Download Calami sonum ferentes - Rore`s Chromatic Enigma

Calami sonum ferentes - Rore’s Chromatic Enigma
Morris Grenfell Davies
Fistula tertia ex Catulli numeris
Calami sonum ferentes Siculo leve numero
Non pellunt gemitus pectore ab imo nimium graves:
Nec qui strepente sunt ab Aufido revulsi.
Musa quae nemus incolis Sirmionis amoenum,
Reddita qua lenis, Lesbia dura fuit;
Me adi recessu principis mei tristem.
Musa delitiae tui Catulli
Dulce tristibus his tuum
Iunge carmen avenis.
Giovanni Battista Pigna (1530-75)
The Third Pipe from the Meters of Catullus
The reed-pipes giving forth a sound in light Sicilian meter
Do not banish the sighs, all too painful, from the depth of
my heart.
Nor do those [reeds] plucked from the roaring Aufidus.
O Muse, who dwell’st in the pleasant groves of Sirmio,
Through whom unfeeling Lesbia grew tender,
Visit me, who mourn the departure of my prince.
O Muse, delight of thy Catullus,
Join thy sweet song to the sad [sound of my] pipes.
Translation, Edward E Lowinsky.1
Aufidus, (today Ofanto), a river in Apulia in southern Italy. Sirmio (today Sirmione), the town on the southern
shore of Lake Garda, the birthplace of the Roman poet Catullus (died c 60BC). Lesbia was the lover of Catullus.
2
---0---
Rore’s setting of this arcane text has attracted much scholarly attention but its low
vocal register presents formidable challenges to performance. I am hoping in this
transposed edition to bring it within the grasp of choral groups willing to explore the
early development of chromaticism. In this introduction I draw particularly on the
views Edward E. Lowinsky.1
Cipriano Rore was born in 1515 or 1516 in Ronse, west of Brussels and from 1546
to 1559 he was court musician in Ferrara He died in 1565 in Parma. The years
that he spent in Ferrara, especially the decade between 1547 and 1557, saw the
publication or composition of 107 pieces, more than half of the music he composed
during his life and not surprisingly, a significant number of compositions are
specifically Ferrarese in one way or another. They include two masses in honour of
Duke Ercole II d’Este of Ferrara and three compositions relating to Prince Alfonso II
d’Este (1533-1597), his son.
In his late teens Alfonso 3 sought military fame through service to the French King
Henry II in his battles against the Hapsburg dynasty (Charles V). The venture was
firmly forbidden by his father who observed a policy of neutrality between these
parties. But in March 1552 war between them broke out again and in May 1552
Alfonso set out with some servants for the French Court and once there took the field
against the Emperor’s army. His father was enraged and vowed to punish him and
his followers but in time his anger cooled and Alfonso, running short of money, asked
for forgiveness. On 26th September 1554 he was ceremonially welcomed back in
Ferrara. A Latin madrigal Calami sonum ferentes,2 our work of interest, laments
his absence and two in Italian, Volgi’l tuo corso, and Quando signor lasciaste 4
celebrate his return.
The text of Calami is the third of three Latin poems by the Ferrarese court poet Pigna
reflecting Alfonso’s absence (ref. 1 p 605). (In each of them he uses the rhythmic
structure of isolated lines from poems by Latin poets. Calami was entitled Fistula
tertia ex Catulli numeris – ‘Pipe Three in Catullus’s meters’, Pipes 1 and 2 being in
Theocritus’s and Horatian meters. (Fistula can be translated as pan-pipes). In each
poem the number of syllables in successive lines decreases, so forming a pattern
like a set of pan-pipes. The poems conceal a wealth of classical allusion (p 608)).
Pigna may have passed the poem on to Rore in 1553 who astonishingly set it for
three basses and a low bass 5. A mention of the roar of a river is not sufficient to
warrant such low-pitched sounds and the text does not suggest any other reason for
this extraordinary scoring; indeed the mention of reed-pipes (calami) suggests the
opposite. It was also set in a highly atypical and extreme chromatic manner, again
hardly justified by the text.
Why for low voices? Why chromatic?
A work for four bass voices may well be unique in secular literature.
While two
notes an octave apart in a low register sound well and to a lesser extent so does a
fifth, it was recognised at the time that the smaller consonances of a major and minor
third did not: Willaert in Venice – ‘ . .when [the major third] is placed in the bass, it
seems to make an indefinably dismal effect . . .which offends my ear greatly’. And
Claudio Merulo, organist of St Marks – ‘As soon as I touch the interval of a major
third in the bass the effect is terrible. And if I chance to play a minor third, it is
disaster, one can hardly stand it. But if these intervals are played in the middle
range of the instrument, they result in a welcome and sweet sound’. 1
Rore would have understood this well and while Pigna’s feelings for the prince were
probably genuine, Rore may at first have been more cynical about the nineteen-yearold’s hot-headed behaviour. He may have simply composed this setting as a joking
commentary on contemporary developments, to be performed privately by some likeminded singers at the court, noblemen perhaps, who happened to have bass voices.
(Whatever his reason may have been, Rore did not in fact include Calami among his
numerous publications. It appeared first at the end – an honoured position – of
Lasso’s publication of his own works in 1555, published by Susato in Antwerp 6 ,
then by Gardano in Venice (1561) and after Rore’s death again by Gardano (1577)
(ref. 1, pp 612 & 611). In 1555 Vicentino noted Calami as an example of music
reserved for the delight of noblemen and princes and for hearers of a highly refined
musical education 2. Joke or not, the piece has been taken seriously by posterity,
discussed by Zacconi (1596), Cerone (1613), Doni (d.1647, views published 1763),
Burney (1789), Straetan (1867-88), Ambros (1891), Kroyer (1902), Leichtentritt
(1909), Rieman (1920), Musiol (1933) and Lowinsky (1962) 1, 2. See ref. 1 for the
quoted views of some of these authors.)
In his later publication, Lowinsky 1 develops this sinister explanation for Rore’s
reluctance to publish: the setting is a hoax, an anti-chromatic manifesto. (p601):
Rore wrote a piece in a style of its own, a style that did not correspond to the ideal of
sonorous beauty or consistent text expression found in his works of all periods, [p601, his
italics]. P 605: [The years between 1548 and 1555] were the years when Nicola Vicentino
[1511-1575/6], chaplain and musician to Cardinal Ippolito d’Este [brother of Ercole II] worked
out his theories on the revival of the ancient Greek chromatic and enharmonic genera, built
his archicembalo with its two keyboards, each having three orders of keys, in which each
octave contained thirty-one tones, and instructed a small number of noblemen, all sworn to
secrecy, in the mysteries of ancient Greek chromatic and enharmonic music. [Vicentino
relates that among the group of noblemen in Ferrara to whom he had been explaining the
2
principles of chromaticism, Alfonso had grasped the matter ‘with utmost rapidity and grace’ .]
As yet no compositions in the chromatic genus had been published. If Vicentino performed
some of the music that he had printed in his L’antica musica here and there in private circles,
most of it must have been repellent to the majority of musicians outside the court circles. It
was in that period of transition, I suggest, that Cipriano [Rore] wrote his Calami sonum as his
contribution to the debate All one has to do to recognise it as an ironic commentary is to
compare it with the chromatic works in Rore’s book of 1557.
After a discussion of one of these works, Lowinsky (p 605) continues:
It becomes clear that only when compared with Rore’s mature chromatic style can we hope
to grasp the strange phenomena of Calami sonum: the four basses, the lack of a consistent
relationship between word and tone, the awkward harmonic texture, the exaggerated
accumulation of false relations, the fragmentation of the form into poorly connected phrases.
And yet, this ironic commentary was written by a master of rhythm and counterpoint, of textual
variety and humanistic text declamation, in which passages of coarse-grained expressivo light
up in strange isolation.
(Since, as he notes (p609) a low tessitura is a time-honoured device to express
mourning, it may be that Rore called on four basses as an exaggerated, tongue-incheek use of the device.)
Lowinsky summarises his case (p610)
Pigna, intimate friend of the young Alfonso, wrote a cycle of three poems to express his
sorrow over the prince’s long absence from the court. He probably persuaded his musician-
friend to set the last one to music; it had the advantage of being the smallest of the three....
Unable to resist the request, Rore decided to use the work for his own purposes. He chose
musical means that would insure a dubious, if not hostile reception. He undoubtedly knew
that Alfonso was one of the noblemen whom Nicola Vicentino had initiated into the mysteries
of the Greek chromatic and enharmonic genera. As yet – we are speaking of the years 1552
or 1553 – he was cold toward Vicentino’s innovations. Whatever he knew about it, which of
Vicentino’s chromatic pieces he might have heard, stirred no echoes of sympathy and
admiration in him. A music with rough harmonic texture, with extreme chromaticism, in the
muddled sound of four basses ought to serve as a message on the innovations of Don Nicola.
Rore knew how to clothe this message in fluent contrapuntal texture, how to mix in passages
of diatonic innocence, phrases of an expressivo character, so as to confuse the listener. But
he could be certain that this would not win the arch-chromaticist at Ippolito’s court new
friends, and perhaps it would cool Alfonso’s ardor for chromatic music. He carefully refrained
from establishing that inner logic that marks his style in general, also in his later chromatic
compositions.
Lowinsky then makes a detailed analysis of the work. He had previously mentioned
the lack of connection between the text and the striking chromatic and syncopated
start and continues:
The work has a fragmented shape. Take the invocation of the Muse: it follows the strongly
chromatic and contrapuntal section of the beginning. The first section ends in an incomplete
Phrygian cadence on the chord of E major with G sharp in the highest voice (m.35). After a
general pause the Muse is hailed in slow repeated harmonies of F major, with the highest
voice on C, then C major – two chords that do not spell out a harmonic phrase. The solemn
appeal to the Muse is followed by a section in dense imitative counterpoint. In the initial
verses the poet laments the prince’s absence; in the next lines he seeks consolation in the
evocation of the Muse’s dwelling in Sirmio’s pleasant groves and in the yielding of unfeeling
Lesbia to the Muse’s intervention on the side of her lover. Triple time and major harmonies
depict the Muse and Lesbia’s yielding to Catullus, sixth chords and minor harmonies the
words Lesbia dura fuit, and chromatic fauxbourdon passages the poet’s plea for the Muse’s
intercession in persuading the prince to return from the foreign country to the place of his
birth, his family, and all his friends await him anxiously.
What are we to make of this curious work and Lowinsky’s interpretation? I think
that Pigna’s sentiments may have been genuine and that Lowinsky’s suggestion of
Rore’s cynical intent is correct: Rore was caricaturing Vicentino’s innovations.
Some of Lowinsky’s strictures now seem unimportant however: harmonic practice
has expanded enormously with the 12-tone developments in the last century. It
has to be admitted that the beginning of the work is enigmatic: mention of reeds or
pan-pipes suggests a high pitch sound with diatonic intervals, not Rore’s low pitched
and chromatic sequence. For today’s listener/performer however, the work,
transposed up an octave from the version in ref. 2 so as to place the offending thirds
more propitiously, (and performable by a more representative choral ensemble with
some dynamic markings not suggested in this edition), can provide a useful insight
into innovative musical thought of the mid-sixteenth century. The piece has
structural coherence and dramatic eloquence. Besides the pervading imitation,
sometimes at the unusual interval of a tone, the texture at the first invocation of the
Muse in bar 37 is repeated at Me adi and again at the Muse’s second invocation.
The chromatic fauxburdon, which may have been anathema to the 16th century
listener, seems today to well express an impassioned regret at the absence of the
prince. The music of the final lines, (Dulci tristibus . . . avenis.) in bars 83-95 is
repeated to the end with an ingenious scheme of exchange between the three upper
voices 7. Whatever Rore’s intentions may have been, his exposition on
chromaticism was carefully crafted.
Perhaps we should see Rore’s Calami sonum
ferentes as a visionary possibility for development that was not much seized upon at
the time.8
Notes and references
1
Edward E Lowinsky, Calami sonum ferentes: A New Interpretation, in Music in
the Culture of the Renaissance, vol. 2, 595-626, ed. Bonnie Blackburn, University of
Chicago Press, 1989.
2
Cipriano Rore, Collected Works Volume 6, p xi, xii and p 108-10, ed.
Bernhard Meier, American Institute of Musicology, 1975.
3
Alfonso was the great grandson of Pope Alexander VI. It may be remarked
that in 1551 he was considered as one of the eventual 36 suitors to Queen
Elizabeth. His martial experience may have satisfied his yearnings for the military
life for he later proved to be one of the gentlest and most cultivated princes of the
late Renaissance. Proficient in Latin and French, he preferred courtly
entertainments to diplomacy and war, enjoying hunting and the balls and
tournaments which formed part of the life of the court at Ferrara and continuing a
long-established Ferrarese tradition, was a patron of arts and sciences and a
supporter of the famous Concerto delle Donne of Ferrara. Although married three
times, he died without heir in 1597 and Ferrara lost its autonomy, becoming part of
the Papal States. Alfonso is believed to be the model of Robert Browning’s poem,
‘My Last Duchess’. Set in October 1564, he stands before the portrait of his late
wife, Lucrezia de Medici, who had died, possibly poisoned, aged 17 in 1561.
Describing her to a visitor he reveals himself to be proud and selfish, regarding his
late wife as a mere object who existed only to please him and do his bidding.
(Internet – various, including My Last Duchess).
4
Cipriano Rore, Collected Works Volume 4, p ii, ed. Bernhard Meier, American
Institute of Musicology, 1969.
5
3 F clefs on the middle line and an F clef on the top line.
6
Orlando di Lasso, The Complete Motets 17, p xvi and pp 27-33, ed Peter
Bergquist, A-R Editions, Inc., Madison, 1999.
7
The second half of the concluding section, (bar 95 to the end), repeats the
music of the first half (83-95). It is formed from six phrases, P1, P2 . . .P6. The
bass part, P4 is simply repeated in the second half and the SA3 phrase in the first
half (P3) is taken up by SA1 in the second.
disposition of the phrases.
83
106 107
SA1
SA2
SA3
B
88
P1
P2
95
P5
P6
P3
P4
The diagram shows the complete
102
P3
P2
P1
P5
P6
P4
8
The opening notes were used by Hans Leo Hassler in his Ad Dominum cum
tribularer of 1601.