Missa Au Chant De L'alouete, SPB80, Folios IV-9
The first Mass in SPB80 illustrates well the danger of basing an argument for any composer on criteria that do not include motivic and contrapuntal style. On a purely formal level this Mass shows the influence of Faugues.[13] Entire sections of the Mass return not once but several times. As in Faugues's SPB80 Missa and his Masses on L'homme armé, La basse danse , and Pour l'amour d'une , this Mass repeats the music of the second Kyrie for the Osanna (which itself repeats). And like Faugues's Missa L'homme armé this Mass derives another movement from the same music, in this case the Agnus III. Moreover, as in the Missa La basse danse , there is a link between the Confiteor and the Cum Sancto, the ending sections of the Credo and Gloria. While Faugues repeats all the music, the composer of the Missa Au chant has a nearly literal repeat of the first sixteen breves. Both of these sections are for four voices. In reduced scorings the same music also returns at the beginning of Pleni (three voices for six breves) and at the Credo text "Et unam sanctam" (two voices for twelve breves—the two voices, contra and superius, switch their usual parts).
But the counterpoint, the rhythmic treatment of motives, and the scoring have no relation to what can be expected of Faugues. Whereas Faugues, like Du Fay (and in a different way Busnois), commonly be-
[12] Paula Higgins, "Tracing the Careers of Late Medieval Composers: The Case of Philippe Basiron of Bourges," 15, shows that while still a choirboy (presumably an older one) Lanoy received two vicariates: at Notre-Dame of Montermoyen on 5 Sept. 1472, and at the monastery of S. Ambroise on 8 Jan. 1474; see also Lewis Lockwood, Music in Renaissance Ferrara, 1400-1505: The Creation of a Musical Center in the Fifteenth Century , 131-32.
[13] Rob Wegman, "Guillaume Faugues and the Anonymous Masses Au chant de l'alouete and Vinnus vina, " 38-42, attributes it to Faugues partly on this basis and partly on similarities of imitative texture; however, he also cautions that if not Faugues, then the most likely composer is Martini (p. 42, n. 46). Adelyn Peck Leverett concurs, concluding that "if the Missa Au chant de l'alouete is not Faugues's own, it is at the very least a close and deliberate emulation of his methods" ("A Paleographical and Repertorial Study of the Manuscript Trento, Castello del Buonconsiglio, 91 (1378)," 199).
EXAMPLE 47. Comparison of counterpoint in (a) Missa Au chant de l'alouete , Et resurrexit, mm. 36-44; and (b) Martini, Missa Or sus , Crucifixus, mm. 7-17
gins the Gloria and Credo with a lengthy duet, the Missa Au chant has these movements start a tre voci , the tenor entering later. In this respect it resembles all Masses by Martini that begin these movements in tempus perfectum . With regard to other features, there are more revealing indications of Martini's authorship. Because there is so little difference between Martini's Mass counterpoint and that in his chansons, fruitful comparisons can be made to each.
Cadences in the Missa Au chant occur with Martini's customary frequency, and from a contrapuntal standpoint they fit into the same patterns that exist in the three of his Masses copied in Milan, the Coda pavon, Ma bouche rit , and Io ne tengo Masses. Of the many possible points of comparison I cite just one. Midway through the Et resurrexit of the Missa Au chant the tenorless trio concludes with the cadence shown in Example 47, a rhythmically square pattern very similar to one Martini used in the Crucifixus of the Missa Or sus .
The Et resurrexit resembles nothing so much as one of Martini's three-voice imitative chansons. At a distance of two breves the contra follows the bass, and the superius the contra, a bottom-to-top progres-
EXAMPLE 48. Motivic comparison of (a) Missa Au chant de l'alouete , Pleni, mm. 24-27; and Martini, Tres doulx regard , mm. 1-4; and (b) Missa Au chant de l'alouete , Pleni, mm. 32-34; and Martini, Tres doulx regard , mm. 9-12
sion that one finds in a half dozen of his chansons, L'espoir mieulx and Il est tel to name two.[14] In the Et resurrexit as in this group of chansons, Martini mixes imitation at the octave with that at the fifth, and he is most strict for the upper two voices. The bass joins at the beginning of a new phrase before going its own accompanimental way. In the Et resurrexit the imitation is strict to the point of being canonic for the first thirty-one breves, at which point there is one breve of free counterpoint as the contra and superius realign to replace imitation at the unison with imitation at the fifth above. In terms of its rhythm, this section, like much of the Mass, rarely departs from the tactus, certainly as compared to Faugues or Caron. There is much counterpoint in which all voices move together in semibreves or one voice asserts itself in brief syncopated figures that last for just two or three breves at a time.
Imitative passages in general in the Missa Au chant are identical to those of Martini, at times even to the motive. Example 48a juxtaposes a motive that comes midway through the Pleni with Martini's chanson Tres doulx regard . Variants of this motive are common during this time, occurring in Martini's L'espoir mieulx as well as in works by Du Fay,
[14] The others are Biaulx parle tousjours, De la bonne chiere, Il est tousjours , and Per faire tousjours .
[15] Du Fay, Missa Ave regina coelorum , Agnus II; Faugues, Missa , Agnus II; Touront, Missa Tertii toni , Agnus II; Naples Missa L'homme armé no. 1, Benedictus; Caron, Se doulx penser ; Cornago, Porque mas sin duda creas ; Anon., Puis fortuna m'avis en tal partit (MC, no. 11).
Faugues, Caron, Touront, and Cornago.[15] But of all the instances I have seen, the two in Example 48a are closest in the rhythmic and contrapuntal handling of the motive. In the Pleni and in Tres doulx regard , Martini presents the motive first in two voices, the superius and then the bass. After eight breves the tenor enters for a period of three-voice imitation on a related motive (shown in Ex. 48b).
The Missa Au chant also features a motive that is ubiquitous in Martini's music, the "English" motive discussed earlier with regard to the anonymous Missa on folios 122-29. Sometimes it appears imitatively, as in Example 49a, sometimes not, as in Example 49b. And in compositions with two flats in the signature—as in the chanson Non per la (m. 40)—this motive is present in imitation a step lower. Curiously, Martini often turns to this motive when the superius dips below the contra or tenor voice; to put it the other way around, when a lower voice rises to the top of the contrapuntal texture, it often does so with this motive, as for instance, in each movement of the Missa Au chant . Example 49c compares Martini's setting of "sub Pontio Pilato" in the Missa Au chant and the Missa Or sus, or sus . Occurring either in the tenor or the contra, this motive crosses over the superius here as in the preceding examples.[16]
A notable aspect of Martini's style is his Italianate sensitivity to harmonic effects. In his Masses and many chansons based on C, Martini routinely has a phrase that juxtaposes a root-position
[16] Compare the three-voice imitative version in the Missa Au chant , Pleni, m. 32, the Missa Coda pavon , Pleni, m. 12, and the Missa Ma bouche rit , Et incarnatus, m. 31; and in his three-voice Missa in Ver759, among several instances, see the Patrem at "et propter nostram salutem" and the beginning of the Crucifixus. See also the Magnificat Secundi toni , Deposuit, m. 32; the Missa Io ne tengo , Et in terra, m. 30, and Qui tollis, m. 45; and O di prudenza fonte , m. 21. In the Missa Au chant this figure occurs also in the Et in terra, m. 22, Et resurrexit, m. 98, Sanctus, m. 16, Osanna, m. 5.
[17] This chanson exists uniquely in Paris 2973. See G. Thibault, ed., Chansonnier de Jean de Montchenu (Bibliothèque nationale, Rothschild 2973 [1.5.13] (Paris, 1991), 20, and the commentary by David Fallows on pp. lxxxviii-lxxxix.
EXAMPLE 49. Comparison of counterpoint in Missa Au chant de l'alouete and Masses by Martini
EXAMPLE 49A . (i) Missa Au chant de l'alouete , Patrem, mm. 6-8; (ii) Martini, Missa Io ne tengo , Patrem, mm. 24-27
EXAMPLE 49B . (i) Missa Au chant de l'alouete , Sanctus, mm. 16-17; (ii) Martini, Missa Coda pavon , Sanctus, mm. 19-22
(continued )
pitch and then ascending out of it while the contra moves in contrary motion. A passage from the Osanna of the Missa Au chant de l'alouete matches one from the Osanna of the Missa Coda pavon and the Crucifixus of the Missa Or sus, or sus (Ex. 50). The contra in each leaps back to G, and the bass has an unavoidable melodic tritone as it moves
EXAMPLE 49 (continued )
EXAMPLE 49C . (i) Missa Au chant de l'alouete , Patrem, mm. 37-40; (ii) Martini, Missa Or sus , Crucifixus, mm. 13-21
down from
A passage of chordal recitation provides a contrast to counterpoint in the Missa Au chant as occasionally one finds also in Masses by Martini. Harmonic movement comes to a momentary standstill in the Et resurrexit of the Missa Au chant at the text "et vivificantem: qui ex patre filioque procedit" just as it does in the Qui tollis of Martini's Missa Ma bouche rit at "suscipe deprecationem nostram" (Ex. 51). For four breves the voices sustain a single triad, in the manner of falsobordone improvisations of a later period, or, more immediately, like the declamatory Psalm tone settings of Martini that were copied in the latter 1470s into the paired choirbooks ModC.
EXAMPLE 50. Comparison of harmonic movement in (a) Missa Au chant de l'alouete , Osanna, mm. 5-6; (b) Martini, Missa Coda pavon , Osanna, mm. 4-5; and (c) Martini, Missa Or sus , Crucifixus, mm. 9-10
Finally, the choice of chanson for the Mass points strongly to Martini as the composer. Martini (or one of his patrons?) evidently had an uncommon preoccupation with birds. The Missa Au chant de l'alouete would be the third Mass of his to employ a bird motif. He also wrote a Missa Cucu —based not on a chanson but on a repetitive bird call—
EXAMPLE 51. Comparison of harmonic movement in (a) Missa Au chant de l'alouete , Et resurrexit, mm. 49-54; and (b) Martini, Missa Ma bouche rit , Qui tollis, mm. 17-23
and the Missa Or sus, or sus , the text of which extols the special virtues of a cucu: "Par dessus tousles aultres / Begny soit le coqu!" and later, "Puis le jour de roes nopces / Oyseau suis devenu. / ... je suis un vray coqu."[19]
But what of the Faugues-like repetitions? If musicians at St. Peter's took an unexpected interest in the compositions of one of the most promising young northern composers to find recent employment in Italian courts, Martini shows another sign of being influenced by Faugues in the structural repetitions of the Missa Au chant . Like Faugues, Martini also wrote a Mass on a dance tune (the Missa Coda pavon ), and Faugues is the only composer other than Martini with more than one Mass in ModD, the Mass manuscript compiled in Ferrara in 1481, probably under Martini's supervision.
There is no repetition of the same magnitude in Martini's other Masses. In his Missa Io ne tengo Martini repeats the end of the Gloria at
[19] The chanson survives in Pav362. For the text see Henrietta Schavran, "The Manuscript Pavia, Biblioteca Universitaria, Codice Aldini 362: A Study of Song Tradition in Italy circa 1440-1480," vol. 2, 183-84.
the end of the Credo, but only the last eleven breves and concluding longa. Du Fay rather than Faugues is the potential model for this short repetition. He does the same at the end of the Missa Ave regina coelorum , where the endings of the Gloria and Credo coincide for the last eleven breves of counterpoint, followed by two breves with fermatas and the final longa. The possibility that Martini had a special connection to Du Fay's last Mass is also raised by an intriguing coincidence in the two Italian manuscripts that preserve it. In SPB80 and ModD the compositions that precede the Missa Ave regina coelorum are both Masses by Martini. In ModD it follows the Martini Missa de feria .[20]
SPB80 thus becomes one of a handful of manuscripts from this time that begin with works by Martini. It is no surprise that in Ferrara the manuscript ModD should begin with a Mass by Martini, but that manuscripts copied in Rome, Florence (Flor229), and Trent (Tr91) do as well suggests a broad popularity, a vogue, for the works of Ercole d'Este's composer-in-residence.
[20] On Martini's role in bringing Du Fay's Mass to Italy, and for a discussion of Martini as the prime candidate for the scribe that copied it into Tr91, see Leverett, "A Paleographical and Repertorial Study," 144-67 and 197-99.