Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Nascinbeni [Nascimbeni], Maria Francesca

(b Ancona, 1658; fl 1674). Italian composer. Her name is spelt Nascimbeni in modern reference works, but it appears as Nascinbeni in her publications, the only sources of information about her. She studied in Ancona with Scipione Lazzarini, an Augustinian monk, who included her motet Sitientes venite in his Motetti a due e tre voci (RISM 1674¹). In 1674 she also published a volume of her own music, Canzoni e madrigali morali e spirituali a una, due e tre voci e organo (one ed. in Jackson, 1990), dedicated to Olimpia Aldobrandini Pamphili, mother of Pope Innocent X and Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili. In the dedication she described herself as being 16 years old.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

SchmidlD

B.G. Jackson: Preface to Two Sacred Works for Three Treble Voices [incl. Non tema nò di morte, from Canzoni e madrigali] (Fayetteville, AR, 1990)

B.G. Jackson: Preface to Maria Francesca Nascinbeni: Sitientes venite (Fayetteville, AR, 1995)

B.G. Jackson: Preface to Maria Francesca Nascinbeni: una fiamma novente, Women Composers: Music through the Ages, ii (New York, 1996)

BARBARA GARVEY JACKSON

Nasco, Jan [Gian, Giovanni]

(b c1510; d Treviso, 1561). Netherlandish composer, active in Italy. Sometimes known as ‘Metre Gian’, Nasco has often been mistaken for Maistre Jhan of Ferrara, an older composer of French origin. In 1547, four years after its foundation, the Accademia Filarmonica of Verona chose him as its first musical director. (He had previously been in the personal service of the nobleman Paolo Naldi in nearby Vicenza.) In 1551 he reluctantly left the academy for the better-paid post of maestro di cappella of Treviso Cathedral, an appointment he held until his death. However, he maintained a close association with the academy, to which he dedicated his first book of madrigals; in a series of letters to the Accademia, Nasco made informative remarks about contemporary performing practice, particularly regarding the use of instruments in motets and madrigals. Shortly after his death his widow dedicated a volume of his sacred works to the members of the academy in acknowledgment of their interest and support.

Along with Vincenzo Ruffo and Jacquet de Berchem, Nasco belonged to the group of musicians working near Venice and greatly influenced by Willaert. He had special ties with Ruffo, maestro di cappella of Verona Cathedral and for a time also employed by the academy. Perhaps in friendly competition instigated by the academy, Nasco and Ruffo set many of the same texts, notably a series of verses by Ariosto; Ruffo published five of Nasco's madrigals in his own second book of five-part madrigals (1553²⁸). To a large extent Nasco's choice of poets (Petrarch, Boccaccio, Ariosto, Folengo, Bembo and Tasso) reflects the tastes and attitudes of his literary-minded patrons. Like Berchem, he was drawn to the madrigal cycle. The pastoralism of texts like Su la fiorita riva (1554) led Einstein to call such works, by Nasco and others, prototypes of the later chamber cantata. In Nasco's secular works there is usually syllabic declamation with careful text setting, and in secular and sacred pieces alike there is a strong inclination to homophonic writing; Nasco showed a keen ear for sonorous effect as well as a remarkably modern conception of harmonic function. One madrigal introduces amusing imitations of cuckoo, nightingale and frog. In others, Nasco extolled the cities of Lodi, Venice and Vicenza.

Nasco composed in all the sacred forms. Relatively little was published, and unfortunately only a small part of the extensive manuscript repertory at Treviso survived World War II. Among the items lost were four masses, Nasco's only known works in that form. Of particular interest among the surviving large-scale pieces are a vernacular canzon spirituale in 13 sections in honour of the Blessed Sacrament and a setting of the St Matthew Passion (once regarded as the work of Maistre Jhan) that may have served as a model for Rore's St John Passion (1557); participants in the narrative are represented by characteristic voice-combinations, varying from two to six voices. The setting, simple, direct and effective, is almost entirely homophonic in a style close to the popular falsobordone writing of a later generation.

WORKS

sacred

Lamentatione a voce pari … 4vv, con doi Passii, il Benedictus et le sue antiphone (Venice, 1561)

Passio Domini Secundum Mattaeum, I-Bc Q24; ed. in Schmitz

Motets and other sacred works in 1549^8, 1550^1 (ed. in CMM, iii/8, 1972), 1557^6, 1563^4, 1563^7, 1591^27, 1600^5, I-TVd 7, 14 and 22

secular

Madrigali … 5vv (Venice, 1548), inc.

Il primo libro de madrigali, 4vv, insieme la canzone di rospi e rossignuol (Venice, 1554); ed. in SCMad, xx (1991) [1 rev. in 1589^12]

Il primo libro di canzon villanesche alla napolitana, 4vv (Venice, 1556)

Il segondo libro di madrigali, 5vv (Venice, 1557); ed. in SCMad, xxi (1992)

Le canzon et madrigali, 6vv, con uno dialogo, 7vv (Venice, 1557); 2 ed. in Cw, lxxxviii (1961)

Other secular works in 1549^31, 1553^28, 1554^28, 1557^23, 1559^16, 1559^18, 1561^10, 1 ed. in Cw, lviii (1956), 1561^16, 1562^5, 1566^17, 1567^16, 1579^4, 1588^19, I-VEaf 223

BIBLIOGRAPHY

EinsteinIM

O. Kade: Die ältere Passionskomposition bis zum Jahre 1631 (Gütersloh, 1893/R)

G. Turrini: ‘Il maestro fiammingo Giovanni Nasco a Verona (1547–1551)’, NA, xiv (1937), 180–225

G. Turrini: L'Accademia filarmonica di Verona dalla fondazione (maggio 1543) al 1600 (Verona, 1941)

G. d'Alessi: La cappella musicale del duomo di Treviso (1300–1633) (Vedelago, 1954)

A. Schmitz, ed.: Oberitalienische Figuralpassionen des 16. Jahrhunderts, Musikalische Denkmäler, i (Mainz, 1955)

C.A. Elias: ‘Musical Performance in Sixteenth-Century Italian Literature: Straparola's Le piacevoli notte’, EMc, xvii (1989), 161–73

H.M. Brown: ‘Madrigals for the Accademia Filarmonica of Verona: Nasco's First Book of 1548’, Akademie und Musik: Festschrift für Werner Braun zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. W. Frobenius and others (Saarbrücken, 1993), 165–80

GEORGE NUGENT