Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era

Giovanni Francesco Anerio
Selva armonica (Rome, 1617)
Edited by Daniele V. Filippi

B 141	ISBN 0-89579-588-4 (10-digit)	March 2006	xxxv + 159 pp.	$98.00
	ISBN 978-0-89579-588-5 (13-digit)

Giovanni Francesco Anerio (1569–1630) is currently considered to be the most interesting and talented Roman composer of the post-Palestrinian generation. His Selva armonica (Rome, 1617) is a miscellaneous, primarily devotional, collection containing 21 Italian and six Latin compositions for one to four voices and basso continuo. The exploration of its textual and musical content allows a deeper understanding of spiritual music in Counter-Reformation Italy. Its remarkable overlap of genres shows some of the manifold musical possibilities associated with contemporary devotional practices.

Anerio is justifiably celebrated for his compositional skill, but he also deserves special attention because of his close connection with Filippo Neri (1515–95) and his Oratorio. A telling confirmation of this relationship—indeed rich in spiritual and aesthetic implications—is the fact that ten texts in the Selva armonica are taken from Father Agostino Manni’s Essercitii spirituali, the most influential spiritual book of the early Oratorian tradition.

Music Sample

Contents:

Acknowledgments
Introduction
    Devotional Music in Rome
    The Composer
    The Selva armonica
    Notes on Performance
    Notes
Texts and Translations
Plates

Selva armonica
    Dedication

1.	Sommo Re delle stelle
2.	Dal tuo volto beato
3.	Il tempo passa e mai più si ritrova
4.	O dolce amor, Gesù
5.	Acerbe doglie e voi, piaghe amorose
6.	Donna celeste, che di Dio sei Madre
7.	La matutina aurora
8.	Ecco riede, ecco soggiorna
9.	Pulchra es
10.	Veni sponsa Christi
11.	Regina caeli
12.	Ego flos campi
13.	Salve, Regina
14.	Salve Regina, Madre divina
15.	Gesù, nel tuo partire
16.	Ecco che i monti indora
17.	Alta cosa è il mio Dio
18.	Alta cosa è il mio Dio
19.	Occhi del cielo ardenti
20.	Alzate al sommo ciel memoria e mente
21.	Torna la sera bruna
22.	Dio ti salvi, Maria, Madre divina
23.	O tu, che vai per via
24.	O del gran Redentor Madre alma e bella
25.	Ave Maria, Speranza mia
26.	Io non saprei dir quanto
27.	Litaniae Beatae Mariae Virginis

Critical Report  
Sources  
Editorial Methods  
Critical Notes  
Notes