Pieter Bruegel (1525/30-1569) Music of His Time The mental space we reserve for the distant past is largely filled by two sorts of people: nobles (mean and...
Pieter Bruegel
(1525/30-1569)
Music of His Time
The mental space we reserve for the distant past is largely filled by two sorts
of people: nobles (mean and selfish) and peasants (simple but genuine). How
fortunate, since information on the latter is hard to come by, that we can get
such a clear picture of what they were like from Bruegel. Good, honest, ignorant
souls, squat and lumpish, much practised in the arts of slurping and rollicking
and having a good time.
This kind of simplification has a curiously pervasive effect. Many performers
of early music only have to see the words 'Renaissance dance tune' to start
sticking straws in their mouths and putting on yokelish voices, as though the
sixteenth century was one gigantic hayfield filled with merrymakers. The reality,
of course, was more complex. The very existence of the kind of printed music
that has come down to us is evidence that folk songs, like people, were upwardly
mobile, starting their lives in taverns but then migrating into the comfortable
homes of prosperous merchants and artisans. In their original form these melodies
would have been passed on by ear without ever needing to be committed to paper;
what we hear today are complex arrangements in several parts, written for an
educated audience.
Pieces in this kind of contrapuntal guise could have been heard played by town
musicians - in Germany called Stadtpfeiferei, in England 'waits', a term
which recalled their original function as watchmen posted on the city towers
whose duty it was to signal fire within the walls or danger without. As musicians
they were entertainers, but for the city or town which could afford it a band
of municipal players also had a more fundamental purpose: to act as a symbol
of its own dignity and prosperity. And the musicians themselves were just as
jealous of their status as any other highly trained craftsmen.
An inevitable tension existed between town musicians, who belonged to a guild,
and travelling minstrels, who owed no allegiances and offered themselves out
at lower rates. Many town councils specifically outlawed this practice for weddings,
insisting that priority be given to their own musicians. Itinerant players were
highly suspect and often refused normal civic rights and protection. Their children
could be barred from inheriting property, while membership of many trade guilds
required proof that no musicians appeared in the applicant's lineage. In some
cities they were not allowed to be buried within churchyards. The hostility
was not directed towards music as such, but its traditional association with
beggars and vagabonds.
By contrast, trained players who were organised in a guild could achieve a
fair degree of respectability, with a steady and secure income augmented by
extra earnings from playing at private functions. The idea that musicians of
this kind, having achieved a level of sophistication, would have deliberately
struck crude and oafish attitudes is implausible in the extreme. Everything
we know suggests the opposite, that like fine cloth, expensive furnishings and
rich tapestries, musical refinement would have been highly valued as a mark
of social standing.
Bruegel
The life of Bruegel was briefly outlined in two pages of the painter-historian
Carel van Mander's Schilderboek, published in 1604 only thirty-five years after
the painter's death. For about 300 years it was assumed that what van Mander
had written could be taken at face value, and therefore that Bruegel had painted
peasants so well because he was one himself, from a village of that name near
Breda in the Netherlands. Then a new generation of scholars came along, asking
more awkward questions, and doubts arose -not just from the failure of the only
two known villages named Bruegel ( or Brueghel or Breughel) to locate themselves
anywhere near Breda, but also from the fondness of writers like van Mander (in
common with his Italian counterpart Vasari) for including what look like reach-me-down
anecdotes. When almost identical stories crop up attached to a variety of painters
it is hard not to suspect that the writer was governed more by the conventions
of myth-making than the bare truth.
From looking at the pattern of his known contacts and friendships, it is now
generally accepted that Bruegel was not a peasant at all but a city-dweller
who mixed easily with wealthy merchants and intellectuals. The great mapmaker
Abraham Ortelius was a friend, and no fewer than sixteen of Bruegel's not very
extensive output of paintings hung in the house of a successful Antwerp merchant
named Niclaes Jonghelinck. So we are entitled to disbelieve the account that
Bruegel used to disguise himself as a peasant and go to country weddings, taking
gifts and claiming to be related to the bride or groom. Nevertheless, presumably
not everything that van Mander wrote was made up, so it may well be true that
Bruegel was very quiet and thoughtful, not fond of talking but ready with jokes
when in company; that in Antwerp he lived with a servant girl whom he would
have married but for the fact that she had a habit of telling lies which he
much disliked; and that when he did marry (the daughter of his old teacher)
his mother-in-law insisted the couple must live in Brussels to avoid the risk
of Bruegel continuing to see his old girlfriend.
Indeed, we have to believe some of the things that van Mander says or reconcile
ourselves to almost total ignorance, for traces of Bruegel's life are remarkably
scarce. His date of birth is unknown, and as with so many figures of that age
we have to work backwards from the first datable event In this case it is Bruegel's
joining the Antwerp guild of St Luke in 1551: if his training had progressed
at the normal rate, this would make him at least twenty-one, perhaps a few years
older. One of the few things we know for certain is that shortly after this
he was in Italy for around two years, first in Sicily and Calabria and then
in Rome. That he travelled through the Alps is established from an extensive
series of drawings that he made, which on his return were elaborated into landscape
designs for the Antwerp print-seller Hieronymus Cock.
It is worth remembering that individual paintings would only ever have been
seen by a handful of people - the buyer's family and friends. On the other hand,
there was a large and thriving market in engraved prints based on original works
of art, and it was this which made it possible for pictures to become known
to a wider public. Cock had already had success with prints made from the designs
of Hieronymus Bosch, and Bruegel's work deliberately echoed that of his great
predecessor - indeed, the first edition of his famous engraving Big Fish
Eat Little Fish actually carried Bosch's name and not his own. He shared
with Bosch an extraordinary visual inventiveness and a penchant for the grotesque,
rendered in loving detail. Some of his most bizarre images result from illustrating
proverbs and common sayings utterly literally in pictorial terms, combining
moral instruction with a high degree of visual entertainment.
Bruegel's paintings have an enormous vitality, even urgency. How strange, then,
that their underlying temper is one of total pessimism. Mankind is brutish,
greedy and blind, chasing pointlessly after pleasure as death picks off each
individual one by one. The seasons of nature, wonderful and infinitely varied,
follow their course in sublime indifference to frenetic but puny human activity.
Perhaps it really is true, as van Mander relates, that on his deathbed Bruegel
told his wife to burn many of his drawings with their inscribed captions, because
he was afraid that they were too sarcastic and sharp, and that she might be
held to account for them.
Music of the Time
One of the most noteworthy figures in Bruegel's Antwerp was Tylman Susato.
Records show that in his youth he worked as a calligrapher in the cathedral,
where he also played the trumpet, and that until 1549 he was a player in the
town band (owning nine flutes, three trumpets and a tenor pipe). But between
1543 and 1561 his main energies went into publishing. Having acquired a privilege
- an authorized monopoly - to print music, he established the first important
music press in the Netherlands, issuing copious books of French chansons and
Latin motets. History remembers him in particular for three books which appeared
in 1551. The well-known Danserye, containing Susato's own arrangements
of popular tunes, was preceded by two collections of Flemish songs, under the
title of amoureuse liedekens, or songs of love. In presenting these settings
(tracks 3,4,6,11,12), Susato was keen to raise the sights of Flemish musicians
and gain greater respect for their home-grown productions, hitherto regarded
as intrinsically inferior to songs written in French or German (track 10).
Dancing was central to any social gathering, and some cities even built dance
houses - though only for the use of those listed as eligible to attend civic
functions. In Basel, a shawm-player's oath from around 1500 stated that the
town musicians were to play 'every Sunday after the sermon from the Richt
Hall and after the evening meal from the Rhine Bridge, and at ceremonies in
the Herrenstuben before and after the banquets'. For such purposes, it
was essential to have the louder type of instruments, capable of being heard
out of doors and over the noise of diners, and so for the towns that could afford
it a wind band of five players - three shawms and two trombones - became the
standard; a smaller town would have to make do with only three. But it was expected
that players would be versatile enough to be competent on several instruments,
often of quite different kinds. Contemporary representations, without exception,
show them performing without music, but since their repertoire was contrapuntal
we may assume that the parts were memorised from a written score, with the customary
embellishments improvised during performance (tracks 2,5,9,14).
A useful ally for Susato was the composer Jacobus Clemens ('non Papa'), whose
three-part settings of the psalms in Dutch were issued under the name Souterliedekens.
These were designed for domestic rather than church use and proved extremely
popular. In a similar way, the two graces in French (tracks 7 and 8), traditionally
but perhaps wrongly ascribed to Clemens, were probably intended to be sung in
private, wherever a household contained enough musically educated people. Once
God had been duly thanked for his blessings, the company could go on to amuse
themselves with songs of a more worldly character. Those familiar with French
could choose from a vast repertoire of chansons, some of it in collections printed
by Susato, but much stemming from the Parisian publishing house of Pierre Attaingnant.
The Franco-Flemish composers of the previous generation, Josquin at their head,
had perfected a complex polyphonic style, but these new productions were markedly
different, laying much greater emphasis on clarity and simplicity of word-setting.
The Parisian chanson of the 1530s and 1540s, in the hands of Sermisy, Sandrin
and Janequin, became the perfect vehicle for the poetry of the day. Love was
inevitably the standard theme, but this could be expressed in vastly differing
sentiments, encompassing reflection (track 16), the loftiest devotion (track
18), warm intimacy ( track 27) and outright salaciousness ( tracks 17, 25) .From
time to time poets allowed themselves to address other matters, such as the
benefits of peace (track 28) and drinking (track 19).
National styles tended to be quickly exported into foreign lands, for musicians
were great travellers. Court performers would accompany their rulers engaging
in affairs of state abroad, so they could hear the music of their hosts and
exchange tricks of the trade, and rich patrons were aware that the best results
came from composers and players who had been given the opportunity to catch
up on developments elsewhere. The prime example of this was Orlande de Lassus,
who in the course of a highly successful career visited most of the great cities
of Europe. Born in Mons, in northern France, at the age of only twelve he was
working at the court of Mantua in Italy. Though he was settled in Munich by
the age of twenty-four, he was regularly dispatched from there to distant parts,
visiting courts, recruiting singers, attending coronations. Lassus was the complete
master, adept in every style. But he also owed much to his own nature, which
inspired affection and trust. He maintained an intimate friendship with Wilhelm,
son of his employer Duke Albrecht, and surviving letters show Lassus addressing
him with a humorous familiarity that from any other subordinate might have been
regarded as out of place. He passes easily through French, German, Latin and
Italian within a single sentence, throwing in a rhyme or two for the sake of
amusement: 'Moi, qui me tiens homme sage, ai mis ici cet image, wie E. F. g.
[your Princely Grace] mihi ordinavit; se in altra cosa la posso servire, a lei
sta il comandar e a me ubedire.'
Some of Lassus's earliest works were issued by the house of Susato in Antwerp.
One of his first books, in addition to Latin motets and French chansons, contained
some Italian madrigals, clear evidence that performers were eager to become
acquainted with how things were being done further south. At the same time they
could feel a certain pride, since the composers most responsible for creating
the new form of the madrigal were Franco-Flemish by birth - Willaert, Arcadelt
and Verdelot. Further cross-cultural mixing arose from the very common habit
of transcribing all kinds of vocal pieces for instruments. Much of the output
of the great Italian lutenist Francesco da Milano, for instance, consists of
such arrangements, including chansons by Sermisy and Janequin. Is this music
Italian or French? Would a performer have minded one way or the other?
And there was England too, just across the water. While the main dance forms
had been imported there from the continent, songs and ballad tunes were native-born
and then transported by travelling bands of actors to mainland Europe, where
they often became widely known. Many were given instrumental clothing in compositions
for viol consort, a medium which proved especially attractive to English ears
(tracks 25 and 26). The favourite instrument for solo playing was the lute,
which could draw on a large repertory of pavans and galliards, together with
all kinds of variation techniques: a second lute might be employed to play the
repeating harmonic ground over which the 'treble' player elaborated ideas of
increasing complexity (track 30) .
The religious upheavals of the Reformation led to dramatically contrasting
styles of music in church. While Catholic Italy and Spain kept their rich choral
polyphony to set Latin texts, Protestant lands such as England and Germany demanded
a plainer, simpler manner of setting that allowed the people to follow the words
in their own language. Where Calvinism took hold, as in the northern provinces
of the Netherlands, two fundamentalist beliefs governed music in church: no
instruments (even organs) could be used in church services, and the only parts
of the liturgy that could be sung were the psalms.
It has been suggested that Bruegel's painting The Massacre of the Innocents,
depicting the plundering of a Flemish village, is based on scenes he himself
witnessed during the savage years of repression, beginning in 1567, when Count
Alva was commissioned by Philip II of Spain to root out all traces of Protestantism
from the
Netherlands. So bitter was the ensuing struggle that in 1579 the Calvinists
seceded from Spanish rule to set up their own government, the Dutch republic.
Yet whatever Bruegel's reaction may have been to the cruelty going on around
him, there is nothing to indicate that he was ever anything other than an orthodox
Catholic. If he ever attended services in Antwerp cathedral he would have heard
them adorned by a traditional choral polyphony that took as its departure the
work of Josquin and his contemporaries. Here was the final flowering of the
Franco-Flemish school, which for a century had provided the cathedrals of Europe
with its finest singers, composers and choir trainers (tracks 1, 13, 24 and
31).
Adrian Willaert (c. 1490-1562) was born in Flanders but spent thirty-five
years as maestro di cappella of St Mark's in Venice; much honoured by contemporaries,
he played an important part in the development of the madrigal.
Clemens (non Papa) (c. 1510/15-1555/6) was a prolific composer who produced
the first polyphonic settings of the psalms in Dutch; the likelihood of anyone
really confusing Jacob Clement with Clement VII was slim, so the familiar suffix
to his name ('not the Pope') was surely a joke.
Arnold von Bruck (?c. 1500-1554), born in Bruges, worked for the Habsburg
court.
Ludwig Senfl (c. 1486-1542/3) succeeded his teacher Heinrich Isaac as
court composer to the Habsburg Emperor Maximilian I.
Lupus Hellinck (c. 1496-1541) spent his life in Bruges as a singer and
master of the choristers.
Jean Lhéritier (c. 1480-after 1552) came from northern France
but may have worked for some time in Italy; his style shows the clear influence
of Josquin.
Sandrin was a sobriquet adopted by Pierre Regnault (c. 1490-after 1561),
a singer in the royal chapel of France whose chansons were much admired.
Clément Janequin (c. 1485-1558) held no important posts in court
or cathedral, but his many chansons became widely known through the publications
of Pierre Attaingnant.
Claudin de Sermisy (c. 1490-1562) had a long and successful career at
the French court; his works were often chosen by other composers as the basis
of transcriptions and arrangements.
Jacques Arcadelt (?1505-1568) was probably either Flemish or French
by birth but, like Willaert, did much to shape the new madrigal style in Italy.
Francesco da Milano (1497-1543), lutenist to a succession of popes,
was known to contemporaries as 'il divino'.
Robert Parsons (c. 1530-1570), like Tallis, was a Gentleman of the Chapel
Royal; after he drowned in the river Trent his position was taken by William
Byrd.
Thomas Tallis (c. 1505-1585) worked as singer and composer under four
English monarchs; in 1577 he claimed to have served the court 'these fortie
yeres'.
Orlande de Lassus (1532-1594) was the most famous and admired musician
of his time, with a vast output ranging across every kind of vocal music both
sacred and secular; after training as a boy singer in Italy, he spent most of
his adult life at the court of Munich, where he was eventually granted a patent
of nobility.
John Johnson (fl. 1579-1594) was one of Queen Elizabeth I's lutenists.
Hugh Griffith
Magnificat
[1] Magnificat anima mea Dominum,
et exsultavit spiritus meus
in Deo salutari meo.
Quia respexit humilitatem
ancillae suae,
ecce enim ex hoc
beatam me dicent omnes generariones.
Quia fecit mihi magna qui potens est,
et sanctum nomen e ius.
Et misericordia a progenie in progenies,
timenribus eum.
Fecit potentiam in brachio suo,
dispersit superbos mente cordis sui.
Deposuit potentes de sede,
et exaltavit humiles.
Esurientes implevit bonis,
et divites dimisit inanes.
Suscepit Israel puerum suum,
recordatus misericordiae.
Sicut locutus est ad patres nostros,
Abraham et semini eius in saecula.
Gloria Patri, et Filio,
et Spiritui Sancto.
Sicut erat in principio,
et nunc, et semper,
et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Int midden van den meye
[3] Int midden van den meye
laat ons vruucht orboren.
AI aan gheen groene heyde
heb ick een life uut vercoren.
Noit schondre'en was geboren,
die mey wil ick haar gaan planten
met dicht, met spel, met sanck soet
met hulpe van Venus clanten.
Neempt alder schoenste lief toch in danck goet,
u liefde my zeer im bedwanck doet.
Ghy eedel jonghe gheesten
[4] Ghy eedel jonghe gheesten,
ghesellekens van der lucht,
dryft amoureuse feesten
al en isser ghenen bucht,
al sou(de)t u namaals rouwen,
maact daar af gheen geclach,
bedryft solaas met vrouwen
alst u ghebueren mach,
sonder verdrach
syt nacht en dach
on u beiacht,
maact gheen gheclach,
nature geeft verdrach.
Ick ginck noch gister avent
[6] Ick ginck gister avent zo heymelyck eenen ganck,
AI voer myns liefkens duere, die ick ghesloten vant.
Ick clopte so lyselyck aan den rinck:
Stant op, myn alder liefste, stant op en laat my in.
Prière devant le repas
[7] O souverain Pasteur et Maistre,
Regarde se troupeau petit
Et de tes biens souffre le paistre
Sans desordonne appetit
Nourrissant petit a petit
A ce jour d'hui ta creature
Par celui qui pour nous vestit
Un corps subjet a nourriture.
Action des graces
[8] Père etemelle, qui ordonnez,
N'avoir souci de lendemain
Des biens que ce jour a donnés
Te mercions de coeur humain
Or puis-qu'll ta pleu de ta main
Donner au corps manger et boire
Plaise toi du celeste pain
Paistre nos ames a ta gloire.
Will niernand singen
[10]1. Will niemand singen, so sing aber ich.
Es wirbt ein junger Knab' um mich.
[5. Singen sie das Lied nit herwieder ein,
verloren haben sie das Rosenkränzelein.]
6. Eh' ich mein Lieb also verlür',
ick säng' eh' zwei oder drei dafür.
7. Es steht geschrieben schwarz, weiß und rot,
oder lebt mein Lieb, oder ist es tot.
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