A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Villanella

by William Smyth Rockstro

VILLANELLA (Ital., a country girl). An unaccompanied Part-Song, of light rustic character, sharing, in about equal proportions, the characteristics of the Canzonetta. and the Balletta. The looseness of the style is forcibly described by Morley, who, in Part III. of his 'Introduction to Practicall Musicke,' speaks of it thus—'The last degree of grauity (if they have any at all) is given to the villanelle, or country songs, which are made only for the ditties sake: for, so they be aptly set to expresse the nature of the ditty, the composer, (though he were neuer so excellent) will not stick to take many perfect cords of one kind together, for, in this kind, they think it no fault (as being a kind of keeping decorum) to make a clownish musick to a clownish matter: and though many times the ditty be fine enough, yet because it carrieth that name Villanella, they take those disallowances as being good enough for a plow and cart.'

This severe criticism of the old master is, however, applicable only to Villanelle of the very lowest order. The productions of Kapsperger^[1]—whose attempts in this direction were very numerous—and of other Composers wanting the delicate touch necessary for the successful manipulation of a style so light and airy, are certainly not free from reproach. But the Villanelle of Pomponio Nenna, Stefano Felis, and other Masters of the Neapolitan School,^[2] differ but little from the charming Canzonetti, the Canzone alla Napolitana, and the Balletti, for which they are so justly celebrated, and may be fairly classed among the most delightful productions of the lighter kind that the earlier half of the 17th century has bequeathed to us. Among the lighter Madrigals of Luca Marenzio—such as 'Vezzos' augelli,' quoted in vol. ii. p. 190 there are many which exhibit almost all the more prominent characteristics of the Villanella in their most refined form: and the greater number of the Canzone of Giovanni Feretti, and the Balletti of Gastoldi—to which Morley is generally believed to have been indebted for the first suggestion of his own still more charming Ballets—differ from true Villanelle only in name. The same may be said of more than one of the best known and best beloved of Morley's own compositions in the same style. The best example of a modern Villanella is Sir Julius Benedict's well-known 'Blest be the home.'^[3]

[ W. S. R. ]

1. Johann Hieronymus Kapsberger, a prolific composer and skilled musician, flourished at Venice and elsewhere in Italy in the earlier half of the 17th century; is mentioned with great eulogium by Kircher (Musurgia); and left a mass of works both for voices and instruments behind him, of which a list is given by Fétis.
2. The Stadtbibliothek at Munich contains a large number of these works, by Giovanni de Antiquis, and fourteen other Neapolitan composers; printed at Venice in 1574, in 2 very rare vols. obl. 8vo.
3. In the article on Sumer is icumen in, we promised to give any farther information which might reach us, under the head of Villanella. We regret to say that no discovery likely to throw any new light upon the subject has as yet been made.