medieval.org
Amon Ra CD-SAR 24
1986
Pierre DE LA RUE. Missa
pro defunctis
01 - Introit . Requiem
aeternam [4:49]
02 - Kyrie [2:41]
03 - Tract. Sicut cervus [4:01]
04 - Offertory. Domine Jesu Christe [5:09]
05 - Sanctus [4:13]
06 - Communion. Lux aeterna [2:54]
07 - Agnus Dei [3:50]
JOSQUIN. Missa
Hercules Dux Ferrariae
08 - Kyrie [2:28]
09 - Gloria [3:21]
10 - Credo [6:01]
11 - Sanctus [5:11]
12 - Agnus Dei [5:42]
JOSQUIN. La
Déploration de Johannes Ockeghem
13 - Nymphes des bois [6:16]
Recorded at St. Barnabas Church, Finchley, November 1985 by
Gef Lucena (Amon Ra) and David Wilkins (Valley
Recordings)
Performing edition edited by John Milsom
New London
Chamber Choir
James Wood
Like so many of the greatest religious works of the fifteenth century,
Josquin's Mass Hercules Dux Ferrariae and Pierre de la Rue's
Requiem seem to have been composed not at the whims of their composers
but rather for some more specific use. Admittedly, in neither case do
we know the occasion at which the work was first performed, and there
is even some doubt about the identity of the person for whose funeral
la Rue's Requiem was written—perhaps most likely is Ermes Sforza,
brother-in-law to the emperor Maximilian, whose obsequies took place in
1503. Josquin's mass is more obviously personalized, for the name of
Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, is actually made an integral
component of the music; but even here we cannot be sure of the precise
date at which Josquin composed the piece, though it is obviously a
product of the years he spent in Ercole's service. (Josquin appears to
have been associated with the Duke from the early 1480's and he served
as a singer in the Ferrarese chapel in 1503-4.) One fact is certain
however each work was conceived as being something out of the ordinary
by the standards of the day, and both masses must have attracted the
attention of contemporary audiences no less than they have come to be
celebrated in our own time.
Like other Requiem masses of the Renaissance, Pierre de la Rue's
unusually elaborate setting is deeply indebted to the plainchant
melodies that were inextricably linked with the words of the Missa
pro defunctis. La Rue's method of procedure is thus a simple one:
for each portion of text, the chant itself becomes the foundation for
his music and each movement of his setting therefore draws upon an
entirely different melodic source. (In this respect the Requiem differs
fundamentally from Josquin's mass, in which each successive movement
might be viewed as a variation of the preceding music). So unrelated to
one another are the chant melodies of the Requiem that they explore
different modes and compasses. By absorbing them into his music, la Rue
in turn created a succession of movements that might at first glance
seem to be scored for entirely different choirs, some of high voices,
others of low, and indeed most modern performers have taken his
notation literally and exploited these unusual contrasts; but it is now
almost certain that la Rue would have expected his singers to transpose
the movements at sight, and an 'equalized' version of the kind recorded
here is likely to be authentic.
The Requiem opens with the four-part Introit ("Requiem aeternam") in
which the chant melody is first taken up by all voices in turn and made
the substance of the entire polyphonic web, then becomes the sole
property of the baritone during the verse "Te decet hymnus". (These two
methods of construction variously remain the basis of all the
succeeding movements). The Kyrie follows; and for its third invocation,
la Rue introduces a fifth voice to enrich the sonority. Next comes the
Tract ("Sicut cervus"), a setting for contrasted groups of voices of
the opening three verses of Psalm 42. In contrast to the Tract's duple
metre, the Offertory ("Domine Jesu Christe") proceeds in a broad triple
measure. Again, it breaks into five parts during its course, and this
texture is maintained in the ensuing Sanctus, with its contrasted
Benedictus for four lower voices. The Requiem closes with the
three-fold Agnus Dei, preceded in this concert version by the
Communion, "Lux aeterna".
Josquin's Mass Hercules Dux Ferrariae is probably the very
earliest setting to be strictly based not on a plainchant melody, a
popular song or an existing polyphonic work but rather on an entirely
original motto theme. The little eight-note tune that gives the work
its title is in fact nothing less than a musical transliteration of the
dedicatee's name, for it derives directly from the eight syllables
"Her-cu-les Dux Fer-ra-ri-ae": "Hercules, Duke of Ferrara". To convert
these words into musical sounds, Josquin availed himself of the
centuries-old system of solmization (the ancestor of the more recent
solfege and Tonic Sol-fa methods), known to all singers of the time, in
which the six ascending steps of the shortened scale were given the
names "ut re mi fa sol la". By deleting consonants and considering only
vowels, the eight syllables of the motto could be converted into their
equivalent solmization degrees; thus "hEr-cU-lEs dUx fEr-rA-rI-aE"
gives rise to "rE Ut rE Ut rE 1 A ml rE"—or, in terms of modern
pitches, D C D C D F E D. Having calculated this motif, Josquin
repeated it obsessively so as to form a scaffold around which a large
and elaborate polyphonic mass could be constructed. Almost always
stated in notes of extended length and equal duration, the motto
naturally stands out from the accompanying texture, irrespective of the
pitch on which it enters or the voice that carries it.
The mass opens with a tidy Kyrie in which the standard procedure for
stating the motto is established: it appears three times in the
baritone part, first at low pitch, second in the middle of the range,
finally in the upper register, an octave above the first statement; and
each time, the motto is preceded by an eight-bar passage for three
voices, during which the baritone remains silent. In the Gloria this
same procedure occurs twice, first at the opening of the movement, then
again at the section commencing with the words "Qui tollis peccata
mundi". In the Credo there are three statements, the last of which
stands as a further development at "Et in Spiritum Sanctum" the entire
motto proceeds first backwards, then forwards again in diminution. In
the Sanctus the process of dismembering and foreshortening the motto
continues, giving way in the Benedictus to three exquisite duets, each
of which has the motto theme as its basis. The Agnus Dei introduces
further variations. In the first invocation, the motto is again turned
backwards; in the second, it is dropped altogether so that Josquin can
show off his skills in writing a strict canon for the remaining three
voices; and in the sumptuous third Agnus, the texture expands to six
real parts, of which two take it in turn to sing the motto. Not
surprisingly in view of its curious construction, Josquin' s Hercules
Dux Ferrariae Mass soon became a celebrated work, and composers
continued to make use of this method of deriving a musical theme from
the syllables of words until well into the seventeenth century.
Josquin's Deploration for Johannes Ockeghem, "Nymphes des
bois", was probably written in or shortly after 1497, the year in which
this widely respected composer is now known to have died. By the late
fifteenth century, laments of this kind had become a standard means of
paying homage to the towering figures of music; and it is even possible
that all four of the composers who are cited towards the end of
Josquin' s piece—Brumel, Pierre de la Rue, Compere and Josquin
himself—were especially indebted to Ockeghem by having once been
his pupils or colleagues. Though ostensibly a chanson, the Deploration
makes use of a classic method of motet and mass construction, for its
foundation is a plainchant melody, sung by the baritone voices.
Appropriately, this is the Introit of the Missa pro defunctis,
"Requiem aeternam", though its intervals have been subtly modified to
conform to the plangent phrygian mode. This performance makes use of
the reading of the work contained in the great Medici Codex, an early
version that seems to come close to Josquin' s original text.
John Milsom