Today, I made time to follow a now-familiar musical path...
After the death of Gilles Binchois in 1460, Johannes Ockeghem composed Mort, tu as navré de ton dart in his memory (text and score here). A quick glance at the score reveals this piece is a setting of two texts, to be sung simultaneously; the highest part carries a poem lamenting Binchois' death, while the lower three parts begin "Miserere pie Jhesu Domine" ("Have mercy, kind Lord Jesus").
The next piece on the path is Nymphes des bois, by Josquin Desprez (text and score here). When Ockeghem died (1497), Guillaume Crétin wrote a long poem in his honour (Epitaphe de bonne memoire Okgam, trésorier de Tours.) At one point in this work, Crétin criticises his fellow poet, Jean Molinet, for not having written a similar tribute. In response, Molinet produced a couple of poems, one of which was then set to music by Josquin. Like Ockeghem, Josquin chose to use a suitably sombre text alongside the main poem; this time, the tenor part carries a version of the Requiem aeternam plainchant, while the remaining four sing the Crétin text. Josquin himself gets a mention, along with some other composers. Crétin urges them to "weep great tears" for their "good Father," harking back to Molinet’s work, which also namechecks a list of composers, among them Josquin.
We reach Gombert via Tielman Susato’s 1545 publication, Septiesme livre de chansons avecq troix epitaphes dudict Josquin, in which Nymphes des bois appears in all-black notation. Gombert’s piece for Josquin, Musae Jovis, is one of the troix epitaphes of the title (text here score here). In this work, the ‘hidden’ text/melody is the chant Circumdederunt me (“the groans of hell have encompassed me, the screams of hell have encompassed me”), which appears in the tenor part, surrounded by five further voices. The use of this melody is a nod to another piece by Josquin, Nimphes, nappés, which uses Circumcederunt in canon.
I’ve known the Ockeghem and Josquin pieces for a little while; the superb Gombert was brought to my attention by the Grove Dictionary “Déploration” articles (“Déploration” being the term often used to describe late medieval and early Renaissance works commemorating a composer’s death). This particular string of linked tributes seems to form a good short programme, especially in the excellent one-on-a-part performances I’ve linked to above (Orlando Consort, Hilliard Ensemble, King’s Singers). There’s a nice contrast of styles, from the austere, stately Ockeghem, to the harmonically richer Gombert, where five faster-moving voices orbit the slow chant in the tenor. In between these two, the Josquin sits well, closer to the Ockeghem in its apparent simplicity, if a touch more passionate in its grief - one of the most beautiful pieces I know.
Where next? That King’s Singers record is a good place to start; as well as the Gombert, it includes the remaining two épitaphes from Susato’s publication: O mors inevitabilis by Hieronymus Vinders, and another, smaller-scale setting of Musae Jovis by Benedictus Appenzeller. The disc also includes a piece by Jacquet of Mantua, Dum vastos Adriae fluctus. In the second section of this extraordinary work, Jacquet includes snippets of five of Josquin's best-known pieces, back to back (the ‘greatest hits’ section contains excerpts from Praeter rerum seriem, Stabat mater, Inviolata integra et casta es, Salve regina and Miserere mei Deus). The main work on this disc of Josquin-inspired music is the Requiem mass by Jean Richafort. Like Gombert, Richafort uses the Circumcederunt me chant, as well as a tune/text from Josquin’s chanson Faulte D’Argente. The King’s Singers performance is very fine, but my favourite remains the grander version by the Huelgas Ensemble. Their director, Paul van Nevel, has a habit of tinkering with scores, but, as a non-expert, I’ve never been too bothered (reading around, I think the Richafort performance includes some possibly illicit octave doublings, but what a glorious sound!)
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