dance whose harmonic scheme was used in the 17th century, mostly in triple metre, for dances, songs and instrumental variations. There are two versions by Farnaby in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book.

It appears to be a dance form, like a Sarabande or Minuet.. iow, it is a generic form. The modern, um, dance form Spagnoletta appears to have gotten quite bawdy, pearl necklaces and all.

I had read that the Saraband may have originally come from Mexico where it was pretty steamy lower class dance, later refined in the French court. Perhaps the Spagnoletta had similar roots and is now after half a century of claiming the high ground, reconnecting to its base emanation.
posted by snaparapans at 8:06 AM on July 3, 2012