medieval.org
Soli Deo Gloria SDG 701
2006
1. Dum pater familias [2:59] Codex Calixtinus
cc 117
2. Congaudeant catholici [2:34] Codex Calixtinus
cc 96
3. O virgo splendens [2:46] Codex Calixtinus
LV 1
4. Cristóbal de MORALES. Parce mihi Domine [5:21]
5. Alma perpetui [1:55] Codex Calixtinus
cc 24
6. GPL da PALESTRINA. Jesu rex admirabilis [1:40]
7. Guillaume DUFAY. Rite majorem [3:47]
Tomás LUIS de VICTORIA
Missa ‘O quam gloriosum‘
8. O quam gloriosum [2:39]
9. Kyrie [2:20]
10. Psallat chorus caelestium [1:40] Codex Calixtinus
cc 2
11. Gloria [4:09]
12. O lux et decus Hispaniae [1:40] Codex Calixtinus
cc 63
13. Sanctus [3:03]
14. Benedictus [2:21]
15. O venerande Christi [0:56] Codex Calixtinus
cc 3
16. Agnus Dei [5:14]
17. Jean MOUTON. Nesciens mater [6:52]
18. Jacob CLEMENS. O Maria vernans rosa [5:50]
19. Tomás LUIS de VICTORIA. Vadam et circuibo [13:53]
20. Orlando de LASSUS. Justorum animae [3:47]
21. Jacob CLEMENS. Sanctus [2:32]
THE MONTEVERDI CHOIR
John Eliot Gardiner
sopranos:
Isabelle Adams, Donna Deam, Julia Doyle, Alison Hill,
Kirsty Hopkins, Elin Manahan Thomas, Charlotte Mobbs, Belinda Yates
Elin Manahan Thomas, #5
altos:
Simon Baker, Mark Chambers, David Clegg, William Towers, Tim Travers-Brown
tenors:
Jeremy Budd, Andrew Busher, Stephen Jeffes, Nicolas Robertson, Paul Tindall, Adam Tunnicliffe
basses:
Julian Clarkson, Samuel Evans, James Oldfield, Philip Tebb, Lawrence Wallington
Editions:
Pilgrimage to Santiago
Pilgrimage diaries
Michael Noose (4);
Heinrich Besseler, American Institute of Musicology, Rome 1966 (7);
Henry Washington, Chester Music, 1953 (8, 9, 11, 13, 14,16);
John Dixon, JOED Editions (17, 19, 20);
H B Collins, 1933 (18)
Produced with the generous support of Junta de Castilla y León
Consejería de Cultura y Turismo
Fundación Siglo para las Artes de Castilla y León
With special thanks to Enrique Rojas and Enrique Subiela
Recorded at All Hallows, Gospel Oak, London, 6-8 May 2005, by Floating Earth Ltd
Producer: Isabella de Sabata
Balance engineer: Mike Hatch
Recording engineer: Hugh Walker
Tape editor: Andrew Mellor
Executive producers: Isabella de Sabata, Nigel Boon
Design: Untitled
English notes:
© John Eliot Gardiner, 2006
© Tess Knighton, 2006
Booklet photos: pp.18-19 © Jean-Yves Gregoire (Rando Editions)
Ⓟ 2006 The copyright in this sound recording is owned by Monteverdi Productions Ltd
© 2006 Monteverdi Productions Ltd
wwww.solideogloria.co.uk
Introduction
John Eliot Gardiner
The medieval concept and
practice of pilgrimages stretching over months or even years - to
Jerusalem, Rome or Santiago de Compostela - sits uneasily with today's
package tours and motorised travel. For the original pilgrims, though
the destination (both physical and metaphysical) was important, the
journey was the thing, with all its physical hardships, the hazards
along the way and the shared experience, occasionally violent but mostly
convivial. Today there are less onerous, probably safer and certainly
faster ways to visit the magnificent abbeys, priories and cathedrals
that criss-cross southern France and punctuate the various routes
through northern Spain. Yet something is missed if we are accorded only
the briefest of glances before the tour guide summons us on to the next
step in the itinerary. Medieval men and women had the time to become
absorbed, the capacity to be enraptured. Perhaps they were more content
to live in the present, without one eye constantly on the clock or
hour-glass but with both eyes fixed on the matter in hand. Our own
experience of these once vibrant buildings becomes generally less vivid
the more the heritage industry takes them over - until, that is, they
are once again filled with music. Music, from its Gregorian roots to the
great flowering of a cappella polyphony in the fifteenth,
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, has the power to re-ignite
these churches, to recharge batteries flattened by over-use and the
seeping away of cumulative prayer. For some it may offer a substitute
for lost piety and the intense faith of earlier pilgrims. For others it
can provide a feast for the ear as well as the eye, and spiritual
refreshment of a kind that is rare in a world of fakes and facsimiles.
Many
of the projects that the Monteverdi Choir has undertaken over the years
have started out by matching music with historic architecture - with
the singing of Monteverdi's Vespers in Cremona, Mantua and Venice, Bach
cantatas all over Saxony and beyond, Bruckner motets in St Florian. In
2004, the choir's fortieth anniversary year, we undertook a pilgrimage
in song along the oldest and most famous of the pilgrimage routes, el camino de Santiago.
Our journey started at midsummer high up on the wild Aubrac plateau in
south west France, before descending to the matchless beauty of Conques,
the fortified cathedral of Rodez and the Cistercian abbey of Loc-Dieu.
We then continued across the Pyrenees and along the 'French route'
through Aragon, Navarra, Rioja and Castilla y León to Galicia and
Compostela itself. This recording, made after our return to London, is
an opportunity to share our experience of living inside the music along
the route, reproducing the sequence of processional entries, pilgrim
chants and antiphons which preceded and interspersed the glorious
polyphony we sang in the French and Spanish churches. As individuals we
all had different reasons for undertaking this journey - in body, mind
and spirit. But there was a common quest in the music, with all the
technical tests and interpretative challenges it posed, as well as the
intoxicating beauty it provides. As the pilgrim patois goes, ‘E ultreya e
suseya, Deus adjuva nos!’.
Tess Knighton
From
about the eleventh century, Santiago de Compostela became one of the
principal pilgrimage sites of medieval Europe. Legend held that after
the Apostle James was slain by Herod's soldiers his remains were brought
by boat to Galicia in the north-western corner of Spain and were
miraculously rediscovered there in the early ninth century, the spot
being marked by a celestial omen, the ‘field of stars’ recounted in
Charlemagne's vision of the saint's tomb at ‘the ends of the earth’ (Finisterre).
The Christian kings of the Asturias found in James a champion for the
reconquest of their lands from Islamic occupation, and as the frontiers
were pushed back the way to Santiago was opened up to pilgrims from all
over Europe who brought with them their own customs and their own
musics, and who encountered an elaborate and solemn cult of the saint in
the great Romanesque cathedral built on the site. Elements of the
shrine's long history, as well as details of the highly developed
liturgical ceremonies surrounding it, are found in the twelfth-century Codex Calixtinus or Liber Sancti Jacobi
(‘Book of St James’), a collection of sermons, miracles (including
Charlemagne's legendary vision) and liturgical texts and chants compiled
over a decade from about 1130. In effect it is a pilgrim's ‘compleat’
guide, providing detailed information on the routes to the shrine
through France and Spain alongside music for the celebration of the
saint's feast on 25 July.
The first book of the Codex Calixtinus
includes the chant for Vespers and a Vigil Mass on the eve of the feast
day, as well as for the Mass, solemn Vespers and other offices held on
25 July itself. The polyphonic items, mostly for two voices, are copied
at the end of the fourth book, and include reworkings of some of the
monophonic responses and alleluias from Book 1. This polyphonic
repertory is a compilation of different works that probably originated
from various places along the pilgrimage route, and affords a
fascinating insight into the distinctive musical styles and genres that
pilgrims would have encountered along their journey. The origin of the
polyphonic pieces falls mostly between the Aquitainian and Parisian
schools with examples of both organum and conductus, notably the three-voice Congaudeant Catholici
attributed to Albert de Paris, chapelmaster for some thirty years at St
Stephen's Cathedral in Paris in the mid-twelfth century. The chant Dum pater familias
was essentially a hymn to encourage pilgrims along the route to
Santiago, though its six verses, four of which are heard here, include a
useful mnemonic for the Latin declension of Jacobus.
But art music from northern Europe would not have been the only music heard by pilgrims to Santiago and a description in the Codex Calixtinus
itself reflects something of the cosmopolitan musical life of the city:
‘It is a source of wonder and gladness to see the choirs of pilgrims in
perpetual vigil by the venerable altar of St James: Teutons in one
place, Franks in another, Italians in another... Some play the cittern,
others lyres, drums, recorders, flageolets, trumpets, harps, fiddles,
British or Welsh crwths, some singing with citterns, others accompanied
of divers instruments’. Pilgrims to the Marian shrine at the Benedictine
monastery of Montserrat similarly danced and sang for entertainment and
some of their music - both monophonic and polyphonic - was written down
in the fourteenth-century manuscript known as the Llibre Vermell
(‘Red Book’) still preserved in the monastery today. Many of these
pieces have a markedly popular feel, with simple but highly memorable
melodies, and no doubt there was always this mix of more elaborate
music, sung by the clergy and chaplains of the great churches along the
route, and the improvised melodies of the pilgrims themselves who
travelled with their instruments to provide evenings of entertainment
along the way. The Codex Calixtinus and the Llibre Vermell
afford a glimpse of the different sounds that inspired or entertained
the weary and footsore, shell-bearing pilgrims who had embarked on this
arduous but spiritually rewarding journey.
The cosmopolitan
nature of this early repertory is an important reminder that the Spanish
kingdoms were never quite as isolated as they have often been perceived
over the course of history. The pilgrim ways were important lines of
communication, becoming trade routes along which travelled a constant
flow of goods and people from outside Spain, and through which networks
were established of musicians seeking positions as singers and
chapelmasters in the different ecclesiastical institutions that sprang
up all over the peninsula with the inexorable push of Catholicism to the
south. These institutions in turn looked to Rome - itself a major
centre of pilgrimage - for aspects of their administration and liturgy,
and travel to Rome among Spanish clergy reached an unprecedented
intensity during the Council of Trent in the mid-sixteenth century.
These visits, whether as part of personal pilgrimages or ecclesiastical
business, resulted in the transmission of polyphonic repertory from Rome
to Spain, much of it acquired in printed form and subsequently donated
to and used in the Spanish cathedrals and collegiate churches with the
professional musical resources to perform it. Works by Palestrina and Lassus
were acquired in this way and printed partbooks containing their music
are still extant in cathedral libraries in Spain, albeit in dilapidated
and incomplete form. The works of Palestrina in particular were copied
and recopied well into the eighteenth century: motets such as Jesu rex admirabilis clearly formed part of the staple musical fare of these institutions over many years.
Spanish
musicians also travelled to Rome to further their careers by singing in
the papal chapel and other Roman churches, and as early as the 1430s,
when Guillaume Dufay was a member of the papal chapel, the
‘Spanish nation’ had already established a presence, Spanish singers
serving alongside some of the best Franco-Netherlandish musicians of the
early Renaissance. A few generations later the Spanish-born Cristóbal de Morales spent many years in Rome and his music, like that of his compatriot Tomás Luis de Victoria,
is often considered more representative of an international, Rome-based
polyphonic idiom than of a specifically Spanish style. Morales was as
polished a contrapuntalist as any of his North European contemporaries,
yet local or indigenous elements can still be found in his works, as,
for example, in his austere setting of the responsory Parce mihi Domine from the Office of the Dead. Victoria, too, made his career in Rome, and his Mass O quam gloriosum,
published in Rome in 1583, is a relatively free parody of his inspired
four-voice motet setting the text of the antiphon for All Saints' Day.
And it should be remembered that Spanish composers did not have to make
the pilgrimage to Rome, nor base their careers there, to be aware of
music from other cultures. With the accession to the Spanish throne of
Charles V in 1516 Flemish singers were to predominate in the royal
chapel, and its repertory was inevitably international: works by the
leading composers from France, Flanders and Italy, including Jean Mouton and Clemens non Papa,
feature in the inventories of the chapel library and in the anthologies
of vihuela and keyboard arrangements by court-based instrumentalists
such as Miguel de Fuenllana and Luis Venegas de Henestrosa.
There
can be no doubt that many of these canonic works of the Renaissance
found their way to and were performed at Santiago Cathedral. After the
advent of music printing, transmission of the international musical
repertory to the most north-western corner of Spain would no longer have
been largely dependent on the travels of individual pilgrims, although
those who continued to flock to the altar of St James would surely still
have taken their music and their instruments with them. Printed music
books travelled along parts of the pilgrim routes as they were
transported to the major book fairs in Burgos and other Castilian
centres. The movement of peoples in search of spiritual fulfilment
brought with it opportunities for cultural exchange and commerce, as
well as for music-making, whether for the purposes of devotion or just
for simple enjoyment.
Battling
against extreme fatigue and heat, our first concert in Conques was a
truly magical, moving, uplifting, spine-tingling experience for
performers and listeners alike. The sublime music combined with
marvellous acoustics and a wonderfully attentive and appreciative
audience to give us a taste of what is to come with fourteen more
concerts spread out over the next month. There are many rewards for our
‘work’. Witnessing the tears and smiles of stunned listeners makes this
an honour.
Donna Deam soprano
Today is our
first walk along the main Camino. We donned stout boots, hats and
sunscreen and set off from San Juan de Ortega down the pilgrim trail
through pine woods (clouds of butterflies) and into open country —
rolling hills and cornfields. The trail is bordered by colour, banks of
meadowsweet and cowparsley, purple loosestrife and mallow, poppies and
cornflowers in the fields, and statuesque silver thistles. Joined to the
beautiful church of San Juan de Ortega is a refuge, built by San Juan
to protect medieval pilgrims from dangerous local brigands. During the
rehearsal it was full of sie eping walkers, who then came and stood
through our concert.
Carol Hall soprano
The
unique atmosphere of the concert in Ortega inspired the greatest
performance of the tour thus far. A blend of the choir's increasing
camaraderie, our familiarity with the repertoire and the close
interaction with the audience, many of whom were pilgrims, prompted
John Eliot to remark that it had been one of the finest concerts in the
forty-year history of the Monteverdi Choir.
This is the middle point
of the tour and there is no doubt that we have all begun to feel the
strain of such intensive performing and journeying. Like all demanding
tasks however, and as for the walking pilgrims, the rewards are high. It
has brought the group closer together and given us all an experience we
shall never forget.
Adam Tunnickiffe tenor
The
pilgrims average an amazing 40-50 kilometres a day, crossing the golden
plains in the brutal 40-degree heat, and this after weeks scaling the
Pyrenees. The psychological stamina they must have, let alone the
physical strength, is phenomenal. Our Australian friend Morgan has now
been at three of our concerts and he and a group of pilgrims plan to
attend more later in the tour. He left his campsite at four yesterday
morning to make last night's concert. Every time we board the coach to
our next stop I feel embarrassed that my journey will be so much easier
than his. Still, I am rather envious of him. His dedication is
awe-inspiring. The pilgrims I have met on the tour have come in all
shapes and sizes, young and old, from all over the world. They exude a
collective sense of peace.
Kirsty Hopkins soprano
I
was informed in the rehearsal that we could be singing to 2,500 people
in the concert, but could neither visualise nor quite believe the sight
with which we were greeted. Many of our concerts on this tour have been
packed out, but tonight in Oviedo there were people as far as the eye
could see, sitting in the pews, standing in the aisles, side chapels and
galleries. Tonight I think we all felt an electric connection flowing
between us as we focused our voices and souls into this music, which
soared around the pillars, to a captivated audience, who applauded us to
such an extent, that it was almost as if they would not let us leave.
Tim Travers-Brown countertenor