Artifex mirus (Nanino, Giovanni Maria)

[dwscores]

http://imslp.org/wiki/Artifex_mirus_(Na ... nni_Maria)

This work has a dual text, with the Latin being religious (though not liturgical) and the Italian being secular (a love song). I have therefore tagged it as both a madrigal and motet [nay "sacred song"], which seems to be composers intent and in line with the practices of the day.

It comes from a collection of madrigals though and there are madrigals with at least quasi-religious texts, so an argument could be made for removing the motet [nay "sacred song"] tag.

[Edit] I have changed the motet tag to "Sacred songs", that should clear it up. However, my understanding of the use of the term Motet in Catholic practice is that it is applied to any sacred choral piece outside of the Ordinary, the term "Sacred Song" is not something that I would apply in this context and is certainly not what any Catholic composer of the era would have called it. "Sacred song" seems more of a protestant designation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motet

...the Renaissance motet is a polyphonic musical setting, sometimes in imitative counterpoint, for chorus, of a Latin text, usually sacred, not specifically connected to the liturgy of a given day, and therefore suitable for use in any service. The texts of antiphons were frequently used as motet texts. This is the sort of composition that is most familiarly designated by the term "motet," and the Renaissance period marked the flowering of the form.

In essence, these motets were sacred madrigals. The relationship between the two forms is most obvious in the composers who concentrated on sacred music, especially Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, whose "motets" setting texts from the Canticum Canticorum, the biblical "Song of Solomon," are among the most lush and madrigal-like of Palestrina's compositions, while his "madrigals" that set poems of Petrarch in praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary would not be out of place in church. The language of the text was the decisive feature: if it's Latin, it's a motet; if the vernacular, a madrigal. Religious compositions in vernacular languages were often called madrigali spirituali, "spiritual madrigals." Like their madrigal cousins, Renaissance motets developed in episodic format, with separate phrases of the source text being given independent melodic treatment and contrapuntal development; contrapuntal passages often alternate with monody.

[Davydov]

Trying to track down the original source of this work, to see if it would help clear up the confusion, I found a reference on Worldcat, which has the cataloguers note:

"Contains sacred texts set to the music of secular works by Monteverdi, R. Giovanelli, A. Banchieri, L. Marenzio, A. Gabrieli, Orazio Vecchi and G.M. Nanino. "

Since Grove Online makes no mention of the Artifex mirus in its Nanino worklist, are we perhaps dealing with a Italian secular madrigal that was adapted by someone else as a Latin spiritual work? If that's the case then only the "madrigals" tag is applicable, since that was the form of the original work, and the page should also be renamed to the original Italian title. What do you think?

[dwscores]

I'm not sure if it is possible to tell for sure without looking at the original manuscript. It is not unknown to have a single composer style something with both secular and religious texts, and it is certainly also not unusual for others to do so separately.

Your Worldcat reference does seem to indicate that the latter is the case, so you are right, it should be listed as and Italian madrigal only. I'll change it.