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1 LP -
1C 063-30 123 - (p) 1974
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1 CD - 8
26492 2 - (c) 2000 |
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PETER
ABÉLARD (1079-1142) |
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- Planctus David |
22' 31" |
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- Planctus
Jephta |
15' 24" |
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- O quanta
qualia |
7' 48" |
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STUDIO DER FRÜHEN MUSIK / Thomas
Binkley, Leitung
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Planctus
David |
Planctus
Jephta |
O
quanta qualia |
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Andrea von Ramm, Mezzosopran,
Organetto |
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Andrea von Ramm, Gesang |
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Andrea von Ramm, Mezzosopran |
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Richard Levitt, Altus,
Schlaginstrumente |
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Sally Smith, Gesang |
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Richard Levitt, Altus
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Sterling Jones, Lira, Rebec |
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Barbara Thornton, Gesang |
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Sterling Jones, Chitarra
Saracenica (gestrichen)
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Thomas Binkley, Laute |
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Pilar Figueras, Gesang |
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Thomas Binkley, Laute |
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Montserrat Figueras, Gesang |
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Sterling Jones, Lira |
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Thomas Binkley, Flöte |
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Richard Levitt, Tabor |
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Luogo
e data di registrazione |
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Bürgerbräu.
München (Germania) - 1-3 maggio
1973 - (Planctus David)
Studio Zehkendorf (Germania) -
14-17 giugno 1974
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Registrazione: live /
studio |
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studio |
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Producer / Engineer |
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Gerd
Berg / Johann Nikolaus Matthes |
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Prima Edizione LP |
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EMI
Electrola "Reflexe" - 1C 063-30
123 - (1 lp) - durata 45' 43" -
(p) 1974 - Analogico |
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Prima Edizione CD |
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EMI
"Classics" - 8 26492 2 - (1 cd) -
durata 45' 43" - (c) 2000 - ADD |
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Note |
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THE
MUSIC OF PETER ABELARD
Peter Abelard (1079 - 1142)
was born in Pallet near
Nantes, the first son of a
noble family. Going against
tradition as he did all of his
life, Abelard looked for a
career of the mind rather than
to continue his family
traditions. He studied
dialectic and describes
himself as a pupil ot
Roscellinus, canon of Compiègne
(died after 1120), master of
Nominalism. When but twenty he
went to Paris where he visited
the lectures of William of
Champeaux, the disciple of St.
Anselm, who related faith and
reason in an attempt to
establish proof of God’s
existence. There was real
conflict! Boethius' Universals
were at the bottom of it: for
Anselm, the rational and the
real were one, while for
Roscellinus only the
individual entities were real
- the
persons of the Trinity were
real, the idea of Trinity
unreal. Abelard chrystalized a
new and moderate position
after defeating his teacher
William, who had to admit that
his theory of essenses was not
tenable. Abelard viewed
Universals as real things but
only in the object,
and neither before nor after
it. (Unknown to Abelard, this
same discussion had been
resolved in a similar manner
by Arab philosophers in the
previous century.) About 1115
he was given the chair at
Notre Dame. He got into
difficulty when he applied his
doctrine to the Trinity, but
this difficulty was less
crucial in his life than
another, more violent one.
Abelard, young, personable,
brilliant and famous teacher
in Paris, became attracted to
the niece ofthe canon Fulbert,
and this young woman was
herself of good house,
attractive and unusually quick
of mind. Abelard became
resident in the house of Fulbert
and teacher to his niece
Heloise. The love between the
pair is a story often told -
how Heloise became pregnant,
how Fulbert discovered the
relationship, how Heloise
went to Brittany where she
gave birth to a son, how
Abelard married her under a
promise of secrecy (to protect
his career), and how Fulbert
broke the secrecy. Heloise's
womanly devotion led her to
deny that she was married to
Abelard, and with Abelard’s
help went to her childhood
convent of Argenteuil.
Fulbert, humiliated by
Heloise's bold and drastic
actions, and firmly believing
that Abelard was throwing her
off, organized his revenge. By
dark of night Fulbert’s two
envoys broke into Abelard’s
room and castrated him.
Abelard then experienced years
of abject misery. He could no
longer become a Priest nor
hold canonic office. He went
to the Abbey of St. Denis
but found no peace there. He
returned to teaching, but was
charged with the heresy of
Sabellius because of his
rational approach to the
Doctrine of the Trinity.
His teaching temporarily at an
end, he was shut up in a
monastery. He was
unpersonable, disliked, and
soon forced to leave because
of his talent for finding
objectionable and sensitive
questions for debate. He tried
to become a hermit, but his
solace was broken by the
arrival of large numbers of
students who replaced his hut
with a building which since
then has born the name
Paraclete. Abelard left the
Paraclete to assume the
directorship of an abbey in
the North, of St. Gildas de Rhys.
There he struggled for ten
years with an unruly house
which defied reform and very
nearly saw Abelard killed.
Heloise, who had taken Orders
at Agenteuil was in search of
a new place when she and her
nuns were evicted. Abelard was
able to have her installed in
the Paraclete which had been
empty since he moved away.
Faced with the threat of
violence at St. Gildas,
Abelard left. Soon after he
produced his Historia
Calamitatum, a sort of
autobiography. A copy of the Historia
reached the Paraclete, and Heloise’s
reaction was to begin a
correspondence with her
husband and former lover, from
whom she had no communiation
for about a dozen years. Heloise
probably did not know all the
misfortunes of Abelard since
the separation. She points out
that he is wasting his efforts
to reform people who pay no
attention to him while the
nuns at the Paraclete would
respond eagerly to his advice
and encouragement. She demands
a personal explanation of
Abelard`s silence and lack of
acknowledgement of Heloise’s
sacrifice of entering monastic
life out of love not of God
but of Abelard. Abelard`s
response was to write to
Heloise as an abbot to an
abbess, and to refuse to be
engaged on a personal level.
He refers to the power of
prayer and the integrity of
faith. Heloise replied that
she had taken vows because of
Abelard, that the sexual
frustration she experienced
was severe and that she found
it hateful to live such a
hypocritical life. This letter
is full of passion and painful
in its description of a soul
in desperate agony.
Abelard’s response is a light
reprimand. He
will not bring up the past
with nostalgic remorse. They
had sinned. They had made love
in the nunnery at Argenteuil
and even during the Passion
Season they had made love in
the house of Fulbert, and in
many other ways they had taken
God lightly. She should look
to Christ who really loved her
and who had suffered more for
her than had Abelard.
Never again did the two
exchange personal letters.
They did continue to
communicate with each other
but always in matters of
institutional significance.
Heloise asks for advice in
regulating matters at the
Paraclete, how the nuns should
dress and how much work they
should do. She asks for
information on the history of
nuns and nunneries, and advice
on food, Abelard prepared two
long Letters of Direction,
stiff formal documents.
In
another letter of Abelard we
find a response to one now
lost of Heloise in which
Heloise had requested that
Abelard write new hymns for
the Paraclete. Abelard notes
in his letter that Heloise’s
reasons for the request are
strong: “...I
have written what are called
hymns in Greek and tehillim in
Hebrew. At first I
thought it superfluous for me
to write new hymns when you
had plenty of old ones... (but
you wrote) that the Latin
Church in general and the
French Church in particular
follows customary usage rather
than authority as regards both
hymns and psalms... the
translation of the psalter is
of doubtful origin... the
hymns are in considerable
confusion... the words so
irregular that it is
impossible to fit them to the
melodies..." (Cousin vol.1 p.
296-8). Evidently Abelard sent
a total of 133 Hymns to the
Paraclete in three books.
ln another letter Abelard
seems to refer to the six Planctus
(Laments) he composed when he
wrote: “I
recently completed at your
request a little book of hymns
or sequences (!)...
and then as you asked me,
several short sermons."
(Cousin, vol. I p.
350), Abelard explains that he
placed emphasis on the
literary clarity in the
sermons (and also the
sequences?) in order to be
able to reach the women (in
the Paraclete) of little
understanding.
If we keep in mind that hymn
meant for Heloise simply the
praise of God in song,
and that Abelard equated his
real hymns with the Greek word
and the Hebrew word, but when
refering to this “little book”
he equates them with
sequences, which in essence
the planctus are, then it
seems convincing that his
“little book of hymns or
sequences” is the collection
of six planctus and not part
of the 133 hymns.
There is no evidence that
Abelard ever again visited the
Paraclete nor came in personal
contact with Heloise.
Apparently he was teaching in
Paris when his final great
conflict occured, his conflict
with Bernard of Clairvaux, St.
Bernard. Bernard, a
Cistercian, offered an
alternative to the dominant
Benedictine rule of Cluny, at
that time led by another great
man, Peter the Venerable. The
difference between these two
rules is important: the
Benedictine rule was older and
attempted a life according to
the spirit of the law,
while the Cistercian was a new
order attempting to revive the
asceticism of the “Desert
Fathers of Antony, friend of
Athanasius, Archbishop of
Alexandria, and the fratres
peregrinos." Bernard
believed that faith, not
learning led to Christ.
Nothing should be learned that
was not learned in the pursuit
of Salvation.
Clearly the clash between
Abelard and St. Bernard was of
far greater meaning than
simply the clash between two
strong and proud men; it was
the search for the resolution
of a cardinal problem of the
12th century. Abelard feels
that with his knowledge he is
defending the Christian faith
while Bernard feels that faith
transcends knowledge. The
problem was not resolved.
After considerable intrigue,
Bernard was able to see
Abelard declared a heretic and
his followers excommunicated.
Peter the Venerable intervened
on the side of Abelard and the
sentence was rescinded. A year
and a half later Abelard died
in a Cluniac monastery at St.
Marcel near Châlon-sur-Saône.
Astralabe, the son of Abelard
and Heloise never pictured
prominently in the lives of
the two. One simple event;
Astralabe (an anagramme of the
French version of Abelard,
Esbaillard =
Asbelart?) was aided by Peter
the Venerable to obtain a
church benefice after
Abelard’s death.
One is tempted to treat the
collection of Latin Planctus
as part of the catharsis
attempted by Abelard during
the 1130s about the time he
wrote the Historia
Calamitatum. All of the
planctus are old-Testament
situations of human calamity,
Jacob’s ravished daughter,
Jacob's lament as his youngest
son Benjamin leaves for Egypt,
Israeli vergines lament the
daughter of Jephta, the people
of Israel lament the death of
Samson and David laments the
death of Saul, Jonathan and
Abner. There is no previous
tradition to account for
Abelard’s selecting to write
such accounts of biblical
stories. As mentioned above,
they were probably written for
the nuns of the Paraclete to
make the suffering in the
stories more real by
re-telling them in the first
person.
All six Planctus are contained
in the manuscript Città del
Vaticano,
Biblioteca Apost. Vaticana
Cod. Fleg. lat. 288. Many
attempts have been made to
transcribe the staffless neums
in this manuscript but none
have been really successful.
More recently, with the
discovery of these works in
other manuscripts it is
possible to come somewhat
closer to the original. The
David Planctus survives the
manuscript Oxford University
Library Ms. Bodl. 79 fol
53'-56, an English 13th
century manuscript written in
square notation on a four-line
staff. Another version of the
David planctus is contained in
the manuscript Paris Bibi.
Nat. f. nouv. a. Latin 3126,
fol. 88'-90’.
This is a late 12th century
manuscript also written in square notation
on a four-line staff.
There are no known
concordant sources for other
Abelard Planctus, although
material help in the
transcription of Jephtha comes
in its proximity to a French
secular piece, the lai
des pucelles. The
manuscript, Paris Bibl. Nat.
f. fr. 12615, fol. 71f, 13th
century, presents this piece
in square notation on a
five-line staff. Although by
no means identical to the
Abelard Planctus, it is very
similar to it.
We cannot pretend that these
melodies are absolutely
identical to Abelard's, any
more than we can be certain
the Vatican manuscript
preserves the melodies in
original form, however it is
important to stress that this
element of historical accuracy
is less necessary than in much
other music. The melody is not
composed as an expressive line
complementing the text but
rather, as is very common in
12th century composition,
fragments of melodic material
are architecturally combined
to enhance the structure of
the poetry. Thus it is
possible to find wide
differences in the preserved
melodies of the David
Planctus, for example, without
any being wrong, nor less well
fulfilling the function of
that melody.
If the
reader will agree with me that
these planctus were originally
written by Abelard forthe nuns
of the Paraclete, then it is
not unreasonable to perform
one as it might have been done
there, sung by female voices,
The use of instruments is
perfectly in keeping with Heloise's
rule there as well as in
harmony with French practice
of Adam of St. Victor and
others. In
the case of the David planctus
we have made the performance
somewhat later in style in
conformity with the later
sources, a performance in a
more international vein.
The hymn O quanta qualia
was still more popular than
any of the Planctus. It is
one of the four hymns that
became part of the repertory
of the cloisters other than
the Paraclete. We find it in a
manuscript at St. Gall,
Stiftsbibl. 528, containing
the repertory of the Großmünster
in Zürich
(14th century), and it was a
permanent part of the
repertory at the Cistercian
abbey of Rheinau.
How ironic that St. Bernard’s
Cistercians should be the ones
to transmit a hymn of Abelard,
for apart from more major
differences between the two,
Abelard once admonished
Bernard for composing new
hymns which Abelard felt were
superfluous! Heloise
had written to Abelard that
hymns were the praise of God
in song, that she needed them
for her nuns, and Abelard
wrote them with the idea that
they be easy to learn and to
remember. It seems reasonable
to suppose that these hymns
were not only liturgic but
were devotional. Thus the
performance here is not that
expected in the celebration of
the mass but that of the
oratory.
The music of Peter Abelard
will never attain the stature
of his philosophical
importance, yet it is one side
of a remarkable personality
and helps us to complete a
picture of this man of the
12th century, a man of the
mind, of the flesh and of the
spirit, a man of pride and
passion and of suffering.
Thomas
Binkley
Bibliography:
V. Cousin, Petri Abaelardi
opera, Paris 1848
Lorenz Weinrich, Peter
Abelard as Musician, MQ vol.
LV No. 3-4
Giuseppe Vecchi, Pietro
Abelardo I, Modena 1951
E. M. Bannister, Monumenti
Vaticani..., vol.XII,
Leipzig 1913
Bruno Stäblein,
MMM I, Kassel
1958
Additional bibliography of
Weinrich.
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EMI Electrola
"Reflexe"
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