Luogo e data di registrazione		Chiesa di San Tomaso Cantuariense, Verona (Italia) - 3-4 giugno 2008
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Sound Engineer		Matteo Costa
	Artistic direction		Fabio Framba
	Prima Edizione CD		BRILLIANT CLASSICS - 93781 - (1 CD - durata 78' 04") - (p) 2009 - DDD
	Cover		-
	Note		-

 

The Fiori Musicali (‘musical flowers’) occupies a special place among Girolamo Frescobaldi’s works. Published in 1635, it was his final publication of new music and is organised not by genre, like his earlier keyboard prints, but as a series of three organ Masses, providing music to accompany the celebration of feastday Masses in churches which had an organist but where a choir might not be available. The organist is provided with toccatas, canzonas and recercars to play at set points during the service, as well as versets to be played in dialogue with plainchant singers (perhaps just the celebrant) during the Kyrie. The publication reflects Frescobaldi’s years as organist at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome but also consciously provides music, mostly not too difficult to play, for organists at less well-endowed institutions. Apart from the two final pieces in the collection, these are not vehicles for virtuosic display but rather deeply-felt musical meditations on the various points of the liturgy at which they were played. As such, the publication has had enduring success, its contents regularly used by church organists, and has provided models for organ composers through the ages. Johann Sebastian Bach is known to have copied some of these pieces as exemplars of the best of the Roman contrapuntal tradition which Frescobaldi, in turn, had learned from Palestrina and Victoria. The three organ Masses are for Sundays (Missa della Domenica), feastdays of Apostles (Missa delli Apostoli) and Marian feasts (Missa della Madonna). Each begins with a short toccata for full organ taking the place of the Introit, played as the priest approaches the altar. Frescobaldi gives instructions for their performance in his foreword which are similar to those in the introductions to his earlier books of toccatas and emphasize flexibility and the judgement of the performer. The player is told to slow down for passages with trills or expressive melismata but to speed up for those with short notes in both hands. He should also start somewhat slowly, later increasing the tempo according to the character of the piece. The toccata is followed by Kyrie versets which use the chants commonly set for the three categories of feast in one of the parts, with the others weaving counterpoints around it. There are nine repetitions: three Kyrie eleisons (‘Lord have mercy’) are followed by three Christe eleisons (‘Christ have mercy’) and by a further three Kyrie eleisons. With alternate versets played on the organ, starting with the first, five were needed; in fact Frescobaldi provides extra versets for each Mass, labelled ‘alio modo’, providing alternatives to be used at the player’s discretion and which, he says, can be played in other places as well. He also suggests that some of the Kyrie versets can be played vivace and others slowly, as the player judges correct. On this recording the first five versets are peformed alternately with the plainchant, followed by all of the extra versets provided for each Mass. Unlike the later French organ Masses of François Couperin, Frescobaldi does not provide any versets for the Gloria, which must have been sung entirely in plainchant. The next item in each Mass is a canzona to be played ‘dopo l’Epistola’ – after the Epistle (the first scripture reading) in the place of the plainsong Gradual. These are multi-sectional pieces in a lighter and lively style, using triple as well as duple time signatures. They have optional extensions labelled ‘alio modo’ in order to cover the variable length of the liturgical actions at this point. The sections are marked off by extended written-out cadences marked ‘Adasio’. The canzonas are rhythmically interesting pieces with syncopations; some start with the traditional long-short-short rhythmic pattern of the instrumental canzona francese. During the Offertory (‘post il Credo’) Frescobaldi provides a recercar for each Mass; the Masses for Apostles and for Marian feasts have two alternative recercars. The word ‘recercare’ means ‘to search’ and these are highly contrapuntal pieces, modelled on the form of the vocal motet in which a series of musical ideas is passed around each of the parts in turn while the others have countersubjects, much in the manner of later fugues. Again they have optional extensions and, according to the composer’s foreword, can be concluded at any cadential point once the celebrant has completed the liturgical actions and is ready to proceed with the next part of the Mass. The alternative recercar for the Missa delli Apostoli has a chromatic subject which in the second section is combined with a second subject to make a double fugue and, in the third, is played in augmentation, i.e. with twice the note values. That for the Missa della Madonna has a fifth ‘si placet’ part for a singer: Frescobaldi gives the singer a six-note phrase taken from the Litany of Loreto where it sets the words ‘Sancta Maria’; he does not give these words in the print but it is clear that they are what is intended. He also gives no indication where these interpolations should be sung but editors over the years have found all the possible places where this phrase can be fitted into the counterpoint of the other four voices. A similar construct appears in a third recercar given for the Missa delli Apostoli but placed before the final canzona (presumably to be played during the distribution of Communion): it is described in the print as a ‘recercar con obligo del basso’. This is not written for a singer but the lowest organ part has a recurring series of five notes (do–mi–fa–re–do) which move twice around the circle of fifths: first on the sharp side, C–G–D–A–E, then returning to C before going out again on the flat side: C–F–B flat–E flat–F–C, ending up once more in the home key. Such circumnavigations were common at the time and might reflect contemporary navigators’ attempts to sail around the world. There is no music for the Sanctus (or Agnus Dei), which must have been sung in plainchant. The next item in each of the three Masses is an elevation toccata performed during the central act of consecration of the bread and wine. These are meditative pieces which exploit dissonance to remind the listeners of the Passion which, it was believed, was symbolically re-enacted at this central moment of the Mass. The toccata for the Missa della Domenica is particularly chromatic and is indeed labelled ‘toccata cromaticha per le levatione’. The first two Masses conclude with a second canzona labelled ‘post il Comune’, intended to cover the end of the Mass. These are again sectional pieces with various possible ending points; they are generally livelier than the canzonas played after the Epistle. Instead of a final canzona at the end of the Missa della Madonna Frescobaldi provides a Bergamasca, a set of variations on a well-known tune from Bergamo. It is essentially a more extended canzona, divided into sections with changes of time signature. The tune appears constantly in different rhythms, now in short notes and again in long ones, as well as in major and minor versions, sometimes with chromatic accompaniments. It is a tour de force, something recognized by Frescobaldi himself who appended the comment: ‘che questa Bergamasca sonarà, non pocho imparerà’ (‘whoever plays this Bergamasca will have learned not a little’). It gives us a sense of what Frescobaldi’s own playing must have been like when improvising on a melody for a full congregation in the then newly finished St Peter’s Basilica. The final piece in the collection is the Capriccio sopra la Girolmeta, based on a tune whose name is the feminine version of Frescobaldi’s own. Like the Bergamasca it is an extended sectional canzona-like piece which presents the tune in a variety of guises. It was presumably intended as an alternative concluding piece to this or one of the other Masses. An unusual feature of the Fiori Musicali is that it was published in open score on four separate staves, though intended to be played by two hands. This was done for ideological reasons, to encourage players to continue playing from score rather than from the engraved two-stave format which Frescobaldi had used for his books of toccatas. In his preface he says that he considers it very important for the player to practise playing from score for two reasons: to get to know the music better, since score format made the contrapuntal voice-leading clearer, and because it was a skill which ‘distinguished the genuine artist from the ignorant’. The use of this format also meant that the pieces could be played on four separate instruments as well as on the organ; this could have applied in particular to the canzonas but also to the more contrapuntal pieces like the recercars and would have made the collection more marketable. Clearly close to Frescobaldi’s heart, this collection distills the experience of his years and remains a milestone in the history of European keyboard music. © Noel O’Regan, 2009