LAUD. — Spiritual lauds, extra-liturgical religious songs in the vernacular, developed in the 13th century in Umbria and then in Tuscany with the rise of various penitential confraternities (Companies of Laudantes or Laudists or Laudesi, of the Disciplinati, Flagellati, Battuti, etc.). They spread throughout Italy and beyond the Alps and, in terms of duration, lasted until the 19th century, although they no longer retained the aspect of 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 laud includes, it is true, the two major monodic and polyphonic genres, but in reality, even when it is polyphonic, the peculiar type of its texture is distinctly monodic, inasmuch as the melodic predominance of the upper voice is evident, which, with its usual homorhythm and harmonic simplicity—given the popular character of such songs—was meant to capture the attention and memory of unskilled performers. Even when, with Animuccia and other composers of the 16th century, the laud flourished contemporaneously with the full apogee of polyphony, the imminent triumph of accompanied monody is already discernible within it; this had been prepared in the laud not by a polyphonic-contrapuntal function, but rather by an harmonic-instrumental one, with the other voices supporting the melody in the upper register. Chronologically, the first historical phase of the laud, which spans from the 12th to the 15th century, comprises the development of three forms: lyrical, narrative, and dialogic. The first extends from its beginnings to the mid-15th century; the second is entirely contained within the 16th century; the third emerges at the end of the 16th century only to be immediately supplanted by the recitative style, which in the full 17th century would culminate in the musical oratorio. Of this first phase, Umbria in particular stands out, especially with the beginning of the Franciscan movement (the Canticle of the Creatures by St. Francis, even in the silence of the musical staff left blank in the codex 338 of Assisi, reveals the world of melodious life that fermented in the ardent outbursts of the Saint, the Juggler of God), followed by Tuscany, which was also teeming with Gregorianists and confraternities. The codices of Cortona and Florence preserve texts by Jacopone da Todi, Ugo Panizza da Prato, Garzo dell’Incisa, and others, interwoven with fresh melodies that, combining the spring-like lightness of popular song with the stately majesty of a not distant Gregorian inspiration, achieved in Italy a phenomenon analogous to that which occurred in Germany with the rise of the geistliches Lied and in France with Provençal spiritual lyricism and the early stages of religious troubadour poetry. As the Latin tongue gave way to the vernacular, in the musical sphere the fresh vitality of popular song broke free from the austere hieraticism of Gregorian chant and, while retaining its echoes in ear and soul, sang of Faith and its mysteries, of the Passion and its torments, with the new and vibrant accents of humanity of the penitents who, hymning the Cross, wandered through the sunlit lands of Italy.
The principal sources of this earliest period are the Laudario of Cortona (codex 91), from the late 13th century; codex Magliabechiano II (1-122, National Library of Florence), from the first half of the 14th century; codex 180 of Arezzo; the Laudario of Paris (ms. 8521 of the Arsenal Library); the Laudario of the Battuti of Modena, from 1377; the Laudario of Udine (Civic Library), from the 14th century; that of Borgo San Sepolcro (14th–15th century); and others.
The second, polyphonic phase arose in the early 16th century and reached its peak shortly after the middle of the century with the figure of Giovanni Animuccia, who elevated the laud to an art form, bringing its harmonic structure to the timbral and spatial richness of the double choir. The poetic texts were no longer confined to the schemes of the stanza, canzone, or ballad, as had predominated in the previous phase, but also—and especially—adopted the madrigal form, which, evolving from an almost embryonic structure of seven lines, attained the broader scope of the epic-dramatic compositions of Anerio. The authors, however, were still largely drawn from the lyrical-devotional repertoire of the 14th–15th centuries. Among the most illustrious names are Bianco da Siena, Fano di Belcari, Girolamo Benivieni, Castellano de’ Castellani, Francesco d’Albizzo, Lorenzo de’ Medici, Girolamo Savonarola, and others. Of the 16th century, particular mention must be made of the collections printed in 1500 and 1507 by Ottaviano Petrucci of Fossombrone and studied in depth by K. Jeppesen (v. BIBLICA).
The laud, having reached an artistic level with Animuccia that was not then unknown, entered a field exceptionally fertile for development: the environment of the Congregation of the Oratory, founded by St. Philip Neri, through which it was integrated into the historical period of the Catholic Reformation. St. Philip, assigning the laud a privileged place in his devotional exercises—using it, that is, as an introductory and closing song in which the sermon was framed—gave it that bipartite division which foreshadowed the structure of the great oratorios of the 17th century. The Philipine laud, therefore, which is the direct precursor of the oratorio in the vernacular—just as the motet is of the oratorio in Latin—first took shape in the simple songs intoned in the gatherings of a few faithful disciples around St. Philip, reaching the apex of its polyphonic style with Animuccia; it found its most effective expression of monodic style in the Diletto spirituale of St. Vervio (1586), and in 1619 (Teatro armonico of Anerio) it passed into the new halls of recitative style, which is to say the prelude to the true oratorio. Among the collections of Philipine lauds printed in the second half of the 16th century, the principal ones are: 1563: I Laudi of G. Animuccia; 1570: II Laudi by the same; 1577: III Laudi by F. Soto; 1583, 1588, 1591: the first four books by F. Soto; 1598: V Laudi by Soto; 1599: Tempio armonico della B. V., edited by Fr. Giovenale Anicina. Among the poets, the principal names are A. Manni and Giovanni Anicina; among the musicians, G. Animuccia, Palestrina, Victoria, and Soto.
Under its great offspring, the oratorio, the laud continued to live on in a limited and modest way, for the songs of the people at gatherings, processions, and pilgrimages. Even today, some musicians still take care to cultivate this traditional art form, though it no longer fulfills the social function it once had.