Antico: Animoso mio desire

Featuring

Glen Wilson
Bartolomeo Tromboncino
Anonymous
Marchetto Cara
Michele Pesenti

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Composition History

The frottola, a simple, folk-like song with chordal harmonies, emerged around 1480 in Mantua as Italians developed their own musical style.

Album & Artwork

The album's cover image is a woodcut from Antico's 1517 print, depicting a girl waving away an angry ape (presumably Petrucci) and turning to Antico, who plays a Papal harpsichord.

Critical Reception

Antico's first keyboard music print was poorly produced, with indecipherable vertical alignment and numerous errors, typical of early attempts at printing keyboard music on two staves.

Composer Biography

Andrea Antico, a printer from Dalmatia, obtained a monopoly for printing keyboard music in 1517 from the first Medici Pope, Leo X, due to Petrucci's failure to publish such works.

Compositional Technique

The anonymous arranger of Antico's frottola collection created an early example of a fully-balanced polyphonic keyboard style, substituting supple inner voices for the original 'spiky' ones.

Cultural Impact

The frottola, a 16th-century Italian song form, influenced the 'Parisian' chanson after Charles VIII of France invaded Italy in 1494, leading to a fruitful cultural exchange.

Historical Context

During the mid-15th century Italian Renaissance, native musical composition in Italy was strangely silent, as humanism turned musicians away from the dominant Franco-Netherlandish style.