Music in Renaissance Cities and Courts: Studies in Honor of Lewis Lockwood by Jessie Ann

Owens; Anthony M. Cummings

Review by: Noel O'Regan
Notes, Second Series, Vol. 54, No. 3 (Mar., 1998), pp. 684-687
Published by: Music Library Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/899898 .
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684 NOTES, March 1998

A similar graphic problem arises on the Guillaume Dufay to Carlo Gesualdo, from
first syllable of the final hymn verse "Nun- music printing to iconography, from pa-
tium vobis" (p. 116). The transcription does tronage to analysis. A number grow di-
not indicate the cephalicus, clearly seen in rectly from papers published by Lockwood
the facsimile. That the form is mistaken, on musica ficta, imitatio,patronage, and the
however, is indicated by the appearance of Council of Trent; almost all take ap-
the hymn elsewhere in the same manu- proaches that have been championed in his
script (f. 37) where one note only occurs- substantial number of published papers
the reading, moreover, of all the early hym- and books (a list is appended to the book).
nals. The symbol should have been a single- The volume is beautifully produced in
note liquescent. large format, and the quality of its con-
The case is intriguingly different for tributions is consistently high. Most provide
"Rex in eternum vive," where one of the important new work or insights; only a
repetitions (Zijlstra, p. 95) has an extra handful recycle old material or fall some-
note, indicated by a cephalicus,on the sec- what short of the overall standard.
ond syllable of eternum. Although this is Although arranged alphabetically, the
doubtless a stray misread single-note liq- essays fall into a number of categories. In
uescent, some earlier exemplar must itself the opening contribution, Allan Atlas
have had a cephalicus, for the ultimate takes up a challenge, earlier articulated by
model (as in the Winchester Troper) has Howard M. Brown and Claudio Annibaldi:
the two notes, so here we have a species of how to make the musical work of art more
double bluff. central to patronage studies. In seeking
More difficult, and impossible to treat in support for David Fallows's suggestion that
a few lines, are the instances where atro- Dufay's Mon chiermaywas written for Carlo
phied cephalicusare to be interpreted rhyth- Malatesta da Rimini on the occasion of his
mically. An obvious example is in "Solvitur brother's death in 1427, Atlas draws on
in libro Salamonis" (Zijlstra, pp. 102-3), number symbolism. In the process he ad-
and there are important instances in "Cum dresses three questions: the validity of
doctorum" (p. 96), but probable, possible, number symbolism as evidence for prov-
and dubious cases are legion. In short, enance, the problem of counting length in
there is much to be done on the Play of formesfixes with repetitions, and the role of
Daniel, and it is regrettable that this volume the patron in influencing the structure and
has failed to grasp the opportunity to move style of a piece. The numbers certainly add
forward, especially on the musical front. up, but Atlas has to ask himself whether
DAVID WULSTAN this sort of evidence is admissible in the
The Universityof Wales, Aberystwyth absence of any corroborating proof of pa-
tronage for this ballade. In another work-
centered study, Joshua Rifkin examines
Music in Renaissance Cities and Maistre Jhan's Missa de omnessancti, finding
Courts: Studies in Honor of Lewis discrepancies between the two manuscript
sources of the tenor, which constantly re-
Lockwood. Edited by Jessie Ann
Owens and Anthony M. Cummings. peats the words "intercedite pro Hercule
secundo duce nostro." The mass was tra-
(Detroit Monographs in Musicology/ ditionally thought to have been written for
Studies in Music, 18.) Warren, Mich.: the accession of Duke Ercole on All Saints
Harmonie Park Press, 1997. [xxxi, 533 Day 1534. The suddenness of this acces-
p. ISBN 0-89990-102-6. $57.50.] sion, however, would have left Maistre
Jhan little time to write a new mass, and
As befits the dedicatee, this is a most im- Rifkin postulates that he reused an earlier
pressivevolume with an all-starcast of au- one, written for a visit of Charles V in 1529,
thors, all connected as students or col- with the consequent need to adapt the orig-
leagues to Lewis Lockwood. The list of inal tenor (Rifkin suggests "intercedite pro
twenty-seven authors reads like a who's Carolo quinto imperator")to a different
who of American Renaissance music his- number of syllables. Jeremy Noble gives a
tory. The term "Renaissance" has a suitably short preamble to an edition of Gaspar von
broad interpretation: the essays range from Weerbeke's motet Dulcis amica deilDa pacem,

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Book Reviews 685

which he argues was written to celebrate largely speculative look at Palestrina's strat-
the setting up of an altar by Pope Innocent egies in obtaining patronage from the
VIII in the Roman church of S. Maria della Duke of Mantua by basing masses on
Pace in 1486. motets by Jachet of Mantua, and Susan
In a thought-provoking piece, Richard Parisi's rather rambling study of the in-
Sherr looks at the career of Carpentras, volvement of Jewish actors, singers, and
arguing that he was employed by Leo X as musicians in theatrical entertainments at
papal composer in 1513 precisely because Mantua in the early seventeenth century.
he was relatively inexperienced and would Another group of papers centers around
do what he was told. Leo wanted to im- printed music. Jane Bernstein reconstructs
prove the Vatican's daily liturgical services the sixteenth-century collections of the
with cycles of hymns, Magnificats, and lam- Dukes of Brunswick-Wolfenbiittel and
entations. Whether or not as a result of the choir school of St. Anna in Augsburg.
having spent so much time setting just re- The latter involved painstakingly searching
citing tones, Carpentras was reputed to for copies-bearing a characteristic stamp
have succumbed to madness. Sherr spec- -in libraries as far afield as Washington
ulates that the composer suffered from and Cracow. She does not comment on the
tinnitus. Despairing of medical advice, he nature of the two collections, but calls for
prescribed for himself what would now more work of this kind in order to provide
be called cognitive therapy to relieve his information about collectors and the mar-
depression: he kept busy by composing and ket for printed music. William Prizer's
arranging to have his collected works study of Antico's Third Book of Frottole of
published. Anne Hallmark explores the 1513 sorts out the status of the three extant
relationship between Johannes Ciconia exemplars; he also examines its unique rep-
and the Paduan churchman and academic ertory (largely Ferrarese and Mantuan),
Francesco Zabarella, which she sees as cru- speculating how it might have reached An-
cial in the commissioning of a number of tico in Rome (probably via members of
that composer's finest motets. While from the nobility and their entourages). Samuel
very different backgrounds, she concludes Pogue furnishes a short piece on Pieton's
that the relationship between the two was recently rediscovered Penitential Psalms.
one of friendship based on mutual respect, The largest group of papers deals with
with Zabarella acting as mentor to the mu- genres or single works from an analytical
sician. Paula Higgins takes up mentoring in standpoint, using a variety of methodolo-
a different sense: that of composers' lin- gies. Honey Meconi challenges the authen-
eage. She explores the rise of a concept of ticity of a group of eight chansons attrib-
creative paternity in the Renaissance, with uted to Pierre de la Rue in French editions
the master seen as a substitute father to the from 1528 to 1561 on stylistic grounds. She
student, and musical works "generating" puts forward one Robert de la Rue, active
each other. Hers is a challenging exami- in Meaux and sought for Notre Dame in
nation of a changing view of the creative Paris in 1533, as an alternative composer.
process around 1500; in the process she Amanda Wesner looks at the chansons of
sees the emphasis on paternity as inimical Loyset Compere and charts their develop-
to women and their creativity, though this ment from three to four voices; she broad-
is an issue which needs a wider study to be ens this to speculate that the four-voice
completely convincing. chanson may have developed in Rome dur-
Jonathan Glixon's study of the Venetian ing the mid 1490s and was brought back
scuole piccole is of the more traditional ar- to France by Compere. Following this,
chival type but no less valuable for that. Lawrence Bernstein looks at the chanson at
He makes us aware of the hundreds of the court of Louis XII of France and tries
lesser confraternities which spent large to fill in the large gap in our knowledge of
sums on patronal feasts, often paid for by the repertory there due to a lack of easily
the officers out of their own pockets. These identifiable sources. He convincingly asso-
feasts apart, the more normal diet was ciates a repertory of three- and five-voice
plainchant, sung by the brothers in two chansons with that court. Many of these
choirs, as well as laude spirituali. Other pa- borrow from the chansons of Josquin, sug-
tronage studies include George Nugent's gesting that his influence had a powerful

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686 NOTES, March 1998

impact on stylistic change and diversity in describes the experience of hearing singers
the various subgenres of French secular in Alfonso II d'Este's musica segreta. An-
polyphony then emerging. Peter Urquhart thony Cummings derives a stemma for
examines the problems of applying edito- Josquin's Alma redemptoris/Averegina. His
rial accidentals in chansons by taking three complex argument depends somewhat on
examples (including Ockeghem's famous Josquin having been in Milan, something
canon Prenezsur moy). He argues that many which cannot be taken for granted in the
of the problems of musica ficta are best light of recent scholarship.
solved, not by reference to theory, but by Among the isolated topics, Claude
taking hold of the music and singing it. Palisca takes a fresh look at the letter writ-
Anthony Newcomb also looks at problems ten in 1549 by Bernardino Cirillo to his
of unnotated accidentals, taking the late in- friend Ugolino Gualteruzzi (published by
tabulations of a single motet book by Gom- Lockwood in his Norton critical score of
bert as a case study. Rather than provide Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli). He ex-
fixed rules, these show the range of pos- amines the milieu in which the letter was
sibilities available to singers and intabula- written and was expected to be received
tors, while alterations to the notes of some and looks again at Cirillo's suggestions for
intractable passages indicate that these may church music. Colin Slim investigates the
have been just as problematical then as they more than twenty extant versions of a
are to us. painting by Bartolommeo Veneto depicting
Two of the longest and most detailed a lute-playing woman with identifiable mu-
articles deal with the music of Dufay. sic. There are at least five different pieces
Graeme Boone examines his early three- of music spread over the series, the most
voice chansons and tries to explain the common being a three-voice frottola-lauda
sound of them in terms of a system of or dance piece. While not coming to firm
tonalities based on the four notes D, G, C, conclusions, Slim postulates a lost original
F. He examines the implications for acci- (perhaps by Leonardo da Vinci) of which
dentals, signed and otherwise, and broad- all are copies. Jessie Ann Owens's contri-
ens the discussion to consider how Dufay bution, entitled "How Josquin became Jos-
and other medieval composers "heard" quin," looks at the Josquin myth and the
their music, arguing against assumptions reasons for the composer's extraordinary
based on outmoded dichotomies such as reputation during his lifetime and through-
successive/simultaneous or harsh-medieval/ out the rest of the century. She includes
euphonious-Renaissance. In a fully illus- some general remarks on the establishment
trated article entitled "Guillaume Du Fay's of a canon in the early sixteenth century
Second Style," Alejandro Planchart takes a and relates this to the great improvement
detailed look at the cycles of mass propers in dissemination brought about by print-
in Trent Codex 88 recently assigned to Du- ing. James Haar searches for reasons for
fay and to the 1440s. In particular he stud- the disappearance of the madrigal from
ies the ways in which Dufay elaborates the Florence in the 1540s and 1550s; while not
plainsongs, exploring features of motivic finding any one answer, he looks at the
development and text placement which move of Arcadelt to Rome, the exile of
point to the composer's mature works. members of the Strozzi family, the lack of
Other studies to focus on individual com- a music press in Florence and the lack
posers include Christopher Reynolds's ex- of any real interest in the genre at the court
aminations of two Gesualdo madrigals in of Cosimo I-all of which must have con-
which he attempts a chordal analysis and tributed. Finally, Anne Maria Busse Berger
points up the importance of the sound re- tries to clear up ambiguities in the rela-
sulting from the merging of composite tionship between cut and uncut circles
lines. Like Boone, Reynolds is keen for us and half-circles in fifteenth-century musical
to use our ears more in analysis. Massimo practice. By reference to theorists and to
Ossi compares settings of Guarini's Mentre the music of Busnois she concludes that cut
vaga angioletta by Francesco Turini and signs call for a strict diminution by one-
Claudio Monteverdi; both responded in half, except at the beginning of a piece,
very similar ways to a difficult text which where they cannot be related to anything

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Book Reviews 687

else; only there should they be taken to included-for example, reference to the
signify a tempo "somewhat faster than 1991 identification by Patricia Ranum of a
usual." visual likeness of Charpentier is included
Taken together, this collection repre- along with a plate, not included in the orig-
sents the most up-to-date work in a whole inal French edition, bearing that image.
variety of areas over the period of 1430 to The book is coherently and logically or-
1600. Particularly useful are the extensive ganized. An opening chapter presents an
bibliographies in footnotes which provide excellent essay reviewing Charpentier's
current literature surveys for a whole range place in history. The next seven chapters
of topics. For new graduate students there proceed chronologically through his early
could hardly be a better place to get an years and the initial decades of his career.
overview of the best recent scholarship. Five chapters are then dedicated to the
The editors are to be congratulated on a principal genres: motets, Latin oratorios,
fine tribute to a worthy recipient. masses, airs and cantatas, and the instru-
NOELO'REGAN mental music. The final two chapters deal
with the last years of Charpentier's career
Universityof Edinburgh
as tutor to the Duc de Charters and maitre
de musique at Sainte-Chapelle. The fifteen
Marc-Antoine Charpentier. By Cathe-
chapters are framed by a brief preface and
rine Cessac. Translated by E. Thomas a postscript that continues the discussion
Glasow. Portland, Ore.: Amadeus on the rebirth of interest in Charpentier's
Press, 1995. [558 p. ISBN 0-931340- music and his importance.
80-2. $39.95.] Several valuable reference sources are
appended. The first appendix includes
Over the past half century Marc-Antoine the Latin text and English translation of the
Charpentier has steadily emerged from "Epitaphium Carpentarii (H. 474)," a fas-
his undeserved obscurity. Of the many tal- cinating musical epitaph in which Charpen-
ented composers to have a career sup- tier dramatized his posthumous return to
pressed by the power and intrigues of Jean- earth in the form of a ghost and speaks
Baptiste Lully, Charpentier may have been candidly of his career ("I was a musician,
the greatest. To his credit he managed to considered good by the good musicians,
work productively throughout his career and ignorant by the ignorant ones"). A sec-
despite the circumstances, working in the ond appendix contains the full English
services of the Dauphin, Mademoiselle de texts of Charpentier's theoretical writings.
Guise, Philippe d'Orleans, and the Jesuits. A full chronological table of his works fol-
He left us the largest corpus of French lows in tabular form, including title, scor-
Baroque sacred music of any of the late- ing, identification of genre and text, date,
seventeenth-century French masters. For- and location in Charpentier sources. A sec-
tunately, nearly all his music survives in ond table offers a classification of the works
well-preserved originals. While there is still by scoring, and a final listing presents a full
much to learn about this important figure, catalog of the works. The comprehensive
the English edition of Catherine Cessac's bibliography has been updated from the
Marc Antoine Charpentieroffers musicians French edition and includes entries as late
and scholars a major new comprehensive as 1995.
compendium of information relating to One of the great strengths of this book
Charpentier, his music, and his times. The is its compilation of the past half century
publication of an English translation of of research on Charpentier into one vol-
Cessac's book is most welcome and should ume. That achievement is complemented
do much to further the understanding and with new findings shedding meaningful
appreciation of this major seventeenth- light on the composer, his life, and his
century figure. times. Cessac has gleaned much from pri-
In addition to serving the English- mary sources, including the MercureGalant
reading audience, this book also provides and other printed sources, and from the
significant minor revisions to the 1985 archives, in which she clearly has spent
French edition. Important new findings are a considerable amount of time. Her own

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