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Symphonia Angelica
SYMPHONIA ANGELICA DI DIVERSI ECCELLENTISSIMI MUSICI A III. V. ET VI. VOCI, NUOVAMENTE RACCOLTA PER HUBERTO WAERANT, ET DATA IN LUCE. NELLA QUALE SI CONTIENE UNA SCIELTA DI MIGLIORI MADRIGALI CHE HOGGIDI SI CANTINO; ANVERSA, PIETRO PHALESIO & GIOVANNI BELLERO, 1585.
In the 16th century Antwerp was a great centre of printing and publishing, but this flourishing industry came to an abrupt end, since King Philip II of Spain was not exactly in Flanders for the cultural development of the country. From a population of 90,000 more than 38,000 left the city between 1585 and 1589, and in 1609 the printers of Antwerp made strong representations to the Magistrate to intervene, because the last remaining typographer was preparing to take the road to the Low Countries in the north. There previously existed a prosperous guild, that of St. Lucas, which contained a number of music printers. Jan de Gheet, Christoffel van Ruremund and Simon Cock were the founders. Tielman Susato started the first great company, and even Plantin realised that this field could provide a very lucrative side-line. Johannes de Laet and his musical adviser Hubert Waelrant were connoisseurs responsible for internationally famous anthologies. They also made contact with the Vande Phaliesen family which moved to Antwerp from Leuven and established the greatest publishing house in the north. Despite economic and social difficulties the business prospered, and remained under the direction of Pierre, now called Phalesius or Phalèse, until 1629, at times in association with Johannes Bellerus. He was followed by his daughters Madeleine and Marie Phalèse, who took over the direction of the firm until 1673.
Hubert Waelrant was a tenor at Notre-Dame in Antwerp, and later had his own school of music, where he taught a new style of solfège. It was probably he who added the ‘b’ to the ancient hexachord, in order to encompass the whole octave, and avoid or diminish mutations from one hexachord to another. (Did he know the work of Ramos de Pareja?) His pupils had to sing their notes on the syllables bo-ce-di-ga-lo-ma-ni. The vowels were in fact the same as the todays French do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si, and so his theory of solfège was called ‘bocedisation’. He must have been an indefatigable worker, for in 1554 he became associated with the printer Jan de Laet. Between 1554 and 1558 they published 16 collections together, including some cantiones sacrae, three issues of the Jardin Musical and a volume of madrigals by Waelrant himself. Several earlier bibliographies also refer to a 17th Century collection: Symphonia Angelica of various excellent pieces of music for four, five and six voices. Newly collected and published by Hubert Warlrant. In Antwerp, printed by Waelrant and Jean Laet. No copy has come down to us and we do not even know what pieces it contained. In 1585, however, a collection of 58 madrigals was issued by Phalèse with exactly the same title. At first glance it seems unlikely that Waelrant had assembled an entirely new collection for Phalèse, giving it the old title. On the contrary it is more logical to suppose that he had re-edited an old and highly successful publication with the same or slightly enlarged confents. Since Jan de Laet had died in 1558 and his press had been closed, it seems quite natural that Waelrant had turned to the most important publisher in Antwerp at the time. An analysis of the contents of the Symphonia Angelica of 1585 shows us that this supposition must be wrong. In fact, apart from the madrigals composed by Waelrant, the repertory is fundamentally different to the 16 volumes published by de Laet previously, and contains only a few works written before 1565 (V. Ruffo; G. de Wert). Apparently Waelrant took most of the madrigals from Italian publications dating from 1572 to 1582 (Marenzio 1580-1582; de Monte 1581; de Macque 1581; Gastoldi 1581; Ferretti 1575; A. Gabrieli 1580; Conversi 1572), and from the point of view of style most of these works are reminiscent of the so-called ‘hybrid madrigals’ of Andrea Gabrieli and Giovanni Ferretti. ‘Hybrid’ because the serious madrigal style is mixed with the characteristic lightness of the ‘canzona villanesca alla napolitana’ and vice versa. Phalèse, however, did not only put recent Italian publications at the disposal of his compiler from which to make his choice. He must also have had direct contact with the musicians, either through their printers or through diplomatic channels. Dissi a l’amata of Marenzio had already appeared in this collection in the same year that he had published it in his own Madrigale a Quattro. Mentre ti fui si grato is unique. It is a composition in four parts made by four composer friends in Rome, G. M. Nanino, G. B. Moscaglia, L. Marenzio and G. de Macque (from 1574 and 1584). Moscaglia was also a poet (he wrote the text of Dissi a l’amata by Marenzio), but as he could not set his own poems to music, he enlisted the help of his colleagues named above. (Il second libro de madrigal, 1582, published in 1585).
Waelrant dedicated his Symphonia Angelica to the senator and treasurer of Antwerp Cornelis Pruenen. The latter was also one of the deputies who had to negotiate with Alexander Farnese for the surrender of the town on the 8th July 1585. The opening madrigal by Waelrant could not refer to the siege of the town more clearly, and must have been written during the second half of 1585 Pruenen was, on the other hand, the patron of Cornelis Vedonck, who lived in Flanders between 1581-1584 after a long stay at the Capilla Flamenca in Madrid. The madrigals of the latter must also have been written specially for this collection. We have, therefore, sufficient reasons to conclude that the old Symphonia Angelica of 1565 was na imaginary collection, owing its existence to a misprint in some catalogue!
Waelrant had good taste and was perfectly well aware of what was in fashion, for his Symphonia Angelica was a great success, with new editions appearing in 1590, 1591, 1594 and 1629. That was nothing exceptional in the affairs of Phalèse for several similar anthologies were reprinted up to the end of the 17th Century. They were either put together by Phalèse himself, as for example the Musica Divina (1583) and the Paradiso Musicale (1596), or by his musician friends such as Andries Pevernage for the Harmonia Celeste (1583), Emanuel Adriaensen for the Pratum Musicum (1584) and Peter Philips for the Melodia Olympica (1592). These anthologies probably inspired in their turn other collections, transcriptions for lute and translations such as the Novum Prtum Musicum, of Adriaensen (1592), the Florida sive Cantiones of Joachim Van de Hove (Utrecht, 1601), the Flores Musicae (Heidelberg, 1601), and the 84 madrigals in the Gulde-Jaers Feest-Dagen of J. Stalpart van de Wiele (Antwerp, 1634).
Pieter Andriessen
Translation: Christopher S. Cartwright
Excellentissimus et Celebris Famae Symphonieta
The small town of Marino, a stronghold of the Colonna family situated on the hill about 20 km south-east of Rome, had being developing more and more during the second half of the 16th century. This development resulted from the urban reorganization and expansion ordered by Marcantonio, master of the place, whose fame and fortune were derived largely from the fact that he had been one of the great craftsmen of the victory of Lepanto. The town, whose inhabitants at the time numbered about 2000, had expanded until it occupied almost the whole of the space available within its walls. The surrounding areas, mostly farmed as vineyards, had grown in number and size; the population had increased rapidly because of immigration, which was encouraged by the opportunities for work and the relative prosperity that Marino offered at the time. The peperino quarries attracted stonecutters from Florence and Massa, while Lombard masons were needed for the new buildings. The shoemakers came from Varese, the grocers from Modena, the coopers from the Marches. All this can be inferred from the christening records of the time. Among the newcomers in search of work, there arrived in Marino in 1578 the four sons of a certain Carissimo: Giacomo, Amico, Cola and Fiorenzo, all from Castelsntangelo in the province of Macerata, and all with their father’s well-established profession of cooper, that is, maker of casks and barrels. On 14 May 1595, Amico, the eldest by 17 years, married in the Church of Santa Lucia to Livia Prosperi, a thirty-year-old woman of the humbler classes of Marino, who lived in the high part of the town. He then went to live with her in the district of Castelletto. The couple had four daughters and three sons: Giovanna, Oleria, Pilinnia, Giovanni, Francesco, Angela and Giacomo. Giacomo, the last of seven children, was born on 18 April 1605. The patronymic, derived from the grandfather’s name, although used at the time within the community, was not recorded on Giacomo’s certificate of baptism, but appeared in the parish records only in later transcriptions.
Fr. Manuel Cardoso's Missa 'Miserere Mihi Domine'
The prestige of the Portuguese nation attained its peak in the first half of the 16th century under the reigns of Manuel I and João III. But in the course of the sixty years between 1580 and 1640 Portugal fell under the sway of the Habsburgs of Spain. After having occupied a brilliant position in the concert of nations linked together by a multitude of political, economic and cultural interests, the country experienced an eclipse accompanied by sudden isolation. In this context the connotations and the aesthetics of the words by Cardoso appear in a new light.
To be sure, connections with Palestrina are obvious: the training that the young Manuel Cardoso received at the seminary of Évora from the age of nine bears the imprint of his teacher Matheo de Aranda, who had several extended visits to Italy. The fact that Cardoso possessed a thorough knowledge of the works of the Roman master is borne out by the five parody Masses in the Liber Primus based on motets by Palestrina. The ‘Miserere mihi Domine’ Mass is founded on an even earlier principle of composition: the cantus firmus, a melodically unifying element of the various sections of the Mass. Here it is taken from the antiphon for Compline [the last service of the day].
To be sure, connections with Palestrina are obvious: the training that the young Manuel Cardoso received at the seminary of Évora from the age of nine bears the imprint of his teacher Matheo de Aranda, who had several extended visits to Italy. The fact that Cardoso possessed a thorough knowledge of the works of the Roman master is borne out by the five parody Masses in the Liber Primus based on motets by Palestrina. The ‘Miserere mihi Domine’ Mass is founded on an even earlier principle of composition: the cantus firmus, a melodically unifying element of the various sections of the Mass. Here it is taken from the antiphon for Compline [the last service of the day].
This cantus firmus is sung in long note values and appears in different voices, alternating between its original presentation in the mode of G and its transposition in the mode of D. In compliance with the edict of the Council of Trent (1545-1563), it appears in its entirely without either textual or melodic alternation.
However, the prolongation of the Renaissance tradition that is a feature of Portuguese music of this period was accompanied by greater depth and enrichmenet the superiority of which was acknowledged by the Spanish theorist Hieronimo Román in his book Republicas del mundo, published in 1595: ‘I shall quickly state in what respect the Portuguese surpass us: it is the sumptuous character of their instrumental music and of their singing of the divine office that gives them a place of honour in the Catholic Church’. Thus, in these three works the art of counterpoint attains a high degree of elaboration: each section combines a motive with its inversion in the more or less condensed entries. Listen, for instance, to these combinations in the magnificent progression of the entries in Sitivit with its leap of a fourth followed by a semitone. This contrapuntal artistry cultivates occasions for stressing or illustrating passages of the text, thereby causing the listener to appreciate the poetic taste or the religious sensibility of the composer. Two moments in the Mass are worth noting: the ‘Et incarnatus’ of the Credo and the ‘Hosanna’ of the Sanctus are emphasised by the diminution of the cantus firmus with the effect of effacing the superimposition of two different melodic speeds for the sake of an enhanced homogeneity of texture. In the motet Non mortui the words ‘justificationem’ and ‘super magnitudinem’ are stressed by reverting to a vertical manner of writing that interrupts the horizontal flow of the entries in imitation. Note, too, the use of madrigalisms in the depiction of the flight of the dove in the motet Sitivit and the long falling phrase representing the dejected soul in the motet Non mortui. This quest for expressiveness often results in audacious harmonies and false relations that have been regarded as an Iberian peculiarity.
The five-part Magnificat secundi toni comes from the first of two collections of Magnificats published in 1613 and 1648, the first and the last publications of his sacred music. A song of praise, the canticle of the Virgin from the Gospel of Saint Luke is sung daily at the end of the office of Vespers. Faithful to tradition, Cardoso alternates verses taken from plainsong with verses treated polyphonically. In the ‘Esurientes’ passages, at the very heart of the work, the polyphonic texture is lightened when the altos and the basses fall silent. Then it unfurls again on a long ascending motive and is amplified in the doxology ‘Sicut erat in principio’ by the addition of a second alto part, thereby concluding the work with a superb peroration.
A country cut off the outside world by its occupiers, a composer who spent over sixty years in the Carmelite monastery in Lisbon – these congruent factors might explain a form of aesthetic nonconformity, and perhaps they are at the source of so genuine and profoundly expressive an utterance.
Sylvie Pébrier
Translation: Derek Yeld
However, the prolongation of the Renaissance tradition that is a feature of Portuguese music of this period was accompanied by greater depth and enrichmenet the superiority of which was acknowledged by the Spanish theorist Hieronimo Román in his book Republicas del mundo, published in 1595: ‘I shall quickly state in what respect the Portuguese surpass us: it is the sumptuous character of their instrumental music and of their singing of the divine office that gives them a place of honour in the Catholic Church’. Thus, in these three works the art of counterpoint attains a high degree of elaboration: each section combines a motive with its inversion in the more or less condensed entries. Listen, for instance, to these combinations in the magnificent progression of the entries in Sitivit with its leap of a fourth followed by a semitone. This contrapuntal artistry cultivates occasions for stressing or illustrating passages of the text, thereby causing the listener to appreciate the poetic taste or the religious sensibility of the composer. Two moments in the Mass are worth noting: the ‘Et incarnatus’ of the Credo and the ‘Hosanna’ of the Sanctus are emphasised by the diminution of the cantus firmus with the effect of effacing the superimposition of two different melodic speeds for the sake of an enhanced homogeneity of texture. In the motet Non mortui the words ‘justificationem’ and ‘super magnitudinem’ are stressed by reverting to a vertical manner of writing that interrupts the horizontal flow of the entries in imitation. Note, too, the use of madrigalisms in the depiction of the flight of the dove in the motet Sitivit and the long falling phrase representing the dejected soul in the motet Non mortui. This quest for expressiveness often results in audacious harmonies and false relations that have been regarded as an Iberian peculiarity.
The five-part Magnificat secundi toni comes from the first of two collections of Magnificats published in 1613 and 1648, the first and the last publications of his sacred music. A song of praise, the canticle of the Virgin from the Gospel of Saint Luke is sung daily at the end of the office of Vespers. Faithful to tradition, Cardoso alternates verses taken from plainsong with verses treated polyphonically. In the ‘Esurientes’ passages, at the very heart of the work, the polyphonic texture is lightened when the altos and the basses fall silent. Then it unfurls again on a long ascending motive and is amplified in the doxology ‘Sicut erat in principio’ by the addition of a second alto part, thereby concluding the work with a superb peroration.
A country cut off the outside world by its occupiers, a composer who spent over sixty years in the Carmelite monastery in Lisbon – these congruent factors might explain a form of aesthetic nonconformity, and perhaps they are at the source of so genuine and profoundly expressive an utterance.
Sylvie Pébrier
Translation: Derek Yeld
Chansons by Alexander Agricola
“If it is possible to rank the Christian world according to nobility of voice, then Flanders is the mother of the most excellent singers. First among them is Alexander, singer of Philippe le Beau...”
A Florentine courtier familiar with the circle of musicians associated with ‘Il Magnifico’ Lorenzo de’ Medici might well have agreed with Jacobus Meyerus that Flanders produces the world’s “most excellent singers” and that at the head of the list should be Alexander Agricola (ca. 1446-1506), whose name shone “a hundred times brighter than fine silver” and who was “illustrious of voice and hand” (for his singing as well as for his compositions).
“Agricolla, Verbonnet, Prioris, Josquin Desprez, Gaspar Brunel, Compere,
Ne parlez plus de joyeux chantz ne ris
Mais composez ung ne recorderis
Pour lamenter nostre maistre et bon pere”
Unlike his “master and good father” Ockeghem, Agricola spent many years in Italy, in particular Florence. While it is interesting to note contemporary references to Agricola’s fame, we must search a bit further for comments from his musical peers if we want information concerning his style or method of composition. The music theorist Pietro Aaron, who called him “the divine Alexander”, writes:
“According to the practice and method of older composers, a composition must first begin with the cantus. Then the tenor should follow, the contratenor bassus thir, and finally the contratenor altus. The composers of our time do not follow the custom of the older composers (to put these four parts together always in this order). The most outstanding men in this art are Josquin, Obrecht, Isaac and Agricola, with whom I had the greatest friendship and familiarity in Florence. It is quite difficult to do it (composition) this (new) way, and requires considerable practice and experience.”
If Agricola has been relatively neglected by his twentieth-century colleagues in comparison with, for example, Josquin and Isaac, it is perhaps his instrumental works which least deserve neglect. Precursors to the sixteenth-century “fantasia” and “diminution” appear without these formal names already in the 1480’s and 90’s (perhaps earlier) in Agricola’s catalog of works, and his De tous biens playne settings and other compositions furnish clear evidence of a fifteenth-century instrumental ensemble repertoire. As one of the foremost exponents of the ‘new’ style, Alexander Agricola’s influence upon his contemporaries was felt both in music written for voice and for instruments.
“Thus, I observe and respect the old style (of composition) and with gratitude will highly praise of that art: Ockeghem is correct and technically very well made; the same of Larue; Josquin is intellectually sophisticated and subtle (clever); Finck is also worth mentioning; concerning the unusual, crazy, strange manner (of composition), how clearly Alexander is the leader in this style.”
And how clearly this description of Agricola’s music reminds us of his Flemish contemporary working in the visual arts, Hieronymus Bosch. What exactly did Brätel have in mind when he formulated his comment? Perhaps he was getting at something along the lines of what the contratenor bassus does in Agricola’s setting of Tandernaken al up den rijn, or the unusual crafting of the outer voices in either the two 3-part settings of De tous biens playne. Twelve years after the discovery of the New World Agricola and Bosch both had the same employer, Philip the Fair, King of Castile and Duke of Burgundy. It may be that both men won his patronage on account of the part of their creative personalities that seem to us to be so concerned with giving expression to the unexpected, the irrational, the rare.
Crawford Young
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