Capella Alamire

presents

French Chansons from the

15th and 16th centuries

with works by

Busnoys, Martini, Josquin, Mouton, Bauldeweyn, and Willaert

Program

 

     Three-voice chansons

Chi dit on "benedicite"                                                            -Antoine Busnoys

                                                                                                (c.1430 - 1492)

 

Quant ce viendra                                                                     -Busnoys

Tout joyeulx                                                                            -Johannes Martini

                                                                                                (c.1430/40 - 1497)

 

Le corps s'en va                                                                       -Busnoys

Seulle à part moy                                                                     -Busnoys

 

Je m'esbais de vous                                                                 -Busnoys

Tant que dieu                                                                           -Martini

J'ay pris amours                                                                      -Heinrich Isaac

                                                                                                (c.1450/5 - 1517)

 

 

     Four-voice canonic chansons

Une musque de Buscgaya                                                       -Josquin Des Prez

                                                                                                (c.1450/55 - 1521)

Complainte d'A. de Févin                                                        -Johannes Mouton

                                                                                                 (1459 - 1522)

Recordans de my segnora                                                       -Josquin

Bergerette savoyenne                                                              -Josquin

 

 

     Five- and six-voice chansons

En douleur et tristesse                                                             -Noel Bauldeweyn

                                                                                                (c1480, fl. 1509 - 13)

En douleur et tristesse                                                             -Adrian Willaert

                                                                                                (c.1490 - 1560)

Du bon du coeur                                                                     -Mouton

Kyrie from Missa Du bon du coeur                                        -anon. (J. Vinders?)

                                                                                                (fl. 1525 - 6)

           

Notes

            Our concert this afternoon presents French secular music from a brief span of time, about 60 years during what we now call the Renaissance period in music history.  The composers and the styles in which they wrote form a continuity that is sometimes called the Franco-Flemish school of musical composition.   Yet  the  changes  in  style  were

profound over this brief span, beginning with the number of lines, or "voices," employed.

            In the 15th c., the normal texture for the Frano-Flemish chanson was three lines: two vocal lines and a contratenor.  Although music in four or even five voices was not unknown in the 15th century, the prevailing style in secular music relied on a cantus (high-voice) and possibly a tenor part singing the text of a poem constructed in one of the ancient formes fixes.  This framework was then supported by a contratenor line of more instrumental character.  It is a curious fact that, although in Busnoys' style the contratenor is generally the lowest voice, it is also the only voice that can be removed without doing harm to the musical structure.  The cantus and tenor are strangely self-sufficient (one cannot, for instance, remove the bass from a Bach chorale wihout ruining the harmony).  The contratenor thus resembles a si placet part—an optional line—added after the rest of the work is completed.  We are performing one si placet part in our performance of Busnoys' Quant ce viendra, a fourth optional line added to give the tenor viol player something to do!

            The chansons by Josquin and Mouton from the turn of the century present a completely different profile.  The first difference is in the nature of the texts; even when the subject is the death of fellow composer Antoine de Févin, the poetry is light and irreverent, in contrast to the lofty and stylized poetry of the formes fixes.  The musical structure differs also: no line is optional or added on; indeed, in these examples the composers turn to canonic methods to build their four-voice textures.  Canons are written so that two or more lines could be sung or played from one notated line, as in a round.  Canons thus bind together all voices into a tight web of imitation, and no voice can be dispensed with. 

            Sixteenth century composers did not stop with four voices.  Five voices soon became the norm, and works with six, seven, or more voices were not uncommon, as the composers' own sense of the development of musical technique pressed on.  A student of Mouton, Adrian Willaert made a practice of expanding works by his predecessors, especially Josquin, but also more obscure composers like Noel Bauldeweyn, choirmaster of Mechelen.  Willaert would often retain the canonic scaffolding of his model, as with En douleur et tristesse, but would enrich and thicken the harmony, regularizing the rhythm and piquant dissonance of the Franco-flemish style with his bass-oriented harmonic approach, which led directly to the style of baroque music.

            Chansons were sometimes expanded into entire masses.  We are performing just the opening Kyrie of an anonymous mass closely based on Mouton's lovely five-voice chanson, Du bon du coeur.  What church-goers felt about sacred service music based on the sometimes very earthy love-songs of their time is hard for us to imagine today.

                                                                                                            -PWU

 

 

Capella Alamire was formed in 1984 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 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 at the beginning of the 16th century in the region of present-day Belgium and northern France, an area that produced many of the greatest composers and singers of the time.  Over the past twelve years the ensemble has performed some 30 programs in over 100 concerts, the majority centered on repertoire by Franco-Flemish composers.  Capella Alamire has released five CD recordings to date, including one through Titanic Records (Motets by Busnoys, Josquin and Gombert, 1992), and two through Dorian Discovery -The Early Josquin (1995), and Music of the Modes: Three Masses by Johannes Ockeghem (1997).  A sixth one of music by Nicolas Gombert is in the final stages now, awaiting publication, and a seventh one has begun, on the music of Pierrequin de Thérache.

Capella Alamire

Melinda McMahon, brayed harp    

Peter Urquhart, tenor viol     Emily Urquhart, bass viol

Andrea Veal, soprano                   Larry Veal, bass viol

Terrence McKinney, countertenor

   

Peter Urquhart, director

      

 

The Capella would like to thank Heather Thomsen, Jane Hershey, Peter Tourin, Lynne Lewandowski, the Isham Library, Harvard Univ., and the Music Department of the Univ. of New Hampshire

 

www.unh.edu/music/alamire