Willaert greatly extended the scope of the villanella by original harmonic and rhythmic writing.
This selection includes Madonna mia fa and the lovely O bene mio fa.
The present pieces come from Canzon villanesche alla napolitana di Messer Adriano a quatro voci., published in Venice in 1545 (the 1548 edition by Girolamo Scotto was used for the present transcription). Starting from the villanelle of Giovan Domenico da Nola (some of which are published in our TM41 ↣), Willaert greatly improved the simple strophic form by using four rather than three parts, widening the harmonic range, and introducing a little imitation and textural variation One of the pieces printed here, O dolce vita mia, is actually based on a three-part villanella by Nola: as is usually the case in such arrangements, Willaert uses Nola’s top part (trans- posed down a fifth) as the basis for his tenor part.
