Andrea Gabrieli’s O Passi sparsi, was included in Concerti di Andrea et di Giovanni Gabrieli, libro primo (Venice, 1587), the source used for this present edition.
The text used here, a setting of a poem by Petrarch, was one of the most frequently set madrigal texts of its day.
Settings have survived by:-
Sebastiano Festa (à4 in a print of 1544 – available here as EML 277 ↣).
Francesco Layolle (à6 in Venticinque canzoni a cinque voci, 1540).
Vincenzo Ruffo (à6 in Madrigali a sei a sette et a otto voci, 1554).
Bernardo Giacomini (à5 in Il Primo Libro de Madrigali a cinque voci, 1563).
Giovanni Domenico da Nola (à5 in Madrigali a cinque voci, 1564, unfortunately incomplete).
Francesco Portinaro (à8 in Il Quarto Libro de Madrigali a cinque voci).
The meaning of the term “concerti” in the title page of the Gabrieli collection is not entirely clear, but it implies a mixture of voices and instruments rather than an à cappella performance.
(Bernard Thomas)
Translation:
O scattered steps, o beautiful and ready thoughts,
O tenacious memory, o proud ardour,
O powerful desire, o weak heart,
O my eyes, not just eyes, but fountains;
O laurel, honour of famous heads,
O sole symbol of twin honours,
O exhausting life, o sweet error:
All you who make me go in search of shores and hills,
O beautiful face, where Love put together
Spurs and restraints; where he pricks and turns me
According to his whim, and resisting is pointless;
O kind and loving souls,
If the world holds any, and you, naked shades and dust,
Ah, stay and see how wretched is my misfortune.
