8vo. 6 x 8.5 inches (15.6 x 21.5 cm). Title; letter of dedication; 1 - 37 pp.; Index Psalmorum.  Title in ornate woodcut border; typeset music throughout, each section beginning with a historiated initial. Stitched in contemporary paper wrappers with handwritten title, spine chipped and rear cover separated; complete, with only slight loss to the final page and outer edge of two other leaves; overall toning and wear, with edge creases and minor stains, commensurate to the item's age and rarity.   

Very rare complete tenor partbook from the important Italian composer's Psalmi Integri for four voices, op. 33. The book contains the tenor part for 18 four-part psalm settings, as well as a page of "Falsi Bordoni" (fauxbourdon) tenor parts for each of the eight psalm tones; as such, it would have been intended for regular use by a singer at an early seventeenth-century Italian cathedral or church. Evidence of its former use by a tenor singer or instrumentalist appears in the form of a small strip of paper mounted on the inside rear cover, bearing one line of contemporary manuscript music in tenor clef. Viadana published several other similar collections of psalm settings in 1610-1613; this rare edition, issued later in his life, does not appear in RISM and no copies of any parts are recorded in Worldcat. 

Lodovico Viadana "ranks highly among composers of his period for the freshness, fluency and notably expressive quality of his music; above all, he gave a strong impulse to the vocal concerto with basso continuo in ecclesiastical music, and acquired many pupils who continued his work... In Viadana’s work, most of which survives, sacred vocal music is predominant. He cultivated the a cappella style and from op.13 onwards added a basso per l’organo which was a basso seguente rather than a true continuo bass. His style in these works ranges from the strict homorhythm of falsobordone and pseudo-polyphony to genuine polyphonic writing." (New Grove.)