We live in a world of global ideas; terms universally utilised also share definitions. Today, the concept of a good violin is the same in Japan as in Peru. Less than a century ago this was not the case. An instrument in Paris was different from another in Vienna. As a result of prospering local traditions, each had its own distinct characteristics. Universal paradigms, while increasing the efficiency of communication, tend to rob all life forms of some of their potential richness. In our relationship with the history of arts, a danger lies in the habit of seeing different historical styles as distinctly separable entities.

Similarly, diverse paradigmatic concepts and methods of approach do exist in today's early music performance. For example, as with the modern violin, we often have rather fixed ideals concerning the sound of certain instruments regardless of the period and geographical origin of the particular repertory. Consequently, many old instruments will never be granted roles other than as collectors' items; they simply don't sound “the way they should”. Inflated generalisations have, in some cases, led to the philosophical setting and sound-world of Baroque music being imposed upon the music of earlier centuries as well.

Every era has claimed to have reinvented music. According to contemporary theorists and composers, a dramatic shift in musical thinking occurred at the turn of the 17th century. A new declamatory, text-oriented approach took over from abstract polyphony. This harsh division has also strongly influenced our perception of Renaissance and Baroque music.

The repertory under consideration, Italian Frottola, does not lend itself easily to this kind of dualistic thinking. The musical texture is indeed chordal and lacking many of the contrapuntal devices associated with the music of the Flemish masters. (In fact, the Frottola is the earliest genre to be justifiably perceived in terms of chordal progressions and tonal harmony.) In addition, the poetry and music do relate closely in the coordination of verbal accentuation and rhythms. However, unlike the madrigal or the Baroque song, the music of the Frottola does not set out to express the content of the text in a direct fashion. In our time, this lack of a suitable paradigm has resulted in the Frottola being seen primarily as some sort of dainty entertainment lacking the “gravitas” of its predecessors and successors.

In a commentary on a psalm, St Augustine describes singing as a sound indicating that the heart is giving birth to something that cannot be uttered in words. The intrinsic reality of any musical composition will perpetually escape verbal conceptualisation. This, ultimately, gives music its most profound purpose. Hence, in order to grant the Frottola its full artistic merit, one has to introduce a parameter that is often neglected in musicological discourse: the emotions. And not simply the emotions contemplated, but the emotions transmitted and perceived.

The humanistic incentive of the Renaissance created an increased space and demand for the performer's personal expression and individuality. Castiglione, in his well-known book Il Cortegiano, draws a sketch of Marchetto Cara, the famous Frottola composer, as a performer. Instead of exterior and technical qualities, the author talks about Cara's ability to move the audience, to touch and penetrate their hearts. Similarly, the Sienese humanist Alessandro Piccolomini describes Frottola music as having the ability to inflame the soul and set the whole body in motion. In the Frottola, music and poetry convey subjective emotions without the veiled religious symbolism of the previous centuries.

Cara's colleague Bartolomeo Tromboncino murdered his wife in an act of jealousy. Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, a relative of Isabella's, blinded his own brother for the same reason. The Frottola's seemingly lighthearted spirit appears in stark contradiction to this world of tainted passion and intrigue. Yet the amount of realism in music has always varied. Its absence does not equal superficiality. Behind the presented imagery lies a colourful palette of infinite human emotions and objectives. Hence, many Barzellette (“jokes”) carry a message other than laughter. Love songs, after all, have traditionally been about desperate longing, not joy.