A Forgotten Tuscan Composer: Francesco Bianciardi

Among the composers of the late 16th century who deserve greater consideration among today’s popular repertoires, we can certainly remember the Tuscan organist Francesco Bianciardi (also known as Bianchardus, Bianciardus, Blanchardus), born in about 1570 in Casole d'Elsa, a picturesque town nestled between the rolling hills of Siena. As an organist with roots in Tuscany, I was proud to honor the 450th birthday of this forgotten Tuscan composer by performing his complete keyboard works at Karlskoga Church in Sweden (December 2020) and Pieve Santo Stefano, Lucca (October 2022). 

We still have little information about Bianciardi’s training and we do not know with whom he studied music during his early years: the first records date back to 1596, where he appears as the organist of Siena cathedral, of which he also became the chapel master the following year. Both positions were assigned to him by G. Tommasi, head of the Opera del Duomo, as the composer himself declares in the dedication of his Primo libro de madrigali à cinque voci (in Venetia, later Angelo Gardano, 1597). Member of the Accademia degli Intronati (the center of intellectual life in Siena during the 1550’s), he rose to the head of the academy in year 1601. Bianciardi was a composer and organist appreciated by many contemporaries: the famous scholar Adriano Banchieri, in his Conclusioni nel suono dell’organo, referring to the custom of Sienese musicians to celebrate a solemn mass in honor of Saint Cecilia every 22 November at the cathedral, remembers how the service "was performed as a great competition among many virtuoso musicians, including the maestro di capella Andrea Feliciani and the organist Francesco Bianciardi, whose souls can enjoy the fruit and merit in Heaven.” Another comment to testify his fame comes from Giuseppe Ottavio Pitoni, chapel master at the Vatican basilica, who in his work Notitia de contrapuntisti e de compositori di musica, describes him as "a great organ player".

Author of both secular madrigals and sacred motets, he was an author of fine sensitivity and among the first to use numbered bass: his motet, Ave Rex noster, is remembered by the musicologist August Wilhelm Ambros as “a splendid work of great purity […] containing beautiful harmonies.” His compositions stand out for their traditional and yet spontaneous nature, which, albeit in serious counterpoint style, are not lacking in singing and expression. Bianciardi died young during a plague in Siena before the 21st of September in 1607, according to the dedication of D. Falcini to the bishop of Massa A. Petrucci in one of Bianciardi’s works, a short instruction on how to play the numbered bass, published posthumously by Falcini himself in Siena in 1607.

The cathedral of Siena had two great instruments during Bianciardi’s lifetime: the main organ, in cornu Evangelii, near the altar of the Sacrament, was built around 1370 and rebuilt in 1458 by the Hungarian organ builder Pietro Scotto, known as Pietro Ungaro; the minor organ, in cornu Epistolae, above the sacristy door, was rebuilt in 1459 by Lorenzo di Giacomo da Prato and completely restored in 1508 by Domenico di Lorenzo da Lucca. This instrument was based on a 12-foot Principal with a 47-keys keyboard without the first two chromatic keys.

In addition to the works already mentioned, it is worth remembering, all published in Venice by Angelo Gardano: Sacrarum modulationum, quae vulgo motecta, & quatuor, quinis, senis, sep: & octonis vocibus concinuntur. Liber primus, 1596; Sacrarum modulationum... Liber secundus nunc primum in lucem editus, 1601; Sacrarum modulationum... Liber tertius, 1607; Vespertina omnium solemnitatum psalmodia quatuor vocibus, iuxta ritum sacrosanctae Romanae ecclesiae, 1604; Missarum quattuor & octo vocibus liber primus, 1605; Canzonette spirituali a tre voci. Libro primo novamente stampato, 1606; Sacrarum modulationum, quae vulgo motecta binis, ternis & quaternis vocibus concinuntur... Liber quartus, 1608. Some of his motets and madrigals are included in the best printed Italian and foreign collections of the time (from 1598 to 1621).

Bianciardi composed only a few keyboard pieces: the six Ricercari and the four Fantasies from the Turin Tablature are included in the Opera Omnia, Padua 1973, VII, edited by Siro Cisilino, together with an intabulated motet, Exultate Deo. The same keyboard pieces were also published in 1977 by the American Institute of Musicology in the Corpus of Early Keyboard Music series, volume 41, published by Bernhard Billeter and Hänssler-Verlag. Exultate Deo is also present in Organum Italicum, volume 2, published by Andrea Macinanti and Francesco Tasini for Edizioni Carrara, Bergamo.