In praise of Holy Mary
with singing and dancing
let us give praises
to the crowned Virgin
who is our hope.
Cantiga de loor, 86 (Florence Ms.)
Detailed
historical information about King Alfonso X and his many and varied
achievements and, specifically, his vast collection of Cantigas de Santa Maria can be found in the booklets of liner notes to the previous four of our CDs dedicated to his cantiga output: Songs for a Wise King, Maria Morning Star, Mirror of Light and Pillar of Wisdom.
The
text below (culled from the texts cited above) is concerned only with
the collection itself and its surviving sources, as well as a brief
commentary on performance practice.
SUMMARY
The
intellectual pursuits of Alfonso X (1221-1284) during his long reign
from 1252 to 1284 established him as one of the most remarkable kings of
his day. His tentacles of patronage extended into an enormous number of
scholarly, artistic, legal and (not always so successfully) governmental areas.
On
coming to the throne of Castile and Leon in 1252 he immediately and
with great zest began to institute his idealistic reforms. The breadth
of written works produced during his reign was truly encyclopædic and,
being blessed both by the royal stamp and being written not in Latin but
in the Castilian vernacular or, in the case of lyrical works, in
Galician-Portuguese, these works had an enormously wide appeal and
accessibility. By eagerly partaking of the wisdom of the East and the
West, which entailed gathering together in his courts at Toledo and Leon
the best artists (poets, musicians, scribes and illuminators) and
scholars (translators, mathematicians, philosophers, historians,
astronomers and so on) from the three religions of the Iberian Peninsula
— Christian, Jewish and Islamic — he demonstrated his belief that
Spain's ultimate destiny was to make heterogeneous cultural links.
The Cantigas de Santa Maria, whose compilation, lyrical rendering
and organisational layout he supervised (possibly with creative input
of his own) were, like his other literary projects, written to impart
spiritual and worldly knowledge for the moral edification of all his
subjects. Poetic Latin with its hermeneutic niceties he eschewed as it
was available to only a select few — especially as one of the effects of
the centuries-long, culturally enriching Muslim settlement was that
Arabic and the Romance dialect were the two main languages most used and
understood in the Iberian Peninsula, followed by Hebrew and Latin (the
least accessible).
Alfonso's active role in the compilation and
possibly the authorship of this spiritual song genre is clearly
suggested in the illuminations of three of the four surviving manuscript
collections. In these he is depicted as a supervisor and instructor to
the assembled scholars, scribes and musicians, as well as playing
various musical instruments or acting as an earthly intermediary between
a group of musicians accompanying dancers and the Virgin Mary hugging
baby Jesus. The texts of many of the stories describe him taking part in
the action.
There are two types of cantiga: the more prolific miracle song or cantiga de miragre and the song of praise or cantiga de loor. Nearly all the cantigas (both types) are narrated in the first person, often involving King Alfonso himself, for example: "This is the petition which the King made to Holy Mary" (C.401) or introductory phrases such as "... how King Alfonso ... as I heard tell".
The Cantigas de Santa Maria were written in the codex format, that is, bound between covers (as opposed to that of the rotulus,
or roll). This was possibly for ease and the type of usage. They
survive in four different manuscripts (three are incomplete), each one
of which is known as a Book. The Book of Cantigas de Santa Maria
(particularly the two different manuscripts held in the Real Monasterio
de El Escorial, b.1.2 and T.j.1) is not, like the medieval florilegium,
a collection of short excerpts and thematically disconnected bibs and
bobs used as a prompt-book to aid the memory in meditation, or to
compose sermons and so on. Rather, it is a cleverly structured
assemblage of lyrics (carefully organised poetic texts with beautiful
melodies), mono-thematic both in its dedication to a special person and
its morally uplifting purpose, sumptuously decorated with associative
pictures and illuminations and brought to fruition under the guiding
directorship of one person. The organisation and conception of these
factors alone set it apart as a unique lyrical document of the middle
ages.
It seems quite clear from the prologue particularly and then from every one of the cantigas
that in the compilation of this collection Alfonso was driven by a
purpose — namely, to edify spiritually and morally not just the men and
women who frequented his courts but, more especially, the populace at
large for whose well-being he felt responsible. This was to be effected
by citing countless demonstrations (interspersed with praises) of the
mercy and goodness of the Virgin Mary towards even the most vile
sinners.
Four different versions of the codex of cantigas de Santa Maria
have survived of which only one is complete. While each is internally
uniform in production, each is written by a different scribe (who may or
may not be the illuminator). The layout and planning of contents are
also different, as are the approximate datings of each manuscript. Since
these are fully documented in other sources, some but not all of the
details of each manuscript are given below in chronological order:
(1) Real Monasterio de El Escorial, Madrid, Ms.b.1.2 (or E1), dated
c. 1280-1283, 361 leaves, over 400 cantigas, with music above the text for
all but four; every tenth song is a cantiga de loor and is headed by an
illumination of one or two musicians with instruments; the scribe is
identified on the last page as "Johñes gundisalvi".
This
manuscript, the largest of all four surviving sources — not in size, but
in its contents (over 400 items) and number of pages (361) — is the
main source of information regarding performing musicians available to a
cosmopolitan Castilian king. Its 361 pages contain a Prologo as introduction,
followed by another Prologo and 402 carefully arranged cantigas de miragre
and de loor. After the second Prologo these are organised
in groups of ten from Cantiga X onwards — that is,
one cantiga de loor is followed by nine cantigas de miragre
(an order which is possibly related to the mediæval arrangement of the rosary).
Above the text and melody of this Cantiga X
and then every cantiga ending with the number X (that is, above every cantiga de loor),
there is a miniature depicting musicians playing instruments. The X may
also have acted as a reminder of Christ (being the first letter of his
name in Greek) and of the Ten Mosaic Laws; or perhaps even referred
obliquely to Alfonso himself as the Xth Alfonso of Castile. The first
miniature (before the first Prologo) shows Alfonso in
his court flanked on both sides in a pentamerous framework (a visual
reminder of the five letters of the Virgin's name?) by scribes, scholars
and string players. This large grouping is somewhat atypical of the
remaining 40 miniatures in each of which only one or two persons are
depicted. Overall, the 41 miniatures reveal a widely comprehensive instrumentarium,
played by a variety of performers (male and female) of varying social
classes (from the king, his clerics, princes and courtiers, to joglars,
clerics and peasants) and religions (Christian, Jewish and Islamic). The
various styles and colours of their garb (such as gowns, capes,
collars, scapulars, shoes, hats, crowns, hair formations on head and
face) distinguish their race, creed and age as well as social status.
These pictures are quite realistic in their relatively accurate and
detailed depiction of musicians seated, squatting or standing, sometimes
singing (or declaiming), possibly moving, with realistic facial
expressions (smiling, sulking, smirking, looking worried, intense and so
on) — holding a wide array of plucked, bowed, blown, beaten and struck
instruments.
The vast instrumentarium displayed here shows the following groupings:
27
pairs of musicians playing the same instrument, 7 pairs playing
different instruments, 6 solo instrumentalists, and one quartet playing
two pairs of different instruments.
The details of the second manuscript source are:
(2) Same location, Ms. T.j.1 (or E2),
slightly later date, 256 leaves, 192 cantigas all with music, 1,262
narrational miniatures, possibly the first of a two-volume set, scribe
unidentified.
The miniatures in this manuscript are quite different in function. There are only 192 cantigas
in this source (its second volume possibly lost) but its 1,262
miniatures make it a veritable pictorial treasure-trove. Set out in
"comic-book" formation (often covering a whole page), they visually
describe, with realistic detail (often with additional, synopsis-like
text above each picture-square), the series of events in a cantiga
de loor or de miragre. Scenes are placed dramatically before the
viewer's eye and, on contemplation, the memory can imaginatively work in
further details of the story (sensory and emotional feelings, reasons
and, ultimately, meanings and connections).
The two other manuscript sources are:
(3) Biblioteca nacional, Madrid, Ms. 10.069 (or To.), 14th century, 161 leaves, 104 cantigas in semi-mensural notation, no miniatures;
(4) Biblioteca nazionale central, Florence, Banco rari 20 (or F), date unknown, 131 leaves, 109 cantiga texts, no music on empty staves, richly illuminated.
As
with his other monumental literary projects Alfonso called on the
best researchers, historians and poets available to find and collate the
miracle tales, and poetic structures (mostly in the Arabic zajal format) to suitable melodies (likewise, mostly structured as virelais).
As well as such identifiable theological and narrative collaborators as
the Franciscan brother Juan Gil de Zamora and the court
cleric Bernardo de Brihuega and possibly the Compostelan cleric Arias
Nuñes, it is possible that Alfonso called on the many Jewish, Muslim,
Iberian, Provençal and Italian poets who frequented his court to assist
and add to his own lyrical endeavours.
Many distinguished poets
and musicians came to stay at his court, regardless of race and creed,
to display and develop their arts. Thus, for example, merit being the
standard, dozens of Castilian, Galician and Catalonian poets mingled
freely with Muslim and Jewish poet-musicians along with troubadour
visitors from Provence (some fleeing the Albigensian Wars), Northern
France, Italy, Germany, England, Sicily and so on. These included
artists such as João Airas, Gonzalo Eans de Vinhal, João Soares Coelho,
Fernan Gonçalves, Maria Balteira, Raimon Vidal de Bezaudon, Folquet de
Lund, Sordel de Goito, Marcabru, Guiraut Riquier, Todros Abulafia,
Bonifacio Calvo, and so on.
PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
In
coming to terms with the massive problems involved in trying to
recapture lost, ancient performance styles, we are obliged to search for
snippets of information from all sorts of contemporaneous as well as
recent sources (the unlikely, as well as the obvious) to piece together
an hypothetically reasoned historiography. In the case of Alfonso X's Cantigas de Santa Maria,
this involves, at the very least, delving into political and cultural
relations that evolved between Christians, Jews, Muslims, Arabs
and Berbers in Andalusia (the Muslim-held territories of the Iberian
Peninsula). For it is important to keep in mind that it took almost
eight centuries — from 711 to 1492 — to totally reconquer
the areas under Muslim rule. It is just not conceivable that whatever
cultural traditions had evolved and prevailed by the mid 13th century
would just disappear overnight, as it were, simply because by 1248
Ferdinand III had reclaimed all of the Iberian Peninsula but Granada.
In our deliberations we must seriously consider the oft-quoted
statement of modern historians such as Americo Castro that there had
evolved over the five and a half centuries up to the reign of Alfonso X
a single culture — a triple symbiosis of Christian, Jewish and
Muslim elements.
Many of our cantiga performances end with an instrumental after-dance. This practice is based on many references in the cantiga
texts to singers dancing after singing praises to Holy Mary, and many
references in the Psalms of David and the Temple Levites to "singing praises" with instruments (such as timbrels, harps, psalteries and so on).
GENERAL COMMENTS
Unless
otherwise stated, all transcriptions of music and text relate to El
Escorial manuscript, b.1.2. Due to the length of the dramatic Bẽeyto foi o dia, there are only five cantigas
on this CD. While this deflects from the general decadal pattern
established within this series, it relates specifically to the pentad of
MARIA.
In the cantigas de miragre, the refrains are often omitted after stanzas to allow the text to run in a continuous flow, particularly when enjambement is present.
A
variety of musical textures has been devised to suggest different ways
in which these songs may have been performed. The full range of such
textures in our arrangements is available only across the series rather
than within each CD, although with each CD we have tried to provide
contrasts in a cohesive whole.
The original melodies of all the cantigas on this CD are structured as virelais, with various modifications on a general A1 A1 b1 b2 a A1 A2 circular format.
The
recording has been organised to reproduce the acoustical ambiance of a
large, stone church as a fitting venue for dedication of these praises.
© 2013 Winsome Evans
— • —
Once again we acknowledge our huge debt to the inspirational research of many scholars such as
Walter Mettman, José Filgueira Valverde, Joseph Snow, John Keller, Peter Dronke,
Mary Carruthers and Kathleen Kulp Hill (who so graciously gave permission for use of her ranslations).
None of this would have been possible in the initial stages without Dr John Stevenson
who supplied us with our first Englished texts.
THE RENAISSANCE PLAYERS
director :
Winsome Evans, B.E.M., O.A.M.
patrons :
Professor Donald Peart
Emeritus Professor Sir Peter Platt
· Winsome Evans : alto shawm, zūrnā, gemshorn, harp, sinfonye, psaltery, pandero, pandereta, bells
· Nick Wales : vielle
· Llew Kiek : baglama, gittern
· Andrew Lambkin: pandero, pandereta, tapan, darabukka
· Barbara Stackpool : castanets, bells
· Mara Kiek : alto, pandero
· Mina Kanaridis : soprano
· Belinda Montgomery : soprano, diwan saz
· Melissa Irwin : soprano
Musical arranger & Producer : Winsome Evans
Recording Engineer : Guy Dickerson, Megaphon Studios
Translation : Dr Kathleen Kulp Hill, © 1994
Digital editing, compiling & Mastering Engineer: William Bowden, Festival Records
Re-mastering Engineer : Don Bartley, Benchmark Mastering
Typesetting : Natalie Shea
Layout : Bernard Rofe
Cover art : Bernard Rofe & Winsome Evans
INSTRUMENTS
· alto shawm : Gunter Koerber, Germany
· zūrnā : Linsey Pollak, Australia
· gemshorn : Brian Garlick, England
· gittern : Arnold Black, Australia
· baglama : Saz evi Ahmet Ata, Turkey
· diwan saz : unknown, Turkey
· harp : Frank O'Gallagher, Australia
· psaltery : Mark Noble, Australia
· vielle : Ian Watchorn, Australia
· castanets : unknown, Spain
· pandero : unknown, India
· pandereta (1) : Jeremy Montagu, England
· pandereta (2) : unknown, Spain
· bells : Whitechapel Bell Foundry, England
· darabukka : unknown, U.S.A.
— • —
This CD is dedicated to Mr Gough Whitlam, a national living treasure of Australia,
whose Cultural Exchange Programme Overseas gave a boost to the Renaissance Players in their early career.
In gratitude for his wit and resilience in "maintaining the rage".
Recorded at St. Peters, Sydney
© & ℗ 2014 Tall Poppies Records