Un catalogue pour improviser : les Ricercari d’intavolatura d’organo de Claudio Merulo

The article proposes to demonstrate how the eight Ricercari d’intavolatura d’organo by Claudio Merulo, issued in 1567 by the composer’s own publishing house in Venice, could be considered a reflection of improvisation practice. They are based on ex tempore techniques, those illustrated by Girolamo Diruta, a pupil of Merulo, in the second book of the second part of Il Transilvano (1609), which is devoted to counterpoint and in particular to vocal contrappunto alla mente.
The musical subjects that determine the division of the Ricercari into successive sections are mostly treated by Merulo as harmonized cantus firmi, resulting in textures from two to four voices. The improvisational matrix is formed by a succession of consonant intervals in minims. The cantus firmi appear gradually in all voices and are played in alternate hands. The ornamentation, which also passes from one hand to the other, conceals the simplicity of the procedure while ensuring rhetorical efficacy. At each new entry of the subject, the musical elements are arranged in a new combination, according to the model of Gabriele Fattorini’s Accadenze, also included in the Diruta’s treatise. The sections developed on the basis of these patterns constitute a range of possibilities.
The non-imitative duo enriches the improviser’s palette. In subsequent presentations, the subject is repeated as is, or arranged on another hexachord and/or in inverted counterpoint. Merulo also uses stretto technique and sometimes harmonizes his subjects in parallel tenths, borrowing procedures typical of vocal improvisation.
When imitative procedures appear in the Ricercari, they are are relatively simple. Progressions in alternating fifths and sixths, also typical of the contrappunto alla mente, are masked by imitations, thanks to shifts of the entries. The melodic segments are alternately present in the homophonic passages and arranged in imitation. The beginnings of the Ricercari are all in imitative style; however, overlapping of parts that expose the subjects is limited, probably due to the improvisational origin of the pieces.
The subjects chosen by Merulo are relatively simple and favor motion by conjunct scale-degrees in minims. The opening ones are more complex and longer: rhythmically more varied, after beginning on long notes, they present at least a leap and a syncope or a dotted note. The passages without a subject, on the other hand, recall the composer’s toccatas.
The second Ricercare is distinguished from the others because it is based on a single subject exposed in an excessively regular way. This regularity derives from the exhaustion of his possibilities with a point of imitation only two minims apart.
The edition of the Ricercari has a mainly didactic purpose: it is destined for keyboard players at the first steps of their professional careers, for whom improvisation was at the heart of their skill, as witnessed by the competitions for organist positions. Therefore, Merulo’s Ricercari represents a springboard to acquisition of the mastery of the art of fantasia, insofar as the pieces offer a repertoire of subjects and patterns to be memorized and processed, from which to draw at will in ex tempore performances.
The Italian keyboard tablature used by Merulo reveals a second, complementary destination: the Ricercari can be played in their entirety or portions could be extracted by organists, whose improvisation skills were limited.
It appears that the generally negative evaluations of Merulo’s Ricercari are a consequence of a prejudice that saw in the Renaissance imitative ricercare a sophisticated and learned genre par excellence. The clear separation encoded in musical historiography between the imitative ricercare and improvisational genres, such as the toccata, needs to be rethought: the two genres include, at least in Merulo’s case, both homophonic and imitative passages, and constitute two complementary aspects of improvisation practice.