Contrapunti Sopra Il Canto Fermo (La Spagna) - 5 Scores

By Festa. For SATTB instruments. Miscellaneous music. Early Music Library. 5 Scores. Published by London Pro Musica (MM.EML0338).

Costanzo Festa (c. 1485 - 1545) was an Italian composer of the Renaissance. While he is best known for his madrigals, he also wrote sacred vocal music. He was the first native Italian polyphonist of international renown. These two pieces come from a collection of no less than 157 settings of the same cantus firmus, preserved in MS C36 of the Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale in Bologna. The melody used here is essentially the same as that of the "bassadanza La spagna" that occurs in many late-fifteenth century settings, and which even forms the basis of a mass by Heinrich Isaac - it is, however, somewhat shortened, with the 45 or so bars usual in the 15th-century versions reduced to 37, by omitting notes that repeat.