medieval.org
NAXOS Early Music · Alte Musik 8.554836
1997, rel. 2001
01 - Diferencias sobre la Gallarda Milanesa [2:26]
02 - Tiento I [2:52]
03 - Fabordón y glosas del Primer Tono Ilano [3:11]
04 - Ancol que col partire [3:03]
05 - Himno. Ave, maris stella VI [2:14]
06 - Pavana con su glosa [3:12]
07 - Pues a mi desconsolado (Juan de Cabezón,
c.1515-1566) [2:38]
08 - Dic nobis, Maria [2:59]
09 - Diferencias sobre Guárda me las vacas [3:18]
10 - Diferencias sobre el canto de La dama le demanda
[3:38]
11 - Fabordón y glosas del Sexto Tono [4:07]
12 - Diferencias sobre el canto del Cauallero [2:28]
13 - Pavana Italiana [1:54]
14 - Tiento XVIII [4:00]
15 - Himno. Te lucis ante terminum [1:17]
16 - Du uien sela [3:07]
17 - Susana un jur. Glosado (Hernando de Cabezón,
1541-1602) [4:13]
18 - Romance. Para quien crie yo cabellos [2:16]
19 - Himno. Pange lingua V [1:42]
20 - Rugier, glosado de Antonio [1:07]
Ensemble Accentus
Thomas Wimmer
Recorded from 23rd - 26th March 1997 at the Karthouse Mauerbach,
Vienna, Austria
Producer: W A R Studio · Engineers: Elisabeth & Wolfgang
Reithofer
Antonio de Cabezón
(1510-1566)
Tientos y Glosados
Antonio de Cabezón was born in 1510 at Castrillo de
Matajudíos, near Castrojeriz. He was blind from birth or at
least from early childhood and probably had his first instruction in
music from the organist at Castrojeriz, continuing his musical
education at the Cathedral of Palencia, where he never held any
official position. In August 1522, through his influential teacher, he
was introduced to the imperial family and in 1525 moved to Toledo, in
1526 becoming organist in the service of Queen Isabella. In 1538 he
married Luisa Núñez de Moscoso, daughter of a well-to-do
family, who bore him five children, among them his son Hernando de
Cabezón, who in 1578, published his father's music in a
comprehensive edition.
After the death of Queen Isabella in 1539, Antonio de Cabezón
was appointed músico de cámara y capilla and from
then onwards served the Emperor Charles V and his son, the future
Philip II. He accompanied both of them on their journeys to Italy,
Germany, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and England, and was thus able to
meet the most significant musicians outside Spain. Various
intabulations of chansons and madrigals bear witness to his extensive
knowledge of the most important contemporary works. After his last
journey to England with Prince Philip in 1554-56, he settled in the new
capital, Madrid, where he died on 26th March 1566.
In his lifetime Antonio de Cabezón was regarded as a master of
keyboard performance, his importance indicated by the fact that he was
one of the very few instrumentalists whose name appears in payment and
appointment lists. He is considered to have been the founder of a
tradition that spanned the period from Francisco de Arauxo, Pablo
Bruna, Sebastián Aguilera de Heredia and Rodrigues Coelho to
Juan Cabanilles in the late seventeenth century and his work came at a
time when instrumental music was slowly freeing itself from its vocal
predecessors, as some instruments noticeably broke away from their
earlier function as accompaniment to voices. For a long time it had
been usual for vocal parts to be accompanied and reinforced by
corresponding instruments, such as the cembalo, clavichord, harp,
viols, flute and others. As a result of this, most instrumentalists
were familiar with the general vocal repertoire and were accustomed to
performing and probably ornamenting it. The step towards the
achievement of independence, the performance of an actual original
vocal piece in a purely instrumental version arising from new
possibilities, was not far off. Cabezón attained a mastery in
this art in which he brought out the characteristic properties of his
instrument, the organ or the cembalo, while keeping the singing quality
of individual parts, free of empty rhetoric or stereotypical flourishes
to fill out the texture. Through the constant tensions between harmony,
melody and virtuoso ornamentation he achieved a musical idiom with an
expressiveness of its own.
How close this form of instrumental solo music was to its original
vocal source becomes evident in that the free compositions themselves,
which depend on no earlier model, are nevertheless constructed from
strongly conventional individual parts that proceed with an inner
harmonic regularity. Their range, register and function in the
composition correspond exactly with what we know from vocal works.
In addition to his gifts as a composer, Cabezón also impresses
us by the variety of musical forms to which he devoted himself and the
breadth of his interests. As well as arrangements of the Ordinary of
the Mass, we find among his works all the forms that were in use in
Spain during the first half of the sixteenth century.
Diferencias are based on popular dance melodies, supported by a
figured bass, or derived from the particularly rich Spanish song
repertoire of the time. Cabezón generally presents the theme and
then allows it to be played with variation in one or more parts in
smaller note values. Often as, for example, in Diferencias sobre el
canto del Cauallero, he adds the original theme in another
register, in the manner of a cantus firmus. His melodic and
harmonic variation is never mere conventional filling out but rather a
spontaneous and individual development of the material. Generally for
Cabezón predetermined forms and numbers of bars seem sometimes
not of great importance, since we always come upon extra bars, half
bars that break the previous pattern, or a continual augmentation of
bars, yet all this is not arbitrary but a consequent development of a
logical harmonic and melodic idea.
Glosas (ornamentations of chansons, madrigals or so-called falsobordones,
fabordones in shorter form), Hymns, embellishments
especially of the Ordinary of the Mass from the Gregorian or Mozarabic
rite, Versillos, short harmonized choral passages with
ornamentation, as study material for students, and Tientos make
up the remaining works of Cabezón, whose first compositions have
survived in the Libro de Cifra Nueva para tecla, harpa y vihuela
of Luys Venegas de Henestrosa, published in Alcalá de Henares in
1557. The majority of his compositions appeared first in 1578 when his
son Hernando published his father's legacy under the title Obras de
Música para tecla, arpa y vihuela de Antonio de Cabeçon,
músico de la Camara y Capilla del Rey Don Philippe nuestro
Señor. This collection, which includes only a few pieces by
Hernando and by Antonio's brother Juan, like so many publications of
the sixteenth century for vihuela or lute, is strongly didactic and
also contains works, particularly versillos and fabordones,
that are designed much more as a demonstration of the method of
harmonizing a work and its ornamentation than for practical
performance. The pieces were not written as is usual today on two-stave
keyboard notation but in tablature. A line is used for a part, on which
numbers and dots are marked for individual notes, their length
indicated above the line. Through the graphic separation of the parts
their individual identity is clear (in modern notation the crossing of
parts is often indicated by lines), while the harmonic element, on the
other hand, was not to the fore.
Why, then, play keyboard music on a number of other instruments?
Unfortunately no evidence or written music survives from
sixteenth-century Spain that shows what an instrumental ensemble
played. Doubtless there were some ensembles, relatively extensive,
consisting of cornetti, sackbuts, recorders, harp, cembalo, clavichord
and viols, the elements of church, noble or royal musical
establishments. String instruments, in particular, were often
considered the finest, their softer sound suggesting a cultural ideal:
the nobility played string and keyboard instruments, for which the
playing position was more seemly than the puffed out cheeks called for
in a wind-player. From the lack of any evidence of the constitution of
ensembles three conclusions can be drawn: first, that instrumentalists
never played alone but only to accompany singers, a very doubtful
theory; second that instrumental music was generally improvised; third
that vocal or solo music was arranged for harp, or for organ (which in
any case was always conceived and written with separate parts) and
simply adapted, perhaps with slight changes, to the needs of a
particular instrumental ensemble, a practice that was generally
followed until the time of Vivaldi. Hernando de Cabezón himself
suggests a freer handling of instrumentation, when he expressly talks
in his title of music for cembalo, harp and vihuela and not of music
that can only be played on certain instruments. We have followed this
principle in the present recording with different instrumentation from
one piece to another, or within a piece, to make possible a change of
timbre. A variation of tone colour of this kind was an idea that
originally stemmed, in any case, from the range of a mixed ensemble and
was imitated on the organ by various stops, the names of many of which
reflect this.
The Diferencias sobre la Gallarda Milanesa, the place of origin
of the dance indicated in the title, offer an attractive virtuoso
dialogue between the variation of the upper part and the bass, or, in
the language of the keyboard, of the right and left hand.
The Tiento in Spain was a freely composed composition, similar
to the Fantasie or Ricercare of Flemish, English or Italian composers.
Cabezón drew thematic material from the often fugal style
introductory motif.
The fully harmonized Fabordones of Spanish organists of the
sixteenth century are distinguished in particular by the lack of
parallel thirds and sixths from the medieval fauxbourdon of
English practice. In the publication of 1578 there are eight fabordones
in the different church modes, all similarly and didactically
constructed: instead of setting the parts together at the same time
without fugato, in the introduction of the short, harmonized
verse sequence, which always has a cadence in the middle and at the end
of the piece, the variations (glosas) are linked together. In
the Fabordón Primer Tono llano (the Spanish 'tone' does
not always correspond to the Gregorian mode) the descant begins,
followed by the bass and finally one of the inner parts, offering a
so-called bastarda part.
Ancol que col partire is a variation on the well-known
composition by Cipriano de Rore (in the original Anchor che col
partire, here given a Spanish title [sic]) and one of the many
examples of vocal works from outside Spain treated by Cabezón.
The hymn Ave, maris stella is constructed on a cantus firmus
from Gregorian chant, here given in the bass. It is striking that in
the work of Cabezón as in that of his immediate successors as
organists there are few arrangements of parts of the Ordinary of the
Mass but merely of intermedios or elements of the Divine
Office. It seems that the organ was only used as an accompanying
instrument during the Mass.
The Pavana con su glosa takes one of the many court dances that
were in fashion in the sixteenth century and is a rare example of a
Pavane in triple time.
Pues a mi desconsolado is by Antonio Cabezón's younger
brother, Juan (c.1515?-1566) and offers a variation on a Castilian
song. It is one of the two surviving examples of his work, an
indication, nevertheless, of his gifts as a composer.
The cantus firmus of the first and some of the later phrases of
Dic nobis, Maria is taken from the Easter sequence, Victimae
pasquali laudes.
Cabezón wrote three sets of variations on Guardame las vacas,
a bass theme popular into the seventeenth century and treated by almost
every composer of instrumental solo music in many versions.
The Diferencias sobre el canto La Dama le demanda are
variations on a now unknown folk-song, treated in five sections in
which right and left hand (descant and bass) alternate.
In the Fabordon y glosas del Sexto Tono the harmonized melody
is heard first, followed by a variation for the descant, then for the
middle voice and finally the bass, contrasting groups of five and eight
notes.
In the Diferencias sobre el canto del Cauallero the theme,
heard first in the descant, appears in all parts and offers the only
point of rest in an otherwise lively composition. Beginning with the
tenor, the cantus firmus is taken over by the alto and finally
by the bass in octaves, over which both upper parts join in dialogue.
The title of the Pavana Italiana is an indication of the origin
of the dance, given in English sources as Spanish Pavin.
Through the virtuoso increase in tempo the dance is transformed into a
concert piece.
Tiento XVIII is in the Phrygian mode and is perhaps one of
Cabezón's freely composed works.
The melody of the hymn Te lucis ante terminum, the cantus
firmus in the tenor, was not at this time found in the Vatican
codex.
Du uien sela is based on a chanson by Claude de Sennisy, Dont
vien celà and offers a series of fluent variations.
The original chanson Susana un jur comes from Orlando di Lasso,
with variations by Hernando de Cabezón (1541-1602). Although
there also exists a version by Antonio de Cabezón, we decided to
use this later version as a very good example of the way in which
variation technique later developed. In his version Antonio de
Cabezón does not adhere strictly to the principle of dividing
the beat (minim — crotchet — quaver — semiquaver).
Hernando and all following composers favour the quick change in
variations from quavers to semiquavers, triplets and groups of five
notes (and in other compositions of seven). Naturally the original
composition disappears with the introduction of many notes to the beat
and is often only recognisable through the harmony. Because of the
great familiarity of many standard works that might seem to have no
part to play, but, of course, at least for the trained musician, the
original theme was always distinguishable.
The text and origin of the melody of the romance Para quien crie yo
cabellos are unknown. The present version offers a melody
reconstructed from the descant of the second part.
For the hymn Pange lingua Cabezón turns to the Spanish
Mozarabic rite, a sequence traditionally used for the Feast of Corpus
Christi. The theme itself is first introduced in the tenor part, here
given to the flute, in bar 16, after the varied parts have already
suggested the character of the piece.
Rugier, as Higinio Anglés suggests, must refer to Rogier
Patie, from Cambrai, who was later organist in the Capilla Flamenca of
Mary of Hungary and lived in Spain from 1555 until his death in 1559.
Thomas Wimmer
English version by Keith Anderson