Du fond de ma pensée / chant1450
Psalmen und Chansons der frankophonen Reformation · Vocal Music of the French Reformation





chant1450
Christophorus CHR 77298

2008







1. Paschal de L’ESTOCART (c.1539-c.1584). Tu me seras tesmoin  [2:40]
2. Guillaume MORLAYE (c.1515-c.1560). Du fond de ma pensée (Ps.130)  [1:15]
3. Orlando di LASSO (1532-1594). Le vertueux [1:24]
4. Paschal de L’ESTOCART. La glace est luisante [1:12]

5. Adrian LE ROY (c.1520-1598). Entens pourquoy je m’écrie (Ps.61)  [1:04]
6. Claude GOUDIMEL (c.1510-1572). Du fond de ma pensée (Ps.130)  [0:51]
7. Eustache DU CAURROY (c.1549-1609). Fantasie XX (Ps.26)  [2:46]

8. Loys BOURGEOIS (c.1510-c.1561). Le cantique de Siméon  [1:39]
9. Orlando di LASSO. Ta voix ô Dieu  [2:07]
10. Paschal de L’ESTOCART. O qui pourra avoir  [2:32]

11. Adrian LE ROY. O pasteur d’Israël escoute (Ps.80)  [1:18]

12. Claude GOUDIMEL. Les cieux en chacun lieu (Ps.19)  [1:27]
13. Claude LE JEUNE (c.1530-1600). Alors qu’affliction me presse (Ps.120)  [2:25]
14. Eustache DU CAURROY (c.1549-1609). Fantasie VI (Ps.19)  [2:11]
15. Jean CAULERY (c.1556). Père de nous-Pardonne nous  [3:08]

16. Eustache DU CAURROY. Fantasie XVIII (Ps.55)  [2:22]

17. Orlando di LASSO. En espoir vis  [1:20]
18. Paschal de L’ESTOCART. L’eau va vite  [0:54]
19. Claude LE JEUNE. O Seigneur que de gens (Ps.3)  [0:58]
20. Paschal de L’ESTOCART. Celuy qui pense pouvoir  [2:03]

21. Adrian LE ROY. Chantez à Dieu nouveau cantique (Ps.98)  [1:40]

22. Loys BOURGEOIS (c.1510-c.1561). Je t’aymeray en toute obeissance (Ps.18)  [2:23]
23. Hubert WAELRANT (c.1517-1595). Rendez à Dieu louange et gloire (Ps.118)  [1:26]
24. Adrian LE ROY. Loué soit Dieu (Ps.144)  [1:24]
25. Loys BOURGEOIS. Pourquoy font bruit (Ps.2)  [1:15]
26. Claude LE JEUNE. Qui au conseil des malins (Ps.1)  [0:55]

27. Eustache DU CAURROY. Fantasie I (Ps.1)  [1:56]

28. Claude LE JEUNE. Or avons nous (Ps.44)  [1:56]
29. Jean CAULERY. Las voulés vous  [2:04]
30. Claude LE JEUNE. Di moy malheureux (Ps.52)  [1:07]
31. Psautier Genevois/Benedictus APPENZELLER (c.1510-1572). Du fond de ma pensée (Ps.130)  [9:56]








chant 1450

Akira Tachikawa — Countertenor
Giovanni Cantarini — Tenor
Daniel Manhart — Tenor
Raitis Grigalis — Bariton
Norihisa Sugawara — Laute · Viola da Gamba
Gregor Ehrsam — Orgelpositiv


Ⓟ + © 2007


Akira Tachikawa was born in Shizuoka, Japan, in 1961. He studied at the National College for Fine Arts and Music in Tokyo until 1988 and at the Schola Cantorum in Basel, under René Jacobs, Nigel Rogers and Dominique Vellard, from 1986 to 1992.
As a member of such well-known ensembles as the Basel Madrigalists, Ensemble Gilles Binchois, the Vocalensemble Zurich or Philippe Herreweghe’s Ensemble Vocal Européen de Chapelle Royal, Akira sang a number of Renaissance and Baroque works including Dufay’s Missa Ecce ancilla Domini, the Escobar Requiem or Schütz’ Auferstehungs-Historie.


Giovanni Cantarini studied philosophy at the Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana in Rome. He also obtained a diploma in philology in Bologna. He studied chant with Claudio Cavina, Ulrich Pfeifer, Michel van Goethem, and at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with Gerd Türk, Dominique Vellard and with Stefan Haselhoff .
Apart from his work as a soloist, his musical activities focus on singing in professional ensembles among which are: La Venexiana, Cappella Augustana, Ensemble Melpomen, Athestis Chorus, Coro Millenium, Académie Baroque Européenne, Ensemble Gilles
Binchois, La Morra and others.


Daniel Manhart was born in Switzerland in 1968 and studied at the HMT Zurich: singing under Kathrin Graf, piano under Hadassa Schwimmer, and school music under Karl Scheuber. Postgraduate studies in singing under Hubert Saladin. He is a member of the vocal ensemble Guillaume Dufay, with which he has been touring regularly since 1998.


Raitis Grigalis is originally from Riga, Latvia, and grew up immersed in its rich musical culture and choral traditions. He studied at the Music Academy of Riga, specialising in choral conducting and composition.
He was a member of some of the finest Latvian vocal groups including the chamber choir Ave Sol with which he toured worldwide. In 1999 Raitis Grigalis was awarded a place to study singing at the Schola Cantorum in Basel with Andreas Scholl and Richard
Levitt. He enjoys an active professional career singing with such renowned groups as Ensemble Gilles Binchois and the Consort of Musicke, London.





The Geneva Psalter, forms the musical core of the French Reformation (as its principal liturgical book). It contains metrically rhymed (as in poetry) French translations of Luther’s Bible of 1534: 150 Psalms, the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20: 2-17) and the Song of Simeon from the New Testament (Luke 2: 29-32). Each of these new verses is musically underscored by a single melody, repeated with each strophe. The Geneva Psalter is a collaborative work. Clément Marot (1487-1544) and Théodore de Bèze (1519-1605) are acknowledged as the authors of the texts, while the composers remain unidentified. It has been proposed the latter stem from a circle of Genevan musicians active in those decades, Loys Bourgeois (c.1500 - c.1565), the most renowned composer amongst them. The Reformer and French theologian, Jean Calvin (1509-1564), very influential among his francophone followers, implemented the use of monophonic metrical music during liturgical services, and justified the use of text sung in worship, as long as the words were in the vernacular, and could be understood by the congregation. Calvin considered the Book of Psalms as poetry inspired by God himself, and he promoted and oversaw the compilation of the Geneva Psalter for over twenty years, until its first complete printing in 1562. (Calvin believed the singing of Psalms had special value in the worship of his church).

Harmonic and polyphonic versions of Psalms, first published in Strasbourg by Calvin in 1539, formed the beginning of the Geneva Psalter. Many contemporary composers were inspired by these new texts and melodies, and used them as musical sources, even though Calvin never authorized the use of polyphonic music during liturgical services. The number of surviving polyphonic compositions was created for the private use of an intellectual Calvinist and Hugenot elite, who used specific arrangements of these pieces according to the number of voices and instruments available. The present recording of Du fond de ma pensée, is an example of such versified Psalms by Appenzeller, Goudimel, Bourgeois, Waelrant and Le Jeune, with the organ and lute paraphrases by Eustache de Caurroy and Adrian le Roy.

The repertoire of music for the French Reformation Church was expanded with the rewriting of existing pieces (so called “contrafacta”). After 1570, Orlando di Lasso (1532-1594), was the most famous composer of secular chansons in France. Despite Lasso’s importance as a Counter-Reformation composer, Simon Goulart, Jean Pasquier and other Reformation poets did not hesitate to replace Lasso’s often frivolous, obscene texts with religious, in part, exquisite poems. Thus, Lasso’s celebrated music has been preserved, even if the original intent of his texts has been lost, or has lost their significance.

In comparison with Contrafacta, the new compositions of Spiritual Chansons, employ religious texts – the origin of ours –, deriving from various sources. Contrary to polyphonic Psalms, religious Chansons have no cantus firmus. They are freely composed and adopt the sound of secular Chansons, with which they often appeared together in musical compilations.

Pascal de L’Estocart’s Octonaires de la vanité du monde presents a special case in Reformation music. The moralizing, didactic eight line strophes were compiled by Antoine de la Roche Chandieu and Simon Goulart, both pastors, and by King Henry IV’s doctor and alchemist, Joseph du Chesne. The texts, in pictorial words, reflect contemporary views on Vanitas, or the passing of the material world and its temptations, which presented L’Estocart with the possibility of underscoring expressive words with melodic music, in the manner of Italian Madrigals.

Daniel Manhart