Extreme Singing: La Rue Requiem and other Low Masterpieces of the Renaissance

"What's so extreme about this" one may ask, but just listen to that bass. Yeah. That's dope.
Performed by Vox Early Music Ensemble, 2011. Directed by Christopher Wolverton. Tracklist ↓
00:00 Pierre de la Rue? (c.1460-1518) Absalon Fili Mi
03:51 La Rue Requiem: Introit
08:04 La Rue Requiem: Kyrie
10:24 La Rue Requiem: Tract: Sicut Cervus
13:46 La Rue Requiem: Offertory: Domine Jesu Christe
19:14 La Rue Requiem: Sanctus / Benedictus
22:57 La Rue Requiem: Agnus Dei
26:10 La Rue Requiem: Communion: Lux Aeterna
28:51 Plorer, gemir, crier / Requiem - For the Death of Johannes Ockeghem In 1497
31:40 Jean Mouton (d. 1522) Quis dabit oculis nostris - For the Death of Anne of Brittany In 1514
39:33 Pierre Moulu (?1484- c.1550) Fiere Attropos / Anxiatus est - For the Death of Anne of Brittany In 1514
43:31 Gaspar Van Weerbeke (c. 1445- After 1516) Stabat Mater dolorosa / Vidit speciosam

[@Vingul]

Notes: "In the last half of the fifteenth century, musicians began to treat texts of mourning in ways they had never done before. Laments had previously been sung as a single line only, but composers began to set these texts polyphonically. Three, four, or even more voice parts evolved to generate a rich, full sound. Contemporary writers tell us, too, of an expected association between sorrowful words and deep ranges, and composers obliged by exploring depths never before attempted in written music. And they were evidently inspired by the moving sentiments of the words, for many of these works are among the most beautiful of all pieces from the Renaissance. In today’s performance Vox presents six works of mourning of different kinds. The concert opens with Gaspar van Weerbeke’s Stabat mater. Though largely unknown to modern audiences, Weerbeke is now being discovered as one of the overlooked masters of the Renaissance. He worked for a while for the Archduke Philip the Fair, one of the most important rulers of the late fifteenth century, and one whose court chapel seems to have specialized in pieces for low voices. Weerbeke’s composition, a work of sacred mourning (Stabat mater describes the grieving Mary, mother of Christ) heads down to a note not that common then or now: low E. Readers may remember the rising lines of the bass staff as G B D F A, or “good boys do fine always;” Weerbeke uses the E below that low G. He also expands the choir to five separate voice parts-again, beyond the four‐voice norm of the time. Low though Weerbeke’s E is, it pales in comparison to the pitches used in Absalon fili mi. This is one of the most famous works of the Renaissance; in fact, notorious might be a better adjective to describe it. We don’t know for sure who wrote it. In its earliest manuscript it is anonymous, in later prints it is given to Josquin Desprez. The style, though, is unlike that of Josquin and much more like that of his equally gifted contemporary Pierre de la Rue. Many scholars now cautiously accept an attribution to the latter composer, especially since the work quotes two of La Rue’s own compositions. The piece uses a combination of Biblical texts in which David laments the loss of his son Absalon, and it may have been written for the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian in 1506 on the death of his son, Philip the Fair (the employer of La Rue, incidentally, but not of Josquin). This stunningly beautiful work is striking for two highly unusual attributes. First, it uses not just B‐flat and E‐flat, which are normal for the time, but also A‐flat, D‐flat, and even G‐flat. Second, its final pitch is a staggeringly low B‐flat below the staff, making this one of only four compositions in the entire Renaissance to use that pitch. And yet there is one work that goes even lower than this: Pierre Moulu’s Fiere atropos. Moulu’s composition is another five‐part work of mourning, this one written on the death of Anne of Brittany, Queen of France, in 1514. The composition is a type of work known as a motet‐chanson. Four of the voice parts sing a French text, while the tenors take over the Latin text and melody of a plainchant from the Good Friday liturgy, Anxiatus est in me. The lowest bass voice includes the A that is almost an octave below the G of the bass staff-the lowest pitch ever written for voices. This note is so low that the composition has never been recorded, and in fact, no modern performance of this work is known. Yet the work holds no terrors for the exceptional voices of Vox, and today’s audience is privileged to take part in an historic occasion as this work comes to life again. Anne of Brittany’s death prompted multiple remembrances, and Jean Mouton’s Quis dabit oculis nostris was another work that mourned her passing. Mouton, a leading composer at the French court, has written a work that stays within normal bounds of the time: four voices, no flats, standard ranges. Yet it is still beautiful, alternating between the favorite imitative texture of the time and more homophonic sections. In the latter it is especially easy to follow the text: be on the lookout for the multiple occasions when the singers call out the name of the departed, “Anna, Anna.” The first half of the concert closes with another motet‐chanson, Pierre de la Rue’s Plorer, gemir, crier, which weds the chant Requiem aeternam from the Latin Mass for the Dead with a grieving French text. This French text breaks off half‐way through the song in the only manuscript that transmits the work, so additional text has been reconstructed for performance. It is highly likely that La Rue intended his work as a memorial to the composer Johannes Ockeghem, a composer he admired and emulated, and the reconstructed text calls out Ockeghem’s name again and again in cascading lines. The second half of the concert is devoted to La Rue’s Requiem mass. It is one of the earliest surviving polyphonic settings of the Mass for the Dead, preceded by that of Dufay (now lost) and Ockeghem (existing today with only five movements). La Rue’s piece was the most highly disseminated of all early Requiem masses, and it influenced in turn the Requiem masses of Brumel, Prioris, and most especially Févin. The work is highly unusual in employing a different combination of voices for almost every movement, in expanding the texture from four to five voices in the Kyrie, Offertory, Sanctus, and Agnus, and in providing striking contrasts between movements that are pitched high (Tract, Offertory, and Communion) and those that are pitched low (everything else). Once again, the lowest voice descends to low B‐ flat, with the second lowest voice itself going to C. No other composition of this or any time includes not just one but two such deep voices. Not surprisingly, this unique work has become La Rue’s best‐known sacred composition, and it has already generated ten separate recordings and countless performances. But modern choirs pale before the demands it presents and have effected compromises in facing the challenges of turning the notated pitches into sound, either transposing the whole work upwards or moving the low movements up and the high movements down, thus destroying the registral contrasts La Rue carefully wrote into the music. Not so Vox! Their performance unerringly matches La Rue’s written pitch. Although we cannot return to the musical world of 500 years ago, Vox beautifully recreates its sound for us today."

[@wfr1108]

Beautiful

[@Milan_Smidt]

Nice channel. Keep it up!

[@Vingul]

Thanks! Will do.