Luogo e data di registrazione		Chiesa di San Francesco, Padova (Italia) - agosto 2006
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer		Gian Andrea Lodovici
	Executive procuder		Vittorino Ciato
	Sound Engineer		Marco Lincetto
	Editing		Matteo Costa, Gabriele Robotti
	Prima Edizione CD		BRILLIANT CLASSICS - 93780 - (1 CD - durata 64' 04") - (p) 2008 - DDD
	Cover		-
	Note		With the patronage of PROVINCIA DI PADOVA.

 

While primarily known for his keyboard compositions and virtuoso performances in Roman basilicas and oratories, Frescobaldi was also active as a church musician, publishing a volume of motets for one to three singers as well as leaving behind a small number of works attributed to him in manuscripts. Among these are two settings of the Ordinary of the Mass which survive in just one source, a set of manuscript partbooks in the music library of the Basilica of St John Lateran in Rome. The only indication of who might have composed them is the appearance of the letters ‘G. F.di’ on the organ part of the first of the Masses. This has long been taken to refer to Frescobaldi and, since the two Masses appear together in the same scribal hand in all the partbooks, it has been assumed to apply to the other Mass as well. Both are very similar in style, as well as in their approach to setting the text, and it is reasonable to assume a common authorship. The attribution to Frescobaldi has been questioned by some scholars but is generally accepted. Even if we cannot be entirely sure that the two Masses are by him they do represent the sort of music he would have written if commissioned to compose such settings in the early decades of the 17th century. We know that he organized music for large-scale patronal feastday celebrations in at least one Roman institution – the archconfraternity of the Gonfalone in 1623 – and there may well have been other occasions in that city or in Florence. The existence of the two Mass settings in a St John Lateran manuscript would seem to suggest that they were performed at that basilica but the manuscript might also have been acquired as a gift or by other means. The Missa sopra l’aria della Monica is based on a popular and slightly anti-clerical song, an unusual choice on which to base a Mass at this period and one which might suggest a courtly context rather than a religious institution. The words of the original song are a plea from a daughter to her mother not to force her to enter a convent, something which was all too common for unmarried girls in the 17th century. The song translates: ‘Mother do not make me a nun, for I don’t want to become one; don’t make me a habit, for I don’t want to wear one. I would have to spend all day in the choir at Vespers and Mass, with the mother abbess doing nothing but screaming at me. She should drop down dead!’ The tune is catchy and was widely known: Frescobaldi also used it as the basis of one of his sets of harpsichord variations. In the Mass he follows the standard procedure of using it to start all movements, but the melody also appears in other places, as the starting point for imitative entries in all the parts. In the spirit of the time, following on the Catholic Counter-reformation, using such a song in a sacred context might well have been seen as sacralizing it and neutralising its anti-church sentiments. It could also have been seen as relating to the Virgin Mary who accepted God’s call at the Annunciation, in contrast to the young girl of the song. The Missa sopra l’aria di Fiorenza has a definite courtly context since the aria in question had become something of a national anthem for the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. It was first composed as the song ‘O che nuovo miracolo’ (‘O what a new miracle’) by the Roman nobleman, Emilio de’Cavalieri, for the wedding of Grand-Duke Ferdinando I to Christine of Lorraine in 1589. It began the last of six intermedi performed on that occasion which used elaborate stage machinery and music on a grand scale to depict the descent of the Gods to earth and the golden age which the dynastic wedding would usher in. It was subsequently used as the theme of keyboard variation sets by a number of composers, including Frescobaldi who worked at the Florentine court between 1628 and 1634; the Mass setting may date from that period. The original aria – also referred to as the ‘Ballo del Granduca’ – was an extended sequence of dances with a recurring refrain and it is this refrain that is used as compositional material for the Mass, appearing in all movements. Such use of borrowed material had been a common practice in the 16th century and continued into the 17th with composers generally preferring to turn to existing music as a basis rather than composing a Mass setting from scratch. The result was something akin to the modern technique of remixing, with the original music going through a series of resettings and being cloaked with new music, while always remaining recognizable. The stirring atmosphere of the original tune and its harmony permeates all of the Mass movements, particularly the Sanctus. Both Mass settings are for eight voices in two choirs, which Frescobaldi uses in a flexible way, setting sections for each choir on its own as well as using them both in antiphonal exchange; the full forces are used only sparingly to emphasize particular phrases and at climactic points like the ends of sections. In both Masses the ‘Christe eleison’ of the Kyrie and the central phrases of the Credo, ‘Et incarnatus est’ and ‘Crucifixus’, are set for single choir in order to allow these sensitive texts to come through clearly. Both Masses have very short Sanctus and Agnus Dei settings, the former without the Benedictus; on this recording the Benedictus is sung in plainchant and the ‘Hosanna in excelsis’ repeated; the second Agnus Dei is also sung in chant and is followed by a repeat of the polyphonic setting, with the words ‘Dona nobis pacem’ inserted in place of ‘Miserere nobis’. Writing for two or more choirs was common practice for Roman feastday celebrations from the 1580s onwards. It provided the excitement of stereophonic sound while allowing the text to be heard clearly, since the individual choirs sang mainly in block harmony. The music was designed so that the choirs could be physically separated on platforms and composers exploited the antiphonal possibilities of bouncing the music back and forth between the choirs. The longer movements in which it was important to hear the words – the Gloria and Credo – use a less contrapuntal style and exploit this antiphonal potential to the full. Their texts are also made up of short phrases which make this easy to do. Frescobaldi’s Glorias are especially bouncy with snappy exchanges between the choirs in response to the text and use of quick declamation and syncopation to provide interest. There is still a sensitivity to the words, as in the chromatic setting of ‘miserere nobis’ in the Gloria of the Missa sopra l’aria della Monica. There are also brilliant Monteverdi-like outbursts as in the ‘Et ascendit in coelum’ from the Credo of the same Mass. In the outer movements, on the other hand, where the text is shorter and needs to be repeated over and over, Frescobaldi follows the Roman custom of using a more contrapuntal style, bringing in the eight voices one after the other in imitation. In both Masses the use of rests in all parts before a tutti can be particularly effective: this, too, is a hallmark of the polychoral style. In general, Rome-based composers of polychoral music were a bit more restrained than their Venetian counterparts, especially in Mass settings where moderation was seen as more appropriate to the gravity of the celebration. There are no specific parts for instruments in these Masses, other than for the organ which acts as a continuo instrument binding the voices together, especially in the swift antiphonal exchanges. On this recording the two series of Mass movements are framed by plainchant settings of three items from the Proper of the Mass: the Introitus, Offertorium and Communion. These are taken from the Mass of the Virgin Mary and from that of St John the Baptist, respectively. Both are appropriate since St John was the patron saint of both Florence and of the basilica of St John Lateran while the cathedral in Florence is dedicated to the Virgin – S. Maria del Fiore. What we have here is beautifully crafted music by an early 17th-century Rome-based composer who, even if we cannot be completely sure he was Frescobaldi, represented the best traditions of that city’s musical past fused with an up-to-date response to the needs of church ritual of the time. It was Palestrina, together with his older Florentine contemporary Giovanni Animuccia and the younger Spaniard, Tomás Luis de Victoria, who had pioneered the double-choir idiom in Rome in the 1570s. Frescobaldi copied music by both of the latter composers and clearly learned much from them about the successful setting of sacred texts. © Noel O’Regan, 2008