The Palacio Songbook – Music for 3 voices & lute
Contents listed after review
Da Tempera Velha/Ariel Abramovich
rec. 2022, Waldenburg, Basel, Switzerland
Texts and translations included
Reviewed as a 16/44 download
Glossa GCD923540 [71]

Ensembles which want to perform secular music from the Spanish Renaissance often turn to one of the songbooks that have been preserved in several libraries and archives in Spain and elsewhere, known as cancioneros. They were already known when the revival of early music started, and some songs from these books have become pretty famous. The ensemble De Tempera Velha focuses on one of these songbooks, the Cancionero de Palacio.

The programme opens with the first item in this book. Juan de Urrede’s song Nunca fue pena mayor became quite famous in his own time; Pierre de La Rue, for instance, took it as the basis for a mass. It is a cançion, a Castilian genre, “the most genuine successor to the old cantiga de amor and a close relative to the dansa, the virelai and the ballata“, Jonatan Alvarado, the tenor of the ensemble, states in his liner-notes.

Three features are especially noteworthy: two concern the repertoire, and the third, performance practice.

The first feature is that the Cancionero de Palacio and other songbooks are put into their historical context. This is the aim of the ensemble De Tempera Velha. Alvarado points out that when the Cancionero de Palacio was discovered and published, it was considered “some sort of monolith locked into its immediate circumstances, as the result of a distinctly Spanish poetical-musical creative and promotional programme engineered by the Catholic Monarchs, Isabel I of Castilla and Fernando II of Aragón. More recent research, however, has revealed a much more decentralized picture. From this perspective, the Cancionero de Palacio can be considered as a snapshot of an era in which the development of specific musical practices did not rule out the influence of surrounding courts and nations.”

This explains why we find several non-Spanish names in the programme. Among them are the Burgundian Guillaume Dufay and representatives of the Franco-Flemish school such as Alexander Agricola, Antoine Brumel, Heinrich Isaac and Juan de Urrede (whose original name was Wreede). The second of the four chapters into which the programme is divided is also interesting in this respect. It sheds light on the connection between Spain and Italy. Spanish pieces were included in editions by the Venetian printer Petrucci, whereas Italian pieces in his publications also appear in Spanish songbooks.

A second feature is that the Cancionero de Palacio and other songbooks not only include secular pieces, but also sacred works. The first chapter opens with Antoine Brumel’s motet Ave, ancilla trinitatis, the third chapter with Salve Sancta facies, attributed to Heinrich Isaac. The latter chapter is entirely devoted to sacred works, as its title indicates: The Vita Christi and the Crucifixion by van der Weyden. The starting point is Rogier van der Weyden’s triptych, The Crucifixion with Saints and Donors, now held in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The Passion of Christ was very important in Spain. The Capilla Real in Granada has thirteen Flemish wood panels depicting scenes from the Passion. The pieces selected for this chapter correspond with the panels in Van der Weyden’s painting.

The mixture of secular and sacred pieces in songbooks show that in the Renaissance there was no watershed between the sacred and the secular. Even single pieces attest to that. One of the two vernacular pieces in this chapter has the form of a romance, a secular genre. In the second chapter we find two pieces whose titles suggest a secular text. One is Vox clamantis in deserto; those words are from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah (ch 40, vs 3): “A voice cries: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord”. However, Tromboncino turns it into a secular piece in Italian: “I am like a voice crying in the wilderness, calling out for mercy. For the woman whom I love so much is unheedful of my clear misery.” The second piece is by Lluys Milan: O vos omnes qui transitis is the opening of one of the Tenebrae responsories. Here the text says: “O, all of you who pass by this way of love: be saddened by my distress, be saddened by so intense a pain (…)”. Although Alvarado considers this piece to be an amorous invocation, it seems to me that one cannot entirely rule out that it may have been intended as a spiritual piece about Christ’s Passion.

Although this disc focuses on the Cancionero de Palacio, it also includes pieces from other songbooks; they appear in each of the four chapters. Some items appear in more than one songbook, which undoubtedly attest to their popularity. The anonymous Oya tu merced y crea is included in three songbooks. That piece is part of the last chapter, which is especially devoted to the connection between the various songbooks. In particular the Cancionero de Montecassino includes quite a number of non-Spanish songs, especially from Burgundian composers, such as Dufay, Bedyngham and Ockeghem.

It seems likely that most of the pieces performed here are unknown to most lovers of early music. Tandernaken was a popular song, arranged by a number of composers. It is mostly performed in instrumental versions, and that is also how Agricola’s arrangement is preserved in the Cancionero de Segovia. Here it is performed with a text taken from other sources. The best-known piece, at least for older lovers of early music, may be L’amor dona ch’io te porto by Giacomo Fogliano, as it was often performed in the early days of the revival of early music. However, such performances were different from the way it is performed here.

That brings us to the third feature of this disc. In the past – and sometimes still in our time – songs from the Spanish songbooks of the Renaissance were treated as ‘popular’ music, and performed with a number of instruments, including loud winds and even percussion. Today performers who have specialized in this repertoire, such as Adrián Rodríguez Van der Spoel (director of Música Temprana), and also Alvarado, emphasize that these songbooks were put together for performance at the court and require a much more intimate manner. That explains why we have here performances by just three singers: Florencia Menconi (soprano), Jonatan Alvarado (tenor) and Breno Quinderé (baritone), with Ariel Abramovich on the lute. It is certainly possible to use additional instruments, such as a recorder, a vihuela da arco and a harp; however, there should not be too many, and certainly no loud instruments. The result here is a high degree of intimacy, which does not damage the impact of the repertoire, but rather increases it. That is certainly the case when the singing and playing is as exquisite as it is here.

I had the opportunity to hear this ensemble with this repertoire in the Festival Early Music Utrecht 2024, and it made a great impression. I am writing this review a few weeks after the festival, and all my impressions of the concert are confirmed here. This is wonderful repertoire, and the performances could not be any better. This disc offers a new outlook at the repertoire from the Spanish songbooks. Having heard it performed this way, it will be hard to really appreciate an ‘old-fashioned’ performance.

Johan van Veen
www.musica-dei-donum.org
twitter.com/johanvanveen

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Contents
The Cancionero de Palacio…

… is opened
Juan de Urrede (c1430-after 1482)
Nunca fue pena mayor

… and the Cancionero de Segovia
Antoine Brumel (c1460-1513)
Ave, ancilla trinitatis
Francisco de Peñalosa (c1470-1528)
Unica est columba mea
Juan del Encina (1468-1529)
Romerico tú que vienes
Alexander Agricola (c1446-1506)
Tandernaken
Gilles Binchois (c1400-1460) / Alexander Agricola
Comme femme desconfortée
Juan del Encina
Es la causa bien amar

… and the Petrucci Publications
Bartolomeo Tromboncino (c1470-after 1535)
Vox clamantis in deserto
anon
Zagaleja del Casar
Giacomo Fogliano (1468-1548)
L’amor dona ch’io te porto
Joan Ambrosio Dalza (fl 1508)
Ricercar
Lluys Milan (c1500-c1561)
O vos omne qui transitis por esta vía d’amor

… the Vita Christi and the Crucifixion by Van der Weyden
Heinrich Isaac (c1450-1517) (attr)
Salve Sancta facies
Johannes de Quadris (bef. 1410-1457?)
Cum autem venissent ad locum
anon
Romance de Pasión: Tierra i çielos se quexaban
Desecha de Pasión: Pues es muerto el Rey del çielo
Adoramus te Domine

… and the Cancioneros de Colombina, Montecassino and El Escorial
Guillaume Dufay (c1400-1474)
Je vous prie
Juan de Urrede
De vos i de mi quexoso
anon
Amours, amours, vostre service
Oya tu merced y crea
Ora baila tú