Micrologus; Renaissance Spain

81-25 RENAISSANCE SPAIN

The music of Renaissance Spain has a rather strange reputation. To many it is boring harmonically, and it rarely makes virtuosic demands on performers. But there are two aspects to Renaissance Spanish music which are simply outstanding. The first is related to a quotation from an early 16th century German theorist, which I made some weeks ago on Micrologus. He said that Spaniards "wept when they sang," and, indeed, a good deal of music written by Spanish composers at this time compliments, in an unparalleled way, a weeping style of singing. An example of this is "Triste España," a famous piece written by the great Juan del Encina, probably as a lament at the death of Queen lsabella in 1504. But this aspect of sadness is not what we are going to be exploring today on Micrologus. Instead, we go to the opposite end of the spectrum--to fun. And musical fun to a Spanish Renaissance composer meant fascinating rhythm. It seems odd at this point for me to mention the opera Orlando by George Frideric Handel, composed in London in 1732, but there is a connection between this opera and the music of Renaissance Spain. For a long time it was thought that the second act of Handel 's Orlando contained the earliest use of quintuple meter in the history of music in our civilization, but, in fact, almost a quarter of a millennium earlier, that same Juan del Encina wrote two pieces which exploited the asymmetry of what we would call a 5/8 meter, "Amor con fortuna" and "Tan buen ganadico." We hear them both now performed by Cuarteto Neocantes.

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Enclna did not really need an exotic meter to create a fascinating rhythm, witness the syncopations of "Oy comamos y bebamos," a carnival song, whose text says, roughly: "Hey companions! Let us sing and revel because tomorrow we must fast." The performance is again by the Cuarteto Neocantes.

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It is not because Encina was a sophisticated court composer, perhaps even the greatest Spanish composer of his age, that his music contains such interesting rhythms. Indeed, syncopations, such as those in the last piece, are found in all levels of Spanish culture. The following piece comes from somewhere in northern Spain, and is so obscure that the text combining both Basque and Castilian has yet to be deciphered by scholars. The playful character of the work, however, is clear enough. "Jançu Janto," performed by the Early Music Quartet, directed by Thomas Binkley.

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The next piece is a fantasia. I resisted the temptation to use it in the fantasia program some weeks ago on Micrologus, because it has some sections which are anti-metrical. The meter never changes, but the prevailing rhythm of certain passages makes it sometimes hard for us to follow the beat. There are some strange melodic effects, too. In fact, the composer, Alonso Mudarra, felt obliged to reassure the performer with a message part-way through: "From here until nearly the end, there are what appear to be some wrong notes: if they are played quickly they do not sound bad." "Fantasia in the Style of Ludovico's Harp Playing," by Alonso Mudarra, performed by Konrad Ragossnig, lute.

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The next rather long piece is of a type known as an ensalada (a musical salad), because it combines both newly-written material and scraps from previously-known music. This particular example, "Bomba, bomba," is by Mateo Flecha, who is largely responsible for popularizing the form. It tells a story and although it is moral--even devotional—in nature, there is a great deal of nonsense in both the music and the story, along the way. It begins with a lone sailor calling for a pump to bail out a ship, which is sinking in a storm at sea. The other sailors discuss the grim prospect of trying to swim for it with the sea so rough, and they make pledges to various saints and to the Virgin that if they are saved, they will go on pilgrimages. At last, they are saved, as the sea is calmed and they are rescued by a passing ship. They call on one of their companions to tune up his guitar, which he does badly, and they begin to sing hymns of thanksgiving. At the end they set sail, once more, acknowledging that the perils of sea are nothing, compared to the perils of false brotherhood on land. "Bomba, bomba" by Mateo Flecha the Elder, performed by the King’s Singers.

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For the last work on today's show, we go to the end of the Renaissance. An anonymous piece from the Cancionero de Sablonara (Song book of Sablonara) "De tu vista saloso." It is a dance song, which, besides a thoroughly infectious rhythm, features an echo technique--many of the ends of the poetic lines are rhymed in echo. The performance is by modern day Spain's premiere early music ensemble, Hesperion XX. Jordi Savall is the director, and Montserrat Figueras is the singer.

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Well, the next time someone comes up to you and makes deprecating remarks about boring Spanish harmonies and lack-luster melodic lines, you will be ready with your reply; you'll say, "But, oh, those Spanish rhythms!"