Music before Part I
Francesco Canova da Milano 1497–1543
Canon and Spagna from the Cavalcanti Lute Book (1590)

Joan Ambrosio Dalza fl.1508
Calata ala Spagnola from Intabulatura de lauto, libro quarto (1508)

Galileo regularly played lute duets with his father, the musician and theorist Vincenzo Galilei, in his youth; Vincenzo’s musicianship must have influenced the young Galileo, as indeed must his empirical approach to music theory, which encouraged the questioning of authority.

Part I
Cristofano Malvezzi 1547–1599
Sinfonia a 6 from Intermedio no 4 (1589)

Giovanni Bardi 1534–1612
Miseri habitator from Intermedio no 4 (1589)

As an able young man with relevant skills, Galileo would have been present at the Intermedi, possibly even as a performer; he had recently given a lecture on the geometry of Dante’s Hell, and his expertise may have contributed to the set design for the 4th Intermedio, set in Hell.

Giovanni Gabrieli c.1556–c.1612
Canzon Prima a 5 from Canzoni et sonate (1615, posth.)

Galileo visited Venice many times during his years at Padua; he may have heard canzonas like this played at church services.

Vincenzo Galilei c.1520–1591
Contrapuncto secondo from Il Fronimo (1568)

His father’s duets doubtless formed part of the repertoire they played together.

Cipriano de Rore 1515–1565
Alcun non può saper from Il quarto libro d’i madregali (1557)

The text comes from Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, which Galileo loved, constantly referring to it in his scientific writing. He used Ariosto’s characters to satirise his opponents and sing his own praises, tongue partly in cheek. This madrigal refers to the fickle nature of those who, when fortune changes, abandon their friends – a concept that would not be lost on the older Galileo.

Malvezzi
Or che le due grand’alme from Intermedio no 4 (1589)

Galilei
Contrapuncto secondo from Il Fronimo (1568)

Giulio Caccini c.1550–1618
Io che dal ciel cader from Intermedio no 4 (1589)

The practice of singing to string consort accompaniment was one developed by Vincenzo Galilei as a way of delivering the new art of monody.

Emilio de’ Cavalieri c.1550–1602
O che nuovo miracolo (excerpts) from Intermedio no 6 (1589)

Lute improvisation upon a ground bass

Galilei
Contrapuncto primo from Il Fronimo (1568)

Claudio Monteverdi 1567–1643
Excerpts from Volgendo il ciel from Madrigali Guerrieri et Amorosi (1638)

The opening lines of this madrigal, published during Galileo’s final years, in a collection dedicated to a new emperor and a new age, use the still common image of the revolution of the heavens around the earth, jarring with Galileo’s long-held heliocentrism.

INTERVAL

Music before Part II
Giovanni Antonio Terzi fl. 1580–1600
Canzone à 4 voci, based on a lost original by Claudio Merulo 1533–1604

Part II
Orlando di Lasso c.1530-1594
Excerpt from Domine ne in furore tuo from Septem Psalmi Poenitentiales (1565)

Galileo was obliged to recite the Seven Penitential Psalms weekly for the first three years of his punishment.

Francesca Caccini 1587–c.1641
La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’ isola di Alcina final scene (with interpolated dances by Lorenzo Allegri)

This was performed at Florence when Galileo was employed there by the Medicis; as an Orlando Furioso tale it would certainly have appealed to him. The interpolated dances are by Lorenzo Allegri, who provided dance music for several courtly entertainments in Florence during Galileo’s years there, including a play by Cicognini in which Galileo’s discoveries were celebrated.

Giuseppe Scarani fl. 1628–1641
Sonata prima from Sonate Concertate Op.1 (1630)

Michelangelo Galilei 1575–1631
Volta in C from Il Primo Libro d’Intavolatura di liuto (1620)

In 1637, with the help of Monteverdi, Galileo procured a violin for his nephew, Alberto, son of Michelangelo, who was employed at the Bavarian court. Venetian sonatas such as those by Scarani would likely have formed part of their repertoire.

Domenico Mazzocchi 1592–1665
La Catena d’Adone final scene

Mazzocchi was a Roman composer favoured by Pope Urban VIII, Galileo’s friend and patron who ultimately had him condemned. The libretto is based on a poem by Giambattista Marino, which also contains verses celebrating Galileo’s telescopic discoveries. A moral is printed at the end of the opera, one which Urban would doubtless have recommended to his unruly friend: Mankind runs into many errors when he strays from God, and only on returning to Him may he find his place in Paradise.

Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger c.1580–1651
Prelude from Libro quarto d’intavolatura di chitarrone (1640)

comment

Alessandro Piccinini 1566–c.1638
Ciacona from Intavolatura di liuto et di chitarrone, libro primo (1623)

Monteverdi
O ciechi tanto affaticar from Selva morale e spirituale (1641)

The text alludes to blindness and the futility of human studies and labours; Galileo by this time was completely blind, and his greatest work had been added to the Index of Prohibited Books.

Monteverdi
Ah, dolente partita from Il Quarto Libro de Madrigali a cinque voci (1603)

This is taken from Monteverdi’s revolutionary fourth book, which usurped the rules of harmony in much the same way as Galileo’s work overturned the Aristotelian orthodoxy, instigating a similarly hostile reaction in certain quarters; Galileo may have heard some of these madrigals on his visit to Mantua in 1604.

Kapsberger
Toccata XI from Libro quarto (1640

Monteverdi
Hor ch’el ciel e la terra (part I) from Madrigali Guerrieri et Amorosi (1638)

Like ‘Volgendo il ciel’, the poem (this time a much older sonnet by Petrarch) opens with an image of the sky turning around the earth. The closing lines, ‘and only in thinking of her can I find peace’, might find resonance in the old man’s final reminiscences of his favourite daughter Virginia.