The Early Music Club (EMC)

[Mandryka]

There's a recording of it reviewed by Classics Today with a bit of information on it. It seems its official name is the Peterhouse Mass.
https://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-3252/

Thanks - I'm listening now. And of course, I booked a seat at the concert!

[Mandryka]

Thanks - I'm listening now. And of course, I booked a seat at the concert!

Which turned out to be an enjoyable hour -- it's going to be broadcast and streamed. The high point for me was the Tallis lamentation and a piece by Byrd which was very contrapuntal. The Tye mass was certainly interesting in the Gloria and Sanctus. Cinquecento are the sort of singers who've thought hard about how to present their music, the focus is on sound and not on meaning. They are Bildungsbuergertum.

[Mandryka]

The end is nigh

http://www.orlandoconsort.com/news.htm

[Traverso]

Which turned out to be an enjoyable hour -- it's going to be broadcast and streamed. The high point for me was the Tallis lamentation and a piece by Byrd which was very contrapuntal. The Tye mass was certainly interesting in the Gloria and Sanctus. Cinquecento are the sort of singers who've thought hard about how to present their music, the focus is on sound and not on meaning. They are Bildungsbuergertum.

At least organized/ordered sound, what we call music today. The music or sound can be helpful in freeing the meaning from its dogmatic corset, although the mind will tend to return it to a limited, comprehensible concept.
It is the gravity of our conditioning.
Happy are we when the curtain is drawn back and the doors of perception open and give us glimpses beyond conception.

We cannot grasp the essence of things but we can be part of it.(in moments)

[Mandryka]

The music or sound can be helpful in freeing the meaning from its dogmatic corset

The meaning of what?

[Traverso]

The meaning of what?

Good question,

The meaning of what?

Good quention,I'm afraid that we are moving into too rarefied realms. What I am trying to say is that what we can experience may be more than what words indicate.

[Mandryka]

Good question,
Good quention,I'm afraid that we are moving into too rarefied realms. What I am trying to say is that what we can experience may be more than what words indicate.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

[Traverso]

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

  Indeed....

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Hanai briefly explains about L'homme Arme his group will perform next month.

https://www.cappellajp.com/concert

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Can't help feel that the move from Josquin to Palestrina is a move in the wrong direction (forward, where the music IMO deteriorated, rather than back.)  Caron is a good idea though, a very good idea!

Hanai's view/opinion.

https://fonsfloris.blogspot.com/2023/01/1.html

[Mandryka]

Hanai's view/opinion.

https://fonsfloris.blogspot.com/2023/01/1.html

Thanks, and I can see how a modal Palestrina mass may be interesting - by modal I mean Hanai's highly introspective style. The article prompted me to listen to Palestrina's Salve Regina, which I couldn't remember. I'm afraid the performance I chose, Testolin, didn't convince me that the music is interesting. But possibly Hanai would, as I say.

By the way, I'm generally very sceptical about the importance of making the text clear in religious ceremonies. The text is abundantly clear in chant, and they're the boring bits of the sung mass, the bits which no one listens to, they just go into a daydream at best. When good polyphony starts up - I mean Josquin but not later - the music is so beautiful that the experience for the audience is . . . numinous.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Thanks, and I can see how a modal Palestrina mass may be interesting - by modal I mean Hanai's highly introspective style. The article prompted me to listen to Palestrina's Salve Regina, which I couldn't remember. I'm afraid the performance I chose, Testolin, didn't convince me that the music is interesting. But possibly Hanai would, as I say.

By the way, I'm generally very sceptical about the importance of making the text clear in religious ceremonies. The text is abundantly clear in chant, and they're the boring bits of the sung mass, the bits which no one listens to, they just go into a daydream at best. When good polyphony starts up - I mean Josquin but not later - the music is so beautiful that the experience for the audience is . . . numinous.

I don't have a slightest knowledge in the genre. But I just found his comment, and I was hoping that you would enjoy reading it. Sounds like you liked it.

October, they will perform Jean de Ockeghem.

[San Antone]

I'm generally very sceptical about the importance of making the text clear in religious ceremonies.

That is your particular bias and is irrelevant considering the historical and religious priorities of Palestrina's time. I agree with the general consensus that Palestrina is the apogee of 16th century polyphony and I also enjoy his music very much.

[San Antone]

Unicum: New Songs from the Leuven chansonnier
Ensemble Leones | Marc Lewon (2023)

[San Antone]

The Mysterious Motet Book of 1539
Siglo de Oro, directed by Patrick Allies

One of the most intriguingly named albums in recent memory, the "mysterious motet book" at the heart of the latest recording by acclaimed ensemble Siglo de Oro, is just that — a mystery. The excellent liner notes by scholar Daniel Trocmé-Latter tell the tale, or at least what we know thus far.

Why, in 1539, a full 15 years after the establishment of vernacular hymnody, would a Protestant publisher — Peter Schöffer the Younger — publish an entire book of Latin polyphony from Catholic Milan?

The music in that book, the Cantiones quinque vocum selectissimae, would not have been performable in Strasbourg as it was, but Trocmé-Latter wonders if it would have extended Schöffer's reach into other parts of Europe that were more open to such music. And why did the folks in Milan send these motets to Schöffer for publication, instead of printing them locally in an area where they were far more likely to be of interest? As yet, Trocmé-Latter has not speculated on an answer to that question. (read more)

[Mandryka]

Essay on Abelard by Fr Chrysogonus Wadell and Mary Berry

PETER ABELARD, 1079-1142

 "Two special gifts you had," wrote Heloise to Abelard years after their tragic sep.11,1,11. two special gifts whereby to attract straightway the heart of any woman whomsoever: the beauty of  your songs and your singing ... Sung again and yet again for utter charm of word as well as tune,  they kept your name continually on the lips of everyone: the very sweetness of the melodies emitted that even the unlettered would not forget you."

Scholars have long suspected that at least a few of Master Peter Abelard's love-lyrics may have found their way anonymously into the songbooks of the later Middle Ages; but not a single melody attributable to Abelard has proved recoverable. Most medievalists tend to forget, however, that the tragic ending of the passionate love-affair between the celebrated school-man and the young Heloise marked the beginning of a new and even more profound relationship between the two. From his monastery in distant Brittany, Abelard, now Abbot of St Gildas, continued to write texts and melodies for Heloise, now Abbess of the Abbey of the Paraclete on the other side of France, near Troyes; and, in time, a sizeable body of Abelard's compositions helped to give the liturgy of the Paraclete its distinctive note.

These compositions included a complete Holy Week Office, collects, responsories. antiphons, sequences, sermons, even a biblical lectionary arranged by Abelard. But though the texts of these compositions were recoverable, the accompanying melodies were not, apart from a few tantalizing exceptions. A large collection of Abelard's hymns had survived in two manuscripts (a non-noted hymnary, Bruxelles, Bibliotheque Royale 10147-10158, late 12th century or early 13th; and a non-noted Paraclete breviary, Chaumont, Bibliotheque Municipale 31), and an occasional hymn had appeared in other manuscripts; but only in one instance, the Saturday Vespers hymn O quanta qualia, was the melody recoverable, thanks to a few Swiss manuscripts. Six non-liturgical but biblically-inspired planctus (laments) had similarly survived complete with staffiess neumes (Biblioteca Vaticana. Reg. lat.288); but the absence of a stave rendered the recovery of the melodies conjectural at best—apart from the single 'Planctus', David's lament for Saul and Jonathan, which is also known in a version with staff notation, but in a manuscript of dubious quality (Oxford, Bodley 70).

Fortunately, in 1957 the noted musicologist Michel Huglo, succeeded in identifying yet another version of David's lament in an earlier and much better manuscript (Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, ma. lat.3126), a prosary from Nevers. In fine, the extent of Abelard's recoverable music was hunted 10 a single hymn-melody and a single planctus.

All this changed in the early 1980s when a monk of Gethsemani Abbey (Kentucky. s A ). Fr Chrysogonus Waddell. began working on an edition of the liturgical manuscripts of the Abbey of the Paraclete. These manuscripts included a late 13th-century Old French liturgical directory  (Paris. Bibliotheque Nationale franc.14410) containing numerous references to liturgical sequences. Since Abelard himself had once referred to a collection of his sequences sent to Heloise and he sisters along with a collection of hymns. was it possible that the sequence-references in this Old French manuscript might point to some of the lost sequences of Abelard? A careful study of this repertory of some 60 sequences (of which a half-dozen remain unidentifiable) brought to light a group of three. remarkable for their textual correspondences with Abelard's hymns, sermons and letters. The strophic forms and peculiar rhyme-schemes were those of Abelard's hymns. The techniques of composition, the similarity of many of the melodic incises. and the treatment of accents and word-endings in relationship with the melody, all pointed to a single composer. It could hardly have been coincidental too that these three sequences are found grouped together in the above-mentioned prosary from Nevers, and in immediate juxtaposition with Abelard's planctus for Saul and Jonathan. Further research resulted in the identification of numerous manuscripts and even printed sources for both texts and melodies—proof that at least a few of Abelard's sequences had found their way, albeit anonymously, into liturgical books of France. Switzerland. and even Germany.

Heloise's admiration for Abelard's musical and poetic talent is understandable. One only has to consider a single example: that Saturday Vespers hymn O quanta qualia. The vision of heaven is ecstatic and the tune so well constructed that phrase succeeds phrase organically and seemingly inevitably. Abelard's little Marian hymn Mater Ramrods addresses the Mother of the Saviour in familiar, almost naive terms. As it appears to lack an original Abelardian tune it is sung here to the Cistercian form of the 'Ave marls stella' with which, like most of Abelard's Marian hymns,  it shares the same 6666 trochaic metre.

Abelard's planctus for Saul and Jonathan Dolorunt solarium reveals a depth of feeling that must surely be related to the state of utter despair in which he found himself after his parting from Heloise. Reading between the lines one may, perhaps, perceive Heloise behind the figure of Jonathan. Each of the lovers went their respective ways towards the cloister and would have shared, at a distance, the singing of the Suscipe, a chant that a monk or a nun sings at the moment of solemn profession. When later, by a curious quirk of circumstances. Heloise became Abbess of the Paraclete and Abelard the spiritual director of the nuns, he asked them to pray for him at each Hour of the Divine Office, composing for this purpose the moving responsory Ne derelinquas me. The liturgy at the Paraclete. basically Cistercian, was greatly enriched by Abelard,  who introduced a wider use of biblical texts. Two of his newly-identified sequences,  written for the Paraclete, are his Easter sequence Epithalanzica, and his sequence for the dead De profundis. Epithalamica. strongly inspired by the Song of Songs,  sees the drama of the Resurrection as re-enacted in the life of a Paraclete nun, herself a Bride of Christ, awaiting the Bridegroom's return from the tomb. De profundis  is of particular interest musically, in the way it uses different areas of the diatonic scale. It moves gradually across from the descending phrases of lamentation in Mode 2 to the hope and serenity suggested by the rising phrases the composer chooses for the ending in Mode 8.

Abelard's musical output may he usefully assessed when seen against the background of other contemporary sources. One of the best-known to him must surely have been the repertoire produced by the reforming Cistercians under the guidance of his adversary St Bernard. The Bernadine reform extended the original very restricted repertoire of office hymns to include others of such delightful freshness as the one in honour of St Mary Magdalene - Magnum salutis gaudium. Bernard himself composed a proper Office for the Canons regular in honour of St Victor, from which has been taken as an example the short antiphon Quam pium,  with its spontaneous leaps. use of melisma and sense of overall form. Bernard, like Abelard. makes constant liturgical use of the Song of Songs. a book traditionally used by Christian spirituality to represent the love of Christ for the Church and for the individual Christian soul. Fulcite me floribus, the fourth Matins responsory for Feasts of Virgins, and Dum esset rex, tenth responsory for the Feast of the Assumption. show the musical development of this idea in the liturgy of the early Cistercians.

Another fascinating contemporary or near contemporary composition for comparison is the Aquitanian liturgical drama Sponsus (Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale MS lat.l 139), which tells the story of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, half in Latin and half in the Occitan vernacular. It contains four melodies, characterizing the various dramatis personae. Ecclesia has a straightforward Mode 8 melody, falling into clear-cut metrical patterns. When at the end of the drama the Bridegroom, Christ, finally arrives, he shares the same tune. The Archangel Gabriel sings a more elaborate tune, each strophe of which ends with a word of warning that the Virgins must be vigilant: "Don't fall asleep!" The melody of the Foolish Virgins, shared by the worldly merchants, exploits the eschewed tritone and ends indecisively. The fourth melody, that of the Wise Virgins, is the most highly-developed. Each strophe is followed by a refrain of complaining by the Foolish. The message of condemnation at the end of the drama has been ascribed here to Gabriel, since it is sung to his melody, though no rubric to this effect actually exists in the manuscript. Indeed, missing rubrics are not infrequent in other places as well.

More dramatic, perhaps, than Sponsus, with its stylized characterization, is the medieval lai Samson dux fortissime (London, British Library, MS Harley 978). Samson. a figure of Christ. who triumphed at the moment of his Passion, was a favourite hero of the medieval Church (Judges 14, 15, 16). We are well prepared for the unfolding of the drama by its powerful opening. achieved by the simplest of means: the Chorus prepares Samson's dramatic entry—on the highest pitch or the chosen range—by the simple addition of a repeated phrase, heard four times over instead of three. 'Ibis splendid piece has much affinity and indeed certain precise features in common with the Abelardian sequences, not least the use of such passages as those involving textural crossing, over at the climax: "Ludens lugebarn, plaudens plangebam, risi plangendo, lusi plorendo censor. crucianter glorior" with its direct reference to Christ's Passion, and which may he compared with "Risi mane, flevi nocte; mane risi. nocte flevi  . . . Plausus dei, plausus nocte; dei plausus, nocte planctus" at the moment of Christ's Resurrection

1994 Fr Chrysogonus Wadell and Mary Berry

[Mandryka]

Mary Berry's essay on the Winchester Toper -- her recording of music from it  is, I think, rather impressive.

CHRISTMAS IN ROYAL ANGLO-SAXON WINCHESTER


10th-century Chant from the Winchester Troper In 10th-century England, especially in a great royal and monastic centre such as Winchester, Christmas, like Easter, was an occasion for liturgical celebrations of exceptional splendour and magnificence. Apart from the Gradual, every item of the Proper and the Ordinary of the Mass was expanded and embellished by the addition of tropes (added verses), which filled out and commented upon the standard texts, elaborating joyfully upon their doctrinal content. Some of these tropes, such as the Communion trope Desinat esse dolor', were known all over Europe; others were local and may well have been the work of Winchester's own Cantor, Wulfstan.

This selection represents what might have been heard in the Old Minster during the Third Mass, or Mass of the Day, on Christmas Day. The introductory Venus ante Officium, sung before the Introit that accompanied the solemn entry of the clergy, stem from an old east Frankish tradition and are attributed to Tuotilo, a gifted musician from Sr Gall in Switzerland. They appear in the form of a dialogue between two groups of singers and might almost be described as a liturgical drama in embryo. They end abruptly with an unexpected change of mode, leading directly into the Gregorian Introit Puer natus est nobis', a sumptuous processional chant, each phrase of which is introduced by a trope. One of the troped verses of the Introit, 'Rex lumen', appears to be practically unique to Winchester. In the following texts and translations the words of the traditional standard chants are printed in roman type and the tropes in italics, in order to make the distinction.

The Kyrie offers an early example of thenewly-discovered technique of organum. These first attempts at two-part polyphony were much relished by the Winchester cantors, and this particular setting bears the caption Taus iocunda Christi glorie digna' - 'Joyful praise, worthy of the glory of Christ'. Indeed, the Winchester cantors took an obvious pride and delight in their polyphonic experimentation that they could never be accused of false modesty! Their enthusiasm may be gauged by their choice of epithets to describe it: `rn.elliflua organorum modulamina', `organa dulcisona': mellifluous and sweet-sounding indeed to their ears, even if to modem ears these attempts might sound a trifle crude with their succession of seconds and fourths. There is, however, a fascinating richness and beauty of sound in the twinned, low voices, especially when heard in alternation with the unison chant. The resulting harmony is surprisingly attractive and satisfying.

 The Alleluia - also with organum - reveals its ancient history in its bi-lingual text of Greek and Latin. This use of two languages with an identical interpretation, one after another, can be traced back at least as far as 4th-century Jerusalem and the globe-trotting Spanish female pilgrim, Egeria. 'Until relatively recently it was a tradition still to be heard during Papal ceremonies in Rome. It is perhaps not insignificant to note that England, in Anglo-Saxon times, could actually boast a Greek Archbishop of Canterbury: Archbishop Theodore, the contemporary of Benedict Biscop.

The Sequence `Celica resonant', for high voices, contrasts the blissful song of the Angels at the birth of Christ with the humbler song of the monastic choir. Each phrase of the sequence, with its syllabic text, echoes a section of the Alleluia jubilus, sung on the vowel 'a'. The Offertory, Sanctus, Agnus Dei and Communion chants are all interwoven with tropes that provide a melodius commentary on their standard texts. Finally, the un-troped Invitatory, or call to prayer, `Christus natus est nobis: venite adoremus', from the Night Office of Matins, is a short refrain repeated between the verses of Psalm 94 (95), and which sums up, in six words, the essential theme of Christmas.
0 Mary Berry 1992
THE TRANSCRIPTIONS
The Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge wishes to thank Professor David Hiley4 Regensburg University for his work in providing the performing editions of the music. The two principal sources are Cambridge, Corpus Christi 473 and Oxford, Bodley 775, with the following supporting sources: Proper of mass chants: Worcester E160 (Worcester) and Oxford Rawl.C.892 (Downpatrick);
. • , • .
Proper tropes: Paris BN_nouv,accidat.4235 (from Nevers), Provins BM 12 (from Chartres), Utrecht RijksuriiVersiteif 417 (froth Utrecht) also for some isolated verses, Paris BN lat.887 (from Aquitaine) and Madrid BN: 19421- (frOni Catania); Kyrie: Paris 1235 , Gloria: Laon BM 263 (from Laon) for the base melody, Paris 1235 and Paris 10508 (from Sc Evroult) for the trope verses; Sequence: Corpus 473 has alphabetic notation; Sanctus': Paris 11:34 and 1131- (from Limoges), Madrid 289 (from Palermo) and Madrid 19421 (Catania) AgnUs Dei: London Royal 213.1v (from St Albans) and Paris 10508; Invitatory: Worcester E160

[Mandryka]

Mary Berry on Pontigny


PENTECOST AT PONTIGNY
The Abbey of Pontigny, second daughter-house of ateaux, was 'founded in 1114 in the valley of the River Serein, a typical rural Cistercian site. The Abbey church is the largest Cistercian church surviving in France today. The imposing height and length of the building give it a remarkably warm and resonant acoustic, well-suited to chant. The brilliance of the white stone enables the purity and simplicity of the early Cistercian architecture to be revealed in all its beauty.

The Abbey is rich in history. In particular, during the 12th and 13th centuries three English Archbishops of Canterbury sought refuge there: Thomas Becket (1118-1170), Stephen Langton (d.1228), and Edmund of Abingdon (6..1175-1240), who became the patron saint of Pontigny. The monks left the Abbey at the time of the French Revolution and since then the Abbey church has served as a parish church for the local community.

 The Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge has had links with the Abbey of Pontigny since 1988. Over the Whitsun weekend of that year, the Schola was invited to sing the Monastic Hours according to the Cistercian rite and to give a recital in honour of the three English Archbishops.

Pentecost has a special meaning for the people of Pontigny because it was on a Whit Monday that Edmund of Abingdon — St-Edme in French — was transported from Soissy, where he died, to his final resting-place above the high altar in the Abbey church. Over the centuries Whit Monday has come to be a day of pilgrimage and special festivities at Pontigny. This recording enters into the spirit of PentecOte a Pontigny': ritual music for the feast of Pentecost, chants gleaned from Cistercian service-books, and a selection of pieces that honour the three Archbishops. The sacrilegious murder of Thomas Becket shocked the whole of Christendom. There is a considerable amount of music written to honour the 'holy blissful martyr', slain by the sword in his own cathedral on 29 December, 1170. In Rama sonat gemitus is a lament for Becket composed during his exile in Pontigny. Clangat tuba, martyr Thoma is a fifteenth-century carol, partly in Latin, partly in the vernacular. The theme of the grain of corn released from the chaff is borrowed from the processional responsory Jacet granum, sung here according to the rite of Salisbury and followed by its rousing prose, Clangat Pastor in tuba cornea, the choir jubilantly echoing each phrase on the vowel 'a'.

Thomas gemma/Thomas ccesus is a thirteenth-century motet in honour of Thomas Becket and a second Thomas, Thomas de Halys, a Benedictine monk of Dover Priory who met a violent death on 2 August, 1295. It has a strange text, witty, inventive, intended both to edify and to entertain. Of the four voices, the two basses are used throughout as though they were instru-ments, hoqueting at speed on vowel sounds. The two tenors divide the text between them, one singing about Thomas of Canterbury, the other about Thomas of Dover. The words are made to follow each other, copy each other, sound alike and rhyme, both phonetically and rhythmically.

The chants that commemorate Stephen Langton are the eighth-century hymn Iste confessor, which he would quote to exhort the clergy of Canterbury, and the prose Veni, sancte Spiritus, often attributed to him. Both these pieces are performed metrically on the evidence of numer-ous sources, manuscript and printed. Dunstable's motet is based on the text of this prose, divided between the tenor and the first bass, with the second bass supporting them underneath with a snatch of the Whitsun sequence Sancti Spiritus assit nobis gratia.

 The Alleluia: hic Edmundus, from the Salisbury Gradual, recalls Edmund's family name `Rich' as well as the eleven years during which he was treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral before his elevation to the See of Canterbury. The responsory Exivit ab Anglia sings of his exile and death. The Magnificat antiphon Ave, gernma confessorum, from the same manuscript, closely imitates the Marian antiphon Ave, regina cxlorum. The hymn. Jam Christus dator munerurn is taken from a life of St Edmund by an eighteenth-century monk of Pontigny, F-M. Charlet (1775). It is based on the Pentecost hymn Jam Christus astra ascenderat. Edmund's favourite prayer, according to Matthew Paris (13th century), was the Adoramus te, Christe, which he would recite to honour, each in turn, the suffering limbs of the crucified Christ.

The music for Pentecost includes the well-known hymn Veni, creator Spiritus, attributed to the Benedictine Abbot Rabanus Maurus of Fulda (784-856), the eighth-mode introit Spiritus Domini, and the prose Veni, sancte Spiritus, all three from Cistercian service-books, and the 5-part motet Dum complerentur dies pentecostes, composed by the Cistercian Abbot of Himmelwitz, Johannes Nucius (c.1560-1620). Other specifically Cistercian music includes two chants dating from St Bernard's revision of the Cistercian Antiphonal (c.1140), the antiphon Anima mea liquefacta est, and the moving responsory Filice Jerusalem, from Matins for the Feast of the Assumption, both based on texts from the Song of Songs and both reflecting the intensity of Bernard's love of God. The Cistercian Salve regina follows strictly the guide-lines laid down by Bernard and his fellow liturgists, as does the fourth-century Te Deum laudamus — one of the earliest Christian hymns, but here as sung by the Cistercians and accompanied, as was the custom, by the Abbey bells. Finally, the little fourteenth-century sequence for three voices, Ave, mundi Rosa, was discovered in 1958 on the fly-leaves of a manuscript from Fountains Abbey. © Mary Berry 1993

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Mary Berry on Pontigny

Interesting reading!

Is this the same Mary Berry who co-hosted the show "The Great British Bakeoff"?

PD

[Mandryka]

Interesting reading!

Is this the same Mary Berry who co-hosted the show "The Great British Bakeoff"?

PD

No! No no no NOOO!


Mary Berry instituted a sort of quiet revolution in the world of chant -- she argued that the best way to sing it was to give it a bit of rubato, a bit of subtle expressive embellishment, make it poetic.

The reason I've been posting these  booklet essays here is that I found a few weeks ago that her recordings are no longer streaming, so I decided to buy them. I must say, revisiting them has been an enormous pleasure. Quiet, sane, intense music, I love it.

The Pontigny CD, by the way, is a slight disappointment. Not because of the music or the music making, but because of the recording quality -- too much hall ambience for me I'm afraid. Still, I'm glad I have it.