Ockeghem's Missa Mi-Mi As Hypophrygian Exemplar In
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Ockeghem’s Missa Mi-mi as Hypophrygian Exemplar in Fifteenth-Century Vocal Polyphony Master’s Thesis Presented To The Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University Department of Music Seth Coluzzi, Advisor In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Fine Arts in Musicology by Ian Lorenz May 2014 Copyright by Ian Lorenz © 2014 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr. Chafe and Dr. Keiler for their helping me to grow as a musicologist, and I would especially like to thank my advisor Dr. Seth Coluzzi for all the time and effort that he has given me on mode and modal theory. I would also like to thank my friends and family for all their love and support throughout this process. iii ABSTRACT Ockeghem’s Missa Mi-mi as Hypophrygian Exemplar in Fifteenth-Century Vocal Polyphony A thesis presented to the Music Department Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University Waltham, Massachusetts By Ian Lorenz Ockeghem’s Missa Mi-mi has intrigued and puzzled scholars for many centuries after its creation. A great amount of research has been dedicated to the ambiguous title ascribed to the mass and what it may have represented during the latter part of the fifteenth century. One area that has not been covered in such detail is that the mass itself is exemplary through the use of the Hypophrygian mode, a mode that had been hardly used in polyphony throughout the fifteenth century. This study, then, critically examines the secular output of contemporary foremost composers Guillaume Dufay, Gilles Binchois, Antoine Busnois, Johannes Ockeghem, and Johannes Tinctoris in order to establish a stylistic paradigm of the Phrygian modes. After establishing this paradigm, we come to the realization that the chanson O invida Fortuna by Johannes Tinctoris represents a burgeoning trend within Phrygian modality—an attempt to increase the overall Phrygian nature of the work as a whole through the addition of a Phrygian cadence on the fourth scale degree of the modal octave. In light of this evidence, and given Ockeghem’s penchant for musical games, the Missa Mi-mi represents a culmination of this trend and establishes a paradigm-shift within Phrygian modality, one that favors Phrygian cadences to iv the fourth-scale degree instead of the fifth within mode 3 contexts. We then examine and analyze the nature of A within Ockeghem’s mass as a whole, before turning to the after effects of these modal procedures and the ramifications that the Tinctoris chanson, and Ockeghem’s mass, had on Phrygian modality moving into the sixteenth century. v Table of Contents Introduction 1 Survey of Phrygian modality with fifteenth-century chansons 6 Analysis of A-mi cadences within Ockeghem’s Missa Mi-mi 25 Analysis of Josquin’s Nymphes des bois as modal allusion to Ockeghem’s mass 32 Conclusions 40 Tables 43 Work cited 56 vi List of Tables: Table 1: Guillaume Dufay’s chansons 43 Table 2: Gilles Binchois’s chansons 46 Table 3: Johannes Ockeghem’s chansons 48 Table 4: Antoine Busnois’s chansons 49 Table 5: Johannes Tinctoris’s chansons 51 Table 6: Analysis of Nymphes des bois 52 vii List of Figures: Figure 1: The opening of Marguerite fleur with non-functional A-sonorities 10 Figure 2: End of the third stanza of Ma bouche rit 13 Figure 3: Editorial A-re cadence in mm. 16-17 14 Figure 4: A-mi cadence in O invida Fortuna 20 Figure 5: Tinctoris’s example 18 22 Figure 6: Head motive of the Missa Mi-mi and its rhythmic component 26 Figure 7: Melodic component of the head motive, Kyrie, mm. 42-46 27 Figure 8: Missa Mi-mi, Gloria, prominent A-mi cadence, mm. 85-95 28 Figure 9: Missa Mi-mi, Credo, A-mi cadence in mm.40-44 30 Figure 10: Basis for the cantus firmus melody in the second tenor of Nymphes des bois 34 Figure 11: A-mi cadence in the second tenor of Nymphes des bois 37 viii Introduction The incredible amount of scholarship that has been written on Ockeghem’s freely- composed Missa Mi-mi is both substantial and warranted. The principal question surrounding the mass concerns the various titles ascribed to it—Mi-mi, My-my, or Quarti-toni—along with the opening motif heard in the bass voice, which begins on E and descends a fifth to A. Ross Duffin, in his article “Solmization and Ockeghem’s Famous Mass”, quotes and translates Heinrich Besseler from the Chorwerk edition while discussing the title as it is commonly associated today: “The Missa mi-mi took its name from the characteristic descending 5th at the beginning of the bass part (e and A are mi in the natural and soft hexachords respectively).”1 Additionally, this opening descent is a unifying head motive introduced at the beginning of each successive movement. While the titling and head motive of the mass have garnered a majority of the scholarship, the mode of the mass as a whole begs many questions, namely: what sort of precedent had been set for the compositional use of the Phrygian mode; what of the usage of the Hypophrygian mode throughout the fifteenth century; does the mass conform to our expectations of what a characteristic mode 4 work should look like? In the study that follows, I will cover theoretical definitions for the Phrygian and Hypophrygian modes and pit them against their 1Ross W. Duffin,“Mi chiamano Mimi … but My Name is Quarti toni: Solmization and Ockeghem’s Famous Mass”, Early Music, Vol. 29, No. 2 (May, 2001): 164-184, 166. Further referred to as Duffin. Heinrich Besseler’s original comments are from: Johannes Ockeghem: Missa Mi-mi, ed. by Heinrich Besseler, Germany: Möseler Vertrag Wolfenbüttel, 1950(?). “Die ‘Missa mi-mi’ trägt ihren Namen nach dem charakteristichen Quintfall zu Angang des Basses (e-A, im alten ‘Hexachrodum naturale’ war e, im ‘Hexachordum molle’ A=mi). 1 actual characteristics within works by foremost composers of the fifteenth century in search of a stylistic consistency leading up to Ockeghem’s mass. After investigating the mass, I shall examine an extension of Ockeghem’s treatment of the Phrygian mode through Josquin’s Deploration sur la morte de Ockeghem, a work that contains a modal allusion to Ockeghem’s Missa Mi-mi. Rebecca Stewart, in her article “Johannes Ockeghem, a Most Medieval Musician,” says of the nature of Bb within the mass, “[t]he title Mi-mi is normally said to refer to the initial e-A fifth in the Bassus...However, speaking purely musically, and not theologically, I would like to initially suggest that this MI-MI designation also describes the [e (f) a (b-flat)] relationship so characteristic of the Gregorian mode IV and of Ockeghem’s mass…”2 Stewart’s assertion is generally considered correct by our current understanding, but it is more indicative of the period after Ockeghem. The increasingly characteristic use of Bb within the E-Phrygian and E- Hypophrygian modes in the sixteenth century warrants a re-examination particularly on the basis that the mode itself has been considered one of the most problematic in terms of analysis. This troublesome nature is mostly due to the variability of the mode and the avoidance of the tritone (incurred between the second and fifth degrees of the modal octave), which puts less emphasis on the reciting tone of the mode and more on the tones surrounding it. For example, in the authentic mode 3 the octave will be E-E, with particular emphasis on the tones E, A and C, the latter being the reciting tone. The plagal mode 4 would naturally need to encompass the range of B-B, as can be seen from the very origins of modal theory. The octave B-B, however, was made out of systematic necessity as opposed to practical considerations for the mode itself. Hence, as Bernhard Meier has explained, we come to our definition of mode 4 as encompassing the range 2 Rebecca Stewart, “…Ita desiderat anima mea ad te, Deus (Ps.42:1): Johannes Ockeghem, a Most Medieval Musician”, Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, Deel 47, No. 1/2, [Johannes Ockeghem] (1997), pp. 163-200, 170. 2 of C-C (going as low as A), again with emphasis on E, A, and C, at least in terms of sixteenth- century polyphony.3 Where Meier is considered an authority on modality in the sixteenth century, however, his studies are not as pertinent when considering polyphony of the fifteenth century.4 One of the most active and influential theorists in the fifteenth century was Johannes Tinctoris, a northern composer and theorist whose “application of the modes to polyphony…was unparalleled in his own time…”5 In the introduction to his Liber de natura et proprietate tonorum (1476) his thoughts and methodologies can be seen as being directly representative of Franco-Flemish composers when he says, “[t]o the most famous and most celebrated teachers of the art of music, Dominus Johannes O[c]keghem, first chaplain of the Most Christian King of France, and Master Antoine Busnois, singer for the most illustrious Duke of Burgundy…”6 Harold Powers states that “Tinctoris…in chapter 19 of [this same work, a chapter] which discusses appropriate beginning pitches for polyphonic compositions in each of the modes, implied that the fourth degree, a, could be regarded as the most important note in the Phrygian mode after the final e and its octave e’.”7 In this passage, Tinctoris mentions the starting tones of E la mi grave, A la mi re, and E la mi re acute for mode 3 and E la mi grave and A la mi re acute for the mode 4.8 While Tinctoris licenses A within the Phrygian mode, he has not given propriety to its cadential status in the 3 Bernhard Meier, The Modes of Classical Vocal Polyphony: Described According to the Sources, trans: Ellen S.