Andrea Gabrieli

Il primo libro di madrigali a cinque voci

Edited by Alessandro Borin and David Bryant

“Edizione Nazionale delle opere di Andrea Gabrieli”, 2

Ricordi, Milan, 2013

This critical edition is based on the three known 16th-century editions of Andrea Gabrieli’s Primo libro di madrigali a cinque voci. The first edition (1566), dedicated to the Venetian abbot Domenico Paruta, includes a total of seventeen madrigals. The second edition (1572) is identical in terms of both contents and layout. On the contrary, the third edition (1587) presents several differences: the dedication is eliminated, the opening madrigal is moved to an internal position, and a new madrigal is added. The present edition follows the original conception and layout as established by the editio princeps of 1566; the additional setting of 1587 is included at the end. The Critical Commentary provides bibliographical descriptions of the first edition (of which three incomplete copies are preserved in the Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, the Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence and the library of the Accademia Filarmonica, Verona) and the two reprints, together with details of the two collections of works by various composers in which madrigals from the first Book were included (among them Il Desiderio, a madrigal Anthology of 1566, dedicated to the Venetian patrician Alessandro Contarini).