Innsbruck: the Court Chapel of Maximilian I
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- čas přidán 16. 06. 2024
- ¨Innsbruck is a festive, vibrant, wedding city. A flood of light inundates its streets; the silver shields of the mountains shed light, the shining mirror of the Golden Roof casts it back more intensely¨ Ricarda Huch
00:00 Innsbruck, ich muß dich lassen (version II; Heinrich Isaac, c.1450-1517) 1
01:00 Mein Freud allein (Isaac) 2
04:10 Zucht, Ehr und Lob (Hans Judenkünig, c.1450-1526) 3
06:04 Zucht, Ehr und Lob (Paul Hofhaimer, 1459-1537) 4
07:55 Nach Willen dein (Hofhaimer) 5
09:15 Nach Willen dein (Hofhaimer) 6
10:40 Meins Traurens ist Ursach (Hofhaimer) 7
12:24 Mag ich Unglück nit widerstahn (Ludwig Senfl, c.1486-c.1543) 8
14:08 All mein Mut (Isaac) 9
16:27 Süßer Vater, Herre Gott (Isaac) 10
17:40 Innsbruck, ich muß dich lassen (version I, 2nd and 3rd verse; Isaac) 11
19:07 Pacientiam muß ich han (Senfl) 12
20:09 Illumina oculos meos (motet; Isaac) 13
27:57 Innsbruck, ich muß dich lassen (Isaac) 14
29:21 Adieu mes amours (Josquin Despres, c.1450-1521) 15
31:12 Plus nulz regretz (Despres) 16
33:51 Preambulum in Sol flat minor (Leonhard Kleber, c.1495-1556) 17
36:19 J’ai bien cause (a cappella; Despres) 18
39:43 Questo mostrarsi adirata di fore (Isaac) 19
41:06 Rossina ain welscher Dantz - Ain niederlandisch runden Dantz (Judenkünig) 20
43:35 Wohl kömmt der Mai (a cappella; Wolfgang Grefinger, c.1470-c.1515) 21
44:58 Mag ich, Herzlieb, erwerben dich (a cappella; Senfl) 22
45:58 Sempre giro piangendo (Isaac) 23
47:37 O schönes Weib (Heinrich Finck, c.1444-1527) 24
49:31 Proömium in re (Johannes Kotter, c.1485-1541) 25
50:22 Mein Fleiß und Müh (Senfl) 26
52:01 In Gottes Namen fahren wir (Hofhaimer) 27
53:45 Innsbruck, ich muß dich lassen (version II a cappella; Isaac) 28
The RIAS-Kammerchor - Conductor: Günther Arndt (7,8,18,21,22,28)
The male choir of the RIAS-Kammerchor (13)
Maria Friesenhausen, soprano (19,26)
Jeanne Deroubaix, mezzo-soprano (4,16)
Fritz Wunderlich, tenor (2,24)
Dietrich Lorenz, tenor (4,26)
Theo Altmeyer, tenor (4,5,9,11,15,26)
Claus Ocker, bass (4,11,15,26)
Helmut Schmitt, alto trombone (7,12,13)
Harry Barteld, tenor trombone (7,13)
Kurt Federowitz, bass trombone (7,12,13)
Friedrich Schmidtmann, soprano recorder (23)
Gerhard Kastner, tenor recorder (2,24), bass crumhorn (27), regal (4,26)
Fritjof Fest, nicolo (2), treble pommer (8,12), soprano crumhorn (27)
Otto Steinkopf, nicolo (11,27), alto pommer (8), tenor pommer (12), bass dulcian (2,24)
Heinrich Göldner, tenor pommer (8,27), tenor dulcian (16)
Gerhard Tuchtenhagen, bass pommer (8)
Alfred Lessing, treble viol (1,5,11,15), alto viol (9,16)
Gerhard Naumann, alto viol (1,2,5,15,24)
Heinrich Haferland, tenor viol (1)
Horst Hedler, tenor viol (1,5,9,11,16)
Gerhard Tucholski, Renaissance lute (2,24)
Eugen Müller-Dombois, Renaissance Lute (3,5,14,19,20,23)
Michael Schäffer, Renaissance lute (5,19,23)
Johannes Brenneke at the historical organ of the Jakobi Church in Lübeck (6,10,17,25)
Sources:
DTÖ XIV/1, published by Johannes Wolf, Vienna 1919 (1,2,9,10,11,14,19,23,28)
DTÖ XVIII/2, published by A. Koczirz, Vienna 1919 (3,20)
Georg Forster's ‘Frische teutsche Liedlein’ 1st part, Nuremberg 1539-56; in ‘Erbe deutscher Musik’ 1st series, volume 20; edited by Kurt Gudewill, Wolfenbüttel and Berlin 1942 (4,5,7,8,12,21,22,26)
Kotters Tabulaturbuch; in ‘Frühmeister deutscher Orgelkunst’, edited by H. J. Moser and F. Heitmann, Leipzig 1930 (6,25)
A. W. Ambros ‘Geschichte der Musik’ V, Leipzig 1882 (13)
Codex membranaico, O.V. 208. S.106 of the Casanatenensis in Rome (15)
Werken van Josquin de Prés, Wereldlijke Werken, Volume 1; published by A. Smijers, Amsterdam 1925 (16,18)
Klebers Tabulaturbuch; see G. Adler ‘Das Handbuch der Musikgeschichte’, Berlin 1930 (17)
Schöne und auserlesene Lieder des hoch berümpten Heinrici Finckens, Nuremberg 1536; in ‘Publikation der Gesellschaft für Musikforschung’, 1879; see A. Schering ‘Geschichte der Musik in Beispielen’, Leipzig 1931 (24)
cf. H. J. Moser ‘Paul Hofhaimer, ein Lied- und Orgelmeister des deutschen Humanismus’, Stuttgart and Berlin 1929 (27)
Compilation and artistic direction: Gerd Berg
Art: View of Innsbruck (c.1495) by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)
• At the Imperial Court ...
• The Triumph of Maximil...
At the beginning of the 18th century, prominent musicians and music scholars were very averse to the small, portable organ with reeds that bore the peculiar, unclear name ‘Regal’. The instrument seems to have emerged in the late Middle Ages and then played an important role for centuries in churches, at banquets and - especially in the book-like form of the Bible regal - as an accompaniment to singing. In the era of the gallant style of composition, which strived for refined sound, musicians became tired of the penetrating sound of the regal. Thus Johann Mattheson wrote in Hamburg in 1713: ‘It is quite a wonder that the buzzing, highly disgusting regals are still kept in the churches here’, and in the edition of Friedrich Erhard Niedt's ‘Musicalische Handleitung’ (1721), which Mattheson also edited, it says: ‘If I only read or write about the regal / I feel sick. Such infamous snoring penetrates far and wide / but without the slightest sweetness’. With its aggressive sound character, the regal was by no means an outsider in the instrumentarium of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The cornetto, serpent and pommer, the crumhorns and bagpipes with their firm and rough timbre also had something of the pithy nature and rough honesty of the regal sound.
W. TH.
¨Pommers (Italian ¨Bombardo¨, or ¨Vn Bombardone¨, the French call it ¨Houtbois¨, the English ¨Hoboyen¨) have their name without any doubt from ¨bombo¨, from humming: and all / the small as well as the large / are called by the name Bombard or Pommer. Italian: The great bass pomer / bombardone: the right bass / bombardo. The tenor, which also has four locks / or keys / on which a bass can also be blown if necessary / because it reaches the G in the bass in the locks / and is therefore called bassett. This is followed by the Nicolo, which is of the same size and height as the basset / except that it has only one key / and therefore can only reach the C in the tenor / but cannot go any lower. The alto pommer / which is almost the same size as the shalmey / without having a key / and is a fifth lower / is called the bombardo piccolo. Only the uppermost discant, which has no missing key / is called a shawm (Italian ¨Piffaro¨, Latin ¨Gingrina¨, from the sound it makes / like a goose whose proprium is gingrire)¨.
¨Theorba, is very similar to a large bass lute / but it has more / than 14 or 16 chorus strings / and over the right neck / where the frets otherwise lie (which / as previously mentioned / is called the fingering) another longer neck. It is only intended / (because of the size and width of the fingering / no colloraturas or diminutions can be made on it / but it must be fingered badly and correctly) for a discant or tenor viva voce to be sung into it, just as with the viol de bastarda. In addition, however, it is also very good to use / and quite lovely to listen to / when it is used alongside other instruments in a whole concert, or otherwise alongside the bass / or instead of the bass¨.
Michael Praetorius ¨Syntagma musicum¨ Part II: ¨De Organographia¨, Wolfenbüttel 1619
MAXIMILIAN I (1459-1519)
1477. Through his marriage to Mary of Burgundy, the heiress daughter of Charles the Bold, Burgundy and the Netherlands become part of the Habsburg dynasty
1480. Paul Hofhaimer (1459-1537) comes to Innsbruck
1482. Mary of Burgundy dies in a hunting accident
1486. Election of Maximilian as German king
1490. Expulsion of the Hungarians from Lower Austria, which had been lost in 1480. At the Diet in Inssbruck, the Tyrolean estates pay homage to Maximilian as sovereign
1493. Coronation of the Emperor
1494. Marriage to Blanca Maria Sforza of Milan. On his first journey to Venice, Albrecht Dürer stops off in Innsbruck
1495. Diet of Worms: proclamation of ‘perpetual peace’ and attempt at imperial reform
1496. The marriage of Philip the Handsome of Burgundy, Maximilian's son, to the Spanish heiress Joan the Mad brings the Spanish crown to the Habsburgs
1500. Construction of the ‘Golden Roof’ in Innsbruck
1502. Decree on the construction of Maximilian's tomb
1508. In Trento Cathedral, Maximilian confers the title ‘Holy Roman Emperor’ on himself without a papal coronation. Maximilian concludes the ‘League of Cambrai’ with France, Spain and Pope Julius II against Venice. Jakob Fugger ennobled
1509. Jakob Fugger finances the war against Venice with 170000 ducats
1511. When Pope Julius II concludes a ¨Holy League¨ with Venice against France, Maximilian considers becoming Pope himself. A provincial banner calls all Tyroleans fit for military service (approx. 20,000 men) to take up arms
1512. Marx Treitzsaurwein: ‘Weißkunig’ (Imperial biography with the participation of Maximilian)
1513. Peter Vischer's ornamental sculptures on Maximilian's tomb based on Dürer's designs
1515. In the Peace of Brussels, Maximilian must surrender Milan to France and Verona to Venice. Albrecht Dürer's marginal drawings for Emperor Maximilian's prayer book. With the help of his scribes, Maximilian describes his youthful experiences in ‘Teuverdank’
1517. Death of Heinrich Isaac. Hutten is crowned ‘Poet King’ by Maximilian
1518. Hutten to Pirkheimer: ‘O saeculum! O literae! Juvat vivere!’ (‘O century! O sciences! It is a pleasure to live!’)
1519. Albrecht Dürer's painting ‘Maximilian I’
1534. A fire destroys the old Hofburg. The German imperial dignity remains with the House of Habsburg until 1806
Emperor Maximilian's residence on the Inn
No figure in the chequered line of emperors of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation is as controversial as the first Maximilian. He bore a strange legacy. His father, Emperor Frederick III, had been the most unsuccessful bearer of this crown, but a man who clung with fanatical faith to the magic letters AEIOU - Alles Erdreich ist Österreich untertan (All the earth is subject to Austria) - and was the first to dream of a new empire, the Habsburg one, after the Holy Roman one could no longer be saved due to the egotism and selfishness of the princes. His mother Eleonore, a Portuguese king's daughter, raved about another ideal, King Arthur, a fairytale prince and chivalrous hero. The Polish prince, who gave him the name Maximilian, hoped for a saviour from the onslaught of the crescent moon in the east. And Maximilian was a bit of everything. Nobility and courtly manners, tournaments and mummery characterise the ‘last knight’.
However, they were only a means to an end which, beyond all courtly trifling, reveals the other Maximilian, the man who was open to all the new ideas of his turbulent times and often became their pacesetter. Maximilian supported everything that sought to break the boundaries of the narrow confines of the countryside and the Middle Ages; his goal was the Habsburg empire, a world empire that would lead beyond the old borders to a new unity. Maximilian tried many and impossible things; his forces seemed to fragment. But behind all the lack of planning stood the Habsburg empire, which, fuelled by marriage and field battles, had taken shape at his death. If ever a prophecy came true, then it was the one proclaimed by the astrologers at Maximilian's birth: ‘A rich, joyful and generous life, much struggle and toil, lofty plans and frivolous hopes, many disappointments, but also a full measure of lasting success’.
Maximilian's unsettled life of wandering through a new empire in the making knew only two places that meant home and stability: Augsburg and Innsbruck. Golden Augsburg was the stage that opened up the great world to the emperor at the imperial diets and receptions; he always came to Augsburg when he could announce a triumph to the world or when he needed money from Jakob Fugger. But Innsbruck was the residence of his heart. He sought it out when an action was lost or the mercenary army had run away from him. Augsburg was a free imperial city, Innsbruck a city in his hereditary lands. It offered him and his court a home and security in the midst of the rocky Tyrol. The itinerant life that almost all emperors of the Middle Ages were forced to lead due to the lack of an imperial capital also led him from city to city, but in Innsbruck he was able to realise his artistic and intellectual ideas.
Maximilian was imbued with the medieval imperial idea and wanted the crown to remain forever linked to the House of Habsburg. In order to give the emperorship new prestige, he surrounded himself with a splendid court in which scholars and artists set the tone. To revive the splendour of former imperial glory, he looked to the past as much as to the future. Thus, he is only part of the ‘last knight’, promoting the writing of history to enhance the glory of his family and his own name. He is no less a ¨homo novus¨ who belongs to humanism and the Renaissance. The humanists researched Roman history and anchored the legitimacy of the empire far back to that first emperor Augustus. Antiquity was epitomised by the humanist circle that Maximilian gathered around him with Konrad Peutinger and Willibald Pirkheimer, as well as the University of Vienna with Conrad Celtis and the Tyroleans Johannes Fuchsmagen and Peter Tritonius.
At the Innsbruck court, the medieval idea of the ‘last knight’ took centre stage. The Tyrolean Marx Treitzsaurwein, as imperial secretary, wrote the Freydal tournament book, the verse epic of Maximilian's bridal journey, the ‘Teuerdank’, and the emperor's self-biography, the ‘Weißkunig’, which goes back to his father Frederick III. The Ambras Book of Heroes, the precious record of Middle High German and Germanic heroic sagas, which preserves the only copy of the Song of Gudrun, was written in Innsbruck. In nearby Hall, the imperial protonotary Florian Waldauf von Waldenstein built up his great Heiltumschau, one of the largest collections of relics of his time, in true medieval tradition. As an imperial residence, Innsbruck was not so much characterised by science as by art. Only here was there an imperial court art, a Maximilian style. In the court painter Jörg Kölderer, Maximilian found the artist who illustrated the magnificent books in the gnarled style that had grown out of the rich late Gothic tradition of Tyrol and clothed the political intentions of his ruler in artistic garb. Kölderer painted the armoury books, the hunting and fishing book and designed the colourful parade of the imperial court in the ‘Triumphzug’.
Innsbruck is home to the Golden Roof, the emperor's unique wedding monument, created in 1500 to commemorate his marriage (1494) to the Milanese duke's daughter Maria Blanca Sforza. It is the emperor's farewell to the Middle Ages. The court stonemason Nikolaus Türing chiselled a homage to the last Gothic period in the figurative sandstone in the contorted and twisted figures of the Maruschka dancers; the court painter Kölderer evoked the playful, medieval courtly age in the procession of jesters and the new, violent age in the lansquenets carrying banners. The gilded copper plates on the roof still bear witness to the splendour of imperial majesty. The magnificent, pearl-embroidered gold ornaments and the imperial cloak sewn by the court silk embroiderer Leonhard Straßburger, as well as the goblets and jewellery chains made by the Innsbruck court goldsmith Michael Zeißl, have been lost.
Maximilian saw art as an opportunity to make life more enjoyable through artistically moulded everyday objects, but also to elevate them to heralds of imperial power. Even the weapons of war and military tournaments were given the noblest artistic design and advertised the emperor. The armour, which was made in the Innsbruck Hofplattnerei, served as diplomatic gifts to princes and envoys. The court armourer Konrad Seusenhofer, assisted by gilders and etch painters, created the boot and folded skirt armour that was both fashionable and artistic and proclaimed the emperor's prestige throughout the world. The guns of the imperial artillery, cast by the Innsbruck masters Jörg Endorfer and Pefer Löffler, were unrivalled as modern weapons of war, and they also represented Maximilian's claim to power in the artistic decoration of their coats of arms and emblems. The emperor's demand on technicians and artists was always to combine practicality, publicity for his policies and artistic beauty.
The culmination and summary of Maximilian's cultural activities is his large-scale tomb in Innsbruck's Hofkirche. All ideas are united in this ‘Burial’: the funeral cortege, as modelled on the Gothic royal tombs in France and Burgundy; the legality of the Roman imperial dignity derived from the ancient rulers; the special ecclesiastical position of the family represented in the Habsburgs' household saints; the religious myth of the ruler's dignity as protector of Christendom, derived from the chivalrous Christian kings of the early Germanic period (Theodoric, Clovis, Arthur and Charlemagne); finally, the primacy of the House of Habsburg over other kings as the only worthy bearer of the imperial crown, based on their own ancestors and their relatives by marriage. The tomb thus contains in its artistic casing the secret wishes, the goals achieved and the political legacy of Emperor Maximilian. The realisation of this largest Western imperial tomb in precious bronze took over half a century. Maximilian began it in 1502; he did not live to see its completion, but it was done according to his programme. 28 larger-than-life ancestor statues, 23 patron saints and 20 busts of Roman emperors are the most impressive entourage ever to adorn an imperial tomb. The emperor's artists in Innsbruck - Gilg Sesselschreiber, Stefan Godl, Leonhard Magt, Gregor Löffler - and famous masters from abroad - Albrecht Dürer, Peter Vischer, Christof Amberger, Hans Leinberger - created a work of European standing: a legacy that, alongside the literary endeavours and the musical opus of his famous court chapel, encompasses the concept of Maximilian art.
When the terminally ill Emperor Maximilian moved towards his death camp in Wels in the autumn of 1518, his last journey took him to his beloved Innsbruck. As he travelled eastwards through the city gates, the wistful melody of the old song, which his court musician Heinrich Isaac had arranged, echoed in his mind: ‘Innsbruck, I must leave you...’
ERICH EGG
The last knight - patron of early German Renaissance music
¨If I were to list all the musicians of distinction, I would have to start with Paul Hofhaimer. Originally from the Salzburg Alps, he was ennobled by the blessed Emperor Max, for whom he enchanted the ear with his sacred organ playing and knew how to direct the mind at will - at the same time an incomparably noble man of the highest fluency of spirit. What Rome owed to Romulus or Camillus, all musicians attribute to St Paul as their innovator. In the practice of music he shows both vigour and grace. He neither bores us with his expansiveness, nor does he appear fleeting with his brevity. Nothing appears sober, cold, weary in angelic harmony harmony; full-blooded, everything glows in an open stream and is full of power. His dexterity is marvellous, but without detracting from the majesty of his musical form¨. Othmar Luscinius (Strasbourg 1536)
Maximilian - as heir to his father Emperor Frederick III and his father-in-law Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy, first German King, then Roman Emperor of the German Nation - was only a very temporary resident of Vienna; he spent his best days in Innsbruck, where he revelled as a young ‘Weißkunig’ until he took over the earldom of Tyrol from his decayed uncle Archduke Sigismund the Coin-rich in 1490. (From around the turn of the century, he became so at home in Augsburg that the French ridiculed him as the ‘Mayor of Augsburg’). How he loved the city on the Inn, where he perhaps experienced his first secret passion, is reflected in the popular belief that the young Habsburg archduke himself wrote and composed the song ‘Innsbruck, ich muß dich lassen’ (‘Innsbruck, I must leave you’) before he rode to Ghent and Bruges as a suitor of the noble Maria of Burgundy.
It may be that the beautiful melody, which is still popular today as ‘O Welt, ich muß dich lassen’ (‘O world, I must leave you’) or ‘Nun ruhen alle Wälder’ (‘Now all the forests rest’), was also sung from his heart; very probably even, as it first appears in the older movement (tenor canon) as ¨Christe eleison¨ of the ¨Missa carminum¨ or ¨Quodlibet Mass¨, which his court composer Heinrich Isaac seems to have written for the Dutch-Spanish wedding (Antwerp 1496) between Maximilian's daughter Margarethe and the Iberian heir to the throne Don Juan (it begins with the song head ‘Es wurb einmal eins Königs Sohn wohl um ein Keyserinne’ (‘Once upon a time, a king's son was probably asked for an Empress’)). Isaac - a Dutchman who already played the confidant in the blissful bridal days between Max and Maria - wrote a second quartet movement to the ‘Innsbruck’ song, which has become far more famous for its floating beauty and transparency: here the melody shines in the descant, and the widely sweeping final melisma ‘wo ich im E-lend bin’ is affectively accompanied and emphasised by ‘weeping’ (thronodic) fourth parallels. Heinrich Rietsch and then Th. Kroyer have aptly emphasised the renaissance-humanistic trait of this later composition, which can be dated to around 1510, in contrast to the incorporeal, late-Gothic constructivism of the tenor first version - a first-order stylistic distinction! Adam von Fulda, Frederick the Wise's court conductor in Torgau, who was decidedly late-Gothic in his outlook, may have grumbled that any dilettante could write such soprano movements - but it was the new youthful breakthrough from Italy, to which Isaac also happily submitted, the soulfulness of Josquin's expressive art, which will still occupy us as ‘Musica reservata’. The marvellously clear soprano movement, which our disc presents alongside the other, so skilfully composed movement with its middle voice double cantus firmus, swings - apart from the short section ‘in fremde Land dahin’, where the square masonry of the like-stepping primitive building style shines through - in 3/2 time; the modern Protestant church hymnal offers the melody half flattened in the 6/4 metre of the ¨Eisleben Hymnal¨ of 1598 and (to Fr. Gerhardt's ¨Abendlied¨) in the modern 4/4 metre, in which the oldest scheme emerges again.
Maximilian dealt with Heinrich Isaac as a true princely patron. This great musician - who wrote magnificent masses and composed the ‘Choralis Constantinus’ for the Konstanz cathedral chapter, which stands alongside Maximilian's triumphal procession by Hans Burgkmair or Dürer's hymnal for the emperor - was married to a Florentine woman (from his time as an organist on the Arno), which is why Macchiavel, for example, visited him in Konstanz to tell him about the ruler's plans for Italy on behalf of the Tuscan Republic. When the court composer, now old and ill, requested a final leave of absence from the emperor - who had long since sent him back to the Medicis as his ¨chargé d'affaires¨ - the Tyrolean councillors wanted to cancel the musician's salary, but the last knight forbade this, ‘when he is useful to us there then here’. Meanwhile, Isaac had long since been de facto replaced in his court office by his master pupil Ludwig Senfl and died in Italy in 1517.
When Max took over the Innsbruck residence (see Dürer's watercolour), he met an artist who had already been working here for ten years and of whom Paracelsus, the great physician, said: ‘What Dürer was to painting, this man is to the organ’: Paul Hofhaimer from Radstadt in the Salzburg ranges - the greatest keyboard artist of his century, but also one of the loveliest composers of German songs, inexhaustible in his fantasising, unsurpassed in the euphony of his harmonies, moreover a teacher to whom all German and even leading Venetian talents flocked. The Emperor had a house built for him in Innsbruck and several marvellous organ works based on Hofhaimer's plans; he promised him a pension and customs duties (of which, of course, he had to owe a lot due to the eternal shortage of money and political restlessness, so that his chief organist was finally forced to go to the Fuggers in Augsburg, to Frederick the Wise, and finally to Maximilian's favourite, Prince Archbishop Matthäus Lang, in Salzburg).
Isaac, Hofhaimer and Ludwig Senfl, separated in age by a half-generation of 15 years, were intimate friends and formed an exemplary artistic community: Hofhaimer covered Isaac's preludes with the filigree weave of his ‘organistisch reißwerck’, and an organ piece by Senfl has recently been published in Carinthia which reveals him to be an unmistakable ‘Paulomime’ (as Hofhaimer's pupils were admiringly called at the time); Hofhaimer and Senfl also celebrated a double wedding together in Passau, and there are letters from both full of touching mutual sympathy. Isaac favoured coarse folk songs, which he liked to sing several times in a row in one sentence due to the brevity of their verses. The Tyrolean mocking song ‘Greiner, Zanner, Schnöpfitzer, wie gefällt dir das’ (Greiner, Zanner, Schnöpfitzer, how do you like it?), for example, is a droll competitive endeavour, which Hofhaimer lets ascend as a trio from the bass via the tenor into the treble, metrically ever more crowded, which Isaac masterfully plays normally, but which the mighty old Heinrich Finck from Bamberg finally lets whirl exuberantly as an instrumental quintet movement.
If such things are left aside on our disc, it is precisely because of the ‘Residenz’ - that was musicians' fun, while in the Habsburg “Kammer” a nobler art was paid homage to: the Hofweisen (court wise) repertoire. In contrast to the dinginess of ‘peasant, maiden, ring and sword, forest and birds’, it is characterised by a tendency towards abstract concepts; if one only goes through the beginnings of the songs in our programme, one encounters Freud (joy), Zucht (breeding), Ehr (honour), Lob (praise), Willen (will), Trauren (sorrow), Ursach (reason), Unglück (misfortune), Mut (courage), Geduld (Pacientia), regret, cause, Fleiß (diligence) and Müh (toil) - all words that could easily be translated into humanist Latin and reflect Renaissance thinking; of course, one also encounters transitional phenomena such as ‘Mißgunst hat einen breiten Fuß’(Resentment has a broad foot)... But these Hofweisen (as Rochus von Liliencron christened them after the far older expression ¨modus curialis¨) are not only poetically characterised as an encounter of the degenerated Minnesang with the young Renaissance experience (one could also prove their origin at the desk from the preference for steep words and the like), but also musically: through the extraordinarily subtle and expansive melodic planning that characterises such lines, which in many cases shows such linear tonal structures richly arranged in terms of church key, graded according to top notes, to variously large expressive melismas, to rhythmically contrasting finesses. They are - like the advertising poems addressed to princely brides and apparently commissioned by Emperor Max from Hofhaimer as the central representative of the genre - noble, even refined goldsmith's works in musicis, comparable to the golden salt cellars of a Cellini or the marvellous plattner armour of the Innsbruck court in Ambras Castle.
The 19th century, which took up this art again for the first time, was only able to imagine it as an ¨a cappella¨ chorus of madrigal associations and misunderstood and falsified it in its new editions by arbitrarily textualising all the voices. Certainly, since 1536 - in Finck's ¨Nachlaßlieder¨, in Schöffer and Apiarius, in the first edition of Forster's ¨Auszug¨ - such a subsequent vocalisation has been carried out - sometimes not without some violence - under the influence of literature-obsessed humanism on movements by the old masters; however, most of the court modes of the period from Lochamer's Nuremberg songbook around 1460 to Maximilian's death (1519) are undoubtedly assigned to the tenor (or baritone) solo song. This is clear from the fact that all the relevant prints - such as Öglin, Arnt von Aich, Schöffer, which reproduce the practice of the court musicians of the Emperor, the Bishop of Augsburg, the Duke of Württemberg, later the bourgeois prints by Egenolf in Frankfurt, then the Senfl-Fugger manuscripts - offer the song texts only in the tenor booklet.
Such a movement could also be completely instrumentalised, for recorder choir, for a group of crumhorns (if the individual part did not exceed a ninth), for trombone or cornett ensemble, and one can still see on one of the musicians' carriages of the “Triumphzug” how a quintet movement was apparently scored with a double core: the cantabile red thread by two viols, but the three counterpoint lines visibly by three plucked instruments. There are also intabulations for the lute (by Judenkünig, Gerle, Neusiedler) or for keyboard instruments (by Schlick or the paulomimes Hans Buchner, Kotter, Kleber, W. Grefinger, Sicher etc.), of course richly chiselled out with the superinventiones (additional inventions) of instrumental ornamentation, whereby one voice, such as the ¨alto vagans¨, is then omitted, but in the case of the organ a fifth could be added. On the whole, the movements before 1500 have three voices, after 1500 four, and from 1530 onwards 5-6.
If several chanson movements by Josquin Despres appear in the second half of our programme, it is true that he was apparently not, like his artistic rival Jakob Obrecht, the Emperor's personal guest in the Innsbruck Hofburg; however, like the entire epoch, he strongly influenced the Innsbruck masters of sound (Senfl in particular) with his art from Raphael's Rome or from the Walloon-Flemish Condé - his birthplace and place of death. One of Hofhaimer's most beautiful pieces, the love lament ‘Meins Traurens ist Ursach’, which owes its Phrygian, distressed opening theme (just like Luther's Wittemberg melody ‘Aus tiefer Not’) to a Josquin motif or is freely modelled on it. Luther only expressed the admiration of the whole age when he praised: ‘Josquin is the master of notes, they had to do as He wanted - the other masters of song usually only do as the notes want’. Josquin's ¨musica reservata¨ means ‘music for connoisseurs only’, by which he meant: a thoroughly humanised art of expressive sound. It was the core product of the Renaissance as a ‘rebirth of the (ideally antique) human being’, and it sheds light on Isaac's more latter-day Gothic craftsmanship in contrast to Josquin's grand seigneurial artistry of the new 16th century when a contemporary reports: ‘Isaac can always create, Josquin, on the other hand, only when he is in a mood’. The art of chanson had flourished primarily at the Burgundian court through Dufay, Binchois and Ockeghem; when Despres transplanted it to Rome, this also contributed to the transfer of world leadership from the southern Netherlands to Italy. But when Emperor Maximilian listened to those love poems set to music, they epitomised irrevocably happy days for him - that brief period of happiness that was enclosed in the name of his only beloved, Mary of Burgundy - the memory of her hovered around him even in the city of the ‘golden roof’, although Mary had never seen Innsbruck.
HANS JOACHIM MOSER
Odeon (C 91 107 / 33 WCX 537) 1961
To all singers and lovers of fine music
¨In particular, because it is customary to sing good German songs or to use them on the instruments during all joyful occasions. This would prevent a lot of useless swearing, drinking, censorship and other vices, as I have often heard from a good theologian, when he said that among all the pastimes, he knew of no more divine, honest and beautiful than sweet music, and that all others, such as playing, fencing, wrestling, jumping, or call them what they will, were judged in such a way that each one would do his best so that he might win over and encourage the one with whom he has such a short time from whom many a quarrel arise. Music, however, has no other purpose than to preserve the unity of the voices with all diligence and to avoid all misunderstandings, as every understanding musician must and will confess¨.
12 December 1551 Georg Forster
Mein Freud allein (Heinrich Isaac)
Mein Freud allein in aller Welt,
mein Trost zu allen Stunden,
mein Herz hat sich zu dir gestellt,
mit Lieb und Treu verbunden.
Durch dich bin ich
mit Liebeskraft
schwerlich behaft,
zu deinem Dienst mit Fleiß gericht’.
An argen List dir gänzlich ist
mein Herz in rechter Lieb verpflicht’.
Einiger Schatz, du weißt, wie hart
dein Lieb mich hat umgeben,
Lieb’, Ehr und Gut sei ungespart,
in deinem Dienst zu leben.
Dir gar un G’fahr
will ich stet sein
und bleiben dein.
Mit steter Treu ganz unverkehrt,
zu rechter Still ewig ich will
Lieb haben dich für all’ auf Erd.
My joy alone in all the world,
my consolation at all hours,
my heart has turned to you,
bound with love and loyalty.
Through you I am
with the power of love,
To your service with diligence judged.
To thee in all wicked craftiness
my heart is committed to you in true love.
My darling, you know how hard
your love has surrounded me,
Love, honour and good shall not be spared,
to live in your service.
To you without danger
I will always be
and remain yours.
With constant fidelity completely intact,
To right peace forever I will
Love you for all the earth.
Zucht, Ehr und Lob (Paul Hofhaimer)
Zucht, Ehr und Lob ihr wohnet bei,
ganz frei,
ohn alle Reu
bin ich verpflicht't, zu dienen ihr;
sie hat fürwahr das feinst Gepärd.
Beschwert
und höchlich mehrt
sich herzlich Klag und sehnlich Gier.
Seit ich nun weiß zukünftig Not,
kein Rat
auf Erd mich helfen mag,
es leit am Tag.
Erhör mein Klag,
die ich stets trag,
send Gnad, mein Glück, eh ich verzag!
Discipline, honour and praise dwell with her,
completely free,
without all regret
I am obliged to serve her;
she truly has the finest of all jewels.
Weighted down
and highly increases
my heartfelt lament and ardent desire.
Since I now realise future need,
no advice
on earth may help me,
it leads by day.
Hear my lament,
which I always bear,
send mercy, my happiness, before I despair!
Nach Willen dein (Hofhaimer)
Nach Willen dein
mich dir allein
in Treuen tu erzeigen.
Für all auf Erd
bist du mir wert,
und gib mich dir für eigen
ganz in dein Pflicht,
der Zuversicht,
laßt dir mein Dienst gefallen;
dann glaub fürwahr,
in Frauen Schar
liebst du mir ob ihn’n allen!
At your will
I alone
do it faithfully.
For all on earth
you are worthy of me,
and give me to you for your own
entirely to your duty,
of confidence,
let my service please thee;
then believe forsooth,
in the company of women
you love me above them all!
Meins Traurens ist Ursach (Hofhaimer)
Meins Traurens ist Ursach mir gbrist,
daß ich niemand’s darf klagen,
denn dir allein mein klarer Schein,
Pein muß ich deinthalb tragen.
Ich woll’, glaub mir,
schier eh’r den Tod erkiesen,
denn dich also verliesen.
My sadness is the cause of my grief,
that I may complain to no one,
but to you alone my clear light,
I must bear pain for your sake.
I would, believe me,
I would almost have died,
because I have left you.
Mag ich Unglück nit widerstahn (Ludwig Senfl)
Mag ich Unglück nit widerstahn,
doch Hoffnung han,
es soll nit allzeit währen.
Mancher treibt jetzund großen Bracht,
wird hoch geacht't;
gschieht alls mit kleinen Ehren,
wenn er die Gnad
von Gott nit hat,
daß er gedächt,
was ihm entprecht.
All Ding tun sie verkehren.
I may not resist misfortune,
but have hope,
it shall not last forever.
Many a man now and great splendour drives,
is highly respected;
All is done with small honours,
if he has not the grace
from God,
that he remembered,
what he is deprived of.
They do all things wrong.
All mein Mut (Heinrich Isaac)
Al mein mut, auch hertz und sin
stet zu dir dahin,
mein edle metz.
Ich bit, ergetz,
thu mich in freud enthalten!
Du hast es macht,
sich und betracht,
seit es dir bringet kein schaden,
vergünn mir deiner gnaden!
Kain finstu meins geleichen,
der sich sogar im leben ergeben,
mein auserwelte schöne keiserin,
allein dir zu gefallen.
All my courage, heart and soul
are going to you,
my honourable master.
I beg you, please,
do thou contain me in joy!
You have done it,
yourself and consider,
since it brings you no harm,
repay me with your favours!
You will find me like Cain,
who even surrendered in life,
my chosen beautiful empress,
to please you alone.
Innsbruck, ich muß dich lassen (Isaac)
Groß Leid muß ich jetzt tragen,
daß ich allein tu klagen
dem liebsten Buhlen mein.
Ach Lieb, nun laß mich Armen
im Herzen dein erbarmen,
daß ich von dann muß sein!
Mein Trost ob allen Weiben,
dein tu ich ewig bleiben,
stet, treu, der Ehren fromm.
Nun muß dich Gott bewahren,
in aller Tugend sparen,
bis daß ich wiederkomm!
Great sorrow must I now bear,
That I alone do lament
To my dearest wooer.
Oh love, now let me poor
in my heart your mercy,
That I must then be mine!
My consolation above all women,
I will remain yours forever,
steadfast, faithful, pious in honour.
Now God must preserve thee,
in all virtue save,
until I come again!
Motet ¨Illumina oculos meos" (Isaac)
Illumina oculos meos
ne unquam obdormiam in morte
ne quando dicat inimicus meus
praevalui adversus eum.
In manus tuas domine
commendo spiritum meum
redemisti me domine deus veritatis.
Locutus sum in lingua mea.
Notum fac mihi finem meam
et numerum dierum mearum
quis est ut sciam quid desit mihi.
Fac mecum signum in bonum
ut videant qui oderunt me
et confundantur quoniam tu domine
adjuvisti:me et consolatus es me.
Disrupisti domine vincula mea
sibi sacrificabo hostiam laudis
et nomen domini invocabo.
Periit fuga a me et non est
qui requirat animam meam.
Clamavi ad te domine
dixi tu es spes mea.
Portio mea domine in terra viventium.
Enlighten my eyes
lest I ever fall asleep in death
lest my enemy ever say
I prevailed against him.
Into your hands, sir
I commend my spirit
You have redeemed me, Lord God of truth.
I spoke in my own language.
Let me know my end
and the number of my days
Who is there to know what I lack?
Make with me a sign for good,
that they may see who hate me
and may be ashamed because you, Lord,
have helped me and comforted me.
You have broken my chains, Lord.
To you I will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving
and will invoke the name of the Lord.
Flight has fled from me and there is no one
to seek my soul.
I cried to you, Lord,
I said, you are my hope.
My portion, Lord, is among the living on earth.
Adieu mes amours (Josquin Despres)
Adieu mes amours,
se l’argent du roy
ne vient plus souvent.
Farewell my loves,
if the king's money
does not come more often.
Plus nuls regretz (Despres)
Plus nulz regretz, grandz,
moiens et menuz
De joye nulz ne soient dictz
ne escriptz,
Or est venu le bon temps Saturnus,
Ou peu congneuz furent
plainctez et crys,
Longtemps avons eu malheurs infinis,
Batus, pugnis et faictz povres, meigrés,
Mais maintenant d’espoir
sommes garnis,
Joinctz et unis n’ayons plus
nulz regretz.
No more regrets, big ones,
medium and small
Of joy let nothing be said
nor written,
Now the good time has come Saturn,
where there were few friends
complaining and weeping,
For a long time we had endless misfortunes,
Beaten, stricken and impoverished, meagre,
But now of hope
We are adorned,
Together and united we have
No more regrets.
J'ai bien cause (Despres)
J'ai bien cause de lamenter
et de laisser solas et joye,
puisque celui qui tant jamoys
ma de tout point habandonner.
I have good reason to lament
and to leave solace and joy,
since the one I love so much
abandoned me in every way.
Questo mostrarsi adirata di fore (Isaac)
Questo mostrarsi adirata di fore,
donna non mi dispiace,
pur ch’i stie'n pace
poi col vostro core.
Ma perch’i sono
del vostro amore incerto,
cogli ochi mi consiglio:
I vi vegho, el mio bene
e’l mio mal certo,
che se movet’un ciglio,
subito piglio
speranza d’amore.
What is this furious display of forehead,
woman I don't care,
as long as I'm at peace
then with your heart.
But because I am
of your love unsure,
I take counsel with my eyes:
I see thee, my good
and my bad certain,
that if you move an eyelash
I immediately take
hope of love.
Wohl kömmt der Mai (Wolfgang Grefinger)
Wohl kömmt der Mai
mit mancherlei
der Blümlein zart
nach seiner Art,
erquicket das verdorben,
wass durch Winters Gwalt,
dass freuvet sich ganz mannigfalt.
May is coming
with the many
delicate flowers
according to its kind,
refreshes what was ruined
by winter's violence,
which brings joy in many different ways.
Mag ich, Herzlieb, erwerben dich (Senfl)
Mag ich, Herzlieb, erwerben dich,
so sprich.
Es darf nit wort,
so hat ein Ort verlangen.
Tu nit lang mit mir brangen.
May I, my dear, acquire you,
say it.
No words are allowed,
then a place is in demand.
Don't stay with me for too long.
O schönes Weib (Heinrich Finck)
O schönes Weib,
wunsam von Leib,
nimm hin von mir
zu Herzen dir
mein sehnlich Klag’,
die ich do trag
zu dieser Zeit,
so gar mit Leid,
mich täglich trüb’
nach dir, schöns Lieb.
Wird mir nit Buß
dein freundlich Gruß,
so leid ich Not
bis in den Tod;
des hast gewiß,
dein nit vergiß,
sei wo ich wöll,
zu dir ich stell’
bis an mein End,
kein Mensch
von deiner Lieb mich wend't.
Oh, beautiful woman
fickle of body,
take from me
to your heart
my longing lament
that I carry
at this moment
so full of pain,
I grieve daily
for you, beautiful love.
I will not regret
your friendly greeting,
I suffer hardship
until death;
of that I am sure,
don't forget yours,
wherever I am,
I will be by your side
to my end,
no man
will take me away from your love.
Mein Fleiß und Müh (Senfl)
Mein Fleiß und Müh
ich nie
hab gspart
und allzeit gwahrt
dem Herren mein
zum Besten sein,
mich gschickt darein,
Gnad, Gunst verhofft.
Doch Gunst zu Hof verkehrt sich oft,
geht hin und her;
und wer
sich kann
zukaufen an
dem Ort, der Zeit,
nach Ehren streit't,
muß dannen weit.
Das tut mir ant,
mein treuer Dienst bleibt unerkannt.
My diligence and labour
I never
have saved
and always kept
to the Lord my
being for the best,
sent me into it,
Grace, favour hoped for.
But favour often turns to court,
goes to and fro;
and who
can
to buy in
the place, the time,
for honour'd strife,
must then go far.
That does me harm,
my faithful service remains unrecognised.
Innsbruck, ich muß dich lassen (Isaac)
Innsbruck, ich muß dich lassen,
ich fahr dahin mein Straßen,
in fremde Land dahin.
Mein Freud ist mir genommen,
die ich nit weiß bekommen,
wo ich im Elend bin.
Innsbruck, I must leave you,
I'm going there, my ways,
to a foreign land.
My joy is taken from me,
which I do not know
where I am in affliction.
💘🎼💘
Very beautiful voices and melodies !😊🎉
Wow thanks