Diego Ortiz’s Glosa III (Improvisation in Spanish Renaissance IV)

Ortiz also said that there would be plenty of passages glossing the note which he did not mention here. If the glosas did not damage the original affect and violate the rule of the counterpoint, then they were acceptable. At the same time, other instrumentalists could use the examples he provided for improvising. Thus he did not put any clefs in the following examples.[1]

Both ascending and descending lines could be used for glossing and they did not have any clefs.[1]

As Ortiz did in his book, Conforto showed examples of ornaments about the third intervals between the first and the second notes.[1] Some ornaments leaped to the note that was easy to sing.

Conforto’s division.[2]

On the other hand, Ortiz presented more detailed information than Conforto showed in his treatise. He divided glosa into different note values even though they had the same interval; one breve and one semibreve and two breves. Here are the examples of Ortiz.[1]

Ortiz also presented musical illustrations of division for leaping from a fourth to the second note.[1] Comparing to Conforto’s, not all but glosas of Ortiz were slower rhythms so instrumentalists could play all notes with articulation. Conforto’s examples were more for singers, who could sing notes faster than instrumentalists can play them.

The second book discussed how to play the glosas in different styles of music. Fantasia, plainsong, and music parts were dealt with by Ortiz. The most important thing for the fantasia is to create the harmony in both parts, the Violone and the Harpsichord. Whenever the Violone plays the simple passage, the Harpsichord plays the passage with virtuosic divisions; therefore, they are supposed to create the fugal passage and to communicate with each other. Both parts must avoid having dissonances between them. He gave four Recercadas for a Violone itself to practice.[1] Six recercadas were suggested to exercise the plainsong, the second manner for the Violone players and the Harpsichord players.[2] The last manner, playing songs like Madrigals or Motets already had written for Harpsichord, but Violone players had to add and play in two or three variations in the original setting of the composition.[3]As a result of his treatise from Trattado de Glosas, he did show a virtuosic division; however, at the same time, he did not only give instructions on how to play a viol in the technical way, but taught players a proper counterpoint to support the harpsichord players with the divisions that required high technical skill.

At this period, according to this evidence, there were still many musicians, such as minstrels, who played the music depending on their ears than the theoretic approach.[4] However, Ortiz thought that realizing counterpoint rules was important whenever ensemble players improvised music in order to reduce their harmful mistakes, such as the enharmonic note from the chord or the incorrect affect of music.

The most important role for this book was not only to instruct players how to improvise the passage; Ortiz also wrote specific ornaments into famous compositions of his time. Even though his book was written to address all of improvisation, he respected and accepted other people’s different tastes as long as they did not violate the counterpoint. Therefore, Trattado de Glosas is a masterpiece of method for improvising Renaissance music, and this book provides valuable evidence about how music was improvised during that period.

[1] Ibid., pp. 74-75.[2] Ibid., p. 76.[3] Ibid., p. 83.[4] Ibid., p. 10.[1] Ortiz, p. 66.[1] Ortiz, p. 65.[1] Conforto, p. 11.[2] Ibid., p. 19.[1] Ibid., pg. 64.[1] Ibid., pg. 62.