explorations in renaissance culture 43 (2017) 109-139 brill.com/erc
Streaming Music into Renaissance Studies: The Case of L’homme armé
Kevin N. Moll East Carolina University [email protected]
Abstract
College-level courses devoted to Renaissance culture typically put a premium on incorporating primary sources and artifacts of a literary, art-historical, and historical nature. Yet the monuments of contemporaneous music continue to be marginalized as instructional resources, even though they are fully as worthy both from an aesthet- ic and from a historical standpoint. This study attempts to address that problem by invoking the tradition of early polyphonic masses on L’homme armé – a secular tune used as a unifying melody (cantus firmus) throughout settings of the five-movement liturgical cycle. Beginning by explaining the origins and significance of the putative monophonic tune, the paper then details how a series of composers utilized the song in interestingly varied ways in various mass settings. Subsequently it sketches out a context for mysticism in the liturgical-musical tradition of L’homme armé, and points to some compelling parallels with the contemporaneous art of panel painting, specifically as represented in the works of Rogier van der Weyden.
Keywords
Franco-Flemish polyphony – mass cycle – cantus firmus – pedagogy – L’homme armé – Rogier van der Weyden – mysticism
* This paper is a substantially altered version of the South-Central Renaissance Conference William B. Hunter Lecture, delivered in St Louis, mo on March 3, 2011 with the title “Some Straight-Shooting Observations on the Early L’homme armee Masses.” Because the study is being published in a journal that traditionally has been devoted primarily to non-musical studies, effort has been made to refrain here from overindulgence in specialized musical vo- cabulary and to clarify those terms that are used.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi 10.1163/23526963-04302001Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:51:07AM via free access
Our brave new world of academia tends to place a high value on—among other things—multi-disciplinary approaches to course content. Accordingly, a typical medieval history text these days will include information on period literature and art history, and to some extent those fields have been assimilated into mainstream courses of undergraduate study. On the other hand, the art of music remains decidedly a stepchild in that process. For example, whereas explaining the significance of the sculptural programs of Chartres cathedral lies well within the purview of an introductory course in medieval studies, no instructor or textbook author would feel it remiss if she or he refrained from including an equally detailed account of the organa quadrupla of the Parisian composer Perotinus—a precisely coeval figure.1 Even though the art of the lat- ter is arguably no less significant historically than that of the former, current medieval and early modern survey courses are not any more likely to include music as an integral component than they ever were. Two factors primarily account for the diminishment in the modern era of the value of early music: first, the sonic monuments of the time, being subject to the need for re-creation, suffered a wholly ephemeral existence compared to buildings and visual artifacts, whose actuality does not depend upon exigen- cies of notation and performance. Thus, the historical continuity of the mas- sive cathedrals was more-or-less assured even in the face of centuries’ worth of changing fashions, whereas the contemporaneous music was not only neglect- ed in performance over time, it happened that musicians lost the ability even to decipher the period notation.2 The second major reason why early music continues to be devalued in comparison to its sister arts is the unfortunate fact that neither students nor their instructors are expected to possess the neces- sary competence in the fundamentals of music or its history. Yet it can hardly be disputed that the glorious achievements of mu- sic in the era of vocal polyphony emphatically parallel in quality the other
1 2
1 Reference is being made here to two works in particular, namely the Graduals Viderunt omnes and Sederunt principes. Their composer, known as Perotinus magnus (fl. c. 1200), or simply Perotin, can in fact be put forward as one of the seminal figures in all of music his- tory. The specimens of liturgical polyphony alluded to above are among the earliest surviving compositions in which four independent voice parts are coordinated within an environment of measured rhythm. 2 The result of this loss of contact with the repertoires of music before c. 1600 was that every aspect of notation and performance had to be thoroughly reinterpreted after a lapse of cen- turies. This process of restoration, which began around the mid-nineteenth century, required over 100 years of musicological study before historically informed performances became a practicality around the 1960s.
explorations in renaissance Downloadedculture from 43 Brill.com10/05/2021 (2017) 109-139 06:51:07AM via free access
contemporaneous arts.3 To that end, this paper is devoted to introducing one of the central phenomena of the latter fifteenth century, the L’homme armé mass, a topical tradition analogous to representations of, say, the Crusades, in the visual arts of the time, and to illustrating how non-specialist instructors might approach the challenge of how to present these compositions as sig- nificant representatives of artistic expression. Subsequently, I will attempt to illustrate some intriguing parallels that arise when considering this music in relation to other manifestations of contemporaneous culture.
1 L’homme Armé and the Liturgical Cantus-Firmus Cycle
Any initiative toward integrating music convincingly into medieval or early modern studies entails the premise that instructors in diverse fields will need to possess a general understanding of Europe’s musical topography during the period concerned—the essaying of which is beyond the scope of this study.4 Here it will have to suffice simply to note that in the history of art music, the fif- teenth century is notable as the period in which a musical style, steeped in both English and continental traditions and pioneered especially in France and the Low Countries (thus accounting for the term “Franco-Flemish” to designate the style), became a musical lingua franca in western Europe for some 150 years, i.e., from approximately 1450 to 1600. Concurrently, this era encompassed the great age of the cantus-firmus mass cycle, a multi-movement meta-genre of liturgical polyphony setting chorally the appropriate texts of the Mass Ordinary.5 In such works, a single melody, taken from a preexisting source and placed within a texture of several voices, served as a main element of formal continuity. 3 4 5
3 For present purposes, we can delimit this period to the eight centuries from Charlemagne’s accession in 768 to the Council of Trent’s dissolution in 1563, although polyphony per se may have arisen among the Franks only in the ninth century. 4 What has long been needed is an “appreciation” textbook geared solely to early music—a self-contained primer on fundamental musical elements, followed by a historical overview of significant issues and repertoires of Western music from the ninth through the sixteenth centuries. Given the narrowly market-driven policies of publishers these days, it is unlikely that any such introductory text will be forthcoming in the foreseeable future. 5 Polyphony refers to music with multiple independent melodic lines. Cantus firmus (discussed below) literally means “fixed song.” The choral items of the choral Mass Ordinary (listed in Example 1), having texts that do not vary from service to service, are distinct from the texts of the Mass Proper, but additionally are to be differentiated from those sections of the Or- dinary itself that are intoned by the priest (e.g., the Canon—part of the preparation for Communion).
explorations in renaissance culture 43 (2017) 109-139Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:51:07AM via free access
In an influential article published in 1950, Manfred Bukofzer claimed that aesthetic considerations were paramount in the creation of this monumental art form:
The decisive step toward the [cantus-firmus Mass] cycle is … the [con- necting of] movements on the basis of the same tenor [melody] which establishes an unequivocal element of unity and … conditions the entire musical structure.6
Continuing in this vein, Bukofzer emphasized that in such cycles, the borrowed tenor melody—even when it is a plainchant—typically has no liturgical con- nection to the Ordinary items within which it is employed. Indeed, elsewhere in the same article, Bukofzer avers that:
The distinction between liturgical and musical unity is a crucial point …. Without it the significance and spiritual background of the Mass cycle cannot possibly be understood. It takes a very bold and independent mind to conceive the idea that the invariable parts of the Mass should be composed not as separate liturgical items, but as a set of five musi- cally coherent compositions … The “absolute” work of art [thus] begins to encroach on liturgical function. We discover here the typical Renais- sance attitude—and it is indeed the Renaissance philosophy of art that furnishes the spiritual background to the cyclic Mass.7
More recent scholarship has questioned whether such aesthetic, “internal” el- ements were the primary factor motivating the development of such cycles, or whether various cultural-historical (i.e., “external”) conditions might better account for their creation, such that one can “comprehend choices of form and material as expressions not of purely artistic considerations, but rather of the specific circumstances in which the pieces in question arose.”8 As will be illustrated below, many studies over the past few decades have delved into circumstantial evidence as a key to unlocking cultural meaning in the sacred polyphony of the time. Leaving aside for the moment these overarching meta-historical questions,
6 7 8we can proceed with a basic orientation to cantus-firmus mass cycles in general,
6 Bukofzer, “Caput” 222. 7 Bukofzer, “Caput” 218. 8 Kirkman 3. A corollary to this assessment is a downplaying of Bukofzer’s idea that period composers were self-consciously trying to create organically unified artworks in the manner brought to prominence by nineteenth-century composers such as Beethoven, Liszt, Bruck- ner, and Wagner.
explorations in renaissance Downloadedculture from 43 Brill.com10/05/2021 (2017) 109-139 06:51:07AM via free access
Example 1 Representation of Cyclic Mass Ordinary utilizing a Tenor Cantus Firmus (c.f.)
Kyrie Gloria Credo Sanctus Agnus Dei
Discantus free counterpoint free counterpoint free counterpoint free counterpoint free counterpoint Altus free counterpoint free counterpoint free counterpoint free counterpoint free counterpoint Tenor c.f. melody c.f. melody c.f. melody c.f. melody c.f. melody Bassus free counterpoint free counterpoint free counterpoint free counterpoint free counterpoint
and those on L’homme armé in particular. Example 1 shows schematically how a pre-existent melody (cantus firmus) is typically placed throughout the course of a four-voice setting of the Mass Ordinary text, wherein a specified voice-part (usually the tenor) is provided with a given borrowed melody in ev- ery successive movement, to which the composer adds three additional voices according to rules and conventions of counterpoint that prevailed at the time.9 In such a work, the tenor states more or less the same material over and over again throughout the course of the mass, whereas the other three voice-parts may never repeat any melodic phrases literally, either within themselves or among themselves.10 In the Franco-Flemish style of polyphony as it developed after about 1450, rests tend to be rather liberally inserted in all voice parts, so that various combinations of voices are continually shifting throughout a given piece. Although the melodies used for cantus firmi in the earliest Ordinary cycles around 1420 were drawn from the repertoire of plainchant (e.g., the Marian antiphon Alma redemptoris mater), the most enduring cantus-firmus source
9 10
9 The basing of a polyphonic work on a preexistent plainchant had been practiced since the earliest multi-voice experiments stemming back to the ninth century. By about 1200, any borrowed melody was normally put into a lower (as opposed to an upper) voice, which was then designated in the source as tenor. It was, however, possible for an appropriated melodic line to be placed elsewhere than in the tenor, or indeed for it to “migrate” from one voice-part to another. 10 During the three decades leading up to 1500, the compositional practice of voices imitat- ing each other became an integral part of musical style. This then became a defining characteristic of Franco-Flemish polyphony through about 1600. Prior to that, however, multi-voice music in Western Europe was pursued mainly as non-imitative polyphony. Note also that, apart from the tenor, voice-part designations were variable, such that “ discantus” was also called “superius” and by other names, whereas both the “altus” or “bassus” parts could be referred to as “contratenor.”
explorations in renaissance culture 43 (2017) 109-139Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:51:07AM via free access
11 12 13 14 15
11 An extensive list of L’homme armé masses, as well as related secular pieces, is presented in a monograph of Judith Cohen (vol. 21 in the series Musicological Studies and Docu- ments) 72–4. The edition of the six masses mentioned in the book’s title is contained in a separate volume with the same title, which appeared as vol. 85 in the series Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae. 12 Palestrina is perhaps the most recognizable name among all the late-Renaissance composers. 13 Monophony refers to music consisting of only a single melody (regardless of number of performers), of which Gregorian chant is a prominent example. For a background to these various surmises, see Lockwood, especially 99–100. 14 Brown, Music in the French Secular Theatre 105–13, 121. 15 Strohm 465. In corroborating this opinion, Alejandro Planchart has suggested that the composer of the tune was in fact none other than Guillaume Du Fay, among the most
explorations in renaissance Downloadedculture from 43 Brill.com10/05/2021 (2017) 109-139 06:51:07AM via free access
Example 2 Text of L’homme armé Tune in ms Naples E vi 40
Section Text Melodic Phrase* Translation
A L’homme, l’homme, l’homme armé, a1 The man, the man, the armed man, L’homme armé, a2 The armed man L’homme armé doibt on doubter. a3 The armed man is to be feared; Doibt on doubter. a4 Is to be feared.
B On a fait par tout crier. b1 5 Everywhere the cry has gone out. Que chascun se viegne armer, b2 That everyone is to arm himself D’ung habregon de fer. b3 With a mailed coat of iron.
A L’homme, l’homme, l’homme armé a1 10 The man, the man, the armed man; L’homme armé, a2 The armed man L’homme armé doibt on doubter. a3 The armed man is to be feared.
*see Example 3 below
of the melody apart from a polyphonic scenario has been transmitted, and since the tune survives only in multi-voice contexts, it cannot at present be proved that it was ever disseminated in monophonic guise.16 On the other hand, it was definitely associated at the time with the words shown in Example 2—the text underlaid to the tenor in the last of six anonymous L’homme armé masses in a manuscript now kept at Naples.17
16 17
distinguished Burgundian musicians of the mid-fifteenth century; see Planchart (espe- cially 326–7). 16 When used as a cantus firmus, the L’homme armé tune typically is notated (and sounds) in rhythmic values at least twice as slow as it would presumably have been rendered if performed unaccompanied. However, it is occasionally set at its normal speed (as, for example, at the end of the Kyrie of Du Fay’s Missa L’homme armé). 17 Naples, Bilbioteca nazionale, ms vi E 40. A facsimile of the manuscript leaf on which this tenor is transmitted is presented in the introduction to Cohen’s edition, The Six Anony- mous L’homme armé Masses (cmm 85, cited above), third plate after p. xvi (picturing fol. 58v); the interesting meta-cyclic aspects of cantus-firmus usage in this series of masses are discussed in the same study.
explorations in renaissance culture 43 (2017) 109-139Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:51:07AM via free access
The cultural significance of this modest little song has elicited considerable commentary in the secondary literature. Several musicologists have conjec- tured that its martial text was associated with the Order of the Golden Fleece, a knightly institution founded in 1430 by Philip the Good (Duke of Burgundy from 1419 to 1467) for the purpose of mounting a renewed crusade to the Holy Land—which never materialized.18 In support of this hypothesis, William F. Prizer adduced archival evidence suggesting that the Order “emerges from … documents as a major consumer of sacred music in Burgundy and the Low Countries during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.”19 Apart from the tune’s provenance, questions have also arisen as to what spe- cific personage “the armed man” might have been intended to symbolize. Some scholars have argued that it was Duke Philip himself, an identification that upon his death presumably would have been transferred to his son, Charles the Bold (†1477)—who, incidentally, is well documented as having been an aficio- nado of polyphony.20 A more widely propounded thesis, however, accounts for it more generally as a topical reference to the ever-present “Turkish threat.”21 This speculation finds support in one of several secular songs incorporating the L’homme armé melody, in which the text of the discantus specifically refers to “the dreaded Turk” (shown below in Example 6, line 2). Textual evidence within the chanson itself ties it directly to the musical establishment of the Burgundian court, namely through a farcical reference to Symon le Breton, a known musician and friend of renowned composer
18 19 20 21
18 A capsule history of the Burgundian duchy is provided in Spitz (77): When the Burgundian ducal family died out after 330 years, King John ii of France bestowed Burgundy upon his youngest son, Philip the Bold ([reigned] 1364–1404), as a feudal appanage, and Philip began the process of territorial aggrandizement that eventually made of Burgundy a major power. When he married Margaret, heiress of Flanders and Artois, he combined agricultural Burgundy with industrial Flanders, a potentially dynamic union. In subsequent decades the dukes of Burgundy added Picardy, Brabant, Hennegau, Zeeland, Holland, Luxemburg, and Gelders. John the Fearless (1404–1419) contributed less to the rise of Burgundy, but Philip the Good (1419–1467) and Charles the Bold (1467–1477) worked toward a centralized adminis- tration for Burgundy, although the only tie with Flanders and their other territories remained dynastic and personal rather than constitutional and public. 19 Prizer 135. This hypothesis seems to have become generally accepted. 20 See, for example, Bukofzer, “An Unknown Chansonnier” (particularly 27–8). 21 For a provocative discussion of this point, see Hannas 155–86. Among more recent articles devoted to the topic, see Haggh.
explorations in renaissance Downloadedculture from 43 Brill.com10/05/2021 (2017) 109-139 06:51:07AM via free access
Guillaume Du Fay (†1474).22 Furthermore, it has been established that a cer- tain “house of L’homme armé” existed in the immediate vicinity of Cambrai cathedral in the early sixteenth century, the significance of which Craig Wright assesses as follows:
We may postulate a causal relationship between the Maison l’homme armé and the melody of that name: the famous song may have given its name to the building; but just as likely, the L’homme armé tune was cre- ated in, or emanated from, a canonical house in a section of Cambrai once frequented by Dufay, le Breton, Regis, Caron, and Ockeghem.23
Extending the signification of L’homme armé beyond the secular realm, one ap- prehends its stature as foundation-stone for many cantus-firmus mass cycles that count among the most imposing artistic achievements of the time— veritable edifices of polyphonic sacred music. The topic of cultural mean- ing with respect to these masses has occupied the attention of any number of commentators, who, looking past their immediate liturgical context, have identified a variety of “quasi-political” purposes behind them, designed to ag- grandize the power of both popes and secular leaders.24 Most specifically, the L’homme armé masses have been associated with the Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece (introduced above). While no one has yet found hard evidence that the Order actually commissioned such masses, William Prizer notes that the foundation “was clearly a major corporate pa- tron of music” during the time under consideration.25 In an article on a related theme, Barbara Haggh summarizes that performance of “L’homme armé mass- es may have found several contexts at the court, including the sword ceremo- nies in which at least one sovereign of the Order participated.”26 Indeed, such rituals form the very basis of yet another study, published in 1999 by Flynn Warmington, in which a most intriguing liturgical context for 22 23 24 25 26
22 Not a major musical figure of the time, this individual is mentioned several times in Craig Wright’s magisterial archival study, “Dufay at Cambrai”; see especially 202, where it is stated that le Breton in 1446 was “residing at the court of Burgundy.” 23 Wright 211. With the exception of Symon le Breton, each of the musicians mentioned at the end of the quoted passage wrote a mass on L’homme armé, and all of them are consid- ered below in various degrees of depth. 24 See especially Chew. 25 Prizer 135. 26 Haggh 37.
explorations in renaissance culture 43 (2017) 109-139Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:51:07AM via free access
L’homme armé is expounded. Here the author details a series of rites referred to variously as the “Mass of the Sword” or “Mass of the Armed Man.” Flynn cites a fifteenth-century chronicler as describing one variant of this ceremonial tradi- tion as follows:
And moreover he [Charlemagne] desired that every time the said abbot sang Mass, whenever he wished to he could have at the right side of the altar the said count of the palace … armed with all arms with the drawn sword in his hand in defense of the faith of Christ against whomever would contradict it. This ceremony and authority was given and conced- ed to him [i.e., the abbot] by the aforesaid emperor because he is obliged to defend the faith of Christ with the sword in hand …. And because the emperor himself, when he hears Mass, observes the aforesaid ceremony of the armed man with all arms with the sword in hand, so he desired that when the abbot wished, he could do it.27
Not wishing to overplay the evidence, however, Warmington prudently con- cludes that
[t]he connection between these various armed Masses and the L’homme armé masses remains in the realm of possibility alone. Both clearly stand at the conjunction of the spheres of church and state, where the ideal governing the relationship of the two great powers is given ritual expres- sion in the Mass.28
Lastly, as will be clarified below, music historians have brought the L’homme armé cantus firmus into connection symbolically with various spiritual figures, most notably Christ and St. Michael.
2 Musical and Structural Qualities of the L’homme armé Tune
The popularity of the L’homme armé tune as a structural voice in polyphonic settings probably correlates directly with its melodic characteristics, specifical- ly its clearly profiled melodic leaps and its series of stepwise descents, which
27 28
27 Warmington 95 (quotation from Giovanni Rucellai, Zibaldone Quaresimale [1457], orthog- raphy altered; the original Italian version is presented in Warmington 119). 28 Warmington 118.
explorations in renaissance Downloadedculture from 43 Brill.com10/05/2021 (2017) 109-139 06:51:07AM via free access
Example 3 Schematic Representation of L’homme armé Melody The version of the melody shown below is used in the tenor of the sixth anonymous Naples L’homme armé mass. In the schematic representation, dashes indicate one beat of duration. Also provided is a version in standard notation (the “treble-8” clef specifies that the notes be read an octave lower than normal). The accidental signature of B-flat is present in some versions of the tune, but is absent in others. Please note that the schematic diagram is not necessarily aligned per- fectly with the musical notation below it.
29
29 Regarding these characteristics, see Lockwood 103–05.
explorations in renaissance culture 43 (2017) 109-139Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:51:07AM via free access
In truth, however, examination of the series of L’homme armé masses indicates that they do not adhere to a single version of the tune. One significant dif- ference to be observed is tonality, or the hierarchical arrangement of pitches around which the final of a given composition is centered (analogous to “key- note” or “tonic” in later music). For example, the mass of Johannes Regis uses a version of the melody built on a D final,30 whereas most of the other early L’homme armé cycles have a G final. To the extent that many G-final masses provide a B flat in the lower voices, this variance would appear to be merely a transposition (displacement) of the same scale from one final to another. But the situation is not quite so simple, since several of the G-final masses are notated without signatures, thus apparently stipulating use of B natural in every voice part. This circumstance seems to point to the existence of the tune in two different scale systems, or in plainchant parlance, modes. In period terminology, one could thus say that both Dorian and Mixolydian versions of the tune are represented.31 Notwithstanding the question of whether the tune circulated popularly as an independent melody, its transmission is stable enough to posit an arche- typal form, with the understanding that individual treatments of it may vary in tonality, or in rhythmic or melodic details. This prototype is presented sche- matically in Example 3 (main sections are denoted by capital letters: A1–B–A2; phrases and motives by lower case: a1–a2–a3–a4; b1–b2–b3; a1–a2–a3).32 The tune is in triple meter (i.e., with an accent recurring every three beats). As already stated, it is laid out in a basic ternary pattern (A–B–A), a significant aspect of which is that the pitch register (compass of tonal space) of the B section lies almost entirely above that of the A section (see Example 4). This registral differentiation heightens the contrast between the A and B sections of the tune—a quality that often is exploited by composers in polyphonic set- tings using L’homme armé as a cantus firmus.
30 31 32
30 In plainchant the final, not surprisingly, is the ending note of a given chant. In polyphonic music of the period under consideration, it is usually the note on which the tenor ends (discussed below in section 3). 31 The possibility should not be entirely discounted that B-flat signature is to be assumed in the versions of the tune that are transmitted without signatures, although no con- vincing reason for such an omission has yet been adduced. It should also be noted that by no later than 1500, composers were transposing the theme to pitches other than G and D. 32 Any number of other analyses of the tune have been offered, notably in Lockwood 103, and Cohen (Musicological Studies and Documents, Vol. 21) 10.
explorations in renaissance Downloadedculture from 43 Brill.com10/05/2021 (2017) 109-139 06:51:07AM via free access
Example 4 Aggregate Compass of L’homme armé Melody
The A and B sections are also unified respectively through their melodic mo- tives: in section A, the ends of phrases a1 and a3 are related melodically, while a2, a3, and a4 are all related in their initial rhythm (the extremely close rela- tionship between a2 and a4 is obvious). Conversely, section B displays con- gruencies of its own: phrases b1 and b2 are identical in some versions of the tune;33 other versions display slight differences. Phrase b3 is rhythmically and melodically similar to a1 and a3; this affinity lends an element of motivic unity to the A and B sections. In attempting to trace a chronology of the L’homme armé cantus firmus, we are seriously hampered by the lack of hard dates for the composition of individual works. The earliest year yet ascertained for any surviving L’homme armé mass is 1463, at which time such a cycle was copied into a (now lost) codex that served as a putative exemplar for the copying of ms San Pietro B80, where the work is attributed to “F. Caron.”34 While specific evidence cannot be adduced here, stylistic criteria strongly suggest that the mass that survives under the name of that composer is unlikely to have been one of the earli- est L’homme armé cycles. In any case, it has seemed almost inevitable to most
33 34
33 Including the version shown above as Example 3. 34 Reynolds 286. Another early datable reference to a L’homme armé mass stems from 1462–3, when a work under that title by Johannes Regis is recorded as having been copied into a Cambrai choirbook. Although such a mass by this composer does exist (see below), it is unlikely that the one that survives is identifiable as the one documented; for particu- lars, see Strohm (466, 469). Regarding Caron, it should be noted that scholars have not been able to ascertain even his first name with certainty: several period references are made to a “Philippe” Caron, but the music theorist Johannes Tinctoris, whose authority in such matters is usually regarded by musicologists as reliable, refers to him as “Firminus.” See Reese 110. Strohm (451–2) decides that the most likely Christian name for the com- poser is either Firminus or Jean.
explorations in renaissance culture 43 (2017) 109-139Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:51:07AM via free access
Example 5 Fifteenth-Century Secular Songs Incorporating the L’homme armé Tune
Title Voices Attribution ms or print Date established source for source
Il sera pour vous/ 3 Anon. Mellon c. 1475 L’omme armé chansonnier L’omme armé (incipits 4 “Borton” Casanatense c. 1480 only) chansonnier D’ung autre amer/ 4 Philippe Bologna ms Q17 c. 1495 L’homme armé Basiron (Cod. 148) Est de bonne heure né/ 4 Johannes Petrucci, Canti C, 1504 L’omme armé Japart no. 58
35
35 Lockwood 102. Actually the matter is not quite so simple: because male voices are typi- cally of the tenor/baritone type, it is eminently possible that the melody was merely accepted as lying naturally within a low range, especially if it did indeed originate as a monophonic tune nominally sung by men.
explorations in renaissance Downloadedculture from 43 Brill.com10/05/2021 (2017) 109-139 06:51:07AM via free access
In each of these chanson settings, the phrases of the tune are indeed predomi- nantly placed in the tenor (although they do occur elsewhere as well). Apart from the four-voice version attributed in the Casanatense chansonnier to “Bor- ton,” which has no text at all but only the incipit L’omme armé (sic) at the be- ginning of all voice parts, each of the chansons represented in Example 5 sets an entirely different text in the top part. As can be inferred from the above discussion, varied types of evidence have been invoked by musicologists in an attempt to ascertain a relative sequence of works among the complex of L’homme armé masses. Despite much effort on the part of scholars determined to assign chronological priority to one composer or another, the results so far have been equivocal and no consensus has emerged.
3 Teaching L’homme armé as a Topic in Renaissance Studies
Now that several of the basic issues surrounding the earlier L’homme armé masses have been sketched out, it remains to suggest how this phenomenon might be introduced into a course syllabus in which the history or culture of fifteenth-century Europe takes on a significant role. Assuming that some 45 to 60 minutes of class time is allotted to this task, it can be approached from five different directions:
(1) by emphasizing the context of L’homme armé as a reflection of the spirit of the age, especially its cultural connections with the aristocratic quasi- knightly foundations exemplified by the Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece and with liturgical practices such as the Ceremony of the Sword; (2) by considering the text and tune of the eponymous chanson, as well as other texts that are used in conjunction with it, especially the secular set- ting “Il sera pour vous”; (3) by focusing on the cantus-firmus layouts of selected Kyries from L’homme armé mass cycles, in order to illustrate their architectonic concep- tion of form within a multi-movement musical genre of monumental proportions; (4) in relation to the previous item, by specifying the emulative and competi- tive aspect of the series of mass settings on L’homme armé, especially as this relates to broader issues of rhetorical imitatio that were endemic to Renaissance humanism; and— (5) by pointing out some intriguing affinities between music and the visual arts of the time, especially as these connections involve artistic represen- tations of mysticism.
explorations in renaissance culture 43 (2017) 109-139Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:51:07AM via free access
Now to elaborate on the above list in order. First, if one chooses to treat this topic in a survey course of some sort, it is probably not advisable to focus ini- tially or solely on the musical aspects of L’homme armé. Instead, one can begin by profiling the most general concerns as outlined in Section i above. Subsequent to introducing the cultural context, the instructor can proceed to examine textual aspects of the tune, exploring its martial character as ex- emplified in one of the secular settings, namely Il sera pour vous/L’ome armé in the Mellon Chansonnier (text presented in Example 6).36 In this three-voice
Example 6 Text of Il sera pour vous/L’ome armé in Mellon Chansonnier (No. 34, fols. 44v–45r)
DISCANTUS (top voice)
Il sera pour vous conbatu He will be fought for you, Le doubté Turcq, Maistre Symon The dreaded Turk, master Symon —Certainement ce sera mon— —there’s no doubt about it— Et de crocq de ache abatu And struck down with an axe-spur [with pun on “wild celery”].
Son orgueil tenons a batu 5 We hold his pride to have been beaten. S’il chiét en voz mains, le felon, If he falls into your hands, the felon, Il sera pour vois conbatu He will be fought for you, Le doubté Turcq, Maistre Symon The dreaded Turk, master Symon.
En peu d’heure l’arés batu In a short time you will have beaten him Au plasir Dieu. Puis dira-on, 10 To God’s pleasure; then they will say “Vive Symonet le Breton “long live old Simon the Breton,” Que sur le Turcq s’est enbatu!” Because he has fallen on the Turk!” Il sera pour vois conbatu He will be fought for you, Le doubté Turcq, Maistre Symon The dreaded Turk, master Symon —Certainement ce sera mon— 15 —there’s no doubt about it— Et de crocq de ache abatu And struck down with an axe-spur.
TENOR AND CONTRATENOR (lower voices)
Apart from orthographical variants, the text in the lower voices of this chanson is essentially that of Example 3 above. The main divergences from that text are the replacement of line 3 with “et l’ome armé,” and the insertion of an additional line: a l’assaut, a l’assaut (“on to the at- tack”)36 which replaces line 5 in the tenor and lines 4 and 6 in the contratenor.
36 This is the song that Planchart claims was the initial foray in the entire series of composi- tions on L’homme armé (see the article cited above in note 15). It has traditionally been
explorations in renaissance Downloadedculture from 43 Brill.com10/05/2021 (2017) 109-139 06:51:07AM via free access
chanson, the L’homme armé tune is presented almost exclusively in the tenor. The uppermost voice, which is freely composed, carries the main text, while the two lower parts (tenor and contratenor) sing essentially the words of L’homme armé as shown above in Examples 2 and 3. Here, of course, is a direct reference to the crusading spirit, which was still very much alive in western Europe as late as the fifteenth century.37 In fact, it was more than merely topical in the wake of the Turkish conquest of Constan- tinople in 1453, signaling the final demise of the Byzantine empire. In 1454, Burgundian duke Philip the Good staged a huge festivity called the Feast of the Pheasant, hosted by his quasi-Arthurian Order of the Golden Fleece, with the express intention of organizing a crusade against the Ottoman Turks.38 The text of this chanson, however, is essentially light-hearted, poking fun at the musician Symon le Breton and thus constituting an exercise in light satire, not serious political propaganda. Keeping in mind that the goal of this paper is to initiate non-specialists into the musical artistry of the period, L’homme armé is advantageous because it can be isolated and heard as a single unaccompanied melody. Another com- pelling aspect of L’homme armé is that its musical form is obvious enough to be clearly audible to persons not trained in music. Thus, in proceeding from the general cultural context of L’homme armé to its intrinsic musical qualities, the instructor can play the monophonic version of the song a couple of times, emphasizing its basic ternary structure and accounting for its distinct melodic characteristics. Thereupon, the agenda can be turned toward introducing the artistic de- vice of employing the tune as a structural scaffolding (i.e., cantus firmus) in polyphonic settings of the mass, for which analogy can be made to the ground- plan of a cathedral. An instructor can make this demonstration particularly effective if she or he is able to sing the cantus firmus along with each of the recordings, which of course may require some little confidence and practice.39
37 38But doing so makes absolutely clear to the class how the cantus firmus fits into 39
ascribed to the English composer Robert Morton (accounting for the attribution “Borton” as a scribal misreading of that name), but in Planchart’s study the hitherto generally ac- cepted authorship is subjected to close reexamination. The text and translation of the discantus part are from Perkins and Garey (Vol. 2, 330–35). 37 In this connection it should be noted that no significant crusading initiatives were mounted from Western Europe toward the Holy Land subsequent to the disastrous Franco-Burgundian expedition which came to grief at Nicopolis (Bulgaria) in 1396. 38 Regarding the Order in general, as well as the Feast in particular, see Cockshaw. 39 In the cases considered above, the register of the L’homme armé cantus firmus, with its lowest note lying on G below middle C and the highest note on A above middle C, should fall within the vocal range of most people—both men and women.
explorations in renaissance culture 43 (2017) 109-139Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:51:07AM via free access
Example 7 Cantus-Firmus Layout: Ockeghem, Du Fay, and Busnoys Compared
OCKEGHEM’s SETTING (G final, no signature) text segment: Kyrie i Christe Kyrie ii c.f. section: A1 B A2 c.f. phrases: a1, a2, a3 b1, b2, b3 a1, a2, a3 (+ free extension) du FAY’s SETTING (G final, B-flat signature) text segment: Kyrie i Christe Kyrie ii c.f. section: A1 B A2 c.f. phrases: − a1, a2, a3 (+ free – a4, b1, b2, b3 – a1, a2, a3 (+ a1, a2, a3 extension) in diminished rhythms)
BUSNOYS’s SETTING (G final, B-flat signature) text segment: Kyrie i Christe Kyrie ii c.f. section: A1, B (1st phrase) free imitative compo- B (2nd, 3rd phrases), A2 c.f. phrases: − a1, a2, a3, (a4), b1 sition (tenor rests) b2, b3, a1, a2, a3 (“false” entrance of c.f. in bassus at beginning)
40
40 Since the 1980s, most of the works under consideration have been routinely available as commercial recordings (for example, the L’homme armé masses of Ockeghem, Du Fay, and Busnoys have all been recorded more than once), although now it may be increas- ingly difficult to find some of the older cds of vocal groups such as Pro Cantione Antiqua and The Hilliard Ensemble. More recently, many options for audio streaming have come into existence, including Naxos Music Library and Music Online, as well as the ubiquitous iTunes, and even YouTube. Currently, the author
explorations in renaissance Downloadedculture from 43 Brill.com10/05/2021 (2017) 109-139 06:51:07AM via free access
First, the fact that it is preexistent means that its layout—at least in general terms—had to have been more-or-less determined before the other voices were composed. Second, the tenor usually inhabits the second-lowest place among the four voices and, thus, is not necessarily decisive in determining the music’s harmonic organization. No one voice, in fact, is crucial to the composition in this regard, although the bassus is typically preeminent acoustically by virtue of taking the lowest pitch of chords. Yet at the ca- dences (points of musical closure), the tenor indeed often does find itself as lowest voice, since the bassus has moved either to a unison with it (same pitch) or to a place five notes above. Therefore, the tenor proves to play a crucial role in determining a given work’s tonal direction, since its final is normally the final of the entire piece. Third, at the ends of text phrases, when a point of resolution is called for, it is the cantus-firmus tenor that almost invariably makes the cru- cial stepwise descent (e.g., E—>D)—a vestige of plainchant practice. This descending motion is then coordinated with the other voice parts to
41
41 On the basis of what he called its “retrospective” musical style, Manfred Bukofzer some 75 years ago adjudged Du Fay’s Missa L’homme armé to be “certainly the first complete mass cycle on the tune” (“An Unknown Chansonnier” 19). In a study published in 2003, Planchart essentially reaffirmed this hypothesis, claiming that “the earliest masses on L’homme armé … are those of Du Fay and Ockeghem” (327), which he argues were be- ing written simultaneously around 1461 (348). Other researchers have postulated Antoine Busnoys as the composer of the earliest cycle. Oliver Strunk, in “Origins of the L’homme armé Mass” (summary of a paper given at a regional meeting of the ams), was probably the first scholar to argue for “the ‘authority’ of Busnoys’s mass” (25). A much more exten- sive argument for the primacy of the Busnoys cycle, however, was put forth by Richard Taruskin in “Antoine Busnoys and the L’homme armé Tradition.”
explorations in renaissance culture 43 (2017) 109-139Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:51:07AM via free access
produce one or another variation of a stereotyped harmonic progression, fully analogous to the “dominant–tonic” (v–i) cadence of later eras.42
In the present connection, Kyrie movements are propitious to examine for two reasons: first, the A–B–A form of its text precisely mirrors the melodic structure of the L’homme armé tune—a correspondence that in many cases is literally reflected in a cantus-firmus layout (see Example 7); secondly, the Kyrie—i.e., initial—movements of mass cycles tend to serve as an archetypal exposition of cantus-firmus material.43 The three movements at hand all set the L’homme armé tune once only, in the tenor, with no more than slight embellishments of the melody.44 However, only in the Ockeghem Kyrie does the tenor cantus firmus actually begin at the start of the movement. In both the Du Fay and Busnoys settings, the tenor’s entrance is delayed. This may have been done in order to weaken the audibil- ity of the cantus firmus, in an attempt to conceal the composer’s art. Busnoys’s Kyrie carries such dissimulation even further, in that the bassus sings the first (a1) phrase of the L’homme armé melody at the very beginning, thus throwing the ear off to the entrance of the “real” cantus firmus in the tenor several beats later. Busnoys, moreover, breaks the correspondence between the overall A-B-A form of the structural tune and the Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie sectionalization of the text, which both of the other composers respect (refer to Example 7). Busnoys, on the other hand, rather than setting the “B” section of the L’homme armé melody to the “Christe” text, omits the cantus firmus entirely from that section. Instead, he presents the first phrase of the “B” section in the Kyrie i, and its lat- ter two phrases in the Kyrie ii, while the tenor simply rests during the Christe. This type of idiosyncratic, non-intuitive treatment of the cantus firmus, which seems to have been adopted in reaction to the more straightforward layouts
42 43 44
42 This topic cannot be treated adequately here. For a comprehensive orientation to the functional basis of medieval harmony, which differs in certain crucial respects from the so-called triadic tonality of later eras, see the present author’s article entitled “Voice Lead- ing, Sonority, and Contrapuntal Procedure in Late Medieval Polyphony.” 43 Sparks 165. 44 Du Fay does in fact depart slightly from this precept at the end of the movement by restat- ing the a1-a2-a3 section in quicker rhythm as a kind of “drive to the cadence” (see Sparks 123, 235).
explorations in renaissance Downloadedculture from 43 Brill.com10/05/2021 (2017) 109-139 06:51:07AM via free access
45
45 In Example 8, the bassus’s quoting the initial phrases of the cantus firmus (measures 1–9) are labelled as “false,” by which I mean to indicate that, unlike the use of the L’homme armé tune in the contratenor and tenor voices, this quotation does not constitute a struc- tural melody. Rather, it comprises an emphasized anticipatory statement, but one that is not carried through to completion.
explorations in renaissance culture 43 (2017) 109-139Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:51:07AM via free access
Example 8 “Anticipatory” and “Shadow” Cantus Firmus in Kyrie i of Faugues Missa L’homme armé
explorations in renaissance Downloadedculture from 43 Brill.com10/05/2021 (2017) 109-139 06:51:07AM via free access
Inspired by humanist ideas of revival and aided by a changing system of patronage, the concepts of fame and creative competition acquired a hitherto unknown circulation. Such ideas received parallel written for- mulations for literature, visual art and music. They were the ultimate goal of the pedagogical practice of imitatio. Both the means and the ends of this practice were similar in all three disciplines.47
Lastly, the instructor can return to general cultural issues, exploring ways in which the L’homme armé cantus firmus, through its various semiotic repre- sentations, exemplifies the Zeitgeist of the period. One arena that has been emphasized recently involves a preoccupation among period musicians with what has been called “riddle culture,” with respect to which one researcher has noted that:
In many cases, the singers had to perform all kinds of procedures on [the L’homme armé melody], ranging from inversion and retrograde [i.e., mak- ing a mirror image of a melody or rendering it backwards, respectively] to augmentation and diminution [i.e., rhythmic slowing or quickening, respectively], and to even more complex techniques, which are hinted at by way of verbal instructions.48
According to the author, the period around 1450—that is, just about when the earliest masses on L’homme armé were likely being conceived—is the very “time when purely technical instructions … began to make room for enigmatic mottoes from sources such as the Bible, Classical Antiquity, word games and proverbs.”49 Such intertextual clues may prove a fruitful avenue of inquiry for ascertaining cultural meaning in Renaissance music in general. 46 47 48 49
46 Most commentators on the series of L’homme armé masses have used such criteria in their explorations of chronology. 47 Burn 286. For background on this topic see also Brown, “Emulation, Competition, and Homage.” 48 Schiltz 12. 49 Schiltz 20.
explorations in renaissance culture 43 (2017) 109-139Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:51:07AM via free access
Another hermeneutical connection lies in the realm of numerology, where- in, for example, several of the L’homme armé masses emphasize the prime number 31—which happens to conform to the number of chevaliers belong- ing to the Order of the Golden Fleece during the years 1431 to 1517.50 Thus, in Busnoys’s mass, which otherwise betrays a very orderly succession of Pythago- rean proportions in the relative durations of its integral subsections, the Et incarnatus passage of the Credo consists of precisely 31 semibreve beats—an “egregious anomaly” that occurs “almost precisely in the middle” of the mass.51 In fact, it has been noted that the L’homme armé tune itself, when counted ac- cording to the version including the a4 phrase, is precisely of 30 semibreves’ duration with an extended final note, thus yielding a count of 31.52 Presumably these sorts of allusions were not expected to be heard.
4 Multi-Disciplinary Resonances of L’homme armé Settings
From the standpoint of liturgical connections, some scholars have pointed to a Christological significance for masses based on “the armed man.”53 But the most transparent referential association can be seen in the surviving L’homme armé mass of Johannes Regis, wherein the cantus firmus is underlaid with words glorifying the archangel St. Michael. By the middle of the fifteenth cen- tury, the practice of augmenting items from the Mass Ordinary with supple- mentary text (a process loosely termed “troping”) was largely passé, yet this mass makes substantial use of such procedures; indeed, they seem to have been an essential component of Regis’s style.54 The extra-liturgical text applied to the Kyrie of Regis’s mass is shown be- low in Example 9. Its importance is underlined by the fact that the work has become known as Missa Dum sacrum mysterium, not simply Missa L’homme armé. Here the trope text also refers to—indeed, begins with—St. John as mentioned in the Book of Revelation, thus evincing a direct connection to ca- nonic scriptural writings. 50 51 52 53 54
50 Prizer 114–5. 51 Taruskin 269–72. 52 Taruskin 271. Also discussed in Planchart (311–12). In Example 3 above, the rhythmic value of a semibreve is equivalent to a dotted half note, which indeed equates to a measure. 53 See, for example, Planchart’s discussion of Du Fay’s L’homme armé mass (329 ff.). 54 Both of the surviving masses attributed to Regis invoke extra-liturgical text (illustrated in Sparks 181–8). Similar tropes are to be found in the six masses in Naples ms vi E 40 (introduced above in note 17).
explorations in renaissance Downloadedculture from 43 Brill.com10/05/2021 (2017) 109-139 06:51:07AM via free access
Example 9 “Trope” Texts in Kyrie of Johannes Regis, Missa Dum sacrum mysterium55
Dum sacrum mysterium Kyrie Ia (a1, a2, a3) While John was discerning cerneret Johannes the sacred mysteries, Michael archangelus tuba Kyrie Ib (b1, b3) Michael the archangel cecenit sounded his trumpet. Dum sacrum mysterium Kyrie Ic (a1, a2. a3) While John was discerning cerneret Johannes the sacred mysteries,
Michael archangelus milia Christe a (a1, a2, a3) Michael the archangel, milium thousands upon thousands Michael [prae]positus Christe b (b1, b2, b3) Michael, the overseer of paradisi paradise. Michael archangelus milia Christe c (a1, a2, [a2], a3) Michael the archangel, milium thousands upon thousands ministrabant ei. were attending to him.
[Dum sacrum mysterium Kyrie iia (a1, a2, a3) While John was discerning] [cerneret Johannes the sacred mysteries,] [Michael archangelus Kyrie iib (b1, b3) Michael the archangel tuba cecenit sounded his trumpet.] [Dum sacrum mysterium Kyrie iic (a1, a2. a3) While John was discerning] [cerneret Johannes the sacred mysteries,]
Compared to the other Kyries considered herein, Regis’s is notable as being cast in not three discrete sections (Kyrie i, Christe, Kyrie ii) but in nine (Kyrie i–1, 2, 3; Christe–1, 2, 3; Kyrie ii–1, 2, 3); supplementary text in the cantus-firmus voic- es is provided in every one of these sections.56 In most cases, the contratenor
(altus)55 pre-imitates the tenor, with both declaiming the same text (sometimes 56
55 Modern edition published by Cornelius Lindenburg (vol. 9 in the series Corpus Mensu- rabilis Musicae). At any given point at which the supplementary text is present, it will be found in either the tenor or the contratenor (altus), or both. These, of course, are the two voices that carry the cantus firmus most of the time—typically in imitation. 56 This nine-fold invocation conforms to the divisions typically found in plainchant Kyries. An unusual aspect of this mass, however, is that its sole source (Capella Sistina 14) does not provide an independent setting of the Kyrie ii. Commentators on this point have tended to assume that the Kyrie I should, therefore, be repeated as the Kyrie ii, as implied above, but one writer has expressed the opinion that considerations of politico-liturgical propriety account for the omission, and, therefore, that the movement should be per- formed as written (i.e., ending with the Christe). For particulars see Chew (262–3).
explorations in renaissance culture 43 (2017) 109-139Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:51:07AM via free access
The quotation of pre-existent material in musical composition rests on the postulate of melos: the symbiosis of text and … melodic line .… In the Renaissance, standard meloi constitute a corpus of sacred and secular melodies that can be drawn upon for various purposes. Meloi are to the educated composer and the musical connoisseur what emblemata and sententia are to the educated humanist and the literary connoisseur: tra- ditional themes taken from a communal area of knowledge. Thus [pre- existent] melodies may be introduced separately or combined in a new polyphonic context whose text bears a symbolic relation to the original words of these melodies .… Absence [or in the case at hand, replacement] of text heightens the hermetic aspect of the secret meaning presented by combinative music .… The mystical attitude is evident in the desire to reflect in art a universe manneristically conceived as a complex of enig- matic relationships; in combinative works, sacred and secular cantus firmi acquire unsuspected symbolic significance in their new context.57
57
57 Maniates, “Mannerist Composition” 31–2. The somewhat pejorative connotations the word “mannerist” tends to evoke are dealt with in a subsequent article by the same au- thor: “Musical Mannerism: Effeteness or Virility?”.
explorations in renaissance Downloadedculture from 43 Brill.com10/05/2021 (2017) 109-139 06:51:07AM via free access
These ideas reverberate interestingly with recent trends in art-historical schol- arship. As a single example of such cross-disciplinary connections, let us con- sider an art historian’s commentary on a painting by a close contemporary of Johannes Regis (†1496), namely Rogier van der Weyden, whose creative activ- ity spans from the late 1420s to his death in 1464:
This work represents, above all, a typically northern understanding of spatial form and its expressive or artistic manipulation. The architectural fragments tie the painting together at the same time as they clearly differ- entiate its multiple [chronological] stages. They draw the viewer into an imagined world and make the viewer aware of its illusionistic—rather, illusory—nature. Real and emblematic at once, this architecture reveals a northern sensibility, a love of detailed description, at its core. It is as though one is always catching sight of something out of the corner of the eye. The ideal is not simple harmony but complex polyphony.58
The artifact in question (shown in Example 10) is van der Weyden’s St. John Altarpiece, which has been identified as stemming from the latter 1450s, and hence probably within a decade or so of Regis’s mass.59
Example 10 Contemporaneous Panel Painting by Rogier van der Weyden St. John [the Baptist] Altarpiece c. 1450–60 (77 × 48 cm) (3 panels) Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie 58 59
58 Harbison, The Mirror of the Artist 39. 59 Hard dates for van der Weyden’s paintings are apparently as scarce as those for L’homme armé masses. Art historian Stephan Kemperdick (114) dates the painting 1455–1460.
explorations in renaissance culture 43 (2017) 109-139Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:51:07AM via free access
A fundamental point of contact between a painting such as this and a L’homme armé mass is their common aspect of modularity: each panel in a polyptych is analogous to a single movement of a Mass Ordinary setting. And between the component parts in both art forms one can observe a process of continuity, symmetry, and progression of content. In the St. John Altar- piece, continuity of scenario is provided through the Gothic arch framing each panel—analogous to a structural cantus firmus, as well as in all three panels relating to a common vanishing point. Symmetry is perhaps not so clearly evi- dent in this particular painting, but it is an important component in many other of van der Weyden’s productions, notably the Altarpiece of the Seven Sacraments, a triptych whose three panels portray (among other things) a central nave of a church with its two flanking side aisles. Conversely, in the St. John Altarpiece there is definite progression of subject matter, which is in fact chronological: the left panel portrays the “naming of the Baptist,” the cen- ter panel depicts John baptizing Christ (which naturally constitutes the central event of the three scenes), and the right panel illustrates the end of John the Baptist’s life—his beheading, with Herod’s banquet in the background. In Regis’s Missa Dum sacrum mysterium, the elements just introduced are consistently realized through a wide variety of compositional techniques, in- volving both text distribution and music. Here the recurrence of extra-liturgical text is used to create elements of both continuity and symmetry, whereas pro- gression is seen in the introduction of new trope texts throughout the succes- sive movements and also in certain musical elements that the composer brings in only in the latter two movements (Sanctus and Agnus Dei). Considering the Kyrie by itself, one sees that a strong sense of continuity is lent to the move- ment by the use of the entire L’homme armé tune in each of the three main sections (Kyrie i, Christe, Kyrie ii). This same phenomenon builds symmetry into the movement by the literal repetition of the Kyrie i as the Kyrie ii, as in fact each of those sections is itself symmetrical in its statement of the entire ternary cantus firmus (A1-B-A2). In both the paintings and the music, we thus encounter a multi-sectional work, whose constituent parts evince both continuity and contrast, and whose total effect seems to strive for a type of “manipulated spatial composition,” in which “unity was not so much imposed from without as sensed, arising out of puzzle-like details, from within.”60 With respect to van der Weyden, Harbison characterizes the resulting style in the following terms:
60
60 Harbison, The Mirror of the Artist (31 and 39, respectively).
explorations in renaissance Downloadedculture from 43 Brill.com10/05/2021 (2017) 109-139 06:51:07AM via free access
Roger [i.e., Rogier] endows the most timeless image of divinity with great humanity and immediacy. He does not juxtapose sacred and secular in two different images, suggesting that real and symbolic objects are to be understood as representing two different worlds. Rather, he overlays or overlaps them, creating a mystical union.61
This comment strongly invokes parallels with Regis’s procedure, namely the use of a secular cantus firmus with distinct referential associations, underlaid with non-liturgical text (indeed, a text not originally associated with it), and placed in quasi-canonic fashion in the two inner voices of a four-part texture. Thus (as I will argue in much greater detail in the companion study mentioned above), in both the musical and the visual art form, disparate elements are fused together sonically or visually, as the case may be, to elicit a mystical spark in the mind of the beholder.
* * *
Postcript: The continuing under-appreciation of music as an art form—and indeed, as a central component of life—in the Middle Ages and Renaissance poses one of our biggest challenges in accounting for the historical and cul- tural milieu of the times. Even though doing so would entail that instructors in varied fields acquire some knowledge of music history and theory, it is now more than ever vital that the surviving musical monuments of plainchant and polyphony be integrated into our survey textbooks, and ultimately into our classrooms, to an extent comparable to the attention currently accorded primary- source historical documents, literature, architecture, and the visual arts.
61
61 Harbison, “Realism and Symbolism in Early Flemish Painting” 595–96.
explorations in renaissance culture 43 (2017) 109-139Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:51:07AM via free access
Works Cited
Brown, Howard Mayer. “Emulation, Competition, and Homage: Imitation and Theo- ries of Imitation in the Renaissance.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 35/1 (1982): 1–48. Brown, Howard Mayer. Music in the French Secular Theater, 1400–1550. Cambridge: Harvard U P, 1963. Bukofzer, Manfred. “Caput: A Liturgico-Musical Study.” Studies in Medieval and Renais- sance Music. New York: W.W. Norton, 1950, 217–310. Bukofzer, Manfred. “An Unknown Chansonnier of the 15th Century.” Musical Quarterly 28 (1942): 14–49. Burn, David J. “‘Nam erit haec quoque laus eorum’: Imitation, Competition and the ‘L’homme armé’ Tradition.” Revue de Musicologie 87/2 (2001): 249–87. Chew, Geoffrey. “The Early Cyclic Mass as an Expression of Royal and Papal Suprema- cy.” Music & Letters 53 (1972): 254–69. Cockshaw, Pierre, ed. L’ordre de la Toison d’or, de Philippe le Bon a Philippe le Beau (1430–1505): idéal ou reflet d’une société? Tournout: Brepols, 1996. Cohen, Judith, ed. The Six Anonymous L’homme armé Masses in Naples, Biblioteca Na- zionale, ms vi E 40 [introduction and commentary]. Vol. 21 in the series Musicologi- cal Studies and Documents. N.p.: American Institute of Musicology, 1968. Cohen, Judith, ed. The Six Anonymous L’homme armé Masses in Naples, Biblioteca Na- zionale, ms vi E 40 [musical edition]. Vol. 85 in the series Corpus Mensurabilis Musi- cae. Neuhausen-Stuttgart: Hänssler-Verlag, 1981. Haggh, Barbara. “The Archives of the Order of the Golden Fleece and Music.” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 120 (1995): 1–43. Hannas, Ruth. “Concerning Textual Deletions in the Polyphonic Mass Credo.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 5 (1952): 155–86. Harbison, Craig. The Mirror of the Artist: Northern Renaissance Art in its Historical Con- text. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995. Harbison, Craig. “Realism and Symbolism in Early Flemish Painting.” The Art Bulletin 66/4 (1984): 588–602. Kemperdick, Stephan. Rogier van der Weyden. Trans. Anthea Bell. N.p.: Tandem Verlag, 2007. Kirkman, Andrew. “The Invention of the Cyclic Mass.” Journal of the American Musico- logical Society 54/1 (2001): 1–47. Lindenburg, Cornelius, ed. Johannes Regis: Opera Omnia, 2 vols. Vol. 9 in the series Cor- pus Mensurabilis Musicae. Rome: American Institute of Musicology, 1956. Lockwood, Lewis. “Aspects of the ‘L’homme armé’ Tradition.” Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 100 (1973/74): 97–122.
explorations in renaissance Downloadedculture from 43 Brill.com10/05/2021 (2017) 109-139 06:51:07AM via free access
Maniates, Maria Rika. “Mannerist Composition in Franco-Flemish Composition.” Mu- sical Quarterly 52/1 (1966): 17–36. Maniates, Maria Rika. “Musical Mannerism: Effeteness or Virility?” Musical Quarterly 57/2 (1971): 270–93. Moll, Kevin N. “Voice Leading, Sonority, and Contrapuntal Procedure in Late Medieval Polyphony.” Current Musicology 64 [1998]: 26–72. Perkins, Leeman, and Howard Garey, eds., The Mellon Chansonnier, 2 vols. New Haven and London: Yale U P, 1979. Planchart, Alejandro. “The Origins and Early History of L’homme armé.” Journal of Mu- sicology 20/3 (2003): 305–57. Prizer, William F. “Music and Ceremonial in the Low Countries: Philip the Fair and the Order of the Golden Fleece.” Early Music History 5 (1985): 113–53. Reese, Gustave. Music in the Renaissance. New York: W.W. Norton, 1954. Reynolds, Christopher. “The Origins of San Pietro B 80 and the Development of a Ro- man Sacred Repertory.” Early Music History 1 (1982): 257–304. Schiltz, Katelijne. Music and Riddle Culture in the Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 2015. Sparks, Edgar. Cantus Firmus in Mass and Motet: 1420–1520. Berkeley and Los Angeles: U of California P, 1963. Spitz, Lewis W. The Renaissance and Reformation Movements. Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1971. Strohm, Reinhard. The Rise of European Music, 1380–1500. Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 1993. Strunk, Oliver. “Origins of the ‘L’homme armé’ Mass.” Bulletin of the American Musico- logical Society 2 (1937): 25–6. Taruskin, Richard. “Antoine Busnoys and the L’homme armé Tradition.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 39 (1986): 255–93. Warmington, Flynn. “The Ceremony of the Armed Man: The Sword, the Altar, and the ‘L’homme armé’ Mass.” Antoine Busnois: Method, Meaning, and Context in Late Medi- eval Music. Ed. Paula Higgins. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999, 89–130. Wright, Craig. “Dufay at Cambrai: Discoveries and Revisions.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 28/2 (1975): 175–229.
explorations in renaissance culture 43 (2017) 109-139Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:51:07AM via free access