Object 27/159
Correspondence between W. Thomas Marrocco and Eileen Southern (February 22, 1978)
Letter
Southern, Eileen
Marrocco, W. Thomas (William Thomas), 1909-1999
February 22, 1978
Letter
Text
Eileen Southern Personal Archive. HUM 253, Box 1, Folder 11. Harvard University Archives.
The writing in the top right corner reads "22 February 1978". The text on the center of the page reads "Dear Doctor Southern, As you already know, I am doing a study of Italian bassadanze and balli. One of the areas deals with derivations or borrowings from songs. In this regard could you give me a hint with Collinetto (or Collinit)? Try as I could, I was not able to see any connection or resemblance to Cornazano's tenore. Is there something I don't see? Kindest regards, Sincerely, W. Thomas Marrocco" acompanied but Marrocco signature.
The text in the bottom third of the document reads "Doctor Eileen Southern Music Department Harvard University Cambridge Mass, 02138. Dear Doctor Marrocco: In regard to your question, please observe that each note of Cornazano's basse-dance tune is given a long-note value in the tenor of Buxheim's Nos. 56 and 57 ( a perfect breve and long, respectively). Each note of the dance tune occupies a measure, generally the first note of the tenor measure but in the measure before the cadence, it is the last note. Sometimes the dance-note long value is broken into smaller note-values once the correct pitch has been sounded on the first beat of the measure. See, for example, m.3 in both Nos1 56 and 57. An illustration of this cantus-firmus method is given in my article in Acta Musicologica, 35 (1963), pp. 116-117. I hope this response answers your question. Best wishes. Eileen Southern