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• Dunstable, John: O Rosa Bella (2 settings)

Dunstable, John: O Rosa Bella (2 settings)

for 3 voices or instruments.

The first of the two settings printed here has achieved considerable fame in our time as well as its own. It has survived in 13 sources, in 11 of which it appears anonymously. In what is probably the earliest source, the Urbino MS, it is ascribed to Dunstable (d. 1453), while in the Oporto source the somewhat younger John Bedingbam is given as the composer. In his notes to the complete Dunstable edition, Manfred Bukofzer assigns the piece to Dunstable on the grounds that the Urbino source contains a repertoire too early for Bedingham, while more recently, Margaret Bent has argued that the piece is unlike any other work attributed to Dunstable, and is more likely to be by Bedingham. In one source three additional parts are found, attributed to Bedingham, though David Fallows in the New Grove article on this composer rules out on stylistic grounds any possibility that he can have added these parts.
The poem of O rosa bella is a ballata by the famous Leonardo Giustiniani; although this has already been set as a proper ballata byJohannes Ciconia (1335-1411), the composer of the present setting either misunderstood or ignored the normal formal requirements of the ballata, preferring to write a straight strophic song instead.
The second setting here is one of several arrangements that were made of the Dunstable/Bedingham song. It occurs only in one of the Trent manuscripts, MS 90, no. 1075; it is a remarkable recomposition of material from the original song, no routine arrangement. The Trent manuscripts contain four other reworkings of our piece, in from two to four parts; there are also two keyboard settings in the Buxheim Organ Book.
The original song is printed here after Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August-Bibliothek, MS extrav.287, and Pavia, Biblioteca Universitaria, MS Aldini 362. The original note values have been quartered. Editorial accidentals are taken as applying to the whole bar.
These pieces may be performed in a variety of ways: sung unaccompanied or played on instruments (recorders, viols); the original setting can be done with a solo voice on the top part and two instruments. If recorders are mixed with other instruments or voice, care should be taken to avoid inverted chords - if a single recorder is used, it should be on the top part.