UNO GENTILE ET SUBTILE INGENIO Studies in Renaissance

UNO GENTILE
ET
SUBTILE INGENIO
Studies in
Renaissance Music
in Honour of
Bonnie J. Blackburn
Edited by
M. Jennifer Bloxam, Gioia Filocamo, and Leofranc Holford-Strevens
Photograph by David Fisher
Centre d'8tudes Superieures de la Renaissance
Collection Bpitome musical
))
BREPOLS
Contents
Tabula qratulatoria
Margaret BENT,Jaap van BENTHEM,Anna Maria B u s s ~BERGER,Jane A. BERNSTEIN,
Lawrence F. BERNSTEIN,
Donna G. CARDAMONE,
Tim CARTER,Camilla CAVICCHI,AnneEmmanuelle CEULEMANS,Annie C~URDEVEY,
Marie-Alexis COLIN, Anthony
Jeffrey J. DEAN,Christina
M. CUMMINGS,
Frank A. D'ACCONE,Gianluca D'AGOSTINO,
DIEGO-PACHECO,
Frank DOBBINS,Warren DRAKE,Willem ELDERS,Cathy Ann ELIAS,
Sean
David FALLOWS,
David FIALA,Gioia FILOCAMO,
Fabrice FITCH,Richard FREEDMAN,
GALLAGHER,
Rebecca L. GERBER,John GRIFFITHS,James HAAR,Barbara HAGGH,Paula
Edward F. HOUGHTON,Eric JAS, Herbert
HIGGINS,Leofranc HOLFORD-STREVENS,
Tess KNIGHTON,
Ole KONGSTED,
Kenneth KREITNER,Elizabeth Eva LEACH,
KELLMAN,
Agnieszka LESZCZYNSKA,
Mary S. LEWIS,Lewis LOCKWOOD,
Christian Thomas LEITMEIR,
Birgit LODES,Patrick MACEY,Agostino MAGRO,Melanie L. MARSHALL,
Honey MECONI,
John MILSOM,Vladimir MOLL&Arnaldo MORELLI,Bernadette NELSON,Michael NOONE,
Jessie Ann OWENS,Alejandro Enrique PLANCHART,
Klaus PIETSCHMANN,
Keith POLK,
Massimo PRIVITERA,William F. PRIZER,Richard RASTALL,Owen REES,Stephen RICE,
Saskia C. M. M. ROLSMA,
Katelijne SCHILTZ,
Thomas
Joshua RIPKIN,Vironique ROELVINK,
SCHMIDT-BESTE,
Richard SHERR,Martin STAEHELIN,
Laurie STRAS,Reinhard STROHM,
Alice TACAILLE,
Jennifer THOMAS,Philippe VENDRIX,Rob C. WEGMAN,Blake WILSON,
Vasco ZARA.
Peter WRIGHT,Giovanni ZANOVELLO,
Figures
+ xv
Editions of Complete Pieces
Inventories
+ xviii
Tables
+ xix
Abbreviations
+ xxii
Contributors
+ xxvii
\l
),.,Margaret
BENT
Naming of Parts: Notes on the Contratenor, c.1350-1450
I
)(~nna Maria Bussn BERGER
The Problem of Diminished Counterpoint
+
Fabrice FITCH
Towards a Taxonomy of the 'Eton Style'
+
I
13
Tim CARTER
'Improvised' Counterpoint in Monteverdi's 1610Vespers
\'L%.,
Universitat Bern, Institut fiir Musikwissenschaft;
M.I.T. Libraries-monogr.Acq., Massachussetts Inst. Technology;
Universith degli studi di Pavia, Facolti di Musicologia, Cremona;
Muziekinstrumentenrnuseurn, Brussel;
Musikwissenschaftliches Institut, Basel;
Centre dlCtudes supkrieures de la Renaissance, Tours.
+ xvii
+ 29
+ 37
Jessie Ann OWENS
'el foglio rigato' Revisited: Prepared Paper in Musical Composition
+ 53
Stephen RICE
Aspects of Counterpoint Theory in the Tractado de canto mensurable (1535)
of Matheo de Aranda
+ 63
Barbara HAGGH
The Beguines of Bruges and the Procession of the Holy Blood
Alejandro Enrique PLANCHART
The Polyphonic Proses of Guillaume Du Fay
+
87
Frank A. D'ACCONE
Francesco Corteccia's Hymn for St. John's Day
in the Florentine Liturgy, c.1544-1737
+ IOI
Thomas SCHMIDT-BESTE
The Repertoire of the Papal Chapel after the Council of Trent:
+ 109
Tradition, Innovation, or Decline?
+ 75
Laurie STRAS
Imitation, Meditation, and,Penance:
Don Lodovico Agostini's Le Idgrime delpeccatore (1586)
+
Warren DRAKE
A Postscript to Petrucci's Motetti B:
A Closer Look at the 'Secret Manuscript' in the Paris Copy
121
Giovanni ZANOVELLO
((Inoratorio nemo aliquid agat)):Savonarola, 10 spazio sacro e la musica
+ 129
Arnaldo MORELLI
((Gallicantant)).Maestri di cappella francesi in uno
+
sconosciuto manoscritto di met&Cinquecento
Tess KNIGHTON
Marian Devotions in Early Sixteenth-Century Spain:
The Case of the Bishop of Palencia, Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca (1451-1524)
Kenneth KREITNER
The Ceremonial Soft Band of Fifteenth-Century Barcelona
137
+ 147
Alice TACAILLE
Notes sur la copie des messes de Josquin des PrCs dans un
+ 335
manuscrit italien de la fin du XVI' sikcle
Paula HIGGINS
Speaking of the Devil and Discipzdi:
Eloy d'Amerva1, Saint-Martin of Tours, and Music in the Loire Valley, c.1465-1505
Lewis LOCICWOOD
'It's true that Josquin composes better ...':
The Short Unhappy Life of Gian de Artiganova
CF
+ 169
Cathy Ann ELIAS
A New Look at Cantus Firmus Process in Crecquillon's
M& Kain Adler in der Welt so schon
+ 351
+ 183
+
+ 309
Richard SHERR
Thoughts on Some of the Masses in Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,
MS Cappella Sistina 14 and its Concordant Sources (or, Things Bonnie Von't Let
* 319
Me Publish)
Michael NOONE
An Early Seventeenth-Century Source for Performing Practices
+ 155
at Toledo Cathedral
Herbert KELLMAN
Dad and Granddad Were Cops: Josquin's Ancestry
295
Joshua RIPICIN
A Scriptor, a Singer, and a Mother Superior:
Another Story about MS DCCLXI of the Biblioteca Capitolare in Verona
i
+
+ 283
Rebecca L. GERBER
A Fifteenth-Century Pellegrind and Standley's 'Harmony of the Spheres' Mass
201
Y
+ 359
Bernadette NELSON
Patterns of Emulation and Influence in the Fors seulement Polyphonic Mass Tradition:
+ 369
New Insight Revealed through Music in Toledo
W-VkroniqueROELVINK
Benedictus dominus deus Israel: A Motet by Johannes Lupi
+ 383
and a Mass by Gheerkin de Hondt
David FALLOWS
The Contents of the Herdringen Scores
y
+ 217
Owen REES
Parody and Patriotism: A Sebastianist Reading of the Masses of Filipe de Magalhses
Gioia FILOCAMO
Sulle orme di Ulrich Schubinger 'il giovane': repertorio 'vivo' dal codice musicale Augsburg,
+ 233
Staats- u n d Stadtbibliothek, 20 14za
Birgit LODES
Des Kaisers Alamire: Zur Entstehung des Chorbuchs Wien,
+
Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Mus. Hs. 15495
247
Willem ELDERS
Perfect Fifths and the Blessed Virgin's Immaculate Conception:
+ 403
O n Ficta in Josquin's five-part Inviolata
Sean GALLAGHER
Busnoys, Burgundy, and the Song of Songs
Agnieszka LESZC~YNSKA
Franciscus de Rivulo and the Manuscript Gdarisk, Biblioteka Gdaliska Polskiej
+ 259
Akademii Nauk 4003
Peter WRIGHT
Polyphony for Corpus Christi in an Unknown Fragmentary Source from
+ 271
Mid-Fifteenth-Century Central Europe: An Interim Report
+ 391
Edward F. HOUGHTON
The Anonymous Motets of the Chigi Codex
+ 413
+ 431
Christian Thomas LEITMEIR
How Many Keys Are There to a Lock? Contextualizing a 16th-Century Motet
+ 441
Patrick MACEY
Josquin and Champion:
Conflicting Attributions for the Psalm Motet Deprof~ndisclamavi
Martin STAEHELIN
,
Eine Trauermotette von Costanzo Festa auf Heinrich Isaac?
lVJ&nifer
,
"
+ 453
+ 469
Mary S. L E W I ~
The Italian Madrigal in Germany: A New Assessment of its Early Reception
THOMAS
Absalonjk mi, Josquin, and the French Royal Court:
Attribution, Authenticity, Context, and Conjecture
+
Honey MECONI
A Cultural Theory of the Chansonnier
477
+ 649
Keith POLK
English Instrumental Music in the Fifteenth Century
Richard FREEDMAN
'Ainsi meurs vif': The Paradox of Choice in Renaissance Song
+ 501
Jane A. BERNSTEIN
Made to Order: Choirbook Publications in Cinquecento Rome
Donna G. CARDAMONE
Musical Comedy at the Prince of Salerno's Palace in Naples
Elizabeth Eva LEACH
The Unquiet Thoughts of Edmund S~enser'sScudamour and
4
513
John Dowland's First Booke ofSonges
Anthony M. CUMMINGS
Music and Theatre in Leo X's Rome
John MILSOM
Josquin and the Act of Self-Quotation: The Case of Plz~sieursregretz
Massimo PRIVITERA
'Un baciar furioso, un dispogliarsi': Costanzo Festa and Eroticism
+
521
Reinhard STROHM
Enea Silvio Piccolomini and Music
577
Eric JAS
Multivoiced Canons attributed to Josquin
+
4
719
+ 729
Jeffrey J. DEAN
Josquin's Teaching: Ignored and Lost Sources
593
Klaus PIETSCHMANN
Zirkelkanon im Niemandsland: Ikonographie und Symbolik
im Chansonnier Florenz, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Banco Rari 229
Katelijne SCHILTZ
Through the Looking-Glass: Pietro Cerone's Enigma del espejo
+ 627
+ 709
+ 569
Anne-Emmanuelle CEULEMANS
Le Luciddrio in mt~sicade Pietro Aaron
William F. PRIZER
The 'Virtue' of Lorenzo Lotto:
A Musical Intarsia in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo
+ 677
+ 683
Melanie L. MARSHALL
Grateful Friends, True Friends:
Gifts of Music and Poetry Associated with Girolamo Fenaruolo
+ 547
Jaap VAN BENTHEM
'La prima donna del mondo':
Isabella d'Este's Musical Impresa, its Conception, and an Interpretation
+ 669
Gianluca D'AGOSTINO
((Napolitani . .. eccellentissimi musici, della composizione e del suono)).
Aspetti della vita musicale a Napoli nel Cinquecento
4
695
+ 533
Blake WILSON
'Transferring Tunes and Adjusting Lines':
Leonardo Giustinian and the Giustiniana in Quattrocento Florence
+
+ 659
471
James HAAR
'La dolce vista del tuo viso pio': D u Fay and the Italian Song Tradition
Lawrence F. BERNSTEIN
Ockeghem as 'The Bach of his Day'
+ 637
+ 741
Leofranc HOLFORD-STREVENS
The Erudition of Florentius de Faxolis and Blasius Romerus
4
4
605
617
751
Saskia C. M. M. ROLSMA
Theory in Practice:
Reminiscences of Gaffurius' Music Theory in the Milanese Choirboolcs
Rob C. WEGMAN
Tinctoris's Magnum optis
Bonnie J. Blackburn Bibliography
Index of Manuscripts
+ 789
Indexof Prints
+ 799
Index of Compositions
+ 825
Index ofNames
+ 853
769
+ 783
+ 761
The Polyphonic Proses of quillaume Du Fay
Alejandro Enrique Planchart
FIFTEENTH-CENTURY
SOURCES transmit seven polyphonic proses with ascriptions to
Guillaume D u Fay. Four other polyphonic proses were ascribed to Du Fay by Charles
Hamm in his study of the chronology of the composer's work,l and a fifth one was
erroneously ascribed to him by Guillaume de Van in his inventory of the Aosta manuscript (AostaS D19) .2 Finally, a four-voice work by D u Fay was published by Besseler
as the first of D u Fay's proses in the Opera Ornni~z.~
In addition, two plainsong proses
unascribed in their sources but almost certainly the work of D u Fay have also been
preserved. This entire repertory with its sources and ascriptions appears in Table I.
Table I. Proses ascribed to Du Fay
Ascribed in the sources
Laetabundz~sexsziltet
I
2
1
Epipkaniam donzi?zi
3
Kctimaepaschali laz~des
4
Rex omnipoteizs
Veizi sancte spiritzu
6
I
8
/
E7zi sancte spiritzls
-
1
Lazida Sioiz salvntoreni
Isti s z ~ ndune
t
oliuae
Ascribed by de Van
7
I
, 324, "du fay"
BolC Q I ~M
Christmas
TrentC 92, fol. 66v
TrentC 87, fol. 63v, "G dufay" r ~ p i p h a n y
MunBS Lat. 14274, fol. 59v
Easter
TrentC 92, fol. 23v, "dufay"
Ascension
TrentC 87, fol. 65v, "G dufay"
TrentC 92, fol. ~ o o v"du
, fay"
Pentecost
MunBS Lat. 14274,
. . . fol. h7v
Corpus Christi
TrentC 90, fol. 98v, "G dufayn
TrentC ,93.
-"
,. fol. z?ov
SS. Peter and Paul
TrentC 87, fol. 61v, "G dufayX
I
/
I
BolC Q I ~M
, p5b
AostaS D I ~fol.
, 185v
MunBS Lat. 14274, fol. 67v
I
TrentC 92, fol. 68v
BolC Q I ~M
, 336
TrentC 92, fol. 67v
TrentC 92, fol. 36v
I
penrecost
Ascribed by Hamm
9
Laetabzi?zdz~sexstiltet
10
M i t t i t a d uirgilzenz
11
I.
1
Saizcti spiritus
Christmas
Annunciation
I
Pentecost
Charles Hamm, A Chrotzology of the Works of Gz~illaz~ttze
DZ@JIBnsed on n Stzrdy ofMe~zszzlrrrlPractice, Princeton
Studies in Music I (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), 76-78.
2. Guillaume de Van, "A Recently Discovered Source of Early Fifteenth-Century Music: The Aosta Manuscript,"
M D 2 (1948): 5-74.
3. See Guillaume D u Fay's Coi~2poritio1zesLitlrrgicne Mitzores, ed. Heinrich Besseler, vol. 5 of Opera Onznin, C M M I
(Rome: AIM, 1966), no. I.
Alejandro Enrique Planchart
A s s u m e d as prose by
Besseler
G a u d e virgo mater
12
I?
14
1
/
Plainsong proses
I
N u ~ e almos
r
rosae
1
Mittit a d sterilem
I
I
The Polyphonic Proses of Cjuillaume Du Fay
Example I. Prose Laetabzindzrs exsultet, ending
BolC Q I ~ M
, 227-228
M u n B S Lat. 14274, fols. SV-7r
I-F1 Aedilium 151. fols. IOV-15v
F-CA 184, fol. z81r
Joys of t h e B V M
I
I
11
Cur
I dam
- I be
-
ris
Cur
l d m - n r - I b e
-
riigens-
-
na
l gem
l nli
-
I ra.
-
se
Dedication
Recollection
In an earlier study I had rejected one of these ascriptions by Hamm, Laetabundus
I
-
I
Ie
l
-
ra,
exsultet (no. g in Table I), but had admitted the others, albeit tentatively. It may be
useful here to review each of the proses ascribed to Du Fay by modern scholars.
"
Cur
dam
-
na - be
-
ris
gens
mi
-
se
-
ra.
Laetabundus exsz~ltet,even though it is copied within a group of pieces by Du Fay in
TrentC 92, is drastically different from any other Du Fay work written before 1450.
The prose Mittit ad virginem, copied in BolC Q I and
~ in TrentC 92, presents us
None of the voices is labeled in the manuscript, but the texture consists of two discant
with a different case. It is a beautifully written piece with no pretensions of any kind,
voices cleffed in CI, and a tenor cleffed in Cj. The plainsong is in the tenor through-
and in terms of the skill with which it is written it could indeed be a work of Du Fay.
out, something that Du Fay never does in his plainsong paraphrase settings, and it is
~ by Du Fay so
But Hamm's argument that all the other proses copied in BolC Q I are
transposed down a second, from a G final to an F final.* Du Fay did not resort to
When Hamm was writing BolC Q I was
~ thought
this one must be his needs revi~ion.~
transposing the chants he paraphrased to any interval other than the octave until the
exsultet (M 324-5),
to contain four proses, Gaude virgo mater (M 227-X), Laetabz~ndz~s
144os, when he was writing extended settings of the plainsong propers for the cathe-
Veni sancte spiritus (M 326), and Mittit ad virginem (M 336). Hamm assumed that the
dral of Cambrai,5 and when he did it was for reasons of range. As a rule all his plain-
first three had ascriptions to Du Fay. As it turns out, however, the first of them, al-
song paraphrase settings have the plainsong in the top voice and transposed up an
though ascribed to Du Fay, is not a prose but a cantilena motet, and the ascription to
octave. In some instances where this would bring the top voice above f", he presents
the third was the result of an erroneous identification by Guillaume de Van.'' Thus
the chant at pitch, usually in the contratenor although sometimes in the tenor.6 In ad-
~
only three proses, only one of which has an ascription to Du Fay.
BolC Q I transmits
dition the plainsong in Laetabundzls exsultet is presented in some verses in equal values,
The case for Mittit ad virginem being by Du Fay on account of his position in
something Du Fay never does in any of his paraphrase works but which is common
TrentC 92 is also weakened because although it follows the authentic Laetabundus
among fifteenth-century sequence settings by German composers.' In the sections in
exsultet, which has an ascription in BolC Q15, it is followed by the setting of Laetabundus
O a number of phrases end on the first semibreve of a perfection followed by two semibreve rests in all voices, an abrupt phrase ending that is absent not only from the music
of Du Fay but from that of most of his contemporaries. The melodic writing of the first
discant is as disjointed as that of a contratenor, and even though the rhythmic language of the work is that of the mid- or late-143os, the dissonance treatment, not only
in the one section in C but also in those in 0, harks back to music of twenty years
earlier. Here and there one hears a distant and misunderstood echo of Ciconia (Example
I), but the !general level of contrapuntal competence in the piece is below what Du Fay
was already capable of producing in 1415 or 1416, when he composed the mass moveAll in all, this prose appears to be the work of
ments that use the vineux cant~sJirmus.~
exsultet discussed above, which not only has no ascription but also shows a command
of counterpoint and rhythmic textures well below the standards of Du Fay.
Chant sources transmit Mittit ad virginem most of the time with a G final but on
occasion with a C final as well. The C final gives us a half-step below the final but
puts the entire melody in a very high tessitura." Far less frequent are sources that give
it with an F final, which would, with the addition of a B b signature, have the same
effect as the C final but keep the tessitura of the melody closer to where it is with a G
final.'' The polyphonic setting uses an F final, but the signatures in BolC Q I ~
and
TrentC 92, given in Table 2, are quite inconsistent and suggest that copyists, somewhere in the transmission, were unfamiliar with the tradition of the melody in F.
a provincial composer probably working in southern Germany.
4. The tenor is clearly missing a signature of one flat, which leads to dozen of tritones: direct melodic ones, in
melodic outline, or harmonic ones, all ofwhich need to be corrected by nzztricaficta and virtually all ofwhich would
disappear with a one-flat signature that would also retain the interval structure of the original melody.
5. See Alejandro Enrique Planchart, "Guillaume D u Fay's Second Style," in MRCC307-40.
6. This is the case in his setting of Lauda Sion saluatorenz and Isti szrizt dzme oliuae; see D u Fay's Coinpositiones
Lit~r~gicae
Mitzores, ed. Besseler, nos. 7-8.
7. See StrohmR 525-28.
8. See Guillaume D u Fay's Fragnzenta Missarzlnz, ed. Heinrich Besseler, vol. 4 of Opera Omnia, C M M I (Rome:
AIM, 1962), no. I. See also Alejandro Enrique Planchart, "The Early Career of Guillaume D u Fay," JAMS 46
(1993): 358.
9. Hamm, Chro.olzolo~,78.
10.
Guillaume de Van, "Inventory of the Manuscript Bologna, Liceo Musicale, Q 15 (olinz 37)," M D
2
(1948):
256-57.
11. This, of course, assumes something of a fixed pitch standard, which was not the case in the Middle Ages, but
still I believe there was a general notion of where the entire gamut lay in the vocal compass, and the C final places
most of the melody at the high end of the gamut.
12. Theversion in GB-Cu Add. 710, published in RenC Jean Hesbert, ed., Le fiopaire-prosaire kDztb1iiz:Maizzlsc~it
Add. 710 de l'U7ziue~site'k Cambridge (uen rjoo), Monumenta Musicae Sacrae 4 (Rouen: Imprimerie Rouennaise,
1970)~42-43, is extremely unusual; it gives the first eight stanzas in G and the last three in F.
Alejandro Enrique Planchart
The Polyphonic Proses of Cjuillaurne D u Fay
larly elegant revision that suggests that the reviser was most likely the composer of the
what D u Fay wrote at any time in his career, and cannot be explained by scribal cor-
original version. At the end of stanza I in TrentC 92 there is a rhythmic problem with
ruption. In the final cadence of the stanza Sine quopreces omnes, the tenor jumps a fifth
the plainsong, probably a copying error. The error fortunately occurs at a phrase end
down from d'to g, so there is no clausula vera between the structural voices, something
that is echoed in stanza 3, which permits then a plausible emendation of stanza I (see
that D u Fay never does at the end of a section in any of his works. Other moments of
Example 3).
problematic counterpoint can be cited that are incompatible with the technical level of
Example 3. Emendations to stanza
I
D u Fay's music in the middle of late 1430s. In the absence of any ascription and given
of Mittit ad vi~ginenz
that the contextual reasons for the ascriptions advanced by Hamm have essentially
V. 1, original
evaporated, there is no compelling reason now to ascribe this work to D u Fay.
The last of the attributed proses is the anonymous setting of Veni sancte spiritus
found in BolC Q15, AostaS D19, and MunBS Lat. 14274. AS noted above the ascripV. 1, emendation l
tion by de Van was based on a misidentification with the authentic work found only
in TrentC 92. Hamm treated it as an authentic work on the basis of de Van's attribution, and Fallows, who pointed out de Van's error, notes that the anonymous prose
sets to polyphony the verses left in chant in D u Fay's setting, and left the question of
V. 1, emendation 2
authenticity slightly open.z3Based on later Vatican practices, for example in the case
of the Mapificat, where the papal chapel was almost the only choir in Europe where
K
A
-
n1a
-
tor
110
-
rni
-
nis.
v. 3
all twelve versicles were sung in polyphony,z4I suggested that this setting might have
been written by D u Fay or by someone else as a complement to D u Fay's settingz5
I am afraid that both Fallows and I were incautious in this respect. The scoring of the
anonymous setting is for cantus, tenor, and contratenor (CI, C4, C4), while D u Fay's
setting is for cantus I, cantus 2, and tenor (CI, CI, C3), a texture that he used in a
The first emendation remains closer to the graphic presentation in the manuscript, but
number of other works, not only some of the cantilena motets but some of the hymn
the second (which is musically more elegant) adopts the rhythmic formula of stanza 3.
settings as well. Thus the anonymous setting is fundamentally incompatible with D u
All of D u Fay's surviving plainsong compositions appear to have been conceived
Fay's setting and cannot be considered as a complement to it.
as cantus planus, so the elaborate cantzLsfi.dctzis found in the TrentC 92 version of
With this the repertory of proses securely ascribable to Du Fay is restricted entirely
Mittit ad virginem also argues against his authorship. The sound of the work reveals
to those that carry ascriptions to the composer in at least one of the sources.
a clear knowledge of and a delight in the sound of English music of the 1430s and
Interestingly enough, despite their scattered and relatively late transmission, these
r44os, but the composer of this lovely work is clearly someone other than D u Fay.
proses (with the single exception of hti sunt dz~aeolivae) form a liturgically a coherent
As a plainsong, Sancti spiritus adsit nobisgratia is the only one of Notker's versus ad
cycle of the major festivals de tempore celebrated in most churches in the early fif-
sequentias that obtained a wide distribution west of the Rhine, particularly after the
teenth century: Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, and Corpus
Cluniacs adopted it as a prose for Pentecost.19 In the eleventh century it was sung in
Christi. The only major festival missing from this series is Trinity Sunday, which at
Italy as far south as Benevento and it was even copied into some of the Old Roman
this time would have used one of two closely related texts, Benedicta semper sancta
gradual^,^' but by the thirteenth century it had been replaced in Rome itself by Veni
sancte spiritus, which a local tradition attributed to Pope Innocent III.zl Nonetheless,
trinitas or Benedicta sit beata trinitas (most likely the former), or else Alma chorus domini.2GBut in fact no source that transmits D u Fay's proses or indeed any source from
it was used throughout eastern France and western Germany, as well as the Netherlands
the first half of the fifteenth century transmits any polyphonic settings for Trinity
and Savoy. At Cambrai, for example, it was sung despite the prohibitions of the Council
Sunday. This may be in part due to the complex history of the liturgy for the Trinity,
~ Fay is the author of this work it cannot
of Trent until the French R e v o l u t i ~ nIf. ~DU
that began as a votive mass, and was used either for the last Sunday of the post-Pen-
have been composed for Rome, but rather during the time he was maestro di cappella
of the court of Savoy. However, the work has contrapuntal flaws that go well beyond
19. See Alejandro Enrique Planchart, "Notker in Aquitaine," in Mzrric in Medieval Ez~rope:StzrGes iiz Hoizortr of
Brya?z Gillilzghanz, ed. Terence Bailey and Alma Santosuosso (Aldershot: Ashgate, zoo7), 329-30.
20. Margareta Landwehr-Melnicki and Bruno Stablein, eds., Die Gesarzge desaltromischen Gradzrale Vat. lat. ~319,
MMMA 7- (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1970). 67-3-25; and Max Liitolf, Das Grahmle van Santa Cecilia i7z Pastevere: Cod
Bod~~zer74,
2 vols. (Cologny-Geneva: Fondation Martin Bodmer, 1987), vol. 2, roljr.
21. See Richard Croclcer, "Sequence," NG7-3: 102.
22. Cf. F-CA 84, a seventeenth-century cantatorium, 31.
23. De Van, "Inventory of the Manuscript," 256-57; Hamm, A Chronolo~~,
76-77; David Fallows, Dztfny, 1st
ed. with revisions (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1987), 7-50.
24. See Alejandro Enrique Planchart, "Problems ofAuthenticity, Transmission, and Performance in Morales," in
The Echo ofMzrsic: Errays in Hoizor ofMarie Lozrise Gollize,; ed. Blair Sullivan (Warren: Harmonie Parlc Press, 2004),
133-36.
25. Alejandro Enrique Planchart, "Music for the Papal Chapel in the Early Fifteenth Century," in P M ~ M I o ~ .
26. Guido Maria Dreves, ed., Prosarizrm Lemovicenre. Die Prose71k r Abtei St. Martial ez~Limoges, azrr E.oparieiz
des IO., II., ziizd12. /abrbzinderts, AH 7 (Leipzig: Reisland, 1889; repr., New York: Johnson Reprint, 1961), 108-9;
and Clemens Blume and Henry Marriott Bannister, eds., Litzrrgische Proseiz erster Epoche, AH53 (Leipzig: Reisland,
1911; repr., New York: Johnson Reprint, 1961), 139-43 and 152-54.
Alejandro Enrique Planchart
The Polyphonic Proses of Cjuillaume Du Fay
tecost season or more frequently for the octave of P e n t e c o ~ tGiven
. ~ ~ these circum-
and 8 and climb to g" pose a problem.31 Three of the proses set by Du Fay-
stances it is highly unlikely that D u Fay ever considered setting a Trinity prose text.
Laetabundz~s,Lazlda Sion, and Isti sunt dz~aeolivae-pose this problem. In these pieces, in whichever stanza the melody rises to g' (g" in the octave transposition) Du Fay
The scoring and cleffing of the authentic proses shows small variations. These are
summarized in Table 3.
shifts the chant paraphrase to the tenor and presents the chant at pitch. In addition,
an ornamental note in the paraphrase of stanza Ioa of Rex omnipotens also reaches the
Table 3. Cleffing a n d scoring o f D u Fay's proses
g' (the chant itself does not rise above f'). In this case D u Fay sets the chant-bearing
L a e t a b u n h ~ sexszlltet
cantus:
CI
contra: C3
tenor: C 3
Epiphaniam domini
cantus: CI
contra: C3
tenor: C3
Victinzaepascl~alilazldes
cantus:
CI-z
contra: C 4
tenor: C 4
Rex omnipote7~1
cantus:
CI
contra: C3
tenor: C 3
cantus
tenor: C3
voice as the contratenor, with the chant at pitch. This last instance perhaps offers a
window into the way in which D u Fay composed his plainsong paraphrase works. He
Veni salzcte spiritus
cantus I: CI
Lands Sion saluatosetn
cantus:
C1
contra: ~3~
tenor: C 3
Isti szltzt dzrae oliuae
cantus: CI
contra: C 3
tenor: C 3
2:
C18"
probably began with the voice that paraphrases the plainsong to be used as cantus,
composing the ornamentation as he went. When the plainsong itself rose above f'he
could, even before writing the ornamentation, assign it to the tenor instead of the
cantus. But in the case of stanza Ioa of Rex omnipotens, he could not have known that
his melodic writing would go above f''until he had composed the ornamented version. This suggests that that he was composing the supporting tenor voice roughly at
the same time as the cantus in all of these pieces, so rather than reassigning the plainsong paraphrase to the tenor, he moved it down an octave and reassigned it to the
a. Labeled "triplum" in the manuscript. b. The cleffing given in D u Fay's Conpositio?zesLitzrrgicae Mim~rex,ed. Besseler, no. 7 (CS, Cq, C4), is
contratenor. Thus he was probably not only composing the basic contrapuntal struc-
incorrect.
ture almost simultaneously, but also had a very clear idea of the ambitus inhabited by
The slightly lower tessitura of the contra and tenor of Victimaepaschali kudes is
each part well in advance of starting to compose. As Wegman has observed, these are
due to the nature of the melody itself, nominally in mode I, but actually in a combina-
skills that any truly competent fifteenth-century musician with a long experience in
tion of modes
I
and
2,
which dips to the low A at the start of two of its verses. For
cantzts szqra librum probably had de~eloped.~'
Veni sancte spiritus, a completely regular mode I melody, D u Fay used instead a two
An aspect of D u Fay's proses that has not been noted is his use of the contratenor.
cantus and tenor texture, found in a number of his cantilena motets and in numerous
As a repertory, the proses, few as they are, show a smoother and more sophisticated
works, largely by Italian composers, of the early fifteenth century.28In a single work,
use of the contratenor than the hymns, particularly in terms of melodic and motivic
say a mass cycle, such changes of cleffing probably denote a composite piece assem-
construction. The disjointed quality of the contratenor in the hymn Pange lingzla, for
bled by the scribe, but they are not infrequent in cycles ofworks to be sung at differ-
example,33is by and large absent from the proses, although the use of the contratenor
ent liturgical occasions throughout the year, even when the composer intended the
in them is not as sophisticated as what one encounters in the plainsong settings of the
works to form a cycle. A case in point within Du Fay's canon is his hymn cycle, which
144os, such as the propers for the Order of the Golden Fleece or the masses for
was clearly intended as a complete cycle and seen as such by scribes at a number of
St. Anthony of Padua and St. Francis of Assisi.34Interestingly, Du Fay's contratenor
institutions, including the papal chapel and the Este court in Ferrara.29
writing is generally much smoother in most of his song from the very beginning,
The use of the plainsong, however, shows a number ofvariations among the proses.
which suggests that he had a conception of the entire sonority in his mind from the
In his music prior to his extended use of plainsong paraphrase in the proper cycles of
start, even if he might have composed the parts one after another. But in dealing with
the 144os, D u Fay for the most part set the plainsong in the cantus transposed up an
octave from the pitch found in chant books. Throughout his entire career, however,
D u Fay regarded the written f" as the absolute upper limit of his music;30 given this
premise, the melodies of a number of proses that use the combined range of modes 7
27. No detailed history of the Trinity liturgy exists; for its origins see Gerald Ellard, Master Alcuitz, Litirrgist
(Chicago: Loyola University Press, 19561,144-73. O n its incorporation into the tenporal, see RenC-Jean Hesbert,
ed., A1ztipl~onaleMissnrirnz Sextuplex: dkpris Le pdzrel k Monzn et les nntipholznires de Rheilzazc, dtr Mont-Blntzditz,
k Comnpi?g~ze,de Corbie et L Selzlis (Brussels: Vromant, 1935; repr. Rome: Herder, 1967), Ixxii.
28. The fundamental worlc on this texture is Robert Nosow, "The Florid and Equal-Discantus Motet Styles of
Fifteenth Century Italy," (PhD diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1992).
29. The most recent work on D u Fay's hymn cycle appears in Planchart, "Music for the Papal Chapel," 93-124;
and Michael Alan Anderson, "The Organization and Complexes of the Q 15 Hymn Cycle," Stctdi nzz~sicnli35
(2006): 327-71.
30. There is not a single work in his entire corpus where the cantus goes abovef".
31. This is a melodic trait present in the prose repertory from the very beginning, particularly in melodies with a
G final, which often begin in a plagal nnzbittrs and shift for some of the stanzas to the authentic one, often touching
repeatedly on the g. Sometimes the melodies return to the plagal nlnbitzrs for the final stanzas and sometimes they
remain in the authentic one once the shift has talcen place.
32. Rob C. Wegman, "From Malcer to Composer: Improvisation and Musical Authorship in the Low Countries,
1450-1500," JAMS 49 (1996): 409-79. For evidence from a later century see Jessie Ann Owens, "Palestrina at
Work," in PM&M 273-75.
33. See D u Fay's Conzpositio~zes
Liturgicne Minores, ed. Besseler, no. 21.
34. For the Propers, see Laurence Feininger, ed., Anctonr?~~
A1zoty17zorilm Missart~nzProprin XVI Qzrorzrnz
XI Gzrliel??zoD Z L JAscdendn
~Z~
Szrlzt, Monumenta Polyphoniae Liturgicae Sanctae Ecclesiae Romanae. Sec. 211
(Rome: Societas Universalis Sanctae Ceciliae, 1947). The edition of the Ordinary in Guillaume Du Fay's Missnrtrm
PnnPrior (I-6),ed. Heinrich Besseler, vol. z in Opera Om?zin,C M M I (Rome: AIM, 1960), no. 3 is so full of errors
as to be useless; a correct edition appears in Rudolf Bockholdt, ed., Diefriihen Messe?zkol?positiolzetzuon Guillnu?ne
D@y, 2 vols., Miinchner Veroffentlichungen zur M~sik~eschichte
5 (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1960), 2: 68-86.
For analyses of some of the Propers see Planchart, "Guillaume Du Fay's Second Style," 318-40. A detailed account
of the genesis of this complex cycle appears in Alejandro Enrique Planchart, "The Boolcs that Guillaume De Fay
Left to the Chapel of Saint Stephen," Sine nzuricn rzzr11n disciplinn: Stiidi in 0110re di Giulio Cattin, ed. Franco
Bernabei and Antonio Lovato (Padua: I1 Poligrafo, 2006), 175-98.
The Polyphonic Proses of quillaume Du Fay
Alejandro Enrique Planchart
the chant paraphrase settings, there were at first constraints imposed by the melodic
APPENDIX
ductus of the chant that got in the way of such a total conception at the outset. There
Anonymous, Mittit ad virginem (TrentC 92, fols. 67v-68r)
is nothing in the hymns, the Kyries, or the proses that compares with the sophisticated compositional use of the contratenor in a piece like Quelfronte signorille in pare-
diso, a compositional use that is expanded considerably in the revision of that piece
Traces of such
when D u Fay reset it as a French rondeau in Craindre vous v~eil.'~
8
V. 1
Mit
-
ad
tit
-
vir
gi
- nem
-
Non quell,
-
vis
sophisticated usage appear with increasing frequency, however, not only in the plain-
ge
-
Srd
lus
for
- ti
MS: 2 sb
song paraphrase settings of the 144os,'~but also in the four-voice cantusfirmus settu
tings of the 1450s and 1460s." The evolution of his writing in the proses does not
I-
di
-
nem
Su
-
arch
um
-
an
-
A -
ge - lum
ma
tor
-
110
-
mi
-
Re
- gnat
nis.
necessarily mean that he used them to learn to control the contratenor in the chant
settings, but rather that they are one repertory of this kind that we have from him
from the years when the experience of writing the hymn cycle and possibly the Kyrie
cycle as well consolidated his technique in this respect.
For which institutions were the proses written? The presence of Laetabundus ex-
sultet in BolC Q15 suggests that D u Fay began the cycle in Rome probably shortly
before he left to become rnagister capellae in Savoy, but the transmission pattern of the
MS: A
remaining proses point to his years in Savoy up to his return to Cambrai in 1439. At
this time his main ecclesiastical connection was with the cathedral of Lausanne, and
it is quite telling that the chant version of Isti sunt duae oliuae has an extremely narrow
distribution. The prose was sung only in southern Germany and in the dioceses of
~'
proses could have been sung by the Savoy chapel,
Lausanne and G e n e ~ a . Polyphonic
but in this case I believe that D u Fay's cycle was most likely intended for the cathedral
of Lausanne, which is the one church where all of these pieces, including the very rare
Isti sunt dude olivae, were used in the liturgy.
V.3
Na - cu
-
j
35. For an analysis of Crniizdre vozrs vueil, see Alejandro Enrique Planchart, "Two Fifteenth-Century Songs and
their Texts in a Close Reading," BJhMrq (1990): 13-36, es3z-36. The reader should correct a misprint in the transcription: in m. 29 the contratenor should not have a B h but an unsigned B b .
36. See Planchart, "Guillaume D u Fay's Second Style," 322-40.
37. The isomelic recurrences that connect the Gloria and the Credo of the mass on Se In face nypnle, which are not
only enormously important in terms of the audible form of the piece but among the most expressive moments of
the entire mass, take place entirely in the contratenor, in duets with the bass.
38. See Henry Marriott Bannister, ed., Seqzreiztiae iizeditne. Litzrrgische Proseiz des Mittelnlters nzls Hnizdsc13riften
zrnd Friihdrzrcken, AH 40 (Leipzig: Reisland, 1902; repr., New York: Johnson, 1961), 275. In a private communication, Professor Calvin Bower, who has compiled an immense database of proses, tells me he has found no sources
for this piece beyond those reported by Bannister.
V. 4
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1 99
The Polyphonic Proses of Guillaume D u Fay
Alejandro Enrique Planchart
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