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Aspects of the ‘L'Homme armé’ Tradition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1973

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Extract

The tune called ‘L'Homme armé’ has long been famous as the structural basis for more than 30 Mass settings ranging from Dufay to Palestrina and even beyond, ending anachronistically with Carissimi. Yet many questions that were raised by pioneering scholars 40 and 50 years ago about the melody and its elaborations are as open now as when they were first proposed, and it seems likely that a review of several major problems—in so far as this is possible within a single paper—may serve to redefine the boundaries of the present state of knowledge and perhaps to stimulate new initiatives.

Type
Research Article
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Copyright © 1975 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

1 Jacob Obrecht: Eine stilkritische Studie, Leipzig, 1925.Google Scholar

2 p. 48. Available to Gombosi in complete form were the Masses by Obrecht, Josquin (both), Pierre de la Rue (he knew of only one), Brumel, Pipelare, and Morales (five-part Mass); partially available were those by Dufay, Caron, and Faugues.Google Scholar

3 ‘La Chanson de L'Homme armé et le manuscrit VI E 40 de la Bibliothèque Nationale de Naples’, Annales de la fédération archéologique et historique de Belgique, Congres jubilaire, xxv (1925), 229–30.Google Scholar

4 Gombosi, ‘Bemerkungen zur L'Homme armé-Frage’, Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft, x (1928), 609–12; Plamenac, ibid., xi (1929), 376–83; reply by Gombosi, ibid., xii (1930), 378.Google Scholar

5 Bulletin of the American Musicological Society, ii (1936), 25–26. Reprinted in O. Strunk, Essays on Music in the Western World, New York, 1974, pp. 6869.Google Scholar

6 Toscanello in musica, Venice, 1523, Cap. XXXVIII. In discussing the use of the symbols of dotted circle and dotted semicircle to mean augmentation (cantor per maggi re) Aron says that this procedure is still used by ‘contrapuntanti’ in seigneurial chapels, especially when they improvise a counterpoint over a plainsong. He also says that this procedure was very pleasing to the ‘antichi’ many of whom used it; ‘per la qual cosa si esistima, che da Busnois fussi trovato quel canto chiamato lome armé, notato con il segno puntato, & che da lui fussi tolto il tenore; & perche esso era brieve, che da lui per haver campo piu largo senza mutar segno fussi trasmutata la misura …’(‘… it is believed that Busnois invented the song called “L'Homme armé”, notated with the dotted signature, and that the tenor was taken from him; and since it was short, that he altered the meter in order to fill out a longer interval without changing signature …’).Google Scholar

7 Especially Father Lawrence Feininger's series of transcriptions published in Monumenta Polyphoniae Liturgicae Sanctae Ecclesiae Romanae, Series i (Rome, 1948), including Masses by Dufay, Busnois, Caron, Faugues, Regis, Ockeghem, De Orto, Basiron, Tinctoris, Vaqueras. Among the reviews of this series see especially that by M. Bukofeer in The Musical Quarterly, xxxv (1949), 334–40, and xxxvi (1950), 307–9. Masses published since 1950 in complete editions are those by Brumel, Dufay, Morales, Compere, and Regis; as well as four of the Naples Masses, edited by Feininger, 1965. More recently were issued the Mass by Pipelare in his Opera Omnia, iii (1957), and the quodlibet Mass by Festa or De Suva published by Knud Jeppesen in Italia Sacra Musica, iii (Copenhagen, 1962). An important contribution from this side of the Channel was the publication of Robert Carver's Missa L'Homme armé in Musica Britannica, xv (London, 1957), 30–57; see also K. Elliot, ‘The Carver Choir-Book’, Music & Letters, xli (1960), 349–57.Google Scholar

8 Especially E. Sparks, Cantos Firmus in Mass and Motet, Berkeley, 1963; and G. Reese, Music in the Renaissance, New York, 1954 (2nd edn. 1968).Google Scholar

9 Finscher, L., Loyset Compère, Life and Works (Musicological Studies and Documents, xii), American Institute of Musicology, 1964; C. Dahlhaus, Studien zu den Messen Josquin des Pres (unpublished dissertation), University of Göttingen, 1952; H. Osthoff, Josquin Desprez, 2 vols., Tutzing, 1962–5.Google Scholar

10 Apel, W., ‘Imitation Canons on L'Homme armé’, Speculum, xxv (1950), 367–73; Judith Cohen, The Six Anonymous L'homme Armé Masses in Naples, Biblioteca Nationale MS VI 40, Rome, 1968.Google Scholar

11 A critical historiography of this deeply rooted term would be a valuable guide to the formation of these assumptions. A beginning has been made by Werner Danckert, article ‘Volkslied’, in Riemann Musik-Lexikon, 12th edn., Sachteil, Mainz, 1967, pp. 1052–5. See also P. Gülke, ‘Das Volkslied in der burgundischen Polvphonie des 15. Jahrhunderts’, Festschrift Heinrich Besseler, Leipzig, 1961, pp. 179–94.Google Scholar

12 Music in the French Secular Theater, 1400–1550, Cambridge, Mass., 1963, especially pp. 105–13.Google Scholar

13 See footnote 5.Google Scholar

14 E. de Coussemaker, Scriptorum de musica medii aevi novam seriem, Paris, 1864–76, iv. 173. The prologue to the treatise was published in translation by O. Strunk, Source Readings in Music History, New York, 1950, pp. 193–6, and a complete translation by A. Seay appeared in Journal of Music Theory, i (1957), 22–75.Google Scholar

15 On the quodlibet as a genre see especially M. Maniates, ‘Quodlibet Revisum’, Acta Musicologica, xxxviii (1966), 169–78. The components of the Tinctoris quodlibet were first identified by M. Brenet in Monatshefte far Musikgeschichte, xxx (1898), 124–7, and valuable additions were made by A. Raphael, ibid., xxxi (1899), 161–4.Google Scholar

16 See Strunk, Source Readings, p. 195.Google Scholar

17 Coussemaker, Scriptores, iv. 76–77; translation in Strunk, Source Readings, pp. 197–9.Google Scholar

18 Coussemaker, Scriptores, iv. 172, 175.Google Scholar

19 For a penetrating discussion of the literary and musical traditions of ‘O rosa bella’ See Pirrotta, N., ‘Ricercari e variazioni su “O Rosa bella”’, Studi musicali, i/1 (1972), 59–77. ‘O rosa bella’ is of course ascribed to Dunstable in only one extant source, Rome, Bibl. Vat. MS Urb. lat. 1411, while it is attributed to Bedingham in MS Porto 714. Whatever the true authorship of the piece, it suffices for my suggestion regarding Tinctoris's quodlibet that there did exist in the fifteenth century a tradition for its authorship by Dunstable.Google Scholar

20 See the introduction to his forthcoming edition of the Mellon Chansonnier. I am most grateful to Professor Perkins for having kindly placed this introduction at my disposal prior to publication. The main points on the origin of the manuscript were contained in his earlier paper, The Provenance of the Mellon Chansonnier', delivered at the Toronto meeting of the American Musicological Society in November 1970.Google Scholar

21 For a full listing of early sources and modern publications of the Basiron and Japart combinative chansons, see Brown, Music in the French Secular Theater, pp. 210 (No. 85k), 226 (No. 165f).Google Scholar

22 Zeitschrift für Musikivissenschaft, xi (1929), 381 ff. A different sort of parallel was noted by Manfred Bukofzer (Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music, New York, 1950, p. 161) between the opening of the ‘L'Homme armé tune and the English carol ‘Princeps serenissime’. This seems more likely a coincidence than the Ockeghem example, but it is a moot point. This may be the place to note that not all versions of the ‘L'Homme armé’ tune as given in modern surveys are wholly correct. The version in Reese, Music in the Renaissance, p. 73, is said to follow the Naples manuscript but actually differs in these respects: (i) the use of the ‘Da capo’ and ‘Fine’ is a modern abbreviation, and the Fine is placed two bars too late; (ii) the first bar under the second ending in the Reese version has the note í on the third heat, but in the Naples version this note is ǵ.Google Scholar

23 The tune ‘Une Filleresse’ is also used as part of a quodlibet in Petrucci's Canti C, and Sarah Fuller, in Musica Disciplina, xxiii (1969), 95, notes the use of the same tune in the chanson labelled ‘Vostre amour’ in MS Bologna Q, 16. If it is a popular tune, as Fuller suggests, its appearance in the chanson quoted here is nevertheless evidence of Busnois's use of such melodies as chanson tenors and corroborates the dual usage of tunes of this type.Google Scholar

24 For a more general view of this type of melodic structure see the important study by Leo Treitler, ‘Tone System in the Secular Work of Guillaume Dufay’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, xviii (1965), 131–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 For the text verifying this assertion See Houdoy, J., Histoire artistique de la cathédrale de Cambrai, Lille, 1880, p. 245, or, more conveniently, F. X. Haberl, ‘Wilhelm Dufay’, Bausteine für Musikgeschichte, i (1885), 50, n. 4.Google Scholar

26 The Early Cyclic Mass as an Expression of Royal and Papal Supremacy’, Music & Letters, liii (1972), 254–69. In this connection we may note that the term ‘man-at-arms’, used at times to translate ‘l'homme armé’, is strictly the equivalent of the French ‘homme d'armes’ (Italian ‘uomo d'arme’), denoting a mounted soldier; See Huguet, E., Dictionnaire de la langue française du seizième siècle, Paris, 1925, i. 714.Google Scholar

27 See Crollalanza, G., Storia militare di Francia, Florence, 1861, iii. 10–27; J. Calmette, ‘France; The Reign of Charles VII and the End of the Hundred Years’ War', The Cambridge Medieval History, viii (Cambridge, 1936), 254 ff.; C. K. Oman, A General History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, 2nd edn., London, 1924, ii. 432–4; P. Caron, ‘The Army’, Medieval France, ed. A. Tilley, Cambridge, 1922, pp. 160 ff.Google Scholar

28 On civil lawlessness in the 1430s and 1440s see especially Calmette, loc. cit., pp. 235 ff., citing contemporary chroniclers; also Oman, op. cit., ii. 432; on the francs-archers, ibid., ii. 434 and The Cambridge Medieval History, viii. 658; Caron, loc. cit.Google Scholar

29 Coussemaker, Scriptores, iv. 156. This is the only such reference in the treatise.Google Scholar

30 On the drama at Dijon see L. Petit de Julleville, Repertoire du théatre comique en France au moyen age, Paris, 1886, pp. 330 ff.; further on theatre at the Burgundian court, O. Cartellieri, Am Hofe der Herzöge von Burgund, Basel, 1926, J. Manx, Histoire de la musique et des musiciens de la cour de Bourgogne, Strasbourg, 1939, and Brown, Music in the French Secular Theater.Google Scholar

31 See H. Besseler in Dufay, Opera Omnia, iii (Rome, 1951), p. vi.Google Scholar

32 On the English background of this use of prolation notation see Strunk's review of Feininger's transcriptions in Journal of the American Musicological Society, ii (1949), 107–10; on the earlier Continental antecedents see Besseler, Bourdon und Fauxbourdon, Leipzig, 1950, pp. 132 and 154, n. 7.Google Scholar

33 On Dufay's career see Besseler in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, iii (1954), 889–99; also his article ‘Neue Dokumente zum Leben und Schaffen Dufays’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, ix (1952), 159–76.Google Scholar

34 On Charles's substantial musical interests and abilities see Cartellieri, Am Hofe der Herzöge von Burgund, pp. 166–8. His constant engagement in military affairs would make him a prime candidate for identification as l'homme armé himself, if one or another of these Masses was meant as a dedicatory composition—but at present this is pure speculation. The Naples manuscript carries a coat of arms bearing as crest a knight's head with a crescent on his helmet and with the motto ‘Que par Dieu soit’, which has not yet been identified (see Cohen, The Six Anonymous L'Homme Armé Masses, p. 11). Charles's own motto was ‘Je l'ay empris’; See Brusten, C., ‘Les Emblèmes de l'armée bourgignonne sous Charles le Téméraire: essai de classification’, Jahrbuch des Bernischen historischen Museums 1957–58, pp. 118–32; also J. Dielitz, Die Wahl- und Denksprüche, Frankfurt, 1884.Google Scholar

35 On the dating of Cappella Sistina 14 and 35 see F. X. Haberl's catalogue in Monatshefte für Musikgeschichie, xx (1887–8); and J. Llorens, Capellae Sixtinae Codices, Vatican City, 1960. For particulars on MS 35 I am indebted to Richard Sherr.Google Scholar

36 See footnote 20 above.Google Scholar

37 Cohen, op. cit., pp. 6271.Google Scholar

38 Modena, Archivio di Stato, Archivio Estense, Camera, Libri di Amministrazione dei Singoli Principi, No. 23 (1479), f. 33, contains an entry for 7–11 May in payment for the lodgings at Ferrara of ‘misser Zoanne de intoris de Borgogna chantadore de la sachra magiestade del re de Napoli … con quattro chavali et quattro boche’. This visit coincides with the beginning of work on an organ for a new Ducal chapel at Ferrara, carried out by the organ-builders Rainaldo de Forli and Bartolomeo da Cesena, and with the production at Ferrara of a group of music manuscripts that include Modena, Bibl. Estense MS a M. 1. 13, containing eighteen Masses and including one by Vincinet, reported in 1479 to be a singer at the court of Naples. The links between Ferrara and Naples at this period include the fact that Duke Ercole d'Este had spent his youth and early manhood at the Neapolitan court, and that his wife Eleonora d'Aragona was a Neapolitan princess, sister of Beatrice of Aragon.Google Scholar

39 The source is a set of three leaves in Modena, Archivio di Stato, Biblioteca dell'Archivio, Frammenti Musicali, Appendice. They are clearly by the same hand and of the same period and type as a M. 1. 13 and the double-chorus manuscript a M. 1. 11–12 of the Estense. A brief description is given by Charles Hamm in Musica Disciplina, xxvi (1972), 110. These leaves contain part of the Agnus Dei of the Busnois Mass and portions of the Credo and Sanctus of an unidentified Mass. The Busnois Mass bears the number ‘XIV’ and was thus intended to be part of a large manuscript of Masses that would have been a companion to a M. 1. 13. The presence of the Busnois Mass in a Ferrarese court manuscript of about 1480 is highly interesting in view of Obrecht's visit to Ferrara in December 1487; See Murray, B., ‘New Light on Jacob Obrecht's Development’, The Musical Quarterly, xliii (1957), 500 ff.Google Scholar

40 This passage is traditionally quoted from L. N. Cittadella, Notizie relative a Ferrara, 1864, p. 716, who in turn cited A. Cappelli, in Atti e memorie della R. deputazione di storia patria per le provincie modenesi e parmensi, Series i, vol. i (1863), 505. The text supplied from the original source by Murray in The Musical Quarterly, xlii (1957), 509, is not completely correct. The proper text is ‘Preterea volemo che subito faciati trovare Cornelio cne era nostro Cantore il qual è li, e che in nostro nome li dicati, che subito il ne mandi la messa del homo armé de philippon noua; et quando bisognasse farla notare & pagare qualche cosa, facetilo, & poi avisatime del tutto, pur che ce la mandiati presto …’ (from letter of 16 March 1484 from Duke Ercole I d'Este to Antonio de Montecatini, his ambassador at Florence; Modena, Archivio di Stato, Camera, Ambasciatori, Firenze, B. 3, Minute Ducali).Google Scholar

41 See Llorens, J., ‘El Codice Casanatense 2856 identificado coroe el Cancionero de Isabella d'Este (Ferrara) esposa de Franscesco Gonzaga (Mantua)’, Anuario musical, xx (1965), 161–78. Llorens does not consider the possibility that the manuscript could have been compiled as early as 1480, the year of Isabella's betrothal to Francesco Gonzaga, rather than in 1490, the year of their marriage.Google Scholar

42 Storia di Milano, Milan, 1953-, ix. 831.Google Scholar

43 On the relationship of Josquin and Ascanio Sforza, See Lowinsky, E., ‘Ascanio Sforza's Life: a Key to Josquin Biography and an Aid to the Chronology of his Works’, forthcoming in Proceedings of the International Josquin Festival-Conference. For some evidence of Ascanio at Ferrara see my paper ‘Josquin at Ferrara: New Documents and Letters’, forthcoming in the same Proceedings.Google Scholar

44 See Cohen, op. cit., p. 23.Google Scholar

45 A Chronology of the Works of Guillaume Dufay based on a Study of Mensural Practice, Princeton, 1960, pp. 144 f.Google Scholar

46 The most prominent similarity of mensural layout is in the Kyrie, where both Masses have the sequence of signatures: . Thereafter the mensural and structural organization of the Faugues Mass is strongly affected by its use of the music of the complete Kyrie II to end Gloria, Credo and perhaps Sanctus and Agnus (‘Osanna’ II and Agnus III not set).Google Scholar

47 See Reese, Music in the Renaissance, p. 111.Google Scholar

48 Ibid., p. 114.Google Scholar

49 See Kenney, S. W., Walter Frye and the Cantenance Angloise, New Haven, 1964, p. 37, citing Marix, Histoire, p. 19.Google Scholar

50 I raise the matter here with Mr. Kassler's approval, for which I am most grateful. While the first observation of these melodic resemblances in several of the ‘L'Homme armé’ Masse: was his, the further research into the possible source of the quotations, their context and ramifications has been my own.Google Scholar

51 J. R. Bryden and D. G. Hughes, An Index of Gregorian Chant, Cambridge, Mass., 1970.Google Scholar

52 See Liber Usualis, p. 37.Google Scholar

53 Melnicki, M., Das einstimmige Kyris des lateinischen Mittelalters, Erlangen, 1954, and Bruno Stäblein, ‘Kyrie’, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vii (1958), 1931 ff.Google Scholar

54 Medieval Song’, The New Oxford History of Music, ii (London, 1954), 259–60.Google Scholar

55 For a score of the Prioris Mass I am greatly indebted to Mr. Conrad Douglas. Another fifteenth-century work based on this plainsong is the Kyrie attributed to Binchois and published by Feininger as part of a composite Mass (Documenta Polyphoniae Liturgicae S. Ecclesiae Romanae, Ser.i, Nc. 5, Rome, 1949). The Kyrie is transmitted separately from the other movements, and only the Kyrie based on this antecedent. I am indebted to Leo Trailer for calling this work to my attention.Google Scholar

56 A complete edition of the manuscript is to be published by Howard Brown in the series Monuments of Renaissance Music. I am grateful to Professor Brown for advising me that as yet he too has so far been unable to identify the composer or text of this work, or any concordances for it.Google Scholar

57 The Tavemer excerpt is quoted here after Tudar Church Music, i. 149, with redistribution of the text and with note values halved.Google Scholar