Faenza • An imaginary Codex
L’Amorosa Caccia
rec. Basilique de Valère, Sion and Église Saint-Charles Borromée, Avusy, Switzerland
Challenge Classics CC720006 [67]
The two-section Codex Faenza, from the early fifteenth century, consists of instrumental music. The later section to the manuscript of c.1475 was copied or composed by one Bonadies, a Carmelite friar. The composer and or copyist of the earlier section is anonymous. The manuscript offers evidence of the practice of diminution, the breaking up of the original melody into smaller note values. It is written in tablature, which indicates adaptation of the original songs and plainchants for instrumental usage, very likely some form of keyboard. No one can fully grasp how the music was first performed; this programme shows various ways of presenting it.
I first met with the manuscript in a 1991 recording by Ensemble Organum (HMC 901354) The first eight tracks present songs by the main composers of the fourteenth century: Jacopo da Bologna, Machaut and Bartolino da Padova; on the remaining tracks, the Faenza’s diminutions are played instrumentally. The Ensemble Unicorn (Naxos 8.553618) perform vocal works sacred and secular, set alongside the Faenza version; these are played either on a keyboard/organ or on a Gothic harp, medieval fiddle, recorders and even a hurdy-gurdy. Mala Punica (Ambroisie AM105) take only the sacred works, and construct a Vespers service: they viruosically mix the plainchants with the manuscript’s diminutions. All three are positive re-creative demostrations of how to be imaginative with this mysterious manuscript.
L’Amorosa Caccia take nineteen numbers (the six sacred pieces are also on the Ambroisie recording). They either sing the vocal version at the same times as the Faenza diminutions, or substitute a composed recorder part in the style of Faenza. Some of the pieces are purely instrumental. The insightful booklet essay tells us that with this recording ‘art and scholarship merge’ and that ‘experience and creativity can combine’.
I do not always think that it works to have the vocal line constantly undermined by the incredible business of the keyboard part; for example, the words in La dolçe sere are sometimes obscured. It adds to the difficulty that the booklet supplies no texts. Here is my other gripe: we know that the entablatures are anonymous but the songs on which they are based are not attributed to a composer. Aquila altera, for example, a song very popular in 14th-century Italy is by Jacopo da Bologna. Biance flour by Zacaria da Teramo is one of the most expressive performances. Non ara may pieta is actually Landini’s Non avra ma pieta.
As for the instruments: if you are puzzled by the clavicytherium, then page eighteen of the booklet shows a photo of Fabio Falcone standing proudly next to one, made in 2016. (The Ensemble Organum also uses one.) The organ explains the recording venue. Again, it is pictured here; we read that it was built in the 1430s and sits in the cathedral’s beautiful ‘swallow’ gallery. Its listed specification includes two stops added in 1687. It is played in the items based on plainchants and sacred works, and has a bright and clear tone quality.
The voices of Francesca Cassinari and Mauricio Montufar are ideal for this repertoire. Her voice soars and floats as appropriate. He sings the plainchants in the last items. Timea Nagy and Fabio Antonio Falcone display brilliant virtuosity. And yet, I cannot fully give thumbs-up to the project as a whole.
Gary Higginson
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Contents
Non ara may pieta quest amia dona
Io me son uno che per le frasche
Hont paur
Elas mon cuer (1)
Non al suo amante piu Diana piacque
Non ne el so amante
Le ior
La dolçe sere
Aquila altera
Biance flour
Indescort
Elas mon uor
Ave Maris Stella
[Ave Maris Stella]
[Benedicamus Domino II)]
[Kyrie (II) “Conctipotens genitor Deus”]
[Gloria (II) “Conctipotens genitor Deus”]
O Ciecho mondo
[Benedicamus Domino (1)]
Performers
Francesca Cassinari (soprano)
Mauricio Montufar (tenor)
Timea Nagy (recorders; compositions of recorder parts)
Fabio Antonio Falcone (clavicytherium, hammered clavicymbalum, organ; artistic direction)
