The canzona is an Italian musical form derived from the Franco-Flemish and Parisian

chanson A (, , french: chanson française, link=no, ; ) is generally any lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music. The genre had origins in the monophonic so ...

s, and during Giovanni Gabrieli's lifetime was frequently spelled canzona, though both earlier and later the singular was spelled either canzon or canzone with the plural canzoni. The use of canzone as the plural is sometimes found in Italian, but is not common. English (and often German) uses the form canzona, with canzonas as the plural.

Background

The canzona is an instrumental musical form that differs from the similar forms of

ricercare A ricercar ( , ) or ricercare ( , ) is a type of late Renaissance and mostly early Baroque instrumental composition. The term ''ricercar'' derives from the Italian verb which means 'to search out; to seek'; many ricercars serve a preludial funct ...

and

fantasia Fantasia International Film Festival (also known as Fantasia-fest, FanTasia, and Fant-Asia) is a film festival that has been based mainly in Montreal since its founding in 1996. Regularly held in July of each year, it is valued by both hardcor ...

in its livelier, markedly rhythmic material and separation into distinct sections. At first based on the Franco-Flemish

polyphonic Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, ...

songs (chansons) that gave it its name, the instrumental canzona was soon independently composed, not least by Gabrieli in his brass canzonas and by

Girolamo Frescobaldi Girolamo Alessandro Frescobaldi (; also Gerolamo, Girolimo, and Geronimo Alissandro; September 15831 March 1643) was an Italian composer and virtuoso keyboard player. Born in the Duchy of Ferrara, he was one of the most important composers of k ...

in his keyboard canzonas. As a form, the canzona would influence the

fugue In music, a fugue () is a contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject (a musical theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and which recurs frequently in the co ...

, and the ensemble canzonas were the direct ancestors of the 17th-century ''

sonata da chiesa Sonata da chiesa (Italian: "church sonata") is a 17th-century genre of musical composition for one or more melody instruments and is regarded an antecedent of later forms of 18th century instrumental music. It generally comprises four movements, t ...

''.

References

Bibliography

* 16th-century music genres 17th-century music genres Song forms {{Music-genre-stub