CAPTURING MUSIC Writing and Singing Music in the Middle Ages THOMAS FORREST KELLY Morton B

CAPTURING MUSIC Writing and Singing Music in the Middle Ages THOMAS FORREST KELLY Morton B. Knafel Professor of Music, Harvard University BLUE HERON Scot Metcalfe, direcor SATURDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2014 3 PM & 8 PM Firs Church in Cambridge, Congregational PROGRAM PART 2 at 8 pm Povre secors / Gaude chorus (Montpellier Codex, early 14th century) BG MB JM Capturing Music Diex qui porroit / En grant dolour (Montpellier Codex) Writing and Singing Music in the Middle Ages JM BG HARP Aucun ont trouvé / Lonc tans (Montpellier Codex) Tomas Forres Kelly Morton B. Knafel Professor of Music, Harvard University JM MB ST Blue Heron Scot Metcalfe, direcor Garrit gallus / In nova fert (Roman de Fauvel, 1314-18) IH MN SM Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300-1377): Biauté qui toutes autres pere PART I at 3 pm OM JM MB Io son un pellegrin (14th century) Introit Ad te levavi OM ST soloist MB Jacob Senleches (f. 1380s): En atendant, Esperance conforte Introit Resurrexi OM CW SM soloist PT Baude Cordier (f. c. 1400): Belle, bonne, sage, plaisant et gente Alleluya Pascha nostrum MN CW SM soloist PG Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1420-1497): Kyrie, Missa prolationum Hymn Ut queant laxis MN IH JM MB Leoninus (f. 1180s-1200): Alleluya Pascha nostrum soloist JM Perotinus (f. c. 1200): Alleluya Pascha nostrum soloists MB & ST (Alleluya) / OM & JM (Pascha nostrum) Michael Barret, Brian Giebler, Paul Gutry, Ian Howell, Clausula Latus est (Magnus liber organi) Owen McIntosh, Jason McStoots, Martin Near, Mark Sprinkle, soloist MS Sumner Tompson, Paul Max Tipton, voices Motet Immolata paschali victima (Magnus liber organi) Charles Weaver, lute & voice MS JM Scot Metcalfe, director, harp & fddle Sumer is icumen in / Perspice Christicola (c. 1250) MS JM BG MB PG PT Blue Heron is funded in part by the Massachusets Cultural Council, a sate agency. Blue Heron PO Box 372 Ashland MA 01721 (617) 960-7956 [email protected] www.blueheronchoir.org Q&A session with Tomas Kelly & Scot Metcalfe at 7 PM Capturing Music: notes on performance practice ecording and performing a program PLAINCHANT must be shaven not to abolition but to a neat curl”). PRONUNCIATION like Capturing Music challenges an Guido of Arezzo described a sort of ornament or Rensemble to fnd its way, in the course Our selections draw from the central Gregorian nuance called a liquescent: “Notes, in fact, become Up until the twentieth century, Latin was of just over an hour’s worth of music, from a repertory as codifed under Carolingian rule liquescent in many places afer the manner of leters, pronounced basically like the vernacular tongue style of singing suitable to plainchant around and writen down all over Europe, perhaps most so that the passing from one note to another in a and sounded quite diferent from place to place the year 900 through Notre Dame organa from famously at the monastery of St. Gall in what is smooth manner does not appear to have a stopping across Europe. Erasmus (a relatively late witness) around 1200, thirteenth-century polytextual now Switzerland. Te St. Gall manuscripts are place.” He adds that the use of liquescence is subject describes how the French used their peculiar “u” motets, fourteenth-century songs in both writen in neumes that do not specify pitch but to the taste of the singer: “If you should wish in Latin and modifed its accentuation to suit French and Italian, and the ars subtilior music do convey what seems to be a lot of information to perform the note more fully, not making it a their own proclivities; Germans confused “b” of the late fourteenth century, into the sweet about nuances of performance. Virtually all of liquescent, no harm is done; in fact, it is ofen more and “p”; Spaniards were unable to distinguish new style of the early ffeenth and beyond to the precise meaning of this information is lost to pleasing. Indeed, you should do everything that between “b” and “v.” When the French the intoxicating counterpoint of Ockeghem’s us, and (as Professor Kelly explains in the book), we have said neither too seldom nor too constantly, ambassador addressed the Emperor Maximilian Missa prolationum. Just about every question of the notation that replaced neumes prioritized but with good judgement” (Micrologus, c. 1026- in Latin at a banquet, the Italians thought he was performance practice is raised along the way: the specifcation of pitch over the representation 8). A later writer points out that, of course, you speaking French. Te German who replied was number of performers, pitch, tuning system, of nuance. But the great variety of the neumes can really only learn these things by example, not even less comprehensible, and a Danish orator scoring, pronunciation (of Latin and French, and their elegant and diverse shapes do suggest from notation: “A song, however, is not fully learnt might as well have been speaking Scots, for all over centuries of change, as well as some a varied, perhaps highly ornamented manner through these signs, nor is anyone able to learn it Erasmus could understand. To this regional Italian and even thirteenth-century English), of performance, which must have difered beter by using them, but it is necessary that it be variety, this program adds nearly six centuries and, for the songs at least, the possible wonderfully from place to place. In the ninth heard from another person, and learnt by long of evolution in the vernacular. We have chosen participation of instruments#not to mention century a monk from St. Gall named Notker practice” (Anonymous, Summa musice, c. 1200). a fairly conservative medieval French Latin subtle questions of style. In preparing the Balbulus wrote to another monk named Lantbert, pronunciation for the plainchant, locating it music we have atempted to internalize what explaining the meaning of leters that might be In the absence of medieval singers to teach us by more or less in Paris, with the organa by Masters we know about medieval performance#this, added above the neumes, calling for a number of long practice, we have drawn inspiration from Leoninus and Perotinus of Notre-Dame de Paris too, varies considerably from the ninth to the efects, some of which are easy to interpret (C, the shapes of the neumes, the occasional use of and the motets of the Montpellier codex that ffeenth century#while infusing the music “cito vel celeriter,” quickly; T, “trahere vel tenere,” signifying leters like C and T, the meaning of follow on our concert. Te exception is Ut queant with our own creative energies, as we expect lengthen or hold) and some considerably more the words, the contours of the melodies, and our laxis, sung in an Italianate Latin that Guido of the singers of the past to have done. A few difcult (G, “Ut in guture gradatim garruletur experiences with later-day masters, especially Arezzo might have recognised. notes on some of our choices follow. genuine gratulatur,” “genuinely grants that the Benjamin Bagby and Katarina Livljanic (though note be gargled gradually in the throat”; R, I certainly would not hold them responsible for Our pronunciation of the French songs changes “Rectitudinem vel rasuram non abolitionis sed our performances!). subtly from century to century, refecting what crispationis rogitat,” “requires rectitude: the note we know about the sound of French from c. 1200 4 5 to c. 1400, and proceeds from the assumption that INSTRUMENTS AND VOICES TXTS & TANSLTIONS the declamation of lyric poetry demands a more formal, more artifcial diction than everyday Although the music on this program is primarily, Ad te levavi speech. As Eustache Deschamps put it in his if not exclusively, vocal, the question of L’art de dictier of 1392, “[poetry and music] are instrumental participation does arise once we Ad te levavi animam meam: Deus meus in te confdo: Unto thee do I lif up my soul: O my God, I trus in thee: so consonant with each other, that each one can enter the realm of motets and songs, from the non erubescam: neque irrideant me inimici mei, let me not be ashamed, nor let my enemies mock me. etenim universi qui te expecant, non confundentur. Indeed, let none that wait on thee be confounded. well be called music, as much for the sweetness thirteenth century onwards. I think I am not Vias tuas, Domine, demonsra mihi: et semitas tuas Show me thy ways, O Lord: and teach me thy of the melody as for that of the words that are all oversimplifying the situation much to say that edoce me. paths. pronounced and made distinct by the sweetness we really do not know how untexted lower lines of the voice and the opening of the mouth; and in polyphonic motets or songs were realised Resurrexi it is as if these two were married in a union of between 1200 and 1500, and we probably will not knowledge, through the melodies which are ever know. Some lines, such as the untexted tenor Resurrexi et adhuc tecum sum, aleluia. Posuisi I have risen and even now am with thee, alleluia. more ennobled and beter fting through the text melodies that underlie pieces like Diex qui porroit, super me manum tuam, aleluia. Mirabilis faca es Tou has laid thy hand upon me, alleluia. Ty scientia tua, aleluia. knowledge is become marvellous, alleluia. and the eloquence of the lyrics than they would Aucun ont trouvé or Garrit gallus, or the two lower Domine probasi me et cognovisi me: tu cognovisi Lord, thou has judged me and known me: thou be alone.” parts of Machaut’s Biauté qui toutes autres pere, are sessionem meam et resurrecionem meam.

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