Program Notes

Pierre de la Rue was born circa 1460, probably in Tournai in the 
French-speaking part of present-day Belgium.  He died some sixty
years later not eighteen miles to the north in Courtrai. Between
these provincial residences, however, he traveled widely as a singer
in the service of Hapsburg princes: to Tuscany, Holland, Spain, 
Burgundy, and perhaps Hungary.  His work as a composer is believed
to have taken place only in the last two decades of his life, and 
despite its rather modest quantity is worthy to place him alongside 
his most prolific contemporaries on the basis of quality.

The four-part setting of Psalm 146, _Lauda anima mea_, is a fine
example of his musical personality.  It is built principally around
a "psalm tone" or "reciting note" upon which the psalm is chanted,
with brief punctuational excursions to neighboring notes.  It is 
presented here phrase by phrase in the tenor line at the beginning
and from time to time elsewhere throughout the piece.  Around this
mostly static structural girder a varied texture is erected: alter-
nating passages of block chords, free polyphony, and imitative, 
virtually canonic polyphony in the duets in the second half.  His 
virtuosity as a writer of strict canon is less on display here than
in other works, but present and peculiar to his style are the passages 
for two voices alone, and the sober, pensive tone of the music. 
Even in this work of praise and rejoicing, the Aeolian mode (our 
modern natural minor mode), with frequent movement to its dominant,
which invokes the darkly minor Phrygian, dominates the tone of the 
piece until the more exultant final passage in triple meter.


Josquin Desprez was born about twenty years earlier than La Rue and
probably fifteen miles to the southwest, in the town of Conde sur
l'Escant in French Flanders.  He died there approximately eighty years
later in 1521.  (This year is the 475th anniversary of his death.)
Josquin was widely celebrated as the grandest composer of his age, a
position which he was to occupy for at least a half century after his
death, and which he retains today.

Though first printed in 1502, his _Missa Fortuna Desperata_ is judged
by scholars to be a mature work of his early, or possibly early-middle
period--a decade or so after 1485, when Josquin was in the service of
Cardinal Asconio Sforza in the papal choir in Rome.  A work for four
voices, the mass is based on a three voice chanson of that title, with
an Italian text, formerly attributed to Josquin's elder contemporary,
Antoine Busnois, but now generally considered anonymous.  This work 
belongs fundamentally in the category of the "cantus firmus mass", in
which a melody derived from a preexisting source is presented in longer
notes during much or all of the piece, and is surrounded by generally
faster-moving, more freely derived music.  However, in this instance
Josquin exploits not only the middle, or tenor part of the chanson, where
the principal melody lies, but in turn both of the outer voices, treating
each also as a _cantus firmus_.  In addition, Josquin paraphrases the opening
of the chanson as a kind of "head motive" at the beginning of each of
the major movements of the mass, except for the _Agnus Dei_.  In so doing,
he provides an early example of the so-called "parody" or imitation mass
in which an entire composition is consumed and digested in order to 
nourish a much larger musical organism.  Josquin, however, does not
lightly imbibe his model, but by detailing its beauties so painstakingly,
elevates, glorifies, and sanctifies it.

The _Kyrie_ begines with a paraphrase of the opening phrases of the chanson;
soon the tenor enters with the melody of the chanson, augmented and adapted
only to fit into the varying meters of its three subdivisions.  In the 
_Gloria_ we again hear the chanson tune in the tenor part: the first time
in slow triple meter, the second in slow duple, the last time in the 
original note-values of the chanson, but still slower than the surrounding 
parts.  This imparts to the entire movement a subtle acceleration building 
to a climactic final "Amen".  Josquin derives his many new melodic ideas for 
the three accompanying lines from details of all three voices of the chanson.


- Intermission -


We know of two settings by Josquin of the marian antiphon, _Salve Regina_:
a later one in five voices, and another earlier one for four voices, which
we perform.  This is an oddly trim and concise little piece.  It gives play
to two of his hallmark attributes: duet writing, and writing in canon.  Only
two parts are given in the original edition, and from this duet, through
canonic elaboration, four are created.  The composer demonstrates his mastery
by assuming an additional challenge: the two leading parts are separated by
only a few quick beats, and their canonic answers enter but a single beat
after each begins.  This rigid scheme prevails throughout the piece, imposing
a severe restriction upon the composer's freedom of movement.  And yet the
music generated seems quite natural and affords very little sense of lockstep
mimicry; the work has a candid and rather "objective" character that surprises
and refreshes the ear.


The _Credo_ of the mass opens with a brief allusion to the initial phrase of 
the chanson.  Again in this movement there is a threefold reiteration of a
_cantus firmus_, but this time it is the highest part of the original chanson
to be treated in this way.  Sung also by the highest voice, and a beautiful 
melody in its own right, it floats over the busy counterpoint of the lower
parts.  As there was in the _Gloria_, there is a quickening from each reiteration
to the next, moving toward a string conclusion.

In the _Sanctus_ it is the turn of the chanson bass line to be honored.  Transposed
up a fifth and sung by the alto voice, it is presented in long notes in the 
opening section, and in the original note values in the _Osanna_; thus wrought,
it is scarcely recognizable.  The two trios in the movement at _Pleni sunt coeli_
and _Benedictus_ are spun partly of material distantly related to the chanson
melodies, and partly of freely-devised ideas.  The composer's focus on the 
chanson is dilating, becoming less perceptible and more abstract.

In the _Agnus Dei_, this trend toward a virtual transcendence of the chanson
is brought to a culmination.  In the first section, the bass part sings, in
greatly augmented note values, the three opening phrases of the chanson
_superius_, transposed down a twelfth, read backwards and inverted.  Over these
long pedal-like drones the upper three parts sing in imitative counterpoint
a melodic fragment, first _recto_, then in inversion, that recalls the twice-
falling fourth in the initial phrase of the chanson bass part.  This brings
us into an exotic realm of sound, where the moving parts weave in a kind of
dreamy meditation over the static notes below.  Some have heard in this music
a presentiment of modern minimalist composers like Philip Glass; to this writer
it evokes the 12th-century _clausulae_ of Perotin instead--music almost 
certainly unknown to Josquin.

In the concluding _Agnus Dei_ the chanson tenor returns, stated serenely as if
in summation in the bass, while the upper voices resume briefly their 
accompaniment of the former section, before turning with a greater focus of
energy to the supplication _dona nobis pacem_ ("grant us peace") in the final
moments.


The Germanization of Heinrich Isaac's first name has achieved a general 
acceptance in our time by virtue of his importance in the development of 
music and musicians in German-speaking lands, but the evidence of his final
will suggests that he was a Fleming.  Born about ten years later than Josquin,
he served Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence before entering the service of
Maximilian I in Vienna in 1497.

The body of Isaac's oeuvre that has come down to us is the largest and most
diverse of any composer before Lassus, and inevitably a comparison and 
rivalry with Josquin are posited.  Indeed, in a letter written in 1502, 
Isaac's merits are recommended to Ercole, Duke of Ferrara, in these terms:
"To me he seems very well-suited to serve your Lordship, much more so than
Josquin, because he is of a better nature among his companions and will
compose new works more often.  It is true that Josquin composes better,
but he composes only when he wants to, and not when one wants him to, and
he asks 200 ducats in salary, while Isaac will come for 120..."  Nonetheless,
after a delay of some months Ercole chose Josquin!  Isaac was such a 
very different musical personality, however, that such comparisons are
as between apples and oranges.

The large-scale six-voice motet, _Virgo Prudentissima_, was written for a
high state occasion, and is one of Isaac's best-known and esteemed works.
Maximilian's rule was fraught with challenges to his crown and to the 
integrity of his loosely-amalgamated Empire, but in 1508 he was able to
secure the title of Roman Emperor Elect, barred though he was from actually
travelling to Rome in order to be properly crowned by the Pope.  It is
believed that this work was commissioned for performance on that occasion.
A glance at the text of the second section confirms this political and
occasional specificity, and the amusing "plug" for the Capellmeister,
Georgius, provides an unusual personal note.

Like all of the other music on this program this composition is based on
and centered around a preexisting melody, a plainchant hymn sung as a
_cantus firmus_ by the higher of the two tenor parts; the brilliant 
opening treble duets in each section derive their opening phrases from
this melody.  Like the other duets that make up the balance of the first
32 measures, and recur episodically throughout the piece, they are in florid,
almost "coloratura" counterpoint, and have a basically canonic character.
Those passages a 2 lead to and from powerful sections for full choir in
which widely-spaced harmonies convey a sense of imperial majesty and
omnipotence--a glorification the ruler truly seemed to need.


Joel van Lennep