Adrian Willaert's Ricercares: musical specificities in relation to the 16th century motet tradition

• Grant number: 23/06212-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2023
• End date: July 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Music
• Principal Investigator: Marcos Fernandes Pupo Nogueira
• Grantee: Gabriel Canos Massolini
• Host Institution: Instituto de Artes (IA). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de São Paulo. São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research is part of a project coordinated by the advisor and his research group, whose main focus is the structural and historical basis of the sixteenth-century ricerers and their very close relationship with the writing of the sixteenth-century motet. This privileged slice, both quantitatively and qualitatively of the repertoire, presents, in general, a complex polyphonic texture characterized by a continuous flow of formal conduction, full of overlapping voices, cadential movements of different types and diversified developments of the soggetti - and which we can call it a thematic structure. The investigation is guided from a basic premise that there may be a musical specificity in ricercare caused by the absence of the text. Such musical specificity of Willaert's ricercares indicates a process of thematic unity along the points of imitation of each work - a structurally less important aspect, or rarer, in 16th-century motets. Without the evident structuring factor that the words of the text promote in the motet, as they articulate the sections, the so-called points of imitation, the mid-sixteenth-century ensemble ricercare, especially in Willaert, develops seeking a more thematic or motivic articulation between the sections.