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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2008
Among the small repertoire of early fifteenth-century ceremonial works is an anonymous lamentation motet, Romanorum rex inclite, written to commemorate the death in 1439 of Albrecht II, King of the Romans. It is thought to be by Johannes Brassart,1 the most distinguished member of Albrecht's choir, and is a fine example of the then moribund isorhythmic motet. Its music is of manifestly high quality, yet it is primarily for its text that Romanorum rex inclite is known, since this lists the names of the singers who apparently constituted the king's choir at the time of his death.2 Only two can be confidently identified: Brassart himself, who heads the list, and his near namesake Johannes de Sarto. Brassart's life is well documented; he is recognized as one of the best and most productive composers of the second
This article is a revised version of a paper given at the East Midlands Chapter meeting of the Royal Musical Association, University of Nottingham, 23 March 1991.
1 The attribution, made by de Van, G., ‘A Recently Discovered Source of Early Fifteenth Century Polyphonic Music’, Musica Disciplina, 2 (1948), pp. 5–74Google Scholar: see p. 14, has been generally accepted. The work is published in Johannis Brassart: Opera Omnia, ed. Mixter, K. E., 2 vols., Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 35 ([Rome], 1965–1971; henceforth CMM 35/i-ii), ii, no. 14Google Scholar, and in Sechs Motetten, ed. K. E. Mixter (Graz, 1960), no. 6.
2 The list reads: ‘Brassart cum Erasmo Adam serva Io. de Sarto Iohannisque pariter Tirion Martin [Martini?] et Galer cantores’. De Van, ‘A Recently Discovered Source’, p. 15, interprets this list as comprising the names of five singers – Brassart, Erasmus Adam, Sarto, Johannes Tirion (Touront?) and Martin Galer, thus ignoring the conjunction ‘et’ and overlooking the possible significance of the word ‘pariter’ (the word ‘serva’ presents a special problem as it does not construe). Mixter, , ‘Johannes Brassart: a Biographical and Bibliographical Study’, Musica Disciplina, 18 (1964), pp. 37–62 [part 1]: see pp. 56–7Google Scholar, offers a more plausible interpretation, suggesting that pariter (which he translates as ‘likewise’) may imply the application of the Christian name Johannes not just to Tirion but also to Martin and Galer as family names. This yields six singers in all, the same total as the number of notes in the final chord of Romanorum rex indite.
3 The most comprehensive study is Mixter, K. E., ‘Johannes Brassart and his Works’, Ph.D dissertation, University of North Carolina (1961), 2 vols.Google Scholar See also the same author's published studies: ‘Johannes Brassart: a Biographical and Bibliographical Study’, Musica Disciplina, 18 (1964), pp. 37–62 [part 1]Google Scholar, and 19 (1965), pp. 99–108 [part 2]; and ‘Isorhythmic Design in the Motets of Johannes Brassart’, Studies in Musicology: Essays in the History, Style, and Bibliography of Music, in Memory of Glen Haydon, ed. Pruett, J. W. (Chapel Hill, 1969), pp. 179–89.Google Scholar Additional biographical information is presented in Meyer-Eller, S., ‘Johannes Brassart und seine Verbindung mit Johannes de Ragusa’, Die Musikforschung, 39 (1986), pp. 148–52.Google Scholar
4 Only four works have an uncontested manuscript attribution to Sarto as against twenty-seven thus attributed to Brassart. For work-lists of the two composers, see their respective entries (s. v. ‘Brassart, Johannes’ and ‘Johannes de Sarto’) in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Sadie, S., 20 vols. (London, 1980).Google Scholar
5 Brassart probably entered imperial service between 11 October 1433 and 12/13 May 1434, while Sigismund was staying in Basle. His position as rector capelle may have been short-lived, since the only reference to his appointment dates from 23 February 1437, and by 15 July of that year he had vacated the post (Meyer-Eller, ‘Johannes Brassart’, p. 151). The reference to Brassart as cantor regis (in a document written in Vienna on 21 October 1439, just six days before Albrecht II's death; Meyer-Eller, ‘Johannes Brassart’, p. 150) may be equivalent to Friedrich IV's description of the composer as ‘principal singer’ (Mixter, ‘Johannes Brassart’ [part 1], p. 59). Meyer-Eller suggests that the cantor had overall responsibility for the music of the chapel, while the rector capelle was specifically in charge of the singers. Whatever his precise duties, Brassart's position between 1437 and 1443 (the last year of his known imperial service) was evidently a senior one, as his placement at the head of the list of singers in Romanorum rex inclite confirms.
6 Mixter, ‘Johannes Brassart’ [part 1], pp. 51–2, 58–9 and 60–61, noted that Brassart was present in Tongeren at various times between 1438 and 1445. Recently E. Schreurs, ‘Musical Life at Tongeren during the First Half of the Fifteenth Century in the Context of Western European Music History’ (paper given at the 19th Annual Conference on Medieval Music, St Catherine's College, Oxford, 19–22 July 1991), has shown that the composer's association with the collegiate church continued until June 1451.
7 The records of St Lambert, (Cartulaire de l'église Saint-Lambert de Liège, ed. Bormans, S., Schoolmeesters, E. and Poncelet, E., 6 vols. (Brussels, 1893–1933))Google Scholar refer to ’Johan de Sart clers‘ (iv. p. 312, no. MDXXIII (16 March 1360)), ’Jehann delle Sart‘ (iv, p. 366, no. MDLXXV (19 May 1362)), ’Jehanne de Sart‘ (iv, pp. 403–4, no. MDCVI (4 December 1364)), ’Jean de Sart clerc‘ (vi: p. 132, no. 693 (22 June 1374); p. 135, no. 707 (11 November 1376); p. 148, no. 783 (28 April 1384)) and ’Jean Sarto de Bleret, prêtre‘ (v, p. 31, no. 1993 (6 July 1405)). The records of St Jean, (Inventaire analytique des chartes de la Collégiale de Saint-Jean l'Evangéliste à Liège, ed. Lahaye, L., 2 vols. (Brussels, 1921–1931))Google Scholar refer to a canon by the name of Johannes (Johan, Johans) de Sarto (Sart, Sar) (i: p. 282, no. 563 (30 April 1396); pp. 282–3, no. 565 (6 March 1397); pp. 284–5, no. 570 (19 March 1398); pp. 293–4, no. 594 (10 November 1401); pp. 299–300, no. 607 (3 November 1404); pp. 362–3, no. 761 (24 April 1430)). The sheer time-span of these documents (1360–1430) makes it highly improbable that clerk and canon are one and the same person, as suggested by Clercx, S., Johannes Ciconia, un musicien liégeois et son temps (vers 1335–1411), 2 vols. (Brussels, 1960), i, p. 33.Google Scholar Clearly at least two or three men are involved here. On the name ‘Sarto’, see Auda, A., La musique et les musiciens de l'ancien pays de Liège (Brussels, 1930), p. 88.Google Scholar
8 Wright, C., ‘Dufay at Cambrai: Discoveries and Revisions’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 28 (1975), pp. 175–229CrossRefGoogle Scholar: see pp. 205–6. Du Sart is listed at Cambrai as a petit vicaire (1455), as magister coralium (1458–9), temporary master of the choirboys (1461), and permanent master of the choirboys (1462–6) following the failure of Jean Regis to appear. In 1467 he resigned his position as a cathedral chaplain to accept a chaplainry at the church of Notre Dame de la Salle-le-Combe at Valenciennes. Wright suggests that he is the ‘Dussart’ named – along with Dufay, Busnois, Caron, Georges de Brelles, Regis, Tinctoris and Ockeghem – in Compère's motet Omnium bonorum, where he is described as a ‘magister cantilenarum’. He may also be the singer ‘Johannes Dusart’ whose presence is recorded in Paris in 1483 (see Brenet, M., Les musiciens de la Sainte-Chapelle du Palais (Paris, 1910), p. 38).Google Scholar A late fifteenth-century chanson, Rose playsant (published in A Florentine Chansonnier from the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent: Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS Banco Rari 229, ed. Brown, H. M., 2 vols. (Chicago, 1983), music vol., no. 219)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, survives with attributions to ‘Caron’, ‘Philipon’ [Philippe Basiron?], and ‘Jo. Dusart’, a conflict yet to be properly resolved. Brown, A Florentine Chansonnier, text vol., p. 46, maintains that Jean du Sart and Johannes de Sarto cannot be the same person, owing to pronounced stylistic differences between Rose playsant and the six compositions attributed to Sarto. Questionable though the equation of the two names may be, Brown's argument is not really sustainable, since the degree of stylistic divergence to which he refers is only what is to be expected when comparing a chanson from the 1460s or 1470s with a group of sacred works from the 1430s.
9 Brassart's introits – nos. 1-5 and 7–9 in Table 1 – are published as nos. 1–8 respectively in CMM 35/ i, while Sarto's introit (no. 6) remains unpublished. Mixter (CMM 35/i, p. xii) considers this work to be ‘curiously unlike the rest of the basic group of Introits in Ao [I-AO15]’. He rightly points out that it lacks both verse and doxology, but his two other reasons for thus isolating this setting are less convincing. The first is his statement that ‘there exist no concordances’, but as he himself points out, this is true also of Brassart's setting of De ventre matris. The second is his observation that ‘the technique of rhythmic coloration is applied in a manner quite foreign to that of the other Introits’. There are two instances of coloration in Sarto's setting, both of which are conventional and directly comparable with Brassart's usage of this notational device in several of his introits; what may have misled Mixter is the fact that in the second instance the scribe has left a note void by mistake (the breve e, note 36 of f. 15v, staff 5). For a detailed discussion of Brassart's introits, see F. Dangel-Hofmann, Der mehrstimmige Introitus in Quellen des 15. Jahrhunderts, Würzburger musikhistorische Beiträge 3 (Tutzing, 1975), pp. 35–57.
10 CMM 35/i, p. xi.
11 An important exception is Atlas, A. W., ‘Conflicting Attributions in Italian Sources of the Franco-Netherlandish Chanson, c. 1465-c. 1505: a Progress Report on a New Hypothesis’, in Music in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Patronage, Sources and Texts, ed. Fenlon, I. (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 249–93.Google Scholar
12 See Hamm, C., ‘The Reson Mass’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 18 (1965), pp. 5–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar: esp. pp. 8–9; D. Fallows, Dufay (London, 1982), pp. 175–7; and Gossett, P., ‘Techniques of Unification in Early Cyclic Masses and Mass Pairs’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 19 (1966), pp. 205–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar: esp. pp. 210–13.
13 As possible support for this hypothesis, it should be mentioned that Spiritus Domini and Gaudeamus omnes, the introits with conflicting attributions, share two small but striking features which are not present in Salve sancta parens and Nos autem gloriari, the two undisputed Brassart introits with independent doxologies: a change of mensuration at the beginning of the polyphonic section of the doxology; and a rest in just two (as against three) voices after the phrase ‘et nunc, et semper’.
14 Mixter's edition of O flos fragrans (CMM 35/ii, no. 3, critical commentary) lists no fewer than five other published versions of the work (two of them partial). The most detailed discussion of the piece is in Riemann, H., Handbuch der Musikgeschichte, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1920–1923), ii.1, pp. 128–30.Google Scholar Briefer mentions are found in, for example, Wolff, H. C., Die Musik der alten Niederländer (Leipzig, 1956), pp. 96–7Google Scholar; Reese, G., Music in the Renaissance (New York, 1954), p. 38Google Scholar; and van den Borren, C., ‘Dufay and his School’, in The New Oxford History of Music, iii: Ars Nova and the Renaissance, 1300-1500, ed. Hughes, Dom A. and Abraham, G. (London, 1960), p. 235.Google Scholar
15 By the Munich Capella Antiqua, director Konrad Ruhland, Telefunken Das Alte Werk SAWT9505 (1968). Gratulemur Christicole (CMM 35/ii, no. 2) is recorded by the Ensemble Ars Italica, Tactus TC40012201 (1991).
16 Compare, for example, bars 17-19, 31-4, 47-9, 85-7 and 101-3.
17 The word ‘cantilena’ is used here as a means of distinguishing a particular type of motet rather than as a substitute for the term ‘motet’. On the application of the word ‘cantilena’ to early fifteenth-century music, and in particular to certain works by Dufay, see Fallows, Dufay, pp. 124–34, and Planchart, A. E., ‘What's in a Name? Reflections on Some Works of Guillaume Du Fay’, Early Music, 16 (1988), pp. 165–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18 Published in Guillelmi Dufay: Opera Omnia, ed. Besseler, H., 6 vols., Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 1 (Rome, 1951–1966), i, no. 2.Google Scholar
19 Brassart had joined the choir by 29 April, and was still a member on 1 August, but left before or during November (Mixter, ‘Johannes Brassart’ [part 1], pp. 42–4). Dufay's membership was continuous throughout the year.
20 There is no published edition of Ave mater, O Maria. O quam mirabilis is published in Sechs Trienter Codices: Geistliche und weltliche Compositionen des XV. Jahrhunderts, Erste Auswahl, ed. Adler, G. and Koller, O., Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich, Jg. vii, 14–15 (Vienna, 1900), pp. 215–17.Google Scholar Verbum Patris is published in Polyphonia Sacra: a Continental Miscellany of the Fifteenth Century, ed. van den Borren, C. (Burnham, 1932; rev. 2/1962), no. 47.Google Scholar The texts of Sarto's motets, like that of O flos fragrans, are not known from any other source, save for the first verse of Ave mater, O Maria, which is also the first verse of a lauda text (see II codice musicale 2216 della Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna, ed. Gallo, F. A., Monumenta Lyrica Medii Aevi Italica, 3rd ser.: Mensurabilia 3/i-ii (Bologna, 1968–70), ii, pp. 48–9).Google Scholar
21 This observation does not, however, take into account a difference of tempo between the two pieces: whereas O flos fragrans remains in perfect time throughout, Ave mater, O Maria changes to diminished perfect time about two thirds of the way through.
22 The figure occurs in its complete form in Fortis cum quevis (CMM 35/ii, no. 9, bars 17-18) and with rhythmic modification in the conjecturally attributed Romanorum rex indite (CMM 35/ii, no. 14, bars 58-9). Incomplete statements of figure (x) can be found, for example, in Gratulemur Christicole (CMM 35/ii, no. 2, bars 4-5, 10, 19-20 and 38), Te dignitas presularis (CMM 35/ii, no. 6, bars 6-7) and Christi nutu sublimato (CMM 35/ii, no. 8, bars 16-17).
23 Interestingly, Riemann, Handbuch, ii.1, pp. 130–32, briefly compares the two works. His purpose is to demonstrate that whether a text is metrical (O flos fragrans) or non-metrical (O quam mirabilis) need be of little consequence for the musical shape of a piece, and he does not discuss detailed musical similarities.
24 There is disagreement among the sources at this point: I-TRmpa 87-1 has d′′, I-BcQ15 and GB-Ob213, c′′. The d′, though the minority reading (it is rejected by Mixter in CMM 35/ii, no. 3), seems more convincing per se, and more logical in the context of the recurrent idea of which it forms a part. The two other occurrences of this idea are at bars 54-8 and 110-14.
25 For further copying details, see Wright, P., ‘The Compilation of Trent 87-1 and 92-2’, Early Music History, 2 (1982), pp. 237–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
26 This is the second layer of the manuscript as identified by Bent, M., ‘A Contemporary Perception of Early Fifteenth-Century Style: Bologna Q15 as a Document of Scribal Editorial Initiative’, Musica Disciplina, 41 (1987), pp. 183–201.Google Scholar Lewis, Ann, ‘Johannes de Lymburgia: a Study in Source, Style and Context’, D.Phil. dissertation, University of Oxford (1990)Google Scholar, sees this layer as sub-dividing into three further layers. According to her analysis of I-BcQ15, Ave mater, O Maria was copied into one of these ‘sub-layers’, O flos fragrans and O quam mirabilis into a slightly later one. Ann Lewis's thesis is not yet available for consultation and I am therefore grateful to her for kindly providing me with a summary of her findings on the layer structure of the manuscript.
27 The work which separates them, Civitato's (four-voice?) motet Inclita persplendens, was abandoned by the scribe after he had copied part of the triplum into the central opening of the gathering (fols. 8v-9r), perhaps because he realized that the extra opening required to complete the piece was not available. This would presuppose that O quam mirabilis and – by implication – O flos fragrans were already in place. For further details of the copying of gathering I, see Schoop, H., Entstehung und Verwendung der Handschrift Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canonici misc. 213, Publikationen der Schweizerischen musikforschenden Gesellschaft, 2nd. ser., 24 (Berne, 1971), pp. 11–13.Google Scholar
28 Brown, H. M., ‘Emulation, Competiton, and Homage: Imitation and Theories of Imitation in the Renaissance’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 35 (1982), pp. 1–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
29 Burkholder, J. P., ‘Johannes Martini and the Imitation Mass of the Late Fifteenth Century’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 38 (1985), pp. 470–523CrossRefGoogle Scholar: see pp. 475–6.
30 Wegman, R. C., ‘Another “Imitation” of Busnoy's Missa l'Homme armé – and Some Observations on Imitatio in Renaissance Music’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 114 (1989), pp. 189–202CrossRefGoogle Scholar: see pp. 197–8.
31 Bent, , ‘A Contemporary Perception’, p. 185.Google Scholar