Under the Laurel:
Music from Florence
at the time of Lorenzo il Magnifico
by Heinrich Isaac (1450-1517)

April 24-25, 1992
Program

Quis dabit capiti meo aquam?

Secular works with texts by Lorenzo
Vicin, vicin à 2
Un di lieto giamai non hebbi à 3

O Maria, Mater Christi à 4

Early French works by Isaac
J'ay pris amours à 3
Je ne puis vivre à 4

Alma Redemptoris à 4

* * * intermission * * *
 

Instrumental music by Isaac and contemporaries
La Martinella  -Johannes Martini
La Morra  -Heinrich Isaac
En attendant  -Alexander Agricola

Donna di dentro à 4

Ave sanctissima Maria à 4

Questo mostrarsi adirata à 3
Canto delle dèe à 4

Rogamus te (La mi la sol) à 4

Quis dabit pacem populo timenti? à 4
 
 

Notes

    Lorenzo de'Medici "the Magnificent" (1449-1492), whose death five hundred years ago we commemorate in tonight's concert, was among the most remarkable figures of a remarkable age. A true "Renaissance man," Lorenzo was the only man in history ever simultaneously to rule a major state, run a large international bank, and win a reputation as a major poet. Florence, the city-state over which he ruled, was during the fifteenth century the greatest economic power in Europe and the center of the cultural movement we call the Renaissance. Though officially a republic, Florence had been controlled behind the scenes, from the time of Cosimo de'Medici, Lorenzo's grandfather, by the Medici family and their adherents. Lorenzo inherited the leadership of the Medici party at the age of twenty and ruled until his early death in 1492. The period of his rule, the "Age of Lorenzo," was not only the period in which Florence reigned as the cultural capital of Europe. It was also a period when she enjoyed more peace than at any previous time in her history. Lorenzo first won a reputation as a peacemaker after a daring diplomatic mission to Naples in 1479 and the peaceful balance of power in Italy during the later years of his rule was widely credited to his international statesmanship.
    Since Florence was in name a republic throughout his "reign," Lorenzo was never able to maintain a proper court. Yet he won a reputation as the age's greatest patron of the arts. Today we are most likely to associate his name with great artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, both of whom were friends of Lorenzo and were aided by him at an early stage of their careers. But Lorenzo was equally famous in his own day for his patronage of philosophy, poetry, and music. The University of Florence, home of Europe's most eminent scholars and philosophers, enjoyed its period of greatest reknown after Lorenzo refounded it in 1472. The most famous Latin and Italian poets of the age flocked to enjoy "the shade of the laurel" - a punning reference to Laurentius, the Latin form of Lorenzo's name - knowing that a man himself gifted as a poet could not fail to honor and reward them. Of these the greatest was the scholar-poet Angelo Poliziano, two of whose poems, set to music by Isaac, we are performing this evening: Quis dabit capiti meo aquam and Questo mostrarsi adirata. The first work, Poliziano's "Monody on Lorenzo de'Medici" is perhaps the most famous of all neo-Latin poems.
    The side of Lorenzo's patronage most neglected by modern historians is his patronage of music. The Medici from the time of Cosimo had competed for the services of great composers such as Dufay and had maintained a cappella of professional singers who performed in the Florentine Baptistery and in the Church of Santissima Annunziata. Lorenzo continued this tradition. He continued to subsidize i cantori di San Giovanni (as the professional choir was known) and continued to seek out major compositional talent. His greatest coup was securing the services of the young Heinrich Isaac, who eventually developed into one of the most prolific and successful composers of his day. In the late 1480's, Isaac became the organist of the Florentine Duomo and a member of i cantori di San Giovanni. He also served as music tutor to Lorenzo's sons, including the teenaged cardinal, Giovanni de'Medici, later Pope Leo X - himself a great patron of musicians.
    The music we are performing is drawn from all genres of Isaac's output except the mass. The two laments on Lorenzo's death frame the concert. The other Latin works are church motets, of which some were probably written during Isaac's Florentine days. The motet Rogamus te is better known as "La mi la sol," a name that spells out the solmization syllables of its cantus firmus, here played by two shawms. As an instrumental work, it has long been a favorite of shawm and sackbut ensembles, but in fact it may have been texted in its earliest form.
    Also early, possibly written before Isaac arrived in Florence, are his French chansons. J'ay pris amours is a striking example of a three-voice chanson in the style of Isaac's predecessors, such as Busnoys or Ockeghem. It is distinguished by the insistent 4-note ostinato in the bass, which is drawn from the beginning of the superius melody.  It is Isaac's Italian-texted works that are most securely Florentine in origin. Some of these are carnival songs which may have been sung or played on the streets of Florence. Donna di dentro is the best known example of one of these works, in which the raucous combination of three different tunes (including the Fortuna cantus firmus, here played on the shawm) is carried off with typical Franco-Flemish flair and wit.

-Peter Urquhart and James Hankins


Capella Alamire was formed in 1984 for the purpose of exploring the repertoire of the Renaissance. The word Alamire is a solmization term for the pitch A, sung as la, mi or re; it was also the pseudonym of a Flemish music scribe employed by the Habsburg court, ca. 1500, in the Netherlands and northern France, a region that produced many of the greatest composers and singers of the time.

Capella Alamire
Peter Urquhart, director

Todd Beckham  Willis Emmons
Terry Halco           James Hankins ^
Donald Irving*               Shannon Larkin §£
Melinda McMahon ¢                           Joel Schneider
Anne Stone                                                  Charles Turner
Susan Ward §                                                                   Paula Warner £
§Shawms, ¢Harp, *Flute, £Recorders,^Sackbut; all members sing

Capella Alamire would like to thank the following for their support and assistance:

Isham Library of Harvard University, The Hampshire Consort
St. Mary of the Annunciation, Church of the Advent
Sheila Beardslee, Patrick Macey
Music Department of the University of New Hampshire
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