Sumer is icumen in. Chant médiévaux anglais / The Hilliard Ensemble

medieval.org
Harmonia Mundi HMC 90 1154
septiembre de 1984

Anonymes du XIIIe siècles et antérieurs
01 - Sumer is icumen in [1:58]

St. GODRIC. Three Songs:
02 - Sainte Marie Viergene [1:37]
03 - Crist and Sainte Marie [2:12]
04 - Sainte Nicolas [0:41]

05 - Fuweles in the frith [0:41]
06 - Sancte Dei Preciose. V. Ut tuo propitiatus [3:26]
07 - Alleluya. V. Nativitas [5:26]
08 - Kyrie. Rex virginum amator [4:23]
09 - Sanctus. Maria mater egregia [2:51]
10 - Agnus Dei. Factus homo [3:14]
11 - Perspice Christicola [1:26]

Anonymes de la fin du XIIIe au début du XIVe s.
12 - Companis cum cymbalis Honoremus Dominan [0:57]
13 - Mater ora filium [1:19]
14 - Edi be thu [3:38]
15 - Worldes blisse have good day (Benedicamus Domino) [2:23]
16 - Valde mane diluculo [1:55]
17 - Gabriel fram heven-king [4:36]
18 - Stond wel moder under roode [7:06]
19 - Ovet mundus letabundus [3:44]
20 - Gaude virgo mater Christi [1:25]
21 - Campanis cum cymbalis [0:57]

The Hilliard Ensemble
Paul Hillier

David James, contre-ténor
Roger Covey-Crump, John Potter, Paul Elliot, ténors
Paul Hillier, Michael George, basses

THIS RECORD IS QUITE SIMPLY A RECITAL OF MEDIEVAL ENGLISH songs and church music and reveals how blurred are any distinctions at this period between sacred and secular «art» music. It is similarly difficult, though not impossible, to distinguish between English music as such and music (especially church music) imported from France or at least showing strong French influence. In the vernacular there are settings of English lyrics of course (though this does not automatically guarantee an English musical thoroughbred); but compared with the legacy of the troubadours, for example, or the northern French trouvéres, there is remarkably little English secular music that has survived the centuries. And while we cannot be certain just how much originally existed, this paucity is due in part to the predominance of Norman-French culture in both court and ecclesiastical centres - precisely the places where one would look for an artistic activity such as polyphonic composition.

That a native tradition did exist is certain, though we must normally look to literature for a more definite expression of it. But whereas we can turn from Chaucer and the French (and Italian) influence to the more purely native tradition, superbly represented by «Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight», we have very little to turn to in music that is specifically English. The reason why a search for music of English origins is worth making is a simple one. The understanding of any artistic heritage enriches our experience of the world. It is not a question of superiority or inferiority, but at certain times different cultures offer up something that is quintessential of themselves. The aesthetic sense of freedom and grace that we find in early medieval English art and literature can also be detected later in its music. We hear moments of such music on this record.

I should like to record here a debt of gratitude to Professor Frank Harrison, whose two important books «Music in MedievalBritain» (London, 1963) and «MedievalEnglisb Songs» (London, 1979), whose editions of some of the music and whose generous advice have for some years now provided invaluable assistance and encouragement in our performances of early English music. Similarly we are grateful to the late Professor Eric Dobson (co-author of «Medieval English Songs») for help with pronunciation.

Sumer is icumen in
Easily the best known piece of medieval English music, this round for four voices above a two-voice «pes» was probably written in Reading Abbey around the year 1240. There are careful instructions for performances and the music is underlayed with both Latin and English texts. Although not the isolated miracle that some music historians have suggested, it is nonetheless the only known six part music written before the 15th century.

St Godric
Born in Norfolk, Godric spent the earlier years of his life as a sea-faring merchant. He later made pilgrimages to Jerusalem and Rome before withdrawing to a hermitage at Finchale, near Durham, on the river Wear. Here he spent the remaining sixty (!) years of his life, at first alone, later joined by his sister Burgwen and a servant. He died on May 20th, 1170, tended by monks from Durham.
The three short songs appear to have been given him in visions, not unlike the dream status of song in other cultures (e.g. American Indian). One day the Virgin Mary appeared before him in his little chapel, accompanied by St. Mary Magdalene, and taught himzm the first song.
After his sister's death he prayed constantly for her soul, which appeared before him on the altar together with two angels on either side. Burgwen's soul then sang the second song to him, the angels adding their Kyrie eleison.
The visitation of the third song is not known, though his biographer, the monk Reginald, does mention that Godric sang loudly one night and called out to St Nicholas, and later stated that the saint had visited him and they had sung together.

Fuweles in the frith
A short early 13th century lyric in two-part descant style. The merging of nature and personal emotion seem perhaps conventional enough, and yet there is a freshness of effect that gives this motif a power that later poets do not so readily achieve.

Sancte Dei preciose
Written c. 1100, probably in Canterbury for the monastery of St Augustine, on a page at the end of a school book. The respond «Sancte Dei» came after 2nd Vespers on Christmas Day. This two-part setting of the Verse «Ut tuo propitiatus» can fortunately be deciphered from the letter notation in which it is written; whereas all too many extant fragments of this period survive in an approximate pitch notation that cannot reliably be transcribed.

Alleluya V. Nativitas
A three-part 13th century organum in the style of the Parisian Notre Dame school, setting the Alleluya of the Mass on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blesed Virgin Mary. This is one of the earlier pieces that has survived amongst the so-called Worcester Fragments, one of the most important collections o fearly English polyphony. It includes a direct quotation (the section «ex semine Abrahae... sine semine ) from Perotin's «Alleluya Nativitas». The hallmarks of the style are clearly recognizable: lively upper voices above a sustained drone and generally long notes ofthe «tenor» using the notes of the original chant, the use of hocket and voice-exchange (imitation), the clausula section where all voices including the tenor move together.

Kyrie: Rex Virginum/Sanctus: Maria Mater/Agnus Dei: Factus Homo
These three two-voice settings of Mass movements, each troped (interpolated) with a Marian text, are based on chants for the Saturday Lady Mass. The music was probably written c.1270 for the Augustinian Priory of St Andrew's and is included in a famous manuscript now at the Herzog Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel. Although these pieces are probably of English origin, much of the St Andrew's music is French, including works by Perotin, and is evidence of tbe considerable importation and influence of French music at this time.

Perspice Christicola
A performance of the «Sumer» canon with its Latin text celebrating the resurrection; Harrison has pointed out that the opening of the pes melody is the same as for the chant «Regina coeli», a Marian Eastertide antiphon.

Campanis cum cymbalis/Honoremus dominam
A short 14th century motet celebrating tbe jubilant power of music in the praise of God; the second text honours the Virgin Mary. The lower voices evoke the ringing of bells and the concluding chord unusually contains a full major triad.

Mater ora filium
A short devotional setting of a Processional text, later used as a Votive Antiphon; the plainsong is in the middle voice. Early 14th century.

Edi be thu
This gymel (a composition for two equal voices) was written in the late 13th or early 14th century at the Augustinian Priory of Llanthony in Gloucestershire. It is a songinpraise of the Virgin Mary and is typically English in its extensive use of thirds.

Worldes blisse have good day /Benedicamus Domino
This song has survived on the flyleaf of an early 14th century manuscript - a typical operation of chance in preserving an example of medieval song. On the same flyleaf are a French motet and some wordless three-part pieces. The song is technically a motet in which the lower, textless part is an isorhythmic working of part of a plainsong «Benedicamus» (this is here sungfirst as a solo chant).

Valde mane diluculo
This 14th century motet survives in the binding of a manuscript at Tours. Harrison writes: «It is an intriguing mystery how the French binders of a 15th century manuscript of the works of Terence came to fix inside the binding some parchment leaves with the 14th century motets of English origin. That the motets are English is established by style, and the facts that one of them is previously knownf rom an English source and that another has a Tenor part indicated «Wynter», obviously the title of an English song. Part of a possible explanation may lie in an interest in things English on the part of the clergy who owned the main manuscript; for on two of its insidepages are notes in French on some matters concerning the history of England. The feature in a motet of having voices with the same word or words, as in this piece, is also one that is particularly English».

Gabriel fram heven-king
This 14th century song was extremely popular and survives in several different versions. In this version for three voices, the «tune» is sungby the middle voice. A Latin text also survives - «Angelus ad Virginem» - and it is to this that Chaucer is referring when he talks of Nicholas the Oxford Clerk in «The Miller's Tale»:

And al above ther lay a gay sautrie
On which he made a-nyghtes melodie
So swetely that all the chambre rong,
And Angelus ad Virginem he song,
And after that he song the Kynges Noote.
Ful often blessed was his myrie throte.

Stond wel moder
A 13th century crucifixion lament which takes the form of a dialogue between Christ on the cross and his mother, Mary. There are other similar laments from the same period and, like the earlier Planctus and Lai, they are of the genre known as Sequence, whose history begins with Notker the Stammerer of St Gall (844-912). The essentials of this type of composition are that the text is set for the most part syllabically, and the verses rhyme in pairs, each new pair being set to new music. The Sequence stands out amongst medieval song forms as one which allowed musical development and construction on a relatively large scale.

Ovet mundus letabundus
A 14th century motet for four voices in two sections, both repeated. For the repeats the upper two voices are instructed to exchange parts while the lower two voices simply repeat the same parts. Only the upper voice is texted, the other parts are therefore vocalised.

Gaude Virgo Mater Christi
A 14th century three voice setting of the third and final strophe of the sequence «Celum Deus inclinavit». The lowest voice is based on a corresponding plainsong melody.

Campanis cum cymbalis
See above.