Canzona Bergamasca

Score and Parts-Samuel Scheidt's Canzone Bergamasca for Brass Quintet. Score and parts.Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654) was one of the influential trio of S's (with Heinrich Schutz and Johann Hermann Schein)who played an important part in both the development of German music of the early Baroque and in the survival of a high level of musical life during the devastation of the Thirty Years War.The son of a musical family of Halle in central Germany Scheidt spent most of his life in the city which saw both his birth and his death. From 1605 to 1608 however he went ot Amsterdam to study with the famous Ducth composer and organist Jan PietersSweelinck.Renowned in his day for his Vocal works - especially for his 'Concerti Sacri' - Scheidt achieved lasting fame for his revolutionary contributions to Organ literature. He introduced elements of tonal harmonyin his music and his masterwork 'Tabulatura Nova' marked the end of the German tablature system of notation for Organ.The Canzone Bergamasca marked by lively rhythms and contrapuntal inventiveness comesfrom an early collection of canzonas and dances published in Hamburg in 1621. The work is a 'chain' canzona (similar in form to the canzonas of Gabrieli) in which the material for one section develops out of the material of theprevious section uniquely linking all of the sections together. For additional contrast there is a tripla section in the middle and the work ends with a recapitulation of the first theme.The 'Bergamasca' of the title atthis period refers to the use of melodic material based on a harmonic ground derived from an Italian folk dance of the Bergamo region.