Program: #24-49 Air Date: Dec 02, 2024
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Owain Park and his Gesualdo Six are back with a recording dedicated to the circle around two great Renaissance woman patrons: Anne of Brittany and Margaret of Austria.
Note: All of the music on this program is from the recording:
Queen of Heart with The Gesualdo Six directed by Owain Park. It is Hyperion CD CDA68453.
The Gesualdo Six is a vocal consort comprised of some of the UKâs ïŹnest young consort singers, directed by Owain Park. Formed in March 2014 for a performance of Gesualdoâs Tenebrae Responsories for Maundy Thursday in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, the group went on to give over one hundred performances around the United Kingdom and abroad in its ïŹrst four years. During this time, The Gesualdo Six further strengthened a passion for ensemble singing that for many of them stemmed from formative years as choristers in churches and cathedrals around the country.
The Gesualdo Six regularly performs at festivals around Europe, with debuts in the USA and Australia planned for upcoming seasons. The ensemble often incorporates educational work into its activities, holding workshops for choirs and composers and giving concerts alongside local performers.
Whilst initially focusing on early music, concert programmes began to reïŹect a desire to include more modern repertoire and now works from the Renaissance are interwoven with contemporary pieces by composers including György Ligeti and Joanna Marsh. The Gesualdo Six has curated two Composition Competitions, with the 2019 edition attracting entries from over three hundred composers around the world.
Our first performances of âregretz chansonsâ were inspired by the story of Anne of Brittany (1477â1514), whose heart was broken repeatedly over her lifetime and for whom many songs were written. After her death her heart was removed and stored in a stunning gold reliquary, which miraculously survived the French Revolution and is preserved today in her home city of Nantes. Many chansons mention the heart, especially in the tragic sense applied in âregretz chansonsâ, and specifically its desires and downfall. Thus our programme came to be titled Queen of Hearts.
The first âregretz chansonsâ were written for Margaret of Austria (1480â1530), a major musical patron associated with this repertoire. Being connected, by blood or marriage, to many of the most important courts of Europe, Margaret was a powerful and capable leader, and she commissioned a âchansonnierâ (a large book of chansons) for her personal use, which demonstrates both her musical taste and her renown in European courtly circles. This chansonnier (B-Br MS 228), preserved in Brussels, opens with a series of works by Pierre de La Rue, a favourite composer of Margaretâs court. La Rue contributes two âregretz chansonsâ: Tous les regretz, probably the earliest such setting, and Secretz regretz (track 7), which looks beyond some of the textâs typical personal angst and calls for the support of the poetâs âloyaux amisâ (âloyal friendsâ). La Rue uses duets and simple syllabic statements which then overflow to pour out the grief of the text into long, sobbing melismas.
A little further into Margaretâs chansonnier we find two settings of Fors seulement. This chanson was famously set for three voices by Johannes Ockeghem; parts from his trio were later extracted and used by several composers as a basis for their settings and as material for parody Masses. This in turn established these composers in a fraternity of accomplished and respected peers. The second of the chansonnierâs settings of Fors seulement, by Antoine Brumel, takes Ockeghemâs superius part as an altus line and complements it with a different text in the other parts: Du tout plongiet (track 12). As such, the echoes of Ockeghemâs lament fade in and out of focus, carried through the melody in the tenor. Brumel arrests the listenerâs attention with an incredibly low-lying bass part, plunging into the metaphorical lake of despair. The lowest voice parts do later emerge from these depths to reflect the more hopeful outlook of the textâs conclusion, as the poet endeavours to enjoy gifts from the allegorical figure Fortune.
This technique of conflating new and old is also applied in motet-chansons such as Josquinâs Nymphes des bois, where affairs of the modern court (in the spoken language) are combined with sacred or biblical texts in Latin. There are several such motet-chansons in Margaretâs chansonnier, including CompĂšreâs Plaine dâennuy / Anima mea (track 4). Here the upper parts duet in French verse above the bass partâs Latin text in a manner similar to using chant as a cantus firmusâa technique called cantus prius factus. As Brumel honoured Ockeghem by borrowing from Fors seulement, CompĂšre extracts his tenor part from the Song of Songs motet Anima mea liquefacta est by a fellow singer at the Sforza court in Milan, Gaspar van Weerbeke. It befitted Renaissance regents to emphasize their divine right to rule by comparing themselves to biblical royalty such as King David with psalm texts, and King Solomon through the Song of Songs.
More motet-chansons using the cantus prius factus technique are preserved in the âHenry VIII Manuscriptâ, held in the British Library. Alongside these is Antoine de FĂ©vinâs three-voice setting of Fors seulement (track 20). FĂ©vin spurns Ockeghemâs chanson and instead opens with an ornamented echo of Matthaeus Pipelareâs setting of a womanâs lament. In a style redolent of La Rueâs Secretz regretz, syllabic structure overflows into beautiful descending melismas in FĂ©vinâs setting, which itself served as inspiration for later generations of composers including Carpentras, Gombert and Adrian Willaert.
FĂ©vinâs Fors seulement also appears in the beautifully illuminated âManuscript 1760â, another key European source, which is preserved in the Pepys Library in Cambridge. It contains a preponderance of works by FĂ©vin, and was thought to have commemorated either his death in 1511/12 or even that of Anne of Brittany in 1514, before the manuscript was redecorated with French lilies and English roses for probable use as a wedding gift to the English court.
Taking pride of place in Pepys Manuscript 1760 are two canonic settings of texts from the Song of Songs: Ista est speciosa, a twelve-part canon by Gascongne; and Quae est ista? by FĂ©vin. The rest of the compilation is then bookended by two miniature works by Johannes (Denis) Prioris. The first of these, Dulcis amica Dei (track 14), may have been written upon the death of FĂ©vin in 1511/12 and could have been used in place of the âLibera meâ in the Office for the Dead, as called for by the French poet CrĂ©tin in his lament for FĂ©vin. This brief sacred setting of a Latin âlaudaâ text is short enough to be considered a form of âmusical mottoâ in courtly use and was later quoted or used as a cantus prius factus by other French court composers such as Gascongne, Moulu and Certon.
The second work by Prioris recorded here, Consommo la vita mia (track 21), was almost certainly written forâor at least performed upon the death ofâAnne of Brittany, as it is referenced by a royal herald as a part of her funeral rites. It sets a secular Italian âstrambottoââan old verse form constituting a single stanzaâand closes Pepys Manuscript 1760. Like Josquin and many other Franco-Flemish composers, Prioris spent time in Italy, serving as chapelmaster for the Duke of OrlĂ©ans, the future Louis XII of France and the third husband of Anne of Brittany.
Also included in Pepys Manuscript 1760 is Brumelâs Sub tuum praesidium (track 1), a simple prayer to Mary for protection that was also set by a small host of other composers such as Obrecht and Cipriano de Rore. Brumel writes for lower voices using simply ornamented homophonic statements in a peaceful setting. The work opens with a typically pithy chordal passage, reminding one of an illuminated initial in a manuscript, before alternating radiant chords with melismatic duets and trios.
Costanzo Festa was one of the few Italian composers of his time considered the equal of the Oltremontani Franco-Flemish composers. His Quis dabit oculis? (track 8) is one of two known settings of a text lamenting the death of Anne of Brittany in 1514, the other being by Jean Mouton. Festaâs setting survives under Senflâs name as a reworking for the death of Anneâs first husband, Maximilian I. Restored with the original text, Festaâs harmony pours out lamentation for the twice-queen of France, and culminates in particularly heartbreaking manner with âAnna, Anna, requiescat in paceâ.
The most famous âregretz chansonâ, Mille regretz (track 5), became so after flourishing in print during the middle of the sixteenth century. Whilst there is some debate as to whether the work can be firmly attributed to Josquin, its undeniable beauty and evocative sighing final bars make it one of our favourites. So too of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V (1500â1558), who appears to have received a Mass based upon the motet from Spanish court composer CristĂłbal de Morales as a gift in 1544. In the opening section, hear how the use of a rising fourth in the top voice, which gradually moves higher and higher, lends a sense of pining. Towards the end, this pattern is reversed, and the interval is reached through stepwise motion, almost as if the narrator has given up and started trudging slowly away.
Moutonâs De tous regretz (track 19) survives in a print from 1538 by Moderne in Lyons, but stylistically it belongs alongside the other âregretz chansonsâ from the earlier sixteenth century. Duet textures melt into homophony in this simple but affecting example. Mouton is heavily represented in most of the key French sources and was at Anneâs court alongside Ockeghem, CompĂšre and FĂ©vin. Upon FĂ©vinâs death, in 1512 Mouton wrote Qui ne regrettoit, a title that may echo FĂ©vinâs tenure at the French court, surrounded by âregretzâ settings.
Printed by Andrea Antico alongside Moutonâs Qui ne regrettoit in Venice in 1520 is Antonius Divitisâ Ista est speciosa (track 13). Anticoâs Motetti novi e chanzoni franciose contains both sacred works in Latin and secular works in French by a number of the great French court composers and was probably organized by Adrian Willaert, who is thought to have been taught by Mouton. Ista est speciosa is a smart four-part canonic setting with an additional freewheeling tenor part that plays around the rigid canon. It transcends âcanon as a composing exerciseâ and produces a rare and surprising cadential figure in the bass. Divitis worked as Anne of Brittanyâs maĂźtre de chapelle and continued to work at the French court after her death.
The third key French source is commonly referred to as the âAnne Boleyn music bookâ and is preserved at the Royal College of Music in London. Anne Boleyn grew up in modern-day Belgium and became a maid of honour to Margaret of Austria, under whose auspices she developed her skills in music. Containing a mix of mainly Marian motets and chansons, her music book includes several works by Josquin, including Praeter rerum seriem (track 2), a rare musical example that is set apart from the regular Marian devotions, dealing instead with the mysteries of the Incarnation. This magnificent quasi-symphonic work opens with the three lowest voices solemnly illuminating the text, a bass duet accompanying the cantus firmus-like tenor; this is then answered by a similar distribution of three upper parts. The seriously impressive architecture of the workâone of Josquinâs grandest motetsâbelies moments of tenderness and grandiosity in alternation.
Displaying a different, more echt canonic approach to a cantus firmus, Jean LhĂ©ritierâs Salve regina (track 16) was published in Paris by Attaingnant in 1535 but was probably written well before that. Relatively little is known about LhĂ©ritierâs career other than a likely stint in Rome and a possible Ferrarese connection. The edition of his Salve reginarecorded here aims to highlight some of the ornamented chant techniques typical of LhĂ©ritierâs other works, often inverting the melodic shape of the chant. Reminiscent of La Rue and FĂ©vin, the text-setting often starts out syllabically before dissolving into dense but beautiful melismas. More proof of LhĂ©ritierâs place in this courtly repertory is that his sole surviving Mass is a parody Mass on a chanson by FĂ©vin: On a mal dit de mon amy, preserved in Pepys Manuscript 1760.
In addition to many works by the great Josquin, Anne Boleynâs music book also features our other old friends at the courts in modern-day France: FĂ©vin, Mouton, CompĂšre and Brumel. Found next to Brumelâs Sub tuum praesidium is Moutonâs Tota pulchra es (track 15), yet another Marian/Song of Songs combination. A miniature gem, Tota pulchra esis written for lower voices and shows off Moutonâs complete control of harmony and pathos. The crowning central minor cadence is one of our favourite moments in the repertory.
Brumelâs Sicut lilium (track 6) is another Song of Songs setting presented in Anne Boleynâs music book and it bears enough similarity to have possibly been inspired by Priorisâ Dulcis amica Dei, especially in the falling thirds of the opening phrases. In another perfect miniature, Brumel reflects the delicacy of the flower depicted in the text with his simple but elegant setting.
Anne Boleyn left the court of Margaret of Austria in 1514 to attend to Mary Tudor, who was then on her way to marry Louis XII and thus become his third wife, following the death of Anne of Brittany. Written specially for this recording, Owain Parkâs PriĂšre pour Marie (track 11) sets a prayer reportedly uttered by French peasants during Maryâs journey to the wedding and beautifully reflects upon the blurring of the boundary between queens terrestrial and celestial: âMarie au ciel et Marie en la terre.â
Ninfea Cruttwell-Readeâs Plaisir nâai plus (track 18), also specially commissioned for this recording, sets ClĂ©ment Marotâs poetry of c1532. Marot was part of the circle of court poets surrounding Anne of Brittany and was influenced by Marguerite dâAlençon (later Marguerite de Navarre), and his poetry explores themes very familiar to âregretz chansonsâ but from a male perspective, longing after a lost âDame de valeurâ. Cruttwell-Reade describes her work as being influenced by monodic psalm-singing, but she then expands and transcends the harmony of the early Renaissance to explore the seconda pratica, recomposing cadential figures favoured by Monteverdi and Gesualdo, before pushing this yet further in chromatic twists and turns.
The final two works on this album are later examples of âregretz chansonsâ and Song of Songs settings by the familiar pairing of Gombert and Clemens non Papa. Sometimes more strongly associated with their work in Spain, both these Franco-Flemish composers were heavily influenced by the French courts. Gombert chooses the same text as Brumel, Tous les regretz (track 22), but extends Brumelâs compass by expanding to six voices. Published by Susato in Antwerp in 1544 in a book of exclusively French chansons alongside music by Willaert, Josquin and others, it shows the lasting affection and demand for âregretz chansonsâ and showcases Gombertâs stylistic harmonic language, as affecting in this chanson as in his motets.
Ego flos campi (track 23) by Clemens non Papa was published in 1555 by PhalĂšse. The product of a later generation of Song of Songs motets and noticeably more dense, with seven vocal parts, it justly remains one of Clemensâ most famous and lauded settings. Masterful permutations and combinations of upper and lower voices give the work plenty of air and space in an almost polychoral manner. Belying its largely syllabic text-setting, this motet beautifully evokes the living waters flowing forth from Lebanon.
Guy James © 2024
- Sub tuum praesidium  Antoine BrumelÂ
- Praeter rerum seriem  Josquin des Prez
- Plaine dâennuy / Anima mea  Loyset CompĂšre
- Mille regretz  Josquin des Prez
- Sicut lilium inter spinas  Antoine BrumelÂ
- Secretz regretz  Pierre de La Rue
- Quis dabit oculis? Â Constanzo FestaÂ
- PriĂšre pour Marie  Owain ParkÂ
- Du tout plongiet / Fors seulement  Antoine BrumelÂ
- Ista est speciosa  Antonius DivitisÂ
- Tota pulchra es  Jean Mouton
- Salve regina  Jean LâhĂ©ritier
- Plaisir nâai plus Ninfea Cruttwell-ReadeÂ
- De tous regretz  Jean Mouton
- Fors seulement  Antoine de Févin
- Consommo la vita mia  Johannes PriorisÂ
- Tous les regretz  Nicolas GombertÂ
- Ego flos campi a 7 Â Jacobus Clemens non PapaÂ