Los ecos de Manzanares CANCIONERO DE LA SABLONARA 17th Century Spanish Court Music La Boz Galana Los ecos de Manzanares Cancionero de La Sablonara, 17th Century Spanish Court Music Gabriel Díaz c.1590-c.1631 Mateo Romero c.1575-1647 Anonymous Joan Pujol 1570-1626 1. Barquilla pobre de remos 4’32 6. Bullicioso y claro arroyuelo 3’09 12. De tu vista celoso 2’12 14. Llamaban los pajarillos 2’58 Romance for 4 voices (Tutti) Seguidillas for 2 voices (LA, SL, GB) Seguidillas with echoes for 4 voices Romance for 4 voices (Tutti) (LA, SM, SL, GB, LC) Diego Gómes c.1550-1618 Juan Blas de Castro 1561-1631 Flores de música, lisboa, 1620 2. En el valle del ejido 4’26 7. Desde las torres del alma 3’52 Manuel Rodrigues Coelho 1555-1635 Romance for 3 voices Romance for 4 voices (Tutti) 13. Susana grosada 5’41 Mateo Romero (LA, ES, SL, GB, LC) Instrumental (Tutti) 15. Romerico florido 3’06 Bernardo Clavijo del Castillo 1626 Folía for 2 voices (ES, SL, GB, LC) Álvaro de los Ríos 1580-1623 8. Tiento Ileno de 2º tono 4’01 16. Fatigada navecilla 3’13 3. Sin color anda la niña 3’56 Insrumental (LC) Romance for 4 voices (Tutti) Romance for 3 voices Ed. Madrid, B.N., Ms M1360 (ES, SM, Sl, GB, LC) Mateo Romero La Boz Galana Improvisation on 17th century patterns 9. Ricos de galas y flores 2’49 Lore Agustí soprano (LA) · Eva Soler soprano (ES) 4. Folías 4’33 Romance for 4 voices (Tutti) Samuel Moreno countertenor (SM) · Sebastián León baritone (SL) Instrumental (GB, LC) Guilherme Barroso Baroque guitar & chitarrone (GB) Miguel de Arizo c.1590-c.1633 Louis Capeille Spanish double-harp (LC) Álvaro de los Ríos 10. Vistióse el prado galán 3’39 5. Pajarillos suaves 4’05 Romance for 4 voices Folía for 3 voices (LA, ES, SL, LC) (ES, SM, SL, GB, LC) Juan Blas de Castro 11. Ya no les penso pedir 4’13 Romance for 4 voices (Tutti) Recording: 13-16 October 2018, St. Ottilien Church, Tüllingen (Lörrach), Germany Recording & mixing: Daniel Capeille Production assistant: Filipa Meneses Mastering: Bernard Slobodian, Small Mastering Studio (Montreal, Canada) Ensemble photo: Dirk Letsch Cover: Frans Snyders, Concert of Birds, c.1630, Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg Manuscripts: from BSB Cod.hisp.2, fol. [III v] (page 4), fol. 46 v (page 11) p & © 2020 Brilliant Classics The Cancionero de la Sablonara is a collection polyphony to the new Baroque style: on the one hand, there are pieces of an almost made up of 75 polyphonic songs composed for madrigalesque character, with very elaborate contrapuntal and melodic imitation, and the Royal Court of Madrid during the first two on the other, completely homophonic compositions based on lively rhythms, dance decades of the 17th century. The manuscript is patterns and poems of a popular nature, such as the seguidillas. Many of the tonos of named after Claudio de la Sablonara, copyist this collection have melodies which undoubtedly come from songs for the theatre or and archivist of Madrid’s Royal Chapel, who well-known romances of the period. The texts used corroborate this, for they are also presented it to Wolfgang Wilhelm, Count of found in the ballad collections and autograph and printed songbooks. As a contrast Nuremberg and Duke of Bavaria, during his to the vocal pieces we have included some instrumental compositions from the same stay at Philip IV’s Madrid court from 1624 to period as the Cancionero de la Sablonara. 1625. Today the manuscript is kept in the State The devastating fire which levelled the Real Alcázar of Madrid in 1734 destroyed Library of Bavaria, which is why it is also called hundreds of musical works of which, unfortunately, we only have knowledge thanks the Cancionero de Munich. to catalogues and accounts of the religious and profane celebrations held at the The repertoire contained in this book could Madrid court. Having the good fortune of being abroad and thus surviving, the essentially be classified as tonos humanos, Cancionero de la Sablonara is now a tremendously valuable source of the music that or secular polyphonic songs. These pieces was heard at the beginning of the 17th century in Spain, and that would give birth represent, without a doubt, the greatest to such a characteristic poetic-musical genre of Spanish music as the tono humano, Spanish profane vocal music of the period and which would endure until well into the 18th century. were composed by some of the most brilliant © Sebastián León musicians active in the Madrid court, such as the Flemish Mateo Romero (Mathieu Translation: José Luis Greco Rosmarin), Álvaro de los Ríos and Juan Blas de Castro, among others. Many of the texts on which they were composed were written by distinguished poets of Spain’s Golden Age, such as Lope de Vega, Luis de Góngora and Francisco de Quevedo. On the Banks of the Manzanares, the Madrid of the Habsburgs revealed its true Philip IV, a great lover of music and the dance, had in his service a number of countenance. The soul of the city – it was hardly more than a town – was not to singers, who accompanied themselves on the guitar, and instrumentalists. These be found in its fountains or palaces, but rather in its teeming youth. The young did musicians belonged to an institution called “Casa de Sus Altezas” (House of Their not flee in summer; they spent it at the stifling court, finding inspiration, during Royal Highnesses) which was originally led by the composer Álvaro de los Ríos. The that season, between the glare of the sun and an earthenware pitcher of cool water. music included on this recording is representative of the transition from Renaissance Travellers gathered for the spectacle: when the heat intensified, ladies and gents flung their garments to the ground and swam naked; riding in their carriages – another Behind that cloak of music and poetry they caught a glimpse of the youthfulness to passion of the Madrileños – they drove the horses into the water, spending thus the which they were forbidden access. Between the halls of the palace and the life of the night until daybreak discovered them all bedraggled. The river was as characteristic street one had to manoeuvre myriad stairs, reputations, rigours, an army of servants; of the city’s life as the out-door theatre, the speeding carriage, the night, the guitar but here we find that all of this was overcome thanks to a particular rallying cry, the and the folía (Spanish dance). Madrid was going through a period of the most novel most important rule of those years: one of the few unforgivable things in Madrid was delights, a mood that could sprout only there, in that plaza of the footloose, shaken to ask too little of life. We can hardly understand what we call the Golden Age if we by the dream of the New World and the encounter with disparate peoples. All of this do not attend to this lust for life, to which was often sacrificed one’s profession, safety was crystalizing into a new desire for freedom and insatiable amorous games. and even, in extreme cases, one’s honour. It was not unusual for the court musician In the Alcázar, above the huddled city streets, the King lived his youth feeling to be less a musician than a ladies’ man, gambler or swordsman. One might see a God’s gaze upon him. With the hope of his faith, he applied his energies to his duties; guitarist, in the employ of the Royal Chapel, leaving a brothel or he might be a man- he read, studied the languages of his vassals – Italian, French, Catalan – answering at-arms during a lustrum; poets spent the night with play-actors, and play-actors, missives from around the world. At the same time he nourished his private artistic with all their scandalous baggage, were to be seen at the Alcázar. vocation. He and his brothers – Prince Royal and Cardinal-Infante – prized the free The artists in the entourage of the King and his brothers brought with them this lifestyle of the Manzanares. After all, they were adolescents, as prone to sensuality as ambiguousness and this whiff of bohemianism; in fact, all of this gradually became any other, and felt the desire to be a part of the city’s mysterious pulse. In the King’s the very substance of the music. Claudio de la Sablonara handed this all to the own words: for a moment, they wanted to “free themselves of divinity”. From the princes transcribed on clean sheets of paper, so they might pass the time singing. palace, one could go directly down to the river, crossing a lush park. The cartographer The romances of the blind Juan Blas de Castro told the stories of the Duke of Alba, Pedro Teixera has bequeathed us prints of each and every tree on the path that led Lope and his friends, the lament of those who had risked everything for love and to the riverbank and which today bewitches us, for it contains all of its history, in lost it all in the end. The seguidillas embodied the agile rhythms of the criminals contrast to the flower gardens of Versailles. Arriving at the riverbank, instead of and the concubines, those pursued (seguidos) by the law. The new romances were undressing and participating in the nocturnal adventures – although they did indeed nothing more than the personal stories of the poets, of the anonymous youth of experience a bit of that – the House of Habsburg youngsters gave themselves over the Manzanares, somewhat elegantly attired.