Ensemble Laude Novella ELNCD-0305: Armed men and fair ladies

song-fiddla-trombone: Le souvenir de vous me tue song-harp: Je demande ma bien venue song-lira da braccio: Mercè te chiamo

lira da braccio: Romanesca harp: Petit vriens recorder-fiddla-trombone: Triste plaisir

fiddla-harp-trombone: La dolce vista shawm-fiddla-trombone-percussion: Instrumental lira da braccio-trombone-percussion: Recercada segunda

It is a matter of great surprise that there is no composition written over forty years ago which is thought by the learned as worthy of performance. At this very time, whether it be due to the virtue of some heavenly influence or to a zeal of constant application I do not know, there flourish, in addition to many singers who perform most beautifully, an infinite number of composers ... who glory that they had as teachers in this divine art Johannes Dunstable, Egidius Binchois and Guillermus Dufay, recently passed from life. Certainly I never listen to them or study them without coming away more refreshed and wiser. Just as Virgil took Homer as his model in his divine work, the Aeneid, so by Hercules, do I use these as models for my own small productions; particularly have I plainly imitated their admirable style of composition insofar as the arranging of concords is concerned.

With these words from his text-book on composing, Johannes Tinctoris, teacher and maestro di capella at the court of Naples, described in the year 1477 the arrival of the Renaissance in music.  The beginning of the 15th century had seen a musical revolution. It seems as if late mediæval composers had found themselves at the end of road with their mannerism and the new generation of composers sought simple means as a contrast to the complex style which had reached an ever-increasingly dominant position during the 14th century. The centre for this new music was Burgundy, at this time a political Great Power, more specifically the area which today lies in northern France and Belgium. It was here than men like Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois were born and  worked, and Robert Morton, probably an Englishman, was a singer at the Burgundian court. Dufay is also believed to have been strongly influenced by the several years he spent in Italy. The Italian courts competed with one another to appoint the best musicians, and there were recruited in much the same way as professional footballers today.

The music of these innovative composers feels surprisingly familiar to our 21st-century ears. The austerity which we may experience in mediæval harmony is replaced by a new sweetness: the concords of which Tinctoris makes special mention are quite simply harmonies built on the musical interval of the third, a harmonic language which we recognise today. Perhaps indeed it is this which is the essential characteristic of ‘Renaissance music’? It's not self-evident what we mean if we use the expression "renaissance", 'rebirth', in connection with an art-form like music: where is the 'rebirth' in Dufay's music for example was he really inspired by the ancient Greeks? We could say 'yes', in the sense that he shows, i.a. in his motets, the relationship between music and mathematics, just as it was seen in ancient Greece, and which was the basis of all mediæval and renaissance thinking: the subject of music was classified as one of the four branches of mathematics, alongside arithmetic, geometry and astronomy .

The 15th century also saw the use of instruments like the lyra da braccio, a development from the mediæval fiddle, but which was seen by renaissance musicians as a reconstruction of the lyra of antiquity with the addition of a bow.

But what we today call 'renaissance music' has of course very little to do with the music of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Instead it builds on the tradition which was established during the preceding centuries, during the Middle Ages, and partly as a reaction to it. The improvised music of Italy, the ubiquitous Englishmen with their special 'English' way of composing, combined with music from the strict franco-flemish tradition, all this together formed something new during the 15th and 16th centuries, a wonderful combination of diverse elements: renaissance music.

Per Mattsson ©

Ute Goedecke song, harp, shawn, recorder
Stefan Wikström trombone
Johan Folker percussion
Per Mattsson fiddla, lira da braccio

Recorded in Oppmanna Church, Skåne, Sweden, October 6-8 2004
Recording Engineer: Sven Jansson
Front illustration from Roman de Tristan, Vienna, Austrian National Library, ms. 2537
Photo: Per Mattsson, Efva Henrysson
Graphic design: Åsa Björck www.avig.se
Swedish interpretations of French texts, except track 2: Kjell Johansson
Swedish translations of Italian texts: Carin B. Edström
English translation: David Kettlewell
Thanks to Staffan Bråliden and Oppmanna Parish for use of the church

list of tracks