In the beginning, the pifarri were noisy, boisterous dance bands made up entirely of shawms. The shawm is a double reed instrument, as are, its relatives the bassoon and the bagpipe. Actually, the shawm is very much like a bagpipe without a bag. It has a brilliant, penetrating, and above all, loud tone. During the Renaissance shawms came in seven different sizes, from the bass shawm (commonly known as a bombarde), through five instruments in the middle range, to the highest, the sopranino. A typical early pifarri ensemble would have included a bombarde and two of the middle range or upper range shawms. The ensemble would have been able to play polyphonically, unlike the trombetti, and would have conformed to the Medieval concept of the pure consort, which calls for all the instruments in an ensemble to be of the same family.
The bombarde was not the ideal bass instrument because its range was limited in the lower register. Without an instrument capable of playing bass notes, it was difficult for the pifarri to play some polyphonic music. This problem was solved by replacing the bombarde with a trombone, which was capable of playing in the lower register. Lockwood says of the development of the trombone that:
It is generally believed, as Lockwood says, that trombone began as a slide trumpet, which had already been playing as an occasional additional member of the pifarri even when the ensemble was a shawm consort. Gradually the slide trumpet got bigger and made some changes, eventually coming to the familiar form of the trombone. The Renaissance trombone, while in many ways very similar to the modern tenor trombone, is not quite the equivalent of the current instrument. One difference is that the Renaissance version was much quieter than its modern counterpart. The Renaissance instrument had a conical bell instead of the flaring one of the modern trombone and lacked the water key that is standard today. The mechanics of the Renaissance trombone, as well as its abilities, were otherwise very similar to the modern tenor trombone which has evolved very little in the last 400 years.
The replacement of the bombarde with the trombone seems to be a gradual one. The estimates vary on when the trombone came into fashion. A. Atlas writes of an ensemble that begins with the three shawms (two high shawms and the bombarde) which might possibly also have a slide trumpet, and replaces both the trumpet and bombarde with a trombone around 1450. Aragon, p. 110 Iain Fenlon identifies the trombone as part of the ensemble in the "early fifteenth century."M&M p. 27 Most of the other dates given by scholars that discuss the pifarri ensemble with a trombone instead of bombarde are later than 1450. Thus, we can assume 1450 as the general date for the gradual replacement of the bombarde with trombone. However, regardless of whether the pifarri ensemble had a bombarde or a trombone as the lowest voice, the basic concept and function of the ensemble remained the same.
The pifarri were present in cities, courts and even in the entourages of some of the prominent figures in the Catholic church. For a municipality, a band of pifarri was a necessary status symbol, "They were there when distinguished visitors arrived, and attended at state ceremonial."Giovanni, p. 128 The pifarri were slightly more musical and slightly less formal and ceremonial than the trombetti, although they probably shared many duties with the trumpeters. A city might consider the choice between pifarri and trombetti an either/or decision. For example, in Venice the Doge's trombetti "filled one of the functions of the pifarri in other towns where public show demanded them as symbols of authority rather than for any musical purpose." FCMV, p. 49 One dissimilarity, however, is that the pifarri, ". . .were also present in public celebrations, but their main job was to entertain the citizenry with concerts from the balcony of the town hall or on the market square at regular hours of the day."SAS, p. 222 The trombetti were not musically capable of playing that sort of lengthy musical concert. Thus trombetti and pifarri were not completely interchangeable, although there duties were very similar.
The social status of the players in these municipal pifarri bands was not significantly higher than that of a typical citizen. Indeed, their status may have been lower, as C. Anthon points out, "Italian town musicians during the sixteenth century occupied beyond doubt the lowest rank in the hierarchy of musicians. They probably inherited their status, to a certain extent, from the histriones and joculares of the Middle Ages, when, as wandering minstrels, they were considered vagabonds and had no rights."SAS, p. 222 Anthon goes on to say that while there might be some social mobility for other musicians, for instance those who were better educated and more able to read music, such as singers, there was little opportunity for the town pifarri player to better their state.
The status of the pifarri of the courts was not so static, however. Musicians, if well enough educated, were one of the few classes of people in feudal Italy that had any opportunity for social mobility. The pifarri was one of the three secular ensembles maintained by a typical Italian court. The trombetti were another, and in addition to the instrumentalists, most courts maintained a group of secular singers, who could sing the popular madrigals. Most courts also maintained their own chapels, and with the chapels came chapel choirs, whose duties were mainly liturgical.
The responsibilities of the court pifarri were similar to, or even included, those of the municipal ensemble--that is--playing for festivals, weddings, concerts in the square, dinner parties, grand processions and outdoor events. But the duties of the pifarri were not limited to those events. Primarily, the pifarri were dance bands. This is especially true of the shawm and bombarde ensemble, whose loud tone was very appropriate for outdoor dances: ". . .the alta capella performed at weddings, banquets, public and civic ceremonies, and even on the battlefield and in church. But perhaps their most important function was to provide music for social dancing."M&M, p. 159 This ensemble, and its responsibility to provide dance music, was especially popular between 1440 to 1500 when the basse danse was all the rage throughout Europe. Dancing was a a very important social construct in the courts.
The pifarri were also used for other purposes. Their integral importance to festivals can be seen in an excerpt of a letter from Ferrante of Naples to Francesco Gonzaga, written 18 August 1488, in which Ferrante implores Francesco to command two wind players to return to the court of Naples, since Ferrante needed them for a festival. Not only that, but he had advanced them 148 ducats, and may have been getting a little nervous about their return, and the return of his advance. M&M p. 169 This letter is interesting in that it shows that Ferrante valued his players sufficiently to take the trouble to write a letter requesting their return. His motivations are similarly revealing. It is interesting that he felt that his festival could not be successful without them. Not only were the players integral to the festive life of the court, but they were also important enough to him that he had advanced them money in the first place. The court wind players were obviously important to their employers, and because of this importance enjoyed a higher status than their municipal counterparts.
A wind player at court actually had the opportunity to earn a decent salary. Courts went through a great deal of trouble to hire the best musicians, including the pifarri members, as seen by the fact that "In contrast to town and church musicians almost all court musicians were hired through long-distance negotiations."SAS p. 227 Competition for the best musicians could be fierce and often one court would attempt to steal or woo a musician from a rival court. Dukes would even come up with excuses to prevent their musicians from going to another court just to avoid the possibility of this happening. Success in doing so not only added to the prestige of an ensemble and a court, but was also a victory over a rival court in the political arena: "Their [court musicians] employer was a whimsical autocrat of a small principality whose entire life was spent in securing and improving his precarious position among a host of jealous rivals and enemies." SAS, p. 225
Because of this competitive demand, the musicians were able to command significant salaries and benefits. The best musicians got salaries equal to those, for example, of professionals such as dancing masters or court physicians, or even the best of artists, philosophers and poets. There were numerous ways other than salaries for a pifarri player to make money. To keep a talented musician, a duke or prince might try to obtain a benefice, a paid position in the Roman Catholic clergy, for the player. The musicians might also be offered the equivalent of a signing bonus in traveling expenses or gifts of land. The pifarri players' salaries were also almost entirely profit as most of their needs, such as room and board, were provided by their employers. Not only did the pifarri of the courts get room, board, good salaries and signing bonuses, they were also often given good tips: "We also find substantial evidence that visiting members of the nobility paid lavish tips to pifarri and trumpeters belonging to their hosts and other nobles, but there is as yet no comparable evidence of special gifts to singers in court chapels, at least in Northern Italy." Lockwood p. 181 This is especially interesting as singers in the Renaissance are often thought to hold a higher status than the players of instruments that comprise the pifarri.
I could find almost no information on the social status of church pifarri. The ensembles were definitely present at churches, as documentation proves, and performed there in them, "Performance with instruments other than organs became commonplace in churches throughout Europe in the sixteenth century. . ."M&M p. 75 We also know that the Pope, for example, maintained a band of pifarri as well as one of trombetti, and that the two periodically performed together. More than this was not obvious from the sources I consulted. It can only be assumed that the pifarri players in churches held a similar position to those in the courts.
The music that pifarri players performed was largely derived either from an oral tradition, or was an adaptation of existing vocal music:
This does not mean that the instrumentalists were not capable of reading music, although undoubtedly not all were musically literate, especially the pifarri players of the towns who were less educated. Many of the instrumentalists were musically literate. At the court of Mantua under the reign of Francesco Gonzaga, there was even a school to train instrumentalists to read music, "The court wind players. . . could read music and were capable of playing arrangements of motets and secular songs as well as purely instrumental pieces." M&M p. 147-8 The pifarri of the courts were perfectly capable of not only reading music specifically written for them, or playing the music that comprised their "oral tradition", but were also quite able to easily adapt vocal music to their purposes.
As I have said before, there was very little music composed specifically for the pifarri, and even less was written down, and less again has survived the ravages of time. Even if some music has survived, it is very difficult to ascertain without a doubt whether or not the music was truly intended for instrumental performance or was actually vocal music.PST There are a number of manuscripts that may be written for instrumental ensemble, judging from a lack of text, but may not be, as the texts may simply have been well known. A further complication in trying to ascertain whether music was written for instrumentalists or not is that a primary source of repertoire for the pifarri was preexisting secular vocal music. Motets, for example, were generally vocal but could be adapted for instruments. This adaptation was especially common early in the life of the pifarri as, "The majority of all these early instrumental pieces were vocal music transferred to instruments." Giovanni, p. 468 Periodically, however, a composer would indeed write specifically for the pifarri for a dance, wedding, or other a special occasion. Unfortunately, scholars do not always have these manuscripts, and are not always sure they are intended to be instrumental.
There is some music, however, that appears to be written specifically for wind instruments. In Ferrara there was a musical manuscript dating from Duke Ercole's reign, which is called the Casantanese MS (now in the Biblioteca Casantanese, Rome, no. 2856). This chansonnier appears to be specifically for the pifarri because, "The entry includes, additionally, the curious remark that the MS is written and notated 'a la pifaresca'. This means 'in the pifarro style', and pifarro generally means wind player." Lockwood, p. 226 Besides the comment that the chansonnier is written "in pifarro style," there are other internal reasons to believe that the book of chansons was intended for the pifarri: "Some of the compositions are adjusted in their extremes of tessitura, both high and low, in such a way that they can accommodate the known ranges of the instruments of the Alta--the shawms and trombone." Lockwood, p. 270 The Casantanse MS, besides being an interesting manuscript in its own right, shows that the pifarri could and did adapt vocal models, such as the chanson, for their own repertoire.
The shawm and bombarde ensemble was prominent from the mid fourteenth century (roughly 1350) through the early to mid fifteenth century, until roughly 1450. The shawm and trombone band was popular in Italy until the early part of the sixteenth century, although the shawms and trombones can already be found in conjunction with the more modern cornetts in some instances. Eventually dancing became unfashionable, especially in Italy, and thus the dance band gradually became unnecessary. This ensemble, and dancing, remained popular in the northern countries of Europe through the mid seventeenth century. It is recorded during Emperor Ferdinand II's reign, which was from 1637-57, "Instrumental music in the Hapsburg domains was less oriented towards length and complexity than the Venetian species. The dance was cultivated, and brass instruments, lately all but abandoned by the Venetians, remained in favor throughout Austria and Germany."VIM
Thus the shawm pifarri fell out of favor as the musical and entertainment tastes of Italians changed. They may have been considered too loud for the increasingly refined courts, churches, and municipalities of the Italian peninsula as it headed from the late Medieval period into the High Renaissance.