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Gioseffo Zarlino. Motets from 1549. Edited by Cristle Collins Judd. (Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance, 145, 149.) Middleton WI: A-R Editions, c2006-7. [Part 1, Motets Based on the Song of Songs: acknowledgments, p. vi; introd., p. vii-xxii; texts and trans., p. xxiii-xxvi; 10 plates; score, 103 p.; crit. report, p. 105-6. ISBN 978-0-89579-598-4; 0-89579-598-1. $83. Part 2, Eleven Motets from Musici quinque vocum moduli (Venice, 1549): acknowledgments, p. vi; introd., p. vii-xv; texts and trans., p. xvi-xix; 2 plates; dedication in Lat., Eng., p. 2; score, p. 3-110; crit. report, p. 111-12. ISBN 978-0-89579-608-0; 0-89579-608-2.$67.]

Gioseffo Zarlino (1517-1590) is familiar to many as the author of a series of important writings on modality, counterpoint, and the craft of composition. Exverpts from Le istituioni harmoniche (Venice: Francesco Franceschi, 1558; reprint, New York: Broude Bros., 1965; revised edition, Venice: Franceschi, 1573; reprint, Ridge-wood, NJ:: Gregg Press, 1966), Dimostrationi harmoniche (Venice: Franceschi, 1571; reprint, Ridgewood, NJ: Gregg Press, 1966), and the Sopplimenti musicali (Venice: Franceschi, 1588; reprint, Ridgewood, NJ: Gregg Press, 1966; New York: Broude Bros., 1980) are more or less required reading for anyone keen to know how sixteenth-century musicians understood their work and the concepts on which it was based. But few of us remember that Zarlino was also a composer of over three dozen motets and about a dozen madrigals; fewer still know much of his intellectual mileu in Renaissance Venice. Now thanks to Gristle Collins Judd's editorial patience and careful detective work we can all begin to measure Zarlino's musical works against the twin contexts of his theoretical writings and certain cultural forces at work in northern Italy during the late sixteenth century.

The focal point of this edition is Zarlino's first book of motets, the Musiciquinque vocum moduli, prepared for publica tion by the great Venetian printing house of Antonio Gardano in 1549. The book was dedicated to Alvise Balbi, prior of the monastery of Santo Spirito in Isola near Venice (text and translation given on vol. 2, p. 2 of the set). It is not clear how Zarlino was linked to this institution, or what he hoped to gain through the connection. But the eloquent language of the dedication evokes a unique combination of humanist rhetorical skill and religious sensibility reflecting Zarlino's assumptions of the close connection between words and music. In any case some of the music assembled here points in still other directions. Some works are clearly connected with the ceremonial life of Venice itself; while one of the secular motets ("Clodia quem genuit," vol. 2, pp. 70-79) was written to commemorate the death of the Marchesino Vacca of Chiogga, the town across the Venetian lagoon where Zarlino...

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