John DUNSTAPLE. Musician to the Plantagenets
Orlando Consort

medieval.org
Metronome MET CD 1009
1995








01 - Descendi in ortum meum (antiphon)   [5:01]

02 - Ave maris stella (hymn)   [3:49]

03 - Gloria in canon   [2:57]

04 - Speciosa facta es (antiphon)   [2:14]

05 - Sub tuam protectionem (antiphon)   [4:28]

06 - Veni sancte spiritus (isorhythmic motet)   [6:10]

07 - Albanus roseo rutilat (isorhythmic motet)   [5:44]

08 - Specialis virgo (isorhythmic motet)   [3:14]

09 - Preco preheminenciae (isorhythmic motet)   [6:50]

10 - O crux gloriosa (antiphon)   [5:00]

11 - Salve regina mater mire (antiphon)   [4:29]


MISSA REX SECULORUM

12 - Gloria   [5:45]

13 - Credo   [7:02]

14 - Sanctus   [6:06]

15 - Agnus dei   [5:16]




Oorlando Consort

Robert Harre Jones, countertenor
Charles Daniels, tenor
Angus Smith, tenor
Don Grieg, bass
&
Simon Berridge, tenor
Steven Harrold, tenor



Executive Producer: Tim Smithies
BBC Recording Producer: Graham Dixon
Recording Engineer: Sue Thomas
Editor: Tim Smithies
Recorded in East Woodhay Church, Berkshire
6 and 7 February 1995
Notes by Margaret Brent

The spelling of Dunstaple with a p rather than the more familiar b has been adopted because Dunstaple is spelled with a p in nearly all contemporary archival documents.
He is spelled without exception with a p in the Laud, St John's and Emmanuel manuscripts, many occurrences of which in the latter purport to be autograph (see cover illustration). It is hard to escape the conclusion that this is how he and most of his contemporaries spelled his name.

John Dunstaple
Musician to the Plantagenets

The sound of medieval English music was always distinctive. It attracted wide attention in the early 15th century, the period of John Dunstaple and his many talented contemporaries, and was one of this country's major cultural exports. Indeed, Dunstaple was the most influential English composer outside England before the Beatles. He is almost the only English composer named by continental authorities such as the poet Martin le Franc and the music theorist Tinctoris, and his name continued to be invoked long after his music had fallen out of fashion.


John Dunstaple, a biographical sketch

Until very recently, tantalisingly little was known about Dunstaple's life and career except for his death date, Christmas eve 1453, and an association, known only from an inscription of ownership in a book, with John Duke of Bedford, a younger brother of King Henry V. His name may indicate origin in the town of Dunstable in Bedfordshire, but this is not documented. Earlier scholars had surmised that he spent time in continental Europe, but only since Andrew Wathey established that he had held lands in France was there any firm support for this. These lands, former Bedford territory granted to Dunstaple in 1437 after Bedford's death, may indicate that he accompanied Bedford during his regency between 1422 (when Henry V died and was succeeded by the infant Henry VI) and Bedford's death in 1435. The period of Dunstaple's association with Bedford can now be narrowed to before 1427/8. Much more firmly documented, however, is Dunstaple's association with Henry IV's widow the dowager Queen Joan, from whom he received an annuity, valuables and robes, and from whose service he evidently passed to that of her last remaining son Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, after her death and those of Humfrey's brothers Henry V and John Duke of Bedford. This leaves little time for Dunstaple to have been uniquely in Bedford's employ. Despite these multiple royal connections, he seems not to have been directly engaged in the chapels of the three successive reigning Henrys. Perhaps this is because he was a layman unable or unwilling to undertake such a commitment; a circumstance that in turn makes it less likely that he was the John Dunstapylle who was a canon of Hereford from 1419 to 1440. Both Duke Humfrey and Queen Joan had strong links with St Albans Abbey, as did Dunstaple, who wrote at least one (Albanus roseo rutilat) and probably two motets for it, and it must have been an association with the long-term St Albans Abbot John Wheathampstead that led the latter to compose one and probably this second epitaph for the composer:

Clauditur hoc tumulo, qui celum pectore clausit,
Dunstaple Joannes, astrorum conscius. Illo
Judice novit Urania abscondita pandere celi.
Hic vir erat tua laus, tua lux, tibi, Musica, princeps,
Quique tuas dulces per mundum sparserat artes.
Anno Mil. C. quater semel L tria jungito, Christi
Pridie natalem sidus transmigrat ad astra.
Suscipiant proprium civem celi sibi cives

He is enclosed in this tomb who enclosed heaven in his breast, John Dunstaple, who had secret knowledge of the stars. With him as judge Urania knew how to unfold the secrets of heaven. This man was your glory, your light, your prince, O Music; and one who had scattered your sweet arts throughout the world. In the year 1453, on the day before Christ's Nativity, the star transmigrates to the stars. May the citizens of heaven receive his as a citizen, one of themselves.

This epitaph to Dunstaple in St Stephen's Walbrook London, was lost in the Great Fire of London but it was edited from an old transcript and restored early in the present century. It has affinities with another epitaph written by Abbot Wheathampstead likening Dunstaple to Atlas and Ptolemy. New evidence (found also by Andrew Wathey) links Dunstaple and his family to the St Stephen Walbrook.

Dunstaple's breadth of learning in the quadrivial arts is further attested by books containing astronomical calculations attributed to him, and by a manuscript in Emmanuel College, Cambridge, containing several astronomical and astrological treatises signed "deo gratias quod Dunstaple", evidently in his hand. One of these is illustrated by high-quality drawings (see cover image); if he is also responsible for them we must add draughtsmanship to his accomplishments. The opinion of Noel Swerdlow is that they reveal him to be as able as anyone of his time, though the surviving materials show no originality. Dunstaple's astronomical interests seem to have been almost entirely determined by astrological concerns. In any case, these treatises are his sole surviving autographs; the music has come down to us only in copies by others.

It was always a surprise that nothing by Dunstaple appears in the royal Old Hall manuscript (now British Library, Add 57950) except as a late addition. That manuscript was compiled for Henry V's other brother and heir, Thomas Duke of Clarence, patron of the composer Leonel Power, who is its principal composer. Henry V's chaplains and the book itself were then taken over for the chapel of the infant King Henry VI at some time after Clarence's death in 1421. It cannot be that Dunstaple was too young to be included, for there is evidence that two of the motets on this recording, Veni Sancte and Preco preheminencie, were composed in time for performance in 1416 as part of the thanksgiving ceremonies in England after the battle of Agincourt and the Siege of Harfleur, at a splendid ceremony in Canterbury Cathedral at which Henry V and the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund were present. Surprise at Dunstaple's absence from Old Hall is compounded as his royal associations become increasingly known, but another new discovery shows that he was prominently represented in a younger royal choirbook, now fragmentary, that overlaps with and continues the Old Hall repertory.


John Dunstaple, the music

In the masses of Dunstaple's younger French contemporary, Guillaume Dufay, we hear the rich sonority that shows how continental composers had absorbed the qualities they prized in English music in general and in Dunstaple in particular. Despite that, Dunstaple is a composer who is more known about than known, more seen than heard, hence this recording devoted entirely to his music. As well as some favourites familiar from other recordings, it includes many pieces hitherto unrecorded, and in one case newly discovered.

Like his English contemporaries, Dunstaple seems to have written almost exclusively sacred music. He may be responsible for some of the splendid anonymous repertory of English carols of the early fifteenth century, but we cannot be certain. One isolated secular song (Puisque m'amour) may be his, but not the famous O rosa bella, one of the most widely circulated songs of the 15th century long attributed to Dunstaple, which David Fallows has now shown conclusively to be by the younger composer John Bedyngham.

The present cross-section of Dunstaple's music is all sacred. Almost half of his music was composed for the unchanging sections of the Mass Ordinary, that is, the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei. Most English Masses of this period are preserved not in England but in manuscripts along the main mountain pass routes into Italy by continental singers eager to collect English music.

Dunstaple's virtually unknown 1 Descendi in ortum meum sets a deliciously sensuous text from the Song of Solomon that was used in devotions to the Virgin Mary. (Another example is his better-known and often-recorded Quam pulcra es). Descendi is the only antiphon text set by Dunstaple for four rather than three voice parts. But fully half of it is made up of interlocking duets for different combinations of voices; true four-part writing takes up less than half the piece. There are full sonorous chords with thirds in - not however the last chord of the piece, which uses the traditional bare fifth. The lower parts have more to do, and more words to sing, than is usually the case with Dunstaple. This probably dates from the 1430s, later than most of the Dunstaple we know. Fortunately it could be pieced together from two different manuscript fragments, each of which preserves only two of the voice-parts. Only a few notes had to be invented to make this performance possible.

2 Ave maris stella is Dunstaple's only setting of a hymn, with alternating verses in plainsong and polyphony.

3 Gloria in canon is a newly-discovered piece which has not been heard for 500 years. Although Dunstaple was famed as a mathematician and astronomer, even in the well-established structures of his isorhythmic motets there is little that sets his music apart from his contemporaries in respects that we tend to think of as erudite or mathematical. Nothing approaches the clever proportional pieces and canons cultivated by his predecessors in the Old Hall manuscript. Mrs Victoria Goncharova of Kazan sent me a photo of a manuscript fragment now in Tallinn. This turns out to be a page from a royal English manuscript of about 1430 containing the Gloria. There are three-part canons in the slightly older Old Hall manuscript, but this is a four-part canon, an entirely exceptional piece. Its only precedent, in technique and sonority, is the famous Sumer is icumen in canon of 150 years earlier, another four-part canon accompanied by a simple two-part ostinato round. The new canon must also have been supported, probably also by a two-part ostinato canon, but the bottom of the page on which it must have been written has been cut off. It is performed here with a simple repeating bass part that does little more than support the harmonies where necessary. The Gloria falls into two sections, the first transcribed in 6/8, the second in 4/4 with cross-rhythms at the end. It is very far from the austere sound of Dunstaple's three-part music; it is full of rich triadic sonorities, including the ending on a great glowing C major chord in at least five parts (as here), probably originally in six or seven.

Dunstaple's antiphons are mostly settings of liturgical texts found in the pre-Reformation service books of the English church, usually with their own melodies which Dunstaple sometimes paraphrases, and many of them addressed to Mary.

4 Speciosa facta es is a short processional antiphon for the Blessed Virgin. It addresses her in language similar to the setting of Descendi in ortum meum. 5 Sub tuam protectionem is the only one of these pieces by Dunstaple that begins in duple time. Its brief text is addressed to Mary the protectress.

The group of isorhythmic motets show the form in which late medieval music most nearly appproaches architectural principles, and in which Dunstaple's famed technical command finds its clearest expression. These motets have been likened to gothic cathedral structure, with successive arches built on their predecessors. Dunstaple's standard practice was to compose three sections. The first has slow-moving, static harmonies, over which the upper parts weave exquisite long lines over the sustained long notes in the tenor that are the reason for the slow rate of harmony change. Then follows a section in duple time in which the tenor moves a bit faster, and finally a triple time section in which the tenor has speeded up to move at more or less the rate of the upper parts. These sections are proportioned in simple ratios, 3:2:1 or 6:4:3. Each section presents the short cantus firmus, or plainsong foundation, once, and each is divided into two subsections that are rhythmically identical in all the parts. Most isorhythmic motets have different words in each of the texted parts.

In 6 Veni sancte spiritus the opening melody is a loose paraphrase of the well-known chant Veni creator spiritus which is then continued in the tenor (mentes tuorum). The three main sections are proportioned 3:2:1. The four-part texture gives a full sonority and contributes to the grand effect of this famous masterpiece.

7 Albanus roseo rutilat is a three-part isorhythmic motet on St Alban. It is constructed like Veni sancte spirtus, but in this case the sections are proportioned 6:4:3. David Howlett has proposed that it might date from the 1426 visit of the Duke of Bedford to St Albans. The Rex seculorum mass and another motet for St German (not recorded here) may also have been written for St Alban's. The two St Alban texts are in flowery rhymed hexameters and were probably concocted by Abbot Wheathamstead himself from older liturgical texts. They are certainly in line with the Abbot's humanist aspirations, even if he was not considered a very good humanist.

8 Specialis virgo is more modest in scope than Dunstaple's other isorhythmic motets, using only a single text for both upper parts, and based on the Marian tenor 'Salve parens'. It has a little introduction on the notes C G' followed by four short sections each based on only two notes C D: C Bb: C G': E C, with a coda D D C: that is the entire tenor. The upper parts weave a lovely duet around these notes.

The grand four-part 9 Preco preheminencie, together with Veni Sancte Spiritus, was evidently performed in a 1416 victory celebration in Canterbury Cathedral in the presence of Henry V and the Emperor Sigismund. Its habit of alliteration,well known to students of early English poetry, is here applied to Latin, and has been captured in David Howlett's translation.

10 O crux gloriosa is an antiphon addressed to the Holy Cross and 11 Salve regina mater mire is another addressed to the Virgin Mary. This is a trope to the Salve regina, a favourite text for Marian devotions in England, of which the late 15th-century Eton choirbook boasts some lush settings. This is an austere setting with a mainly minor colouring, in three parts punctuated by duets and varied by some metrical changes.


Missa Rex seculorum

This is the first recording of four complete movements (12 Gloria, 13 Credo, 14 Sanctus and 15 Agnus Dei) based on the plainsong tenor Rex seculorum. The opening Kyrie was identified by Brian Trowell after the other movements had been published. It is not complete enough to perform, but was planned on the same large scale as the other movements, and based on the same tenor. Kyries often got lost or detached from their masses in the continental manuscripts as the foreign musicians had no use for the long troped English Kyries.

Each movement is based on the chant Rex seculorum (King of Ages), an antiphon for St Benedict, which suggests that the mass was written for a Benedictine abbey. Although Dunstaple was not himself a Benedictine monk, we need look no further than the knowledge that he was a favoured protege of John of Wheathamstead, Abbot of the Benedictine Abbey of St Albans, to guess that the mass was most probably composed for St Albans. The first steps towards unifying the Ordinary movements musically were taken by English composers. We cannot be quite certain whether this mass is by Dunstaple or by his slightly older contemporary Leonel Power: the manuscripts disagree. Power also wrote one of the first complete mass cycles, on Alma redemptoris mater. This first professional recording of the mass will enable it to be known in sound as well as on paper, and may help resolve its authorship. Dunstaple also wrote three other sets of mass movements linked by a common tenor chant.

The whole chant of Rex seculorum is quite long, and is presented in full in each movement. Unlike isorhythmic motets that typically use a much shorter segment of tenor tune, this long chant gets through its notes in note values at a pace not much slower than that of the two texted upper parts, which gives good harmonic flow to each movement, unlike the slow static kind of cantus firmus where one pitch is embroidered until the next harmony change. Each movement is based on a differently but flexibly rhythmicised version of the chant; this dictates the same harmonic shape.

Each movement also follows the standard scheme of starting in triple time, changing to duple, and then changing back to triple for a short final section. In other masses, more tightly unified, movements are composed not only on the same tenor melody in each movement, as in Rex seculorum, but with the rhythm of the tenor the same in each movement, like a gigantic isorhythmic motet. In the Gloria and Credo, the tenor enters after a long opening duet for the upper voices. As usual in these movements, we hear the plainsong Gloria in excelsis Deo and Credo in unum Deum before the polyphony enters. The Sanctus and Agnus Dei of the Rex seculorum mass are a little shorter, lacking the opening duets.

Margaret Bent