Ippolito: Canzon super Susanna

Description

A remarkable canzon da sonar based on the famous song, with interesting divisions, in all 4 parts.

This canzon per sonar based on Roland Lassus’ classic Susanne un jour comes from a very interesting manuscript in the British Library MS Add. 30491 (available in facsimile in volume 11 of 17th Century Keyboard Music: Sources Central to the Keyboard Art of the Baroque, ed. Alexander Silbiger), which was compiled in the early seventeenth century.

The manuscript consists mostly of quite elaborate music written in score (i.e. on 4 staves): some of this is idiomatic keyboard music, some is more neutral polyphony. The present piece could be played on a keyboard, though the last few bars are a little problematic. At the end of the manuscript there are a number of viola bastarda arrangements, including a version of Striggio’s Nasce la pena mia and another version of Susanne ung jour, both of which will be included in a later volume in the present series.