The Sixteenth Century

Program: #16-25 Air Date: Jun 13, 2016

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Music for Emperor Charles V, Pope Leo X, and the great Franco-Flemish composer (and maybe Josquin pupil) Nicholas Gombert.

I. The Lion’s Ear (La Morra/Corina Marti & Michal Gondko). Ramée/Outhere CD RAM 1403.

In 1513, Giovanni di Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici (1475-1521) son of the mythic Lorenzo il Magnifico was elected Pope Leo X. Giovanni had inherited his family’s refined interest in, and zealous support of, the arts: literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, and music. But of all of these, Giovanni favored music, for which his passion was legendary among contemporaries. The musical life of Leo’s court was unimaginably rich and vibrant, as innumerable eyewitness accounts confirm.

LA MORRA joined forces with Professor Anthony M. Cummings, author of the book The Lion’s Ear: Pope Leo X, the Renaissance Papacy, and Music, to bring this world acoustically to life and illustrate the range of practices typifying Leo’s own musical experiences. The project has been honoured with the Noah Greenberg Award (2014) by the American Musicological Society. It is a tribute to a rare and extraordinary patron of music himself a composer and musician, who occupied that singular position at the very summit of the universal ecclesiastical hierarchy.

Rossino Mantovano, Domenico da Piacenza, Antoine Bruhier, Francesco Canova di Milano, Michele Pesenti, Bernardo Pisano, Nicolaus Craen, Elzeart Genet di Carpentras (?-1548), Marco Antonio "da Bologna" Cavazzoni (1485-1569), Heinrich Isaac (1450-1517), Jean Mouton (1459-1522), Papst Leo X (1475-1521)

Mantovano: Lirum bililirum
+Piacenza: Gioioso
+Bruhier: Vivite felices
+Milano: Ricercare Ness 4 & 10; De mon triste desplaisir (nach Richafort); Fantasia "De mon triste"
+Pesenti: Che farala, che dirala
+Anonymus (Pope Leo X?): Spem in alium
+Annonymus: Se mai, per maraveglia; Fortuna disperata
+Pisano: O vos omnes
+Craen: Ecce video celos apertos
+Genet: Jerusalem, convertere
+Cavazzoni: Recercada; Lautre yor per un matin; O stella maris
+Isaac: Fortuna disperata / Sancte Petre; Quid retribuam tibi, Leo?
+Pope Leo X: Cela sans plus; Canon di papa Lione X a 3 voci
+Desprez: Salve, Regina
+Mouton: In omni tribulatione

II. Gombert Motets (Beauty Farm). Fra Bernardo CD FB 1504211. For more information:

www.frabernardo.com

Nicolas Gombert (c. 1495 – c. 1560) is one the leading composers of the generation between Josquin and Palestrina. He was probably born in southern Flanders and was, according to Hermann Finck’s Pratica musica (1556), taught by Josquin (if this is true it would probably have been during Josquin’s last years in Condé). In 1526 Nicolas Gombert joined the chapel choir of Emperor Charles V in Spain, and by 1529 was its maître des enfants. His position at the most prestigious court in Europe allowed him to travel throughout the continent with the Imperial entourage and, as a result, his reputation spread. It seems that Nicolas Gombert served unofficially as a court composer and his compositions were printed by all the major European publishers; his fame was such that the Venetian firms of Scotto and Gardane issued collected editions of his motets. However, in about 1540, his career was halted when he was sentenced to the galleys for gross indecency with a choirboy. He earned his release and finished his career as canon at the Cathedral of Tournai.

Gombert’s compositions are all vocal, some for ensembles of up to twelve parts. His contrapuntal language is based on that of Josquin, but taken to the next level of complexity. Imitation is used even more con-sistently than did Josquin, and Gombert’s vocal textures are often densely packed and the individual lines are characterised by an avoidance of rests. A substantial number of Gombert’s compositions survive, including ten masses, over 160 motets, 60 secular chansons, and a set of eight Magnificats (one in each mode). The motets on this recording, for 4–6 voices, are all fine representations of Gombert’s musical style as described by Hermann Finck in 1556:
«Nostro autem tempore novi sunt inventores, in quibus est Nicolaus Gombert, Josquini piae memoriae discipulus, qui omnibus musicis ostendit viam, imo semitam ad quaerendas fugas, ac subtilitatem, ac est autor Musices plane diversae a superiori. Is enim vitat pausas et illius compositio est plena cum concordantiarum tum fugarum.»
«In our time there are innovators, among whom Nicolaus Gombert, pupil of Josquin of blessed memory, shows all musicians the way – nay more, the exact path to refinement and the desired imitative manner. He composes music altogether differently to the past: he avoids rests, and his compositions are rich with full harmonies and imitations.»

Nicolas Gombert (ca. 1495 – ca. 1560)

VENI DILECTA MEA a 5
TRIBULATIO CORDIS MEI a 5
AVE MATER MATRIS DEI a 5
SI BONA SUSCEPIMUS a 6
O, BEATA MARIA a 5
SANCTA MARIA MATER DEI a 4
PECCATA MEA SICUT SAGITTAE a 6
O, FLOS CAMPI a 5
SANCTA ET IMMACULATA a 5
DOMINE, NON SECUNDUM PECCATA a 4
AVE SALUS MUNDI a 6
SALVE REGINA «diversi diversa orant» a 4
BENEDICTA ES a 6
O, CRUX, SPLENDIDIOR a 6
O, DOMINA MUNDI a 4
DESCENDI IN HORTUM MEUM a 6
O, JESU CHRISTE, SUCCURRE MISERIS a 6
SI IGNORAS TE a 4
EMENDEMUS IN MELIUS a 5

III. Music for Emperor Charles V (Capella de la Torre/Katharina Bäuml). Coviello CDCOV 91602.

The Emperor Charles V was surrounded by music from his childhood onwards. He and his two sisters, who had lost their parents, grew up at the court oft their Aunt Margarethe, Regent of the Netherlands, where music had always played an important role.Margarethe employed the most famous instrumentalists, singers and composers of the day and had an excellent ensemble at her disposal. She appointed an exceptional teacher, the renowned Henry de Bredemers, to give musical instruction to her three wards.The first time Charles left the Netherlands for Spain to take up his inheritance of the Spanish throne from his grandfather in 1517, he was already accompanied by the Flemish musicians who later became the "Capilla Flamenca". Music was performed at receptions and State occasions as well as in church or at smaller court gatherings.

1. Dit le Bourgignon — Katharina Bäuml, Capella de la Torre 1:15
2. Verbum caro factum est   — 2:06
3. L'homme armé — 1:10
4. Tourdion — 2:04
5. Pavane d'Espaigne — 1:25
6. Danza alta — 1:20
7. Diferencias Sobre Mille regretz  — 2:35
8. Pavana, La battaglia — 2:15
9. Belle qui tiens ma vie — 3:39
10. L'amor, dona, ch'io te porto —  1:24
11. Ay luna que reluzes — 2:46
12. Pavana y Galliarda — 3:16
13. Italia mia — 3:29
14. Propignan de melyor — 1:22
15. Simile est regnum caelorum: Gloria — 4:15
16. Da pacem, Domine — 2:49
17. Si par souffrir — 4:02
18. Hombres, Victoria! — 1:58
19. Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott — 2:06
20. Triste départ — 3:59
21. In te, Domine, speravi — 2:25
22. Antiphon requiem aeternam — 1:52
23. Non moriar, sed vivam — 3:19
24. Adoramoste, Señor — 1:42

Composer Info

Rossino Mantovano, Domenico da Piacenza, Antoine Bruhier, Francesco Canova di Milano, Michele Pesenti, Bernardo Pisano, Nicolaus Craen, Elzeart Genet di Carpentras (?-1548), Marco Antonio

CD Info

CD RAM 1403, FB 1504211, CDCOV 91602