6/10 – Adieu ces bons vins: French Composers in Renaissance Italy

The following program notes are adapted from extensive ones written by today’s conductor, Matthew Hall.

Unlike most of the kingdoms of Europe which had been united under the rule of single monarchs in the late Middle Ages, Renaissance Italy was fragmented into over a dozen independent city-states. The competition for power and prestige among the rulers of these states provided a fruitful milieu for the patronage of the arts: would-be beneficiaries flocked to Italy from the North.

The Chamber Singers present a concert of music written by Frankish composers at or for the courts and chapels of Italy, especially those of the Duchy of Ferrara, and celebrate the lasting influence of the French culture on Italian music.

The name of this evening’s concert is taken from Guillaume Du Fay’s chanson Adieu ces bons vins de Lannoys. The piece is dated accurately to 1426, when Du Fay was in the Laon Cathedral choir (Lannoys is a hamlet outside Laon). The records of Bologna Cathedral Chapter indicate that Du Fay was ordained a deacon in 1427 and then a priest in 1428 in that city, and he was recruited into the service of Bologna’s highest clergyman at the time. It seems reasonable to suppose therefore that the piece was written on the occasion of Du Fay’s departure from France to Italy. The text wishes farewell to things even today we recognize as characteristically (perhaps stereotypically) French: wine and women.

Jehan Lhéritier came from Northern France. He was a pupil of Josquin Desprez, likely while Josquin was in the retinue of the French king in the first decades of the 16^th century. In 1506, Lhéritier went to Ferrara to be in the service of the Este household there. His output consists mostly of sacred motets, of which Nigra sum sed Formosa is a characteristic example. Stylistically, it is transitional between the styles of Josquin and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525?-1594), and if it points toward Palestrina, it has the marks of the more earthy, rugged Northern style in its wandering, noodling treatment of melody, a willingness to trail off in mid-phrase, and the allowance of cross-relations.

Jean Richafort was another student of Josquin and a choirmate of Lhéritier at the royal French court. Christus resurgens is one of his best pieces, pleasant and well put-together, if harmonically uninventive. Its primary appeal is in the ingenious way in which voices are woven together in close imitation and the exuberant, joyful quality produced by the frequent voice crossings, an artifact of the scoring for two pairs of equal voices. Where Lhéritier excelled in melody and harmony, it is fair to say Richafort held his own in texture and “orchestration.”

After serving in Bologna, Du Fay joined the papal household in Rome in 1428, serving Martin V and then Eugene IV. He left the papal chapel in 1434, but was again in the service of Pope Eugene in Florence in 1435 when the pope was in exile there (having been driven from Rome by an insurrection sympathetic to the Council of Basal). Nuper rosarum flores is a motet composed for the dedication of the Duomo in Florence in 1436. Some arguments have been made that the two different rhythmic elements employed in the piece mimic the architectural proportions of the Duomo (most scholars are skeptical).

Scaramella represents the pop music of Renaissance Italy. It is characterized by its raucous (to Italian Renaissance sensibilities) nonsense text. Tonight we have two settings of the song in sequence. The first, by Josquin Desprez, sets the song in canon, the entrances happening in increasingly quick succession, creating the effect of a rollicking chanson we may think of as the drinking song of the time. Compère’s setting is more complex. It begins as if it were a motet, with three voices entering in graceful imitation. The tenor then enters where expected, but in comically large augmentation, and he continues seemingly irreconcilably out of phase with the others. It seems as if the music is written in triple time, but in fact, all the voices are in duple time until the piece concludes with a homophonic section actually in triple time, and the sudden ratcheting of all voices into phase exposes the trick Compère has been playing all along.

Founded in 1993, the Chamber Singers are the subset ensemble of the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum, Harvard’s select mixed choir. The student-conducted group focuses primarily on unaccompanied repertoire, performing sacred and secular classics from all musical eras, but particularly the early Renaissance. Throughout the year, they perform in Boston and Cambridge, but they also tour in the United States and abroad.

Conductor Matthew Hall, a junior at Harvard, studies music and linguistics. In addition to serving as director of the Chamber Singers, he is the founder and director of the Harvard Bach Camerata, a baroque chamber ensemble, and music director of the Harvard Early Music Society, Harvard’s early opera company.

The Chamber Singers will be presenting several more Chicago-area concerts:

Wednesday, June 11th, 7:30 pm
“Across the Channel: Music by English and French Renaissance Masters”
Winnetka Congregational Church, 725 Pine Street,Winnetka, IL 60093

Thursday, June 12th, 6 p.m
“Music of the Renaissance: Josquin, Du Fay, Byrd, Tallis, and Others”.
University Club of Chicago
76 East Monroe Street, Chicago, IL 60603

Sunday, June 15th, 10 am
Church Service
St. Chrysostom’s Episcopal Church,1424 North Dearborn St.,Chicago, IL 60610

Sunday, June 15th, 3 pm
“Renaissance Favorites: The French and English Schools”
Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 1218 West Addison Street, Chicago, IL 60613