The Sounds of Milan, 1585-1650 (review)

For most musicologists, Milan between the ages of Josquin Desprez and Giovanni Battista Sammartini is terra incognita. Perhaps surprisingly, the best-known composer of the period is the nun Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, discussed in detail in Robert Kendrick's Celestial Sirens: Nuns and Their Music in Early Modern Milan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), and who quickly became a staple on the early music concert circuit. In his latest book, the author, an associate professor at the University of Chicago, explores in depth the sacred musical culture of this northern Italian metropolis in its religious, political, social, and artistic context (excepting the contributions of the nuns, and with the addition of a few remarks on secular vocal and instrumental music). This study is based on extensive research in the libraries and archives of Milan and elsewhere. The documents and books the author has studied are not limited to those concerned directly with music, but also with other aspects of the religious, social, and cultural activities of the city. Although most of the composers found in this densely packed volume are obscure, and will likely remain so, Kendrick convincingly demonstrates that within its own local sphere, Milan in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries had a musical life as rich and varied as those of Rome or Venice, whose composers and repertory had greater renown and wider circulation both then and now.

In the first of the book's three parts (of three chapters each), the author examines the sites where sacred music was performed in early modern Milan. He opens the book with a retelling of the 1598 entry into Milan of the Hapsburg princess Margaret of Austria, and her procession through the civic and sacred spaces of the city, almost constantly in the presence of performing musicians. He then turns to the two most important buildings for sacred music, the Duomo and the shrine of Santa Maria presso San Celso, and then finally to the other churches and monasteries that sponsored music (with a brief nod to the palazzi). In part, this examination is traditional, including the names and dates of maestros and other musicians, and the size and nature of the musical establishments in each church. Kendrick digs deeper, however, attempting to link personnel changes, printed collections of sacred music, and individual compositions by musicians at each institution with historical developments in both the city at large and at the institution itself, and, even more interesting, with the changing architectural and decorative details of the churches. The author here demonstrates an extraordinarily broad and deep knowledge of the city's culture, and keen analytical skills as well, revealing much of considerable interest. On the other hand, trying to establish causal links between the painted or architectural environment and details of a musical composition is a perilous enterprise, relying as it does on the author's connoisseurship (Kendrick's frequent use of the conditional voice makes it clear he is aware of the pitfalls). There may indeed, for example, be a connection between the "archaizing classicism" of Federico Zuccari's 1597 St. Agatha altarpiece for the Duomo and the "traditional cast" of Giulio Cesare Gabussi's "Beata Agata" (1608), probably composed for performance at this altar (pp. 39-42), but, as Kendrick explains later in the book (p. 214), Gabussi and his contemporaries frequently employed the conservative style exhibited in this motet in their sacred music.

Several diverse aspects of Milanese musical life are the topics of the chapters of part 2. In chapter 4, Kendrick examines the extant theoretical and musical-aesthetic writings published in the city during this period, including the diminution treatises by Giovanni Battista Bovicelli (Regole, passaggi di musica, madrigali et motetti passeggiati [Venice, 1594]), Riccardo Rognoni (Passaggi per potersi essercitare nel diminuire terminatamente con ogni sorte di instromenti et anco diversi passaggi per la semplice voce humana [Venice...