Help: "El Grillo" lyrics
Jeffrey Rich
but we don't know about the languages involved. Is this a mixture of Spanish
and Italian? Should the title be pronounced "ell gree-lo", or "el gree-yo"?
And what, in general, is the history behind early pieces with mixed languages?
Perplexed,
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Jeffrey Rich Sirsi Corporation
(205)922-9820 x282
(private replies welcome! Send to: jef...@sirsi.com)
Olivier Bettens
>Help! A group that I am singing with wants to perform the madrigal "El Grillo"
>but we don't know about the languages involved. Is this a mixture of Spanish
>and Italian? Should the title be pronounced "ell gree-lo", or "el gree-yo"?
>And what, in general, is the history behind early pieces with mixed languages?
>
If you talk about Josquin's _frottola_ _El grillo e buon cantore_, it's
written in pure Italian. _El_ is a dialectal form for _Il_(usual Italian
article). Adopting a modern Italian pronunciation would there be a
relatively good approximation : Italian pronunciation has less evolved
during the five past centuries than English or French one. But a native
Italian speaker would probably correct me on this point...
Pieces with mixed dialects or mixed languages exist in the Renaissance (f.
ex. the French _Fricassees_), always in a burlesque purpose : people like to
laugh about strange languages. There, each dialect or language has to be
pronounced in a caricatured way.
Olivier Bettens
Lausanne, Switzerland E-mail obet...@ping.ch
Tel. +41 21 647 11 60 bet...@dial.eunet.ch
Gadfly
Olivier Bettens <bet...@DIAL.EUNET.CH> wrote:
>>A group that I am singing with wants to perform the madrigal "El Grillo"
>>but we don't know about the languages involved. Is this a mixture of Spanish
>If you talk about Josquin's _frottola_ _El grillo e buon cantore_, it's
>written in pure Italian. _El_ is a dialectal form for _Il_(usual Italian
>article). Adopting a modern Italian pronunciation would there be a
>relatively good approximation...
Note also that this may not simply be a ditty about crickets--powerful
Cardinal Ascanio Sforza was apparently referred to as "El Grillo".
*** ***
Ken Perlow ***** *****
06 Jun 95 ****** ****** 18 Prairial An CCIII
***** ***** gad...@ctc.att.com
** ** ** **
...L'AUDACE! *** *** TOUJOURS DE L'AUDACE! ENCORE DE L'AUDACE!
Francois Velde
Last time this topic came up (in August 1991; my, how time flies),
Helen Johnston <h...@SURYA.CALTECH.EDU> wrote:
: David Munrow, in his liner notes for "The Art of the Netherlands",
: points out that Carlo Grillo was a singer in the service of Galeazzo
: Sforza in Milan before 1474; the piece was written by Josquin during
: the 1470's when he was was working in Milan for Cardinal Ascanio
: Sforza. So the whole thing is possibly a pun on the name of a singer.
: He also says "Besides imitating the chirrups of the cricket, [the song]
: also contains what is probably a surreptious dig at the Cardinal
: himself, who was renowned for his meanness."
Giuseppe Cataneo noted that the Italian article 'il' becomes 'el' in
modern Milanese slang.
It's all there, in the rec.music.early archives,
<gopher://osiris.wu-wien/ac/at:71/1/pub/earlym/>
check it out!
--
Francois Velde
Johns Hopkins University
ve...@jhu.edu
margaret hasselman
Jeffrey Rich <jef...@R530.SIRSI.COM> writes:
>Help! A group that I am singing with wants to perform the madrigal "El Grillo"
>but we don't know about the languages involved. Is this a mixture of Spanish
>and Italian? Should the title be pronounced "ell gree-lo", or "el gree-yo"?
>And what, in general, is the history behind early pieces with mixed languages?
>
It's my understanding that "El Grillo" is Italian, but dialect - that's the
end of my expertise - someone take over! That would suggest "greelo" as the
pronunciation, IMO.
Mixed-language pieces are lots of fun. Are you talking about
Latin-plus-vernacular songs, like In Dulci Jubilo? There is also a
strange-but-wonderful poem (no music, as far as I know) with some 5 stanzas,
each in a different Romance language, dating from the EARLY Middle Ages.
Margaret
Giorgio
Ga> Olivier Bettens <bet...@DIAL.EUNET.CH> wrote:
>>A group that I am singing with wants to perform the madrigal "El Grillo"
>>but we don't know about the languages involved. Is this a mixture of
>>and Italian?...
>If you talk about Josquin's _frottola_ _El grillo e buon cantore_, it's
>written in pure Italian. _El_ is a dialectal form for _Il_(usual Italian
>article). Adopting a modern Italian pronunciation would there be a
>relatively good approximation...
Ga> Note also that this may not simply be a ditty about crickets--powerful
Ga> Cardinal Ascanio Sforza was apparently referred to as "El Grillo".
I knew I had heard it another way and found this version on a old Musica
Reservata record of Josquin:
"The theory is that this piece refers to Carlo Grillo, a singer who worked
for the same patron as Josquin, Cardinal Galeazzo Sforza, and that it was
intended to remind the prelate that his musicians' salaries were
overdue. The Sforzas were apparently notoriously mean to their employees,
in spite of (or possibly because of) the fact that one of them was happy to
pay a large sum of money for a parrot that could recite the Creed.
Certainly the words of this little piece, with their reference to the
cricket "who sings for love" seem to have a good deal more impact if
interpreted in this sardonic light..."
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12