Just as in the case of the learned ricercare at mid-century, the entertaining canzona was soon adapted
for instrumental ensembles. The earliest examples are found as fillers or bonuses in madrigal books,
suggesting that they were meant for home use, to spell the singers or provide some variety at convivial
music parties. The earliest book devoted entirely to canzoni da sonare was by Florentio Maschera, a
pupil of Merulo, who worked as cathedral organist at Brescia, one of the more westerly cities in the
republic of Venice. Short, simple four-part works for home use, they were published in Venice in 1584
and went through many editions.
By then, however, the Venice organists had begun adapting the canzona to their wonted theatrical
purposes. Andrea Gabrieli and his older colleague Annibale Padovano (1527–75), possibly in friendly
competition, had each written a canzona-to-end-allcanzonas for eight-part wind ensemble deployed
antiphonally in double choirs, based on the old chanson-to-end-all-chansons, Janequin’s La guerre (alias
“La battaille de Marignan”). Like some other big concerted works of Andrea’s, they were probably
composed for the Lepanto victory celebrations in 1571. The second half of Andrea’s Aria della battaglia
(Ex. 18-15), corresponding to Janequin’s “Fan frere le le lan fan” (see Ex. 17-9), and as idiomatic to the
wind instruments as Janequin’s mouth-music was to tongues and teeth, is one of the earliest examples of
real instrumental concert music in something like the modern sense.
The big band battle-piece became a standard instrumental subgenre in the heyday of the canzona. It
even exerted a curious back-influence on vocal liturgical music. The flamboyant nine-part Missa pro
Victoria by Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548–1611), a Spanish organist and composer who worked for many
years in Rome, was published in Madrid in 1600. Often described as a parody Mass on Janequin’s La
guerre, it is really more like a big canzona for voices, very much in the highly sectionalized fanfare-like
style of Gabrieli’s Aria della battaglia. The Benedictus section from the Sanctus (Ex. 18-16) is yet
another big blowout on Janequin’s immortal “Fan frere le le lan fan.”
EX. 18-15 Andrea Gabrieli, Aria della battaglia, secunda pars, mm. 1–4