Thomas Weelkes and Salamone Rossi: some interconnections

Musical Times, Autumn 2004 by Altschuler, Eric Lewin, Jansen, William

THE ENGLISHMAN Thomas Weelkes (? 1575-1623) and the Italian Jew Salamone Rossi (?1570-c.1630) are two of the finest madrigalists ever.1 Many consider Weelkes to be the greatest of the English madrigal school,2 even 'almost as many-sided as Shakespeare'.3 Rossi was renowned in his own time, as in ours: his First book of madrigals for five parts (1600), for example, was reprinted three times in his lifetime. Rossi was also an innovator in the use of continue and a leader in the development of the modern trio sonata.4 he is best known today for his sacred music, notably HaShinm Asher LiShlomo (1622/23), a collection of settings of 33 Hebrew psalms, traditional liturgical texts and hymns in Italian madrigal style, the first setting for nearly 250 years of Jewish liturgical Hebrew texts in the western classical style. Yet despite their fame, the lives of Weelkes and Rossi are nearly complete enigmas. Indeed, the year of birth is not know for either composer, nor is the year in which Rossi died. In 1967 Weelkes's biographer David Brown wrote, '[there is] absolutely no concrete information about him [Weelkes] before 1597, the year in which he published his first collection of music, Madrigals to 3, 4, 5 and 6 voices'.5 Thirty-five subsequent years of study have not changed this picture.6 1570 as Rossi's year of birth is a clever inference of Joel Newman's,7 based on the fact that Rossi's first published composition, a set of 19 Canzonettes for three parts, was dedicated on 19 August 1589, suggesting that the number 19 was important to Rossi in 1589-in particular, that he was born 19 years previously. 1630 is the year of the destruction of the Jewish population in Rossi's native Mantua. We have noted previously8 that not only Weelkes's music but also his texts are often Shakespearean. Here we note a number of instances in which study of the texts set by Weelkes and Rossi may shed light on both of their lives and music. The examples we give help both to illuminate yet deepen the mysterious nature of these two composers.

Interestingly enough, there has long been known a link between Weelkes and Rossi. Two numbers from Weelkes's first publication, Madrigals to 3, 4, 5 and 6 voices (London, 1597), rely heavily for both text and music on pieces from Rossi's first publication, Primo libro delle canzonette a tre voci (Venice, 1589): Weelkes 1597, no. 15 (W1597/15), 'Those sweet delightful lilies', is derived from Rossi's 'I bei linguistri e rose' (R1589/2), and W1597/16, 'Lady, your spotless feature', from R1589/11, 'Donna, il vostro bel viso'. Weelkes was the first English composer to utilise music or text by Rossi. Weelkes later set the Italian texts themselves for three voices as nos. 17 and 14, respectively, in his Ayeres or phantasticke spirites (London, 1608). 'Those sweet delightful lilies' was also set by Thomas Bateson as no. 13 of his First set of madrigals (London, 1604).

Weelkes's 1597 set of madrigals comprises 24 pieces in four groups of six, with the first six madrigals for three voices, and the next groups for four, five and six voices. Judith Cohen has shown that the music of all six madrigals for fiveparts(nos. 13 to 18) from Weelkes 1597 have models in Rossi's three-part 1589 canzonettes: Weelkes's nos. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 correspond, respectively, to Rossi's nos.7, 6, 2, 15, 16, and 19.9

It is perhaps not fully appreciated that the only thing known about Weelkes before his first publication is that he therefore knew Rossi's 1589 publication. In another article Cohen pointed out that Italian composer Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi (fl. 1582-1609) also appropriated six numbers in text and music from R1589 for his 1592 Canzonette a tre voci.10 The correspondence is Gastoldi's nos. 3, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 with Rossi's nos. 12, 16, 9, 5, 17 and 4. Interestingly, there is no overlap between the six Rossi pieces that Gastoldi used in 1592 and the six that Weelkes used in 1597. The text for the first piece in Rossi's 1589 collection is dedicatory in person and place to Vincenzo I Gonzaga the Duke of Mantua and Monferrato, so would be highly unlikely to be used by another composer. That leaves 18 more pieces in R1589. The chance that just randomly Weelkes used six pieces from this set which are completely different from the six Gastoldi had used earlier is 12/18* 11/17*10/16*9/15*8/14*7/13 = 0.049774. So with more than 95% certainty it seems that Weelkes must have also known Gastoldi's 1592 work and for some reason deliberately avoided using any of the pieces of Rossi that Gastoldi used. Thus, we now know a second thing about Weelkes before 1597: he knew Gastoldi's 1592 work. Further study of connections among Rossi, Gastoldi, and Weelkes are warranted.

The six texts are given below, first in the original Italian (only the first stanza of the Italian, as Weelkes's text author Englished and Weelkes only set one stanza from each Rossi piece), then the text from Weelkes's 1597 madrigals, and finally our literal translation. One aspect of the translation of the Italian texts used by Weelkes has not been discussed: the six Englished texts vary considerably in their fidelity to the Italian originals. Indeed, the spectrum goes from Weelkes's 'Make haste, ye lovers' (1597/17), which is quite faithful to its original, 'Correte, Amanti (111589/15), to the Englished text for Weelkes's 'What haste, fair lady?' (Wi597/18), which is very far from the Italian of Rossi's 'Se 'L Leoncorno Corre' (111589/19). Also, curiously, 'Phyllis' seems to have been excised and 'moved ' by Weelkes's text author from one Rossi Italian original 'Se Gl'amorosi Sguardi' (Ri689/6, Wi 597/14), and put into the translation of a different Rossi number, 'I Bei Ligustri e Rose ' (Ri 589/2, Wi 597/15) even though it does not appear in that Italian original. We find Weelkes's text author's translations quite subtle and beautiful.