ABSTRACT
The appellation 'canzon' retained its currency from the 1580s well into the 1640s, and over this very extended period it became applied to music of diversity as almost to defy classification. All through Buonamente's childhood, by far the commonest instrumental scoring for pieces so entitled was for four parts – canto, alto, tenore and basso, declining dramatically in the 1620s. The alternation of choirs is particularly effective in the tremolo section where Buonamente exploits the dissonant combinations often associated with 'tremoli'. On stylistic grounds, Buonamente's intentions in the entitling of this piece are hard to determine, and the possibility that it is a printer's error cannot be ruled out, but equally our notions of genre may simply be mistaken. If this composition is taken as the exception which proves the rule, then Buonamente's canzonas do appear to form a consistent category significantly different from that of 'sonata'.
