AMARCORDES - Mayone

Ascanio Mayone (1565 - 1627)

Italian composer, organist and harpist. He studied in Naples with G.D. da Nola; Camillo Lambardi was a fellow pupil. In 1593 he succeeded Scipione Stella as organist at the church of SS Annunziata with a salary of eight ducats per month. From 1595 he shared the duties of maestro di cappella with Lambardi. He remained at SS Annunziata until 1621 at the earliest, perhaps until his death. Scipione Cerreto listed him in 1601 among the excellent performers on the organ and the harp ‘a due ordini’ (a chromatic harp capable of playing sharps and flats). In 1602 he was appointed second organist of the royal chapel of the Spanish viceroys (the first organist was Trabaci). He probably performed in the houses of Marthos de Gorostiola and G.B. Suardo, Neapolitan noblemen to whom he dedicated his keyboard volumes. He became first organist of the royal chapel in September 1614 when Trabaci succeeded Macque as maestro di cappella. Among his pupils were Pietro Guarino and his own son Giulio, called ‘Ciullo dell’Arpa’, both of whom held major posts as organists in Naples.

Mayone’s Primo libro di diversi capricci antedates Trabaci’s Ricercate by five months and is the first publication containing keyboard music in a new style, full of the restless rhythms and abruptly contrasting sections associated with early Baroque instrumental music. His pieces, with those of Macque and Trabaci, are the direct ancestors of Frescobaldi’s keyboard style. Mayone’s figuration abandons the evenly flowing scales and cadential trills preferred by the Venetians in favour of short, distinctively patterned motifs. Sections, particularly in the toccatas and variations, are constructed of such short motifs repeated many times, a type of composition which owes much to Macque.

Mayone recognized the novelty of his keyboard music, and wrote in the preface to his book of 1609: ‘Let him not be scandalized and adjudge me little observant of the rules of counterpoint. Whenever compositions are adorned with passage-work there will occur some false notes that pass contrary to the contrapuntal laws; but without them it is impossible to make a beautiful effect.’ He indicated the inclusion of some ricercares in the strict style for those who might be displeased by his new manner of composition, adding that ‘everyone should be nourished by what he finds most pleasing’.

His ricercares, although composed in a conservative contrapuntal style, are among the first to employ the same theme or themes throughout, and thus call to mind Frescobaldi’s fantasias of 1608; they are original in their melodic and rhythmic transformations of themes. Three of the ‘ricercares’ in the book of 1609 are based on cantus firmi: one on Ave maris stella and two on La spagna. The last of these is one of the first pieces specifically calling for harp. The same book also contains an intabulation of Io mi son giovinetta, on which Stella and Montella collaborated with Mayone.

His partitas are more sophisticated than those of Valente; each variation is characterized by a particular motivic pattern repeated several times. They are less daring than Trabaci’s, however, adhering closely to the original harmonic skeleton, whereas Trabaci’s deviate considerably. His canzonas are among the earliest to reveal the abrupt changes of texture, from imitative to figural, typical of Frescobaldi’s examples in this genre. Mayone’s most advanced and original compositions are his toccatas. Two out of the five from the book of 1609 are composed for a cimbalo cromatico (these are the earliest known works that specifically call for a chromatic harpsichord); they move to such distant chords as D and F. Several of the toccatas open rhapsodically with unsteady rhythms over a sustained pedal note, followed by sections based on short repeated patterns; they are the prototype of the toccatas like those of Froberger. Some of the toccatas conclude with an imitative section, and thus approach toccata-and-fugue form.