Lauda

LAUDA. - Spiritual laude, extra-liturgical religious songs in the vernacular, developed in the 13th century in Umbria and then in Tuscany, with the rise of the various penitential confraternities (Compagnie dei Laudantes or Laudisti or Laudesi, dei Disciplinati, dei Flagellati, dei Battuti, etc.), spread throughout Italy and beyond the Alps and, in terms of duration, lasted until the 19th century, although they no longer had the appearance of anything but distant offshoots of the artistic phenomenon that had culminated in the 16th century and had produced as its direct offspring the musical oratorio of the 17th century.

The history of the lauda comprises, it is true, the two great genres, monodic and polyphonic, but in reality, even when it is polyphonic, the peculiar type of its texture is exquisitely monodic, inasmuch as the melodic predominance of the upper voice is evident which, with the customary homorhythm and simplicity of harmony, given the popular character of such songs, was bound to take hold of the attention and memory of the untrained performers. Even when, with Animuccia and the other composers of the 16th century, the lauda flourished contemporaneously with the full apogee of polyphony, between its lines there already appears the imminent triumph of accompanied monody, which is prepared in it by the function — not polyphonic-contrapuntal, but rather harmonic-instrumental — with which the other voices support the singing melody in the treble. Chronologically, the first historical phase of the lauda, which runs from the 12th to the 15th century, comprises the development of three forms: lyric, narrative and dialogic; the first runs from its beginnings to the 14th-15th century; the second is entirely contained within the 16th century; the third takes over at the end of the 16th century only to be immediately supplanted in its turn by the recitative style, with which it would flow, in the full 17th century, into the musical oratorio; the setting of the first phase is Umbria, in particular, with the beginning of the Franciscan movement (the Cantico delle creature of St. Francis, even in the silence of the musical staff left blank in cod. 338 of Assisi, allows one to glimpse the world of melodious life that fermented in the ardent impulses of the Saint, Giuliano di Dio), followed by Tuscany, likewise teeming with Congregations and Confraternities. The codices of Cortona and Florence hand down texts by Jacopone da Todi, Ugo Panziera da Prato, Garzo dell'Incisa and others, with fresh melodies woven into them, which to the spring-like lightness of popular song join the collected majesty of a not remote Gregorian inspiration, realizing in the Italian field a phenomenon analogous to what occurred in Germany with the rise of the geistliches Lied and in France with the Provençal spiritual lyric and the beginnings of the religious troubadour lyric. While the vernacular languages detach themselves from the Latin stock, in the musical field the fresh sap of popular song frees itself youthfully from the austere hieraticism of Gregorian chant and, while preserving its echoes in the ear and in the soul, sings the Faith and its mysteries, the Passion and its torments, with the new and vibrant accents of humanity of the penitents who swarm, hymning the Cross, through the sunlit districts of Italy.

The principal sources of this more ancient period consist of the Laudario di Cortona (cod. 91), from the end of the 13th century, the cod. Magliabechiano II (1-122, Biblioteca nazionale of Florence), from the first half of the 14th century, the cod. 180 of Arezzo, the Laudario di Pisa (ms. 852) of the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in Paris, the Laudario dei Battuti di Modena, of 1377, the Laudario di Udine (Biblioteca civica), of the 14th century, that of Borgo S. Sepolcro (14th-15th centuries), etc.

The second phase, polyphonic, arises in the early 16th century and culminates shortly after the middle of the century, with the figure of Giovanni Animuccia, who makes of the lauda an art form, carrying its harmonic structure to the timbral and spatial riches of the double choir. The poetic texts are no longer only on the scheme of the virelai, canzone and ballata, like those predominant in the preceding phase, but also and especially on the type of the madrigal, which, from the almost embryonic form of 7 lines, reaches the more expansive form of the epic-dramatic compositions of Anerio. The authors, however, are still for the most part taken from the lyric-devotional repertoire of the 14th-15th century. Among the most illustrious names are remembered Bianco da Siena, Feo Belcari, Girolamo Benivieni, Castellano de' Castellani, Francesco d'Albizzo, Lorenzo de' Medici, Girolamo Savonarola, etc. Of the 16th century one must mention first of all the collections printed in 1500 and 1507 with the types of Ottaviano Petrucci da Fossombrone and studied in depth by K. Jeppesen (v. bibl.).

The lauda, having reached with Animuccia an artistic level hitherto unknown, enters a field as fertile as ever with developments: the environment of the Congregation of the Oratory, founded by St. Philip Neri, thanks to whom it would be framed within the historical period of the Catholic Reformation. St. Philip, giving the lauda a privileged place in his devotional exercises, using it namely as the opening and closing song in which the sermon was set, conferred on it that bipartite division that preluded the structure of the great oratorios of the 17th century. The Philippine lauda, therefore, which is the direct precedent of the oratorio in the vernacular, just as the motet is of the oratorio in Latin, took shape first in the simple songs intoned in the gatherings of a few faithful disciples around St. Philip, reaching the apex of the polyphonic style with Animuccia; found in the Diletto spirituale of s. Verovio (1586) the most effective expression of the monodic style and passed, in 1619 (Teatro armonico of Anerio), to the new aura of the recitative style, which is as much as to say prelude to the oratorio proper. For the collections of Philippine laude printed in the second half of the 16th century, the principal ones may be cited. 1563: I. I. by G. Animuccia; 1570: II. I. by the same; 1577: III. I. by F. Soto; 1583, 1588, 1591: first four books by F. Soto; 1598: V. I. by Soto; 1599: Tempio armonico della B. V., edited by p. Giovenale Ancina. Among the poets are remembered principally A. Manni and Giovanni Ancina; among the musicians G. Animuccia, Palestrina, Victoria, Soto.

Once its great son, the oratorio, had arisen, the lauda continued to live a limited and slender life, through the songs of the people at gatherings, processions and pilgrimages. Even today some musician devotes care to this traditionally popular art form, but it no longer has the social function it once had.

Luisa Cervelli