Shannon Canavin & Allison
Mondel, soprano
Thea Lobo & Aaron Russo, alto
Jason
McStoots & Eric Rice, tenor
Brian Church & Richard
Giarusso, bass
Friday, February 25, 2005 at 8 PM
The First Lutheran
Church of Boston
Sunday, February 27, 2005 at 3 PM
Cochran
Chapel at Phillips Academy Andover
Program Notes
When musicians speak of “Burgundian music” or “the
Burgundian school” in reference to music of the
fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, they are not
asserting the primacy of a particular geographic area
so much as that of a particular group of patrons, the
dukes of Burgundy. Indeed, the Valois dukes of the
region, whose dynasty began in 1364, were so successful
at acquiring and inhabiting new territory that their
courts were seldom located in Burgundy, and few if
any of the composers and musicians they employed were
from there. (Many musicologists now resist applying
the label “Burgundian” to music for this
reason.) The Burgundian court under the Valois was
initially located in Paris and subsequently in Flanders
and Artois; it retained its French language and culture
throughout its history, but the music that it produced
was distinctly international in style. The dukes maintained
a chapel choir and a group of minstrels for the performance
of secular music, and these were nearly separate institutions.
The centerpiece of our program is chapel music by Pierre
de la Rue (ca. 1452-1518), a singer and renowned composer
in the court of Philip the Handsome (also known as “the
Fair”; r. 1493-1506), who was the last duke to
rule Burgundy as an independent state. We are presenting
La Rue’s Missa L’Homme armé,
one of two mass settings that the composer based on
the then-famous melody, L’Homme armé,
which is heard in long notes sung by the tenors or
altos throughout the mass. This mass is rarely performed,
in part because La Rue’s authorship is not indicated
in any of the surviving sources of the work. It is
almost certainly by him, however, and we offer the
mass in a hypothetical reconstruction of the liturgy
Philip would have experienced, so that La Rue’s
settings of the various sections of the mass ordinary
(Kyrie, Gloria, etc.) are interspersed with the plainchant
singing and scripture recitation that constituted every
mass service. Motets by Gilles Binchois (ca. 1400-1460)
and Alexander Agricola (ca. 1445-1506), two other composers
employed by the Burgundian court, are included as part
of our reconstruction. While such liturgical re-enactment
can rarely if ever be claimed as completely authentic,
it does afford the listener a sense of how liturgical
polyphony was used during the period. After relatively
long stretches of plainchant, the polyphony impresses
us all the more with its elaborate, interwoven vocal
lines and bright colors. Its effect may be regarded
as similar to that of stained glass windows in a dark
church; in such a space, the impact of the brilliant
colors is all the more keenly felt.
In assembling the music for our hypothetical Burgundian
service, we imagined a specific context. As a member
of Philip’s chapel, La Rue traveled with the
duke to Spain in 1501, returning to France in 1503
by way of Burgundian territory; it was one of the few
times during the composer’s tenure that the itinerant
court was near (if not actually in) the Burgundian
capital of Dijon, which remained one of the duchy’s
most important administrative centers. (Our program’s
title is a French pun reflecting our uncertainty of
the court’s exact whereabouts during this period;
it can mean either “La Rue at Dijon” or “the
road to Dijon.”) Philip’s name day (the
day on which the Saint Philip was commemorated) was
May 1, and it surely would have inspired the celebration
of an elaborate mass by the duke’s chapel choir.
In addition, it was the day before the traditional
meeting day of the Order of the Golden Fleece, a group
of thirty-one knights united in their faith in God,
their solemn duty to protect Western Christendom from
the Ottoman Turks, their commitment to the chivalric
code of conduct, and their alliance with the Duke of
Burgundy. Though full meetings of the Order (with all
thirty-one knights present) were only convened every
five years on average, the Sainte-Chapelle in Dijon,
which was the official chapel of the Order, had received
endowments to celebrated mass on the Order’s
behalf every day of the week with polyphonic singing.
With such a confluence of events—Philip’s
proximity to Dijon in May of 1503, the Sainte-Chapelle’s
capacity as the official chapel of the Order of the
Golden Fleece, and the conjunction of his name day
and the Order’s traditional meeting day on the
calendar—it is not inconceivable that Philip’s
chapel and the canons of the Sainte-Chapelle in Dijon
would have combined forces to celebrate mass.
If the Order of the Golden Fleece were on Philip’s
mind on his name day, it would have been logical for
La Rue and his colleagues to perform a mass based on L’Homme
armé, the popular tune with a text about “an
armed man” or knight. The origins of the melody
remain unclear, although some scholars have suggested
that it was composed for the Order of the Golden Fleece,
in part because it is thirty-one breves (or thirty-one
measures) in length, an unusual number that corresponds
with the number of knights in the order. The first
piece on our program is an intricate setting of the
tune that is probably by Robert Morton (ca. 1430-ca.
1479), an English composer connected with the Burgundian
court from 1457 to 1476. Morton’s Il sera
pour vous / L’Homme armé presents
the melody in the two tenor voices, which toss bits
of the tune back and forth while the soprano sings
a newly-composed text and melody. The new text jokingly
refers to Simon le Breton, a singer in the Burgundian
chapel whose retirement in 1464 may have been the occasion
for the work. The form of the whole is a rondeau, one
of the formes fixes that dominated the chanson
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and Morton’s
skillful combination of the L’Homme armé melody
with this form results in lively rhythmic play and
bright harmonies. Despite the apparent separation of
chapel musicians from minstrels on the court’s
payroll, it is clear from this work that chapel musicians
cultivated and performed secular works at court as
well.
Our program continues with a mass for the Feast of
Saint Philip and Saint James. According to church tradition,
both of these saints were part of the group of twelve
Apostles chosen by Jesus to continue his teaching.
James, who is in this case James the Lesser, the brother
of Saint Matthew, receives no mention whatsoever in
the liturgy of his feast-day, while Philip’s
interaction with Jesus is very prominent. Since the
day fell between Easter and Pentecost, the service
begins with the Vidi aquam, the text of which
recalls the solemn baptism that occurs during Easter
vigil. Next comes Exclamaverunt ad te, the
introit proper to the Feast of Saint Philip and Saint
James in the use of Paris . Given the Burgundian court’s
French traditions, including occasional residency in
Paris, it is likely that the Parisian tradition of
plainsong was used in the Burgundian court’s
liturgy.
The Kyrie and Gloria of the four-voice Missa L’Homme
armé follow. La Rue’s mass is noteworthy
for combining the L’Homme armé melody—which
is heard in long notes (a cantus firmus)
in the tenor or the alto—with strict canon
between two of the other voices through most of the
mass. (Canon is a technique involving exact repetition
of melody previously heard in another voice at a
fixed time interval.) The Kyrie and Gloria feature
canon at the fifth between the sopranos and basses,
and the work’s original manuscript source does
not reproduce the second canonic voice, so that the
basses must read their part from the soprano line.
La Rue varies the time interval between canonic entrances
for different sections, and he often changes the
mensuration (roughly equivalent to meter) as well.
In the first Kyrie, for example, the sopranos and
basses have only a measure in slow triple mensuration
between their entrances, while in the Christe the
time interval is four and a half measures in duple
mensuaration. The second Kyrie returns to the shorter
time interval and meter of the first, but using a
mensuration sign that indicates a faster tempo. The
Gloria has similar changes to the time interval between
canonic entrances and the mensuration. Considering
the rigorous constraints La Rue placed upon himself,
the effect of the whole is remarkably similar to
that of freely composed counterpoint.
Following the Gloria are a brief collect (prayer)
and a reading from the Acts of the Apostles. An Alleluia
is substituted for the Gradual during Eastertide, so
that two Alleluias (rather than the more usual one)
are presented in succession in this mass. The first
is designed to support the scripture reading that preceded
it, while the second announces the reading of the Gospel.
In the latter reading, which is drawn from John’s
Gospel, Philip’s questioning of Jesus’ relationship
to his Father is the main theological interest.
Many stories about the apostles circulated outside
of the Biblical tradition, and these apocrypha occasionally
became sources for motet texts. Dixit Sanctus Philippus relates
Philip’s response to pagan idolatry, a story
not present in the Bible. It is a setting by Gilles
Binchois (ca. 1400-1460), who was active in the Burgundian
court from sometime in the 1420s until 1452. We are
substituting the work for a plainchant sequence often
heard near this point in the mass. It is perhaps unlikely
that this work, which was around fifty years old during
the reign of Philip the Handsome, would have been performed
at our hypothetical mass. On the other hand, the Burgundian
chapel choir had an illustrious history and long traditions,
and it may well have performed its old repertoire for
posterity’s sake. The style of the work is very
simple, with melodic formulae and cadential structures
similar to those of the mid-fifteenth-century chanson.
The Credo of La Rue’s mass offers some of the
most interesting counterpoint in the work. Canon continues
between the soprano and the bass voices, but La Rue
has the voices begin in pairs (soprano-alto and tenor-bass),
a procedure he favored in other contexts. The very
full texture of the first portion of the Credo is contrasted
with two duos on “Et incarnatus est” and “Crucifixus,” both
of which lack strict presentation of the L’Homme
armé melody, though they employ portions
of it. In the first duo, the soprano leads the alto
in canonic imitation, and in the second the bass leads
the tenor. This shift in leadership from a high voice
to a low voice marks a similar shift for the rest of
the Credo: for the first time, the bass voice leads
the soprano in the strict canon. In addition, La Rue
contrasts various textures, creating a remarkable color
with the lower three voices at “Et in Spiritum
Sanctum” despite the constraints of the strict
canon and cantus firmus. Finally, within the theoretical
framework of the time, his melodies imply the use of
B-flats toward the end of the Credo, despite the fact
that the work’s overall modal orientation (mixolydian)
includes B-natural. This briefly produces B-flat major
sonorities that are darker and warmer than the G-major
chords that dominate the mass. This warmth is short-lived,
however: the section finishes with a decisive cadential
flourish that revisits the B-naturals and bright G-major
chords.
The Offertory, sung by the two tenors, begins the
second half of our concert. It is then followed by
a brief preface that introduces the Sanctus. The representation
of the heavenly choirs often inspired Renaissance composers
to produce ornate counterpoint, but La Rue’s
work is relatively restrained. The canon in this section
occurs between the alto and bass voices, with the tenor
singing the cantus firmus and the soprano spinning
freely-composed melody. After a duo on “Pleni
sunt caeli,” a fast triple-meter Hosanna ensues,
sending the canon to the tenor and bass, introducing
more harmonies that include B-flats, and, at the cadence,
a dissonant cross-relation (a moment in which two voice
parts are not in agreement about whether a pitch is
natural, flat, or sharp). After another duo on “Benedictus
qui venit,” the Hosanna is repeated.
The Canon and Lord’s Prayer lead to the Agnus
Dei, in which La Rue expands the texture to five voices.
All of the voices except the second tenor begin the
section in canonic imitation, which obscures the identity
of the alto and soprano as canon-bearing voices. The
second tenor has the cantus firmus. In the second and
final Agnus, the cantus firmus shifts to the alto voice,
but otherwise the procedure is much the same. The mass
concludes with a triple-mensuration section on “Dona
nobis pacem,” and a cross-relation similar to
that at the end of the Hosanna is heard at the conclusion
of the work.
We have decided to end our hypothetical mass with
a work by Alexander Agricola (ca. 1446-1506), another
renowned musician and composer who joined the ducal
chapel of Burgundy in 1500. His Sancte Philippe
Apostole is a contrafact (a work that supplies
a new text with existing music) of his Ergo sancti
martyres, though it is evidently one created under
the composer’s supervision, since the work appears
in a manuscript prepared in a Burgundian scriptorium.
Its text is a prayer to Saint Philip printed in Hortulum
animae, a collection that circulated widely and
was reprinted numerous times. Its rhythmic intricacy
is a hallmark of Agricola’s style, and though
the work may well be based on plainchant, a cantus
firmus has yet to be identified. The Communion chant
that follows quotes Jesus in portions of the day’s
Gospel reading, and is followed by a short post-communion
prayer. The mass officially ends with the chanting
of Ite, missa est (“Go, it is finished”).
Philip the Handsome died in September 1506 in Spain,
and La Rue remained there in the service of his wife,
Juana, until 1508, finally retiring from the chapel
to his native Netherlands in 1516. Upon Philip’s
death, La Rue was likely responsible for the music
of his patron’s obsequies, and Delicta Juventutis may
well have been composed for that occasion. Unlike the
Missa L’Homme armé, it is freely
composed, and several aspects of La Rue’s mature
style are more audible in this work than in the mass.
Like his famous contemporary Josquin des Prez (ca.
1450-1521), with whom he is often compared, La Rue
employs relatively spare textures, pairing voices in
imitation, and only unites all four voices to create
musical climaxes, often for rhetorical emphasis. Homophony
is seldom heard, but when it is (such as at “intercedat
pro eo”), it is clearly intended to serve the
rhetoric of the text.
Such expressions by La Rue may well have been heartfelt.
Philip was a generous patron, and his chapel choir
supported some of the finest musicians of the day.
With his death, the Burgundian chapel was all but disbanded,
and those musicians who remained were subsumed into
the imperial chapel when the future Emperor Charles
V took title to Burgundy in 1515. While the tradition
of the imperial chapel was also a glorious one, La
Rue may well have lamented the death of the Burgundian
chapel, with its roster of fine musicians and rich
tradition, along with that of his patron.
© 2005 Eric Rice |
