Gombert Archives - NativeDSD Music

Requiem For An Emperor

Sjoerd Staal — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 14:00:18 +0000

Charles V was certainly the most powerful and charismatic of the Renaissance rulers. Exhausted and worn down by the challenges of imperial rule, he abdicated towards the end of his life and led a secluded existence in the monastery of Cuacos de Yuste in Castile under the motto ‘Ecce elongavi fugiens et mansi in solitudine’ (‘I fled and remained in solitude’).

The Utopia Ensemble seeks out the man behind the monarch and examines the duality of power and greatness as well as solitude in Requiem For An Emperor. Pierre de Manchicourt – court composer to Charles’s son and director of the famous Capilla Flamenca – could well have written his Requiem for one of the countless commemorations of Charles V. It radiates serenity and splendor and is juxtaposed here with chansons that moved the heart beneath Charles’s imperial armor.

Utopia Ensemble
Michaela Riener – Mezzo-Soprano
Bart Uvyn, Countertenor
Adriaan De Koster, Tenor
Lieven Termont, Baritone
Guillaume Olry, Bass
Jan Van Outryve, Lute

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From the Imperial Court – Music for the House of Hapsburg

Sjoerd Staal — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

One of Europe’s most extraordinary ruling dynasties, the Hapsburgs ruled greater or lesser portions of Europe fromthe 11th century until 1918, their heyday coinciding with the supreme musical flourishing of the 16th century. Their rule saw a particular increase during the reign of Maximilian I (son of Fredrick III, Duke of Austria, King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor) – secured first by his marriage to Mary of Burgundy in 1477 and then by the union of their son Philip ‘the Handsome’ with Joanna ‘the Mad’ of Castille. Thus his grandson Charles V essentially ruled Spain, Germany, Austria, Burgundy and the Low Countries, before he in turn divided his territories between his son Philip II and his brother Ferdinand of Austria in 1555-6. As these successive generations enlarged their power and territory, they gathered around themselves the leading composers of the day.

Maximilian’s most notable court composer was Heinrich Isaac, whom he appointed in 1497 and who remained in his employment until the composer’s death in 1517. Though he was often overshadowed in his lifetime by the renowned Josquin, a famous letter advising the Duke of Ferrara on the appointment of a court composer in 1503 is revealing: ‘[Isaac] is of a better disposition… and he will compose new works more often. It is true that Josquin composes better, but he composes when he wants to and not when one wants him to.’ Duke Ercole favoured prestige over reliability and hired Josquin; meanwhile, in Maximilian’s service, Isaac’s Virgo prudentissima is a good example of a piece written to order: it was composed for the Reichstag of 1507 which confirmed Maximilian’s position as Holy Roman Emperor, and was performed under the direction of a certain ‘Georgius’ – Jurij Slatkonja, who was Maximilian’s first Kapellmeister and can therefore be considered the founding director of what is now the Vienna Boys’ Choir. Rather unusually, he even receives a mention in the motet, the text of which is a somewhat unwieldy one written for the occasion – and one at which a less obliging composer might perhaps have protested! Isaac’s motet is a work of stunning grandeur, employing a musical language which is both strikingly individual, yet self-consciously influenced by the music of the previous generation: full sections with monumental block chords and slow-moving harmony alternate with florid, virtuosic passages for reduced forces.

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Song of Songs

Sjoerd Staal — Mon, 07 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

What is the Song of Songs? Why is it in the Bible? And why did it gain such popularity amongst Continental composers of polyphony in the sixteenth century? In short, it is a love poem (or perhaps a collection of poems), ascribed to King Solomon, who reigned over Israel between 971 and 931 BC, and after whom the work is sometimes named. The beautiful and often erotic poetry tells of the relationship between the lover and his beloved, traditionally thought to be Solomon and a Shulamite girl. It speaks in colourful and poetic terms of the joys, delights, and the sorrows of their relationship, as well as relating the girl’s dialogue with the young Israelite girls around her. Above all, it consists in rich expression of the love of one for the other, in all its facets.
For many the literal sense of the book alone has not been considered sufficient grounds to merit its place in the canon of holy writ (in spite of the fact that it contains inspiration and wisdom for many an aspiring couple!). Surely it must have a yet more profound meaning! The most established tradition of interpretation reads the relationship between the lover and his beloved as an allegory for the covenant relationship between God and his people. It is a long tradition: as early as the first half of the first century BC Jewish interpreters understood the book as an allegorical account of God’s dealings with Israel; Christian commentators from the early Fathers onwards have continued this tradition, seeing it as referring to the relationship between Christ and his Church, or Christ and the Soul. Such a reading is supported by similar allegories used elsewhere in both the Old and New Testaments.
Yet the surge in the book’s popularity in medieval times, and the resulting proliferation of musical settings, often revolved around the practice of Marian devotion. The so-called ‘Marian interpretation’ of the Song of Songs has sometimes been misunderstood: it is not that the beloved of the poem has ever been seriously understood to refer exclusively to Mary – but rather that, if Mary is revered as the church’s most perfect flowering (as she often was in medieval times), then the poem is about her inasmuch as she ‘represents’ the Church. It is for this reason that the poem was adopted (and often adapted) for use in various medieval Marian liturgies, and seen as prophetic in justifying certain Marian doctrines.

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