Boston Camerata: Ferrara - O triumphale diamante

O triumphale diamante!

Music for Ferrara, 1400-1500

March 14, 2003

performed by

The Boston Camerata

Joel Cohen, music director

O Rosa Bella John Bedingham (d. ca. 1460)

O beautiful rose, o sweet soul of mine, do not let me die but rather, for courtesy’s sake, let me serve you loyally.

Missa O Rosa Bella: Kyrie Anonymous, ca. 1450

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy

Gloria ad Modum Tubae Guillaume Dufay (1400-1474)

Glory to God in the highest. And on earth peace to men of good will. We praise Thee. We bless Thee. We worship Thee. We glorify Thee. We give Thee thanks for Thy great glory, O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father almighty. Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son. Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Who takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer. Who sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us. For Thou alone art holy; Thou alone art Lord; Thou alone, O Jesus Christ, together with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the Glory of God the Father. Amen!

II.

Vergine Bella Guillaume Dufay

Text: Francesco Petrarch (1300-1374)

O beautiful virgin, clothed in the sun, crowned with stars,You who found such favor with the highest Sun that he hid his light in you, Love drives me to speak of you, But I cannot even begin without your aid, And the aid of him who established himself in you.

I call upon her who has always answered those Who named her with faith. Lady, if extreme misery in human beings ever turned you to pity, Bend down to my prayer, Help my struggle,

Though I be earth, and you the Queen of Heaven.

Quel fronte signorille Guillaume Dufay

What a noble aspect does my soul discern in paradise, while I hold myself near her power, marvelling at her fair face.

Craindre vous veuil Guillaume Dufay

Precious lady, I wish to hold you in awe, to love and respect you, in deeds and words, all my life, wherever I may be; and to give you, my only joy, my love, as long as I may live.

Seigneur Leon Guillaume Dufay

Sir Leon, welcome to you! With great honor have you been received by the God’s Church Militant, and been given the sharp and noble sword.

III.

Helas que devera mon cuer Heinrich Isaac (ca. 1450-1517)

La Alfonsina Johannes Martini (c.1440-c.1478)

Regina coeli (excerpt) Gregorian

Queen of heaven, rejoice.

Royne du ciel -- Regina coeli Loyset Compère (1445-1518)

Queen of heaven, whose milk wet the face of the son of God, you who are treasurer of grace, save me from the gates of Hell.

Basse danse La Spagna Anonymous, ca. 1500

Scaramella Anonymous, ca. 1475

Scaramella goes to war with his sword and shield. Scaramella is quite the dandy, with with his scarf and boots.

Scaramella Josquin des Près (ca. 1450-1521)

Scaramella goes to war...

INTERMISSION

From the Mass “Hercules Dux Ferrarie”: Josquin des Près

Kyrie

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy.

Gloria

Sanctus

Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Hosts. Heaven and earth are filled with Thy glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

Agnus Dei

Lamb of God, Who take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, Who take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, Who take away the sins of the world, grant us peace

O triumphale diamante “G.L.” (1502)

O [Hercules of Ferrara] triumphant diamond, Noble and shining, tower of strength and vigor! O fount of wisdom for all Italy, o summit of honor.

Pavana alla Veneziana Joan Ambrosio Dalza (1507)

Ohime il cor Marco Cara (ca. 1470-1525)

Alas, my heart; alas, my head! The one loves, and comprehends not; the other errs, and repents not. Alas, my heart...

Io non comprò più speranza Marco Cara

I’m not buying hope any more -- it’s phoney goods! One I bought it dear, but now I’m selling cheap -- and I advise anyone not to go there. And so the dance goes on...I’m not buying hope any more -- it’s phoney goods!

Non è tempo d’aspetare Marco Cara

It’s no time to wait, now that we have calm seas and fresh wind -- circumstances could change at any moment. It’s no time to wait...

The Boston Camerata

Joel Cohen, music director

Anne Azéma, soprano, organetto

Joel Cohen, lute, baritone, percussion

Michael Collver, countertenor, cornet

Steven Lundahl, sackbut, trumpet, recorder

Robert Mealy, vielle, harp, lira da braccio

Karen Walthinsen, vielle, organetto

Assisted by

The Harvard University Choir

Murray Forbes Somerville, director

(names here)

Special thanks to Lewis Lockwood for his musical editions, advice, and friendly encouragement.

Additional French verses for “Seigneur Leon” by Anne Azéma

Acknowledgements to the Gardner Museum, which originally commissioned this program

Funding for The Boston Camerata is provided in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Program notes

We generally associate high achievement in the matter of culture with major capital cities -- New York. Berlin. London. Paris. The association is often a true and valid one, but not always. Sometimes small-to-medium cities become especially important places where the arts can be nurtured and made to grow. Think, for example, of Boston at the close of the nineteenth century -- a town much smaller than New York, but an incredibly fertile place for artists, writers, and thinkers. And don’t we, as patriotic Bostonians, get a burst of civic pride, an almost-illicit shiver of self-satisfaction, when the term “Athens of America” gets booted around?

So, as it is with us Bostonians, it perhaps is as well with the good burghers of Ferrara Italy, when they think of their glorious, Renaissance past. Much smaller was Ferrara than Venice or Florence, and much weaker politically (whence its alliances with France, and the French-tinged ethos of its court). Yet what intense, and what magnificently fruitful creations poured forth from that small city-state during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries!

Much of that Ferrarese fertility has to do with the existence of highly motivated patronage. Here in Boston we today still owe much about our arts institutions to a few enlightened, late nineteenth century Brahmins. The names of Isabella Stewart Gardner and Henry Lee Higginson come immediately to mind. Similarly, the instigators of all that wonderful art and music in Renaissance Ferrara were powerful, wealthy, and arts-minded individuals -- specifically four members of the Este family who reigned over Ferrara in succession. They were Niccolò III (1393-1441); Leonello d’Este (1441-50); Borso d’Este (1450-71; and, perhaps most magnificently of all, Ercole I d’Este (1471-1505). Their story, and their relation to the music and the musicians your will be hearing tonight, has been told in facinating and book-length detail by Harvard’s distinguished Lewis Lockwood.

These Ferrarese potentates sought to engage the finest musicians in Europe for their. So successful were they that to some genuine extent the history of the early Renaissance in music is the history of the illustrious musicians -- singers, instrumentalists, and composers -- who came to that court, most of the time from distant, Northern Europe. The journey from England, France, or Flanders was arduous and not without peril. Ferrara’s success in recruting the best and the brightest recalls New York’s stroke of luck in “nabbing” Dvorak and bringing him across the ocean for a few seasons -- but to continue the parallel, New York, to be the equal of Ferrara, would have had to relocate Brahms and Wagner in Manhattan, too -- and would have had to treat Mahler decently. The Estes had obtained visits and sejours by the greatest of the great -- Dufay and Josquin -- and by a host of others nearly as important.

According to Professor Lockwood, we only possess a portion of the music that was known to have been copied in Ferrara. Tonight, therefore, you will hear a fragment of a fragment. We can only suggest in a typical concert setting the incredible richness of inspiration that flowed out from that place for several generations. We hope, however, that our selection is representative. And we will give you a large excerpt from perhaps the most representative work of all, one that at once symbolizes Ferrara’s eminent place, and the concept of the Renaissance hero-patron in general. Josquin’s “Hercules” mass uses as the thematic basis for its development not, as was common, a Gregorian chant or a French song, but the very name of the Duke who commisioned it. Using the vowels, which can easily be “converted” to pitch syllables, the composer transforms his patron’s name, “Hercules Duke of Ferrara,” into a musical theme or cantus firmus, varying the basic material in a hundred ingenious, delicious ways. Continuously, as the text of the liturgy is set forth by certain singers, the name of Hercules sounds out in worldly counterpoint by others. It’s a tour de force on many levels, musically, spiritually, even politically. Could we even dream of thus immortalizing, not with propaganda but with high art, a contemporary ruler or potentate?......That is perhaps a useful reflection for the present day. In any case, the surviving music of Renaissance Ferrara remains for our continued contemplation and delectation.

Joel Cohen