medieval.org
Naxos 8.553133
1995
1. Prologo [2:17]
m: CSM 60 +
r: Prólogo
2. Por nos de dulta tirar [7:25]
CSM 18
3. Instrumental [2:54]
CSM 259
4. Quen serve Santa Maria [5:42]
CSM 213
5. Rosa das rosas [4:46]
CSM 10
6. Que por al non devess [5:47]
CSM 295
7. Entre Av'e Eva [2:22]
CSM 60
8. Instrumental [4:34]
CSM 361
9. Virgen, madre gloriosa [8:35]
CSM 340
10. Instrumental [4:04]
CSM 206
11. A Virgen, que de Deus madre [6:53]
CSM 322
12. Aquel que de volontade [3:51]
CSM 249
13. Epilogo [1:14]
m: CSM 60 +
r: CSM 409
Ensemble Unicorn, Vienna
Bernhard Landauer, Countertenor
Colin Mason, Bass-baritone
Michael Posch, Recorders, Gemshorn, Reed Flute, Bamboo Flutes
Marco Ambrosini, Keyed Fiddle, Saz, Def, Shawm, Bagpipe, Recitation (Nos. 1 & 13)
Riccardo Delfino, Gothic Harp, Hurdy-Gurdy, Bagpipe, Portativ, Recitation (No. 13)
Thomas Wimmer, Ud, Fiddle, Vihuela d'arco, Rebec, Gittern
Wolfgang Reithofer, Bass Drum, Lithophone, Darabukka
The
Ensemble Unicorn consists of five musicians specialising in early
music. Together with guest-musicians the Ensemble is dedicated to the
interpretation of music from the Middle Ages to the Baroque and of works
of their own. The aim is always lively authenticity, avoiding the
merely pedantic. An original feature of the Ensemble is the approach
towards contemporary popular music in new compositions and
interpretations of Medieval and Renaissance works, played on original
instruments. The compositions by the Ensemble are based on Medieval and
Renaissance dances, cantigas and chansons, reflecting the amalgamation
of Oriental and European cultural trends. The members of the Ensemble
are Michael Posch, Marco Ambrosini, Riccardo Delfino, Thomas Wimmer and
Wolfgang Reithofer.
Recorded at Tonstudio W*A*R* from 24th to 27th November 1994.
Engineers: Elisabeth and Wolfgang Reithofer
Music Notes: Riccardo Delfino
Cover Painting: Av'e Eva (The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. M. 917, P. 139)
℗ © 1995 HNH International Ltd.
Entre Av'e Eva
The Cantigas de Santa Maria of Alfonso X "el Sabio"
Alfonso
X (1221–1284), King of Castile and Leon, began his reign in a highly
characteristic manner, by bringing together the staff of the University
of Salamanca and explicitly demanding que aya maestro en organo
(that there should be an organ teacher). He wanted academic studies to
be complemented by artistic study. As a politician and a general he
could look back on no great achievements, since the progress of the reconquista
had proved troublesome during his reign and court intrigues eventually
cost him his throne, yet as a patron of the sciences and arts he won the
title el Sabio (the Wise), by which he is remembered in history.
In
the thirteenth century on the Iberian peninsula there was hostility
between Moslems and Christians in warfare, but in everyday life there
was a great deal of religious tolerance and lively exchange between the
two opposing cultures. At the court of Alfonso there were learned Arab,
Jewish and Christian scholars, who, under his direction, wrote
comprehensive works such as the General estoria (General History), a monumental history of the world (fragmentary) and the Siete partidas (Seven Parts), a collection of laws. Special subjects were treated in the Libros del saber de astronomia (Books on the Science of Astronomy), El lapidario (The Book of Stones, Materials and Metals) and the Libros de ajedrez, damas y tablas (The Book of Chess, Draughts and Backgammon). These books today are seen as the foundation of Castilian prose-writing.
In
addition to his other scholarly interests, Alfonso also concerned
himself with the arts, especially with music; as a young man he had
himself composed love-songs. Provençal and Italian troubadours were
frequent visitors to the Castilian court and Alfonso served as their
patron and provided protection from the Inquisition during the
suppression of the Albigensians. The German Minnesang may also
have found a place there through Alfonso's mother, Beatrix of Swabia.
The monophonic and polyphonic repertoire of Notre Dame was cultivated in
the same way as the popular Cantigas de amigo, secular
love-songs in Galician-Portuguese, the then poetic language. Music at
court was not only performed by Christian musicians but also by Arab
players with oriental dancers. In this varied musical life there
appeared, with the cooperation and under the direction of Alfonso, the Cantigas de Santa Maria,
a collection of more than four hundred monophonic songs. The
musicologist Higinio Anglés noted in the preface to his edition of the Cantigas
(1943-1964) that even if no other Spanish music of the period survived,
this would have been enough to put Spanish music on a par with the
music of the other cultured countries of medieval Europe.
The Cantigas
have come down to us in four splendid manuscripts, three of them with
notation. One of these is in the Spanish National Library in Madrid (No.
10069), a second in the National Library in Florence (Banco rari 20)
and two in the Escorial (B.j.2 and T.j.1). They are distinguished by the
beauty of their miniatures, and by the special care taken with the
notation, of material assistance in the reading of other medieval
notation. The miniatures include representations of the king surrounded
by scholars and of musicians from all countries and cultures. There are
more than forty instruments depicted, fiddle, rebec, gittern, mandola,
lute, psaltery, zither, harp, shawm, transverse and straight flute,
trumpet, horn, bagpipe, portative organ, drums, castanets, cymbals,
glockenspiel and symphonia, a unique compendium of medieval instruments.
In the present recording some of these instruments are introduced as
musical miniatures between the songs.
In the Cantigas de Santa Maria, also written in Galician-Portuguese dialect, a distinction can be made between the Cantigas de miragre, which recount the miracles brought about by the Blessed Virgin, and the Cantigas de loor
(qv. Nos. 10, 60 and 340), poetic hymns in praise of the Virgin.
Following strict order, every tenth song is a poetically expressed Cantiga de loor,
arousing the most heartfelt religious feelings,and counterbalancing the
sometimes trivial, amusing and exuberant stories of the Cantigas de miragre.
These latter include, for example, the story of a quarrel between two
minstrels, settled by means of a miraculous candle, which bums a foolish
bishop who tries to get hold of it (No. 259), of a man who is accused
of killing his unfaithful wife and is rescued from his enemies who seek
revenge (No. 213); through a miracle a master-builder survives a fall
from high scaffolding (No. 249); on Christmas Eve a statue of the
Blessed Virgin in a convent starts to move, as if in labour (No. 361);
in another story a priest who has made himself underwear from an
altar-cloth is punished by the Virgin, who makes his legs grow the wrong
way round; a man unable to eat for many weeks because of a rabbit-bone
stuck in his throat vomits on the Feast of the Virgin and can eat again
(No. 322); the ailing caterpillar of a silk-spinner revives and produces
silk again, after she vows that she will make a veil for the Virgin
(No. 18); the Virgin appears in a vision to a king who is devoted to her
and bows to him (No. 295), The Blessed Virgin appears to kings,
beggars, merchants and thieves, peasants and sailors, monks and
wandering musicians, and for them works small and great miracles that at
the crucial moment bring peace and justice in hopeless situations.
These many stories consist of legends handed down everywhere in Europe,
tales of everyday happenings seen in a religious light, including events
in the life of King Alfonso himself. The present selection is
necessarily limited, but an attempt has been made to give an idea of the
distinction between Cantigas de miragre and Cantigas de loor in Entre Av'e Eva (No. 60).
The
music is as varied as the stories, noted down with great accuracy. Here
can be found echoes of conductus, sequences and motets of the School of
Notre Dame, of French lais, Provençal troubadour melodies, the Cantigas d'amigo and the folk-songs and dances of Galicia and Castile, a summary of contemporary musical culture.
Arabic influence may have some part in the genesis of the songs, although the tonality of the Cantigas
(mainly Dorian and Mixolydian modes) and basic structure are European;
the virelai serves as the basic form, already in use with the Latin
conductus, and divided into refrain - mudanza - vuelta - refrain
(AA-bb-aa-AA, as in No. 361). This was probably perfonned by precentor
and choir. This form appears, however, in many variations (No. 10, with
AB-ccdb-AB). In addition to the virelai there are, among other things,
examples of rondeau, ballade, romance and free song-forms. The special
feature of the Cantigas is that many of thern use duple and
triple rhythms in the same song (Nos. 18 and 206). In the musical theory
of the period the latter were associated with the Holy Trinity as tempus perfectum, and the former with the secular as tempus imperfectum.
This peculiarity and the fact that these mixed forms employ both
mensural and modal notation in alternation pose problems for the
performer which can only be solved, as Higinio Anglés pointed out, by
subjective musical sensibility.
In addition to the scope, the variety and other matters mentioned above, the Cantigas
have another special feature. The veneration of the Blessed Virgin has
its roots in the Eastern Orthodox Church, where she is regarded above
all as a simple woman who has experienced all the joys and sorrows of
motherhood. She is the intermediary for mankind and a model in her own
soul into which the divine seed will descend. On icons she is generally
depicted with the child in her arms. Even for the church fathers the
Virgin existed in a reconciliation of opposites, with a relationship
between Eva (Eve), the first woman, and Mary, greeted by the angel
Gabriel with the salutation Ave Maria at the Annunciation. The
fall of man was looked on as a source of joy, since it had enabled God
to take on human flesh through Mary. O felix culpa, (O happy guilt), wrote St Ambrose in the fourth century in his Easter Hymn.
The
height of Marian devotion was reached in the West from the eleventh to
the thirteenth centuries, with the Virgin as Queen of Heaven, next to
the throne of God, removing her thus from everyday life as Gothic
cathedrals rose towards the heavens. In paintings and statues she was
often depicted as a separate figure, without Christ. Cathedrals echoed
with hymns in her honour, while mundane activities, politics, school
lessons, trade in goods and animals and even sexual intercourse took
place at the same time in churches, a fact that can be gathered from
prohibitions of such activities. At the high point of scholasticism and
of these contradictions, man saw himself placed in a duality of
disobedience and obedience, pride and humility, sensual seduction and
dedication to God - between Eve (Eva) and Ave, as the contemporary pun,
with its medieval notions of symmetry and proportion, suggested, while
here there was no problem in the fact that Ave depended on the Latin
translation of the angel's salutation. This separation is even reflected
in the clothing of the time, the mi-parti, with right and left sides in contrasting colours.
In
order to bridge the gap between sacred and secular, many retreated into
monasteries, while others succumbed to the widespread hysteria of dance
epidemics. The Provençal troubadours had tried in courtly songs to sing
of the adored lady's divine qualities, combining contradictions, yet
this had led to their persecution as heretics. As a troubadour of the
Blessed Virgin, Alfonso wanted to renew the bonds that tied ordinary men
of all classes to the spiritual world, the notion of such a bond
implied in the very word religio, by means of his collection of
songs, as is clear from the prologue. Everyman might find his own song
which he could sing and dance in her honour (No. 409). It may be
imagined that the Cantigas were sung and danced in processions
and churches, as they might be in inns for general amusement. They did
not only give accounts of miraculous cures, but themselves brought such a
cure of sickness and sin.
The value that Alfonso himself placed on the Cantigas can be seen in his last will and testament, devised shortly before his death: Furthermore we command that all books of the Cantares de loar de Santa Maria be kept in the church where our body shall be buried, and that they be sung on the festive days of the Virgin Mary.
© Riccardo Delfino
Translation by Uta Henning
© 1995 Catherine du Bouleau
Entre Av'e Eva
Les Cantigas de Santa Maria d'Alphonse X El Sabio (1221 - 1284)
Sur
le plan politique, le règne d'Alphonse X, roi de Castile et de Léon, ne
fut pas très glorieux. Bien qu'il fût empereur germanique [sic]
de 1257 h 1272, il échoua dans son ambition de devenir Empereur du Saint
Empire romain. Suite à des machinations politiques dans sa cour, il
finit par aire déposé en 1282 par l'un de ses fils.
Sur le plan
culturel, en revanche, Alphonse aurait pu se vanter d'une belle
réussite: son encouragement de l'étude et de la pratique d'un large
éventait d'activités artistiques et scientifiques lui valut le surnom
"El Saber" [sic] (Le Sage).
L'un des objectifs politiques
d'Alphonse fut de réaliser une Espagne unie. Dans cette perspective,
imposa le castilan comme la langue officielle, langue accessible à un
plus grand nombre que le latin, ce qui devait avoir un impact
considérable sur le développement de la société. A l'initiative de ce
roi-philosophe, de nombreux traités dans plusieurs domaines
scientifiques (où l'Orient fut en avance sur l'Occident) furent
traduits. Son mécénat encourageait également une foisonnante activité
artistique au sein de sa cour.
La musique occupa bien sûr une
position clé, à la cour ainsi que dans la société en général. Dans ce
domaine, le recueil des 400 Cantigas de Santa Maria fut le magnum opus
d'Alphonse. Il fut habituel d'attribuer au roi les oeuvres produits
sous son égide, mais dans ce cas, il fut vraisemblablement lui-même
l'auteur d'un certain nombre des cantigas et celui qui décida de l'ordre dans lequel elles apparaissent dans le recueil.
Le terme cantigas désigne aussi bien une chanson qu'un
poème, puisqu'à l'époque la distinction entre les
deux n'était pas nette. Les cantigas
du recueil, toutes dédiées à la Vierge Marie et toutes monophoniques,
nous sont parvenues dans quatre manuscrits. Trois d'entre eux comportent
une notation musicale très détaillée, ce qui est plutôt rare, et très
précieux pour notre compréhension de la pratique musical de l'époque.
Des
influences aussi disparates que les séquences et motets de l'école de
Notre Darne, les lais français, les airs des troubadours provençaux et
les cantigas d'amigo (chansons d'amour populaires), se font
sentir dans les mélodies et nous permettent d'imaginer la richesse de la
culture musicale de l'époque.
Les textes des cantigas
sont en galicien: langue parlée au royaume de Léon et qui devint par la
suite le portugais. Pas d'imposition du castilan dans ce contexte: il
existait une forte tradition de poésie profane en galicien - par exemple
les cantigas d'amigo, ou autres chansons populaires - et de
poésie à thème religieux associée au lieu de pèlerinage que fut St.
Jacques de Compostelle, la capitale de Léon [sic]. Il y avait là
aussi volonté d'affirmation de la tradition chrétienne face à
l'influence de l'islam et du judaïsme, ce qui peut aussi expliquer
pourquoi Alphonse décida d'entreprendre cet énorme recueil.
Il ne
faut pas pour autant imaginer qu' Alphonse fut un monarque intolérant.
Au contraire, il connaissait l'arabe et fit broder sur son manteau royal
des versets du Coran. Les manuscrits des Cantigas de Santa Maria
sont enluminés de miniatures d'une beauté exceptionnele qui
représentent le roi entouré de musiciens et de savants juifs et
musulmans aussi bien que chrétiens. Malgré les guerres entre chrétiens
et musulmans - auxquelles Alphonse participa avant d'accéder au trône -
les différentes cultures qui se côtoyaient sur ses terres entretenaient
de nombreux liens.
Le recueil comporte deux types de cantigas à la Vierge: les cantigas de miragre et les cantigas de loor.
Les
premières auraient été chantées à la cour par des menestrels
professionnels et des amateurs nobles, mais aussi dans les rues. Elles
racontent les interventions miraculeuses de la Vierge dans la vie du roi
et de sa famille, dans l'histoire de la chrétienté, lors de
pèlerinages, ou dans la vie quotidienne des gens ordinaires. Dans ce
dernier cas, les histoires proviennent de livres de miracles de la
Vierge, qui, écrits en latin ou en langue vulgaire, circulaient un peu
partout en Europe.
Les cantigas de loor sont de ferventes
louanges de la Vierge, chantées par les fidèles au cathédrale de Seville
aux jours de fétes mariales. Dans le recueil, les cantigas sont
strictement ordonnées par groupes de dix (nombre symbolique reprenant le
nombre d'Ave Maria du rosaire), la dixième étant chaque fois une cantiga de loor.
D'un point de vue formel, les cantigas suivent des traditions européennes plutôt que maures, ressemblant pour la plupart des villencicos [sic],
la version locale du virelai français. Paraissent également des
rondeaux et ballades, En ce qui concerne la correspondance entre texte
et musique, le symbolisme est porté mêne au niveau des tempi utilisés:
le numéro trois a un rôle symbolique dans le christianisme: pour cette
raison les rythmes ternaires ("tempus perfectum") sont fréquents dans ces pages.
Deux
principaux courants, présents dans la société l'époque médiévale, se
mélangent de manière caractéristique dans la poésie des cantigas.
D'abord, la "courtoisie", convention poétique qui se reposait sur la
relation d'une dame élevée à un statut quasiment divin et servie selon
les règles de la chevalerie par un homme (qui, propos, n'était pas son
mari), fut .à son apogée durant la deuxième partie du Xlle siècle.
D'autre part, le culte de la Vierge Marie, trouvant ses racines dans
l'Egiise Orthodoxe, gagna en force en occident durant la période du XIe
au XIIIe siècle. Par conséquent, arrivé l'époque d'Alphonse X, le
personnage de la Vierge prit une forte dimension symbolique.
Marie
était donc dame, inspirant la dévotion à la fois religieuse et profane
et surtout fervente. Par son statut de vierge et mère, jeune fille
obéissante et reine tout-puissante, elle incarnait le paradoxe, élément
d'importance primordial dans la pensée médiévale. Première entre toutes
les femmes, elle était porteuse du salut, alors qu'Eve, la première
femme, avait entraîné la chute de l'homme. A l'époque un jeu de mots
courant entre AVE, la salutation (dans la traduction en latin de la
Bible) donnée à Marie par l'ange Gabriel au moment de l'Annonciation, et
le nom d'Eve, (EVA en latin: donc le reflet de AVE), illustrait cette
relation symétrique. D'où le nom de la cantiga repris comme le titre de ce disque.