Cappella Pratensis Stratton Bull Ockeghem | De La Rue Requiem
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Cappella Pratensis Stratton Bull OCKEGHEM | DE LA RUE REQUIEM 1 Cappella Pratensis Stratton Bull OCKEGHEM | DE LA RUE REQUIEM Stratton Bull superius Andrew Hallock superius Christopher Kale altus Lior Leibovici altus Olivier Berten tenor Peter de Laurentiis tenor Lionel Meunier bassus Pieter Stas bassus JOHANNES OCKEGHEM (c. 1410-1497) The Requiems by Ockeghem years on either side of 1420. He is Requiem and La Rue first documented as an adult singer in [1] Introitus Requiem aeternam 4:25 Antwerp in 1443, then in the service [2] Kyrie 4:19 This recording presents the two of Charles, Duke of Bourbon, before [3] Graduale Si ambulem 4:28 earliest surviving polyphonic entering the French royal chapel in [4] Tractus Sicut cervus 7:25 Requiems, by Johannes (Jean de) the 1450s. He enjoyed the patronage [5] Offertorium Domine Jesu Christe 8:10 Ockeghem and Pierre de La Rue, both of Charles VII who nominated his first among the few major Netherlandish chaplain to the lucrative position of composers of the time not to have treasurer of St Martin in Tours, a favour PIErrE DE LA RUE (c. 1452-1518) spent significant portions of their continued under Louis XI. He was held Requiem careers in Italy. Little is known of the in the highest repute in his lifetime, [6] Introitus Requiem aeternam 4:18 early career of La Rue (c. 1452-1518), alongside Du Fay and Busnoys (with [7] Kyrie 2:47 but from 1492 he served successive both of whom he had direct contacts), [8] Tractus Sicut cervus 3:26 rulers in the Habsburg-Burgundian Binchois (on whose death in 1460 he [9] Offertorium Domine Jesu Christe 6:45 chapel alongside equally distinguished wrote a Déploration), Josquin, and [10] Sanctus 5:04 musicians, first under Maximilian, other composers less well known to [11] Agnus Dei 3:23 then Philip the Fair (with whom he us. Johannes Tinctoris honoured him [12] Communio Lux aeterna 2:42 travelled twice to Spain), and finally, in two treatises of the mid 1470s; he the cultivated and tragic figure of was much cited by contemporaries Marguerite of Austria, regent of the and throughout the next century, even total time 57:15 Netherlands, for whom many of his after direct knowledge of his music most beautiful sad songs were written. was no longer current. Kindly, benign, Sources pious, and of irreproachable virtue – Ockeghem: Vatican Library, MS Chigi C VIII 234 Ockeghem died in 1497; his birth this is the image that has come down La Rue: Jena, Universitätsbibliothek, Chorbuch 12 date has been estimated at several to us. His death was lamented in at 4 5 least two musical works: Busnoys’s In unifying musical theme or model, early the liturgical reforms of the Council manuscripts including some from the hydraulis and Josquin’s Nymphes des Requiems base each movement on of Trent but, of these composers, only Bavarian court. bois, adapted from a poem by Jean its corresponding chant; while there Brumel sets it. It was usually omitted Molinet enjoining major contemporary may be an overall sombre mood, the in early northern European Requiems, But there was one earlier Requiem composers to lament their ‘good sections are not thematically unified. whose texts differ from Roman and which has not survived, by Guillaume father’, and in a long poetic In Ockeghem’s case, the chants are southern European traditions, with Du Fay (d. 1474), whose will prescribed Déploration by Guillaume Crétin. usually in the superius and only lightly some variants in the Offertory, and use in detail the arrangements for embellished, which already makes of the Gradual Si ambulem and the his deathbed and funeral. His The earliest liturgical chants to receive for a more archaic effect; in La Rue’s Tract Sicut cervus, instead of Requiem polyphonic Requiem was to polyphonic elaboration, in the twelfth Requiem the chant is often in the aeternam and Absolve domine. accompany his own biannual post century, had been for joyful occasions tenor but permeates the other parts mortem commemorations, and was of the church year; the latest, in imitatively. Other early settings were Each of the present settings is requested by others in the ensuing the fifteenth, were for seasons of composed by Févin (or Divitis), Brumel, preserved in a manuscript from decades. Its afterlife was clearly much mourning, both the Passion and death Richafort, Prioris, and anonymous the famous Alamire workshop more vigorous than Ockeghem’s of Christ, and human commemoration, composers including some Spaniards. (respectively Vatican Library, Requiem. In 1501, the Order of the for which the Church has abidingly There is no standard practice as to MS Chigi C VIII 234, and Jena, Golden Fleece replaced its weekly discouraged musical adornment. which movements are set. Ockeghem Universitätsbibliothek, Chorbuch 12). monophonic Requiem with Du Fay’s The earliest polyphonic Requiems sets the Introit, Kyrie, Gradual, Tract The primacy of Ockeghem’s gives it setting, described by an ear-witness are, accordingly, restrained and and Offertory but not the Sanctus, special significance for us, but it did as being for three voices, sad, solemn austere, understated in comparison Agnus and Communion; La Rue sets not have a circulation commensurate and very sweet (una Messa a tre with the normal musical styles of the Introit, Kyrie, Tract, Offertory, with his reputation; its transmission voci, flebile, mesta e suave molto). their composers, in fewer parts, and Sanctus, Agnus and Communion but was extremely fragile, in a single This implies a texture much sparser relatively homophonic. Whereas most not the Gradual. The Dies irae, which source and with many anomalies. than that of his lush four-part late Mass Ordinaries composed around dominates most later Requiems, was By contrast, La Rue’s Requiem was masses, and indeed could well apply 1500 set all five movements on a one of the few Sequences to survive much more widely copied, in six to portions of Ockeghem’s setting, 6 7 notably the Introit and Kyrie, to sections of his own, including all the Offertory). There are rather few assemble his complete works. Some of the extent that a few scholars have four-part sections, and the entire sections with reduced scoring those masses are patently incomplete, speculated whether ‘Ockeghem’s’ Offertory, which is strikingly different, in his other masses, making the and we know he wrote others that Requiem could in fact be the ‘lost’ and much closer to what we know predominance of two and three-part have not survived. The Requiem is an setting by Du Fay. But this is belied of Ockeghem’s style elsewhere. His writing in the Requiem all the more extreme case of problematic transmis- by the richer four-part sections, visits to Du Fay in Cambrai in 1462 striking. And yet, at least six voices sion. If, like Mozart, Ockeghem had especially the elaborate rhythms and 1464 provide opportunities for (here, eight) are needed to cope with died in the middle of composing his of the Offertory, depicting infernal the mutual influence that has been the various combinations. Notated Requiem, Crétin (in the Déploration torments. Indeed, the many stylistic detected in their compositions. pitch was not tied to a standard referred to above) might not have de- contrasts and anomalies within the Ockeghem also visited Cambrai in frequency, and low notation may scribed it as ‘exquise et très-parfaicte’; Ockeghem Requiem are puzzling, 1483, just two weeks before one of the in some cases have been symbolic. even allowing for funerary hyperbole, notwithstanding brave attempts to commemorations for which Du Fay Other masses show discrepancies of this is hardly an apt description of the argue their coherence. The ninefold had stipulated his Requiem. He could register; the movements of La Rue’s incomplete and inconsistent work that Kyrie, in particular, with its alternating have been present, at or even sung much more homogeneous setting has come down to us, however beauti- sections in two and three parts, has no in it; the restrained style implied by are also notated at different levels. In ful we may find it. But Crétin’s testimo- precedent in Ockeghem’s masses but, the description could at the very least that case (unlike Ockeghem’s) they ny cannot be dismissed; he was a musi- apart from the final four-part section, have inspired his own setting. can be brought closer together by cally knowledgeable professional, a uses a compositional technique transpositions, the approach that has cantor at the Sainte Chapelle, a chap- favoured by Du Fay and other Although Ockeghem’s Requiem been taken for this recording. lain to François I, and held the position composers of the previous generation, uses no more than four notated of treasurer at Vincennes, parallel to and shows signs of adaptation from parts at any one time, only a tiny The Chigi manuscript is the unique that of Ockeghem at Tours. (Another an earlier work. I have tentatively percentage, less than a fifth of the source for most of Ockeghem’s thir- reference much later in the poem suggested that Ockeghem may have music, is actually in four parts (the teen mass groupings; it may have been enjoins choirboys not to improvise incorporated some portions of Du final sections of the Kyrie, Gradual intended as a memorial volume, an florid but only simple counterpoint on Fay’s setting, adding and substituting and Tract, and two sections of the only partially successful attempt to the Requiem chant; this probably does 8 9 not refer to Ockeghem’s composition.) much more unified stylistic impression Cappella Pratensis and Belgium, Cappella Pratensis has The Chigi scribe may have compiled than Ockeghem’s.