Download Stella Program Outline WEB - Eya: Ensemble for Medieval Music

stella serena
program order
Ave maris stella
Hymn, plainchant
Stella splendens in monte
Llibre vermell, 14th c.
Ave, tuos benedic
Salve mater redemptoris/Salve lux/
Salve spina/Salve sancta parens
Conductus, Oxford, 13th c.
Motet, Worcester, 13th c.
Novi sideris
Ave maris stella
Conductus, Notre Dame, 12th c.
Conductus, Las Huelgas, 13th c.
O Maria virgo pia
Salve, mater misericordie
Sequence, Worcester, 13th c.
Rondellus, Oxford, 13th c.
INTERMISSION
Polorum regina
Llibre vermell
O virgo splendens
Salve virgo tonantis solium
Caça, Llibre vermell
Conductus, Oxford, 13th century
Stillat in stellam radium
Stella serena
Conductus, Notre Dame, 13th c.
Conductus, Notre Dame, 13th c.
Virgo Maria, patrem parit/O stella/
Flos genuit/Virgo Maria, flos
Motet, Cambridge, 14th c.
This program lasts approximately 60 minutes plus intermission.
program notes
What is more awe-inspiring than the starry night sky? A sea of darkness, made magical with the twinkling of
millions upon millions of stars. The sky above is not only a source of beauty and utter wonderment, but before
modern times it served to guide sailors, navigators, astronomers, and the like. The night sky was a tool. Yet in
the medieval world, the heavenly canopy was typically considered to be rotating around the earth, God
ordained the heavens to serve those living on earth. And recall, Galileo’s heliocentric theory did not erupt until
the early 17th century, well before the time in which most of this program’s music is drawn.
That said, the Catholic Church was a vital body operating throughout the entirety of Europe during the Middle
Ages. Also flourishing during this time was the cult of Mary, in which veneration of the Virgin Mother became
an intrinsic aspect of everyday life, especially within monastic and spiritual communities.
Mary was viewed as intercessor between mankind and God, a connection between heaven and earth. As such,
Mary was often compared to a star in the night sky, as an omnipresent guide and guardian. Prayers and texts to
Mary commonly bequest that she work on our behalf. There is no shortage of repertoire that is related to or in
praise of Mary. However, this program creates a focus upon the particular image of Mary as a guiding star,
exploring the connection of the human spirit to the celestial God-realm via this unique intercessor.
The opening hymn, Ave maris stella, is our starting point. An ancient song believed to have originated in the 9th
century, in which we have one of the earliest images of Mary as “star of the sea,” a common theme in referring
to Mary up until this day, its origins most likely related to the prayers of the faithful for safe travels upon the
sea.
The remainder of the program is devoted to the music of Spain, England, and France, in which we have chosen
a variety of styles that represent some of the various compositional forms during the medieval period which
maintain our particular focus. First we turn to Spain, a vast intersection of cultures, faiths, and landscapes. In
Catalonia there is a famous pilgrimage route towards the mountaintop monastery of Montserrat in the far east
of that country. Montserrat was established in the 11th century and grew to become an important shrine site. A
fire in 1811 destroyed much of the contents of the monastic library, but an important manuscript survived, the
Llibre vermell (or “Red Book,” named for its more contemporary red velvet cover). The music dates from the
14th century, and it contains only ten songs in all, composed for use by the devout pilgrim. Stella splendens and
Polorum regina, two strophic songs, have a strong rhythmic impulse and repetitive melodic material well-suited
to a processional, possibly employed during a walking journey. O virgo splendens is in canon form, or caça, and
underlays a a prayer to the Virgin in the final stretch of their journey, as they witness the splendor of
Montserrat atop its rocky cliff.
Another piece from a Spanish source, Ave maris stella, is a three-voice conductus found in the Codex de las
Huelgas. The Las Huelgas monastery is located in the city of Burgos. Still housed there today, the Codex,
compiled during the early 14th century, is a seemingly humble manuscript featuring a variety of differing
musical styles. It features music composed both in Spain and at Notre Dame, and is notable for this Parisian
influence, most likely via travelers along the camino, en route to Santiago de Compostela on the far western
shore. Ave maris stella is one such example of a French import, and the long and intricate melismatic writing
stirs up the image of waves upon the endless sea, a fascinating intersection of text and music.
Notre Dame was undoubtedly an enormous influence upon the musical cultures throughout the entire
continent. It is in Paris that musical styles evolved, from chant to conductus, conductus to motet, and so on.
The conductus is a polyphonic work in which two or more voices sing with the same rhythm and text underlay,
mostly in a homophonic style. Novi sideris and Stillat in stellam radium are both two-voice conductus. The first,
joyful and exuberant, relates to Jesus, seen as the ray of light emitted from a new star, whilst the latter is a
placid setting devoted to Mary. A three-voice conductus setting, Stella serena, is a simple and unassuming text
which takes on complex and technically-challenging melodic lines, revealing the craft within this seemingly
simple artform.
The conductus style also flourished in the great monastic centers of England. As it happened, many of these
compositions were not preserved in any careful way throughout the tumultuous history of that island, and thus
they come to us as fragments, scraps, or in the flyleaves (front and back pages of a book) of other manuscripts.
That said, what remains of the compositions from this time and place create an entirely unique sound-world.
The two-voice conductus O Maria virgo pia is a spare, simple devotional text setting, employing the tools of
consonance and dissonance by interweaving voices in happy melodic confusion. The English mastered the
harmonic style of moving in parallel thirds, creating a musical meditation of sorts. In the three-voice setting of
Ave tuos benedic, the voices often are given extended melismatic passages, although some rely on short, simple
statements of text with melodic flourishes as heard in Salve virgo tonantis solium. The English composers of
conductus added some playful touches, heard in the rondellus sections of Salve, mater misericordie.
The conductus musical form was the precursor to the motet, a form which saw its beginnings in the early 13th
century in the school of Notre Dame and became a vehicle for composers to craft incredibly complex linguistic
and musical artforms. In the early motet, two or three upper voices, each with individually set texts
(quadrumplum, triplum, motetus), are placed above an elongated section of liturgical chant (or tenor) in a strict
rhythmic mode. We have chosen two English examples for this program, Salve mater redemptoris and Virgo
Maria, patrem parit, in which four voices join together in various configurations. Salve mater is in the traditional
motet style, in which three voices move freely above the fourth voice, which sings an elongated tenor. The later
motet Virgo Maria is a witness to musical evolution, in which all four voices have been set with four unique
texts. A fascinating aspect of this work is the relation of the two upper voices and the two lower voices; the
upper voices both have texts conjuring the image of Mary as a star, yet the the lower voices refer to Mary as
blossom, flower, another prominent image of Mary during this period.
Allison Mondel