Mr. Shakespeare's blog

Emmanuel Adriaenssen: Renaissance Greatest Hits

Emmanuel Adriaenssen (1554(?)-1604 - also known as Hadrianius), Flemish composer and lutenist, was one of the most influential Renaissance musicians primarily because of the publication of his Pratum Musicum, (1584, rev. 1600), and Novum Pratum Musicum, 1592.  The contents include about 5 fantasies, 50 vocal compositions, for 1-4 lutes with 1-4 vocal parts, and about 30 dances (The Lute in Britain, p.223).

The lute was possibly the most popular instrument of the Renaissance, certainly the lute literature from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries is extensive (for a remarkable list of 16th century publications for the lute see the list published by Appalachian State). 

Lute music printing was centered in the Netherlands, especially Antwerp by the Phalese firm, and few pieces of printed music were more important than  Adriaenssen's Pratum Musicum, which amounted to nothing less than a Renaissance compendium of greatest hits written in lute tabulature, or "intabulation" as it is known (see Svsann'vn jour à 5 from the Novum, for example). In fact, the Pratum was a much studies source for Italian madrigals (which predominate), motets, chansons, canzonets, villanellas, galliards, corantos, preludes, fantasias, Neapolitan songs and German and English lute pieces by the best known composers of the late sixteenth century, "freely transcribed" by Adriaenssen.

Lutz Kirchhoff, Sabine Drieier and Petra Manz compose the Liuto Concertato, Maie-Claude Vallin, Claudio Cavina and Max van Egmond the voices on the wonderful Love Songs and Dances from Sony Classical (SK 66 263), which is a collection of some of the Adriaenssen compositions from the Pratum, and the most accessible I know.  This sparkling collection is a delight, particularly Dreier's strong, beautiful flute and Manz's virile viol.  The best tracks, in my opinion, are  the sets of Galliarda, but each has its strengths.  As a representative piece of Renaissance trans-national music it belongs in everyone's collection.Interestingly, G. R. Hibbard, in his Oxford edition (p. 243) of Love's Labour's Lost suggests that the song sung by Moth, given at 3.1.3, "Concolinel", may have been to the tune of "Altra canzon englesa" found in the Pratum Musicum, (see the contents listed here, specifically the entry for 92v/2 attributed to John Johnson) via the 'Dallis' Lute Book.  Be that as it may, no one can doubt the influence of the Pratum Musicum, nor can they fail to be impressed by the cosmopolitan, interconnected influences of late Renaissance musical confluences contained therein.  Speaking specifically of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, there is no reason to doubt the lute music provided for the company by Augustine Phillips was any less ornate, complex and, yes, cosmopolitan, than the poetry provided by Shakespeare himself.

William Byrd

We are often amazed today that men like Thomas Tallis and his student, William Byrd, whose lives spanned the religious ferment among the great Tudor rulers, could have developed such religious pragmatism when it came to their profession, writing music for the liturgy of the Church of England and the Catholic Mass.  In doing so, they were undoubtedly reflecting the religious ambiguity of their times, when too open a politically incorrect belief could be fatal, but when no public belief was equally unacceptable.  And then, after all, it was their professional business to provide music for religious ceremony, Protestant or Catholic.  It seems often the talent and inventiveness trumped nonconforming personal belief with creative artists.

If you look up William Byrd in an encyclopedia his birth date will often be succeeded by a question mark.  It is, indeed, indefinite.  It is just possible he was born as early as 1534, but more likely in 1543, depending upon whether the Wylliam Byrd who became a chorister in Westminster Abbey in 1543 is the composer, or simply another lost William Byrd.  His birth place is usually given as Lincoln, since he has strong Lincoln associations later in life, but if the Westminster chorister and Byrd are the same, London is a more likely birth place.  In any event, there is no doubt he died in 1623, aged at least 80.

It is a near certainty that Byrd sang in the Chapel Royal during the reign of Mary I under Thomas Tallis.  In his mid-twenties he is found as organist and choirmaster of Lincoln Cathedral.  He was named a gentleman of the Chapel Royal under Elizabeth, in 1572 and worked there as organist, singer and composer for many subsequent years.  He published a collection of motets with Tallis before Tallis' death, and composed Ye Sacred Muses as an elegy to the departed Tallis.

In spite of Byrd's employment writing for the Protestant Church of England under Elizabeth, he seems to have harbored strong personal Catholic sympathies, and wrote a good deal of music for the Mass in his later years, apparently celebrating Mass secretly with his co-religionists.  Even though Byrd composed and openly published Catholic music he was not molested by the state, though some of those in possession of his printed music certainly were.  He composed prolifically throughout his very long life, and after Orlando Gibbons, is often considered the greatest of Elizabethan-Jacobean composers.

Thomas Tallis

Thomas Tallis (c. 1505 - 1585) has been called the Father of English Music.  Thanks to Henry VIII's love of music (and personal musicality) the choir of the Chapel Royal became remarkable throughout Europe.  Their first known performance was in 1510, and Henry cultivated his choir in order to impress foreign visitors and for the pure love of music.  Most of the music performed by the highly trained choir was composed by its members, William Cornish, its early master, Robert Fairfax and later Thomas Tallis.

Tallis joined the Chapel Royal in 1542 after Waltham Abbey, where he had been organist and choir master, was dissolved in the sweeping changes Great Harry made to the English religious establishment.  (The abbey was actually dissolved in 1540).  Henry had heard Tallis sing at Waltham and had been duly impressed, and Tallis' talents as composer, singer and organist were recruited into the Chapel Royal.

Tallis wrote a good deal of music during the reign of Henry VIII--and continued to write for the courts of Edward VI and Mary I, surviving the religious controversies of those turbulent times by dint of his native talent--but his great achievements were made during the reign of Elizabeth.  He is best known for his Lamentations and Spem in alium from that time.  Interestingly, in 1575 Elizabeth granted to Tallis and William Byrd a twenty-one year monopoly on polyphonic music and a patent to print and publish music.

Downloadable Renaissance Music

I have discovered that Amazon has a nice choice of Renaissance music in their new mp3 download store, and, unlike iTunes, it is DRM (digital rights management) free.  This means you can place it on any device you wish, or more importantly, burn it to CD without restriction.  This is a step very much in the right direction.  It is difficult to understand why we should purchase (at a high enough price to boot) music and then have our hands tied as to the use we make of it.  I am very much of the DRM is evil camp.

What I like about the Amazon approach is that it is truly simple to use.  The first time you purchase something, simply install the little mp3 downloader program (you need this to download albums, but not individual tracks, because it manages queues of downloadable tracks).  After track(s) or album is downloaded, the program will also automatically add it to your iTunes or Windows media music library.  It really couldn't be easier.  Because the tracks are in mp3 format, they will play on virtually any device, and can be burned to CD using any standard software.  You probably use iTunes or the WMP to do this anyway.

What about price?  Most tracks are priced at 89 cents, some are .99.  Most albums are priced at $8.99, some were 7.99.  Double albums (like the Globe album below) are more.  Amazon says they go as low as 4.99, but I did not find any that low that I wanted to download.  All tracks are encoded at 256kbps (kilobits per second--a bitrate that allows for a very high sampling rate, and therefore very high fidelity to analog sound).  Since 192kbps is CD quality, there are no issues with sub-standard sounding music.  It all sounds great, though your experience will be more dependent on your playback system than the tracks themselves.

I have been downloading music, and "ripping" my own CDs, for years, but I have never downloaded DRM'd music and am not about to start now.  I'm glad Amazon has made the decision to support DRM-free music.  It makes me much more comfortable purchasing from them.