A Medieval Christmas

The story of the Great fourteenth-century English poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, takes place across two Christmas seasons and gives us a clear picture of the nature of court celebrations. Over-eating, flirtation (of the courtly kind), hunting and drinking form the main ingredients, but each day begins with Mass. Undoubtedly the Masses attended were all liturgically specific; Christmas Day (etymologically Christ’s Mass) followed the next day by a Mass for St Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Thereafter the Feast of St John the Apostle (27th), the Feast of the Holy Innocents (28th), the Feast of St Thomas (29th) and the Feast of Circumcision on January the 1st. Yet, as today, secular customs would have united the season and characterised the celebrations at home. Pope Gregory the Great showed a fairly opportunistic streak when he instructed St Augustine to incorporate pagan customs into Christmas celebrations when he visited England in the sixth century. The appropriation of old rituals into the Christmas season is similarly demonstrated in the tradition of gift giving. This may well have developed from the legend of the Wise Men’s offerings to the to the infant Jesus (and gift giving today certainly echoes this), but it is more likely that it comes from the secular medieval tradition (which still exists in France) of giving presents on New Year’s Day, a distinctly secular Roman practice (strenae in Latin, estrennes in French).

This music comes from secular celebrations and liturgical music of England, France (as it now is) and the Low Countries. The first section is entitled Prophecy and features the earliest notated polyphony, Organum. We begin with three sections from the Christmas Mass from the Winchester Troper. This simple note-against-note polyphony prevailed in England and Northern France throughout the eleventh century. Austere, simple and undeniably beautiful, it was performed by two solo singers with a choir singing the plainchant. To a congregation for whom a simple monophonic line was the height of musical sophistication, the sound of two voices singing different pitches and coming to rest though the characteristic cadential resolution of a second to a unison must have been startling.

Organum was the dominant form of polyphony between the ninth and twelfth centuries and developed into many different and more luxurious forms such as Aquitanian polyphony in the latter part of this period. This was no longer based on plainchant but upon rhymed, strophic forms and is characterised by a freer, more expressive line, sometimes crossing over the lower part, sometimes ascending or descending in scalic patterns. Two pieces from the latest of the manuscripts gathered in the Library of the Abbey of St Martial in Limoges (hence the wonderfully appropriate term ‘Limousine Polyphony’), Lux refulgent and O primus homo corruit. The former reminds us of the thematic and literal importance of light at the darkest time of the year, and O primus homo tells the congregation of the link between the first man of the Old Testament (Adam) and the first man of the New (Jesus).

The Feast of Circumcision (January 1st) drew upon the distinctly secular traditions of the Roman Saturnalia (in celebration of the god, Saturn) and provided an excuse for disruption of the traditions of hierarchy and propriety. In Sens and Beauvais in particular, the Feast of Fools was an excuse for licentious behaviour including cross-dressing and other blasphemous eccentricities. If we are reports of these at face value then Annus renascitur is a comparatively staid affair, a simple monophonic conductus (a song with Latin text) where the bishop may well have banged his crozier in time to the music, probably urging the singers to drown out his efforts at amateur conducting.
By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries refined music was the perfect match for restrained, codified courtly behaviour. New Year’s Day was when gifts were given and this tradition (le coutume joye) was modified to incorporate expressions of love and loyalty to the loved one. The anonymous ballade, De quan qu’on peut, is a rhythmically complex and demanding chanson in the ars subtillior style (‘the most subtle art’), quite in line with its expression of anguish at the torment of unrequited love. Often the New Year’s love song was itself the gift, as Arnold de Lantin’s lyrical ballade Tout mon désir explicitly states (‘I make a joyful and happy song... as a present to my sweet beloved’). The rustic simplicity of Dufay’s rondeau, Ce jour de l’an, is an echo of earlier, ribald celebrations and typical of his early chanson style.

The next group of pieces are all narrative motets. The importance of stories to an illiterate community, and Christmas stories in particular, cannot be underestimated. The shepherds were an obvious form of identification for the medieval peasant but the story here is told with consummate and characteristic elegance in Clemens’ suave polyphonic style. Likewise Clemens’ plangent setting of Vox in Rama (which echoes the slaughter of the Holy Innocents) appeals to universal themes of birth, childhood and death. Lullaby, lullow is a deceptively simple lullaby which interweaves two equal voices while Compère’s O admirabile commercium tells of the wonder of the Virgin Birth.

The most obvious and consistent of all the emotions of the Christmas season is joy, expressed most succinctly in the word Noel, heard in the final four pieces. Etymologically it derives from the Latin word natalis (meaning birth) though an alternative derivation may be from the early French word nouvelles, meaning ‘news’. Its function as a simple expression of joy explains its appearance as a word shouted or sung of the arrival of dignitaries in France in the fifteenth century: the two short Noels by Busnois and Brumel could well have been heard throughout the year. The final piece is the grand, five-part meditation by the French composer Antoine Brumel, Nato canunt omnia. The architecture of the piece is dense and complicated: in all it uses eight pre-existent plainchant melodies, not restricted to the cantus firmus in the middle of the texture, but also paraphrased in the faster-moving four outer parts.

Donald Greig

The Celebration of Light: Officium Natalis Christi, in Principium erat Verbum

The focal point of the liturgy of Christmas morning is the manifestation and propagation of light. Both the Proper of the Mass and the Reading for the day (the prologue of St. John’s Gospel “In principium erat Verbum”) are both imbued, verbally and by implication, with the concept of Light. It is a physical light that shines out from the sequence Natus ante saecula (composed by Nokter Balbulus at St. Gall in the IX/Xth century), full of stars and sunrays, reminiscent of ancient sun worship linked to the seasons, as in the case of the verse “Hoc praesens diecula loquitut, praelucida, adaucta longitudine, quod verus sol radio sul luminis vetustas mundi depulerit genitus tenebras”, whereas it is a spiritual light that emerges from the words of St. John (purposely called “lux vera” as though to differenciate it from any ambiguous connection with solar cults). In his Officium natalis Christi, published in the third volume of Patrocinium Musices in 1574, Lasso adopted this idea of the Celebration of the light, emphasizing it through the use of high tessitura so as to render the music at times almost bodless. And indeed in Puer natus est the high tessitura is set off even further by the plainchant intonation written an octave bellow the original, while in the dazzling Dies Sanctificatus the wondrous Light slowly fills the skies and descends to fill the earth. While Lasso used pre-existing plainchant as the foundation on which to build his polyphonic writing in the Officium, in In principio erat Verbum he chose free counterpoint to express the progressive unfolding of the Evangelist’s narrative. From its unforgettable beginning the motet progresses, bringing out one extraordinary musical idea after another – highly lyrical moments interspersed with monumentally solid phrases, a knowing use of a sort of antiphonal chiaroscuro, with a clever use of the six voices divided into two choirs, strong rhythm to emphasize and bring out the metre and the meaning – these are elements that make In Principium era Verbum one of Lasso’s masterpieces.

In a dedication in the preface to his last Book of six-part Canciones written in 1594 just before his death, with lively imagination and gentle melancholy, Orlando di Lasso likened his life as an artist to the vine and its fruits, explaining how in the spring of his life he had composed music for pleasure in its gaiety and fun whereas his last compositions were more substantial and profound. But it is difficult not to see, while working on his music that spans almost of his life and art, that the fruits of his ‘youthful ardour’ already held the secrets of that sensibility and sweetness of knowledge that he poured into his last works. The music he wrote will make him ever worthy of being loved.

To Orlando di Lasso, cantor, musician and man, whose master was his talent, and whose only judge, even before God, was his self.

Walter Testolin

Antonio Caldara's Christmas Cantata 'Vaticini di Pace'

From as early as 1676 until 1740, one of the features of Christmas celebrations in baroque Rome was the performance of a cantata on Christmas eve in the Palazzo Apostolico. Each year a composer, usually one based in Rome, was selected to provide the music and after the Christmas Eve Vesper service the Pope and his invited guest would retire to supper and to hear a new cantata performance by the best singer in the papal choir.

In 1713 the Venetian-born Antonio Caldara (1670-1736) was to provide the Cantata da recitari la Notte del SSmo Natale nel Palazzo Apostolico. He had been in Rome since 1709 as maestro di cappella to Francesco Maria Ruspoli, Prince of Cerveteri, and very likely the Christmas cantata written for his patron in1712 secured him the 1713 commission. It is the earlier work that we have here, and the “per il SSmo Natale” inscribed on the surviving manuscript of the Vaticini di Pace suggests that Ruspoli, perhaps Rome’s most lavish patron of the arts, was imitating papal tradition.

In one respect, however, Caldara’s Christmas cantata performed in Ruspoli’s Palazzo Bonelli in 1712 did have a direct connection with the Vatican. The libretto of Vaticini di Pace was not new. In 1703 Paolo Gini’s text, rich in allusions to the contemporary political scene, had been performed (in Domenico Bottari’s setting) at the Palazzo Apostolico. Nearly a decade later, in the midst of efforts to heal the longstanding rift between the Pope (Clement XI) and the Holy Roman Emperor (Charles VI), Ruspoli’s re-use of this particular libretto seems quite deliberate.

The estrangement was a legacy of the war of the Spanish succession. From its beginnings in 1701 Italy had been embroiled in this conflict between Bourbon and Habsburg for the Spanish throne. even the Pope was not immune. At first carefully neutral, he eventually sided with the Bourbon cause. In May 1708, Habsburg armies, triumphant across northern Italy, threatened the eternal city. Ruspoli raised militia in its defence. Forced so ignominiously to acknowledge Charles III, the Austrian contender for the Spanish kingdom, it is no surprise that that Pope exacted revenge three years later when that same claimant, as Charles VI, suddenly succeeded to the imperial throne in Vienna and to the title of Defender of the Faith. Clement withheld papal recognition.

On the eve of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), the finale of the Spanish saga, Ruspoli found himself in a unique position. This loyal supporter of the Pope now was also the patron of a composer who, after a visit to Vienna between 1711 and 1712, was highly regarded by the Emperor himself.

Through a prominent performance of his maestro’s new setting of Gini’s libretto Ruspoli ensured that Clement XI’s early concerns for peace and Italy’s troubled state (barely disguised in Core umano’s plaintive: “Bella pace, ove sei?... Care spiaggie latine... prive ancor voi del mio Tesoro amato?”) were well remembered just prior to the diplomatic negotiations from which the church was to be excluded. He saw too that Gini’s flattering allusions to Clement XI (“un sol Clemente... la Clemenza Regnante... La Clemente amica stella”), propagandist patriotism in 1703, now would help restore an image tarnished by military miscalculation, for the Pope was about to lose territory under the Utrecht settlement. But perhaps above all, Ruspoli hoped a lesson of reconciliation might be learned from the change of heart displayed by Gini’s seemingly implacable Giustitia. Indeed, Clement XI did relent – eventually. His confirmation electionis of February, 1714, finally acknowledged Charles VI as Holy Roman Emperor. The prophecy of peace had come about.

Today, these considerations of politics and prestige bear little on our appreciation of Caldara’s music. The composer himself seems to have paid them scant attention, content to focus on what Gini offered by way of character differentiation, varying emotional states and opportunity for musical symbolism.

Core umano, an allegorical Everyman, desires peace (“Pace bella ridi a noi”) – a peace which, conceived in human terms, means a cessation of martial activities. That peace, says Pace (“Vuoi pace al core”), can only come from a inner spiritual peace and, to achieve this, true repentance is necessary. The absence of an outward peace reflects the disarray of humanity’s soul. Amor Divino, a universal intermediary and the protector of Core umano, offers hope: although war is the reward for mankind’s turning from the true path, God will forgive the guilty. In “Quel bianco latte” – a lullaby inspired by a vision of the Virgin and Child – Amor Divino pleads for mercy, not retribution on those who offend the Almighty.

Giustitia, who represents the avenging righteousness of the Old Testament, remains unmoved (“Che dici, che pretendi”); errors must be punished, despite pleas for forgiveness. In “Da nemica ultrice spade” and again in “Si, si, perirà” angular vocal phrases and powerful figurations for unison violins conjure up terrifying retribution. In “Amor trionferà” Amor Divino comforts an anguished Core umano faced with bewildering options (“Giustitia vuol ch’io perà”).

If Giustitia will not listen to entreaty, perhaps the crying of the innocent Holy-infant will bring about a change of heart. In “Qual pargoletto infant” Pace confronts Giustitia with the merciful justice of the New Testament, personified in the Christ-child. For this lyrical moment Caldara invokes some of the traditional imagery of the Nativity. The gentle siciliano rhythm of the aria captures the pastoral setting of the holy birth; delicate intertwinings of voice and violins in senza basso scoring enhance the serenity of contemplative devotion. Giustitia is persuaded. From henceforth justice will be tempered with mercy (“Già vi sento intenerir”), and the reconciliation of Pace with Giustitia is complete in “I tuoi bacci”, the only concerted vocal movement in the cantata.

The contrite Core umano, now assured of forgiveness, not retribution, extols Christ’s nativity in “Bella note” before returning to the initial request, the plea for universal peace. Both Amor Divino (“No, no non più crudel”) and Pace (“La clement amica stella”) prophesy that this will quickly follow, and Amor Divino concludes the cantata with a eulogy of peace (“Quanto dolce”). It benefits to mankind are recounted, mirrored in the broad sweep of the ornate violin accompaniment.

In the summer of 1716 Caldara left Ruspoli and Italy to take up the position of Vizekapellmeister to the imperial court in Vienna. There, one of his many tasks was to contribute to the sequence of oratorios performed each year in the Hofkapelle during the weeks immediately preceding Easter. By the time of his death in December , 1736, he had written 23 such works for the court chapel.

Brian Pritchard
(1996)

Baroque Instrumental Christmas Music

Shepherds are an indispensable part of our conception of the first Christmas night. It was to them that the Angel of the Lord appeared, bringing them the glad tidings of the birth of the Son of God. Consequently, the sound of shepherd pipes of one sort or another came to be imitated in the numerous Christmas night scenes without which, it seems, no baroque composer felt his output to be complete; and associated with rustic piping was the languid 6/8 or 12/8 metre suggestive of an idyllic pastoral scene. The greatest of all such musical pictures, albeit without specific religious connotation, is in 12/8 : the ‘Scene by the Brook’ in Beethoven’s Pastoral’ Symphony.

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767), the most prolific composer in the history of music, is said to have written 600 suites and overtures in response to the insatiable demand for French culture in Northern Germany during the early years of the eighteenth century. The French style is displayed strongly in the dotted opening sections of his ouvertures and also in the style and names (Rondeau, Sarabande, Gigue, etc) of the succeeding movements of the most of them. Adolf Hoffmann’s thematic catalogue of Telemann’s orchestral suites (Möseler-Verlag, 1969) lists 137 surviving examples, many including wind instruments (some with concerto-like responsibility), but the majority – some 75 – are for string band alone, and it is into this category that the Festliche Suite falls. It is scored simply for first and second violins and bass, to which, of course, a continuo harpsichord is added.

The grandly posturing ‘French’ Introduction enfolds a light dancing section in 3/8 metre that avoids the customary fugual writing to be found in the most typical fast sections of such movements. There follows a energetic Marche and Plainte whose nature seems more to provide contrast than to lament some great tragedy. The central section of the next movement, Gavotte, is entitled Gavotte II en Musette, and it is here that Telemann suggests the French bagpipe, or musette: a sighing melody with piquant pauses, the whole over a drone bass. The instrument known as the musette was immensely popular during Louis XIV’s reign to depict rustic and pastoral scenes and, by association therefore, the watching shepherds of the Nativity. A Passepied and double (i.e. variation, in this instance for solo violin) follows, and the Flestliche Suite closes with a Gigue in 6/4 time.

Precocious and enormously gifted, Henry Purcell (1659-1695) saw one of his own songs published when he was only eight years of age. At the time he was a chorister at the Chapel Royal. The rest of his short career also centred on London as organist at Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal, as keeper of the royal instruments, and as an active theatre composer, providing music (anything from a single song to the entire score) for some 50 stage works. He died at the age of 36 and was buried amid splendid ceremony in Westminster Abbey.

The two Christmas Interludes are extracted from the anthem Behold, I bring you glad tidings, written in 1687 for contralto, tenor, bass, chorus and small string orchestra. To our ears the Interludes are not noticeably in Yuletide style since the continental conventions of such pieces had not been adopted in the British Isles by Purcell’s time.
Born in Florence, Giuseppe Valentini (1680-1759) moved to Rome while still in his teens and became a disciple, perhaps also a pupil, of Arcangelo Corelli. He mand a comfortable living in the Italian capital as composer and violinist, and became known for his virtuosity and for the unconventional style of his violin compositions. Some of them, it is said, treated tonality in cavalier fashion, and he would require his soloist to ascend to uncommon heights. He also wrote operas and sacred music for Rome, but towards the end of his life he seems to have moved to Paris and changed from the Corellian to the more ‘modern’ homophonic style so popular there since the invasion of the Parisian audiences by music of the Mannheim School.

Valentini’s twelve symphonies for strings in three parts, Op. 1, are from a wholly different era. They were published in Rome, Amsterdam and elsewhere in 1701 and are strongly Corellian in character. The last, as the fashion, is designed for Christmas performance. It is built round two pastoral movements, the first of which occurs immediately after the slow introduction; the second (‘Largo’) between the two quick movements. The first of these faster movements is a virile and well-written ‘Allegro’; the finale (‘Presto’) displays rapid alternations between forte and piano and, towards the end of the second half, an unusually independent bass line.

While Valentini’s work of 1701 is an early example of the use of the word ‘symphony’, Giuseppe Torelli (1658-1709) was earlier still in that particular field, producing numerous and often imposing symphonies for use in the San Petronio Cathedral in Bologne well before the turn of the century. Furthermore, he was the first composer to write a concerto for solo violin and string orchestra (published at Augsburg, 1698), and his Concerti Grossi Op. 8, which appeared in print shortly after his death, are the very first concertos for two solo violins. It is the sixth of these that contains the Christmas music.

A solemn ‘Grave’ sets the scene for the Pastorale, marked ‘Vivace’ and cast in   metre, the two solo violins carrying much of the melodic interest. A meditative Largo leads to another ‘Vivace’ which is a Gavotte en Musette in all but name, its held bass notes strongly suggesting the drone of the shepherd’s pipes.

Like Valentini and Torelli, Gaetano Maria Schiassi (1698-1754) was a violinist and concentrated upon that instrument in his relatively small output of instrumental music. Of his eleven operas and six oratorios, only one opera (Il Demofoonte, produced in Venice in 1735) survives. We are therefore left with a one-sided view of his work, particularly since the present Christmas Symphony is the only music by Schiassi to exist in a modern edition. Its quality suggests that his twelve violin concertos, twelve violin sonatas, and ten duets for violin, cello and continuo may well be worth the attention of scholars and publishers.

He was born in Bologna in the very year that Torelli wrote his first violin concerto, and worked there and in Darmstadt before moving to Lisbon in the mid-1730’s, where he died in the service of the royal chapel. The date and place of composition of the Christmas Symphony are not known, but its style suggests that it was written before Schiassi left for Portugal.

The noble opening ‘Adagio’ is a fully-fledged movement rather than a mere introduction. It features suspensions and echo-like repetitions of whole phrases. This latter device is carried through into the ensuing ‘Allegro’, which opens with a tight four-part three-octave canon. The second idea once again introduces the musette imitation: a distinctly rustic ‘bagpipe’ theme over a drone bass, again utilising echo affects. The whole device is repeated in the rudimentary development section of the second half, and a recapitulation of the canonic opening theme closes the movement. The ‘Largo’ which follows suggests to us the Schiassi was familiar with Vivaldi’s music. It is a themeless creation of slowly changing chords which gives the keyboard continuo player the opportunity to indulge his fancy by arpeggiating the harmonic outline. It was a device used by Vivaldi in The Four Seasons and elsewhere.

Schiassi’s finale embodies the pure time-honoured Pastorale design in 12/8, complete with yet more echo effects and the obligatory drone bass. The remarkable ending, descending in dynamic from forte to piano and then to più piano, is a kind of written-out ritardando in which ever-lenghtening note values rise higher and higher to a final ethereal D major chord. Could Schiassi perhaps have visualised the Angels of the Lord ascending again after imparting their joyful message?

Robert Dearling
(1999)

Tomás L. de Victoria's 'O Magnum Mysterium' and 'Ascendens Christus in Altum' Masses

Tomás Luis de Victoria was born in 1548 in Avila, birthplace of St Teresa. Just as she seems to personify the religious ethos of sixteenth-century Spain (the good side of it, at least), so Victoria came to embody the best of the Spanish character in music. As a youth he learnt his art as a chorister at the Cathedral of Avila. So promising was he that he was sent to Rome at seventeen years of age, patronized by Philip II and by the Church, to study at the Jesuit’s Collegium Germanicum.

Victoria’s musical career in Rome brought him into contact with Palestrina and the innumerable singers, organists and composers from all over Europe who were active in the chapels and churches of that great city at the very time when Catholicism regained confidence, new vitality and disciplined reform. The young Spanish priest was soon publishing his compositions in sumptuous editions (even Palestrina was jealous).

The success of his Roman years did not prevent Victoria from yearning for a quiet life in Spain. After his publications of 1585 (including the famous set of Holy Week music) he achieved his desire and returned to take up the position of Chaplain and Chapelmaster at the Royal Convent of the Barefoot Nuns of St Clare in Madrid, effectively the home and chapel of Philip II’s sister, the Dowager Empress Maria. There he ended his days producing less and less after 1600 and nothing, so far as we know, after the publication in 1605 of the great Office of the Dead, the Requiem for the Empress who died in 1603. Victoria died in 1611. He had turned down offers from Seville and Saragossa; he had visited Rome during the period 1592-94, supervising the printing of his works and attending Palestrina’s funeral. In 1595 he returned to Madrid and stayed.

The motet O magnum mysterium (published in 1572) has been a favourite of choirs ever since the revival of Victoria’s music eighty years ago. Although the original publication entitles it In Circuncisione Domini, its text is taken from a responsory of Christmas Matins and its use has always been as a Christmas motet. One of Victoria’s most endearing creations, it unfolds serenely, richly warm when it expresses the wonder that even the animals behold the Infant in the manger. Then a wonderful hush as Victoria musically caresses ‘O beata Virgo’. The final ‘Alleluia’ dances in triple time and then, with a welter of running notes, comes grandly to a close. The work is set for four-part choir (SATB).

This fine work became the basis for a Mass (also for four-part choir) published by Victoria twenty years later, in 1592. It uses all the motives of the motet except for the wonderful brief moment of the ‘O beata Virgo’ section. Victoria, it seems, omitted this from the material for the Mass because it was suitable only for quotation, not development. Similarly he omitted the opening phrase of ‘O quam gloriosum’ in his famous Mass on that motet.

In the Missa O magnum mysterium Victoria swings into triple time briefly just once in the Gloria, fleetingly three times in the Credo, and then to great effect in the Hosanna which follows both Sanctus and Benedictus. He varies his four-part vocal texture just twice. The Benedictus is for three voices (the bass is silent), and in the single setting of Agnus Dei he divides the trebles and makes them sing in canon at the unison. This five-part ending is customarily repeated to accommodate the words ‘dona nobis pacem’.

The motet Ascendens Christus is specified by Victoria In Ascensione Domini and the text come from the last Responsorium of the Second Nocturn of Matins for that Feast. It was published five times in Victoria’s lifetime. Like O magnum mysterium, it first came out in 1572, and once again Victoria chose to make a Mass upon it which was published in 1592.

In perfect accord with the meaning of the words, Ascendens Christus is joyous and brilliant with strong rising phrases and ringing Alleluia motives. Again in accord with the origin of the text in a Responsorium, the musical plan is ABCB. The work is in two distinct halves. It is for five voices parts (SSATB).

All the motet’s material is imaginatively absorbed into the composition of the Mass. The five voices are retained but sections for reduced choir (or soloists) are scored for four voices in varied combinations. The ‘Christe eleison’ is SSAT. The ‘Domine Deus’ in the Gloria is for SSAB. The Credo has the ‘Crucifixus’ and ‘Et resurrexit’ for SSAT. The Benedictus is for SATB. The Agnus Dei is set only once and is for six voices, SSATTB, in which the first tenors, altos and second trebles are in canon (trinitas in unitate).

All is lightness and brightness; the Gloria seems to bounce along, so springy are the rhythms, so concise and clearly declamatory with the verbal accents incomparably set. The triple-time Hosanna, sung to the same music after Sanctus and Benedictus, is typical of Victoria’s mature Masses. All is brief, clear and lightly decorated, perfect in liturgical propriety.

Victoria regarded the Mass as something happy and often jubilant. These are moments of quiet adoration or contemplation, but i tis very significant that Victoria never chose to base a Mass upon sad or sentimental motets, but always upon those of a joyful nature.

Bruno Turner

Christmas Music from Medieval and Renaissance Europe

The celebration of Christmas, as is well known to and every happily accepted by most Christians, is a development from pre-Christian and pagan festivities taking place around the winter solstice. In just the same way the music of Christmas owes many of its origins to the early secular accompaniments to such festivities. The word ‘carol’, so essentially part of Christmas, sums up the flavour of these medieval origins in its various definitions: first, from the French carole, a round-dance with music, later a joyous religious song; also a ring of standings stones, and also an enclosure or study in a cloister. Ezra Pound wrote that as poetry is dead if it departs too far from song, so music is dead if it departs too far from the dance; the essence of the carol is of music associated with movement, dance or procession, and music and words which are both popular and ecclesiastical. In medieval times the distinction between sacred and secular was deliberately blurred; there was a continuing need to counter still-pervasive pagan rituals (which might include a round-dance in the churchyard) by keeping the people entertained in their own way and, as has been well expressed, taking ‘some of the devil’s good tunes and giving them back to God’. Thus many carol tunes we know will first have been sung to ‘profane’ words; thus too the clergy of Sens Cathedral in France, for example, were explicitly allowed in the fourteenth century to dance, provided they didn’t lift their feet too far off the ground.

The principle of the carol is clear: a choral refrain, called ‘burden’, which begins and ends the piece and alternates with verses sung by one or more solo voices. The verses might often be sung to a modified form of plainsong melodic enough in itself as in Puer natus est nobis, from the Roman Missal, though the verse sections of Nowell, nowell: In Bethlem are as carefully composed as the refrains – an early example of a ‘popular’ carol written with a good deal of musical sophistication. The same delicious equivocation between sacred and secular is evident in Gaudete, drawn from a collection of church and school songs put together by Theodoricus Petri. Brought up in Turku, Finland Petri moved c1580 to Rostock in (then) Sweden where he published Piae Cantiones in 1582. Consisting of 73 Latin hymns and carols, this is a treasury of medieval tunes and words, most of traditional origin and gathered from all over Germany, Bohemia, and Scandinavia; many currently popular carol (among them Good King Wenceslas, to different word) come from this source, which was adapted by the great hymn writer J. M. Neale after a lone copy of the collection appeared in England in 1853, leading to an invigorating influx of European carol melodies. This sort of frank dance carol, at least half the devil’s work one might think, was only a part of the late medieval Christmas story. Alongside it in England were examples of high-powered ecclesiastical settings of religious texts destined to be sung by the professional collegiate or cathedral choirs, Walter Lambe, a scholar at Eton, moved to St George’s, Windsor, where in 1479 he became a choirmaster to replace Thomas Gossyp who had died that summer of the plague (a reminder of how much while there was time), Nesciens Mater uses the plainsong as a cantus firmus, just as earlier carol composers would, but now surrounded with an incandescent tracery of voices, echoing if you like the Perpendicular architecture of Henry VI’s Eton (and King’s College, Cambridge) Chapel.

Yet another source of medieval Christmas music was the Mystery Play, typical in combining communal participation with powerful literary and musical material – as continues to this day in the northern festivals. Both the Songs of the Nuns of Chester and Coventry Carol derive from this tradition, the latter’s harmony testifying to a more developed musical technique among the participants. Whether such musical skill could be expected of the scholars of Queen’s College, Oxford (Regimensi atrio) at the point in the Christmas feast when the boar’s head was brought in is debatable; the medieval origins of this processional carol are, however, indisputable, for the accession of James I to the English throne in 1603 saw the demise of the boar from courtly tables, as it was shunned in his native Scotland, being replaced just in time by the turkey from the New World. The carol as such fell into desuetude after Henry VIII’s time, until revived by Victorian antiquaries (though one notes that it was carried on in popular usage insidiously enough to have been banned by Cromwell); but the spirit continues in gloriously sophisticated form in church music, exemplified in Tallis’s great Responsory for the Feast of the Purification, where the ritual echoes of plainsong and polyphony hark back to the structure of the medieval dance.

We talk nowadays of the global village, but this is not the first time in modern history that boundaries have been easily crossed. The ‘English’ court was until the end of the fourteenth century effectively French, hence the easy accession of carole forms; and for some time longer Latin was the common language. And as we know, bush telegraphs work very efficiently. Thus it is not surprising to find that a traditional tune like Quem pastores, with its elegant dance-like and gracious air, was known early in Britain just as was In dulci jubilo, first printed here c1540. Probably the most famous macaronic (i.e. bilingual) carol we have, In dulci enjoys the legend that its writer (words, that is) Henry Suso, a mystic who died in 1366, wote it at the dedication of an angel, after a dream that he was invited to join in an angelic dance.

Other continental composers joined in the dance too. Jacob Handl was an engaging-sounding character who after working in Melk and Vienna decided to take a sabbatical between 1575/9 travelling in Austria, Moravia, Bohemia and Silesia, living in monasteries and taking the opportunity to ‘understand the muse and meditate on the shepherd’s pipe’ – one of the best comments, as it turns out, on the delightful ambiguity of the ‘designer carol’ of his age. But he transcends the genre, employing the full vigour of four-part polyphony (Pueri concinite), Venetian-style polychoral (O magnum mysterium) and beautiful harmonisation of a Piae Cantiones tune already popular in Germany (Resonet in laudibus). Quite independently, meanwhile, the carol repertoire had been developing elsewhere in Europe, and amongst the rich source of the villancicos (literally ‘peasant songs’) of Spain we find such as Riu, riu chiu, the title apparently an untranslatable cry such as you find in the songs of the Auvergne, a genuine shepherd song transformed into an irresistible dance. In France, Mouton, native of the Somme area and later chief composer to Francois I (whom he very likely accompanied to the Field of the Cloth of Gold to meet Henry VIII in 1520 – such junketings as then went on were not complete without the best possible music) wrote a setting of Nesciens Mater which provides a fascinating contrast to Lambe’s: still the dazzling contrapuntal skill, as the plainchant melody underpins a quadruple canon, but now replete with calm reflection and gorgeous slow-moving harmony. Finally Lassus, the most celebrated musician in Europe in his time, doyen of the courts of the Netherlands, Italy and Germany, shows in his motet Omnes de Saba (collected and published by his sons in 1604), written for two 4-part choirs, that the devil probably loses out tones the best tunes in the end.

Nicolas Robertson
(1987)

La Messe de Barcelone

Messe de Barcelone (Agnus Dei)

Au début du XIVe siècle, le développement de la polyphonie liturgique semble compromis. D'une part, la musique, comme la société, se sécularise; ainsi Guillaume de Machaut, pourtant chanoine de la cathédrale de Reims, compose essentiellement des chansons profanes. D'autre part, l'Église dissuade les compositeurs d'utiliser les innovations de l'Ars nova. Ainsi en 1324, le pape Jean XXII installé en Avignon tente, par décret, d'interdire les pratiques musicales nouvelles. Il fustige les musiciens qui «enivrent l'oreille sans la calmer», qui chantent «les mélodies ecclésiastiques avec des semibrèves et des minimes», enfin qui dénaturent les mélodies par des hoquets  et des motets aux paroles frivoles. Aussi, il est paradoxal de constater que la plupart des polyphonies liturgiques proviennent des chapelles du Pape et des cardinaux installés en Avignon et dans le Comtat venaissain à l'époque de la «captivité babylonienne» (1305-1378), puis du Grand Schisme (1378-1417).

Les manuscrits d'Ivrée et d'Apt sont les deux sources principales de ce nouveau répertoire. Ils contiennent des parties de l'ordinaire de la messe (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus et Ite missa est) composées séparément et classées par genre. Ce corpus est original. Auparavant, en effet, les polyphonies sur les textes invariables de la messe, généralement chantés par un chœur, sont rares. Les compositeurs de l'École Notre-Dame (1160-1225) ont ainsi privilégié les chants du propre, dont le contenu est spécifique à chaque fête; dans leurs organa seules les parties solistes des chants responsoriaux (Graduel, Alleluia, répons) sont traitées polyphoniquement.
Par ailleurs, quatre manuscrits — compilés dans les milieux musicaux liés la cour papale avignonnaise — présentent une sélection des chants polyphoniques de l'ordinaire présentés selon l'ordre liturgique. Ces quatre cycles anonymes sont désignés actuellement du nom du lieu de leur conservation ou de leur découverte. Le plus ancien est la Messe de Tournai, copiée dans la première moitié du XIVe siècle, dont s'inspira peut-être Guillaume de Machaut pour la composition de la Messe Notre-Dame (c. 1363). Viennent ensuite les messes de Toulouse et de la Sorbone (parfois nommée messe de Besançon). Enfin, la Messe de Barcelone conservée dans les premiers folios du manuscrit 971 de la bibliothèque de Catalogne fut probablement copiée dans le royaume d'Aragon à la fin du XIVe ou au début du XVe siècle.

Avec l'émergence de ces cycles polyphoniques de l'ordinaire, la notion de messe prend sa signification moderne. Néanmoins le terme ne désigne pas encore une structure musicale unifiée En effet, la plupart des pièces réunies pour constituer un ordinaire complet sont des compositions indépendantes. Ainsi le Gloria, le Credo et le texte tropé du Sanctus de la messe de Barcelone ont également été copiés, sous forme isolée, dans le manuscrit d'Apt. Ces pièces empruntées au répertoire avignonnais témoignent des liens étroits établis entre la maison royale aragonaise et la ville papale. Le compositeur du Credo, le frère augustin Steve de Sort, fut d'ailleurs recommandé à Jean Ier d'Aragon († 1396) par son ambassadeur à Avignon. Engagé comme organiste de la chapelle en septembre 1394, il reste, à la mort du roi, au service de son successeur Martin Ier († 1410) jusqu'en mars 1407. Grâce à ces indications biographiques, la musicologue catalane Maria Carmen Gómez a pu préciser la date de rédaction du manuscrit de Barcelone, probablement entre 1395 et 1410, soit à une époque contemporaine du séjour du compositeur à la cour aragonaise.

Les quatre autres parties de la messe sont anonymes et le cycle manque de cohérence interne, notamment en raison de la pluralité des techniques d'écriture musicale utilisées. En effet, au XIVe siècle les mouvements polyphoniques de l'ordinaire sont composés selon trois styles essentiels: le style simultané, le style motet et le style chanson. Ce dernier s'affirme à la fin du XIVe siècle notamment dans le répertoire aragonais. Cette évolution révèle qu'en dépit des injonctions officielles des autorités religieuses, la prédominance des œuvres profanes exerce une grande influence sur les compositeurs de musique liturgique.

Quatre mouvements de la messe de Barcelone sont à trois voix. Dans le Kyrie, les voix chantent en contrepoint homophone. Ce style simultané est perturbé par des syncopes à la fin du Christe et un hoquet au milieu du deuxième Kyrie. L'écriture du Credo est proche du style chanson: la voix supérieure (cantus) chante le texte, soutenue par deux voix plus graves (tenor et contratenor). Cette configuration est modifiée dans le Gloria, car le contratenor évolue dans la même tessiture que le cantus; de plus les sections du texte liturgique alternent avec les strophes du trope  Splendor patris. Le Sanctus est un véritable motet isorythmique.  Deux voix chantent chacune le texte d'un trope différent tandis qu'une formule rythmique identique (talea) est répétée six fois à la troisième voix. La Messe de Barcelone s'achève par un Agnus Dei tout à fait remarquable: il est à quatre voix, et par conséquent l'écriture est plus dense que dans les autres mouvements; un hoquet final anime et donne de l'ampleur à la conclusion de la messe.

Le cycle «catalan» ne comporte que cinq parties. Aussi la pièce conclusive est ici empruntée au manuscrit d'Ivrée. Il s'agit d'un motet isorythmique à quatre voix dont la teneurs  originale n'a pas été identifiée. Les deux tropes Post missarum / Post missa se terminent par «Deo gratias» qui est la réponse usuelle après l'interpellation «Ite missa est» ou «Benedicamus Domino».

Isabelle Ragnard

Josquin and His Contemporaries

The reputation of Josquin des Prés cast a long shadow after His death in 1521. Demand for his music, particularly in Germany, far outstripped supply, leading to the widespread reattribution to Josquin of pieces by other composers. Thus Georg Forster could famously recall in 1540 hearing ‘... a certain eminent man saying that, now that Josquin is dead, he is putting out more works then when he was alive’. Yet if some of the pieces bearing Josquin’s name in these late sources look unlikely to say the least, others, more plausibly ascribed to lesser-known masters elsewhere, relate closely in terms of style to more verifiably authentic pieces. In considering these pieces, today sitting on the fringe of the Josquin ‘canon’, we should not forget that many of them had passed muster as genuine Josquin in the eyes of the most eminent aficionados of their day, men whose perceptions of Josquin, expressed in treatises and prefaces, form the bedrock of our understanding of him today.

This gives you a chance to judge for yourself: pieces whose places in the Josquin canon are as firm as seems possible in the present state of knowledge are set against others that, though widely assumed to be by Josquin in the sixteenth century, are now more plausibly assigned to others.

The authorship of the motet for S. John the Baptist, Inter natos mulierum, has been disputed by scholars for decades. Though it is ascribed to Josquin in two of its three sources, none of these antedates the 1530s, and its full, sumptuous texture, lacking the clearly sectionalised musical architecture generally associated with Josquin, could support a date not much earlier than its first surviving copy. But whoever composed it, no one who hears this glorious piece, soaked in the resplendent sonorities that only five or more voices can afford, can doubt that it is fully deserving of a regular place in the repertory.

If Planxit autem David, a setting of David’s lament over his dead sons, strikes a tone to our ears les of lamenting than of considered contemplation, the eloquence of its text setting, with each elegantly sculpted phrase set off from the next, is unmistakable. In a famous description, the mid-sixteenth-century German theorist Heinrich Glarean commented that ‘... throughout his entire song there has been preserved the mood appropriate to the mourner, who at first is wont to cry out frequently, and then, turning gradually to melancholy complaints, to murmur subduedly and presently to subside, and sometimes, when emotion breaks forth anew, to raise his voice again and emit a cry: all these things we see observed very beautifully in this song, just as it is also apparent to the observing. Nor is there anything in this song that is not worthy of its composer. He has everywhere expressed most wonderfully the mood of lamenting...”.

Little known today, to Othmar Luscinius, writing in 1536, Nicolaes Craen was a model of all that was best about the modern style of composing, particularly in his Tota pulchra es: ‘Now Nicolaes Craen (a man, in truth, of outstanding natural qualities) has seemed to me, in his motet Tota pulchra es, to have very successfully ignored the practices of the old musicians: and we shall be able to learn from this how laudably he has moved beyond even the ancient laws’. For Luscinus, Craen’s ability lay in his method and skill in ‘composing harmonies’, providing a model to be followed by all aspiring composers of his day.

Its great beauty notwithstanding, the chief clame to fame of Verbum bonum et suave lies in confusion over its authorship, a confusion offering clear proof that the chachet of Josquin’s name was as great in some quarters in the sixteenth century as it is today. Writing in 1558, the theorist Zarlino famously related ‘I remember what I have heard the most excellent Adrian Willaert tell many times, namely, that they used to sing that six-part motet Verbum bonum et suave under the name of Josquin at the Papal chapel in Rome on nearly every feastday of Our Lady. It was ranked among the most excellent compositions that were sung in those days. Now Willaert had moved to Italy from Flanders during the pontificate of Leo X [1513-21], and, finding himself in the place where they sang that motet, he noticed that it was ascribed to Josquin. When he pointed out that it was in fact his own, as it indeed was, such was their malice, or rather (to put it more generously) their ignorance, that they never wanted to sing it again’.

Veni sancte spiritus was universally accepted as a work of Josquin until 1985, when a attribution to his lesser-known contemporary Forestier was noticed in a manuscript considered to be of greater authority. Its credentials before that time seemed impeccable: ascribed to Josquin, it was showcased as the first piece in Ott’s collection of motets, Novum et insigne opus musicum, published in 1537-8, and, with its brilliant construction around two canons at the fifth, seemed every inch the expression of the better-known composer’s legendary contrapuntal brilliance. Whether by Josquin or not, Veni sancte spiritus is an extraordinary musical achievement, worthy to stand beside anything of its day; further, as one of the central pieces of the ‘Josquin canon’ recognised in the sixteenth century, it is an integral part of the picture of Josquin on which the modern view of the composer is based.

The four-voice De profundis has conflicting attributions to Josquin and ‘Champion’, presumably one of the brothers Jacques and Nicolas Champion who were employed in the Hapsburg Imperial Chapel in the first third of the sixteenth century. For Glarean, though, there were no doubts either about the authorship of this piece or its quality; for him it was the quintessence of Josquin, in both its beauty of expression and its novelty: ' ‘Here indeed I should like everyone to observe carefully how the beginning of this song is composed, with how much expression and how much dignity he has brought to the phrase ‘De Profundis’ ... nor is he alone [in the modal practice of this piece] in clearly immoderate love of novelty and excessive zeal to snatch a little glory by being unusual, a failing with which the more talented professors of disciplines are almost always afflicted...’ Original and unprecedented though the modal flexibility of this piece may be, in Glarean’s opinion Josquin ‘... has accomplished it learnedly and without giving the slightest offense to the ears’.

Like the Missa Da pacem, one considered a prime embodiment of Josquin’s late maturity, Ave caro Christi cara may more reasonably be ascribed to the highly gifted though much less familiar Noel Bauldeweyn. This conclusion certainly seems logical on the evidence of the sources: of four known to have existed, only the latest, a German print by Montanus and Neuber of 1564, ascribes it to Josquin, while of the other three, all apparently Netherlandish and some forty years earlier, two give it to Bauldeweyn. But the style and response to text in this elevation motet led Edgar Sparks to make a powerful case that the late ascription to Josquin may yet be the correct one: Sparks drew attention to the typically detailed musical architecture of the setting, with its subtle use of repetition and carefully graded alternations between fervent supplications in block chords and more active passages with more plangent counterpoint; on the other hand, he acknowledge the close stylistic relationship that exists between some works of the two composers. Whether the work of Josquin or Bauldeweyn, however, the extraordinary musical eloquence brought to bear by this motet on the collection of Eucharistic prayers that constitute its text fashions an ornament of the utmost beauty for the elevation in the Mass – the central and summatory moment of late medieval Christian devotion – that it was created to adorn.

The ascription to Josquin of Recordare, virgo mater, which survives only in Antico’s second book of motets (1520) has long been seen as suspect. The texture of the piece, pitting three equal high voices against one lower one – a great rarity in itself – offers little to relate it to works whose ascriptions at present seem reasonably secure. Neither does the style of the piece, with its energetic, swirling motions and repeated returns, via surging scales, to cadences on the final, D, seem to draw the piece convincingly into the Josquin fold. What is beyond doubt, however, is the fascination of its mesmeric idiom, which carries the listener along with almost relentless energy through to its final climatic cadence.

Our wanderings through the fringes of the Josquin canon come to an end with a piece which, perhaps more than any other, might stake a claim to be its composer’s quintessential musical expression. Certainly the Pater noster/Ave Maria occupied a place very close to Josquin’s heart: this was the motet that, in his will, he asked to be performed posthumously before his house during all general church processions. Its heartfelt rendering of the two most fundamental Christian prayers respectively to God and the Virgin Mary, the prime intercessor, leaves no doubt of the acute awareness of its composer – admired and emulated by so many during his life and far beyond it – that he, like all of us, would end as dust. With the sublime intensity of its setting, and particularly of its unforgettable closing invocations, we are left with an abiding sense of Josquin’s mortality, and perhaps also of our own, ringing in our ears.

Andrew Kirkman (2001)

Christmas Vespers

The celebration of the birth of Christ is one of the most joyful feasts in the Church’s calendar. For centuries, musicians have adorned their Christmas liturgies with Gregorian chant, polyphony and organ music designed both for rejoicing and reflection. Christmas rings out with the joy of the angels singing ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’ to the astounded shepherds but it also speaks of the quiet calm and selfless acceptance of the Virgin Mary and most eloquently of the almost indescribable miracle of the Deity taking flesh and becoming human.

The oldest music designed for use within the liturgy is to be found in the ancient plainsong melodies which weave their way around a text or have a mantra-like effect during the recitation of a Psalm. There is a timeless quality to these chants and infinite subtlety as, through the use of various harmonic colours created by the undulating melodies, they express the thoughts and prayers of the Church during its journey through the liturgical calendar. To find the right term to describe this music is not easy. ‘Cantus planus’, or ‘plainsong’, is a good basic term and contrasts well with ‘cantus figuratus’, ‘cantus mensuratus’ or ‘priksong’ indicating later polyphonic music. Yet these are terms from the twelfth century and later and are perhaps inadequate when talking about the first great period of chant composition from the fifth to eight centuries.

The term ‘Gregorian’ specifically relates to Roman chant from the time of Pope St Gregory the Great, the man who presided over a reorganization of the melodies at the end of the sixth century and set up the first Schola Cantorum. For Gregory (and his political ally Charlemagne) the reorganization of the chant and the liturgies according to Roman principles allowed him to stamp a central authority on the disparate and far-flung Christian communities. If music was performed the same services were celebrated, this would provide a degree of central control. It is no surprise then that a legend developed detailing how the entire corpus of Gregorian chant was dictated into the Pope’s ear by an angel: arguments with the Pope were possible, arguments with God were not.

Yet there are other, older sources for some of the chants which we would now term ‘Gregorian’, and these do not necessarily hail from Rome: chants from Milan written during the time of St Ambrose in the fourth century (Ambrosian chant); a remarkable mix of Moorish and Christian writing from Iberia (Mozarabic chant); and melodies from France (Gallican chant). The only term which will suffice for all these melodies is the seemingly vague yet geographically accurate ‘Western chant’ – the chant of the Western Church.

Christ and His disciples would have used the Jewish melodies, which they would have known from their youth onwards, when they needed music to pray but as early Church developed so too did its music, and after the Church divided into Eastern and Western branches there came a radical difference in musical style. Both traditions remained essentially oral but became contrasting in character with the high tessitura and florid ornamentation of the Eastern chant standing in complete oppositions to the more self-effacing, demure Western writing. Indeed in the uncertain days of the Dark Ages, the chant of the West was one of the few certainties to remain after civilization appeared to have been destroyed; something which set the West apart from the East and proclaimed its identity.

The chant written during these dark days was designed for Mass and Divine Office. The round of daily services, or Divine Office, was first organized by the inspirational mind of St Benedict, founder of the Benedictine Order. He articulated the need for regular prayer, for recitation of the Psalter and for readings from scripture and the Church Fathers. To facilitate this he organized the day into seven services – Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None and Vespers. In this way the words of the Psalmist were remembered – ‘seven times a day will I praise you’. These services together with the night office of Compline were referred to as the Opus Dei or ‘the work of God’ and they formed the backbone of monastic prayer, whilst the monks’ spiritual life was given sustenance through the daily celebration of the Mass.

[…] Vespers is one of the Greater Hours (the other being its twin liturgy, Lauds) containing five Psalms and a canticle. Beginning with an invitation to prayer (Deus in adiutorium), the five Psalms then follow immediately, each Psalm bracketed by an antiphon. An antiphon in this context is a setting of words, usually from scripture but sometimes from other sacred writing, which shed light on the Psalm or the feast day being celebrated. Following the Psalmody is the capitulum, or short reading, followed by a responsory (where a cantor alternates sentences with the full choir) and then a hymn. The liturgical high point of the service is the recitation of the canticle of Mary, or the Magnificat. After the suffrages and a collect, there follows a devotion to the Virgin with prayers in her honour.

Most major feasts have two celebrations of Vespers: first Vespers on the Eve of the Feast and second Vespers on the day itself. The texts of First Vespers of Christmas are still much concerned with preparation, with warnings and signs that the day of the Lord is about to appear. […]

Andrew Carwood
(2006)

Christmas Eve Mass at San Marco

First Mass of Christmas as it may have been celebrated at St Mark’s

For the Doge and the Venetian nobility, Christmas Eve heralded a sequence of attendances in the Basilica which were celebrated with the greatest solemnity and ceremonial. The 16-century Venetian historian Francesco Sansovino refers to these andate (processions of state) for which the chapels surrounding the High Altar of San Marco were filled with benches and chairs to accommodate the throng of dignitaries.

At about 14.30 (two hours before sunset), the Doge and the Signoria – a privileged group of his closest political advisers – came down from the Ducal Palace into San Marco itself, where they heard Vespers, celebrated by the musicians of the regular choir, augmented for the occasion by other singers and instrumentalists. Sansovino records that “the musical settings – in eight, ten, twelve and sixteen parts – stupefied and amazed the members of the congregation, and in particular those from beyond the city, who confessed to having heard no finer music in many parts of the world”.

After Vespers, Compline was said , and this in turn was followed immediately by sung Matins set to a format peculiar to the San Marco liturgy.

As soon as Matins had concluded – at about 18.30 (two hours after sunset) – the first Mass of Christmas began, the normal obligation to wait until midnight having been removed by a special concession granted to the Venetian Republic by the Pope.

The Office of Matins began in total darkness, but towards the end of the service San Marco was illuminated by the progressive lighting, with a linen wad, of 1500 candles each weighing 400 g. and 60 candles each weighing 5 kg. which were placed around the basilica as high as one could see, almost eclipsing the light of the silver oil-lamps and other candles, both large and small, which were positioned above and beside the High Altar. Sansovino describes the effect as “an illumination brighter than one might see at midday, which astonishes everyone standing to admire the number and density of the candles... one could not see grander, richer, more splendid, more noble or more illustrious illuminations not only in the whole of Italy, but also in the whole of Christendom”.

In this breathtaking setting, the Doge, himself resplendent in the insignia of his office, left his throne, and accompanied by the papal Legate and his Orators, knelt on the first step in front of the High Altar to reply to the Confession made by the Legate. This distinctively Venitian symbiosis of religion, political control and acute sense of tradition and history is epitomized in the motet Audite principles which appears to speak directly to the assembled members of the oligarchy of the Serenissima – the most Serene Republic (many in the congregation would have identified with the phrases ‘O most serene princes... O most reverend elders... O most excellent forefathers’). The musical style complements the ambience, with the three groups, each comprising a declamatory solo voice with varied supporting instruments, soon combining in a grandiloquent 16-part tutti. Giovanni Gabrieli’s characteristic compositional metaphors exploit the basilica’s resonant acoustic, with juxtapositions of harmonies a third apart, extended progressions by cycles of fifths, and a sudden swerve at the word ‘mirabilia’ on to an E flat triad to illustrate the unexpected marvel of the birth of Jesus.

The plainchant Propers for the first Mass of Christmas are those used at San Marco, and are contained in the Graduale del Tesoro which was compiled for the basilica in the late 1560s, and is on display today in the Treasury of the basilica.  The chant differs to some extent from that in the contemporary Roman graduals in details of syllabification and melodic outline. The contrast of the unaccompanied monophonic chant with the instrumentally supported flamboyance of the opening motet serves to focus the mind of the listener – however temporarily – on the essential liturgy of the Mass.

Cipriano de Rore’s setting of the Mass Ordinary is a parody to Josquin’s famous six-part motet Praeter rerum seriem, which celebrates the miracle of the birth of God in human form from the untainted Virgin Mother. Even by the mid-16th century, Josquin’s reputation as perhaps the most outstanding composer of the early Renaissance was secure. Written originally for the private chapel of Ercole d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, during his tenure of the post of maestro di cappella in the 1550s, Rore’s work is both a homage to the older master and a staggering technical tour de force. To Josquin’s already monumental six-part texture, Rore adds a seventh part, taking his predecessor’s cantus firmus theme and subjecting it to variations of mensuration and pitch. Its densely contrapuntal – often canonic – character, with the voices weaving around the cantus firmus situated in the middle of the texture, reflects Rore’s command of traditional compositional techniques and the stylistic gap which had grown in the space of two generations between the musical practices of Rore and Giovanni Gabrieli. A cappella polyphonic settings nevertheless remained an essential feature at San Marco until well into the 17th century: Monteverdi himself replenished the library with many collections of stile antico mass-settings.

Rore became maestro di cappella at San Marco in 1563, and the possibility exists that, during his short tenure of the post – he resigned the following year – this astonishing mass-setting was performed under his direction. Had it been performed at San Marco, the text of Rore’s original musical tribute to his Ferrarese patron – ‘Hercules secundus dux Ferrariae quartus: vivit et vivet’ – would doubtless have been reworked to reflect the political agenda of the Venetian Republic.

After the Collect, the Prophecy – three familiar verses from the Book of Isaiah – is sung “by the priest with the best voice, from the middle of the chancel”. Contemporary Venetian custom replaced the Gradual chant, which would otherwise separate the Epistle and Gospel, by an instrumental piece: the Canzon noni toni exemplifies Giovanni Gabrieli’s mastery of the genre, with incisive syncopation and close imitation between the instruments, and scope for highly virtuosic cornetto playing. His setting of Salvator noster uses the same characteristic techniques to illustrate the exuberance of the joy generated by the Christmas story. Rore’s modal world is a distant memory as the bold fanfare-like opening motive spreads throughout the texture, and rising chordal sequences spiral dizzyingly away from the home key. Gabrieli’s third and – probably – final setting of O Jesu mi dulcissime is a fine example of the early 17th century’s search for new ways of heightening the intensity of textual expression, in which the erotic musical language of the secular madrigal was borrowed to convey similar – if subtly disguised – sentiments: the rhythmic imbalance of the opening phrase is deliberately designed to create a sense of emotional involvement which we would now regard as almost operatic; each entry becomes an extended wave creating its individual momentum before collapsing in a flurry of falling notes; the melodic outline of a diminished fourth at ‘praesepio’ and the cordal juxtaposition of E flat and G at ‘O Christe’ and ‘O mira’ may be more conservative expressive techniques, but the cumulative effect of the setting is one of overpowering emotional fervour. Although Gabrieli declined to indicate vocal or instrumental scoring, it is hard to imagine this motet being performed in any way than with the eight solo voices.

Instrumental music was a recognised feature in celebrations of the Mass in San Marco, particularly after the Agnus Dei, and would have enhanced the communion ritual. The Canzon duodecimi toni for ten instruments divided into two contrasting groups is one of Gabrieli’s most scintillating works, in which the motivic material is developed in increasingly ingenious rhythmic patterning. The Blessing which concludes the liturgy of the first Mass of Christmas was intoned by the Papal Legate, with responses by the Doge’s Chaplain and four of the canons of San Marco.

The final motet Quem vidistis pastores is one of Gabrieli’s more controversial compositions. It is Paul McCreesh’s belief that that work – published posthumously in 1615 – was most likely printed in an incomplete form from a draft score; the vocal texture is mostly very sparse and is supported by a rather crudely-written basso continuo. This version is a quite extensive re-working by musicologist Hugh Keyte, expanding existing material into a sequence of imitative vocal duets, trios and quartets, which aims to recast Gabrieli’s vocal and melodic material in, arguably, a more worked-out and coherent fashion: the instrumental parts up to the final tutti are entirely reconstructed, but the resulting overall texture is surprisingly reminiscent of several other works. An extended introductory instrumental sinfonia prefaces an almost kaleidoscopic permutation of textures and rhythmic variety once the text is heard: the initial questioning is urgent and declamatory, and the pace of invention, with one dazzling duet following on the heels of another, is never relaxed. The expansive tutti at the phrase ‘O magnum mysterium’ allows singers and instrumentalists (and listeners) to catch their collective breath, only for it to be taken away once more by the audacity of Gabrieli’s transposition of the slow-moving chord progression, followed by a sudden swerve on to the tertial shift encountered in O Jesu mi dulcissime – which shares both the same date of publication and an identical musical treatment of the phrase ‘in praesepio iacentem’. The vulnerability of the newborn Christ lying in the manger is expressed by the sudden exposure of the solo voices in their lowest register before this extraordinary emotional motet concludes with one of Gabrieli’s most extrovert ‘Alleluia’ passages.

Sansovino records that, after the service had ended at approximately 21.00 (around four and a half hours after sunset), the Doge “was escorted to his palace by a great quantity of torches carried by the comandatori and grooms of his retinue”. After over six hours in the Basilica his ceremonial duties for Christmas had begun, and the splendour of the ritual and of the music composed and performed by the musicians of San Marco had paid its distinctive homage to the miracle of Christ’s birth.

John Bettley/Paul McCreesh

Music for Advent and Christmas by Giovanni P. da Palestrina

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina is thought to have been born in 1525 in the town of that name in the Sabine hills near Rome, and he died in Rome on 2 February 1594. His first musical training seems to have been in Rome at S Maria Maggiore, where he was listed as a choirboy in October 1537. In October 1544 he was appointed organist at the Cathedral of S Agapito in Palestrina, where he remained until his appointment in 1551 as maestro of the Capella Giulia at St Peter’s in Rome. In 1554 Palestrina published his first book of masses, dedicated to Pope Julius III. In January 1555 he was admitted to the Capella Sistina, the Pope’s official chapel, on the orders of the Pope, without examination and despite being married. Three months later Julius III died and was succeeded by Marcellus II, who in turn died within about three weeks. The next Pope, Paul IV, insisted on full compliance with the chapel’s rule on the celibacy of its members and Palestrina, who had married in 1547 during his stay at Palestrina, and two others were dismissed from the choir in September 1555. In the following month Palestrina was appointed maestro di cappella at St John Lateran where he stayed until he left in 1560 following a dispute with the chapter over the financing of the musicians. His next known employment was again at S Maria Maggiore in 1564, where he passed the next five years combining this post with work for Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este. The latter work he continued on a more or less full-time basis until 1571, during which time he also taught music at the Seminario Romano. In April 1571 he took up his last appointment, returning to the post of Maestro of the Capella Giulia, where he remained until his death.

The church year is divided into four liturgical periods. The first, including Advent, Christmas and the post-Christmas time up to Septuagesima, centres on the Nativity of Christ; the second, Septuagesima Time (which begins with Septuagesima Sunday, the ninth before Easter, and includes Lent) leads up to Easter; the third, Paschal Time, extends from Easter to Pentecost (Withsun); and the fourth, beginning on Trinity Sunday, comprises the rest of the year. Advent thus stands at the beginning of the church year and is a period of preparation for the coming (Latin adventus) of Christ leading up to the celebration of His birth on Christmas Day. Like Christmas, it has a rich liturgy and Palestrina provided much music for both seasons.

Alma redemptoris mater is a text of considerable antiquity and appears in several thirteenth-century motets. In the Roman liturgy it is an antiphon of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which is sung during Advent and until the Feast of the Purification. Palestrina made three settings of this text, a paribus vocibus setting for four high voices, which was included in his second book of four-part motets published in Venice in 1596, and two eight-part settings, which were not issued in printed editions in Palestrina’s lifetime. These were later transcribed by Haberl in the nineteenth century from manuscripts then in the archives of the Cappella Giulia and of the Collegium Romanum. The Capella Giulia setting, which is written in a fuller and more polyphonic style than the other and, with its constantly changing textures and rich sonorities, achieves a great sense of strength and spaciousness.

Canite tuba is a motet for the fourth Sunday of Advent. The first part of this five-voice motet draws its text from the first and third antiphons at Vespers; and the second part, ‘Rorate coeli desuper’, takes its text from the Introit at Mass on the fourth Sunday of Advent, combined with text from the First Responsory of the Ordinary of Advent and its first verse. The motet was first published in Venice in 1572 in Palestrina’s second book of motets for five, six and eight voices. As befits its opening words, ‘Sound the trumpet in Sion, for the day of the Lord is nigh’, the motet begins strongly in an extrovert manner, turning to a more reflective and polyphonic style at the words ‘Come, O Lord, and be not tardy’, and ending the first part with an expressive outpouring of joyous Alleluias. The second half begins more quietly with a reduced voice section, but soon reverts to vigorous five-part writing which comes to a dramatic pause at a section headed ‘Show us Thy mercy O Lord, and grant us Thy salvation’. This is followed by a more polyphonic section, expressing beautifully the pleading tone of the words ‘come, O Lord, and be not tardy’, which uses and elaborates on material from the similar section in the first part. The motet concludes with another joyful burst of Alleluias, which rework slightly the musical material at the end of the first part.

Deus tu conversus is the Offertory at Mass on the Second Sunday of Advent. This five-voice setting comes from a cycle of Offertories published in Rome in two volumes late in Palestrina’s life by Francis Coates, in 1593, which contain some fine music in a polished and mature style exhibiting much rhythmic vivacity and unusual harmonic richness. The motet opens with a stately invocation, ‘Turn unto us, O God…’, and quickly moves to cascades of running semiquavers at the words ‘… and quicken us’. The next section uses dotted figures and vigorous rhythms to convey the sense of ‘and Thy people shall rejoice’, but this is soon cut short by the opening of a slow-moving homophonic penitential passage (very similar to that in Canite tuba) at the words ‘show us Thy mercy, O Lord…’, which nonetheless comes to a strong finish at the words ‘… and grant us Thy salvation’. After a half-bar pause the whole of this final section is repeated and concludes the motet on a buoyant note.

Hodie Christus natus est is a double-choir (SSAB+ATTB) motet that comes from Palestrina’s third volume of motets published in Venice in 1575. The motet is based on the text of the Magnificat antiphon at Second Vespers on Christmas Day, interspersed with the traditional Christmas cries of ‘Noe, noe’. This is a wonderful piece of writing which brilliantly exploits the possibilities of effective contrast: by using the differing sonorities of a high choir and a low choir; by setting off slow-moving passages expressing the solemnity of the celebrations of Christ’s birth against rapid antiphonal exchanges of joyful cries of ‘Noe, noe’; by using running passages to reflect the singing of the Angels and the rejoicing of the Archangels and the Just; and by reserving until the concluding section of the motet the use of triple time for the final joyful exchanges of ‘Noe’.

Palestrina’s double-choir Missa Hodie Christus natus est is a parody mass closely based on the motet just described. It uses all the techniques noted above which give the motet such a brilliant and striking character and, while the precise use made of the musical material of the motet varies from one movement to another, the mass bears the imprint of the motet in all its movements. The Kyrie opens with and exact quotation (with the soprano lines exchanging parts) of the opening bars of the motet, and much of the opening ‘Noe, noe’ material is re-used in slightly adapted form. In other places the material from the motet, often recognizable from its harmonic sequence, is used more loosely and is more considerably adapted and combined with other new material; but in others it is used with much less alternation. For example, all movements of the mass apart from the Agnus Dei’ end with a use of a final section, with only minor amendments, of the almost boisterous triple-time last section of the motet. The result is an impressive mass which exhibits all the excitement, clarity and sparkle of its model together with a certain sense of breadth and grandeur.

O magnum mysterium is a motet for the Nativity of Our Lord, which takes its text from the first half of the fourth and third Responsories at Matins on Christmas Day. It included in a collection of motets, for five, six and seven voices, published in Rome in 1569. This exquisite six-part motet conveys superbly the awe and joy of the shepherds at the birth of Christ in a manger. Opening with a series of slow chords announcing the ‘great mystery and wonderful sacrament’, the music proceeds in a mainly homophonic idiom, with differing and well calculated combinations of voices, until it breaks into a lively triple time to represent the ‘chorus of angels praising God’, returning to duple time for a final section of pealing Alleluias; the second half has a similar structure and reuses some of the material from the first half to very good effect.

Tui sunt coeli is the Offertory (also from the 1593 publication) from the Third Mass of Christmas. This five-part motet is written in a flowing fugal manner with periodic short homophonic interjections which contrast effectively with the prevailing polyphonic style and preparate the way for a satisfying end to the piece.

O admirabile commercium is a five-part motet for the Feast of the Circumcision (which falls on January 1st) and the Octave of the Nativity. It takes its text from the first antiphon at Second Vespers of that Feast. The motet comes from a collection entitled Florilegium sacrarum cantionum published by Phalèse in Antwerp in 1602. The still and poised music of its opening bars – ‘O wonderful gift’ – sets the tone for the rest of this beautiful and finely balanced motet which makes very good use of a high Cantus part soaring slowly over the more busy music of the other parts in the final section.

Christe, redemptor omnium is prescribed in the Antiphonale Monasticum as a hymn at First Vespers of the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord. It is one of the substantial collection of settings by Palestrina of hymns for seasonal use which were published in 1589 in Rome by Francisco Coattino. This six-part hymn is an alternatim composition – that is, alternate verses of the hymn are set to chant and polyphony, and the prominence of the plainsong in the composition is enhanced by the way that the melody of the chant, or fragments of it, are present in slow notes much of the time in one or other of the voices. This a wonderfully rich composition which uses a great variety of musical techniques to illuminate the meaning of the words, one example of which is the lively triple-time section at the words ‘praising and raising songs of exultation’.

The Magnificat Primi toni is a composition which comes from Palestrina’s third volume of magnificats. It is, like most of his magnificats, written in the alternatim style, but, unlike many of them, it employs up to six voices. Its style is mainly polyphonic and fugal and has a rich texture, but variety is obtained by using different combinations of high and low voices and in places a lighter texture. The magnificat is preceded and followed by its plainsong antiphon ‘Hodie Christus natus est’, on which, as explained above, the double-choir motet and the mass are based.

Jon Dixon

Giovanni Gabrieli's Christmas Motets

 Thomas Coryate, writing in his Crudities hastily globbed up in five Moneth’s Travels was transported almost beyond all words by his discovery at the Venetian Church of San Rocco in 1608 of

“... the best musicke that ever I did in all my life both in the morning and the afternoon, so good that I would willingly goe an hundred miles a foote at any time to hear the like... this feast consisted principally of Musicke, which was both vocall and instrumentall, so good, so delectable, so rare, so admirable, so superexcellent, that it did even ravish and stupifie all those strangers that never heard the like. But how others were affected with it I knew not: for mine own part I can say this, that I was for the time even rapt up with Saint Paul into the third heaven...”

Of the singers too he was equally enthused, for ‘there were three or foure so excellent that I think few or none in Christendome do excel them, especially one, who had such a peerelesse and (as I might in a manner say) such a supernaturall voice for sweetnesses, that I think there was, never a better singer in all the world...’.

We do not know for sure whose music it was that received such praise, but it could easily have been that of Giovanni Gabrieli. He was the most influential Venetian musical figure of his time, famed both as a composer and as a teacher of a number of distinguished pupils, including Heinrich Schütz, and his music was circulated widely through the publication of major collections of works in 1597 and posthumously in 1615. From 1585 to his death Gabrieli was organist at both the religious confraternity of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco and at St Mark’s, Venice (where he was responsible not only for the music but also for procuring extra instrumentalists and singers for the more important festivals and feast days). In addition, after his uncle Andrea’s death in 1586 he took over the role as principal composer at St Mark’s.

Music in Venice was inextricably bound up with civic life, for state processions, civic ceremonies and some forty main religious festivals each year demanded music to match the splendour of the occasion. The Feast of Christmas demanded some of the grandest and most spectacular music of all. In 1607 Jean-Baptiste Duval of the French Embassy reported that at St Mark’s there were more than one thousand candles, sixty huge torches and silver lamps, together with eight choirs of voices and instruments ‘filling the church with a grand harmony’. Even allowing for enthusiastic exaggeration, it must have been a spectacular occasion. Little wonder that some of Gabrieli’s most magnificent music was composed for Christmas in St Mark’s.

Most of Gabrieli’s motets were printed in two large collections, one published posthumously. Many are settings of texts sung on the major Venetian state festivals and are for two or more choirs in the tradition of cori spezzati. Although it is hard to date works exactly, there is a clear change of style in his later works, confirmed by the type of music that his pupils were writing. In all his works, but especially in those for more than two choirs, Gabrieli’s flair for sonorities is particularly evident, showing the ultimate development of the old motet style.

Quem vidistis pastores is one of Gabrieli’s finest works. Scored in sixteen parts it comes from the posthumous volume Sacrae Symphoniae... liber secundus of 1615. After the opening orchestral sinfonia, scored for two choirs of instruments and showing Gabrieli’s love of lower sonorities, the work shows elements of the later chamber style as the six singers introduce themselves one by one, accompanied by the newly introduced basso continuo. This small-scale texture continues until the full ensemble unites with awestruck majesty at “O magnum mysterium”. Here there are marvellous sonorities and a whole variety of textures, with grand flourishes for the word ‘iacentem’, a cutting down of the texture for ‘in praesepio’, magnificent block chords at ‘et admirabile’ and a sumptuous ending.

Audite principles, too, dates from the later collection, and is scored for two five-part choirs, one six-part choir and continuo. From the opening declamatory statement, heard three times as an introduction to each choir, to the colossal block of sound as all seventeen parts unite at the midpoint before launching into the dancing triple-time ‘gaudeamus’, here is music of considerable complexity and great splendour. The final ‘Alleluia’, back in duple metre after another dance-like section, ends the work with due solemnity.

O magnum mysterium comes from an earlier source, the 1587 collection Concerti per voci e stromenti musicali, and has a mood of subdued reverence, fitting for its subject matter, until syncopation breaks out for the closing ‘Alleluia’. In keeping with the relatively simple setting, the first choir is scored here for four voices and organ, and the second choir for solo alto and three sackbuts. Perhaps it was this latter combination (and particularly the falsettist or castrato’s ‘supernaturall voice... never a better singer in all the world’) that so transported Coryate, for its magical combination of sounds.

With Salvator noster we return to the 1615 collection, and a magnificent setting for three five-part choirs and an independent continuo line. The wide variety of textures and moods contained within the motet shows Gabrieli’s responsiveness to the text, and the high instrumental lines at the top of choirs one and two, furnished with lively flourishes, and the dancing rhythms give the motet a celebratory mood.

The closing ‘Alleluia’ travels through a series of sections before the motet ends in a blaze of sound. Little wonder that Coryate was so transported by these rich Mediterranean sounds: here indeed is music that is ‘superexcellent’!

Robert King (1990)

Heinrich Schütz: The Christmas Story

 ‘It was never the will of my late parents that I should make a profession of music... I set out... for the University of Marburg, in order to continue there my studies, already begun elsewhere to some degree, in things other than music’.

But within a year of matriculating (in 1608), Schütz was given a generous grant by the Landgrave of Moritz to study with Giovanni Gabrieli, a ‘widely famed but rather old musician and composer’. Schütz remarked that he should ‘not miss the chance to hear him and learn something from him’ and, much against the will of his parents, he made the journey to Venice. There he received three years of rigorous training from Gabrieli, forming a close friendship and great admiration for his distinguished teacher. After Gabrieli’s death in 1612 Schütz returned to Germany, resolving to ‘keep to myself the good foundations that I had now laid in music... until I had refined them further still’. After some political wrangling between Moritz and the Elector of Saxony Schütz was appointed Kappelmeister at the Elector’s court in Dresden, and he abandoned his planned career as a lawyer, though he noted ‘repeated and incessant admonition’ from his family.

Schütz could hardly have visited Venice at a more exciting time, for musical developments there were setting the trend for the whole of Europe. He was able to take in both the new and the old styles. The old polychoral tradition, exemplified in the massive cori spezzati motets of Gabrieli, was beginning to be superseded by the new, more intimate concertato style which involved smaller ensembles of voices and instruments. At the same time, the rise of opera was seeing constant refinements and developments in the field of recitative. Schütz took all these styles, some still in their infancy, back with him to Germany. His five hundred compositions and his teaching over the next decades proved him to be the greatest German composer of the seventeenth century and the springboard for the German musical achievements of the next two hundred years.

In 1628 Schütz returned to Venice, with the journey precipitated by the deteriorating economic conditions that the Thirty Years War was bringing to Saxony. When he arrived there he noted that ‘everything has changed, and the music in princely banquets, comedies, ballets and other such productions has markedly improved’. He absorbed these new developments, and enjoyed the aid of ‘the noble Monteverdi’, who ‘guided him with joy and happily showed him the long-sought path’. Monteverdi’s aid may have been in the field of dramatic monody, for Schütz recalled that ‘I engaged myself in a singular manner, namely how a comedy of diverse voices can be translated into declamatory style and be brought to the stage and enacted in song – things that to the best of my knowledge... are still completely unknown in Germany’. The introduction of recitative to Germany was particularly important, and during the process of transmission from north to south the form took on a less exuberant, more contemplative quality.

By 1645 Schütz, almost sixty years of age, and after thirty years of service to the Saxon court, wrote in a letter his wish that ‘since the electoral Kapelle has gone completely to ruin in the parlous times, and I in the meantime have grown old, it is my only wish that I might henceforth live free from all regular obligations’. For twelve years his requests for retirement were largely disregarded, and it was eventually only in 1657, with a new Elector, that he was released from most of his duties. So, hard though it may be to believe this it was a tired man that in 1660 he composed his ‘Historia der... Geburth... Jesu Christi’ (SWV 435).

The Court diary describes the music at Christmas Vespers of 1660 as ‘the birth of Christ in recitative style’, which can hardly refer to anything else but Schütz’s composition. This was the earliest known setting of the nativity story of the traditional Evangelist’s words sung in recitative instead of the traditional unaccompanied chant. The work was almost completely lost to modern audiences, for all that Schütz published (in 1664) was the Evangelist’s part, stating that the music for the choruses and intermedii were available in manuscript. These latter parts were unknown until 1908 when Arnold Schering unearthed them at Uppsala University, and even now they are not complete. The most serious omission is that nothing, except a cued figured bass, remains of the opening chorus, requiring editorial reconstruction.

The major narrative of the work is recited by the evangelist who, we are instructed, should possess ‘a good light tenor voice’ and is to be accompanied by a small organ and string bass. Schütz writes the recitative, for the most part, in a wonderfully restrained, almost understated style, full of subtleties of melodic line and harmonic language. But the drama is delicately controlled, and there are fine examples of word-painting, in particular the anguished chromaticism as Rachel wails for her slaughtered children, the shaking fury of Herod as he realizes he has been tricked, the flourish as Jesus is named, the presentation of the Wise Men’s gifts and their returning another way, and the final triumphant vocal flourish as the child grows, almost in front of our eyes, and we move into the joyful final chorus. Everywhere the pacing of the story is carefully calculated: this is one of the finest examples of an Evangelist’s narrative before Bach. We are told that ornamentation at cadences, both in the voice and the organ, is expected: bearing in mind the overall restrained style this instruction has been followed.

In between the Evangelist’s sections come eight colourfully scored Intermedii, reminiscent in their orchestration of the brilliant style of Italian Renaissance court entertainment, but filled with all the latest compositional devices. The ‘heavenly host’ is a six-part choir with violins, three ‘shepherds in the field’ are accompanied by the pastoral combination of recorders and dulcian, three footsore but splendidly urgent wise men by violins and dulcian, and four pompous high priests by two trombones. Herod, blustering and distinctly irritable, is accompanied by two cornetti (Schütz gives the choice of trumpets or cornets), and the angel’s three Intermedii (all thematically linked by the use of a two-note ground bass) have important parts for the distinctive sound of two violettas (small violas). At the start comes the gentle Eingang, and the work ends with the Beschluss, full of joyful syncopation and dancing rhythms.

Robert King (1990)