Philippe DE MONTE. Sacred and Secular Works
The Hilliard Ensemble / Kees Boeke Consort



IMAGEN

medieval.org

EMI "Reflexe" 1C 069 146 693-1 (LP, 1983)
EMI "Reflexe" 63 428 (CD, 1990)







1. O suavitas et dulcedo  [4:33]
motet à 8 / 1 · 5 · 7 · 2+9 · 3+8 · 6 · 10 · 4

2. Parce mihi, Domine  [6:55]
motet à 6 / 1 · 2 · 3 · 6 · 4 · 8

3. Dolce mio caro  [4:02]
madrigal à 4 / 1 · 2 · 3 · 4

Comme la tourterelle
4. chanson à 5  [1:37]
5 · 1 · 6 · 2 · 4+10
5. Intavolierung für Laute  [3:09]
9

6. La déesse Venus  [4:01]
chanson à 5 / 1 · 5+9 · 6 · 2 · 10

7. La dolce vista  [2:23]
madrigal à 6 / 1 · 8, flute · 7 · 2 · 3 · 4


Missa 'La dolce vista'
à 8
8. Kyrie  [3:57]
9. Gloria  [5:05]
10. Credo  [7:45]
11. Sanctus  [1:55]
12. Benedictus  [2:47]
13. Agnus Dei  [2:40]

Chorus I: 1 · 6 · 2 · 10
Chorus II: 5 · 7 · 3 · 4+8





THE HILLIARD ENSEMBLE
1 David James, countertenor
2 Paul Elliot, tenor
3 Leigh Nixon, tenor
4 Paul Hillier, bass


KEES BOEKE CONSORT
5 Bruce Dickey, cornett
6 Charles Toet, tenor trombone
7 Titia de Zwart, viola da gamba
8 Kees Boeke, viola da gamba, (renaissance bass flute)
9 Toyohiko Satoh, renaissance lute
10 Richard Lister, bass trombone




Ⓟ EMI Electrola GmbH

Aufgenommen: 12.-18.XII.1981, Dorpsgesinde Gemeent Kerk, Amsterdam (NL)
Produzent: Gerd Berg
Tonmeister: Hartwig Paulsen

© 1990 EMI Electrola GmbH
Titelseite: Roberto Patelli





IMAGEN



PHILIPPE DE MONTE
Sacred and secular Works



"Should Your Grace ever desire to have a good composer, methinks I know whither I should look to procure You one. There is a gentleman in Engelland in the King's Chapel by the name of Philippus de Monte - he was born von Mechel, but has spent most of his life in Italia - I am well acquainted with him and may say that he is a quiet, reserved person, demure as a maiden. In the Italian language he is as skilled as if he were a native, and not only in speaking but in writing too, so that he might well work as a secretary; besides which he has a goodly command of Latin, French and Dutch. Indeed he is altogether the best composer in the whole land, principally for the New Style and musica reservata."

Thus the Imperial Vice-Chancellor Georg Sigismund Seld in a letter dated 22nd September 1555 from Brussels to Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria. As he states in his letter, Seld knew de Monte personally: he probably met him in 1554 or 1555 when de Monte was in the Netherlands and England in the retinue of Philipp II of Spain. His opinion of de Monte's talent as a composer was based on the first book of madrigals, which appeared in print in 1554. At this time de Monte could already look back on a twelve-year period of service as music teacher to the children of Cosimo Pinelli in Naples. Unfortunately, we know nothing about his education and the years in his home town of Mechelen. Despite Seld's letter of recommendation, de Monte did not enter the service of Duke Albrecht (this post was taken up two years later by his colleague Orlando di Lasso, who retained it until his death). Nor did de Monte enter Philipp Il's choir - his explanation was that all the other singers were Spaniards. He returned to Italy and remained there (Rome, Naples), supported by various patrons, until 1568 (he was in the service - or under the protection - of Cardinal Flavio Orsini among others). It was during this period that the first books of madrigals and motets appeared; this was the beginning of an impressive œuvre that was to make him as famous among his contemporaries as di Lasso and Palestrina.

Philippe de Monte's œuvre consists mainly of 1073 secular and 111 sacred madrigals in 42 books, 45 chansons, 319 motets and 48 masses. In the same way as di Lasso had taken up the post (in Munich) in 1557 apparently offered to de Monte, so the latter entered the service of Emperor Maximilian II in Vienna in 1568 in lieu of Palestrina, whose financial demands were too high. De Monte remained Kapellmeister of the Vienna flourishing court orchestra for the rest of his life. After the death of Maximilian II, the orchestra passed to his successor Rudolf II, who was able to muster but little enthusiasm for politics, but was all the more receptive to matters of cultural interest and, as a fanatical supporter of the Roman Catholic Church, preferred Prague to Vienna as the centre of the Empire. Among the many illustrious figures present in Prague at the time was the great astronomer Johannes Kepler, who later tried to form a connection between the musical intervals and the structure of the solar system (Harmonicus Mundi, 1619). De Monte died in Prague in 1603 after a long productive life.

The two-part motet Parce mihi (the earliest work dating from 1564) is based on a cantus firmus in the second tenor of six notes on the text Sana me, Domine that is still fairly simple; this appears five times in the first section as a kind of ostinato, then four times in the second section, moving, however, in crab fashion - i.e. backwards, beginning with the last note.

The monumental eight-part work O suavitas et dulcedo first appeared in Venice in 1575 in the fourth book of motets, and was dedicated to Cardinal Flavio Orsini, to whom de Monte also dedicated his Liber V Sacrarum canticum after 1587.

During the period when he was working for this offspring of the Orsini family in Rome, de Monte composed among other pieces a madrigal (Il più forte di Roma, 1558) on the occasion of Paolo Orsini's wedding to Isabella de' Medici, who possessed a great talent for music. She had a good education, composed herself, and she too had a work dedicated to her by de Monte. She subsequently met whith an  unhappy end: her husband murdered her.

Yet another Medici was honoured with a volume of madrigals expressly dedicated to him (1600): the Cardinal and Grand-Duke Ferdinand I, under whose patronage Jacopo Peri composed what is generally accepted as the first opera, Dafne (1597). Other members of de Monte's illustrious circle of dedicatees included the banker Johann Fugger, Archduke Karl of Austria, Duke Wilhelm of Bavaria, the son of Albrecht V and employer of Orlando di Lasso, and the Emperors Maximilian II, Rudolf II and Karl IX.

The motet O suavitas makes use of a free combination of the eight parts in an imitative style - here there is (as yet) no question of dividing the singers into two contrasting choirs of four voices each, so-called cori spezzati.

Stylistically, de Monte's Madrigali are closer to those of Palestrina than to the madrigals of Orlando di Lasso. One rarely finds the 'modern' stylistic elements of 'word painting' and chromaticism that are so characteristic of di Lasso's madrigals. De Monte tends to be more conservative in approach, which may in part be explained by the rather cautious taste of the German (Holy Roman) Emperors.

The enchanting Dolce mio caro was published in 1587 in the composer's fourth book of madrigals, which were dedicated to a well-known contemporary patron of the arts, Georges de Montfort. The text comes from Domenico Veniero.

Of the 45 chansons of the Monte's that we know, some twenty appeared in a collection published in Paris in 1575 by Le Roy and Ballard with the title Sonetz de Pierre Ronsard including Comme la tourterelle. This must have been quite a popular chanson - a special version for lute was written by the well-known Antwerp publisher Pierre Phalèse and printed in his Pratum Musicum ('Musical Pasture') of 1584.

The other four-part chanson, La Déesse Vénus was published in 1588. It is particularly striking that de Monte composed each strophe anew, the different sections being connected with one another only by related keys. La belle Claire in the chanson reveals herself to be the daughter of an Antwerp lawyer - "la vertueuse Demoiselle Claire Gabri". The entire thirteen book of five-part madrigals is dedicated to her, a volume which includes, strangely enough, this chanson too.

The six-part madrigal La dolce vista not only achieved such popularity that an arrangement for lute appeared in print as much as 35 years later (in Florida, Joachim van den Hove, Utrecht 1601) - it also served as the basis for a superbly written eight-part mass. It was originally printed in the first book of madrigals à 6, the first edition of which has been lost. We know only the second edition of 1569; the first must have been brought out a few years earlier. The date of composition of the mass La dolce vista is also uncertain, but there is a good deal of evidence to suggest that we are dealing with a mature work here. The ease and freedom with which the composer treats the stylistic devices of parody (this is a so-called parody mass) and the contrasting of cori spezzati technique and a large eight-part ensemble, which often flow imperceptibly one into the other, all lead one to suspect the hand of the mature master. De Monte uses two main themes in particular from the madrigal, which are then varied in every way possible, both melodically and rhythmically. As a typical feature one might mention that the bass part in the first four-part choir regularly descends as far as D, which lends particular emphasis to the deep register within the mesh of voices.

Kees Boeke
Translation: Clive Williams