Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Nota.

A term used by Johannes de Grocheio and in several French lais, apparently describing lai form. See Lai, §1(iii).

Nota cambiata [changing note]

(It.: ‘changed note’; Fr. note de rechange; Ger. Wechselnote).

A type of Non-harmonic note. The term was introduced by Angelo Berardi (Miscellanea musicale, 1689) for an accented passing note, but after the publication of Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum (1725) it came to mean an unaccented non-harmonic note quitted by leap of a 3rd downwards; when used on its own, the noun Cambiata has a different (though related) meaning.

Both the ‘Berardian cambiata’ and the ‘Fuxian cambiata’ are regular features of Palestrina’s style, the latter offering the only examples in his music of dissonances resolved by leap (ex.1). More recently the term ‘nota cambiata’ has been extended to include similar configurations used in the 15th and 16th centuries, as in ex.2, and to other figures in which two notes following a dissonance have been interchanged (‘note cambiate’) so that the dissonance is likewise quitted by leap of a 3rd, as in ex.3.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

B. Ziehn: ‘Über die Cambiata und andere altklassische melodische Figuren’, AMz, xxv (1898), 497–8, 509–10, 525–6, 539–41

K. Jeppesen: Palestrinastil med saerligt henblik paa dissonansbehandlingen (Copenhagen, 1923; Eng. trans., 1927, 2/1946/R as The Style of Palestrina and the Dissonance)

C. Dahlhaus: ‘Die “Nota cambiata”’, KJb, xlvii (1963), 115–21

WILLIAM DRABKIN

Nota procellaris

(Lat.).

A type of ornament, possibly vibrato. See Ornaments, §1.

Notari, Angelo

(b Padua, 14 Jan 1566; d London, Dec 1663). Italian composer. Although his horoscope (GB-Lbl Sloane 1707) gives 14 January 1566 as his date of birth, the engraved portrait on the frontispiece of his Prime musiche nuove (dedication signed 24 November 1613) gives ‘Di Anni 40’. Presumably the engraving had been executed from a portrait painted some years before. Whether or not he was related to the madrigalist Giovanni Paolo Nodari (some of whose madrigals are in GB-Lbl Eg.3665), is not known. Before leaving Italy for England he was a member of the Venetian Accademia degli Sprovisti (with the nickname ‘Il Negligente’) and had contributed a piece to his fellow-Paduan Nicolò Legname’s book of canzonets (1608).

Arriving in England, he entered the household of Prince Henry in 1610 or 1611; by 1618 he was in the service of Prince Charles. He seems to have acted as a spy for Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, between 1621 and 1623, and on Christmas Day 1622 he sang at Mass in the ambassador’s chapel. He continued to serve Prince Charles when he became king in 1625 and remained nominally one of the ‘Lutes and Voices’ of Charles II, in whose service he died. He may for a time about 1642 have belonged to the household of Lady (Mary) Herbert, wife of Sir Richard Herbert, and may have travelled on the Continent during the Commonwealth.

His Prime musiche nuove was engraved by William Hole and published in London in 1613, or soon after. It contains settings of Italian poems in a variety of styles: monody (e.g. Ahi, che s’acresce in me), romanesca variations (Piangono al pianger mio), canzonetta (Girate, occhi), chamber duet (Intenerite voi), and divisions on Rore’s madrigal Ben quì si mostra. A preface in English refers to the trillo – ‘a kinde of sweetnes in your voice’ – the symbol for which he gives as ‘the letter “t” ether with one or two notes’. Undoubtedly this book was an important vehicle for the introduction of the more advanced Italian styles into England, even though the monodic pieces are on the whole less successful than the chamber duets and canzonettas. Notari also seems to have been the compiler of a manuscript of Italian monodies and other pieces (Lbl Add.31440), as well as parts of Och 878–80 (both dating from soon after 1643). These contain works by Monteverdi and various monodists, and possibly pieces by Notari himself. His portrait is reproduced in A.M. Hind: Engraving in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ii (Cambridge, 1964), pl.211.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AshbeeR; BDECM

I. Spink: ‘Angelo Notari and his “Prime Musiche Nuove”’, MMR, lxxxvii (1957), 168–76

P.J. Willetts: ‘A Neglected Source of Monody and Madrigal’, ML, xliii (1962), 329–39

P.J. Willetts: ‘Autographs of Angelo Notari’, ML, i (1969), 124–6

S. Boorman: ‘Notari, Porter and the Lute’, LSJ, xiii (1971), 28–35

C. Egerton: ‘The Horoscope of Signor Angelo Notari’, LSJ, xxviii (1988), 13–18

J. Wainwright: Musical Patronage in Seventeenth-century England: Christopher, First Baron Hatton (1605–1670) (Aldershot, 1996)

IAN SPINK

Nota sensibile

(It.).

See Leading note.

Notation.

A visual analogue of musical sound, either as a record of sound heard or imagined, or as a set of visual instructions for performers.

This article includes a discussion of notation in society (§II), subdivided into its primary types, which are considered with reference to various notational systems. Other specialized aspects of notation are considered in separate entries: Braille notation; Cheironomy; Ekphonetic notation; Pitch nomenclature; Shape-note hymnody; Solmization; Tablature; and Tonic Sol-fa. For non-Western notational systems see, in particular, China, §§II, IV; Indonesia; and Japan, §III, 4. Other related entries on technical subjects include Conducting; Improvisation; Mode; Psychology of music; Scale; and Tuning.

Whereas Western notation is considered as such in §III, a discussion of musical documents as sources – their physical make-up and production, their format, the layout and presentation of the music, the ordering of their contents – will be found in Sources, MS; Sources of instrumental ensemble music to 1630; Sources of keyboard music to 1660; and Sources of lute music; in these entries reference is made to notations, and the descriptions of individual sources contain statements on notational types. See also Accidental; Clef; Continuo; Note values; Ornaments; Proportional notation; Rest; Score; Staff; and definitions of individual notational terms.

I. General

II. Notational systems

III. History of Western notation.

IAN D. BENT/DAVID W. HUGHES, ROBERT C. PROVINE, RICHARD RASTALL (I–II, with ANNE KILMER I, 2), DAVID HILEY, JANKA SZENDREI (III, 1), DAVID HILEY/THOMAS B. PAYNE (III, 2), MARGARET BENT (III, 3), GEOFFREY CHEW/RICHARD RASTALL (III, 4–6)

Notation