Piae Cantiones. Latin Song in Mediaeval Finland / Retrover Ensemble

medieval.org
Naxos "Early Music" 8.554180
Sornetan Church, Suiza
febrero de 1997






Piae Cantiones 1582
Latin Song in Mediaeval Finland


01 - Praeambulum  [improv. sobre El Llibre Vermell]  instr.   [2:32]
02 - Angelus emittitur   [2:24]
03 - Parvulus nobis nascitur  [PC 1625 · Jacob OBRECHT?]   [2:30]
04 - Ramus virens olivarum   [4:29]
05 - Dies est laetitiae   [2:52]
06 - Omnis mundus jucundetur   [2:27]
07 - Mirum si laeteris  (instr.)   [3:40]
08 - Sum in aliena provincia   [3:59]
09 - Mars praecurrit in planetis   [1:28]
10 - Jesus Christus nostra salus  [PC 1582 · Leipzig UB 1084]  instr.   [2:32]
11 - Jucundare jugiter   [1:42]
12 - Omnis nunc microcosmus ~ Omnis mundus  [Codex Speciálníc]   [2:18]
13 - Jesu dulcis memoria   [3:20]
14 - Dies est laetitiae  [Glogauer Liederbuch]  instr.   [2:45]
15 - Verbum caro factum est   [3:18]
16 - Verbum caro factum est  [Cancionero de Uppsala]   [1:09]
17 - Personent hodie ~ Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus   [2:56]
18 - Dies est laetitiae  [Adam von FULDA]   [2:17]
19 - Puer natus in Bethlehem  [PC 1625]   [4:58]
20 - Aetas carmen melodiae   [1:22]
21 - Dies est leticie  [Buxheimer Orgelbuch]  instr.   [2:19]
22 - Surrexit Christus hodie  [Johann Hermann SCHEIN]   [2:08]
23 - Aetas carmen melodiae  [PC 1625 · Daniel FREDERICI]   [2:45]



[entre corchetes las fuentes de las obras no tomadas de las Piae Cantiones de 1582]






RETROVER ENSEMBLE
Markus Tapio

María Cristina Kiehr, soprano
Eric Mentzel, tenor
Eitan Sorek, tenor
Stephen Grant, bass

Markus Tapio, viola da gamba, vielle
Jankes Braaksma, organetto, recorder
Agileu Motta, lute
Leena Joutsenlahti, kantele, recorder

Piae Cantiones
Latin Song in Mediaeval Finland

One early but ill fated attempt to create a Greater Northern Union of states in Scandinavia was made in 1397, when all Nordic countries were to be brought under Danish rule. The Union of Kalmar finally fell apart in 1523 after repeated Swedish rebellions. This ultimate dissolution was preceded by the famous Stockholm massacre in which 82 noblemen and clergy who supported Swedish independence were executed by the Danes.

The leader of the successful Swedish uprising was Gustavus Vasa who then became king of Sweden and its eastern duchy, Finland. It was not, however, solely bravery and national patriotism that secured victory. Mercenaries were expensive and warfare in the sixteenth century typically included a provider of capital with commercial interests, in this case the Hanseatic merchants of Lübeck. In consequence the war left Gustavus Vasa seriously in debt. This has often been considered one reason why Sweden and Finland so quickly adopted the new Protestant religious doctrines. According to these, the head of the state was also head of the national church. This, in turn, translated into the right of the crown to confiscate church property.

In Sweden the whole Reformation was accomplished without much conflict or bloodshed and this was even more the case in Finland, which with its own diocese in Turku (Latin Aboa) had enjoyed a large measure of religious independence since the fourteenth century. The first Finnish hymnal, published in 1583 by Jaakko Firmo, headmaster of Turku Cathedral School, notably lacks the militant combat songs so typical of many other contemporary hymnals.

Together with Theodoricus Petri, a Finnish student at the University of Rostock, Jaakko Finno was also the principal editor of a curious collection of Latin devotional songs for the schola Aboensi in Finlandia, published in Greifswald in 1582. This book, under the
title Piae Cantiones ecclesiasticae et scholasticae veterum episcoporum, contains music of extensive chronological and geographical scope. Stylistically the content is clearly older than the publishing date might suggest and some compositions can be traced back to the turn of the millennium. The main body of compositions, however, can be placed within the fifteenth-century Germanic-Bohemian Cantio tradition.

The question arises as to why a book such as Piae Cantiones should have been produced in Protestant Finland by a clergyman who on another occasion had called the use of Latin in the liturgy a Devil's invention and why it should have been published in continental Europe and not, for instance in Stockholm, the capital. It seems that the impulse for this book came directly from King Johan III of Sweden, who had strong Catholic sympathies and, as a former governor and Duke of Finland, was well acquainted with its cultural heritage. As the title of the book suggests, it seems that Piae Cantiones, rather than being a coherent musical entity, is an attempt to salvage a centuries old local musical tradition doomed to obsolescence. This character of the collection is apparent from the lack of any contemporary musical material and the manner of presentation of the compositions, suggesting a strong oral element in their transmission. The place of publication can probably be explained by the continuing presence of Finnish students at the Catholic universities of Central Europe and the stronger anti-Catholic sentiments of Sweden itself.

Piae Cantiones did not completely escape theological controversy. Some of its texts were 'corrected' by Jaakko Finno, a task carried out rather superficially, generally simply by replacing words such as Maria and Virgo by words such as Christus and Puer, and so on. Naturally, this often resulted in a violation of the poetic structure and, in a couple of cases, in complete nonsense, as, for instance, when Christus was assigned the virginal attribute porta clausa nec pervia.

The second edition of Piae Cantiones was published in 1625 in Rostock and is connected in many ways with the other main mediaeval centre of Finland, Viborg. This time a well known German church musician Daniel Friderici served as an artistic director of the enterprise. Sensing the historical and cultural value of the collection, he preserved all the monophonic songs of the first edition. Many of the three-part polyphonic compositions, however, he replaced by music reflecting contemporary taste. In this respect, the second edition has more the character of a practical song-book. Few sixteenth-century musical collections anywhere in Europe enjoy such an established position in today's musical life as Piae Cantiones in Finland. In the wake of early twentieth-century national romanticism a whole mixed choir tradition has evolved around these melodies, some of which are also represented in the church hymnal. As a result, one concept hardly ever applied to this repertory in Finland is that of so-called historical performance practice. Similarly, the emphasis on elements of national origin, of which there are many, has largely hindered the public from seeing this collection in its proper context as a large and coherent body of strophic Latin non-liturgical song, ranging in provenance from the Mediterranean to the Baltic.

In the present recording our intention has been to explore these links that connect Finland with the common musical heritage of Europe. Some compositions, therefore, are taken from sources other than the Piae Cantiones collection itself. A remarkable number of the Piae Cantiones songs, however, are not found in other sources and their origins are subject to speculation. Many of them are likely to be Finnish, such as Ramus virens olivarum, a hymn to St Henry, an English bishop who was axed down by an uncooperative native on the ice of Lake Köyliö in 1155, a fate for which, as compensation, he later became the patron saint of Finland. Another curious composition is Aetas carmen melodiae, which in the 1625 edition is replaced by a song of Daniel Friderici himself. In spite of its archaic beauty, the counterpoint of the original three-voice version is downright bizarre and could well be the local product of a less than pedantic composer. Of the compositions which have known Central European connections, most are of German or Bohemian origin, or at least transmitted through that area. A good example of this is Dies est laetitiae, which appears in fifteenth and sixteenth century sources in countless variations and later as a Lutheran chorale with the text Der Tag der ist so freudenreich. The melody of Parvulus nobis nascitur is of German popular origin and preserved, for instance, in the Glogauer Liederbuch with a vernacular text. The present polyphonic version is thought to be by the Flemish master Jacob Obrecht and is taken from the first printed volume of polyphonic music, Ottaviano Petrucci's Odhecaton (Venice 1501). Many of the older Piae Cantiones songs have their origins further south. For instance, the earliest known provenance for Verbum caro factum est is in a French manuscript dating from before the year 1100. This song, which might have travelled to Finland with Finnish students from Paris University, can also be found in some Italian and Spanish sources. In the same twelfth-century Spanish manuscript there is also a version of Omnis mundus jucundetur. In this recording this composition will appear twice, first in the monophonic Piae Cantiones version and then as a double-text motet from the Czech Speciednik manuscript. Puer natus in Bethlehem, well known in the Germanic part of Europe, has its earliest known source from the monastery of Bobbio in Italy.

Our knowledge of musical performance practice in mediaeval Finland is virtually non-existent. Since the main cultural exchange between Finland and other countries took place through active trade with other Baltic states and the Hanseatic League, we have looked to German instrumental practice of the fifteenth century for inspiration. The use of the kantele, the traditional Finnish psaltery, in some compositions allows us to explore hypothetical links between the scholarly musical world and folk-tradition.

Markus Tapio