Jheronimus Vinders (fl. c1525-1526)
Missa Fors seulement
Andrew Lawrence King (harp and psaltery), The Choir of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge/David Skinner
rec. 2023, Chapel of Tanzenberg Castle, Austria
Inventa INV1012 [2 CDs: 101]
I found this disc for review when we returned from a tour of Northern Belgium and parts of Holland. The skies there were largely grey. The cathedrals and churches we visited – with faintly glinting reflections, vast spaces and big acoustics – were often empty of pews. This music seems to fit. It certainly is not grey, but the deep melancholy I hear in Jheronimus Vinders’s Mass Myn liefkens bruyn ooghen and the song on which it is based appears appropriate to the countryside and architecture.
Jheronimus Vinders may have been Josquin’s pupil in Ghent, a city prominent in music-making in the later renaissance. There was a strong focus on Saint Bavo’s Cathedral, the site of the famous altarpiece known as The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. Hubert van Eyck and Jan van Eyck’s created it about one hundred years before Vinders was appointed for it seems just one year. He then disappears from the records. He is only remembered for his motet O mors inevitabilis, a lament on the death of Josquin.
Benedictus Appenzeller was active in nearby Bruges. His instrumental arrangement of the folk song appear in the mass. Andrew Lawrence-King also plays other arrangements of this painfully beautiful melody. The mass is harmonically rich and lyrical in a way not always encountered at that period. There are memorable, sometimes repeated, melodic patterns, and some rhythmic repetition.
We are, I think, still learning how Renaissance composers interacted with each other and each other’s music. Vinders based his setting of Salve Regina on a suitable plainsong alongside the melody of Johannes Ghiselin-Verbonnet’s melancholy Flemish song Ghy syt die wertste. More complications emerge when we dig into Missa Fors seulement. Primarily it uses Antoine de Févin’s three-part setting of the text, played first by Lawrence-King, but also quotes part of a setting by Matthaeus Pipelare, another contemporary whose setting we hear a capella as the last track on the second disc.
All these men were associated locally. The Kyrie, for example, uses Févin’s melody in the top part. Booklet writer Eric Jas’s fine and detailed notes offer fairly confidently the 1520s as the date of this mass. Curiously, the Agnus dei is sung to the same music as the Kyrie. Nicolas Gombert has been proffered as the composer, but Jas makes a firm case for Vinders. No matter who composed it, I find it memorable and very beautiful. I would especially draw your attention to the section from ‘Qui propter’ in the Credo.
David Skinner and his choir always seek unknown works and little-known composers. This venture is another remarkable example. I am not sure why the choir were shipped off to a romantic castle in Austria to record this music. The acoustic, with its three-second resonance, may not appeal to everyone. It feels as if you are sitting, as you might in this large chapel, some way down the nave. I find it magical and evocative. I really like this admirable large choir’s individual sound and the beautifully shaped phrasing, but there is some sacrifice of loss in the audibility of words.
This, then, is a disc of fine music, cleverly programmed. I am sure it will be offered up for an Early Music award later this year. Anyone with an interest in the music of the period will want to get it right away.
Gary Higginson
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Contents
CD1
Anonymous with improvisation by Andrew Lawrence-KingMyns liefkins bruyn ooghen
Benedictus Appenzeller (c.1480-1558)
Myns liefkins bruyn oogen a5
Jheronimus Vinders (fl.c1525-1526)
Missa Myns liefkins bruyn ooghen
Matthaeus Pipelare (c.1450-c.1515)
Myn liefkens bruyn ooghen a 3
Johannes Ghiselin-Verbonnet (flc.1490-1507)
Ghy syt die wertste boven a 4
Jheronimus Vinders
Salve Regina super Ghy syt die werste boven al
Anonymous with improvisation by Andrew Lawrence-KingPavan and Galliard super Ghy syt die werste boven al
CD2
Antoine de Févin (c.1470-c.1512)
Fors seulement la mort a 3
Jheronimus Vinders
Missa Fors seulement
Johannes Ghiselin-Verbonnet
Fors seulement l’atente que je meure a 4
Matthaeus Pipelare
Fors seulement l’atente que je meure a 4
