SALVE, SALVE, SALVE In the mid sixteenth century there occurred the hands of such composers the opposite something of a craze for the music of Josquin is true: the results are dynamic and compelling. Josquin’s Spanish legacy Desprez in Spain. Large quantities of his music These composers, like Josquin, exploited the were copied into cathedral music books and opportunities for expressive impact and (ironic published in instrumental anthologies which though it might seem) musical variety which 1 Jubilate Deo omnis terra Cristóbal de Morales (c. 1500–1553) [5.30] helped to spread its popularity widely. All resourceful use of ostinato could produce; three of the greatest Spanish composers of the moreover, they sought not merely to emulate 2 Gaudeamus omnes in Domino Chant [1.19] age – Morales, Guerrero, and Victoria – were but also to outdo their eminent predecessor in Missa Gaudeamus Tomás Luis de Victoria (c. 1548–1611) directly inspired by aspects of Josquin’s music. their inventive handling of the technique. 3 I. Kyrie [3.58] An important thread among these influences 4 II. Gloria [7.00] was Iberian composers’ enduring fascination In 1538 Pope Paul III brokered a ten-year truce 5 III. Credo [11.19] with a potent rhetorical-musical technique (which didn’t last) between the two most employed by Josquin in a number of works, powerful rulers in Europe: Charles V (King of 6 Salve regina Tomás Luis de Victoria [10.01] namely ostinato: the periodic repetition Spain and Holy Roman Emperor) and Francis Missa Gaudeamus Tomás Luis de Victoria throughout a piece of a motto in one voice I (King of France). These rulers and the 7 IV. Sanctus [5.53] part, serving both to bind the work together and pope – accompanied by their household chapel 8 V. Agnus [4.55] to anchor it to a central musical and textural musicians – met on 14 July at Aigues-Mortes in theme. The technique can be compared to Southern France, and there survives a musical 9 Ave virgo sanctissima Francisco Guerrero (1527/8–1599) [4.05] that used by preachers of the period, who wove memento of that occasion: the six-voice motet 0 Salve regina Chant [2.40] their sermons around a single key sentence of Jubilate Deo omnis terra 1 by one of the scripture to which they constantly returned. papal singers, the Spaniard Cristóbal de q Salve regina Josquin Desprez (c. 1450–1521) [8.08] The present recording explores this aspect of Morales. Five of the six voices sing a specially w Surge propera, amica mea Francisco Guerrero [6.14] Josquin’s Spanish legacy as manifest in the composed text saluting the three participants motets of Morales, Guerrero, and Victoria, and (‘Carolus’, ‘Franciscus’, and ‘Paulus’) and Total timings: [71.02] in Victoria’s great six-voice Missa Gaudeamus. praising them for bringing peace, but the It might be thought that the ostinato sixth voice is given different text and musical technique would produce works which are material: throughout the motet, this voice CONTRAPUNCTUS repetitious, static, or mechanical in effect. repeats a six-note ostinato phrase, singing OWEN REES DIRECTOR As the music presented here demonstrates, in the single word ‘gaudeamus’ (‘let us rejoice’). www.signumrecords.com - 3 - This motto is a fragment of plainchant: it forms Vivat Franciscus!’ to the end), bunching the links between his Mass and Josquin’s, beyond it: the imposing cadential gesture which ends the opening intonation of the Introit chant at ostinato statements more closely together the ‘gaudeamus’ motto itself. As had Josquin, the first part of Morales’s motet is retained Mass on many feast days, such as Gaudeamus and presenting them at double their previous Victoria shines the spotlight on the ‘gaudeamus’ by Victoria for all three statements of the omnes in Domino 2 for All Saints’ Day, of speed rhythmically, so that they infuse the theme in his final Agnus Dei by assigning motto in his first Kyrie. But for the closing bars which we include the opening antiphon section music with energetic urgency. the ostinato statements of it to a top voice of that Kyrie section and of the two longest on this recording. Thanks to its frequent and as well as to a tenor. And as had Josquin, movements Victoria ostentatiously ‘reveals’ his festive liturgical use, this chant motto would The rhetorical power of this ostinato motive, and Victoria saturates this concluding section of motto theme, drawing back the curtain and have been familiar to – indeed, instantly the prestige which Morales’s motet acquired his Mass with overlapping entries of the motto: presenting it triumphantly in the topmost voices recognisable by – all those present at the through the prominent political and festive he arranges the superius and tenor ostinato – reaching to their peak notes – to mark the meeting between Charles, Francis, and Pope context of its composition and first performance, statements in canon, so that the motto is words ‘in gloria Dei Patris’ (‘in the glory of God Paul, and by employing it in his motet Morales were exploited several decades later by another (for the first time in his Mass) continually the Father’) in the Gloria and ‘et vitam venturi thus evoked an atmosphere of joyful high Spanish composer, Tomás Luis de Victoria, who present, and he dramatises the first canonic sæculi’ (‘and the life of the world to come’) in festivity. But in choosing this motto Morales wrote a ‘parody’ Mass – the Missa Gaudeamus entry of the tenor by bringing in all three lower the Credo. Through such gestures, Victoria was also surely referring to Josquin, whose 3–5, 7, 8 – based on the material voice parts simultaneously as the tenor begins reveals himself to be a masterful orator in the Missa Gaudeamus likewise treats the opening from Morales’s work, and incorporating the its ‘gaudeamus’. He also calls attention to tradition of Josquin. six-note intonation of the chant as an ostinato; ‘gaudeamus’ ostinato theme. Victoria included the motto here by giving it not the Agnus Dei indeed, Morales kept the rhythm which Josquin the Missa Gaudeamus in a grand manuscript text but its original ‘gaudeamus’. The same Victoria bound his Mass together not only uses for the motto in his Agnus Dei, making choirbook presented to Toledo Cathedral, and occurs in Victoria’s Kyrie, so that listeners and through the ostinato but through ubiquitous the link to Josquin explicit. Although the also published it – in a significantly different singers are alerted to the motto as his Mass quotation of the opening ‘Jubilate Deo’ motive associative reverberations of Morales’s device version: the one recorded here – in his first begins. Admittedly, for much of the Mass of Morales’s motet, and he also selected one were greater for a sixteenth-century audience book of Masses, printed in Venice in 1576. the ostinato motive is relatively hidden: it is extended block of music from that motet – the than for us, nevertheless – even to a modern The work represents an early-career act of assigned almost entirely to the Altus parts in beginning of the second part, ‘O felix ætas, listener – the repetition of this motive and homage to Victoria’s most famous Spanish the middle of the texture, and these voices O felix Paule’ – to quote more or less intact in its accompanying celebratory word in the predecessor, Morales, but it also invited the use the motto to sing whatever text the other two places in the Mass. This is the telling motet lends it an accumulative impact as the well informed purchaser of Victoria’s book to voices are declaiming at that point. As a result, moment in Morales’s work where the singers, ‘essential theme’ of the work; Morales even recall the celebrated previous composer of a the motto’s presence can often be sensed only having invited all to rejoice in the meeting of uses the device to produce an acceleration Missa Gaudeamus, Josquin, and therefore to indirectly, such as in the influence which it Paul, Charles, and Francis and the achievement for the motet’s thrilling final climax (from the view Victoria as successor to both Morales and has on the surrounding harmony or by re-using of peace, sing directly to these three: ‘O acclamations ‘Vivat Paulus! Vivat Carolus! Josquin. Victoria, indeed, fashioned explicit the material which Morales weaves around vos felices principes’ (’O you happy princes’). - 4 - - 5 - Morales here wrote a passage of majestic form in the topmost voice, and its opening four- pitch-levels for the motto; because Victoria later sixteenth century. Josquin’s other most simplicity, taking as his model a passage from note motive (setting the first word, ‘Salve’) gives the ostinato to one of his two highest famous ostinato motet was (and is) his setting a Marian motet by Josquin (Inviolata, integra, appears as an ostinato in the second voice from voices, in this section of the piece every other of the psalm Miserere mei Deus, in which these et casta es Maria). Victoria in turn deployed the top, alternating between two pitch-levels. statement stands out boldly at the top of the opening three words of the text are repeated this music for the most solemn part of his It hence serves – as the ‘gaudeamus’ motto texture as had not been the case in Josquin’s periodically throughout to a simple motive. Mass text, ‘Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto’ does in Morales’s Jubilate Deo and Victoria’s Salve. But in borrowing Josquin’s idea Victoria (This motive, or variants of it, was then quoted (‘and became incarnate by the Holy Spirit’) in Missa Gaudeamus – as a powerful unifying goes much further than had his forerunner, by numerous sixteenth-century composers the Credo, and then transformed it into the element.