Los Grandes Motetes de Henry Desmarest

La vida de Henry Desmarest (1661-1741) reune todas las características para hacer de ella un folletín al estilo Dumas. La historia empieza en 1683,c uando el Rey Sol Louis XIV decide convocar oposiciones al puesto secundario de "sous-maestre" en la capilla real bajo el dictado absoluto de Lully. Tras una serie de exámenes a base de misas y motetes, resultan elegidos finalístas DeLalande, Collase, Minoret y Goullipet. Charpentier alega una enfermedad y no entra en liza.

Goullipet, el vencedor, vanidoso e inepto pero con influencias, llega a un acuerdo con un joven compositor: uno escribe música y el otro paga. Pero cuando la avarícia hace acto de presencia, salta el escándalo y el verdadero y respondón autor sale a la luz: no es otro que un desconocido Desmarest, ordinario de la capilla. Pero la jugada no sale del todo bien y es DeLalande, un trepador social con talento muy en la línea de Lully, quien obtiene el puesto. A pesar de ello, compone algunas óperas que le ganan el favor del público, se casa y tiene una hija. Viajan a menudo a Sanlis,cerca de París, y allí conocen a los Saint-Gobert, de la vieja nobleza local. Empiezan los problemas. Jacques y Marie-Charlotte, los Saint-Gobert, tienen un hijo canónigo y una hija, Marie-Margherite en edad de merecer, y un comportamiento social muy sospechoso del que participa Desmarest. A pesar de ello, cuando este enviuda,cuidan de su niña y él acude a menudo a verla. Pero en realidad a quien quiere ver es a la otra niña más crecidita, la de 18 años y voz seductora. Él ha cumplido ya los 35, pero el amor entre ambos es profundo e intenta agasajar al padre contando con el apoyo de la madre, que a su vez mantiene amoríos con un canónigo asiduo de las partidas de cartas que ofrece de modo habitual en el salón.

Tras unas vacaciones de madre e hija en París en compañía de sus respectivos amantes,la hija está embarazada y los amoríos de ambas resultan evidentes. Jacques declara la guerra a sus mujeres por atentar contra el honor familiar y moviendo hilos consigue el destierro del canónigo.Oculta a su hija a buen recaudo con un cirujano hasta el momento del parto con la intención de eliminar pruebas para llevarla luego un convento y tras un rosario de mutuas denuncias públicas consigue ingresar también a su mujer en uno. A Desmarest le envía a unos matones, que fracasan por muy poco en su cometido. Pero este no se asusta y disfrazado de mujer consigue rescatarla. Se inicia entonces una serie de huídas y persecuciones empleando cada uno sus influencias y amistades. Pero el supuesto rapto de una menor en la Francia del siglo XVII es un asunto muy grave, y la diferencia de clases agrava la situación.

Cuando contrata a uno de los mejores abogados de París para el juício, las cosas están ya demasiado mal y le sugiere que ponga tierra de por medio. Así pues, en agosto de 1699, tras dos años de acusaciones y con la muerte de su primera hija de por medio, coge a Marie-Marguerithe y a la hija de ambos y se encamina a los Países Bajos españoles. Es juzgado en rebeldía y se dicta orden de detención.En mayo de 1700 se le condena a muerte. El 28 del mismo mes, un cuadro con su retrato es "ahorcado en esfinge" en la plaza de Gréve a modo simbólico.

Desmarest, ahora también en contacto con la música italiana, recibe el ofrecimiento de servir a Felipe V, y se dirige a Madrid como Maestro de Música de Cámara. Conoce a Rebel y De la Barre, se casa por fin legalmente y las cosas le van bien hasta que llega la Guerra de Sucesión. El dinero escasea y en 1707 deciden dirigirse a Lorena para entrar al servício del duque Leopold I, donde encuentra estabilidad y compone de forma fecunda sus mejores trabajos, entre ellos estos Grands Motets Lorrains.Tampoco aquí tendrá suerte porque la efímera felicidad se esfuma cuando la escasez de las arcas empieza a pasar cuentas en los medios musicales disponibles.

Ambos ansían volver a Francia, pero a pesar de conservar el aprecio de Louis XIV por su música, no consigue el perdón real. Hasta 1721,años después de la muerte del Rey Sol, no consigue el deseado indulto,c oncedido en una humillante ceremonia. Y aún así, ni siquiera la ayuda de sus amigos le permite conseguir cargo cortesano alguno. Marie-Margheritte, la mujer por la que lo arriesgó todo en su juventud, muere en Nancy en 1727. En 1729 le sigue Leopold I y la corte de Lorena empezó su declive definitivo coincidiendo con la vejez de un Henry ya inactivo, que dice a diós al mundo en 1741 tras una vida de novela y treinta años de amor verdadero.

Vincenzo Galilei. Sobre la Imitacion de las Palabras

No es tanto la esencial oposición a las dificultades de la escritura polifónica como la aversión al mal gusto e negligencias en el tratamiento musical de la poesía y de los sentimientos y conceptos que la animan lo que inspira Vincenzo Galilei en el Dialogo della musica antica et della moderna (Florencia, 1581) un perfil exagerado y desde luego involuntariamente humorístico de ciertas ingenuidades o exageraciones manieristas cometidas por algunos compositores al imitar las palabras con el canto. (El pasaje del buey cojo alaude probablemente a la entonación de Orlando di Lasso de la sextilla de Petrarca «La ver l’aurora che sí dolce l’aura» - «Allí hacia la aurora que andren cacciando l’aura» - «y con el buey cojo iremos a cazar al aura» -.)

Dicen, pues – es más, estoy seguro -, nuestro hábiles contrapuntistas que de haber expresado las ideas del espíritu de la forma más correcta y de haber imitado las palabras, siempre que se pone música a un soneto, una canción, un romance, un madrigal u otra composición, en el cual al encontrar un verso que diga, por ejemplo, «Aspro core e salvaggio, e cruda voglia» («Duro e inhumano corazón y deseo cruel»), que es uno de los primeros sonetos de Petrarca, habían hecho entre las partes al cantarlo muchas séptimas, cuartas, segundas y sextas mayores y habían producido con estos recursos en los oídos de los espectadores un sonido rudo, fuerte y poco agradable [...] Otras veces dirán que imitan las palabras cuando entre sus ideas hay algunas que acaban por huir o volar, las cuales se profieren con tal rapidez y con tan poca gracia como baste para que cualquiera pueda imaginárselas. Y en lo que respecta a aquellas que han dicho que desaparezcan, disminuyan, mueran o realmente se extingan han hecho callar a las partes, a los oyentes, o a veces enfadar-se, considerándose por ello objecto de burla, ya que después habrán dicho un solo, dos o todos juntos que han hecho cantar a un solo, a dos y a todos juntos con una gallantería inusitada. Otros utilizan para cantar este verso especial de una sextilla de Petrarca: «Et col bue zoppo andrà cacciando Laura» («y con el buey cojo irá cazando Laura»), diciendolo bajo las notas, entrecortadamente con altibajos y sincopando como si hubiera estado sollozando, y al mencionar la idea que tienen entre manos (como ocurre a veces) del rumor del tambor o del sonido de las trompetas o de otro instrumento parecido han tratado de reproducir en el oído con su canto el sonido de éste, sin la más mínima preocupación de haber pronunciado esas palabras en lo que quiere ser un estilo original.

Tomas L. de Victoria's Officium Defunctorum

Victoria's 'Requiem' Mass has for many decades and for many people typified Spanish Renaissance music. Its mystical intensity of expression, achieved by the simplest musical means, obviously sets it apart from contemporary English and Italian music, and has led to comparisons of it with the equally intense religious paintings of Velazquez and El Greco. There is no doubt that this masterpiece conveys much of the highly individual Spanish view of religion and death, and this is the more valuable since their vision is largely unfamiliar outside Spain herself.

In fact Victoria was just one of a very substantial school of Spanish Renaissance composers; and one of the least prolific amongst them. Many of these deserve to be considered along with Victoria, though none wrote a mass quite as mature as this. One possible reason for their collective lack of fame is that they travelled very little, unless it were to the New World, unlike their Netherlandish contemporaries. Victoria was lucky in this respect. Having been born in Avila in 1548 and brought up there in the tradition of Morales, Espinar and Ribera, he went to Rome probably in 1565 to study at the Jesuit Collegio Germanico. Once there he must surely have met Palestrina, and was possibly taught by him. The subtleties of Palestrina's polyphonic idiom are regularly to be found in Victoria's music, unlike that of his Spanish contemporaries, and it gave him an extra dimension of technique when it suited him. In fact in this Requiem there is very little imitative polyphony and the lack of it allows its Spanish flavour to speak all the more strongly. Victoria stayed in Rome until 1587 at the latest, by which time he had been ordained priest (by Bishop Thomas Goldwell, the last surviving member of the pre-Reformation English Catholic hierarchy in Rome), and published several anthologies of his work. By the end of his life he had succeeded in publishing just about his entire output in eleven sets, most in luxurious format, which was a great deal more than Palestrina ever did. This 6-part Requiem appeared by itself in 1605, and was the last of the series.

From 1587 until his death in 1611 Victoria was employed in Madrid, initially as chaplain to the sister of Philip II: the Dowager Empress Maria, daughter of Charles V, wife of Maximilian II and mother of two emperors. It was for her funeral in 1603 that this Requiem was written. After her death Victoria became organist to the convent where the Empress had lived. Since he was by profession almost as much a priest as a musician, it will be understood why Victoria only wrote sacred music, though it should not be assumed that it is all sombre. By his contemporaries Victoria was held to be an essentially joyful composer and there are many motets to prove this, some of them in polychoral style. In addition much of his music has quite strongly madrigalian features, with liberal use of accidentals, diminished intervals, and word-painting (witness the rising scales on 'surge' in the motet Nigra sum).

[...] Bruno Turner explains that the 1605 print of the music carried some extra motets and liturgical items, as was customary at that time, which would have been added in performance to the Missa pro defunctis proper. These were the 4-part Taedet animam meam (the second lesson of Matins of the Dead) which has been moved to the very beginning to serve as a simple introduction; the motet Versa est in luctum, which may well have been sung as the dignitaries and clergy assembled at the catafalque before the Absolution; and the Absolution itself, for which Victoria wrote the full Responsorium, Libera me, Domine, with its final 'Kyrie eleison'. The only peculiarity of the print is the omission of a setting of the usual verse 'Hostias et preces' and the consequent repeat of 'Quam olim Abrahae' in the Offertorium. Although it may be possible to find a suitable chant setting of these words, and thus satisfy full liturgical demands, it is not musically convincing to do so and these words are omitted here.

All the music of this setting, except the initial Taedet animam meam, is scored for SSATTB. The second soprano part unusually carries the cantus firmus, though it very often disappears into the surrounding part-writing since the chant does not move as slowly as most cantus firmus parts and the polyphony does not generally move very fast. Victoria himself printed most of the unaccompanied chant incipits, though the editor has provided the short second 'Agnus Dei' and the final 'Requiescant in pace'.

Peter Phillips
(1987)

Fantastical Things on Solid Foundations

In 1666, the theologian and man of letters Johann Rist, originally from Holstein, went to Hamburg “to enjoy celebrated music made there”. In the house of Cristoph Bernhard, the Musical Director and Cantor of the Johanneum, the virtuosos of the Ratsmusiker ensemble of the Hanseatic city gathered, in a Collegium Musicum, to perform for the distinguished guest all that was en vogue in music for string instruments, such as “a beautiful sonata by Försten junior for two violins and viola da gamba… in which each eighth measure has its free variation, in the stylo phantastico”.

These words appertain to Johann Mattheson, in his musical biography, Groundwork of an Honour-Gate/Grundlage einer Ehrenpforte, published in 1740. In order to characterise the composition of a concept he utilises a notation introduced into the theory of style ninety years previously in Rome by German Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, in his encyclopaedic work Musurgia Universalis. According to Kircher, the phantasticus stylus is a mode of composition reserved for instruments that are not related to each other from the harmonic or rhythmic point of view, so that they can provide a proof of the performer’s genius.

In 1739, Mattheson will partially refute him, in his work A Consummate Kapellmeister. He invokes the need for harmonic bases, but at the level of individual interpretation he allows sufficient room for play: “in as much as all kinds of otherwise unusual things occur, hidden wrong notes, inversions and ingenious flourishes, without observing the measure and key, (…) without a formal principal part, without constraint, without the interpretation of a theme or a subject; sometimes lively, sometimes hesitant; sometimes univocal, sometimes polyphonic; sometimes without time or measure, but nonetheless not lacking in the intention to construct, to precipitate, to surprise”. The Stylus phantasticus coul produce its full effect only in contrast to the parts “bound” by rhythm and counterpart: for example, in alternation with chord-structured dances or fugue imitations. The stringing together of contrasting passages is characteristic of the instrumental art of the seventeenth century, which was increasingly emancipating itself in relation to vocal music and blossoming in strong colours. It highlights the unrestricted principle of the ricercari and toccate for keyboard and string instruments, in solo sonatas or in ensembles, in which the higher voices can be performed against the base of a basso continuo in the foreground.

After listening to the concerto dedicated to him, Johann Rist was to compliment the violinist Samuel Peter von Sidon in particular. At the time, the latter was a candidate with many perspectives, and Rist considered him worthy to take the place of Johann Schopp, a generation older, as musical director of the Hamburg Ratsmusik. Nevertheless, after the death of Schopp, in 1667, Dietrich Becker (1623-1679), Sidon’s colleague, would be the one who took up the position. Perhaps from career-motivated eagerness, but also from knowledge of his own progress in the art of the violin, he was to choose a particular sonata title, published in the year following his appointment: Musical Fruits of Spring/Musicalische Frühlingsfrüchte, in which the most strongly represented instruments are two violins, violadagamba and continuo. As an instrument of virtuosity, the violadagamba is situated in an inferior position, taking – amid the higher voices in duet and the harmonious accompaniment of the cello, organ and flute – the role of background voice, but nevertheless permitted solo episodes in places.

Perhaps it is coincidence, but almost simultaneous with ascendancy of Becker, all trace is lost of his colleague Sidon. The latter, in any case, will be instrumental in the consecration of Kaspar Förster (1616-1673), a renowned musician from Danzig, educated in Rome, who will compose for him, many years later, the sonata La Sidon. Förster and Sidon had met in Copenhagen, at the court of King Frederick III. Förster was to be Kapellmeister there between 1652 and 1655, and again between 1661 and 1667. Sidon temporarily took over as conductor of the chapel, while Förster, fighting for Venice, was to know military glory in the war against the Turks, later being immortalised as the “knight of San Marco.” He probably composed La Sidon in 1661, thus in the period when, before his return from Copenhagen, he had been hosted by his colleague, who was in Hamburg at the time. On the other hand, it may be that it was composed many years before that, the same as his other two sonatas for two violins, violadagamba, bass and continuo, for the Copenhagen Royal Chamber Orchestra.

A change of generations also occurred in 1679, when Nikolaus Adam Strungk (1640-1700) became musical director of the Hamburg Ratsmusik, after the death of Dietrich Becker. At the age of forty, Strungk could boast a career in the ascendant: he had been first violinist at the court chapels of Wolfenbuettel, Celle and Hannover, and then, between 1661 and 1665, he had impressed Emperor Leopold I with his artistry. He stayed in Hamburg for four years, introducing into the pretentious idiom of the Hamburg Ratsmusik not only his sovereign ability but also a certain harmonic daring, as is demonstrated by his Sonata in re minor. Then, his path took him to Hannover once more, then to Italy and again Vienna. In 1688, we find him vice-Kapellmeister and then Kapellmeister in Dresden. In 1693, he was to found at the Leipzig Opera.

From Strungk’s generation there are three composers who it is supposed were included by painter Johannes Voorhout in his allegory of 1674, which refers to friendship on the musical stage: on violin can be found Johann Adam Reincken (1643-1722), alongside Johann Theile (1646-1724) and Dietrich Buxtehude (1637- 1707). It is not known who is on violadagamba or who is listening to the music, as the gaze is directed rather towards a female lutanist than towards the notes. Of Reincken, organist at the Katharinenkirche in Hamburg, it was presumed until recently that his date of birth was ten years earlier than was known and that consequently, shortly before reaching the age of one hundred, he is supposed to have greeted Johann Sebastian Bach with words of praise, when the latter made a mark for himself in the Hanseatic city, in 1720, with an Improvised Choral Fantasia, as organist at the St. Jacobi church. Bach was attracted to the transposition of string sonatas and suites from the Hortus Musicus. The first and otherwise only printed publications to have survived were issued by Reincken in 1688. The fact that in the preface he added the fictive title director organi is evidence of his pregnant sense of self-consciousness, as is also demonstrated by the extravagant cloak he is wearing in the respective painting.

Theile, still Kapellmeister at the Gottorf residence in Holstein at the time the painting was composed, has gone down in musical history as the “father of counterpoint”. This is principally due to his Book on the Art of Music, from 1691, also published in numerous copies, a manuscript collection, in which the last disciple of Heinrich Schutz presents, on the basis of his own compositions, the combinatory art of the double counterpoint. The fact that Theile, an expert in melody, whose work Adam und Eva opened at Hamburg’s Gänsemarkt Opera in 1678, will not be forgotten is proven by the Sonata Duplex, which can still be listened to today. “Two subjects, then the same backwards / can be listened to yet again,” thus goes one of Theile’s commentaries in the above mentioned book on the art of music. However, a piece may still delight even if one does not have knowledge of this method of composition.

Buxtehude, organist at the Marienkirche in Lübeck, was renowned amongst his contemporaries as a virtuoso, but also as the composer of splendid vocal music. From his work for keyboard instruments, we retain the Ciacona in mi minor, an excellent example of the potentialities of variation that can be obtained according to the patterns of old dance forms, in essentially uniform harmonic successions along a bass line. (Cordarte adapted this lively piece for an ensemble made up of violin, violadagamba and chitarrone.) In 1694 and then 1696, following the example of his colleague and friend Reincken, Buxtehude published works entitled VII. Suonate a doi, violino & violadagamba, con cembalo, publications in which he presents the entire creative gamut of compositional techniques for chamber music. Thus, the Sonata in do minor, from opus 2, reveals a charming dialogue through the play of nuances between the violin and the violadagamba. The Sonatas in fa major and sol major have come down to us only in manuscript. In their structure, they constitute shining examples of those baroque compositions for quartet, whose brilliant exponent would, a century later, be Georg Philipp Telemann in Hamburg. These sonatas provide, in the concerto manner, a different podium for affirmation of the solo virtuosity of the violins and viola da gamba.

Clément Janequin: 450th Anniversary of his death

This year we are comemorating the 450th anniversary of Clément Janequin's death. This is a wonderful french composer of the Renaissance, who mainly wrote chansons. I'll be posting a series of articles on the composer, for the readers to discover more about this "vanguard" composer of the Renaissance.


Clément Janequin (also know as Clément Jannequin) was a french composer. He was born in Châtellerault (near Poitiers) c. 1485 and died in Paris, 1558. He spent his early years in the region of Bordeaux, at the same time studying for the priesthood. In the 1530s he moved to Angers, serving as maître de chapelle at the cathedral from 1537. During those years he built up a considerable reputation as a chanson composer, and had some works published by Pierre Attaingnant (including Chantons, sonnons, trompettes, written for a visit to Bordeaux by François I); at least four volumes of his works were published. In 1549 he settled in Paris, becoming chantre ordinaire du roi and then compositeur du roi; he also registered as a student at the university. In spite of the fact that in 1555 he was a singer in the royal chapel, he died a poor man.

Janequin's over 250 chansons form easily the greater part of his output (although he also wrote many psalm settings and chansons spirituelles), and even his two masses are of the parody kind, based closely on two of his chansons (Missa super ‘L'Aveuglé dieu’ and Missa super ‘La Bataille’). Many of them set the verse in a programmatic way, imitating birdsong, the chattering of women, and so on. His well-known La Bataille de Marignan (probably written soon after the Battle of Marignano, 1515), using warriors' cries, the clashing of swords and other battle sounds, was a favourite throughout Europe, and provoked many imitations.

Denis Arnold/Tim Carter