There are relatively few examples of 3-part fantasias or ricercars from Italian composers of this time. Those of Giovanni Bassano are definitely the best. This is a volume of twenty fantasias.
Giovanni Bassano (c. 1558-1617) was a cornetto player in Venice. We should not, however, necessarily assume that the present pieces were intended specifically for this instrument: in the days before the advent of modern dentistry wind players often kept up a stringed instrument against the day when their teeth would fall out.
On first acquaintance these fantasies have a somewhat archaic flavour, especially when compared with Bassano’s church music. However, much of this is to do with writing in three parts rather than four, which tends to result in a bass part that is consistently polyphonic rather than harmonic. The most striking antecedents for Bassano’s pieces are the 3-part ricercars of Adrian Willaert (c. 1490- 1562), a central figure in Venetian music.
