A guide to Willaert

When originally published by Garland, the Composer Resource Manuals (as they were generically entitled) had a relatively broad brief that was interpreted variously by different authors. Frederick Hammond's Frescobaldi, for example, included a documentary biography as well as a compendium of useful information on all aspects of the Roman musical and social scene in the early 17th century. The new publisher, Routledge, has retitled the series 'Routledge Music Bibliographies'; David Kidger's book on Willaert confines itself to a comprehensive work-list with full listing of all known sources for, and editions of, the music, as well as a comprehensive bibliography and discography. This is not to downplay the importance or usefulness of this book since, though Willaert was recognized as a major composer with a huge influence during his time and subsequently, no complete edition or study similar to this has hitherto been available. The only critical book on the composer so far is that in Flemish by Ignace Bossuyt (1985), which David Kidger here describes as authoritative.

The front cover shows the iconic woodcut of Willaert from his Musica nova of 1559. As an image it has not done the composer any favours, the severe face and very long beard making him look more like John Knox, or a late-16th-century pope such as Sixtus V, than the composer who graced Venetian salons with his sophisticated madrigals and lighter forms. His music, too, has struggled to make an impact: it is striking how few recordings dedicated to it alone are listed in this book's discography, in contrast to the much larger number of compendium recordings that have included just one or two of his pieces. This contrasts with his very extensive output: 10 masses (relatively few, but mass settings were never very numerous from Venetian composers), over 470 Latin works, 85 Italian works, 71 French chansons, a few German settings, some ricercars and quite a few arrangements of other composers' works. As Kidger points out, the complete edition of Willaert in the Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae series, edited by Hermann Zenck and others, has been stalled for a number of years (the most recent volume was issued in 1987); it is particularly unfortunate that the final volumes of madrigals and motets, which should have included the critical commentary, have never appeared. Other volumes, too, have not materialized, and the edition in any case presents no concordances and no critical comparison of sources, while unjustifiably privileging printed editions over manuscript sources.

Kidger has thus made the provision of a comprehensive work-list and an equally comprehensive listing of all sources the major goal of this book. He starts with details of all printed editions devoted entirely to Willaert's music, moves on to printed anthologies (works by Willaert appeared between 1519 and 1593) and then to 16th-century manuscript sources. For anthologies and manuscripts, only the Willaert pieces or those attributed to Willaert in other sources are included; full listings would have been useful but would probably have made this book too unwieldy. Then follows a complete work-list with cross-references to the source listings, divided by genre and number of voices. In deciding on genre Kidger follows Willaert's or his publisher's designations. The largest section, entitled 'Motets', is something of a catch-all category, just as it tended to be in the 16th century, including Marian and other antiphons, sequences, hymn texts etc. whose actual place in the liturgy remains unclear. Only for works in Willaert's 1555 Vespers and Compline publication does Kidger provide a small category of 'other liturgical music', following the publication's designations; the single Marian antiphon here (Regina coeli) looks rather lonely when all other examples are included among the motets. There are, of course, no easy answers to such problems of classification of Latin works in this period. Under each genre Kidger includes a separate section of doubtful or misattributed works, and those with conflicting attributions, scrupulously presenting the evidence and giving his best opinion on the validity or otherwise of the traditional attribution...