La Rotta: A Song History
"La Rotta" is an anonymous Italian dance that survives as the second half of a pair whose first half is the "Lamento di Tristano," named for Tristan, a hero of the medieval romance of Tristan and Iseult.[1][2] On the radio program Harmonia, Angela Mariani places the pair among the fourteenth-century Italian dance music of the so-called London Manuscript, British Library Additional MS 29987, and DIAMM's inventory of that manuscript lists the two together at folio 63.[2][1] Accounts of the codex itself do not agree: DIAMM reports scholarly dates in the early fifteenth century, as late as 1425, names Perugia, southern Tuscany and Florence as possible homes, and counts 117 pieces in it, whereas a Lyon schools teaching sheet calls the music late fourteenth-century and northern Italian, and Colorado College concert notes give the total as 116.[3][4][5] Once a Medici possession, the volume was bought by the British Museum in 1876.[3]
Israhel van Meckenem, Ornament with Dance of the Lovers, engraving, c. 1490. Fifteenth-century dancers with a piper, shown for the medieval dance music the Rotta belongs to; it has no connection to the piece.
Two sources consulted here describe how the halves relate: a teaching sheet published by the Académie de Lyon calls the rotta a lively variation on the slow lament, and Nancy Ekberg Tynan's notes for a 2022 Colorado College concert describe the slow opening giving way to a faster section called "La Rotta."[4][5] The Lyon sheet adds that following a slow dance with a quick one was common practice.[4] The Dufay Collective recorded the rotta, in an arrangement by William Lyons, on A l'Estampida (Avie), and Trobar e Cantar included the pair on De:Fine Amour: Tales of Courtly Love (2018).[4][2]
Deborah "DJ" Hamouris sets "La Rotta" for DAC tuning in Indian Summer, her collection of 24 original and traditional tunes for standard mountain dulcimer, which comes with notes on every tune and downloadable recordings from her website.[6]
Sources
- DIAMM (Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music): "Lamento di Tristano - La rotta".
- Indiana Public Media, Harmonia: "Eponymous Tunes".
- DIAMM (Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music): "GB-Lbl Add. MS 29987".
- Académie de Lyon, Arts et culture 69: "La Rotta, tirée du Lamento di Tristano".
- Colorado College Music Department: "Collegium Musicum concert program, May 8, 2022".
- Deborah Hamouris: "Indian Summer".
- Image: Israhel van Meckenem, Ornament with Dance of the Lovers, engraving, c. 1490. The Cleveland Museum of Art.