Francisco de PEÑALOSA. Missa Nunca fue pena mayor
Ensemble Gilles Binchois · Les Sacqueboutiers





glossamusic.com
Glossa GCD 922305

2011






1. Sacris solemniis · hymn, "in festo Corporis Christi"   [5:15]

2. Memorare Piissima · motet   [5:28]

3.Missa Nunca fue pena mayor. KYRIE   [3:36]

4. Missa Nunca fue pena mayor. GLORIA   [6:16]

5. Julius de MODENA. Tiento XIX   [2:16]
Libro de cifra nueva para tecla, arpa y vihuela — Luys Venegas de Henestrosa, 1557

6. Missa Nunca fue pena mayor. CREDO   [8:11]

7. O bone Iesu · motet   [2:48]

8. Tribularer · motet   [3:06]

9. Missa Nunca fue pena mayor. SANCTUS   [3:40]

10. Ave vera caro Christi · motet   [3:33]

11. Missa Nunca fue pena mayor. AGNUS DEI   [5:17]

12. Transeunte Domino · motet   [3:30]

13. Tres II · anonymous   [1:41]
Libro de cifra nueva para tecla, arpa y vihuela — Luys Venegas de Henestrosa, 1557

14. In passione positus Iesus · motet   [4:03]







Ensemble Gilles Binchois

Anne-Marie Lablaude, soprano
David Sagastume, alto
David Munderloh, tenor
Dominique Vellard, tenor
Tim Scott Whiteley, bass


Les Sacqueboutiers

Jean-Pierre Canihac, cornett
Philippe Canguilhem, shawm
Daniel Lassalle, sackbut
Laurent Lechenadec, dulcian

Dominique Vellard, direction


Recorded in the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul de Maguelone, France, in October 2010
Engineered and produced by Aline Blondiau
Executive producer & editorial director: Carlos Céster
Editorial assistance: María Díaz, Mark Wiggins
Design: Valentín Iglesias (www.valentiniglesias.com)
On the cover: Pedro Machuca (c.1490-1550), El descendimiento de la cruz (c.1520, detail)
Museo del Prado, Madrid

© 2011 MusiContact GmbH









Francisco de Peñalosa
Missa Nunca fue pena mayor


Muy poco há que murió aquel famoso varón don Francisco de Peñalosa, Maestro de capilla del cathólico Rey don Fernando, el qual en la Música en arte y boz escedió á Apolo su inuentor

("Not long ago died that celebrated master, Francisco de Peñalosa, chapelmaster of King Ferdinand the Catholic, who in both singing and composing surpassed even Apollo, the inventor of music.")

So wrote Cristóbal de Villalón in his Ingeniosa comparación entre lo antiguo y lo presente (1539). Villalón's rhetoric tends to hyperbole, as can be seen from this quotation in which Francisco de Peñalosa is held to surpass Apollo, but the composer undoubtedly had an illustrious career in three of the most important musical institutions of the period: the Aragonese royal chapel, Seville Cathedral and the papal chapel of Leo X. Pefialosa was clearly highly esteemed at court and in Rome where he served in the papal choir, yet surprisingly little is known about his early biography and training. The place of his birth — Talavera de la Reina — is documented, but not the date, but is assumed to have occurred around 1470. Although it remains to be proven through more research, it would appear that his father, also Francisco de Peñalosa, was a servant — contino — in the household of Queen Isabella, and was captain of the guard on Columbus's second voyage to the New World in 1493. Information on the esteem in which Francisco de Peñalosa père was held at court comes from the writings of his nephew, fray Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566), the intrepid Dominican chronicler of the New World and apologist for the Indians; Las Casas was, therefore, a cousin of Peñalosa fils. According to Las Casas, the composer's father died at the end of 1499 or early in 1500, and it would appear that the young musician was raised in Seville, or at least spent a good part of his time there, before he entered the service of the Aragonese royal chapel in May 1498.

This Sevillian background would certainly explain Peñalosa's desire to hold a benefice in that great city's cathedral. In December 1505 he was presented to a canonry at the behest of King Ferdinand, but the cathedral chapter, as customarily occurred, resisted this appointment, and it was several years before the case was decided in his favour. As was customary in the royal chapel, he was granted leave to visit Seville on a regular basis, and after Ferdinand's death in January 1516 took up residence there. Not only was Peñalosa the most important composer in the Aragonese royal chapel for the best part of twenty years, but in 1511 he was also appointed chapelmaster to Ferdinand's grandson and namesake, prince Ferdinand, second son of Philip the Fair and Juana la Loca, who was brought up and educated in Spain. Indeed, Peñalosa's reputation was such that in the autumn of 1517 he was invited to Rome and sang in the papal choir until Pope Leo X's death in December 1521. The prospect of another extended absence from Seville meant that he was forced by the cathedral chapter to exchange his canonry for the position of Archdeacon of Carmona, which he held until his death ten years later. Although his absences from Seville resulted in a difficult relationship with the cathedral chapter, he was clearly also held in esteem there: in 1510-11 his works were copied for the cathedral, possibly the book referred to as a "libro de misas de Peñalosa, arcediano de Carmona, puntadas en pergamino en marca mediana, viejo" in an inventory of the cathedral music books dated 1588. However, other sixteenth-century inventories reveal that much of Peñalosa's music has been lost, and that his works circulated widely throughout the Iberian Peninsula.

Peñalosa was clearly among the more prolific of the composers of his time: his extant works include six Masses, a few separate Mass movements, six Magnificats, about two dozen motets, five hymns, three Lamentations and eleven songs. In all these works he displays his considerable skills as a composer, though he adopts different styles according to genre: for example, the settings of liturgical texts — the Magnificats, hymns and Lamentations, together with a few of his motets — use the relevant chant as a cantus firmus which is embedded in counterpoint that is sometimes, but not always, imitative. The devotional motets alternate contrasting textures to articulate the text and highlight key passages in homophonic declamation. Technical feats are to be found in the Masses, notably in the final Agnus Dei of the Missa Ave Maria peregrina, which combines the chant for the Salve regina with the tenor of Hayne van Ghizeghem's De tous biens plaine in retrograde. Another Mass, his Missa Adieu mes amours, is based on Josquin's widely diffused chanson, and also features a canon in the final Agnus Dei, while a third adopts the ubiquitous L'homme armé melody. It is tempting to follow a Darwinian line of evolution and suggest that these more complex and extended Mass settings based on Franco-Netherlandish songs must have been composed later than his two more succinct and straightforward Masses on Spanish themes, the Missa El ojo and the Missa Nunca fue pena mayor, although whether this is in fact a question of chronology or of the different nature of the borrowed material is a question that needs to be addressed.






Peñalosa was one of a number of composers to base a work on Juan de Urrede's Nunca fue pena mayor, one of the most widely disseminated of all Castilian-texted songs from the period. There can be little doubt that his choice of melody in his Mass was anything but fortuitous. The canción Nunca fue pena mayor, with text almost certainly by the Duke of Alba, García Álvarez de Toledo and music by his Flemish chapelmaster of the mid-1470s survives in various versions in almost twenty musical sources, printed and manuscript, and was also cited in a number of other works, both literary and musical. In addition to two cantus-firmus Mass cycles by Pierre de La Rue and Peñalosa, the tenor of Urrede's song is used as a cantus firmus in an extended motet by Matthaeus Pipelare, Memorare mater Christi, significantly a work that develops the theme of the compassio Mariae, the identification with the suffering of the Virgin Mother at the foot of the Cross. This notion of gaining understanding of the meaning of the Crucifixion through contemplation of the Virgin's suffering was widespread throughout Europe thanks to spiritual movements such as the devotio moderna and confraternities dedicated to the Sorrows of the Virgin. Isabel the Catholic was particularly devoted to the quinta angustia, the moment when the Virgin held her dead son in her arms, and the composers of the royal chapels set texts in Latin and the vernacular that reflected this devotion.

It is possible, then, that in choosing this song as the basis for a Mass setting Peñalosa was applying a Marian interpretation to it, but it is also possible that his choice reflected the connections between the courts of the Duke of Alba and that of his cousin Ferdinand, a closeness consolidated in 1477 when Urrede became chapelmaster of the Aragonese chapel. It is also worth remembering that Urrede's song opens the so-called Palace Songbook (Cancionero Musical de Palacio), although whether the original compilation of this volume of hundreds of polyphonic songs was intended as a gift for Ferdinand from his cousin is still a matter for debate. Certainly, there is no concealing of the melody by placing it in an inner voice in long note values; rather, it is presented almost exactly as found in the canción in the superius of Kyrie I, and is thus easily discernible. There is little or no use of imitation between the voices, so that the purity of its presentation in the upper voice is unsullied; furthermore, Peñalosa preserves the Phrygian mode of the song throughout the Mass so that it is imbued with a sense of melancholy. The three-voice Christe, by way of contrast, alludes only in a generalized way to the song; indeed, it is rather as if Peñalosa is composing his own, self-contained canción. Such creative freedom is short-lived, however; the Kyrie II uses part of the tenor line of the estribillo or refrain of the song as a cantus firmus also placed in the tenor, while the superius elaborates on the melody line almost in the manner of a riff.

This variety of approach to the borrowed material of the canción characterizes the Mass setting as a whole. In the first section of the Gloria, the melody is again stated in the superius, but at first in longer notes; only from "Domine Deus" is it presented in the original values, and a similar procedure is adopted for the "Qui tollis". Yet here the song melody is combined with the chant for the Gregorian Mass XV (a chant also used by Peñialosa in his Missa Ave Maria peregrina), which drifts into and out of focus in the tenor and bass parts throughout. In the Credo, as in the Christe section of the Kyrie, Peñalosa adopts a much more allusive approach: references to the song melody and snippets of the Gregorian Credo I emerge and fade into the overall texture, at times generating or informing the counterpoint, but never adopting a structural role. The words "Qui propter" are set as an imitative duo which serves to highlight the musical rhetoric of the homophonic chords at "Et incarnatus est". The Sanctus again makes use of the song melody, presenting it in varying note values as in the Gloria, the second statement being in values twice the length of those of the first statement, as indicated by the canon or rubric in the manuscript: "Canon prima ut iacet / Secunda in duplo". The three-voice "Pleni sunt caeli" exploits, for the first time, a truly equal-voiced, imitative texture, the material once again based on the song melody while the "Osanna" affords a complete contrast with a succinct sequence of declamatory chords. The Benedictus (sung on this recording in plainchant) is missing from the single surviving source for this Mass, and only one polyphonic setting of the Agnus Dei is included. In this, the composer uses the tenor of the estribillo of the canción in long note values in the alto, while the other voices weave an imitative, but sparsely textured counterpoint around it. Possibly a further setting of the Agnus, perhaps based on the melody of the verse of the song has, like the Benedictus, been lost. Overall, this Mass shows Peñalosa experimenting with the concept of the cyclic Mass based on a polyphonic song, borrowing its material and presenting it in constantly changing and highly inventive ways.






Few of Peñalosa's motets make use of borrowed material or cantus firmus technique, reflecting the non-liturgical, devotional nature of the texts he generally set. Ave vera caro Christi is typical of his highly dramatic and emotional motet style. Its text, drawn from a hymn that is also found in the thirteenth-century Las Huelgas manuscript, is a prayer to the crucified Christ that ends with a plea to Jesus, son of the Virgin Mary to take pity on mankind: "O Iesu, o pie, / o dulcis fili Mariae, / miserere nobis". After the characteristic opening exordium, certain phrases or words in the text are singled out for special treatment: the word "Salve", for example, is offset by a full cadence at "dereliquisti", and introduces the striking opening notes of the Salve Regina chant melody. Similarly, the invocation to Jesus towards the end of the motet, "O Iesu", is preceded by rests in all four voices and a sustained chord on the exclamation itself.

The structure of the hymn text as a whole is articulated by changes of vocal scoring and texture so that the individual lines of each verse can be readily followed by the listener. A very similar pattern is followed in In passione positus in which Christ's words in the Garden of Gethsemene and on the Cross are presented within a succinct narrative that leads to a concluding prayer. Only at his final words, "Consumatum est", do the four voices come together in an affective sequence of chords. The motets Memorare Piissima and O bone lesu are also attributed to composers other than Peñalosa, though they fit squarely into the devotional motet genre cultivated by him. O bone lesu, like In passione positus, introduces Christ's last words, and, like Ave vera caro Christi, makes use of an opening exordium and declamatory homophony to enhance the drama of the Crucifixion and move the listener to contemplation of its meaning for mankind.

Tribularer si nescirem is not a Passion text, but a penitential prayer linked liturgically to the Lenten period, during which it was sung as a responsory; it is found, with some textual variants, in the Processionale Monasticum. The less overtly dramatic nature of the text inclines Peñalosa to a more generalized setting, with successive points of imitation and the use of contrasting duos and changes of texture to articulate the structure. The word "misericors" is singled out for homophonic treatment, emphasizing Christ's merciful nature, but is quickly developed into a more contrapuntal build-up to the final cadence. Transeunte Domino is likewise a work with a liturgically derived function — a variant of the text set by Petialosa is found as an antiphon for Quinquagesima Sunday — and it, too, deploys a more continuous contrapuntal texture. It is Peñalosa's only work for five voices, although he carefully avoids using all five until the final section beginning "Et omnis plebs" ("And all the people"). Peñalosa's compositional techniques are essentially those of Josquin and the contemporaneous generation of Franco-Netherlandish composers, but used to create a more succinct and dramatic kind of motet that draws the listener in through a subtle musical and textual rhetoric.

Peñalosa's setting of the Corpus Christi hymn Sacris solemniis, like all his hymns, draws on the corresponding chant as a cantus firmus, in this instance the distinctive triple-time melody found in the Intonarium Toletanum printed in 5515. The lilting rhythmic character of the melody, which is placed in the tenor, is preserved, while the other three voices weave a contrapuntal web around it, seemingly without reference to it. It is in Peñalosa's chant-based works that the semi-improvised tradition of contrapunto, so widely practised in the cathedrals and churches of the Iberian Peninsula, can be most clearly appreciated. This technique, learnt and acquired by all professional musicians, whether through the cathedral schools or university music courses of the period, resulted in a more or less elaborate accompaniment to the chant that was prized for the way in which the celebration of the liturgy was thus enhanced and solemnified.

Tess Knighton