"There
is nothing comparable to Brumel's Earthquake Mass in the renaissance
period and this recording featuring 24 carefully selected voices from
the UK and beyond caused quite a stir when it was first released."
gimell.com
medieval.org
CDGIM 026
1992
Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Salle, Norfolk
Missa Et ecce terrae motus
01 - Kyrie [7:02]
02 - Gloria [9:33]
03 - Credo [9:42]
04 - Sanctus And Benedictus [14:05]
05 - Agnus Dei [6:45]
06 - Lamentations [9:04]
07 - Magnificat Secundi Toni [16:46]
THE TALLIS SCHOLARS
Peter Phillips
soprano:
Tessa Bonner (1-5) - Sally Dunkley (1-5, 7) - Ruth Holton (1-5)
Rachel Platt (1-5) - Deborah Roberts (1-5) - Olive Simpson (1-5)
mean:
Robert Harre-Jones (1-5) - Adrian Hill (1-5) - Mike Lees (1-5)
Nigel Short - Ashley Stafford (1-5) - Caroline Trevor
tenor:
Charles Daniels - Simon Davies (1-6) - Rufus Müller
Mark Padmore - Nicolas Robertson (1-5) - Angus Smith (1-5)
bass:
Stephen Charlesworth (1-5) - Donald Greig - Jonathan Markham (1-5)
Adrian Peacock (1-5) - Francis Steele - Jeremy White (1-5)
It is hard to think of any other
piece of music quite like the 12-part 'Earthquake' Mass by Antoine
Brumel (c.1460-c.1520). Both in its employment of twelve voices for
almost its entire length and in its musical effects, there is nothing
comparable to it in the renaissance period, even if some of those
effects may remind the listener of the 40-part motet Spem in alium
by Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585). Brumel's masterpiece did not inaugurate
a fashion for massive compositions; but it did quickly establish a
formidable reputation for itself, admired throughout central Europe in
the 16th century as an experiment which could not easily be repeated.
It is tribute enough that the only surviving source was copied in
Munich under the direct supervision of the late renaissance composer
Orlandus Lassus (1532-1594), who nonetheless never tried to rival its
idiom in his own work.
A pupil of Josquin des Prés (c.1440-1521)
and one of the leading Franco-Flemish composers around 1500, Brumel was
famous throughout the 16th century. In a period which has left a large
number of laments in memory of its great composers, Brumel received an
exceptional number, more than Obrecht (c.1450-1505), Mouton
(c.1459-1522) and Agricola (?1446-1506) put together. Thomas Morley (in
A Plain and Easy Introduction to Practical Music, 1597) was
probably the last writer to praise Brumel for his skill, the only
master he ranked alongside Josquin, making particular reference to his
ability in the art of canonic composition. Brumel is important to
modern commentators because he was one of the few leading members of
the Franco-Flemish school to be genuinely French, which is to say that
he was born outside the boundaries of the Burgundian Empire, somewhere
near Chartres. He was initially employed in France proper at the
Cathedrals of Chartres and Laon and (in 1498) at Notre Dame in Paris
where he was responsible for the education of the choirboys. However he
seems to have had a restless temperament, which led to his dismissal on
at least two occasions, and he soon began the peripatetic life of so
many musicians of the renaissance period. There is evidence that he was
employed in Geneva, Chambéry and probably Rome; but the high-point of
his career was the fifteen years he spent as successor to Josquin and
Obrecht at the court of Ferrara (between 1505 and 1520) in the retinue
of Alfonso d'Este I.
Brumel's reputation as a writer of canons would not have been greatly increased by the simple example which underlies the Missa Et ecce terrae motus,
for all that the presence of the canon plays an important role in
understanding the unusual musical style of the whole. Brumel restricted
his quotation of the Easter plainsong antiphon at Lauds, Et ecce terrae
motus, to its first seven notes (which set the seven syllables of its
title to D-D-B-D-E-D-D), working them in three-part canon between the
third bass and the first two tenor parts during some of the Mass's
12-part passages. These statements occur in very long notes compared
with the surrounding activity and their details may vary slightly from
quotation to quotation (for example, which of the three voices begins
and what the interval between them may be). By and large, though, the
realisation of this canonic scaffolding is not rigorous and many of the
sections of the mass are free of canon altogether.
However the
influence of these slow-moving notes can be heard throughout the work,
whether they are actually there or not, in the solid, slow-changing
underlying chords. A casual listener to the Missa Et ecce terrae motus,
confused at first by the teeming detail of the rhythmic patterns, may
hear only some rather disappointing harmonies. Closer listening will
reveal why Brumel chose to write in so many parts: he needed them to
decorate his colossal harmonic pillars. In doing so he effectively
abandoned polyphony in the sense of independent yet interrelated
melodic lines, and resorted to sequences and figurations which were
atypical of his time. The effect can even be akin to that of Islamic
art: static, non-representational, tirelessly inventive in its use of
abstract designs, which are intensified by their repetitive
application. This style of writing is so effective that anyone who
might be reminded of Tallis's Spem in alium would be unable to conceive
of the need for another 28 parts.
The manuscript source for
Brumel's 'Earthquake' Mass (Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Mus.
MS1) was copied for a performance in about 1570 at the Bavarian court.
The names of the 33 court singers are given against the nine lower
parts (the boys are not named), amongst whom Lassus sang Tenor II.
Unfortunately the last folios, which contain the Agnus Dei,
have rotted, leaving holes in the voice-parts. Any editor of the piece
is presented with the unusual task of trying to guess where the notes
which he can read might fit, as they are placed on the page in
individual parts rather than in score; then re-compose what is missing.
This was done for Gimell by Francis Knights. A further Agnus Dei, on the Et ecce terrae motus
chant and attributed to Brumel, survives in Copenhagen; but it is
widely thought not to belong to the 12-part Mass, since it is for six
voices, which use different vocal ranges from those in the 12-part
setting. In addition its musical style differs in various important
respects from that of the larger work, not least in quoting many more
than the first seven notes of the chant. For these reasons it has been
omitted from this recording. The Mass is scored for three sopranos, one
true alto, five wide-ranging tenors and three basses. The tessitura of
all these parts (except perhaps that of the sopranos) is unpredictable
to the point of eccentricity. Countertenor II, for example, has a range
of two octaves and a tone, the widest vocal range I have ever met in
renaissance music.
Such eccentricity is not found in the two
remaining items on this recording, both scored for four voices.
Brumel's only surviving set of Lamentations, one of the most beautiful
in the repertory, is also one of the most sombre, building up a rare
mood of desolation by low scoring and slow harmonic movement. As was
customary, the Hebrew letters (in this case 'Heth' and 'Caph') are set
separately from the main body of the text; less usual was the
conception of the last section in triple time, though this suits rather
well the accents in the word 'Ierusalem'. Like most of the music on
this recording, though unusually for a Franco-Flemish composer of the
period, there is little true counterpoint in the writing and no
imitation. The intense, essentially chordal style rather reminds one of
the music of the Spanish composer Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611) of
nearly a hundred years later. In this respect, as in the sequences to
be found in the Mass and Magnificat, Brumel seems to have been in
advance of his time.
Brumel's Second Tone Magnificat is a
through-composed setting, where most would have alternated chant and
polyphony. Its compositional style is surprisingly close to that of the
12-part Mass, except that the chant is stated mainly in the top part in
embellished form. Brumel here again relied on rhythmical sequences, at
times almost baroque in their vitality, which give an interesting
perspective, in four parts, to the astonishing twelve-part music of the
Mass.