The Tournai Mass is the oldest polyphonic Mass to have survived. Dating from 1349, it is preserved in the library of the cathedral of Tournai with identification number A 27 and is dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
It was traditional to “arrange” sections of the Propers of the Mass in polyphonic style to embellish the religious ceremonies of the great festival such as Christmas and Easter, but a new practise appeared during the 14th century. The text of the Ordinary of the Mass – the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei – was set to music with the intention of creating a cycle: the polyphonic Mass. Many exerpts from such works have survived, but the Tournai Mass is the first complete example to have done so.
The Tournai Mass is a compilation rather than a single unifird composition; the various sections are not attributed to any individual composer and they all originate from different places and periods. They were assembled and seem to have been copied out by one particular clerk. The apparent cohesion of the group pieces is limited to the three-part homophonic writing common to all the pieces except for the final motet. Two types of notation are employed: Franconian or modal notation, characteristic of the Ars Antiqua, used in the Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei, and a mensural notation, showing the clerk’s mastery of the innovations brought in with the Ars Nova in the Gloria, Credo and Ite missa est.
Looking both backwards and forwards in time, this Mass gives clear evidence of the musical upheavals created by the Ars Nova, although it would be incorrect to imagine a homogenous musical practice springing into life at the same time as the treatises that describe it. the shock wave that was the Ars Nova spread at different speeds depending on place and environment: different styles coexisted and hybridises, whilst certain pieces were updated to reflect the new styles. Usages that today seem anachonistic then continued side by side, sometimes for long periods. The Tournai Mass belongs to this period: in it we see the elements of the new style being grafted onto the traditional forms.
The Ars Nova
It was in 1320 that Philippe de Vitry, Jean de Murs, Marchettus of Padua and Jacques de Liège created their first theories about what today is termed the Ars Nova. Their main innovations were intended to rationalise musical notation, allowing it to develop into a binary to ternary rhythm or vice versa, as well as new graphical elements for the shorter notes. The rules of counterpoint now laid down the principles of composition. A century earlier, Franco of Cologne had explicitly associated the idea of ternary rhythm with the Christian trinity, but from now onwards, every value had to be able to be divided by either two or three. Musical notation was thus loosened from its metaphysical content and became no more than the description of an event in sound.
The tear of the Virgin
The city of Tournai was to be tested sorely: it was the most important religious centre of the County of
Flanders and was for the most part hostile to the French monarch on whim nevertheless it was directly dependent. Taking advantage of this division, Edward III of England set siege to the city together with his allies of Flanders, Brabant and Hainaut in 1340: this was the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War. On 16 August, 1348, numerous witnesses saw tears flow from the eyes of the Virgin in the cathedral: shortly afterwards, the clergy held council and declared that a miracle had truly taken place. When the Black Death struck the town in 1349, a Mass in honour of the Virgin was celebrated every day. This was a Mass cum nota, a sung Mass, that was celebrated at dawn in the southern part of the transept by a priest and six cantors. It would seem that the Tournai Mass was the result of these circunstances, it being added to the many daily ceremonies already held in the cathedral. [...]
Flanders and was for the most part hostile to the French monarch on whim nevertheless it was directly dependent. Taking advantage of this division, Edward III of England set siege to the city together with his allies of Flanders, Brabant and Hainaut in 1340: this was the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War. On 16 August, 1348, numerous witnesses saw tears flow from the eyes of the Virgin in the cathedral: shortly afterwards, the clergy held council and declared that a miracle had truly taken place. When the Black Death struck the town in 1349, a Mass in honour of the Virgin was celebrated every day. This was a Mass cum nota, a sung Mass, that was celebrated at dawn in the southern part of the transept by a priest and six cantors. It would seem that the Tournai Mass was the result of these circunstances, it being added to the many daily ceremonies already held in the cathedral. [...]The sections of the Mass
The Kyrie, Sanctus and Gloria are separate pieces and appear in no other manuscript. The presence of the Credo in the manuscripts of Apt, Ivrea, Madrid and Las Huelgas an
d of the Ite missa est in the Ivrea manuscript is proof of the circulation of musical currents between North and South and also establishes clear links with the Papal court in Avignon. In these pieces it is as if we sometimes hear three reflections of the same text; every trace of singer’s individuality is removed for the benefit of the ensemble.
The Kyrie develops in a rhythmical mode belonging to the previous century. Its homophonic and homorhythmic style recall the old conductus, long since fallen ou of fashion. The tenor line has not been identified. The notation, is late Franconian, from around 1330. The piece takes up half one page, the other half being used for the beginning of the Gloria. Each of the voices, notated on two lines, has its own text.
d of the Ite missa est in the Ivrea manuscript is proof of the circulation of musical currents between North and South and also establishes clear links with the Papal court in Avignon. In these pieces it is as if we sometimes hear three reflections of the same text; every trace of singer’s individuality is removed for the benefit of the ensemble.The Kyrie develops in a rhythmical mode belonging to the previous century. Its homophonic and homorhythmic style recall the old conductus, long since fallen ou of fashion. The tenor line has not been identified. The notation, is late Franconian, from around 1330. The piece takes up half one page, the other half being used for the beginning of the Gloria. Each of the voices, notated on two lines, has its own text.
The Gloria has an unexpected amplitude; its greatly-extended tessitura demands a certain virtuosity from the two upper voices. Its Amen is particularly spectacular and consists of a long melisma with much use of the hocket technique. The musical writing clearly shows that the composer was very well acquainted with the art of Philippe de Vitry.
The Credo uses a style of writing that is simpler and more syllabic than that of the Gloria. Its presence in the Las Huelgas manuscript demonstrates that it was written before the innovations of the Ars Nova (Philippe de Vitry’s treatise is dated 1320) came into effect. It may well even be a recasting of an even older piece to suit the taste of the period. For us, it is the most disconcerting and the most ambiguous piece in the entire Mass with its use of the old discant technique. The extremely wide distances between the voices and their almost constant parallelism are tricky to handle. Short wordless passages link the larger musical sections; this procedure is also present in the Gloria and was to become customary, with Machaut in particular.
The Sanctus and the Agnus Dei are undeniably similar and seem to have been composed by the same hand. Their style and notation allow us to date them at the end of the 13th or the beginning of the 14th century. The Sanctus is notated as a motet, with the duplum and triplum in two columns and the tenor at the bottom of the page, each line being provided with its own text.
The Ite missa est is a bilingual motet with na isorhythmic structure that is characteristic of the Ars Nova. Included in the Ivrea manuscript, where it appears in the company of several pieces that were used in the Papal chapel in Avignon, it is also mentioned in the index of the Trémoïlle manuscript that has since unfortunately disappeared. The tenor line has not been identified. Whilst the text of the motetus is in Latin and is religious in character, the text of the triplum is secular and in a northern French dialect scattered with words from the Picardy dialect. The use of texts in different languages simultaneously and the association of profane love with a religious theme are common techniques employed in motet composition of the time. [...]
The copyist’s mistakes’
We noticed dissonances dissonances that sometimes involved every part and that lasted over several breves, such as E F G/D E F /C D E. To sing these as written produces vocal clusters that are extremely strange in this musical context. We have assumed that these are slips of the copyist’s pen […].
The number of performers and the presence of instruments must have depended on the resources available at that time and place. In 1349 there wer five cantors in Tournai to sing the daily Mass […] The manuscripts provide no instructions for this […].
There were large numbers of nuns at that time and they were certainly highly cultivated women. Even though only men could sing Mass in Tournai, the numerous copies of this music that have been found give proof of how far this music spread. Could it also have been sung in secret by a choir of nuns at that time? The presence of the Credo in Las Huelgas, a convent, renders this supposition plausible. The Middle Ages were a time of misogyny and history was written by men […].
When the same piece appears in different manuscripts, there is often variation in the text underlay. The Credo appears in four different manuscripts; the text is written under each voice, except for the Las Huelgas manuscript, where it appears only under the superius line. Could this have been a version for voice and instruments? Singers could in any case easily figure out where to align such a well-known text; the absence of a text under one voice, such as the tenor in a motet, does not seem to be conclusive proof for us.
Quarrels over aesthetics had set those who favoured the older style apart from the new. Pope John of Avignon issued a decree condemning the Ars Nova in 1324, forbidding a practice that, according to him, had given rise to an excess of virtuosity; the abuse of the hocket technique had made the sung texts incomprehensible and was also very little suited to calm meditation. Paradoxically, the new style of religious polyphony was to prosper, even at the Papal court. […]
The copyist’s mistakes’
We noticed dissonances dissonances that sometimes involved every part and that lasted over several breves, such as E F G/D E F /C D E. To sing these as written produces vocal clusters that are extremely strange in this musical context. We have assumed that these are slips of the copyist’s pen […].
The number of performers and the presence of instruments must have depended on the resources available at that time and place. In 1349 there wer five cantors in Tournai to sing the daily Mass […] The manuscripts provide no instructions for this […].
There were large numbers of nuns at that time and they were certainly highly cultivated women. Even though only men could sing Mass in Tournai, the numerous copies of this music that have been found give proof of how far this music spread. Could it also have been sung in secret by a choir of nuns at that time? The presence of the Credo in Las Huelgas, a convent, renders this supposition plausible. The Middle Ages were a time of misogyny and history was written by men […].
When the same piece appears in different manuscripts, there is often variation in the text underlay. The Credo appears in four different manuscripts; the text is written under each voice, except for the Las Huelgas manuscript, where it appears only under the superius line. Could this have been a version for voice and instruments? Singers could in any case easily figure out where to align such a well-known text; the absence of a text under one voice, such as the tenor in a motet, does not seem to be conclusive proof for us.
Quarrels over aesthetics had set those who favoured the older style apart from the new. Pope John of Avignon issued a decree condemning the Ars Nova in 1324, forbidding a practice that, according to him, had given rise to an excess of virtuosity; the abuse of the hocket technique had made the sung texts incomprehensible and was also very little suited to calm meditation. Paradoxically, the new style of religious polyphony was to prosper, even at the Papal court. […]
Laurence Brisset
Translation: Peter Lockwood
só hoje descobri este blog... ainda não tive tempo de o explorar profundamente, mas do que já vi gostei e deve começar a passar por cá com frequência e analisar post por post. o que já vi é um bom trabalho de divulgação