The five-voice motet around 1500

the program

JOHANNES REGIS (ca. 1425-1496) Lux solemnis  (Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Chigiana VII.C.234, "the Chigi Codex")
JOHANNES OCKEGHEM (ca. 1415-1497) Intemerata Dei mater (Chigi)
JOSQUIN DES PREZ (ca. 1450-1521) Stabat mater (Chigi)
GASPAR VAN WEERBEKE (ca. 1445-1516) Dulcis amica Dei (Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Cappella Sistina 15)
REGIS Clangat plebs (Chigi)
JOSQUIN Illibata Dei virgo nutrix (Cappella Sistina 15)
GASPAR Stabat mater (Chigi)
REGIS O admirabile commercium (Chigi)

description

By the end of the fifteenth century, the five-voice motet represented only a sliver of vocal polyphony that was otherwise almost entirely composed for four voices. The genre is exceptionally well represented by the Netherlandish composer Johannes Regis (ca. 1425 – ca. 1496), whose style was likely known by the other composers presented here; for this reason, three of his motets form the backbone of our program. All of Regis’s extant motets are for five voices; by comparison, only a handful of Josquin and Gaspar’s motets are for five voices, and Ockeghem is known to have only written one.

It is all but certain that the two younger composers represented here, Gaspar van Weerbeke (ca. 1445 – after 1516) and Josquin des Prez (ca. 1450-1521), crafted their five-voice tenor motets after engagement with the motets of Regis. Both acquired maturity as singers not far from Soignies, where Regis was active; and Regis’s motets—particularly Clangat plebs—was widely circulated in centers where Josquin and Gaspar were known to have lived and worked, including the papal chapel in Rome. That the five-voice tenor motet was already exceptional as a genre even further suggests a stylistic relationship.

All but one of the motets on this program utilize a cantus firmus—one voice which draws its material from some external source, and around which the remaining four voices are composed. The exception, Intemerata Dei mater by Johannes Ockeghem (ca. 1415-1497), has no peer in its construction of five equal voices.

Still, this representative assembly of five-voice motets presents remarkable diversity in compositional execution of the genre. There is, as mentioned, the unique equal-voice texture of Intemerata. Among the tenor motets, also, there is the unceasing cantus firmus of Josquin’s Stabat mater, the high-voiced cantus firmus in O admirabile commercium, and the “la-mi-la” solfege ostinato of Illibata. These composers maximized their deployment of the “extra” voice, producing some of the richest and most gripping music of the late fifteenth century.

We created this program to draw attention to body of music around 1500 that is exceptional both in its construction and quality.