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Alonso Mudarra

Itene all’ ombra

 

Tres libros de música en cifra (1546), fol. III/44

mu069

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Source title Entonase a boz en la segunda el primero traste.
Title in contents   Y tene al hombra. Letra de Sanazaro.
Text incipit I tene al ombra


Music

Category song

Genre Soneto

Fantasia type

Mode 8

Voices 4

Length (compases) 23

Vihuela

Tuning B

Courses 6

Final V/3

Highest II/3

Lowest VI/3

Difficulty not specified

Tempo medium

Song Text

Language IT

Vocal notation texted staff notation

Commentary

Not a sonnet as indicated by Mudarra, this is a setting of the second eclogue of L’Arcadia by Neapolitan poet Jacopo Sannazaro. L’Arcadia was composed c.1480 and publisehd in Naples in 1504, set in “terza rima” frequently used for poetry of this type. Mudarra sets only the first three of the 147 verses of the eclogue, a dialogue between Montano and Uranio, that commences with 62 verses from Montano. The poetry is set in endecasyllabic lines, with very few irregularities, and principally in tercets, so it would be possible to sing the entire words of Montano to Mudarra’s music in the manner of a romance. The song’s melodic line is clrearly in mode 8 and this is reinforced by the harmonisation.

Song Text

I tene a l'ombra de gli ameni faggi,
pasciute pecorelle, ormai che'l sole
sul mezzo giorno indrizza i caldi raggi.

Additional stanzas not in Mudarra’s edition

Ivi udirete l’alte mie parole
lodar gli occhi sereni e trecce bionde,
le mani e le bellezze al mondo sole;

mentre il mio canto e’l murmurar de l’onde
s’accorderanno, e voi di passo in passo
ite pascendo fiori, erbette e fronde.

Io veggio un uom, se non è sterpo o sasso;
egli è pur uom che dorme in quella valle,
disteso in terra fatigoso e lasso.

Ai panni, a la statura et a le spalle,
et a quel can che è bianco, el par che sia
Uranio, se ‘l giudicio mio non falle.

Egli è Uranio, il qual tanta armonia
ha ne la lira, et un dir sì leggiadro,
che ben s’agguaglia a la sampogna mia.

In chains in the shadow of the pleasant beeches,
well-fed sheep upon whom the midday sun
already directs its warm rays.

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