Western music during the 15th and 16th centuries was very much dominated by Netherlands Flemish polyphony, a terminology that historians have been using for more than 150 years. This costumary linking of the two nationalities seems to indicate that the polyphonic style was very much identified with the impressive quantities of music produced during the above two centuries by the untiring activities of at least five generations of talented composers from the regions known as the ‘Low Countries by the sea’ or the ‘Netherlands’. These composers were known in Italy as the fiamminghi ir Flemings. Charles V and Philip II had a host of selected singers who formed the capilla flamenca in Madrid: the singing masters who led this capilla were born in Antwerp, Turnhout, Liège and Atrecht, today’s Arras; this provides a clear indication of the origins of the term ‘Flemish polyphony’. Most of these men came from the southern regions of the Low Countries and many of them spoke French as their mother tongue.
The Low Countries, more or less the equivalent of today’s Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg and the north of France as far as Arras/Atrecht, possessed a certain amount of cultural as well as economic and political autonomy. Although we can hardly speak of an inviolable and lasting unified state, these regions belonged, politically speaking, to the successive dynasties of the Dukes of Burgundy and the Austrian and Spanish Hapsburgs for a long period of time during the 15th and 16th centuries.
It is in any case indisputable that the populace of these regions lived and worked under foreign domination: the Burgundians were at least members of the French royal house and the Hapsburgs came from German-speaking lands. When Philip the Handsome, the son of Emperor Maximilian of Austria, became king of Castille, the Netherlands the came into the hands of the Spanish branch of the Hapsburgs.
This political situation had far-reaching consequences for art and culture in general and for music in particular. We should here note a number of factors that influenced and reacted with each other: the various regions, thanks to the development of the cities, were particularly strong, with the standard of living being comparable to that of Northern Italy. Bruges and later Antwerp were European centres of trade, where international contacts were continually being made; these were naturally highly useful for the dissemination of art.
The production of works of art in these lands had reached a level that was never again to be equalled. The favourable economic circunstances created a fitting climate for the development of talent that was already almost too available. Thanks to their almost eccentric interest in the arts, the Dukes of Burgundy laid down secure foundations on which later generations of artists could build: musicians did so in any case.
We should also emphasise that centres of musicl training at the highest level existed for training of musicians, singers and composers in Cambrai, Bruges, Liège, Tournai and Antwerp amongst others. The result of this excess of musical of musical artistry was twofold: on the one hand the Netherlands were regarded more and more as the most important international centre of polyphonic art, whilst artists swarmed from such a centre to the surrounding countries and even to much further away. They set out either on their own iniciative or because they had been summoned by spiritual or secular leader to fulfil every type of musical function; their emigrations were encouraged by the unstable political situation in the Low Countries at that time.
As a result of the uprisings, the sense of disquiet in the cities and the religious persecutions during the second half of the 16th century, the most prominent musicians from the Southern Netherlands were forced to seek their fortune elsewhere, be it in the North or abroad, where those in power who were interested in music welcomed them with open arms. There was clearly a real sense of rivalry in their efforts to engage the most renowned Flemish polyphonists for their courts and churches. Thanks to the immense attraction of foreign places, the fact that the various courts had to travel from one place of residence to another and to the exchanging of musicians between the courts themselves, Flemish polyphony spread widely; its influence was felt throughout Europe.
Strictly speaking, every composition that is written for more than one part fulfils the requirements to be called polyphonic. The first fragments of music with more than a single musical line date from the end of the 9th century and in these early examples we see the two principles that were to form the basis for the further development of the polyphonic style: the music takes an existing melody from the liturgical repertory of the Western Church – Gregorian chant – as its starting point, to which a ‘new’ musical line is then added. In these first instances, this new line followed the existing first melody closely.
From the 12th century onwards the second line acquired a more individual development in the composer’s hands. It departed from the path traced out by the original melody and was no longer restricted to remaining under or above it; the new line traversed the original and even wrapped itself around it with an independent rhythmic pattern. Through this development the new line arrived at a more or less equal footing with the first melody; this marked the beginning of the ‘true’ and extremely complex polyphony of the 16th century, with two or more parts that were completely independent but that were conceived in such a way that they also sounded well when played together.
What set the Flemish composers apart in their use of this age-old tradition? They display a striking stylistic unity with regard to the euphony of their works and the sweet-toned sounds that they used as well as a technical ingenuity that was almost unimaginable. They also adopted a new manner of composing, no longer writing the individual lines one after the other but simultaneously; the equality of the several lines was further reinforced by this and other techniques. Finally, they made vital contributions to the independent status of musical genres such as the Mass, the motet, the french chanson and the madrigal by attributing a characteristic style to each genre.
Early polyphony was religious in inspiration and was intended for liturgical use, initially in monasteries but later also cities, in the great cathedrals that were bishops’ seats. The flourishing of polyphonic sacred music in France during the 12th and 13th centuries ran in parallel with the sucess of the monophonic song repertory of the troubadours and trouvères. At that time there was no question purely secular polyphony, although a process of secularisation of the polyphonic style began during the 13th century and led to the creation of the polyphonic French song. The poet and composer Guillaume de Machaut (1304-1377) is firmly linked to the flowering of the song form in the 14th century. This process of declericalisation and popularisation was not limited to music; the other arts were also included, as we can see from the sudden upsurge of literature written in the popular tongue by such authors as Dante and Petrach in Italy.
The highest musical form that employed the polyphonic style in the 15th century was the Mass. During the second half of the century Johannes Tinctoris compiled a hierarchy of the various genres on the basis of the texts that were composed. The highest category of what he termed the cantus (song or composition) was the Mass, immediately followed by compositions on other sacred texts, these including the psalm, the Magnificat and the hymn; these genres were separate from the Mass, but were still part of the liturgy. A motet could be composed to a sacred or to a secular text, but a sacred motet could also be performed beyond the church’s precints.
The following category according to Tinctoris was the cantilena or secular song, composed mostly of texts in the vernacular of the country. The chanson or song was long the most colourful and popular genre in many lands until the rise of the Italian madrigal during the 15th century. This genre gradually became the most important of all secular genres and had a great influence on other genres also; it also later gained a sacred equivalent. The quality of the madrigal increased in proportion to the quality of the poetry chosen as its text; composers seized upon the form as a playing-field on which they could experiment freely and to an ever greater extent with illustration and emphasis of the text through music.
In comparison with vocal music, very little instrumental music from this period has survived. Instrumental music was not highly regarded until tastes began to change in the course of the 16th century. Vocal music was in any case transcribed and arranged for instrumental groups, on which basis new repertoire was later composed. Music for dancing was popular, as was music for lute – and naturally the fiamminghi left their mark on the development of these genres as well throughout Europe.
Ignace Bossuyt, Shulamith Brouwer
Translation: Peter Lockwood
Translation: Peter Lockwood
