Joan Ambrosio Dalza

Joan Ambrosio Dalza
(b ?Milan; fl 1508). Italian lutenist and composer. He was the composer and arranger of Petrucci’s Intabolatura de lauto libro quarto (Venice, 1508), in the preface of which he is called ‘milanese’.

Dalza's book was the fourth of Petrucci's series of lute tablatures and is one of the precious few surviving sources of Italian lute music from the crucial period leading up to the first printed works by Francesco da Milano in 1536. Whereas intabulations of Franco-Flemish music had dominated Petrucci's earlier lutebooks by Spinacino and Giovan Maria, Dalza's book favoured dance forms and presented mostly original music that was almost entirely instrumental in conception. Moreover, Dalza's music differs from Spinacino's by its deliberately accessible style, the author justifying his choice of ‘simple’ pieces on the grounds of popular demand and promising to publish pieces for more advanced players at a later date. There are 42 dances (three for two lutes), nine ricercares, five tastar de corde, four intabulations of vocal pieces, and a piece called Caldibi castigliano (see BrownI). All pieces except the ricercares and intabulations are edited in Die Tabulatur, vi–viii (Hofheim am Taunus, 1967). The book is significant for being the first to contain the pavana and for giving useful information about the grouping and linking of pieces. Following the explanation of tablature notation that appears in all Petrucci’s lutebooks, there is a note that each of the nine pavane (five alla venetiana, four alla ferrarese) has its own saltarello and piva. The grouped dances share a common modality as well as harmonic and melodic characteristics. Further grouping occurs in the free-form pieces; all but one of the tastar de corde are followed by a ‘recercar dietro’, which in turn can be associated with the dances, while the calata spagnola on f.48v concludes with a short ‘recercar detto coda’. The Spanish influence evident in Caldibi castigliano and the calate ala spagnola may reflect the cultivation of the vihuela in early 16th-century Italy.