Adrian Willaert (1490-1562)
Adriano6 – Missa Laudate Deum
Dionysos Now!/Tore Tom Denys
rec. 2024, Kartause Mauerbach, Austria
Texts and translations included
Reviewed as a download
Evil Penguin Classics EPRC0075 [52]
Tore Tom Denys, a Belgian tenor who has been a member of the Capilla Flamenca and is still singing in the ensemble Cinquecento, feels a strong connection with Adrian Willaert, the Flemish-born master who made a career in Italy, and has become best-known as the father of the technique known as cori spezzati. Both Denys and Willaert were born in Roeselare. Denys decided that it was worth to put Willaert into the spotlight through performances and recordings, and to that end he founded an ensemble of male singers under the name of Dionysos Now!
This is the sixth recording of this ensemble and the programme focuses on compositions in modest scorings rather than the polychoral parts of Willaert’s oeuvre. I have not heard all the previous recordings but was especially impressed by the fourth disc, which was devoted to the St John Passion previously attributed to Cipriano de Rore.
The programme of this disc focuses on music that Willaert composed in the early stages of his career. In biographies one can read that he was probably born in Bruges, but Denys states that this assumption is the result of his being confused with his brother who was a singer in one of the churches in Bruges. Willaert started his career in 1516 – probably even two years earlier – as a singer in the service of Cardinal Ippolito I d’Este of Ferrara. In 1520, the Cardinal died and Willaert entered the service of Duke Alfonso d’Este. The connection to Duke Alfonso seems to have lasted well after his departure for Venice, where he became maestro di cappella at San Marco in 1527.
The main work on the programme of the disc under review is the Missa Laudate Deum. It is one of five masses by Willaert that were published under the title of Liber quinque missarum in Venice in 1536, but Denys believes these masses were written many years earlier. Four of them are for four voices, with an additional part in the Agnus Dei III, and one for five voices. The Missa Laudate Deum is a so-called parody mass, which means that it is based on a pre-existing work from which motives are taken as material for a new work. The title refers to a motet by Willaert’s teacher, Jean Mouton, who wrote it on a text by Anne de Bretagne, married to King Louis XII of France (oddly called ‘Ludwig’ in the liner-notes). Such procedures were usually meant as a tribute to the original composer. The book with masses was dedicated to Alessandro de’ Medici, Duke of Florence.
Willaert has also contributed to the development of the madrigal. In the course of the 16th century composers started to include ‘madrigalisms’ into their sacred works. Little of that is noticeable in this mass, which supports the assumption that it is an early work. It is notable, for instance, that in the Sanctus, on the line “Heaven and earth are full of your glory”, Willaert reduces the number of voices to two. That does not mean that in this work there are no connections between text and music at all. Most opportunities to illustrate the text are offered by the Credo. Here, the section on the ascension of Christ to heaven is depicted by a rising figure.
Rather than madrigalisms, Willaert uses different means to illustrate the text. That is the case, for instance, in Videns Dominus, which is about Jesus, who visits his friends Martha and Mary, when their brother Lazarus has passed away. It describes how he raises Lazarus; Willaert dwells on his order “Lazarus, come out” by repeating this passage. In Ecce Dominus veniet, a motet for Advent, he uses the dissonances which result from two voices’ singing a canon at the interval of a seventh, to illustrate the development from the expectation of Jesus’s coming to his actual birth, as the work comes to a consonant conclusion: “Alleluia”.
The programme opens with four madrigals. Willaert contributed to the genre, but his output is relatively modest, in comparison with that of, for instance, De Rore, mentioned above. During his time in Ferrara he mainly composed chansons. The madrigals almost certainly date from his Venetian period. In 1559 a collection of madrigals and motets was published under the title of Musica Nova. However, the pieces were written in the 1540s. The collection was dedicated to Polissena Pecorina, a Venetian courtesan who was a celebrated singer. Qual dolcezza giamai expresses Willaert’s admiration for this singer, whose voice is called “angelic and divine”. In Amor mi fa morire we find an example of a madrigalism: the words “mi fa” are set to the respective notes. The text is a typical example of how the subject of love was treated in madrigals at the time: “Love makes me die, and yet I long to follow it. Is it not a great sorrow, strong and tenacious, to know I’m chasing after my own death?” Although this madrigal is not in two parts, it has a caesura in the middle.
Signora dolce io te vorrei parlare is the shortest piece in the programme and has an intimate character. Tore Tom Denys, in his liner-notes, compares it with a courtly ballade by the likes of Guillaume de Machaut. Qual più diversa e nova cosa is a setting of a text by Francesco Petrarca. He was a medieval poet (1304-1374), who has become especially famous for his poems about Madonna Laura. In the early 16th century there was a renewed interest in Petrarca and his poetry. This explains the fact that all but one madrigals in Adrian Willaert’s above-mentioned collection Musica Nova are on texts of Petrarca’s Il Canzoniere.
In many cases it is impossible to say with any certainty how many singers may have been involved in performances of sacred music. In masses for four voices, which have an additional fifth part in the last Agnus Dei, at least five singers are needed. That is how many singers Dionysos Now! has here. A larger ensemble may be possible, but these performances have the charm of making sure that the text – as far as the polyphonic fabric allows it – is intelligible. We should note, though, that in church music this was not the main concern of composers. Later the Council of Trent emphasized the importance of texts’ being intelligible. Dionysos Now! consists of singers with a vast experience in renaissance polyphony, and this guarantees a perfect legato, and a differentiated use of dynamics. The blending of the voices is immaculate, one of the fruits of a frequent collaboration of these singers in this ensemble, but also in other formations. The perfect intonation makes sure that the harmonic peculiarities come off to good effect.
There can be no doubt that madrigals were always performed with one voice per part. This allows for an immediate reaction to what is expressed in the text. The madrigals included here are marvels of ensemble, by singers who listen to each other and are responsive to the text. They are sung with subtlety and differentiation, according to the needs of each piece.
This disc is a perfect way to get to know Adrian Willaert for those who have heard little of his music – or none at all – and for those who know only his polychoral works, it offers a good survey of the ‘other Willaert’, who shows here that with more modest means, he was no less a master than in his larger-scale compositions.
It is to be hoped that this sixth disc will be followed by many others. Willaert is worth it.
Johan van Veen
www.musica-dei-donum.org
twitter.com/johanvanveen
https://bsky.app/profile/musicadeidonum.bsky.socialContents
Qual dolcezza giamai
Amor mi fa morire
Signora dolce
Qual più diversa e nova cosa
Ave Maria
Missa Laudate Deum
Videns Dominus
Ecce Dominus veniet
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