ABSTRACT
Along with the publication of music by younger composers and the spread of new styles and genres, the revival and republication of composers and collections from the early and mid–forties formed an important part of Gardano’s activities in the fifties. While there existed an eager market for the most recent works of composers like Ruffo and Nasco, large portions of the public clung to the familiar, continuing a heavy demand for music by such composers as Arcadelt Verdelot, and Jachet. This situation is particularly remarkable in light of attitudes such as that expressed as early as 1544 in Doni’s Dialogo: “What do you want with so much music [of Arcadelt]? He is too old–fashioned …” 1 But Doni’s group consisted of professional musicians and connoisseurs who were eager for examples of the latest trends, not the everyday musicians and amateurs who still enjoyed the music of the thirties and forties. Certainly one reason for the continuing popularity of the earlier madrigal style in the fifties was performability—the madrigals and motets of Willaert and his followers required a skill and sophistication in performance more suitable for professional musicans than for amateurs. The amateur singers who ventured beyond the two- and three-voice arrangements so popular at this time would have felt far more comfortable starting with Arcadelt’s or Verdelot’s four-voice madrigals than with, say, Rore’s five-voice pieces.
