Rusca, Sacri concerti (1630), 1

Claudia Francesca Rusca published a varied collection of music in Milan in 1630: her Sacri concerti a 1-5 con salmi e canzoni francesi includes nearly 30 choral pieces, ranging from solo motets in a modern style to an 8-voice Gloria in Venetian style. Along with these are two instrumental "canzoni francesci." Of all these pieces, a surprising eight have upper register endings. I will look at the equally surprising three of those that tie their endings to exultant "alleluias." Although one might suppose that a closing section with multiple "alleluias" would be an open invitation to upper register endings and even rising lines--whether exuberant or mystical-transcendental--that doesn't seem to be the case, which of course makes the three illustrated here all the more remarkable.

From the fourth of five solo motets for soprano or tenor with continuo, here are the opening and the close of "Veni sponsa Christi." In the end, the hushed echo of "in aeternum" (boxed) gives way to dotted rhythms in the continuo and then the voice in sequences that lead to a lower register cadence in bars 72-73 (circled). The sudden shift to the "subdominant"--arrow in bar 74--normally signals a final flourish over that sonority and ending with the tonic major. Here, the octave-length rising line fits the description but a final full cadence with the voice in the upper register literally upends the usual structural cadence/coda flourish design. As the subdominant flourishes in published music are often frozen versions of improvisations, it is not at all difficult to imagine a solo singer in the first half of the 17th century (and probably earlier) adding one of these spontaneously.  The score in modern notation is by Lorenzo Girodo (2016).

Ending:

The four-voice motet "Hic accipiet benedictionem," on the other hand, gives us a firm upper-register structural cadence (boxed), after which the alleluias follow.

I will discuss the third piece, "Gaudete gaudio magno martyres Christi," in tomorrow's post.