"''Inganno''" ( it, deception) is an
Italian term for one of the two musical devices: an
interrupted cadence, or a type of
transposition used in 16th- and early 17th-century Italian music. This article will concentrate on the latter meaning.
The earliest explanation of the term is given by
Giovanni Artusi in his ''Seconda parte dell'Artusi'' (1603). An ''inganno'' occurs when one voice states a theme, and then the other picks it up without using the same
intervals
Interval may refer to:
Mathematics and physics
* Interval (mathematics), a range of numbers
** Partially ordered set#Intervals, its generalization from numbers to arbitrary partially ordered sets
* A statistical level of measurement
* Interval est ...
, but retaining the names of the
hexachord
In music, a hexachord (also hexachordon) is a six-note series, as exhibited in a scale (hexatonic or hexad) or tone row. The term was adopted in this sense during the Middle Ages and adapted in the 20th century in Milton Babbitt's serial theor ...
syllables. Artusi provides the following example:
Here the original theme is in the natural hexachord. The first note is then transposed to the hard hexachord (''G sol'' into ''D sol''), the second is retained, the third and the fourth are transposed to the soft hexachord ''F fa'' into ''B fa'', ''C ut'' into ''F ut''), and so on.
Only one piece is known to explicitly refer to ''inganni'' in the title:
Giovanni Maria Trabaci
Giovanni Maria Trabaci (ca. 1575 – 31 December 1647) was an Italian composer and organist. He was a prolific composer, with some 300 surviving works preserved in more than 10 publications; he was especially important for his keyboard music.
B ...
's ''Recercare con tre fughe et inganni'' from 1603. But numerous other pieces from the era make use of the technique. Examples include numerous works by
Girolamo Frescobaldi (for instance, ''Fantasia seconda'' of 1608) and ricercares attributed to
Jacques Brunel
Jacques Brunel (''Brumel'', ''Brumello'', ''Brunello'', ''Giaches Brumel'', etc.) (died 1564) was a French organist and composer, active mostly in Italy.
Life
He may have been organist at the Rouen Cathedral until December 1524, when a certain ' ...
(the first recorded systematic use of inganno); it has been suggested by scholar Roland Jackson that the technique played an important part in the development of the late Italian
madrigal
A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance (15th–16th c.) and early Baroque (1600–1750) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The polyphonic madrigal is unaccompanied, and the number o ...
, including the famous works of
Carlo Gesualdo
Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa ( – 8 September 1613) was Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza. As a composer he is known for writing madrigals and pieces of sacred music that use a chromatic language not heard again until the late 19th century ...
.
References
*{{Cite Grove , last=Harper , first=John , title=Inganno (i).
Musical techniques