[Begin Theme Music]
Welcome to Harmonia....I'm Angela Mariani.
After 30 years, we’re taking a look back and revisiting some topics from the early days of Harmonia. This hour is inspired by an episode from 1992 about the music of Spanish composer Juan del Encina. We’ll hear performances by ensembles well-known a few decades ago, alongside newer productions. It’s fascinating to hear how differently artists interpret and perform the pieces. Our featured recording is the 2021 release of Encina’s work by the ContrArco Consort.
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MUSIC TRACK
Eros & Thanatos: Renaissance Love Songs & Plainchant for the Dead
Chant 1450
Christophorus 2015 / B00XDCPG4C
Juan del Encina
Tr. 2 Convertere Domine – Pues Que Jamás Olvidaros [Well That Never Forget] (4:52)
Chant 1450 performed Juan del Encina’s “Convertere Domine” and “Pues Que Jamas Olvidaros” [from their recording Eros & Thanatos: Renaissance Love Songs & Plainchant for the Dead].
Several major events in Spanish history happened in 1492. The same year that saw Columbus' arrival in the New World also marked the fall of Granada [gra NAH dah] when Christian forces drove the last of the Moors out of Spain.
Over the centuries, Arabs, Jews, and Christians had all contributed to Spain's art, music, science, and culture. At the time of the reign of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, though, things changed. There was a surge of Spanish nationalism at this time, and for this monarchy that meant Spanish Catholics. The Sephardic Jews were exiled; the last stronghold of the Moors in Granada was taken.
[Start a music bed: Tr. 7: Danze alta (Francesco de la Torre), Isabella: Music for a Queen, Capella de la Torre.]
This was the era of the assembling of the magnificent Cancioneros, large collections of Spanish music that included part-songs called "villancicos," as well as Romances, which were settings of sections of long narrative songs. They were full of tales of love and sorrow; heroes and enemies –old stories that everyone knew, and new ones that told of the world-changing events going on at that time. The songs in the Cancioneros, including everything from settings of popular tunes to more complex pieces, also imported or borrowed from Northern courts.
One composer's works seem to appear over and over again in these Cancioneros: Those of Juan del Encina, born in 1468 in Salamanca, the son of a cobbler.
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MUSIC TRACK
Isabella: Music for a Queen
Capella de la Torre / Katharina Bäuml
Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 2014 / B00MYJ1C0M
Francesco de la Torre
Tr. 7: Danze alta [excerpt for music bed]
Juan del Encina
T. 1 Amor con fortuna (2:14)
MUSIC TRACK
Cancionero - Music for the Spanish Court 1470-1520
The Dufay Collective
Avie 2006
Juan del Encina
T. 14 Vuestros amores he señora (3:21)
MUSIC TRACK
Juan del Enzina: Romances & Villancicos
Hesperion XX
Jordi Savall, director
Astrée E 8707 1991
T. 8: Cucu, Cucu, Cucucu! (:56, not 1:07)
A group of villancicos by Juan del Encina...you heard "Cucu, cucu," performed by Hesperion XX. Before that, the Dufay Collective sang "Vuestros amores e senora," and the set began with Encina's "Amor con Fortuna," performed by Capella de la Torre.
In 1492 Juan del Encina went to work for the King's nephew, the Duke of Alba. In 1496, a cancionero was published containing only Encina’s works. It was the first Spanish collection of music by a single author published in his own lifetime—and in less than the first half of his lifetime, at the ripe old age of 28.
Many composers of this time wrote about the fall of Granada and the defeat of the Moors, and Juan del Encina was no exception. This is called "Levanta, Pascual," here performed by the ensemble La Nef. The words say:
“Get up, Pascual, get up! Let's go to Granada - word has it that it has fallen. Get up, quick - take your dog, and your coat, your sheepskin, your pipes, and your shepherd's crook - word has it that Granada has fallen.”
MUSIC TRACK
Music for Joan the Mad: Spain 1479-1555
La Nef
Sono Luminus 1995
Tr. 19 Reconquista (Reconquest): Levanta, Pascual, levanta! (Juan del Encina) (2:41)
Ensemble La Nef performed “Levanta, Pascual, levanta!” by Juan del Encina, written about the Fall of Granada and the defeat of the Moors in Spain, 1492.
[Begin music bed and continue under voice track:
Juan del Encina (1469-1529), Berry Hayward Consort; Berry Hayward; Groupe Vocal Claire Caillard-Hayward, 1993/2012 / B009ZTHWC6, Tr. 22 Una Sanosa Porfia (instrumental) (3:39)
The next piece also deals with the defeat of the Moorish King Boabdil, and has become one of the most frequently recorded compositions of Juan del Encina, and indeed, one of the most frequently recorded pieces from the Cancionero de Palacio in which it is found. The piece is called "Una sañosa porfia." (We’re hearing an instrumental setting right now on lute from a 1993 recording by the Berry Hayward Consort.) The poem is sung from the point of view of the Boabdil, who looks out of his castle and in great sadness watches the advancing Spanish army, as the lyrics say, “smashing the ramparts...capturing my towns, my castles, my citadels...and the very earth and sea groan.” Encina himself was descended from Jewish conversos, a word indicating Sephardic Jewish persons who converted to Roman Catholicism in this tumultuous period. But he spent most of his life working in the Roman Catholic church for Catholic employers, and was a chaplain himself. It's likely that this eloquent expression of the Moorish king's sorrow was still written in the service of glorifying Spain's victory.
Dozens of different versions of this song have been recorded, but I’ve decided to begin with the first version I ever heard, from a 1980 recording by Trio Live Oak, and follow that with the well-known 2009 recording of the piece by Hesperion 21.
[music bed fades and first track begins]
MUSIC TRACK
Star Shining on the Mountain
Trio Live Oak
Mnemosyne (Titanic) 1980 (gyremusic.com/products/star-shining-on-the-mountain/)
S.1 B.2: Una Sañosa Porfia (4:19)
MUSIC TRACK
Juan del Enzina: Romances & Villancicos
Hesperion XX; Jordi Savall, director
Astrée E 8707 (1991/2009)
T.1: Una sañosa porfia (6:35)
Una Sañosa porfia, Juan del Encina’s vivid portrayal of the fall of Grenada in 1492 from the point of view of the Moorish king, performed by Hesperion 21, directed by Jordi Savall; and before that, the first version of the piece that I myself ever heard, from the 1980 recording “Star Shining on the Mountain,” by Trio Live Oak: John Fleagle, Nancy Knowles and Frank Wallace.
[Theme music begins: Ensemble Alcatraz, Danse Royale, Elektra Nonesuch 79240-2 / B000005J0B, T.12: La Prime Estampie Royal]
Early music can mean a lot of things. What does it mean to you? Let us know your thoughts and ideas. Contact us at harmonia early music dot org, where you’ll also find playlists and an archive of past shows.
You’re listening to Harmonia . . . I’m Angela Mariani.
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Mid Break music track:
Todos los bienes del mundo: Juan del Encina and Musical Traits in Spanish Renaissance
Baltazar Zúñiga, ContrArco Consort, Gianfranco Russo
Da Vinci Classics 2021
Juan del Encina
T.4: Danza Alta [excerpt of 2:13]
(fades out at :59)
Welcome back. We're listening to the music of Spanish composer Juan del Encina.
Encina is most well-known for his villancicos and Romanzas, but this one, Triste España sin ventura, is a lament written after the death of Don Juan, only son of Ferdinand and Isabella - a death which apparently affected Encina deeply.
MUSIC TRACK
Juan del Enzina: Romances & Villancicos
Hesperion XX; Jordi Savall, director
Astrée E 8707 (1991/2009)
T.10: Triste España sin ventura (7:25)
We heard Triste España sin ventura, by Juan del Encina, written after the death of Don Juan, son of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain.
MUSIC TRACK
From a Spanish Palace Songbook
Margaret Philpot, Shirley Rumsey, Christopher Wilson
Hyperion CDA 66454 (1991/2002)
T.20: Vamos a cenar (1:29)
"Vamos a cenar," by Juan del Encina, performed instrumentally on 2 vihuelas by Christopher Wilson and Shirley Rumsey, from a recording called “From a Spanish Palace Songbook.”
Here’s another famous villancico by Encina, “Oy comamos y bebamos,” written for a short play performed during Carnival. This is Ex Umbris, CD “Chacona.” The refrain’s lyric says: “let us eat and drink; let us sing, and make merry - for tomorrow we fast!”
MUSIC TRACK
Chacona
Ex Umbris
Dorian 2000
T.31: Oy comamos (3:01)
ExUmbris, from their CD Chacona, with one of Juan del Encina’s best-known villancicos, Oy comamos y bebamos.
The music of Encina continues in this hour’s featured recording. Todos los bienes del mundo: Juan del Encina and Musical Traits in Spanish Renaissance is the 2021 Da Vinci Classics release by the ContrArco Consort.
Many of the pieces on the recording are 3 or 4 part vocal pieces, but they would just as likely have been sung with one voice and instruments as they are doing here. Let’s begin with the title track, a brief meditation on impermanence entitle Todos los bienes del mundo (All the goods in the world).
MUSIC TRACK
Todos los bienes del mundo: Juan del Encina and Musical Traits in Spanish Renaissance
Baltazar Zúñiga (tenor), ContrArco Consort, Gianfranco Russo
Da Vinci Classics 2021 /
Juan del Encina
T.1 Todos los bienes del mundo (2:10)
That was “Todos los bienes del mundo,” a piece from the Cancionero de Palacio, performed by ContrArco Consort on their 2021 recording of Juan del Encina’s work.
ContrArco Consort has created a sound all their own that is informed by the instruments, and the result is nothing at all like a typical consort of viols. The singer is an integral part of the ensemble, and the words are always perfectly clear, the tuning excellent, and everyone is engaged in ornamentation, bringing the music to life.
The members of the ensemble are tenor Baltazar Zuñiga; Valentina Nicolai, bass viola d’arco; Marco Ottone, tenor viola d’arco; and director of Gianfranco Russo, who plays Renaissance viola da braccio. Their instruments are copies of viols found in paintings from the 15th – 16th century. Here’s the villancico “Ay triste que vengo,” a beautiful and sad song of unrequited love.
MUSIC TRACK
Todos los bienes del mundo: Juan del Encina and Musical Traits in Spanish Renaissance
Baltazar Zúñiga (tenor), ContrArco Consort, Gianfranco Russo
Da Vinci Classics 2021 /
Juan del Encina
Tr.16 Ay triste que vengo (4:59)
“Ay triste que vengo” by Juan del Encina from our featured recording by ContrArco Consort.
Here is another villancico, “Mas vale trocar,” “It is better to exchange pleasure for pain, than to live without love.” We heard this as an instrumental earlier in the program; here it is with the lyrics.
MUSIC TRACK
Todos los bienes del mundo: Juan del Encina and Musical Traits in Spanish Renaissance
Baltazar Zúñiga (tenor), ContrArco Consort, Gianfranco Russo
Da Vinci Classics 2021 /
Juan del Encina
Tr.17: Mas vale trocar (actual time 2:26)
ContrArco Consort performed Mas vale trocar, by Juan del Encina, from our featured recording, Todos los bienes del mundo: Juan del Encina and Musical Traits in Spanish Renaissance.
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Harmonia is a production of WFIU and part of the educational mission of Indiana University.
Support comes from Early Music America: a national organization that advocates and supports / the historical performance of music of the past, the community of artists who create it, and the listeners whose lives are enriched by it. On the web at EarlyMusicAmerica-dot-org.
Additional resources come from the William and Gayle Cook Music Library at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
We welcome your thoughts about any part of this program, or about early music in general. Contact us at harmonia early music dot org. You can follow us on Facebook by searching for Harmonia Early Music.
The writers for this edition of Harmonia were Angela Mariani and LuAnn Johnson.
Thanks to our studio engineer Michael Paskash, and our production team: LuAnn Johnson, Wendy Gillespie, Aaron Cain, and John Bailey. I’m Angela Mariani, inviting you to join us again for the next edition of Harmonia.
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