Northerne Wynde. Music of Walter FRYE / Ferrara Ensemble |
medieval.org
Marc Aurel Edition MA 20018
febrero de 1999
Church St. Germanus, Seewen/Solothurn, CH
MISSA FLOS REGALI
2 sopranos, 2 tenors, bass
01 - Agnus Dei [4:58]
02 - So ys emprentid (instr.) [2:31]
lute
MISSA SINE NOMINE (attr.)
soprano MA, alto, 2 tenores, baritone, bass
03 - Kyrie alternatim [4:41]
04 - Gloria [4:42]
05 - Credo [5:19]
06 - Alas, alas (instr.) [3:27]
viola d'arco, lute
07 - Sanctus [6:33]
08 - Agnus Dei [5:25]
09 - Ave regina coelorum (instr.) [2:14]
dulce melos, lute
10 - O florens rosa [3:45]
alto, viola d'arco, harp
MISSA SUMME TRINITATI
alto, tenor EM, bass
11 - Gloria [5:37]
12 - Credo [5:30]
13 - Sanctus [5:54]
14 - Agnus Dei [5:05]
fuentes:
Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek/Bibliothèque Royale Albert Ier, MS 5557
#1: f. 36v-38 // #3-5,7-8: f. 90v-99 // #11-14: f.2v-10
New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Libray, MS 91
#2: f. 61v-63 // #6: f. 77v-79
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Sgm 810
#9: f37v-39 // #10: f.98v-101
FERRARA ENSEMBLE
Crawford Young
Miriam Anderesen, soprano, harp
Kathleen Dineen, soprano
Lena Susanne Norin, alto
Petter Johansen, tenor
Eric Mentzel, tenor
Reiner Shcneider-Waterberg, baritone
Stephen Grant, bass
Randall Cook, viola d'arco
Karl-Heinz Schichaus, dulce melos
Crawford Young, lute
discografí del Ferrara Ensemble
NORTHERNE WYNDE - MUSIC OF WALTER FRYE
"As
for the Duke's court, as of lords and gentlewomen, knights, squires and
gentlemen, I heard never of one like it, save King Arthur's court...for
they of the Duke's court, both gentlemen and gentlewomen, have no want
of such gear (as cloth of gold and silver) and gold and pearls and
precious stones..."(1)
When the English courtier Sir John Paston
attended the wedding of Burgundian Duke Charles the Bold and Margaret
of York (sister of King Edward IV) at Bruges in 1468, he included these
remarks in a letter to his mother describing the the nine days of
jousting and feasting which followed the marriage. Paston was here
witness to one of the great ceremonial occasions of fifteenth-century
Europe. The nostalgic perception of a waning Age of Chivalry, all but
already gone, may have colored some of the entertainments at this
event, but who among the guests would have thought that the end of the
Burgundian regime would come with the fall of Charles the Bold a mere
eight years later? As the fourth and final "great duke" of the House of
Valois, Charles' misguided and aggressive political acts ultimately
sealed the fate of what had been one of the world's most opulent,
chivalric and powerful courts, and his arrogance led him to an
ignominious death on a muddy battlefield in Nancy on 5 January 1477.
Among
the treasures of the Burgundian court which were left to posterity is a
collection of polyphonic music which provides an unusually clear
picture of what sort of music was enjoyed at the court during the time
of Charles the Bold. Manuscript 5557 of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek at
Brussels is a unique source which preserves the sacred works of some of
the court's favorite composers of the 1460s and 70s. These composers
include Antoine Busnois, Johannes Ockeghem and Walter Frye, who were
among the most famous musicians of the period. The Anglo-Burgundian
cultural climate of Charles' court is underlined in the Brussels
manuscript by the presence of Masses by the Englishmen John Plummer and
Richard Cox, but it is the music of Walter Frye which found a wider
audience during the period. Frye's "Missa Summe trinitati", the opening
mass of the Brussels manuscript, is a beautiful example of his art;
although a Kyrie is lacking in the Brussels source, a motet attributed
to Frye as "Salve virgo mater" (recorded in 1997 by the Ferrara
Ensemble on "The Whyte Rose: poétique anglo-bourguignonne au temps de
Charles le Téméraire", Arcana A301) is thematically so close that it
may well be the missing Kyrie in contrafact form.
The "Missa
Sine nomine" lacks any composer's name in the choirbook, has no
recognizable cantus firmus, and is unique to this manuscript source. It
is found on folios 90v - 99 of the choirbook (see facsimile edition by
Rob Wegman, ed., Choirbook of the Burgundian Court Chapel: Brussels,
Koninklijke Bibliotheek MS. 5557, Peer: Musica-Alamire 1989). When one
searches for a possible author of this work, the name of Walter Frye
comes to mind for perhaps two reasons. First, the Brussels choirbook
contains three other cyclical Masses by this composer, and second, the
Missa Sine nomine is stylistically and melodically quite close to
Frye's threepart motet "Sospitati dedit". At the same time, there is no
way to be sure that this Mass is "English" (for the criteria for
identifying a specific "English" musical style in the fifteenth-century
remain, in fact, quite elusive), and it could be argued that this work
does not quite achieve the level of subtle melodic invention reached by
works such as Summe trinitati.
Late medieval liturgical
polyphony for the Mass was not composed as concert music in the modern
sense, that is, as a group of pieces to be heard in direct succession.
It was an ornament to the presentation of the liturgical text, and was
heard in between sections of spoken text. For this reason we have felt
that the use of appropriate instrumental interludes can have a place in
the performance of cyclical Mass music as concert repertoire, and have
chosen secular pieces by Frye for this purpose, including the
well-known love song "So ys emprentid" ("So is imprinted in my
remembrance your womanhood, your youth, your graciousness...").
As
far as is known, Frye was an Englishman who may never have left
England; one thinks of him as a 'northerne' musician. His music is
'wynd' music, that is, texted and thus conceived to be sung, sounded by
means of the breath. The title of this CD also refers to an
early-fourteenth-century poem "Blou, northerne wynd, send thou me my
suetyng", beautifully set to music and sung by John Fleagle
(1952-1999), who also performed Frye's music, and whose spirit will
always live in our remembrance.
We would also like to express
our heartfelt thanks to Barbara Schwendowius and Klaus Neumann at WDR
(Cologne) as well as Melbourne International Festival of Organ and
Harpsichord/David Agg (Melbourne) and Pro Helvetia (Zurich) for the
realization of this project.
Crawford Young
(1) see Roger Virgoe, ed., Private Life in the Fifteenth Century: Illustrated Letters of the Paston Family, New York, 1989, 167.