Missa Rex Babylonis (Cleve) - from CDA68241 - Hyperion Records

Reviews

‘Since their inception, Cinquecento have shone a light on the Imperial Habsburg court, which hitherto had warranted barely a metaphorical footnote in music history. Thanks to this Vienna-based ensemble, we now know that the court boasted some exceptional composers … while the album’s tenor is undeniably solemn, their sonority, soft and intimate yet full, gives real pleasure. Of all their recordings devoted to ‘minor masters’, this strikes me as one of the finest’ (Gramophone)

‘These singers are always nicely in tune and effectively blended, especially in the slower movements of the Mass where they strongly project the chordal colouring in the 'Qui tollis' and perfectly intensify the false relations in the first Agnus’ (BBC Music Magazine)

PERFORMANCE

RECORDING

‘Cinquecento, five men from five countries, have made a happy habit of presenting choral works by little-known and even often forgotten figures. They have come up with many gems, and here they have largely done so again … there is some gorgeous singing here and the blend of the voices is immaculate and sensitive’ (MusicWeb International)» More

‘This is Cinquecento’s twelfth album for Hyperion, and notwithstanding the unfamiliar repertoire here I don’t think I have heard them sound more radiant. After sixteen years they seem to be hitting their peak. There is a naturalness to the singing here which is as relaxed and instinctive as it is polished. Everything is seamless. Their sound seems perfectly tailored to the warm, rounded acoustics of the monastery at Pernegg in the far north of Austria. The clarity and unanimity of their diction is especially remarkable given their multinational line-up (the five singers featured here hail from Austria, Belgium, Britain, Germany and Switzerland), the confidence with which this hitherto little-known music emerges is testament to what must be fastidious and intensive preparation. Regardless of anything else, the new disc incorporates 71 minutes of fabulous singing … if Cinquecento’s recorded catalogue amounts to a plea on behalf of the underdog, long forgotten figures such as Regnart, Lupi, Guyot, Schoendorff and now Johannes de Cleve could scarcely have imagined such polished advocacy for their work. The group’s performances on this new disc raise the bar once more for this long unsung repertoire. The Hyperion recording is predictably unimpeachable’ (MusicWeb International)» More

‘This disc once again proves that we know only a tip of the iceberg of renaissance polyphony. Hardly any music by Cleve is available on disc, which is surprising considering its excellent quality, and the importance of Cleve in his own time. Cinquecento has done any lover of this kind of repertoire a great favour by delivering such superb performances. Like I said, it is one of the main ensembles in this repertoire, and their status is well deserved. These five voices blend perfectly, and the singers show a supreme command of legato. At the same time, they do everything necessary to make sure that the text is clearly understandable, even in pieces with a dense texture. There is some fine and effective dynamic shading, and particularly crucial episodes are nicely emphasized’ (MusicWeb International)» More

Cleve took Vaet’s motet Rex Babylonis as the musical model for his Missa Rex Babylonis, a setting of the Mass Ordinary—that is, those parts of the Mass that remain the same regardless of liturgical season. This technique, dubbed ‘parody’, involves the use of distinctive musical material from one piece (often a motet or secular song) as the basis for a Mass setting. This contrasts with the cantus firmus technique favoured by composers of an earlier generation, in which pre-existing melodic material, often derived from chant, is stretched out into long notes that serve as the structural foundations of the counterpoint.

Parody technique was not simply a mechanical process of cut-and-paste, but involved the creative re-interpretation of the model. For example, Vaet’s motet begins with a distinctive upwards leap of a minor sixth in the superius, imitated soon after by the tenor an octave lower; however, the other voices begin with a rising fifth. Cleve’s art is seen in the way he unpicks and re-stitches Vaet’s material. For instance, at the start of the Gloria, the conspicuous rising minor sixth returns as the head motif in all voices except the bass, which alone keeps the rising fifth. Cleve also spaces out the entries a little, which produces a slightly more open texture. The recurrence of musical materials from the model, treated in a variety of ways, lends the parody Mass large-scale thematic unity.

Dans la Missa Rex Babylonis, Cleve prit le motet de Vaet pour modèle musical pour mettre en musique l’ordinaire de la messe, c’est-à-dire, les parties qui restent les mêmes quel que soit le temps liturgique. Cette technique, qualifiée de «parodie», impliquait l’utilisation du matériel musical spécifique d’une pièce (souvent un motet ou une chanson profane) comme base de la musique d’une messe. Ceci contraste avec la technique du cantus firmus privilégiée par les compositeurs d’une génération précédente, où un matériel mélodique préexistant, souvent dérivé du plainchant, s’étend en de longues notes qui servent de fondements structurels du contrepoint.

La technique de la parodie n’était pas simplement un processus mécanique de copier-coller, mais impliquait la réinterprétation créative du modèle. Par exemple, le motet de Vaet commence par un saut ascendant caractéristique d’une sixte mineure au superius, imité peu après par le ténor à l’octave inférieure; toutefois, les autres voix commencent avec une quinte ascendante. On voit l’art de Cleve dans la manière dont il découd et recoud le matériel de Vaet. Par exemple, au début du Gloria, la sixte mineure ascendante ostentatoire revient comme motif de base à toutes les voix, sauf à la basse, qui garde seule la quinte ascendante. En outre, Cleve espace un peu les entrées, ce qui produit une texture légèrement plus ouverte. La réapparition des matériels musicaux du modèle, traités de différentes manières, donne à la messe parodie une très grande unité thématique.

De Cleve nahm Vaets Motette Rex Babylonis als Ausgangspunkt für das Missa Rex Babylonis, eine Komposition des Mess-Ordinariums, also all jener Teile der Messliturgie, die das Kirchenjahr hindurch gleichblieben. Bei diesem sogenannten Parodieverfahren wurde charakteristisches Material eines Stücks, häufig einer Motette oder eines weltlichen Liedes, zur Grundlage einer ganzen Messkomposition. Das Parodieverfahren steht im Gegensatz zu dem Verfahren von Komponisten früherer Generationen, älteres melodisches Material, häufig aus der Gregorianik, zu langen Tönen auszudehnen, die schließlich das Grundgerüst des Kontrapunkts bildeten.

Wesentlich für das Parodieverfahren ist nicht einfach das mechanische Kopieren, sondern die schöpferische Neudeutung des Vorbilds. So beginnt Vaets Motette im Superius (der höchsten Stimme) mit dem charakteristischen Sprung über eine kleine Sexte, bald darauf eine Oktave tiefer im Tenor nachgeahmt; die übrigen Stimmen fangen dagegen mit einem Quintsprung an. Die Kunst de Cleves liegt darin, wie er das Material Vaets auftrennt und neu zusammenfügt. Zu Beginn des Gloria etwa wird der auffällige Sextsprung in allen Stimmen zum Kopfmotiv—außer im Bass, der einzig den Quintsprung wahrt. Außerdem zieht de Cleve die Einsätze leicht auseinander und schafft so eine etwas weniger dichte Satzweise. Die Wiederkehr von musikalischem Material des Vorbilds, jeweils in unterschiedlicher Verarbeitung, verleiht der Parodiemesse satzübergreifende thematische Einheit.

Recording details: July 2019
Kloster Pernegg, Waldviertel, Austria
Produced by Adrian Peacock
Engineered by Markus Wallner
Release date: July 2020
Total duration: 32 minutes 55 seconds

Cover artwork: Earth (1570) by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593)
akg-images / Erich Lessing

Missa Rex Babylonis

Cinquecento

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