(1) Dedication
(2) Introduction by Rodney Waterman
(3) Notes on G. Bassano by Ruth Wilkinson
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(1) Dedicated to Frederick Morgan (1940-1999).

(2) Why Bassano?
When I first acquired a “Ganassi” recorder in g’ made by Fred Morgan in 1980, I was eager to find suitable repertoire. Fred pointed me to the music of late 16th century Italian composers, Aurelio Virgiliano and Giovanni Bassano. I soon heard recordings of solo ricercars by these composers performed by Frans Brüggen, Michel Piguet, and Australian player Greg Dikmans, all using “Ganassi” recorders by Morgan. I fell in love with the instrument's unique bold and beautiful tone, and especially the extraordinary and fluent two and a half octave range. For two years, 1997 and 1998, I worked as an instrument tester for Morgan. This provided me with the chance to play-in some of the best recorders ever made, including many “Ganassi” instruments. Here in Fred's workshop I often played all the published Bassano and Virgiliano solo instrument repertoire, suitable for recorder, over and over. I became very familiar with the intricacies of the higher upper register fingerings. I composed/improvised new, contemporary pieces, as this instrument is very suited to exploration and invention. I have always been fascinated by the historical improvisatory fantasia and ricercar forms in music.

It was a joy to perform all 8 Bassano ricercate in concert in the beautiful Bluestone Chapel, Montsalvat (Victoria, Australia) on Nov 5, 2022. Through this subsequent studio recording, I want to pay tribute to the artistry of Fred Morgan, and celebrate these beautiful compositions from 1585 by Bassano.
- Rodney Waterman (Nov '22)


(3) Bassano Ricercate 1585
Thanks to the extensive research of Eleanor Selfridge Field, we can place Giovanni Bassano and his ricercare (ricercate) in the musical environment where he worked. He was part of the rich musical scene that flourished in St Mark’s in Venice during the late 16th century. Amongst his many musical talents, Bassano was recognised as one of the great cornetto players of his generation alongside Dalla Casa. Bassano came to St Mark’s in 1576 where he also distinguished himself as a composer and as the leader of the several pifferi bands associated with the confraternity of San Rocco. He succeeded Dalla Casa as director of instrumental music of St Marks’s in 1601. He knew Giovanni Gabrieli, and in his later years, Claudio Monteverdi, who gave us some of the first great operas. In this musical world, dominated by the performance and creation of music for the church, Bassano also composed music such as the ricercar that would have been presented in the fashionable salons of Venice where composers had an audience for their latest compositions of secular music. The audience was the highly educated, skilled, sophisticated and influential citizens of Venice. It is into this environment that we can place the solo ricercare of Giovanni Bassano. Literally meaning to “seek out” these works are models of their kind and show us the extraordinary technical skills that instrumentalists had gained by the end of the 16th century. It is in Italy that we have such a good record of the rise of instrumental music independent of vocal music, which had dominated musical style to this point in music history, and the practice of improvisation. The acquisition of this skill can be traced back to medieval times to The Vatican Organum treatise (Paris 13th century) which shows singers how to improvise above a Gregorian chant line. Extraordinary instrumental improvisations have been preserved for us in the instrumental works of the manuscript of Bl Add 29987 and the Faenza codex in the 15th century. They all reveal a highly developed instrumental culture and in the case of the Organum treatise a highly systematised way of learning to improvise. We can see that the ornate, virtuosic diminution practice of the 16th century was not new, and it was not a phenomenon that appeared overnight. The 16th century practice of diminution can be traced back to several printed didactic books that appeared during this time: Diego Ortiz (1553), Giovanni Dalla Casa (1584), Giovanni Bassano (1585-1591), Ricardo Rogniono (1592), Aurelio Virgiliano (circa 1600). These didactic books taught improvisation through the art of diminution; a system of reducing the size of one note and replacing it with several short notes. What we learned from these treatises was that to be in command of your instrument you had to master complex and varied articulation patterns and memorise the language required to develop your skills in improvising. Diego Ortiz, for example, in his Tratado de Glosas (1553), shows us several ways to decorate the interval of a second, a third, and a fifth, all with increasing virtuosity. The young performer is encouraged to memorise these patterns, and with this musical language under the belt, was then prepared for the task of creating embellishments for any given madrigal or chanson, improvise over a repeating bass line such as a Folia, or create a free composition that develops small musical ideas and rhythmic motives which became known as ricercare. Bassano’s ricercare fall into this latter tradition. They are superb examples of this improvised tradition, each beginning with simple melodic and rhythmic idea that is taken through a series of transformations using the diminution technique.

Bassano no doubt performed these ricercares on cornetto. His performances were famed but in the preface to his publications of the ricercare there is flexibility in the choice of instrument to be used, as detailed in the title page of the publication of 1598, Ricercate, Passagi et Cadentie per potersi essercitar nel diminuir terminatamente, con ogni sorte d’istrumento.

The choice of a “Ganassi” recorder in g’ for this project is well suited for the task. The range of the ricercare requires an instrument that is flexible and strong in tone in both the lower and upper registers. The Fred Morgan design, derived from an original instrument he measured in Vienna, can reproduce the extraordinary two and a half octave range consistent with a detailed fingering chart published by Sylvestro Ganassi in the mid-16th century. The “Ganassi” recorder brings this music to life with its flexible and clarion tone.
- Ruth Wilkinson (Nov '22)