Missing Works by Italian Composer Giovanni Francesco Bicchini Discovered

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

In the attic of the archives of the Ospedale Wolf-Ferrari in Messina, Italy (I-MEow), a collection of important works by the relatively unknown Italian composer Giovanni Francesco Bicchini (d. 1585) was recently discovered by RISM catalogers working in the area. Our view of this composer, previously known only through his music for two voices, will radically change.

Of particular significance is a motet for 40 cats, which has survived almost completely intact. It has now been cataloged in the RISM online catalog (click to enlarge). Further research has uncovered that the famous Italian poet Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) wrote the text. On the title page of one of the soprano parts is a note about the piece’s first performance–“il primo aprile 1580”– exactly 434 years ago today. A list of the performers at the premiere has also been preserved on a scrap of paper that was found among the documents. It also appears that a painter was in the audience to immortalize three of the soloists; this is likely from the closing section of the piece’s first part (picture, above left). The significance of the mouse is unknown.

Judging from the incipits, there is no doubt that Gioachino Rossini used this motet as the basis for his “Duetto buffo di due gatti” of 1825. Italian scholar Filippi Stegosti is preparing a detailed analysis and will soon announce his findings in the Italian press.

With the recording below, you can judge for yourself.

Bibliography:

Manfred C. Pusnow, “Giovanni Francesco Bicchini,” MGG 2 (1999) 1589-1590

Photo credit: British Library, Medieval manuscripts blog

Share Tweet Email

Catégorie: Redécourvertes


Browse the news archive by category below or use the search box above.

Categories

Top posts

- Joseph Bologne’s “L’Amant Anonyme”
- The Public Domain in 2023
- Scott Joplin and the St. Louis World’s Fair
- The Vienna State Opera in 1955
- Elizaveta, Elisabeth, and Elizabeth

Featured posts

- A Word about RISM
- Chopin Heritage in Open Access
- Sarah Levy
- Discovering Vivaldi Sources
- Finding Unica in RISM

Send us your news

Share your news with RISM and reach an international community of scholars, musicians, librarians, and archivists. Find out more here.

Copyright

All news posts are by RISM Editorial Center staff unless otherwise noted. Reuse of RISM’s own texts is permitted under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. In all other cases, please contact the individual author.

CC_license