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Christmas in 15th-Century France & Burgundy Friday, December 16, 2016 • 8 pm | Saturday, December 17, 2016 • 2:30 & 8 pm First Church in Cambridge, Congregational Christmas in 15th-Century France & Burgundy CHRISTMAS IN 15th-CENTURY FRANCE & BURGUNDY Advent O clavis David (O-antiphon for December 20) plainchant “in darkness and in the shadow of death” Factor orbis ja mn / om jm / sr ms / mb st / pg cb Jennifer Ashe Jacob Obrecht (1457/8-1505) By mid-December, here in the northeastern corner of the United Pamela Dellal O virgo virginum (O-antiphon for December 24) States, the days have been getting shorter for six months. Compared plainchant Martin Near to northern Europe, of course, New England suffers a relatively mild O virgo virginum mn om jm mb pg cb Daniela Toši´c Josquin Desprez (c. 1455-1521) Michael Barrett case of sun deprivation. Boston lies at about 42 degrees north, roughly Conditor alme siderum (alternatim hymn for Advent) mn om mb Owen McIntosh the latitude of Rome; Paris is nearly 600 miles further north. At the Guillaume Du Fay (c. 1397-1474) Jason McStoots winter solstice Paris sees nearly an hour less daytime than our nine Ave Maria gratia dei plena dt pd ja Stefan Reed hours; the Low Countries, still further north, endure even shorter Antoine Brumel (c. 1460-c.1512) Mark Sprinkle days. But for all of us living in the middle regions of the northern Christmas O admirabile commercium / Verbum caro factum est mn pd jm st cb Sumner Thompson hemisphere, the fall brings more and more darkness, and by the time Johannes Regis (c. 1425-1426) Cameron Beauchamp winter finally arrives we live more in darkness than in light. intermission Paul Guttry Laura Jeppesen Whatever the reasons early Christians settled on December 25 to Letabundus (Christmas sequence) dt om mb / pd ms sr Du Fay rebec celebrate the birth of Christ, observing the savior’s birthday just a few days after the solstice locates the feast at the cusp of the year, when Praeter rerum seriem mn om ms jm sr st cb Charles Weaver Adrian Willaert (c. 1490-1562) the sun begins, imperceptibly at first, to climb again in the sky. The lute & voice penitential, prophetic, and preparatory season of Advent falls during New Year's Day La plus belle et doulce figure dt cw sm Nicolas Grenon (c. 1380-1456) Scott Metcalfe the darkest weeks of the year, and it is there that our program begins. Dieu vous doinst bon jour et demy ja om sr / lj cw sm harp, director Guillaume Malbecque (c. 1400-1465) advent & christmas Dame excellent ou sont bonté, scavoir om ms st pg Baude Cordier (d. 1397/8?) The plainchant antiphonO clavis David is one of a series of seven De tous biens playne (instrumental) lj cw sm ancient “O antiphons” sung to the same melody, one for each of the Blue Heron Johannes Tinctoris (c. 1435-?1511) is funded in seven days before Christmas Eve. The O antiphons evoke the Messiah Margarite, fleur de valeur dt sr mb part by the to come in various attributes: O Sapientia (wisdom), O Adonai Gilles Binchois (c. 1400-1460) Massachusetts (Lord), O radix Jesse (root of Jesse), O clavis David (key of David), Ce jour de l’an voudray joie mener pd jm mb / lj cw sm Cultural Council, Du Fay a state agency. O Oriens (the morning star), O Rex (king), O Emanuel (“God with us”). The initial letters of each word (after O) spell out the promise jm ms pg cb Christmas Gloria Spiritus et alme BLUE HERON in a reverse acrostic, SARCORE, “ero cras”: “Tomorrow I shall be Johannes Ciconia (c. 1370-1412) 950 Watertown St., Suite 11 there.” An eighth antiphon for Christmas Eve, O virgo virginum, was Nato canunt omnia pd dt / om jm / sr ms / mb st / pg cb West Newton, MA 02465 Brumel (617) 960-7956 often added to the original seven. In it, the daughters of Jerusalem [email protected] demand of the virgin Mary that she explain the unique wonder of Pre-concert talk by Irit Kleiman (Boston University), sponsored in part by The Cambridge Society for Early Music. www.blueheron.org her conception of Jesus. She admonishes them that what they seek to The Saturday concerts are being recorded by WCRB (99.5 FM) for broadcast on Christmas Day at 7:00 pm on In Concert (classicalwcrb.org/programs/concert). know is a divine mystery. 2 3 Obrecht’s Factor orbis quotes both O clavis between the mensurations of the two sections, 1430s near Nivelles. Josquin was born near The relationship ofNato canunt omnia, in David and O virgo virginum, one at the end of gathering all the voices together for the final St-Quentin in Picardy, Obrecht in Ghent in particular, to Regis’s motet is unmistakeable. each half of the motet, along with texts and cries of “Noe!” Flanders, and Brumel possibly near Chartres. Brumel’s work quotes one of the same some tunes from seventeen other liturgical The latest of our composers, Willaert, came Christmas cantiones, the rollicking “Magnum items. The liturgical texts, mostly for Advent, Josquin’s O virgo virginum sets the O-antiphon from the southern Low Countries, perhaps nomen domini Emanuel”—an unusual are introduced by a plea to the Maker of the in its entirety, quoting the complete Bruges. moment of pure levity in a highbrow genre— world to hear the cries of his servants “on plainchant melody in the top voice and and the striking, heraldic fifths that begin this day that brings light.” The musicologist alluding to it in the five others. Josquin As northern musicians followed their the secunda pars (“Puer natus est”) are taken Jennifer Bloxam interprets Factor orbis as a deploys his six voices in antiphonal groups, itinerant careers, their paths crossed in one directly from O admirabile, with more voices sermon in music, an exegesis of the scripture for example setting the high trio against a low place or another—Malbecque sang with Du thrown in for good measure. Where Factor “Canite tuba in Sion” (“Sound the trumpet one. Equally characteristic is the hypnotic Fay in the papal chapel, for example; Du Fay orbis conveys the penitence and prophetic in Sion”: Joel 2:1), but to fully comprehend overlapping of short motives (as at “fiet istud” and Grenon worked together at Cambrai mysticism of Advent, Nato canunt omnia is this sermon as it is preached in musical in the prima pars and “Filiae” at the beginning Cathedral, which attempted (unsuccessfully) filled with through out with the high spirits time is impossible, for at times five different of the secunda pars). A disorienting metrical to hire Regis—and the music they composed of Christmas, manifested not least in a texts are sung simultaneously. The motet’s shift at “hoc quod cernitis” heightens was disseminated into all the corners of superabundance of jaunty cross relations continuously shifting textures bring now the sense of mystery: here the mensural Europe. In such circumstances it is not (e.g. F natural and F sharp sounding in close one, now another text to the foreground. The organization shifts proportionally from two surprising to come across instances of proximity or simultaneously). opening plea, sung in imitative duet by the beats per bar to three, but at the same time compositional emulation or rivalry. Regis’s O highest voices, comes to a cadence as a third an extended hemiola at the next higher level admirabile commercium, Obrecht’s Factor orbis, All of the music discussed above quotes voice enters with “Veni Domini,” “Come, of organization divides every pair of bars into and Brumel’s Nato canunt omnia form a trio plainchant melodies; so do Du Fay’s settings Lord,” whereupon the duetting voices, joined three, disrupting the listener’s sense of pulse. of works in which Obrecht and Brumel pay of Conditor alme siderum and Letabundus and by the bass, break into the acclamation “Noe!” homage to Regis. All three motets are for five Willaert’s sonorous Praeter rerum seriem. The The entrance of the tenor on the cantus firmus voices and feature multiple texts and cantus Du Fay pieces are intended for alternatim “Canite tuba” is marked by a long hemiola in emulation & homage firmi: Reinhard Strohm has describedO performance, each verse of plainchant all parts. At the introduction of two non- The composers on our concert represent admirabile commercium as a “huge Christmas answered by a verse in polyphony in which Advent texts, “Deus qui sedes super thronos” several generation of musicians from northern pie,” stuffed full of antiphons, gospel texts, the topmost voice sings an elaborated version (Epiphany) and “Media vita in morte sumus” France or modern-day Belgium. Du Fay was plainchant, and popular devotional songs of the chant melody. Willaert’s Praeter rerum (Lent), the texture changes from counterpoint born near Brussels and trained as a choirboy (cantiones). Regis, who seems to be reinventing seriem sets the plainchant in a three-voice to homophony; the effect is heart-stopping. in Cambrai. Malbecque seems to be from the motet each time he composes one, reserves canon embedded among four freely composed The homophonic texture is in turn swept Maalbeek, north of Brussels. Grenon hailed one of his most genial inspirations for the voices. The rubric “Trinitas in unitate” makes away by a return to counterpoint that moves from Paris or nearby, Ciconia was a proud close of O admirabile, a marvellous suspension explicit the symbolism of the canon—three twice as fast as anything beforehand, and native of Liège, and Cordier proclaimed his of forward motion at the (nonsense?) words parts of one substance.