here - Alamire Foundation

Journal of the Alamire Foundation 7 (2015), No. 2 Abstracts Theme Brumel the Composer I Guest Editors: Wolfgang Fuhrmann and Immanuel Ott Antoine Brumel and the Sense of Scale Fabrice Fitch The question of scale as a compositional determinant—that is, relative breadth of design, whether temporal or textural—has rarely been an object of study for its own sake in the music of the early Renaissance. Brumel's surviving output includes several works that may be considered exceptional in this regard, situated at both ends of the temporal spectrum. Thus the famous ‘Earthquake Mass’ Et ecce terrae motus is built on a large scale in both formal design and scoring. Such pieces are often distinguished by their approach to musical material, resulting in each case in an especially distinctive stylistic profile. This short study explores the intersection of these two phenomena, placing the works concerned within the broader context of Brumel's oeuvre. A Humble Beginning? Three Ways to Understand Brumel’s Missa Ut re mi fa sol la Wolfgang Fuhrmann Using that age-­‐old device of elementary music pedagogy, the Guidonian hexachord, as the point of departure for an elaborate musical construction seems to have become fashionable around 1500. Antoine Brumel’s Missa Ut re mi fa sol la, published by Petrucci in his Misse Brumel (1503), but likely dating from the 1480s, is probably the first setting of the mass ordinary using the hexachord as a cantus firmus throughout, starting a tradition that was continued by composers including Palestrina and Morales. Though a dazzlingly virtuoso large-­‐scale work, Brumel’s mass begins very humbly: While formally given to the ‘tenor’, the cantus firmus starts below the bassus, on the lowest note of the gamut. During the mass the cantus firmus works its way upwards through the entire (post-­‐)Guidonian system until, in the Agnus Dei, it sounds in the superius. Though the ‘master plan’ of this compositional structure is quite evident, its cultural meaning is unclear. I offer three possible approaches to understanding the mass: Did Brumel intend his mass as a pedagogical work? Can we decipher a theological meaning couched in musical symbolism? Or can it be read as self-­‐referential, meditating on the foundations of musica itself? Model-­‐based Canonic Writing in Brumel’s Missa A l’ombre d’ung buissonet Immanuel Ott Antoine Brumel’s Missa A l’ombre d’ung buissonet is almost entirely composed as a four-­‐voice double stretto canon at the fourth above. This kind of canon is associated mostly with French-­‐texted secular pieces. As Lloyd Biggle suggested, Brumel’s composition can be regarded as a parody mass based on Josquin’s chanson with the same name, which is also a double canon. But the extent to which the Missa A l’ombre d’ung buissonet is based on Josquin’s chanson has been underestimated in scholarly literature, because instead of sharing significant melodic features with the chanson, the parody aspects of Brumel’s composition are closely connected with the contrapuntal difficulties of composing a double canon. By demonstrating that both compositions are based on only a small number of two-­‐voice polyphonic models, clear connections between both works can be established and it becomes possible to examine how Brumel solved a complex contrapuntal problem—writing an entire mass as a double canon. Elementi di parafrasi contrappuntistica nella Missa Je n’ay dueil di Antoine Brumel Agostino Magro Although Brumel’s four masses on polyphonic chansons—Je n’ay dueil, Bergerette savoyenne, En l'ombre d'ung buissonet, and Dringhs—elaborate their borrowed material using similar techniques, they nonetheless represent different stages in the process of imitating their models. In the Missa Je n’ay dueil, which is taken as a case study, the counterpoint of Agricola’s chanson is subjected to expansion and enrichment, with paraphrase not only in the tenor but also in the superius. The model is followed in its polyphonic complexity, phrase by phrase and respecting the cadential plan, in each of the five parts of the mass. Although the model tenor in general directs the mass, it almost never comprises the essential element, but rather, is almost always integrated into the melodic logic of the other three parts. The process of imitation that Brumel adopts stands at a significant distance from the tradition of the cantus firmus mass, and leans in the stylistic direction of the model itself. A homogeneous style is achieved that makes the new composition a genuine extension and variation on the model. Brumel’s procedures contain the seeds that would be developed by the generation of composers that immediately followed him. Free papers ‘Save us from plague, sudden death, and every tribulation’: The Antiphon Hec est preclarum vas in the Birgittine Context Karin Strinnholm Lagergren This article discusses the Marian antiphon Hec est preclarum vas and its place in the liturgy of the Order of St. Birgitta of Sweden using sources from the abbey of Mariënwater/Maria Refugie (a single abbey known under two names in Noord-­‐
Brabant, the Netherlands). Hec est preclarum vas originated in the Low Countries in the late Middle Ages and was widely used in different ecclesiastical contexts. It was sung to protect against plague (and other contagious diseases) and unexpected death. Among the Birgittines in Mariënwater/Maria Refugie it gained a short but intense popularity for about seventy years starting in the second half of the seventeenth century, when it was sung as a suffrage after the daily Lady mass Salve sancta parens. A possible reason for introducing this antiphon at Mariënwater/Maria Refugie may have been a plague epidemic or a similar disease that affected the community or benefactors of the abbey. Several plague epidemics are reported in Noord-­‐Brabant during the seventeenth century, and the community itself suffered from plague in the 1630s, but there are no sources that clearly indicate a link between the antiphon and these plague epidemics. The antiphon’s melody and text as found in the sources from Mariënwater/Maria Refugie show that it connects to known variants of the chant in the Low Countries. The article shows how external factors could motivate the introduction of local customs into the Birgittine liturgy of this community. Research and Performance Practice Forum The Fate of Choirbooks in Protestant Europe Magnus Williamson Singing from choirbooks was once an unremarkable, even humdrum, part of everyday performance practice. Although they varied greatly in size and splendour, the common feature of choirbooks was their placement upon a lectern, visible to a single group of singers huddled around the same book. Although this mode of performance fell from favour in the Protestant countries of northern Europe, it persisted in some cultures until within living memory. Very few modern performers sing ad lectrinam, however, while academic interest in Renaissance choirbooks has tended to focus more on the notational syntax of their contents than the practical and spatial implications of their formats. Recent investigations suggest that lectern singing brings practical benefits to performers (in terms of ensemble and confidence); the lectern also provides a strong focal point within the performing space, and therefore a context for certain polyphonic genres which combined lecterns and desks in the same musical formation, such as the ‘in medio chori’ style cultivated under Queen Elizabeth I of England.