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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2008
The idea of reconstructing fragmentary polyphony has not really found a niche in mid-fifteenth-century studies. Whilst editors of Baroque music have become quite used to reconstructing string parts to ‘arie con tre violini’ in skeletal opera sources, and whilst sixteenth-century specialists have occasionally been brave enough to recompose the contents of a lost partbook, this sort of treatment has rarely been applied to fragmentary works of the Dufay and Ockeghem periods. There seem to be two reasons for this. Firstly, since many of the essentials of mid-fifteenth-century style are not based on imitative techniques or the realization of simple chord progressions, the random nature of what an incomplete piece of the period might contain can make plausible reconstruction very difficult. Even the most predictable-looking of complete mid-fifteenth-century works often have surprising rhythmic turns or unexpected progressions, simply because variety was an expected and prized aspect of the mastery of sophisticated polyphony as it was then understood. Secondly, even if an editor achieves what he considers to be a satisfactory reconstruction of such a work, there are few cases of such reconstructions in which there is an overall conjecture rate of less than 20 per cent. Nevertheless, there are exceptions to all generalizations and on the present occasion I believe I have found a movement from a fragmentary cyclic Mass that can be reconstructed with comparatively little conjectural material: the Gloria from the Missa Salve Regina in Munich 3154. This article describes how I became interested in the cycle and suggests how the missing material in its Gloria can be effectively realized.
1 The most satisfactory reconstructions tend to be those in which incomplete sources for a single piece are combined to realize the complete music. For an example see I. and Bent, M. and Trowell, B., (eds.), John Dunstable, Complete Works, Musica Britannica 8 (revision of the 1953 edition by Manfred Bukofzer) (London 1970), no. 73 (Descendi in ortum meum).Google Scholar
2 The following sigla have been used in the course of the present article: CS 15: Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Capella Sistina MS 15 Munich 3154: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Mus. MS 3154 (Nicolaus Leopold Codex) Speciálník: Hradec Králové, Krajske Muzeum, Knihovna, MS II. A. 7 (Speciálník Codex) Trent 89: Trent, Castello del Buonconsiglio, MS 1376 (olim MS 89)Trent 91: Trent, Castello del Buonconsiglio, MS 1378 (olim MS 91) Verona 759: Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare, MS 759
3 Further, see Mitchell, R. J., ‘The Paleography and Repertory of Trent Codices 89 and 91, Together with Analyses and Editions of Six Mass Cycles by Franco-Flemish Composers from Trent Codex 89’, Ph. D. diss., 2 vols., Exeter University (1989), I, 73, 105–7, 109–10 and 118–20.Google Scholar I still consider it possible that this group of Trent Masses are linked somehow, excluding the Salve Regina cycle.
4 For conveniently available examples of figured passages by each composer, see Apel, W. and Davison, T. (eds.), Historical Anthology of Music, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1946), I, 77–8Google Scholar (Agnus Dei III from Ockeghem's Mi'ssa L'homme Armé), and Sparks, E., ‘The Motets of Antoine Busnois’; Journal of the American Musicological Society, 8 (1955), 216–26, Ex. 5 (Busnois, Victime pascali, opening of the second section).Google Scholar
5 Antiphonale Monasticum (Tournai, 1934), 176–7. The composer may have inserted a couple of stepwise degrees in the chant or used a version in which these added notes were already present; in any case, the use of stepwise additions to chants used as cantus firmus was fairly common in the German-speaking world in the later fifteenth century.
6 Published after London, British Library, Add. MS 31922 in Stevens, J. (ed.), Music at the Court of Henry VIII, Musica Britannica 18, (London, 1961), no. 5.Google Scholar
7 A second scribe has added cantus-firmus text to all of the surviving tenor sections; the additions look either late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, and at least suggest that this fascicle of the manuscript might have had some performance use.
8 See Noblitt, T., ‘Die Datierung der Handschrift Mus. ms. 3154 der Staatsbibliothek München’, Die Musikforschung, 27 (1974), 36–56.Google Scholar I wish to thank Professor Noblitt here and Professor Sandon of Exeter University for their help in suggesting emendations to a previous draft of this article, and also the Musikabteilung of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek for its permission to publish.
9 Munich 3154, fols. 118v–120v (no. 68); also found in CS 15, fols. 100v–107r. The version of tone IV used in this setting may imply that it was written either at (or for?) a south-German centre.
10 ‘AT. Fer.’ is perhaps more likely to indicate the Liégeois imperial chaplain Arnold Fléron rather than ‘Arrigo Ferrarese’. See also Strohm, R., The Rise of European Music 1380–1500 (Cambridge, 1993), 518, 531.Google Scholar
11 Throughout this discussion, bar numbers are followed by superscript note numbers (e.g. 1301 refers to the first note of the bar even if it is tied over from the previous bar in the transcription).
12 I hint at the slight possibility of monophonic ‘introitus’ here because this technique occasionally survives in fifteenth-century sequence settings. The anonymous three-voice Lauda Syon salvatorem (Trent 91, fols. 164v–166r) uses this technique internally. Another possible example, Regis's Ave Maria … virgo serena, published in Lindenburg, C. (ed.), Johannis Regis Opera Omnia, Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 9, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1956), II, 42–9, may prove misleading, however;Google Scholar this is because the piece lacks a fifth voice due to the incompleteness of its only source (Petrucci's Motetti a 5 of 1508). See also Sparks, E., Cantus Firmus in Mass and Motet, 1420–1520 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1963), 198–9, and Srrohm, The Rise of European Music 1380–1500, 482.Google Scholar
13 His four-part setting of Fortuna desperata seems to be a fairly clumsy piece. For this and other Martini secular works, see Evans, E. (ed.), Johannes Martini, Secular Pieces, A-R Editions. (Madison, Wisc, 1975).Google Scholar In addition, his brief three-voice Missa In feuers hitz (Verona 759 fols. 15v–20r, unpublished) contains some undistinguished writing, notably at ‘passus et sepultus esf' and’ … seculi. Amen' in its Credo.
14 Regarding my theory of ‘greater measures’ (which I consider applicable to the greater part of fifteenth-century polyphony, and admittedly is only partly mine) see Mitchell, ‘The Paleography and Repertory’ I, 301–5.
15 The missing contra altus of the Sanctus can be tentatively filled in quite easily by realizing imitative material, but the Benedictus lower voices seem to have been part of a trio that divided into two smaller panels. In the first panel, the cantus firmus was probably run through the voices in descending order as in the introduction to Credo's main second section. However, the second panel seems to have been free, and looks suspiciously as though it was one of those examples that attempted to exhaust all of the cliches of fifteenth-century three-voice writing (rapid imitation, fauxbourdonesques, doubled harmonic pace, etc.) within its few bars. In addition, this is not the only incomplete piece in Munich 3154 with a possible Isaac connection; another might be the textless four-voice piece no. 65. This appears to be the first half of a motet (with an incomplete bassus) which has lost its text in the process of copying. The tenor looks like a chant cantus firmus, and might have been the respond Speciosa facta es or a variant of it (Antiphonale Monasticum, 1077). Fitting the first half of the respond text to the music seems satisfying, and the missing portion of the bassus can be reconstructed easily due to many of its progressions seeming predetermined. The resulting short reconstruction is similar in style to the first section of Isaac's Hora e di Maggio.