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Welcome to Harmonia . . . I’m Angela Mariani. This hour, we’re getting acquainted with three fourteenth-century French songs that begin with the exact same two words - “En attendant…” - “While waiting…”
As it turns out, the three songs have a lot more in common than their opening words, including a common musical ancestor. Come along as we explore mysterious connections between pieces that also display the fascinating rhythmic and textual complexities of the ars subtilior style. We’ll hear music that defies categorization and creates a haunting, otherworldly atmosphere for the listener who can surrender to it!
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MUSIC TRACK
Nature's Secret Whispering: Music in the Cosmology of Johannes Kepler
Concerto Palatino & Bruce Dickey
Passacaille 2020 / B08GTL3Z7W
G. Gabrieli
Tr. 8 Sacræ symphoniæ: No. 35, Miserere mei, Deus a 6 "De Tempore" (4:42)
Bruce Dickey and the Concerto Palatino played Giovani Gabrieli’s 6-voice Sacra symphonia No. 35, titled "Miserere mei, Deus," subtitled “De Tempore,” on their 2020 release entitled Nature's Secret Whispering: Music in the Cosmology of Johannes Kepler.
This episode of Harmonia is about mysterious connections between songs, specifically four fourteenth-century French songs. We’ll begin with a very popular, widely traveled, and tantalizingly anonymous 3-voiced rondeau - a specific scheme of rhyming French poetry of the C14 - that begins “Esperance qui en mon cuer s’embat…” - “Hope, which enters into my heart…,” a line of text and music that you will hear return three times in the course of 4 and a half minutes. We are very grateful that Blue Heron director Scott Metcalfe and Les Délices director Debra Nagy have shared this recording of a live performance of this touching rondeau with singer Jason McStoots joining harpists Scott and Debra in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2015.
MUSIC TRACK
Cleveland 2015 video of performance
Jason McStoots, Debra Nagy, Scott Metcalfe
(private recording, not commercially available, 2015)
Anon
Esperance qui en mon cuer s'embat (4:33)
Jason McStoots sang the anonymous “Esperance qui en mon cuer s’embat” with Debra Nagy and Scott Metcalfe playing harps in a performance in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2015.
The other three songs on this hour’s program, all by different composers, are all related to the one we just heard. Mysteriously, they all begin with the words “En attendant” - “While waiting…” - followed by an identifiable quotation. Despite very different origins, it is not impossible that their composers may have been acquainted, since musicians traveled widely in the fourteenth century.
The first “En attendant” chanson is by the nearly completely unknown Johannes Galiot, who, despite being nearly completely unknown, is for some reason wrongly credited with all three “En attendant” songs in one very important source. [Perhaps they were all “waiting for Galiot.”] Galiot’s song shares the same poetic form as the anonymous “Esperance” rondeau we just heard, so once again you will hear its first line repeat three times. Its lines have the same number of syllables as the model and share one of its two rhymes, and the theme of Hope in battle with Danger echoes its source.
MUSIC TRACK
Ce diabolic chant
Medieval Ensemble of London
Oiseau Lyre 2008 / B01AXKZORA
Johanes Galiot
Tr. 14 En attendant d'avoir (7:25)
The Medieval Ensemble of London performed Johannes Galiot’s “En attendant d’amer la douce vie” on their recording Ce diabolic chant recorded in the early 1980s but rereleased in 2008 by L’Oiseau Lyre.
The other two “En attendant” songs are in the longer medieval poetic form of the ballade, typically a three-verse form in which each verse ends with the same line of poetry, yet now heard in a different context with a different rhetorical effect.
Philippus de Caserta’s “En attendant soufrir m’estuet” (While waiting, I suffer…) was written for Bernabó Visconti, whose motto was in fact, “souffrir m’estuet.”
MUSIC TRACK
Figures of Harmony
Ferrara Ensemble, C. Young
Arcana 2016 / B0972BGX4V
Philipoctus
Disc 3, tr. 11 En attendant, souffrir (9:10)
The Ferrara Ensemble, directed by Crawford Young, performed Philippus de Caserta’s “En attendant soufrir m’estuet” for the 2016 release called Figures of Harmony.
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Theme Music Bed: Ensemble Alcatraz, Danse Royale, Elektra Nonesuch 79240-2 / B000005J0B, T.12: La Prime Estampie Royal
You can hear highlights from recent and archival concert recordings of early music on Harmonia Uncut -- our biweekly podcast, curated and hosted by Wendy Gillespie. Listen online at harmonia early music dot org and through iTunes.
You’re listening to Harmonia . . . I’m Angela Mariani.
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Mid Break: (1:00)
Carmina Predulcia
Ensemble Almara
Naxos 2020 / B08JF2BKY3
G. Dufay
tr. 9 Malheureux cuer (excerpt of 3:35)
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Our final “En attendant” chanson is by Jacob Senleches. You might hear distinct melodic echoes of both Philippus de Caserta’s ballade and the original Esperance rondeau; you might listen to the insistent repetition of the words “En attendant” in the first verse and wonder about how we know where the words fit into the music; you might listen for the word “Esperance” at the end of each of the three verses, quoting both text and music of our original Esperance rondeau. Alternatively, just close your eyes, get comfortable, and let the beautiful melodies and the rhythmic complexity of the ars subtilior style fill your consciousness for the next twelve minutes!
MUSIC TRACK
A 14th-Century Salmagundi
Blue Heron
Blue Heron 2020 / B08ZBZQ4F6
Senleches
Tr. 5 En attendant esperance (11:52)
It’s no wonder that the designation ars subtilior (or “subtle art”) caught on as a descriptor of this intricate, intimate, timeless music! We heard the ensemble Blue Heron, specifically singer Owen McIntosh with a bray harp-- (that’s the buzzy thing) -- and a lute on the other two parts of this ballade by Jacob Senleches, on the recording A 14th Century Salmagundi, a 2020 release on Blue Heron’s own label.
And now for a complete change in style and era, we turn to our release of the week, music of late 17th and early 18th century French composer Jacques Morel, whom history has nearly lost in the shadow of his famous teacher and viola da gamba virtuoso Marin Marais.
The ensemble La Spagna, four players of flute, viols, and harpsichord, released a disc in 2018 for Brilliant Classics that includes the first recording of three suites from Morel’s First Book of music for viol, which was published in 1709. Here are two movements from his Third Suite in D Major.
MUSIC TRACK
Morel: Premier Livre de Pièces de Violle
La Spagna
Brilliant Classics 2018
Jacques Morel
Tr. 15 Prelude (2:29)
Tr. 19 Sarabande l’Aurore (2:06)
We heard the Prelude and Sarabande “l’Aurore” from Jacques Morel’s Third Suite in D Major.
We’ll end with La Spagna’s rendering of Morel’s Chaconne en trio in G Major, by far his best-known and most-performed composition.
MUSIC TRACK
Morel: Premier Livre de Pièces de Violle
La Spagna
Brilliant Classics 2018
Jacques Morel
Tr. 33 Chaconne en trio (7:05)
That was Jacques Morel’s Chaconne en trio in G Major, from our featured recording, the 2018 Brilliant Classics release Morel: Premier Livre de Pièces de Violle by the ensemble La Spagna
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Harmonia is a production of WFIU. 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. And, you can follow our Facebook page by searching for Harmonia Early Music.
The writer for this edition of Harmonia was Wendy Gillespie.
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.
