As a recorder player, I am often engaged in the historical performance practice of Renaissance and Baroque music, with a special interest in ornamentation—an aspect that plays a crucial role in this repertoire. In the past, I have carried out detailed research on the ornamentation styles of Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) and Giovanni Bassano (1561-1617). This research also focuses on late 16th-century Italian diminutions, a practice that significantly influenced the rest of Europe. In the 16th century, for the first time, vocal and instrumental music placed greater focus on virtuosic diminution practice. Numerous treatises and examples were published, showcasing how an instrumentalist or singer could ornament a single voice in an elaborate manner, or even move through multiple voices. Yet, finding practical guidance for a historically informed interpretation remains challenging. Many sources, such as Rostirolla (1992), Honea (2025) and Dickey (2007), provide extremely valuable insights but often take a broader approach rather than exploring the details of a single composer. Additionally, they typically lack a practical focus on how to write or improvise diminutions in the style of a specific composer, as their approach is more generally centered on late 16th-century diminution practices.
In this study, I focus on the diminutions in Giovanni Battista Bovicelli’s book Regole, passaggi di musica, madrigali e motetti passegiatti (Venice, 1594). Bovicelli provides examples of diminutions that can be applied to various intervals and melodic lines. After providing some background information, I analyze these diminutions according to seven musical criteria and present and discuss my findings. Besides that, this information is compared with previous research on Giovanni Bassano’s style, in which I analyzed the ornamented intervals and cadences in his treatise Regole, passaggi di musica (Venice, 1585) in a similar way. This allows me to identify characteristics unique to each composer and, carefully, identify some traits that may be generally representative of late 16th-century Italian music. Finally, I will compose my own diminutions on Anchor che col partire by Cipriano de Rore, trying to reproduce Bovicelli’s style and compare the results to the Bassano-style version I wrote during my previous research.
This research directly influences my performance practice. As a member of The Royal Wind Music and Duo Helia I regularly engage with Renaissance repertoire. The insights I gain help me play and create more stylistically accurate diminutions, particularly in our programs featuring Italian music from this era.
The goal of this research is to analyze and summarize Bovicelli’s diminutions, define his style, and, based on that, create my own diminutions. By comparing these findings with my previous research on Bassano, I aim to deepen my understanding of late 16th-century Italian ornamentation style. This leads to the following research question: What characteristics define Bovicelli’s style of creating diminutions, and how do they compare to those of Bassano?
