Simply... Philharmonic!4: Passegiate y canzoni del rinascimento by Sandrin, Ortiz, D., Rore, Bonizzi, Milano, F. D., Rognoni, Lassus, O. D., Salaverde, Barbetta, Des Prez, Valderrábano, Narváez, Luys De, Pharo, Sermisy, mið 13 mar 2024, Frá (2024/2024), Filharmonia Narodowa, Warsaw, Poland

One of the sources of the progressive emancipation of instrumental music around the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was diminution technique. This was based on the refashioning of an existing melodic model (usually taken from an existing vocal or dance work) through the use of shorter rhythmic values for the notes of the original melody. One may suspect that the diminutions initially represented a method of instrumental improvisation on a given theme. Yet as the German theorist Johannes Mattheson noted in the eighteenth century, instrumental music may be compared to the language of sounds; hence the sequencing and combining of notes should be precisely thought through. So diminution ought not to be just arbitrary rhythmic fragmentation with the use of any notes, but also a means of ornamentation, governed by particular aesthetic principles. One of the first treatises describing this technique is Diego Ortiz’s Trattado de Glosas, published in 1553. Besides describing ornamentation techniques for bowed string instruments, the author also gave his own examples of diminution, based on Renaissance compositions. In the principles of ornamentation proposed by Ortiz, we can discern sources of inspiration for later composers, such as Vincenzo Bonizzi and Bartolomé de Selma y Salaverde.