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Updated: June 28, 2025
In view, then, of the state of part song composition in Italy at the time when Poliziano's "Orfeo" was written we are safe in assuming that its two choral numbers were set to music of the frottola type.
The use of the refrains, "l'aria di pianti" in the first, and "Ciascun segua, O Bacco, te," in the second, is an additional influence in moving us toward this conclusion because we know that it was the employment of the refrain which helped to lead the frottola toward the strophic form of the song.
The "Cortegiano" dates from 1514, though it was not published till a few years later, and the frottola was at the zenith of its excellence in the time of Bernado Tromboncino, who belongs to the latter half of the fifteenth century. Quentin, who died in 1518.
Two of his frottole appear in the Petrucci collection, showing that he was acquainted with this Italian form, and that his productions in it were known and admired in Italy. His frottole are distinguished by uncommon grace and gaiety, for the frottola was generally rather passionate and melancholy, and full of what Castiglione called "flebile dolcezza."
The accompaniment on the mellow lyra di braccio, one of the tender sisters of the viola, was a simplified version of the subordinate voice parts of the frottola. And perchance there were even other instruments, an embryonic orchestra. Here, indeed, we must pause lest reconstructive ardor carry us too far.
The subject has been exhaustively and learnedly studied by Ambros, who has examined the frottola in all its varieties. This, he is certain, is one of the carnival songs which Heinrich Isaak was wont to write at the pleasure of Lorenzo.
We find ourselves, then, equipped with these significant facts: first, that the composition of secular music in polyphonic forms was at least as old as the thirteenth century; that part singing was practised in Italy as far back as the fourteenth century; that songs for one voice were made with Italian texts at least as early as the time of Dante and Boccaccio; that the art of arranging polyphonic compositions as vocal solos by giving the secondary parts to the accompanying instrument was known in the time of Minuccio and Casella; that at the time of Poliziano's "Orfeo" the frottola was the reigning form of part song, and that then and for years afterward it was customary to arrange frottole as solos by giving the polyphony to the lute or other accompanying instrument.
He demands for this species of song a simple and easily comprehended harmony, such as appears only in common melodies. So we see that a frottola is practically a folk song artistically treated. Naples, 1613. "He who puts into a frottola fugues, imitations, etc., is like one who sets a worthless stone in gold.
Josquin was a singer in the Sistine Chapel in 1484 and his first successes as a composer were obtained in Rome. Later he went to Ferrara where he wrote for the Duke Ercole d'Este his famous mass, "Hercules Dux Ferrariæ." But these activities of Josquin had little relation to the frottola.
It rested first on the basis of the frottola, but when the elegant and gracious madrigal provided an art form better suited to the opulence of the decorative features of the embryonic lyric drama, the madrigal became the dominating element in the music. Together with it we find in time the dance slowly assuming that shape which eventually became the foundation of the suite.
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