Piffaro, The Renaissance Band

This collection of Flemish music reflects the wide variety of music and instrumental effects that resounded throughout the Low Countries in the 15th and 16th centuries. The repertory performed here gives an idea of the extraordinary quality of Flemish composers of the era, and also conveys a sense of the different contexts in which music was heard and enjoyed. Peasants, for instance, would have been more familiar with the sounds of the bagpipe and hurdy-gurdy - their music was relatively straightforward in its rhythmic and melodic appeal, as can be heard in several of the dance settings of Tylman Susato. The shawm bands were a particular pride of civic authorities, whose music is typified here by the settings of Ghiselin and Alamire. The recreation of the nobility, as already suggested, was as likely accompanied by lutes and recorders, heard here in settings by Obrecht and Agricola.

The Players, the Composers and their Repertory
The anthology opens with a group of anonymous Flemish melodies. Tunes like these made up the building blocks of Renaissance music-making and could be performed in a number of different ways: as unaccompanied melodies, either left unadorned or embellished, or with added voices and either simple chordal accompaniments or elaborate, often improvised counterpoint. And they were played at a variety of venues and occasions: at outdoor village festivals in summer (as might have been the case with the Hoboekentanz), in city banqueting halls (Laet ons mit hartzen), in castle chambers (T'andernaken) and churchyards (Jhesus is een kyndekyn cleyn).

Ordinances laying out the duties of town bands in Flanders directed them to play regular afternoon performances for the populace, and these were to include both sacred and secular pieces. A description of one such performance in Bruges mentions an Ave regina caelorum - the four-part setting of this motet by Pierre de La Rue might well have been heard in that performance, as well as his secular song Pourquoy non, which follows. In both works the composer exploits the contrast of texture between sections marked by transparent imitation and others featuring more choral writing - an effect that works especially well in instrumental performance. La Rue was active from about 1480 to 1518, and spent much of his life in court service of the Habsburgs, with Maximilian I, Philip the Fair, and finally, in Mechelen with Margaret of Austria. This position brought him into contact with some of the finest performers of the age, including the superb cornettist Augustin Schubinger and the fine trombonist Hans Nagel.

The next group of dances was arranged (and probably composed) by Tylman Susato, who began his career in Antwerp in 1529 as a trombonist and colleague of Hans Nagel. Susato subsequently established one of the most successful publishing firms of the century, for which he not only served as an editor and transcriber, but frequently composed pieces as needed. He published several volumes designed specifically for the Flemish market, including the set of dances contained in the Derde Musyck Boexken [the Third Music Book]. In these charming pieces the tunes usually predominate, but the Passe et medio is an early example of a structure based on the repetition of a bass pattern.

Jacob Obrecht's settings of popular tunes begin and end the next group. In his own J'ay pris amours, the tune wanders from voice to voice (from the soprano, where it can be clearly heard, to the bass, alto and finally the tenor), surrounded by dense, figural counterpoint. Obrecht had heard fine instrumental playing during his youth in Ghent, where his father was a famous trumpet player, and subsequently he worked in close quarters with some of the best musicians of the era. In Ferrara, for example, where he held his last position, one of the outstanding shawm players at court was Michele Tedesco, otherwise known as Michael Schubinger, brother of Augustin mentioned above. The new arrangement by Grant Herreid of J'ay pris amours vividly illustrated the way a late 15th century musician might have embellished the tune spontaneously in performance.

Alexander Agricola worked within circles similar to those of Obrecht. He began his career in Italy and spent some time at the French court before taking up his final position as a composer and singer for Philip the Fair, Duke of Burgundy and King of Castile. The Burgundian court choir included La Rue, and among the wind players who performed with the ensemble were Nagel and Augustin Schubinger. Agricola's Crions Noel is a reminder that the French chanson was a staple of the international repertory heard in the cosmopolitan courts of Flanders.

Johannes Ghiselin (a Fleming who, like Agricola, worked at the French court and later served in Ferrara as a colleague of Obrecht) placed the tune of Je loe amours (the original is a setting of a melancholy courtly text) in the tenor. The two outer voices engage in charming, tight imitations of each other, with sharply defined motives that make the interplay easy to hear.

Pierre Alamire (Pieter van den Hove) was one of the most famous scribes of his time. His workshop produced quantities of elegant manuscripts for the luxury market, with clients including Maximilian I and Margaret of Austria. Although he was not well known as a composer (he did achieve some notoriety as a spy for the court of Henry VIII of England, where his colleague in skullduggery was the trombonist Hans Nagel), his setting of T'andernaken reveals a sure hand. The tune is embellished in the tenor and provided with dense, but surprising clear imitative counterpoint.

Two motets by Clemens non Papa provide an example of the Netherlandish style of imitation as it had evolved by the mid-16th century. Clemens was closely associated with Susato in Antwerp, who published several volumes that included his works. Finally, a group of pieces by Tyling, Pullois and Brassart exhibits techniques of about a century earlier: all these composers were active toward the middle of the 15th century. Pullois was probably a Fleming (he worked in Antwerp much of his career); Tyling is a shadowy figure, and the fact that he chose to set the T'andernaken tune suggests that he too may have been of Flemish origin. Brassart evidently hailed form the diocese of Liège, but he probably finished his career in the Dutch-speaking town of Tongeren.

The last selection, a free instrument version of the tune Die winter is verganghen, demonstrates the flexibility which was expected of Renaissance performers. Their craft required them to know the works of the major composers of the day, but they were also expected to be able to create new structures of their own. Theirs was a dynamic, vital art.

-- Keith Polk

Credits
Executive producer: Dr. Peter Czornyj
Recording producer: Sid McLauchlan
Tonmeister & Recording Engineer: Andrew Wedman
Photos: Joseph Chielli, Church Street Studios, Philadelphia, PA

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