Cuiusvis Toni a Mass on Whatever Tone You Please
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Ockeghem@600 | Concert 8 Cuiusvis toni A mass on whatever tone you please Thursday, October 11, 2018 St. Cecilia Parish, Boston Saturday, October 13, 2018 First Church in Cambridge, Congregational Ockeghem@600 | Concert 7 Missa Cuiusvis toni A Mass on whatever A somewhat older composer was Okenheim, also a Belgian, who is tone you please said to have excelled everyone in this cantus skill [of writing canons]. Indeed, he Margot Rood During his lifetime, Johannes Ockeghem Anonymous (Chigi Codex) is known to have composed a certain Martin Near was esteemed as one of the greatest Ave rosa speciosa / Beata mater • mr om jm sr dm pg chatering song in 36 voices. We tenor & contratenor musicians in Europe, perhaps the very have not seen it. He was certainly Owen McIntosh greatest. Writing in the 1470s, the theorist admirable in invention and keenness Jason McStoots Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1420-1497) Johannes Tinctoris placed him at the head of skill. He also loved the catholica Missa Cuiusvis toni Stefan Reed in song, that is, songs composed Sumner Tompson of a select group of modern composers so that they could be sung in many Kyrie on mi, re & ut whose works “exhale such sweetness that Gloria on ut bassus ways according to the will of the Gloria & Credo on mi Paul Gutry in my opinion they are to be considered singers, yet so that the relationship David McFerrin most suitable, not only for men and heroes, of the harmony and the consonances but even for the immortal gods.” But would be observed no less… Scot Metcalfe intermission within a generation his star had fallen and director & harp Tis Okenheim composed a Missa his music, at once astonishingly complex ad omnem Tonum (for so he called and enchantingly sensuous, had come to Ockeghem it), although it is to be sung upon seem unpleasingly learned, overfull of Se vostre cuer eslongne moy a tort • MN ST SM three solmisation syllables only, compositional artifce. Most of his works corresponding to the three species Anonymous (Leuven chansonnier) had completely disappeared from view; of fourth. No clef is placed at the Escu d’ennuy • om dm pg the handful that remained known to a few beginning, but only a circle with a question mark indicating either a Anonymous (Leuven chansonnier) savants were those whose incomparable line or a space. We decided to present Donnez l’aumosne, chiere dame • mr om jm pg technical virtuosity might still command one Kyrie, so to speak, of this Mass, Ockeghem respect, if not love. so that the reader may see that the tenor can begin on ut, re, or mi. S’elle m’amera / Petite Camusecte • MN OM SR DM SM Ockeghem@600 is Blue Heron’s long-term projec to perform Heinrich Glarean, writing in the middle the complete works of Johannes of the sixteenth century, relegated Heinrich Glarean, Dodecachordon Ockeghem Ockeghem in a series of concert Ockeghem (whom he knew as Okenheim, (Basel, 1547), bk. 3, ch. XX, p. 454 Missa Cuiusvis toni programs presented between 2015 and 2021. Professor Sean just one of the many versions of the Sanctus on mi Te passage requires some explanation. Agnus dei on mi Galagher joins Blue Heron as composer’s name that may be found in Agnus dei on ut adviser for the entire projec. early sources) to the status of a footnote First Glarean refers to Ockeghem’s skill to his ecstatic treatment of Josquin, the at writing canons, mentioning a 36-voice Pre-concert talk in Cambridge by Sean Galagher (New England anointed master of the next generation. canon which he has not seen. (Indeed, no Conservatory of Music). Glarean was nevertheless able to put his such piece is known to exist, although fnger on the key to understanding the a motet for 36 voices is praised in the Missa Cuiusvis toni, one of the few works Déploration composed by Guillaume Blue Heron is funded in part by tHe MassacHusets Cultural Council, a state agency. that preserved something of Ockeghem’s Crétin not long afer Ockeghem’s death.) reputation ffy years afer his death. He tells us that Ockeghem loved a type Blue Heron 950 Watertown St., Suite 8, Wes Newton, MA 02465 (617) 960-7956 [email protected] www.blueheron.org 3 of music called a catholikon which might A fourth-species is a scale segment of four So the Missa Cuiusvis toni is a piece of music built on the ffh degree of the scale, which be sung in various ways (modi). (As an notes; there are three species of fourth designed to work in three diferent “keys” is extremely common in the modes on ut example he provides the song Prenez sur which are distinguished by their internal built on the tones ut, re, or mi, using three or re, is impossible in the mode on mi, for moy, a three-voice canon at the upper structure of whole tones and semitone. (In diferent scales. Yes, three! Here is one way in mi the ffh above the ffh is diminished: fourth in which each part sings in a this instance “tone” means melodic interval, in which 15th-century harmony is richer that is, if your fnal mi is the note E, its ffh diferent mode.) Ten he describes the Tinctoris’s frst defnition.) Fifeenth- than later systems. Te harmonic system degree is the note B, and the ffh above that Missa ad omnem Tonum or “Mass on any century musicians conceived these scale with which we are familiar uses basically is F natural, making a diminished ffh. As tone”Lthe Mass transmited in two late paterns in terms of the solmisation syllables two modes, major and minor, so labelled a result, a cadence progressing from a triad 15th-century sources as Missa Cuiusvis ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la, the ancestors of our do- according to the type of third in the scale. on the ffh degree to a sonority on the fnal toni or “Mass on whatever tone you please.” re-mi. Note that these syllables are not But before the seventeenth century music cannot be writen in a “mass on any tone” linked to a specifc pitch or note, but rather could be writen in three distinct modes and never occurs in the Missa Cuiusvis Now, tonus or tone is one of those musical tell you where the lone semitone occurs (at least) which are characterized not just toni. One consequence of this and other terms with a confusingly large number in the six-note patern: mi-fa is always a by the variety of the third degree, but by restrictions placed upon the harmony is of meanings. According to Tinctoris semitone; the other steps are whole tones. the intervallic patern of the whole scale, that the music, because it must function (Terminorum musicae difnitorium, c. Ascending from ut one sings the four notes including the possibility of a semitone in three drastically diferent modes, does 1494), “Tonus has four meanings. It may ut-re-mi-fa following the interval patern above the fnal, where both major and not conform to the norms of any one of signify coniunctio [a melodic interval of a tone-tone-semitone, constituting the frst minor scales have a whole tone. It is easiest those modes, but inhabits its own strange second], discordantia [a harmonic discord species of fourth (C-D-E-F, for example, to think of the three possible modes in worldLand yet Ockeghem, as he so ofen of a second], intonatio [i.e. the beginning of or G-A-B-C); the second species, starting which the Missa Cuiusvis toni might be does, manages to create music of arresting a melody], or tropus [a manner of singing, from re, is re-mi-fa-sol in the patern tone- sung as scales built on C, D, or E, using only beauty while surmounting the most i.e. one of the modes].” Glarean makes semitone-tone (e.g. D-E-F-G); and the the white notes of the piano. difcult technical challenges. Just one it clear that he has the third meaning third, from mi, mi-fa-sol-la, semitone-tone- astonishing feature of the mass is that it in mind, which Tinctoris subsequently tone (e.g. E-F-G-A). According to Glarean, A word of caution: this is not “transposition” sounds so uterly diferent in each mode clarifes: “Tonus est cantus intonatio: Tone although Ockeghem’s Mass bears the title in the modern sense, in which a piece that the uninitiated listener might never is the beginning of a song.” So the “tone” “on any tone,” it should be sung on three is moved from one key to another, like realise that she is hearing the same music, that establishes how the Missa cuiusvis tones only: “the tenor can begin on ut, re, or C major to G major, changing the note transformed by modal transposition. toni will be sung is the frst note of the mi.” In fact, all four parts of the Kyrie start names while maintaining the structure song. Glarean specifes that he is referring on the same note, and the tenor also ends of the scale and the harmonies. In this It is perhaps not surprising that the Missa the frst note of the tenor partLthe part on the same note, which is the fnal or home case the note names and pitches are Cuiusvis toni, apparently an experiment traditionally regarded as the primary sonority of the pieceLin modern terms, its unspecifed and, in fact, irrelevant: what without precedent, seems not to have determinant of the mode of a polyphonic “key.” And as far as Glarean was concerned, changes is the patern of intervals in the inspired any imitations.