Laude Novella - An Italian Advent
Background
Latin, the traditional language of the Roman Catholic Church, is the language used in the majority of early medieval compositions, both sacred and secular. This circumstance alone gave the Church a decisive influence over the development of western music. Because the Church provided the scribes, or the record keepers, who preserved the songs sung in cathedrals and monasteries, most of the repertoire we have inherited from the early Middle Ages is sacred. The program includes one of the most famous early hymns in Latin: Ave maris stella, sung at Vespers. Traced back to the 8th century, it gained enormous popularity in the Middle Ages. In our program this chant is followed by the 14th century Verbum caro factum est, a paraphrase of the chant melody, which was found in a seminary in Aosta in Northern Italy.
Near the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth centuries, the dominance of Latin started to wane. As society became more secular, poets began to write in the vernacular, the everyday language of the people. Among the first vernacular poets and song writers were the troubadours in southern France and the trouveres in the northern part of the country. The troubadours especially had an enormous influence on the Italian poets. Dante mentions several of them in his works. In this concert we will present some of the earliest examples of songs in the Italian vernacular, called Laude.
The Laude (singular Lauda) were made famous by the Franciscan friars, the followers of St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226). They traveled all over Italy as missionaries of a religion of poverty and simplicity, living in the outside world, not in monasteries. Much of their prayer was done in the form of songs, especially dance songs, fitted with new religious texts. Some of the Laude are simple syllabic settings of texts, meant to be sung by the congregation. Others are much more elaborate, and were sung by professional singers hired by groups of 'laudesi', people gathering for private devotion. St. Francis himself is said to have written the first Lauda, Il Canto delle Creature (The Canticle of Creatures or Canticle of the Sun; see below). Wherever they went, the Franciscan missionaries used existing popular songs and myths, and adapted them to the religion they were preaching. Thus we find many secular songs fitted with new, sacred texts. Some of these are likely to have been dances, sung or played. In the instrumental pieces I have tried to reconstruct some of these dances from the melodies in the songbooks.
More than 200 manuscript collections of laude texts survive, but only the ones in the Laudario of Florence and that of Cortona have music. Both of these collections were compiled in the 14th century. As in English carols, refrains are often used, possibly sung by the congregation, leaving the verses to more accomplished singers. Of the Laude on this CD, several tell the story of the annunciation (Ave Maria, gratia plena, Da ciel venne messo novello), or the birth of Christ (Venite a laudare, Laude novella, Gloria in cielo). Others are addressed to Jesus (Dulcis Iesu memoria), and the Virgin (Sovrana si ne'sembianti).
On the other end of the spectrum we find the complex polyphony of Johannes Ciconia (1370-1412). Born in Liege, in what is now Belgium, he spent time at the papal court in Avignon and devoted the last ten years of his life to teaching at the University of Padua. Nothing about Ciconia's music is simple. He uses complex rhythms and stunning harmonies, as you will hear in our performance of his Gloriaand other compositions.
Several modern composers have been intrigued by medieval texts and have used them in contemporary settings. We feature two compositions in this program. Seattle composer Peter Seibert writes: "Il Canto delle creature was commissioned by 24 members of the Medieval Women's Choir, who formed a consortium at the June 2006 Gala and Auction to purchase my services as a composer. Director Margriet Tindemans provided me with the text, and I composed the work while on a brief sojourn in San Luis Obispo, CA in August. It was my intention to provide music that would at once fit the singing style of the MWC and also make use of the acoustics of St. James Cathedral, Seattle. The entire work is composed on one musical scale, and some use is made of a drone, reflecting medieval practice."
In addition to the Seibert piece our program also includes a work by director Margriet Tindemans, who has used one of the Laude texts for which no music was written down: Venite adorare, a prayer for peace. This work too was composed for the Medieval Women's Choir. Tindemans alternates verses in a medieval 'parlando' style, sung by a smaller group of singers, with the full choir singing an impassioned invocation of peace.
˜ Margriet Tindemans