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Music for Philip of Spain
Chapelle du Roi
Programme Notes Philip II of Spain died at first light on Sunday 13th September, 1598. The boys of the monastic seminary at San Lorenzo El Escorial were singing the dawn Mass. The King had been able to see the high altar of his basilica from his apartment. His months of agony ended as he had wished, fully conscious until the last moments and holding his father's crucifix. The Jeronymite monks began saying Masses without delay. The conventual High Mass of the Sunday was replaced by a Requiem. The next day, the royal court, the monastic community and the Archbishop of Toledo, with his retinue, gathered together and processed to the basilica. There they celebrated the Office and Mass of the Dead. They buried King Philip on Tuesday, 15th September. On the Wednesday, in Madrid, the monks of San Jerónimo performed memorial services, including Mass, and it is known that the singers of the capilla real were present, presumably to add polyphony to the Jeronymites' chanted liturgy. On Sunday 18th October, five weeks after Philip's death, the Mass of the day having been celebrated, all of the court and the senior clergy, the singers of the royal chapel and the community of monks were gathered at San Jerónimo at 2 pm to begin the Royal Exequies. A great catafalque had been built, housing a symbolic coffin. It was surrounded by unbleached wax candles - some two thousand five hundred of them were used up during Vespers and the night services of Matins and Lauds (sung, on this occasion, in the late evening). At six the next morning, all were reassembled for three solemn pontifical Masses: the Bishop of Gaudix celebrated a Mass de beata Virgine, in vestments of white; the Bishop of Ciudad Rodrigo then celebrated a Mass of the Holy Spirit, the vestments red. After a pause, all the notables assembled and the new King, Philip III, made his unseen entrance to his place, hidden from view, close to the catafalque. The Missa pro defunctis was then celebrated by the Archbishop of Toledo. The vestments were black with gold or silver embroidery, as ordained by Philip II himself. Another two thousand five hundred candles were lit before the Requiem Mass began. We have very little information about the polyphonic music. There are some clues in the proposed order of service which has survived (see Luis Robledo's article in Early Music, Vol XXII, no. 2, May 1994). 'El gradual y el thracto de Guerrero...' may well indicate that Francisco Guerrero's Gradual Requiem aeternam and his Tract Absolve me were performed; they are from his second Missa pro defunctis, published in 1582, which conformed to the Tridentine reforms of the new Roman Missal, issued by Pope Pius V in 1570. It is the entry in the proposed exequial programme that immediately precedes the reference to Guerrero's movements that is really intriguing. La misa de difunctos sera la de Çircundederunt a seis o la de Çerton a cinco... ' the Mass of the dead is to be that of Circumdederunt for six voices, or that of Certon for five...'. There does exist a Requiem Mass by Certon but it is for four voices. There is also another for four voices by Vivanco which includes a five-part Circumdederunt me, a motet inserted after the Benedictus and before the Agnus Dei (but only in an early seventeenth century manuscript at Guadalupe, not in another version surviving at Salamanca). Much more likely, but startling, is that a Requiem Mass exists exactly fitting the description. It is based throughout upon canons employing chant to the text: Circumdederunt me gemitus mortis, dolores inferni circumdederunt me. This is the Missa pro defunctis for six voices composed by Jean Richafort, published in 1532 in Attaignant's sixth collection of Masses; it also survives in three later manuscripts. A native of French-speaking Flanders, Richafort certainly knew Josquin. Richafort's Requiem may have been a memorial to the revered master. Not only does it use the 'Circumdederunt' canon from Josquin's Nimphes nappés (employed exactly in the Introit and Kyrie, in modified forms in the other movements) but it quotes brief but complete passages from the chanson. Richafort also introduces the phrase (text and melody) C'est douleur non pareille from Josquin's Faulte d'argente in the verse Virga tua of the Gradual Si ambulem; it is quoted again in the Quam olim sections of the Offertory. The Gradual of Richafort's Mass was obsolete after the new Roman Missal's acceptance by the Spanish dioceses in the early 1570s, and Richafort did not compose a Tract. If Richafort's Requiem was used at Philip II's Royal Exequies in 1598 then the proposed use of Guerrero's Gradual and Tract helps to confirm our supposition. This recording by Chapelle du Roi makes no attempt to present a liturgical reconstruction, nor does it lay claim to reproduce the music for Philip's memorial service at San Jerónimo. It presents music that was directed to Philip's own person during his life and especially upon his death. It also presents the Missa pro defunctis by Richafort in full, including the obsolete Gradual and the unrevised text (pre-1570) of the Offertory. This major work is interrupted by Guerrero's Gradual and Tract; listeners may exercise their CD track control as they wish - si placet - as early composers used to label their optional parts. Another insertion is made between the Sanctus and Benedictus, this time a motet. In the proposed order of service for Philip's Exequies an entry states that 'a motet shall be sung at the Elevation [of the Host]'. The Archbishop of Toledo, the celebrant, would have brought with him at least some of his cathedral singers and surely the maestro Alonso Lobo, incumbent at Toledo 1593-1604. Lobo later published his Liber primus missarum (Royal Press, 1602, Madrid) in which he added to six of his Masses a set of seven motets which he described as 'for devout singing at Solemn Mass'. One of these bears the superscription: Ad exequias Philip. II Cathol. Regis. Hisp. Nothing could be more suitable than this exquisite and heartfelt elegy. It is possible that it was sung at the service on 19th October 1598, and it is reasonably certain that Lobo would have performed it at the later memorial Exequies which were celebrated at Toledo, as they were in all other cathedrals throughout Spain and its empire. To conclude the recording, we have again taken a hint from the proposed service at San Jerónimo. El responso después de la misa ha de ser Liberame (sic)... 'the Respond after the Mass is to be Libera me, Domine...'. This refers to the most elaborate of the responsorial chants of the Office of the Dead. It was sung after the Ninth Lesson at the end of Matins and it also served for the Absolution by the catafalque after the Missa pro defunctis had ended. It is fortunate that we have been able to use polyphonic settings of this responsorium and its verses composed for five voices by Alonso Lobo. These sections survive in Toledo Cathedral, Libro de polifonía no. 24. We have put them together with chant of the period which is specifically of the Toledo Use (from a manuscript now in the Library of the Hispanic Society of America). At the beginning of this recording, Chapelle du Roi have prefaced the funerary music with a motet written to celebrate Philip's birth in 1527. Dicite in magni is a clumsy but fulsome poem in awkward Latin honouring the new male heir to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, known familiarly to Spaniards as Carlos Quinto, though he was actually Charles I of Castile and Aragon. The composer was Nicolas Gombert, reported in the service of Charles at Granada in 1526, a prolific and earnest composer of great renown in his day. Another composer who managed to combine amateur status with well-developed expertise in counterpoint was perhaps the most clearly sycophantic musical courtier of Philip II. Fernando de las Infantas was entitled to the distinction 'Don', a member of the minor aristocracy, born and educated in Córdoba. A skilled musician, he seems to have lived on his family inheritance until his later years, when he faded into obscurity as a humble parish priest in a poor district of Rome. Infantas published four collections of his music during 1578 and 1579. A few years earlier, he had presented two manuscript choirbooks to Philip II; they contained most, but not all, of his motets as later published, and a few that were not. One of the manuscripts (now Montserrat ms.774) contains Domine, ostende nobis patrem for six voices. It was added by a later scribe and subsequently printed in Liber III, 1579. It seems to be a mature work and one of Infantas' best. It shows off his skills using bold and wide-ranging melodic lines, lively rhythms and constantly changing juxtapositions of different vocal groups. An interesting feature of this motet is that, in its second half, the bass and soprano, the last two voices to enter, are in imitative canon, widely spaced: the soprano follows the bass an octave and a fourth higher. The written direction is Canon: quia ego in patre: et pater in me est... 'I am in the father and the father in me.' Elsewhere, the name of Philip is emphatically exclaimed by voice after voice, eight times, at the words Philippe qui videt me. We speculate that this motet may have been produced at the time of the birth in 1578 of a son and heir to Philip II, the child who became Philip III. Certainly this seems to be one of Infantas' numerous occasional pieces. He had written motets in memory of Charles V (d. 1558), for the lifting of the siege of Malta (1565), for the victory at Lepanto (1571), for Philip, for his Queen, Anne, and his family (around 1572-1575) and for the Jubilee year declared by Gregory XIII in 1575. The present 'Philip' motet may well date from 1578; this would explain its late addition to the choirbook that was originally in King Philip's library until its dispersal in the seventeenth century. The third of the pieces that serve as a prelude to the funerary music for Philip is the exceptional vernacular and secular chanson, Nimphes nappés, a lament for someone now unknown. This song of mourning and desolation by the great Josquin links us to Richafort's Requiem Mass. Embedded in the musical texture, surrounded by the French poem, two tenors sing in canon the Circumdederunt me text, to music that is plainchant derived, in imitation at the fifth above (in diapente). Richafort used this as a structure on which to build his Mass, changing it to fit the modes dictated by the plainchants of the ancient Mass for the Dead, even reversing the canon to become one of imitation at the fourth below (in subdiatessaron). Famous in its time and for a generation beyond, Nimphes nappés gave rise to contrafacta - the retexting of its music to sacred Latin words - and even to the spawning of works fraudulently passed off as Josquin's. Somehow, this brief and affecting lament spans the century through Richafort and his Requiem. It reminds us of the basic debt of all European polyphonic music to the Franco-Flemish masters. Philip II of Spain has found little favour in the histories taught in Northern Europe. Perhaps we may give him a nod of gratitude for the musical inheritance we now have from the Spain that was his. Bruno Turner, Almeria, 1998 [1] Gombert: Dicite in magni Dicite in magni dum spes altera mundi Laeta dies terris laeta utrique parenti, Proclaim to the world your arrival, Happy are these days for parents on earth, [2] Infantas: Domine ostende Domine ostende nobis patrem et sufficit nobis. Alleluia. Lord, show us the Father and it sufficeth us. Alleluia. [3] Josquin des Pres: Nimphes nappés Nimphes nappés, néridriades, driades, Draped nymphs, nereids and dryads, Requiem - cantus firmus Circumdederunt me gemitus mortis, dolores inferni circumdederunt me C'est douleur non pareille The sorrows of death and the pains of hell have compassed me round about. This is sorrow beyond compare [4] Introit Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis. Verse: Te decet hymnus Deus in Sion, et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem: exaudi orationem meam, ad te omnis caro veniet. O Lord, grant them eternal rest: and let perpetual light shine upon them. Verse: Thou, O Lord, art praised in Sion and unto Thee shall the vow be performed in Jerusalem: Hear my prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come. [5] Kyrie Kyrie eleison. Lord have mercy upon us. [6] Gradual Si ambulem in medio umbrae mortis, non timebo mala, quoniam tu mecum es, Domine, virga tua et baculus ipsa me consolata sunt. If I walk in the midst of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Lord. Thy rod and staff comfort me. [7] Gradual Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis. Verse: In memoria aeterna erit justus: ab auditione mala non timebit. O Lord, grant them eternal rest: and let light perpetual shine upon them. Verse: The just man will be remembered eternally: he will not fear a bad reputation. [8] Tract Absolve Domine animas omnium fidelium defunctorum ab omni vinculo delictorum. Verse: Et gratia tua illis succurrente, mereantur evadere judicium ultionis. Verse: Et lucis aeternae beatitudine perfrui. Absolve, O Lord, the souls of all the faithful departed from every bond of sin. Verse: And by the help of thy grace may they be worthy to escape the avenging judgement. Verse: And enjoy the bliss of everlasting light. [9] Offertory Domine Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae, libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum de manu inferni, et de profundo lacu libera eas de ore leonis ne absorbeat eas tartarus ne cadant in obscura tenebrarum loca: sed signifer sanctus Michael repraesentet eas in lucem sanctam, quam olim Abrahae promisisti et semini ejus Verse: Hostias et preces tibi Domine offerimus: tu suscipe pro animabus illis, quarum hodie memoriam agimus; fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam O Lord Jesus Christ, King of Glory, save the souls of all the faithful departed from the grip of Hell and from the depths of the pit: Save them from the mouth of the lion lest hell swallow them up and they fall into outer darkness: but let holy Michael, leader of the host of heaven, bring them to Thy holy light, as Thou didst promise of old to Abraham and his seed. Verse: To Thee, O Lord, we make our offerings of prayer and praise: accept them on behalf of those souls whom we remember today: grant O Lord that they may pass from death to eternal life [10] Sanctus Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua. Hosanna in excelsis. Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory. Hosanna in the highest. [11] Versa est in luctum Versa est in luctum cithara mea, et organum in vocem flentium. Parce mihi Domine nihil enim sunt dies mei. My harp is turned to mourning and my music into the voice of those that weep. Spare me, O Lord, for my days are as nothing. [12] Benedictus Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Hosanna in excelsis. Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest [13] Agnus Dei Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: dona eis requiem. Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world: give them rest. [14] Communion Lux eterna luceat eis, Domine: Cum sanctis tuis in aeternum, quia pius es. Verse. Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis. Cum sanctis tuis in aeternum, quia pius es Let light perpetual shine upon them, O Lord: with Thy saints for eternity, for Thou art holy. Verse. Grant them eternal rest, O Lord: and let light perpetual shine upon them: with Thy saints for eternity, for Thou art holy. [15] Dismissal Requiescat in pace. Amen May he rest in peace. Amen. [16] Libera me Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna, in die illa tremenda, quando caeli movendi sunt et terra. Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem. Tremens factus sum ego et timeo, dum discussio venerit atque ventura ira. Quando caeli movendi sunt et terra. Dies illa, dies irae, calamitatis et miseriae, dies magna et amara valde. Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem. Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna, in die illa tremenda; quando caeli movendi sunt et terra. Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem. Kyrie eleison. Deliver me out of everlasting death, O Lord, upon that day of terror, when the earth and the heavens shall be shaken. When Thou shalt come and the whole world know the fire of judgement. Trembling, frightened and full of despair am I, full of terror and great fear, till the trial shall be at hand, and the wrath to come. When the earth and the heavens shall be shaken. Day of terror, day of anger, disaster and of misery, day most fearful, hopeless and exceeding bitter. When Thou shalt come and the whole world know the fire of judgement. Grant them rest and peace eternal, and light for evermore shine down upon them, Lord our God. Deliver me out of everlasting death, O Lord, upon that day of terror, when the earth and the heavens shall be shaken. When Thou shalt come and the whole world know the fire of judgement. Lord have mercy upon me. |
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