musica Dei donum
CD reviews
Ludwig DASER (1526 - 1589): Sacred works
[I] "Polyphonic Masses"
Huelgas Ensemble
Dir: Paul Van Nevel
rec: Feb 28 - March 1, 2021, Antwerp, AMUZ
deutsche harmonia mundi - 19658793332 (© 2023) (56'08")
Liner-notes: E/D/F; lyrics - translations: E/D/F
Cover, track-list & booklet
Spotify
Missa Fors seulement a 4;
Missa Preter rerum seriem a 6
Michaela Riener, Sabine Lutzenberger, cantus;
Olivier Coiffet, Paul Bentley-Angell, Adriaan De Koster, Loïc Paulin, Tom Phillips, Matthew Vine, tenor;
Frederik Sjollema, Romain Bockler, baritonans;
Tim Scott Whiteley, Joel Frederiksen, bass
[II] "Missa Pater noster & other works"
Cinquecento
rec: Oct 4 - 6, 2022, Adlersberg, Kirche unserer Lieben Frau
Hyperion - CDA68414 (© 2023) (70'02")
Liner-notes: E/D/F; lyrics - translations: E/D
Cover, track-list & booklet
Spotify
Ludwig DASER:
Ad te levavi oculos meos;
Benedictus Dominus a 8;
Christe, qui lux es et dies a 4;
Danck sagen wir alle a 5;
Daran gedenck Jacob und Israel a 5;
Dilexi, quoniam a 8;
Fracta diuturnis a 7;
Fratres, sobrii estote a 8;
Missa Pater noster a 5;
Salvum fac a 6;
plainchant:
Ave Maria;
Pater noster
Terry Wey, alto;
Achim Schulz, Tore Dom Denys, tenor;
Tim Scott Whiteley, baritone;
Ulfried Staber, bass
with: Franz Vitzthum, Filip Dámec, alto;
Tomáš Lajtkep, tenor;
Colin Mason, baritone;
Joel Frederiksen, bass
It is no exaggeration to call Ludwig Daser a forgotten composer of the Renaissance. As far as I know, only one disc entirely devoted to his oeuvre has been released before the two discs under review here came on the market. Some of his compositions may have been included into anthologies, but his name hardly ever appears on the programmes of vocal ensembles. It is telling that the entry on Daser in New Grove takes less than ten full lines. This is all the more surprising as for a substantial part of his life he was Kapellmeister at the court in Munich, which was one of the most prestigious positions of the 16th century.
Daser's career can be divided into two episodes. From 1552 to 1563 he was Kapellmeister in Munich, from 1572 until his death he occupied the same position at the court of Württemberg in Stuttgart. From the first stage date his masses and a number of Latin motets, from the second motets and pieces on German texts. The difference reflects his religious affilliation. More about that later. Let us first have a look at his biography.
Daser was born in Munich, and entered the Bavarian court under the reign of Duke Wilhelm IV as a choirboy. There he received a musical education, at first from the Kapellmeister Andreas Zauner, and then from Ludwig Senfl, court composer from 1523 until his death in 1543. In 1552 Daser was appointed Kapellmeister and in 1554 also court composer.
In 1563 he was dismissed, officially because of health problems, but in reality it was his sympathy for the Reformation that made his position at the staunchly Catholic court untenable. There seem to have been no hard feelings between Daser and his employer, Albrecht V. Daser held his position as court composer until 1571. Albrecht must have been very fond of Daser, as he paid him a pension until his death and even paid his widow a pension until her death in 1598. Albrecht and his new Kapellmeister Orlandus Lassus also played a role in Daser's appointment in Stuttgart. That was certainly not a very common move.
The appointment at the Protestant court in Stuttgart resulted in a change in Daser's oeuvre. Whereas in Munich he had written masses and Latin motets, in Stuttgart he continued to compose motets, but also hymns and Psalms on German texts. This went hand in hand with a stylistic change. In Munich he had written in the style of the Franco-Flemish school, but in Stuttgart he embraced the Italian polychoral style. However, the two episodes in his career are not strictly separated. In Munich he had already become acquainted with the Italian style. In 1558 Cipriano de Rore, until then maestro di cappella at Ferrara, visited Munich on his way to his native Flanders. There were close contacts between the two courts: Rore had sent compositions to Munich, and a choirbook from 1557 used by Daser, contains his own masses and masses by Rore.
At about the same time two discs were released entirely devoted to Daser's oeuvre. Paul Van Nevel selected two masses from Daser's Munich period, whereas Cinquecento offers a survey of Daser's oeuvre: in addition to a mass we get some motets and two pieces on German texts.
Daser has written 22 masses for four and five voices. The Missa Preter rerum seriem is the only one in six parts, in accordance with the motet by Josquin Desprez on which it is based (and on which Lassus based a setting of the Magnificat). In his mass Daser not only incorporates motifs from Josquin's motet, but also from the plainchant melody of the 13th-century hymn on which Josquin's motet is based. "Daser's Mass is thus both a cantus firmus Mass and a parody Mass", Paul Van Nevel states in his liner-notes. He points out several notable features in Daser's mass. One is especially interesting: Josquin's motet opens with an episode for three low voices; the second tenor sings the first seven notes of the hymn in long note values. This is imitated in the Kyrie of Daser's mass, but there the three-part episode is set for the highest voices; the first soprano sings the first seven notes of the hymn. The mass includes several episodes for reduced forces, in two, four and five parts.
The Missa Fors seulement is scored for four voices and is based on a then popular song, which exists in more then twenty versions from that time. Notable in this mass is that both the Kyrie and the Agnus Dei are alternatim settings: in the Kyrie the second statement of Kyrie I and II, and the first and third statements of the Christe are sung in plainchant. The second Agnus Dei is also in plainchant. Paul Van Nevel mentions contrapuntal transparency and clarity as two of this work's features.
The main work at the disc by the ensemble Cinquecento is another mass, the five-part Missa Pater noster. Daniel Glowotz, in his liner-notes, characterises it as "probably Daser's most enigmatic work." It has been preserved in a choirbook of 1565, commissioned for the Heidelberg court of the Elector Palatine Ottheinrich, related to the Bavarian dukes. However, the book stayed in Munich, as Ottheinrich's successor Friedrich III introduced the Reformation in the Palatinate. The mass is notable for several reasons. First, it incorporates four different plainchant melodies: Pater noster and Ave Maria as well as the Credo of the Missa I and the Agnus Dei of the Missa XVIII from the Graduale Romanum. Second, the texts of the former two chants are sung by some of the voices during the Credo. Third, the mass includes four passages for three voices in the same register, known as aequales. They are scored for discantus, contratenor, tenor and bassus respectively, "which appear in descending order of vocal range, as if to depict a musical 'bow' to the audience." I would suggest a different meaning, assuming they have a kind of symbolic meaning. They are all sung on texts related to Christ: 'Christe eleison', 'Domine Deus, Agnus Dei', 'Crucifixus' and 'Et ascendit in coelum'. If it does depict a 'bow', could it be a bow to Christ? After all, masses were not performed before an 'audience', but as part of the liturgy. The reference to the prayer Christ taught his disciples may support this interpretation.
Most of the motets in Latin date from Daser's period in Munich. According to Glowotz, Christe, qui lux es et dies and Ad te levavi oculos meos are early works. The former piece is an office hymn for Compline; Daser's setting is based on its plainchant melody. He set all the verses in polyphony, but Cinquecento decided to perform it in alternatim form: the odd verses are sung in plainchant. The latter piece is a setting of Psalm 122 (123), in two sections. Glowotz notes the use of voice pairs and a preference for chordal writing, which allows for a clear intelligibility of the text, which seems to have been important to Daser.
The latter aspect indicates that the difference between Daser's Munich period and his time in Stuttgart is not that great. In Protestant sacred music, the text was always in the centre of attention. That also comes to the fore in the preference for German texts. Two specimens of Daser's contribution to Protestant sacred music are included here. Danck sagen wir alle is an arrangement of a hymn from the Köpphl'sches Gesangbuch (Strasbourg, 1537), which may go back to a Christmas sequence from the 11th century, Grates nunc omnes. The scoring is for five voices; the cantus firmus is in the second tenor. Daran gedenck Jacob und Israel is a setting in motet style of a text, loosely based on Isaiah 44. The upper voice is somewhat set apart from the musical fabric; Glowotz compares it to the contemporary madrigal.
Fratres sobrii estotes is an example of Daser's use of the cori spezzati technique; the text is taken from the first letter of Peter. It is a largely chordal work, in the interest of the intelligibility of the text. Like this work, Fracta diuturnis was written in Stuttgart; it is for seven voices, but these are not split into two choirs. The source of the text is not known. Benedictus Dominus is again for double choir, but this piece brings us back to Daser's Munich period, showing that there he had already adopted the Italian style, very likely under the influence of Rore. The text is taken from Psalm 27 (28); musically it is based on plainchant. Glowotz writes: "The unusual distribution of the two choirs' roles is interesting: while the second choir is responsible for the development of the plainchant, the first takes on
the function of harmonic accompaniment. Normally this would be set the other way around."
These two recordings attest to the quality and the historically and musically interesting nature of Daser's oeuvre. He only composed sacred music, and his oeuvre is not that large, if one compares it with that of some of his peers, and certainly that of his successor in Munich, Orlandus Lassus. However, there is every reason to explore his oeuvre, and these two discs are a good start; in his liner-notes Van Nevel announces a second disc with music from Daser's Stuttgart period.
In the liner-notes to his recordings he usually does not discuss aspects of performance practice. That is different this time. "A performance of Daser's Masses with single voices would be a violation of historic performance practice. In the court chapel, there were several voices per part when the Masses were performed (there is clear evidence of this). A larger scoring therefore gives a very different, and historically more authentic account than a solo scoring. For this reason, the Huelgas Ensemble has opted for a double, and sometimes (in the four-part Mass) triple scoring, more in keeping with the sound world Daser had in mind." I don't know why he decided to make this statement. I doubt whether he was aware of Cinquecento's recording of music by Daser. That ensemble always performs polyphony with one voice per part, and that is the case here as well.
The scoring of the Missa Pater noster may well prove Van Nevel right. As we have seen, it includes four passages for three voices in the same register. In order to be able to perform them, additional singers are needed. In this recording these only participate in the respective passages. That seems questionable: is it conceivable that in Daser's time singers would sit or stay silent for most of the mass, only to get involved in a short passage? These passages may well indicate that the whole mass was performed with three singers per part. I am looking forward to Van Nevel's performances of pieces from Daser's Stuttgart period: will he then make a statement about the number of singers as well? I don't know how many singers Daser had at his disposal there; Glowotz mentions the chapel at the Württemberg court was much smaller than that in Munich. So in this part of the Cinquecento recording, the performances may be more in accordance with the practice in Daser's time.
Notable in Van Nevel's performances is the use of women's voices in the soprano range, and the lack of male altos. The contratenor parts are sung by high tenors. Cinquecento, on the other hand, entirely omits women's voices; the upper parts are always sung by male altos. I don't know if the latter practice requires a downward transposition. This was not uncommon at the time, so that seems to be no problem. The difference in line-up results in a difference in sound. I can appreciate both, especially when the singing is as excellent as is the case here in both recordings. It is disappointing that Van Nevel omits the Credo of the Missa Fors seulement; in the booklet he mentions it, but does not explain it. Also hard to understand is why both ensembles use an Italian pronunciation of Latin; that is historically highly debatable.
Setting aside the critical notes, both discs deserve a wholehearted welcome and should be part of each collection of renaissance polyphony recordings.
Johan van Veen (© 2024)
Relevant links:
Cinquecento
Huelgas Ensemble