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• 2 Popular Italian Songs c. 1500

2 Popular Italian Songs c. 1500

for 4 voices or instruments.

These two popular song settings are taken from the so-called Seville Chansonnier (Seville, Biblioteca Colombina, 5-I-43 and Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS nouv. acq. franç 4379; available complete in facsimile ed. Dragan Plamenac, Brooklyn, 1962). L´enchioza mia survives also in Petrucci´s Canti C, which is the source of the attribution to Johannes Martini (c. 1440-1597).
The melodies at the heart of these pieces appear in other settings from the period. Famene (Damene) un pocho is featured in Heinrich Isaac´s witty quodlibet Donne, di dentro - Damene un pocho - Fortuna d´un gran tempo, printed in LPM AN11. And L´enchioza mia turns up in a setting by Japart printed in Petrucci´s Odhecaton, as well as in the Liederbuch of Fridolin Sicher (St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 461) and Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Banco Rari 230.
Both settings, in common with most other contemporary arrangements of Italian popular songs, have the tune in the tenor part. However, the two pieces differ in their use of the respective themes. In L´enchioza mia the melody hardly affects the three remaining parts at all, apart from a couple of quick references in the top part; in Famene un poco, on the other hand, all four parts wholeheartedly embrace the simple tune in imitation, even indulging in a witty stretto just before the end.
The ideal way to perform these pieces is with a single tenor voice and three instruments, taking care to ensure the lowest part is played on an 8-foot instrument. In a purely instrumental performance it is desirable to have the melody part on a contrasting instrument. The tempo should be fast enough for the tenor part to really sound like a tune.
The original note values have been quartered. Original accidentals, printed on the stave, are taken as applying to the whole bar. Purely editorial accidentals, printed above the stave, apply to the one note only.