Sixteenth-century intabulation processes and their relationship to the formation and understanding of Sweelinck's keyboard style

This study assesses the nature of sixteenth-century intabulation processes. Rather than being merely techniques of arrangement they are part of the imitatio tradition which is central to the musical language of sixteenth-century Continental polyphonic composition. M.A. Cavazzoni's music shows an understanding of the modal procedures and cadential structures of Renaissance vocal polyphony. Ornamentation and figuration are subject to a more fundamental underlying structure of periodic imitation, as they are in intabulation. In the music of Girolamo Cavazzoni the structures of a plainchant melody - its cadences and modal characteristics - are reworked by the keyboard composer into a polyphonic imitative piece. Intabulation processes from Spanish and Italian sources of the late sixteenth century show that an overall periodic imitative structure and the elaboration of cadence is more important to the Continental keyboard composer than “idiomatic" figuration itself. Chapters 4 and 5 confirm the Continental background to Sweelinck's music which can be seen in his vocal music. John Bull's "late" style responds to Continental concerns for imitatio. This suggests the reverse of the widely held view that English keyboard music influenced that of the Continent in the early decades of the seventeenth century. Figuration patterns are an unreliable guide to underlying compositional processes. Sweelinck's keyboard music is influenced by intabulation processes. Even the toccata, the texture of which grows from a polyphonic reworking of the psalm tone, can be seen as part of the same tradition as the intabulation. The English fantasia style is based on the development of small-scale patterns whereas periodic imitation dominates Sweelinck's musical thought. Figuration patterns are of secondary importance. The study concludes that Sweelinck's music is part of the Continental imitatio tradition and that the influence of the English virginalists on his style is negligible.