Happy Birthday, Cipriano de Rore! (b Ronse [Renaix], c1515 – d Parma, September 1565) Program & Notes
“…straining every fiber of his genius, he [Cipriano de Rore] devoted himself to making the verse and the sound of the words intelligible in his madrigals…this great man told me himself, in Venice, that this was the true manner of composing and a different one…” Giovanni Bardi, Florence, c1568 (literary critic, poet, playwright & composer) “Second practice…was originated by Cipriano de Rore…Thus it is my brother’s [Claudio Monteverdi] aim to follow the principles taught by Plato and practiced by the divine Cipriano and those who have followed him…” Giulio Cesare Monteverdi, Declaration (1607)
Introduction
Celebrating birthdays is always a joyous, memorable affair, and when the birthday in question is the 500th of one of Italy’s most famous and consequential renaissance composers, namely the justly renowned Cipriano de Rore, the party should be grand indeed! Posthumous accolades continued the reputation that this innovative composer garnered from his contemporaries while living and writing, though music history hasn’t always given him his due. A luminary who set the world of composition on a new path, Cipriano pointed others, such as the well known Claudio Monteverdi, the way to aligning text and music so that, as Giulio Monteverdi aptly summed up this new wave, “the words are the mistress (the boss) of harmony”. The madrigal was the principle vehicle for this altered perspective, yet no text-‐bearing genre of composition escaped his reinvention. A pivotal moment and a pivotal composer – good cause to celebrate an achievement and commemorate a life in words and music! De Rore’s origins and the details of his early life are basically lost in obscurity, but the place of birth has been firmly established as the small town of Ronse (Renaix) in Flanders just west of Brussels. The exact date remains uncertain, however, calculations from established references place it fairly confidently sometime in the year 1515. In fact, little at all is really known of this remarkable composer before his confirmed employment in the fabled Italian town of Ferrara. So, May seems as fitting a month as any in this year in which to pay homage to and commemorate the a emergence into a world of this great composer. Payment records give evidence of his first full employment, placing him in Italy at the court of Duke Ercole II d’Este as early as 1546. Prior to that, scattered references find him in Venice, perhaps as early as 1542, where he had contact with the great
Adrian Willaert, a mentor if not directly a teacher, and in the town of Brescia, where he was likely living and composing, yet without a substantial musical post to his name. While in Brescia, nevertheless, he was clearly accruing a solid reputation for his works throughout the courtly and aristocratic circles of central and northern Italy. Thus, by 1546 he emerged with the prestigious position of maestro di capella in Ercole II’s court, one of the leading musical and artistic centers in Italy. Here is a composer who emerged fully formed out of relative obscurity to land one of the most coveted musical positions in Italy at the time. And yet, the factual details of Rore’s life seem less consequential than his influence on composition as a whole and on many notable composers, mostly of Italian origin, of his own time and beyond. He has been credited with virtually creating a style of composition that was based on the clear presentation and emotional expression of the words, what became known as the “second practice”. Soon after Rore’s death the madrigalist Marc’Antonio Mazzone summed up this new way of composing with the following words from the preface to his 1569 First Book of Madrigals: The notes are the body of music, while the text is the soul and, just as the soul, being nobler than the body, must be followed and imitated by it, so the notes must follow the text and imitate it, and the composer must pay due attention to it, expressing its sense with sad, gay, or austere music, as the text demands, and he must even sometimes disregard the rules. Even the great theorist Gioseffi Zarlino, who codified in the mid 16th century the rules of counterpoint for the “first practice” in his L’Istitutioni harmoniche (Venice, 1558), admitted that “Plato places the words before [harmony and rhythm] as the principal thing, and considers the other two components to be subservient to [them]…He says that rhythm and harmony should follow the words.” Finally, the famous preface to Claudio Monteverdi’s Scherzi musicali (1607) regards Rore, retrospectively, as the “primo rinovatore” of the “seconda prattica”, the style to whose development many of Rore’s pupils subsequently contributed, including Luzzasco Luzzaschi, who is represented on this program as the next generation to promulgate this new compositional vision.
The Program Anchor che col partire (1547) (4-‐pt. madrigal)
Anchor che col partire (diminutions by Giovanni Bovicelli, 1594)
Musica, dulci sono (1565) Madonn’ hormai (1564)
O sonno (1557) Pavana e Gagliarda Ferrareze (anonymous, pub. mid 16th c.) (singers, recorders, shawms, sackbuts, dulcian, harp, lute, percussion)
Fittingly, the program begins with arguably Rore’s most famous composition, the madrigal Anchor che col partire, on a text traditionally ascribed to Alfonso d’Avalos. It resides firmly in the madrigalian tradition of viewing death as a type of sexual release. This 4-‐part work achieved enormous popularity throughout Europe and earned Cipriano extensive recognition early on in his career. As clear evidence of its renown, the work was given substantive treatment by the ornamentation master, Giovanni Battista Bovicelli, in his Regole, passaggi di musica, madrigali, e motetti passeggiati, whose highly decorative version of the madrigal emphasized the virtuosic techniques of ornamental instrumental display, so popular in north Italian courts, and especially in Ferrara. The remaining three madrigals in this set span the composer’s full creative life and give further evidence of his emphasis on textual expression in command of notes. The two dances that end the set pay homage to the city that played a pivotal role in de Rore’s life and works, and on the whole of the musical world of Italy throughout the 16th and into the 17th centuries.
Sine Nomine, 1. Tono per b-‐molle Quando Signor – Ma poi che vostr’altezza (1557) Calami sonum ferentes (1555) Vogi’l tuo corso (1557) (singers, shawms, sackbuts, dulcians)
In May of 1552, Prince Alfonso, son of Duke Ercole II of Ferrara, lusting after martial fame, left the city with 15 servants under the pretense of a hunting expedition to fight with the French against the Holy Roman Emporer and the House of Hapsburg. In doing so, he was violating his father’s strict orders and his firm policy of loyalty to the Emporer. Things didn’t go as Alfonso had planned, so in 1554 the prodigal pleaded for his father’s forgiveness, was granted it and thus returned to Ferrara with his retinue to a ceremonial reception. This unauthorized departure and eventual return were treated by Rore in at least three madrigals, two of them, the Quando Signor/Ma poi and the Vogi’l tuo corso, based on sonnets full of allusions to the “exile” and homecoming of the reconciled heir apparent to his father’s court. The third, the Calami sonum ferentes, is unusual in that its Latin text had it published first as a motet, though it appeared as a madrigal in later sources. Its text is erudite, drawing on a poem by the Roman poet Catullus to make veiled allusion to the collective sadness over the prince’s absence. The work has long been singled out by scholars for its daring chromatic experiments. It evidently relates and alludes to Alfonso’s acquired love of
chromaticism in composition, a passion among the Ferrarese educated elite in the mid 16th century, and a mark of Rore’s ability to use dissonance freely in the service of textual expression.
Pass’e mezzo ditto il Romano Moscetta La Bandera (recorders, lute, harp)
The sumptuous entrees that are Rore’s polyphonic madrigals are a rich feast indeed, and like any well planned occasion equally delectable palate cleansers refresh the appropriate sense for more tasty morsels to come. Such is the purpose of these three dances, drawn from a collection by Francesco Bendusi and published by Antonio Gardane in Venice in 1553. This collection occupies an important place in the history of instrumental music in Italy in the 16th century, being not only the first but also one of the few Italian publications of ensemble dance music in the 16th c. Curiously, the La Bandera alternates bars of two beats with bars of three suggesting the dance was set to a specific choreography.
Descendi in hortum meum (1559) O crux benedicta (1563) Missa Praeter rerum seriem: Kyrie (1557) (singers, shawms, sackbuts, dulcian, recorders)
Rore’s fame rests so securely on his Italian madrigals that his sacred music is often overlooked. It is in these works, however, that he displayed the origins of his style and technique. His relationship to musicians of the previous generation is shown particularly in his masses. We have Duke Albrecht of Bavaria in the Munich court to thank for a sumptuously ornate manuscript containing many of the surviving sacred works of Rore. Completed in 1559 with profuse illuminations by the painter, Hans Mielich, the volume contains 26 of the composer’s motets. The impressive Descendi in hortum meum opens the volume, a 7-‐voice composition with the cantus firmus set in a triple canon, both features rare in Rore’s output. O Crux benedicta, a more restrained 4-‐ voice work, nevertheless manifests the composer’s complete mastery of the tradition inherited from the likes of Josquin Despres, Nicolas Gombert and Clemens non Papa, yet bristles with idiosyncratic elements, both in tone color and rhythm that make this work uniquely his own. In a letter to Duke Hercole II of Ferrara of April 25, 1557, Duke Albrecht heaped praise on Rore’s Missa Praeter rerum seriem. Based on a well-‐known motet of the same title by Josquin Despres, this mass was performed on February 25, 1568, at the
wedding festivities of Prince Wilhelm of Munich and Renata of Lorraine. Also a 7-‐ voice work with a triple canon, as the opening Descendi, this mass connects Rore directly with his lineage and gives evidence of the esteem with which Josquin’s works were still held in Rore’s day. Our combined vocal and instrumental treatment of the Kyrie of this mass seeks to suggest the type of rendering of the work that might have been heard at the festive occasion of that celebrated Munich marriage of 1568.
INTERMISSION Rejouysons nous (1545) Susann’un jour (1570) (5-‐pt madrigal)
Susann’un jour (divisions by Giovanni Bassano, 1591)
Fantasia on Susann’un jour (arr. J. Kimball) (singers, recorders, lute, harp, bagpipes)
Rore wrote only a few French-‐texted chansons, preferring the Italian-‐based madrigal as the principle vehicle for his innovative style. Even so, a look at his genius begs a brief sojourn in this French territory. Beginning with a very early example, published before he began his stint in Ferrara, the set moves on to his 5-‐ voice setting of a well-‐known chanson by Orlando di Lasso, the Susann’un jour. Once again, as in the Anchor che col partire that opened this concert, Rore’s setting was given ornamental treatment later in the century by Giovanni Bassano in his Motteti, madrigali et canzone francesi di diversi eccellenti autori (1591), one of several such settings of the work. In similar fashion, we have created our own setting, a flight of fancy given over to the Piffaro bagpipers, again reflecting the customary renaissance practice of borrowing and embellishing a good tune.
Sine Nomine, 2.Tono Datemi pace (1557) Vieni, dolce Himineo (1570) Da pacem Domine (singers, shawm, sackbuts, dulcians)
Following an untexted instrumental piece, attributed to Rore though with some hesitation, the 4-‐voice madrigal Datemi pace, from the composer’s middle period is a setting of a sonnet by Petrarch. The work shows Rore at the height of his experimental period, attempting to reflect the text with free chromaticism, a homorhythmic structure that makes the words more discernible than in a polyphonic, imitative texture, as well as attention to aligning vocal accent to the meter and note values, either with or against the beat.
The 5-‐voice madrigal Vieni, dolce Himineo was written on the occasion of one of the most brilliant marriages of the era, that of Prince Alessandro Farnese and the Princess Maria of Portugal, a union agreed upon at the end of 1564 between the courts of Parma, Madrid and Lisbon. The wedding took place in Brussels on November 11, 1565, the year of Rore’s death. It is generally assumed that he died sometime before October of that year, so that this work, if not his “opus ultimum”, is surely one of the last works he can have completed. We leave this survey of the works of Cipriano de Rore with another of his later works, a 5-‐voice, Latin-‐texted motet on the Introit assigned to begin mass on the 18th Sunday after Pentecost in the Roman calendar. The text reads, “Give peace, Lord, to those who uphold you, …” and has emerged as a general call for peace in our time. Published in the same Munich manuscript compiled in 1559 that contained the Descendi in hortum meum above, it is played here instrumentally. The work is an amalgham of “prima prattica” and “seconda prattica” styles, further evidence of Rore’s compositional genius. Tending toward a minor tonality throughout, it nevertheless comes to a close with a sonorous, resounding and hopeful D major chord. From de Rore’s student, Luzzasco Luzzaschi (c.1545 – 1607)
Aura Soave Dolorosi martir
(singers, sackbuts, dulcians, lute, harp)
Perhaps the most successful student of Rore and a Ferrara native, who was born and died there – though there is evidence of travels to Rome – Luzzasco Luzzaschi held the position of principal organist at the ducal court. The composer’s reputation lies largely through his association with the famous Concerto delle donne, a private female vocal ensemble founded by Duke Alfonso II, the once prodigal prince. In addition to his duties as court organist, as director for the ensemble he composed expert madrigals that required virtuosic vocal skill and advanced musicianship. Expressing a highly ornamented soprano line, his famous publication, Madrigali...per cantare, et sonare, a uno, e doi, e tre soprani of 1601 contained repertory performed by this expert troupe. The Aura Soave is drawn from this collection. The Dolorosi martir has achieved wide fame for its masterful application and expansion on the madrigalian techniques advanced by his famed teacher. Text and music are inextricably intertwined with the former clearly the “mistress” of the latter.
La paduana del re Pavana el todescho Chi non ha Martello Saltarello Giorgio
(shawms, sackbuts, dulcians, percussion)
A sumptuous feast indeed, one worth celebrating with a few more dances to bring us back from the dark world of Dolorosi martir and send us all into the evening, uplifted by the artistry of Rore and his student. Three of the above dances survive in an anonymous manuscript now housed in a library in Munich, Germany, that give further evidence of Italian ensemble dance music from the period of Rore’s life and work. The Chi non ha Martello is drawn from the same edition published by Bendusi mentioned above. Epilogue Perhaps we can best sum up the significance of the innovative works and justly-‐ deserved reputation of Cipriano de Rore with the eloquent words of musicologist Bernard Meier, who devoted much of his career to the publication of the composer’s extensive works: “The more we absorb ourselves in the details of his musical speech, the more clearly Rore’s importance emerges….we recognize in Rore no mere pioneer and in his art not merely the first, as yet uncertain stirring of the spirit of “modern” music. We recognize rather in Rore’s works...an achievement outstanding in its time and complete in itself; and a music just as capable of eloquent expression as the fine arts and poetry of the Late Renaissance were in their own way.” What else need we say but….
Happy Birthday, Cipriano de Rore!