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New Light on Secular Polyphony at the Court of Holland in the Early Fifteenth Century: The Amsterdam Fragments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Rob C. Wegman
Rob C. Wegman*
Affiliation:
New College, Oxford
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Extract

Around 1400, the northern Netherlands were little more than a loose collection of quarrelling principalities, unified to some degree by their common language, Middle Dutch. Formally this unruly area was part of the Holy Roman Empire, but the German emperor's political weakness laid it wide open to the territorial ambitions of the Burgundian dukes. Under their rule, the Netherlands saw centralized regional government for the first time in their history. But it was not until the sixteenth century, when their Spanish Habsburg successors were increasingly regarded as foreign oppressors, that anything like a unified sovereign Dutch state came within sight.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 117 , Issue 2 , 1992 , pp. 181 - 207
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1992

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References

Shorter verslons of this paper were read at the Annual General Meetmg of the Royal Musical association, London, 24 November 1990, Manchester Unlversny, and Royal Holloway and Bedford New College I am grateful to David Fallows for generously commenting on earher drafts of the textGoogle Scholar

1 On Dutch and Belgian sources see Muller, Jacob Wijbrand, ‘Brokstukken van middeleeuwse meerstemmige liederen’, Tijdschrift voor nederlandse taal- en letterkunde, 25 (1906), 1–60, Metha-Machteld van Delft, ‘Een Gloria-fragment in de Universiteits-Bibhotheek te Utrecht’, Tijdschrift van de Vereniging voor nederlandse muziekgeschiedenis, 19 (1960), 85–6, Gilbert Reaney, ‘New Sources of Ars Nova Music’, Musica disciplina, 19 (1965), 53–67, Edward Stam, ‘Het Utrechts fragment van een Zeeuws-Vlaamse marktroepen-motetus’, Tijdschrift van de Vereniging voor nederlandse muziekgeschiedenis, 21 (1968), 25–37, Helène Wagenaar-Nolthenius, ‘De Leidse fragmenten Nederlandse polifonie uit het einde der 14de eeuw’, Donum natalicium R B Lenaerts, ed Jozef Robijns (Leuven, 1969), 303–15, Frank Ll Harrison, ‘Two Liturgical Manuscripts of Dutch Origin in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and Music for the Ordinary of the Mass in the Late Medieval Netherlands’, Tijdschrift van de Vereniging voor nederlandse muziekgeschiedenis, 32 (1982), 76–95, Reinhard Strohm, “The Ars Nova Fragments of Gent', Tijdschrift van de Vereniging voor nederlandse muziekgeschiedenis, 34 (1984), 109–31, Two Chansonniers from the Low Countries, ed Jan van Biezen and Johan Peter Gumbert, Monumenta musica neerlandica, 15 (Amsterdam, 1985)Google Scholar

2 Amst U 64 was registered in this journal as acquisition no 1392 In the lower left-hand corner of f. 1 the following pencilled inscriptions are to be found ‘ES 64’ and, beneath that, ‘56/1392’ (see Figure 2). The latter inscription refers to the year of acquisition and the acquisition number.Google Scholar

3 The note runs ‘De vier laatste folio-zijden van dit fragment bevatten de laatste hoofdstukken [van] het 2de deel der “Musica S[p]eculativa”, toegeschreven aan Joannes de Muris van Luik Het werd afgedrukt door Gerben in zijn Scriptores Eccles de Mus. III, 274b-282b “et sic ultima” (hs. ultra). Het fragment bevat vele interessante Varianten [signed] Jos Smits v Waesberghe, Amsterdam, 8 Februari, 1938 [or 1937] ‘Google Scholar

4 The Theory of Music from the Carolingian Era up to 1400, ed. Joseph Smits van Waesberghe, Répertoire international des sources musicales, BIII, i (Munich-Duisburg, 1961), 136–9Google Scholar

5 I am grateful to Dr Eddie Vetter, who has searched for information on AmstU 64 and its former owner in the notes and correspondence of Smits van Waesberghe, who died in 1986Google Scholar

6 Edition in Martin Gerberi, Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica sacra potissimum (St Blasien, 1784), iii. 249–83.Google Scholar

7 Blijfs mi doch bi, gheselle goet is thus a canon of the type ‘tenor faciens contratenorem’. which originated in the Burgundian-French area around 1400 (see Laurence K. J. Feininger. Die Frühgeschichte dei Kanons his Josquin des Prez (um 1500), Emsdetten, 1937, 18–25). In such canons, the top voice (or top two voices) were usually freely composed. Early fifteenth-century compositions in which a canonic voice is to start simultaneously with another voice while moving in doubled note values are rare; one example is Dufay's(?) Bien veignés vous, but here the canon is at the octave, and the canonic pan is to be derived from the top voice rather than the tenor.Google Scholar

8 This is also the case in another early fifteenth-century canonic song, O dolce compagno by Dominicus de Feraria (OxfB 213, f 135) The canonic voice is addressed here as follows ‘O sweet companion, if you would sing, take the diapason without delay’ (quoted after Virginia Newes, ‘Writing, Reading and Memorizing The Transmission and Resolution of Retrograde Canons from the 14th and Early 15th Centuries’, Early Music, 18 (1990), 218–34 (p 227)) However, in contrast to this song, Blijfs mi doch bi, gheselle goet gives no clue to the canonic procedure in its textGoogle Scholar

9 Edition in Gilbert Reaney, Early Fifteenth-Century Music, Corpus mensurabilis musicae, 11 (American Institute of Musicology, 1969), iv, 68–9 This two-part, one-stanza version has been recorded by Gothic Voices (“The Garden of Zephirus', Hyperion A66144)Google Scholar

10 ‘N'a pas longtemps’, paper prepared for a radio broadcast by Westdeutscher Rundfunk (1987, I am grateful to Dr Fallows for allowing me to consult his paper) Fallows based his suggestion on the form of the poem, the references to classical myths, the long-limbed and florid vocal lines, and the recognition that the first stanza ends with a dedicatory statement typical of the ballade N'a pas longtemps has however no musical repeats, and is hence not in musical ballade form This is rare but occurs also in other ballades, e g Dufay's Se la face ay paleGoogle Scholar

11 This song is not identical with the Ayes pite de vostre which is found in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 14274, f. 99Google Scholar

12 Fallows, David, ‘Two Equal Voices A French Song Repertory with Music for Two More Works of Oswald von Wolkenstein’, Early Music History, 7 (1987), 227–41Google Scholar

13 Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, MS 6 E 37 II and Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek, MS B P L 2720, edited in Van Biezen and Gumbert, Two ChansonniersGoogle Scholar

14 Ibid., 13–14Google Scholar

15 Strohm, ‘The Ars Nova Fragments’, 120Google Scholar

16 Janse, Antheunis, ‘Het muziekleven aan het hof van Albrecht van Beieren (1358–1404) in Den Haag’, Tijdschrift van de Vereniging voor nederlandse muziekgeschiedenis, 36 (1986), 136–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Frits Pieter van Oostrom, Het woord van eer Literatuur aan het Hollandse hof omstreeks 1400 (Amsterdam, 1987) This brilliant and lively book is indispensable to any study of musical life at the court of Holland around 1400Google Scholar

18 Janse, ‘Het muziekleven’, 142–5Google Scholar

19 Private communication from Dr Gerard Nijsten (Catholic University of Nijmegen), 25 June 1990 Vander Brucgen is documented at the court of Guelders from 1405 to 1423Google Scholar

20 Oostrom, Van, Het woord van eer, 31 It would of course be speculative to suggest that Renouveler me feist (LeidU 2720, f 4) could be the May song by Albert of Bavaria However, the rondeau seems like the work of an amateur note the parallel octaves in bars 8–9, 13–4 and 21–2, and the parallel fifths in bar 17 (Van Biezen and Gumbert, Two Chansonniers, 44). Two further May songs are in the Utrecht quarto fragments (Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, MS 6 E 37 I). [Ic beghi]nne mijn liedekijn (f IV) and Och lief gesel, ic heb vernomen (f II Bv, the song is addressed to a girl named Lijsbette/Bet, and asks Iaioette, Iannette, Iaquette, Corijn, Iosijn, Iacomijn and Pirette to join a dance to the music of ‘pipen, tamburen mit trompetten’) See Muller, ‘Brokstukken’, 24–8Google Scholar

21 Oostrom, Van, Het woord van eer, 30Google Scholar

22 Ibid., 34Google Scholar

23 Frits Pieter van Oostrom has provided a convincing literary context at the court of Holland for the Middle Dutch songs in the Leiden fragments (Het woord van eer, 86–93)Google Scholar

24 Ibid, 130 and 171 Many payments for musicians and entertainers at Shrove Tuesday celebrations are to be found in the transcriptions of C Lingbeek-Schalekamp, Overheid en muziek in Holland tot 1672 (Poortugaal, 1984), 156(1347), 171 (1388), 173(1389), 180(1394), 185(1399), 186 (1401), 187 (1402), 189 (1405), 192 (1415)Google Scholar

25 During the festivities of Charles the Bold's marriage to Margaret of York, in Bruges in 1468, the song Faictes vous l'asne, ma matstresse? was sung by four musicians dressed as donkeys (Reinhard Strohm, Music in Late Medieval Bruges, Oxford, 1985, 99) In Bruges, Shrove Tuesday celebrations were normally mommeries, i e masked balls (ibid, 85)Google Scholar

26 See van Blokland, Willem Adriaan Beelaerts, ‘De hollandse turn en de Orde van St Anthonis’, Maandblad van het genealogisch-heraldisch genootschap ‘De nederlandse leeuw‘, 47 (1929), cols 363–6, and Van Oostrom, Het woord van eer, 173 and 176 The song is in UtreR 37 II, ff 21v-22Google Scholar

27 Janse, ‘Het muziekleven’, 155, note 57Google Scholar

28 Wagenaar-Nolthenius, ‘De Leidse fragmenten’, 305, and Van Bieten and Gumbert, Two Chansonniers, 13Google Scholar

29 Janse, ‘Het muziekleven’, 142–3 Fabri (the surname was probably a Latinization of ‘Smeets’ or perhaps ‘Le Fèvre’) worked at the court of Holland until his death in 1400 Three payments to a ‘meester Martijn’ are transcribed in Lingbeek-Schalekamp, Overhetd en muziek, 184 and 190 partial reimbursement for rent (1396), payment of salary (1397); payment for playing the portative organ for Count Guillaume VI in 1408 (The last reference must relate to a different ‘meester Martijn’) Fabri is also mentioned in records of St Donatian's at Bruges, but there are no dates (Strohm, Music in Late Medieval Bruges, 169, note 27) More tentative is the identification of the monk Hugo Boy (whose song Genade Venus immediately follows Fabri's Een cleyn parabel in the Leiden source) with the priest Hughe, who was appointed singer at the court in the same year (‘Het muziekleven’, 142–4) Yet, as Janse points out, Hugo Boy's song uses a mixed German-Dutch language (see also below), and this is compatible with Hughe's German origins (he came from the court of the duke of Berg, near Cologne) Moreover, the textual and musical parallels between Genade Venus and Een cleyn parabel (in both, for instance, the crucial words ‘Een vriendelic aensien’ (= ‘Doulx regart‘) are rubricated in the source) suggest direct contact between the two composers (see Van Biezen and Gumbert, Two Chansonniers, 119–20)Google Scholar

30 Since the publication of his article Het muziekleven', Antheunis Janse has discovered more documentation on Martinus Fabri, which he has generously allowed me to publish (private communication, 16 September 1989) Fabri died in early May 1400 He left books of polyphonic music (altogether worth 2 English nobles) which were bought by the count of Holland for use in the court chapel The books had been lent to a meester Jan van Heukelem in Dordrecht, who was asked by letter to send them back (The Hague, Algemeen Rijksarchief, Archief van de Graven van Holland, 1254 (treasurer's accounts), ff 75 and 92v) 9 May 1400 ‘Paid to meester Martin's heirs for books of polyphony which he had left, which the provost bought for the use of my lord's chapel, cost 2 nobles, makes 15 scellingen’ (‘meyster Martijns erfnamen betailt voir sulke boeken van discant als hi after lyet ende die profst cofte tot mijns heren capellen behoef, costen ii noblen facit xv s’) 16 May 1400 ‘Sent to Dordrecht to meester Jan van Heukelem with a letter from my lord, telling him to return the books of polyphony which my lord had bought from meester Martin's heirs for the use of the chapel, and which meester Martin had lent to [Heukelem]’ (‘gesent Tordrecht an meister Jan van Huekelem mit mijns heren brieve roerende dat hi senden soude sulke boeken van discant als mijn here tgegen meister Martijns erfnamen gecoft had ter capellen behoif ende hem meister Martijn gehent had’)Google Scholar

31 Pelnar, Ivana, Die mehrstimmigen Lieder Oswalds von Wolkenstein (Tutzing, 1982), i, 104, and ii, 138Google Scholar

32 See note 30 above Four surviving inventories of items kept in the court chapel, made up in 1443, 1491, 1519 and c 1565, mention books of polyphony See the edition in J Smit, ‘De kerkinventaris van de voormalige hofkapel in Den Haag’, Bijdragen voor de geschiedenis van het bisdom van Haarlem, 41 (1923), 1–57 The inventory of 1443 mentions only one ‘discantboek’ (p 19), which could be one of the books bought from Fabri's heirs In 1490 four large manuscripts of polyphony are mentioned, of which three consisted altogether of 516 folios (p 35) One of these is described as ‘an old paper song-book consisting of ten sexterns, filled entirely with polyphony’, it does not reappear in the 1519 inventory Interestingly, another manuscript, consisting of 180 parchment folios with decorated initials, is mentioned as ‘containing mostly English music’ (one of the latest instances of continental transmission of English fifteenth-century polyphony), this same book is mentioned in 1519, but seems to have been destroyed thereafter Various payments for the copying or purchase of polyphony at the court chapel are transcribed in Lingbeek-Schalekamp, Overheid en muziek, 209–16 These include payments in 1447–8 (‘a book of polyphony for the organist to play from on the organ’), 1506 (a book of chant and polyphony, including a ‘sequence’ on the death of Philip the Fair, composed by the choirmaster), 1560 (purchase of a large parchment discantbouck ‘from which the singers sing their lessons’), 1562 (12 paper sheets ‘in which the choirmaster has copied the Passion’) Further documentation on music at the court chapel in The Hague is given in Bouwstenen voor een geschiedenis der toonkunst in de Nederlanden, ed Christiaan C Vlam and Maarten Albert Vente (Utrecht, 1965), i, 78–81Google Scholar

33 Janse, ‘Het muziekleven’, 155, note 54 The full text of the song runs ‘Long ago I heard a little parable, which is true “Where there is love, the eyes will follow, where there is pain, the hand must reach Where pain, there grief, where love, there danger ” I have now become aware of this game through the sweetest little lady on earth, who bore a lovely child on which she looked so kindly that it gladdened my heart For her sake I have suffered much distress, that was done by Doulx regart And thus I fear, were this to happen to me if I pursued my desire, I would have to honour the child for the mother's sake ‘Google Scholar