de Monte – Que me servent

 

Title

Que me servent mes vers et les sons de ma lyre

Composer

Philippe de Monte (1521-1603)

Source

Le Rossignol Musical … , Phalèse 1597

(text not yet on Lieder.net site)
(blog entry here)
(recording here: source, Philippus de Monte – Motets, madrigals & chansons, Ensemble Orlando Fribourg)

 

Here’s an interesting setting by de Monte: effectively, moving quickly towards the baroque future with a melody, a bass, and three middle parts providing harmonic support. Well, it’s written as polyphony, but the vocal ranges are effectively 1 lady, 3 tenors & a bass even if they are still labelled ‘contra’, ‘tenor’ and ‘quinta’.The recording brings this out more obviously still by opening with the top (melody) line alone.

Once again de Monte begins with a solo soprano line, but (after a brief homophonic opening) the lower voices function either chordally in twos and threes, or as overlapping lines, rather than in French-style homophony. It’s an attractive and pensive setting.

This too originally appeared in de Monte’s own book of Ronsard settings in 1575, where it was placed first – its unusual features making it indeed a gripping opening to the set.

 

 

 

de Monte – Bon jour mon coeur

 

Title

Bon jour mon coeur, bon jour ma douce vie

Composer

Philippe de Monte (1521-1603)

Source

Le Rossignol Musical … , Phalèse 1597
(text on Lieder.net site here)
(blog entry here)
(recording here: source, Philippus de Monte – Motets, madrigals & chansons, Ensemble Orlando Fribourg)

 

A new composer, and this time a Flemish one well-known for his polyphony in the Italian/Flemish style rather than for chansons in the French style. But of course like Lassus and others he wrote in many styles. This is an interesting setting, since it consciously adopts the French style in the homophony of the opening, though the solo soprano contrasting with the rest of the group is rather a ‘modern’ & non-French touch. The section in triple time which follows allows de Monte to show off (still homophonically) a variety of different groupings within his choir; and then he allows himself to indulge in something more like his usual dense polyphony, before showing his versatility by setting the second verse in a nicely varied repeat of the first – similar but rarely quite the same for any length of time. It’s also quite an intriguing setting, in that it sounds rather like one of those ‘epigrammatic’ settings which set perhaps half a sonnet, yet in fact sets the whole 18 line chanson.

The 1597 Rossignol musical is a late source, but the setting originally appeared in de Monte’s own book of Ronsard settings in 1575.

The recording is an attractive one from a Swiss choir I’ve not come across before, though they have been around for some 20 years!

 

 

Amours 1.208

L’or crespelu que d’autant plus j’honore,

Que mes douleurs s’augmentent de son beau,

Laschant un jour le noud de son bandeau,

S’esparpilloit sur le sein que j’adore.

 

Mon cueur helas ! qu’en vain je r’appelle ore,

Vola dedans ainsi au’un jeune oiseau,

Qui s’en-volant dedans un arbrisseau,

De branche en branche à son plaisir s’essore.

 

Lors que dix doigts dix rameaux yvoirins

En ramassant de ce beau chef les brins,

Prindrent mon cueur en leurs rets qui m’affolle :

 

Je le vy bien, mais je ne peus crier,

Tant un effroy ma langue vint lier,

Glaçant d’un coup mon cueur et ma parolle.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            The curling gold, which I honour more and more

                                                                            As my sadness is increased by its beauty,

                                                                            Escaping one day the knot of its scarf

                                                                            Scattered over the breast which I adore.

 

                                                                            Oh, my heart! In vain I tried to recall it,

                                                                            As it flew among it just like a little bird

                                                                            Which flutters inside a bush

                                                                            Winging from branch to branch at its pleasure.

 

                                                                            Then ten fingers, ten ivory boughs,

                                                                            Gathering up the strands from her fair head

                                                                            Seized my heart in their maddening net:

 

                                                                            I saw it clearly but could not cry out

                                                                            Such fear bound my tongue

                                                                            Freezing at one blow my heart and my speech.

 

 

 

 

The image of the net, and the escaping heart caught in it, is neatly done: pulling us further and further into a metaphor as we go. Easy to imagine golden hair acting as a net, but the leap from there to catching an escaping heart in it moves us beyond the visual allusion disconcertingly. I enjoy how Ronsard throws us slightly off balance by extending the metaphor in this way.

 

The second half of the poem is virtually written anew, though still within the same metaphor he’d employed in the first version (below):

 

 

L’or crespelu que d’autant plus j’honore,

Que mes douleurs s’augmentent de son beau,

Laschant un jour le noud de son bandeau,

S’esparpilloit sur le sein que j’adore.

 

Mon cœur, helas ! qu’en vain je r’appelle ore,

Vola dedans ainsi au’un jeune oiseau,

Qui s’en-feuillant dedans un arbrisseau,

De branche en branche à son plaisir s’essore.

 

Lorsque voici dix beaux doigts yvoirins

Qui, ramassant ses blonds filets orins,

Pris en leurs rets esclave le lièrent.

 

J’eusse crié, mais la peur que j’avois

Gela mes sens, mes poumons et ma voix ;

Et cependant le cœur ils me pillèrent.

 

 

 

                                                                            The curling gold,which I honour more and more

                                                                            As my sadness is increased by its beauty

                                                                            Escaping one day the knot of its scarf

                                                                            Scattered over the breast which I adore.

 

                                                                            Oh, my heart! In vain I tried to recall it,

                                                                            As it flew among it just like a little bird

                                                                            Which enwraps itself in leaves inside a bush

                                                                            Winging from branch to branch at its pleasure.

 

                                                                            Then, look, ten fair ivory fingers

                                                                            Gathering up the golden blond strands

                                                                            Bound it in their nets, a captive slave.

 

                                                                            I would have cried out, but the fear I had

                                                                            Froze my senses, my lungs and my voice ;

                                                                            And yet they stole my heart from me.

 

 

Note however the change in line 7: “S’en feuillant” is a marvellous Ronsardian coinage – ‘enwrapping in leaves’ – which he replaces with the more mundane “S’en volant” in old age only because he has by then rejected such showy enthusiasms of his youth. 

 

This is one of Ronsard’s translations from the Italian: as Muret says in his edition, “the fiction of this sonnet is taken from Bembo’s sonnet … “. Yet, to be truthful, Ronsard does much more than take ‘the fiction’ (the imagery) of this sonnet from Bembo, it is in fact a genuine translation, very closely following the original – and yet at the same time very much a poem by Ronsard. This is the true art of translation – and it is a job for true poets.

 

(If I, once again, emphasise that my only aim in providing an English version of Ronsard is to make his meaning accessible, losing much of the poetry and feel of the original, I’d also like to point out that here Ronsard’s close translation of Bembo also results in a different ‘feel’.  The new poem is a French poem, not a translation of an Italian one:  the two have a different feel, because of the different languages and different objectives of the writers. Bembo’s is a little stiff, almost ‘mannerist’ rather than ‘humanist’ in its careful use of poetical topoi and the way it seems to encourage the reader to stand back and admire the workmanship. Ronsard does this too at one level, but his great achievement is to write poetry that operates within such closely-defined images and forms, yet is at the same time more immediate and engaging and ‘real’.)

 

 

Bembo – ‘Rime’ 9

 

Di que’ bei crin, che tanto più sempre amo,

Quanto maggior mio mal nasce da loro,

Sciolto era il nodo, che del bel tesoro

M’asconde quel, ch’io più di mirar bramo ;

 

E ‘l cor, che ‘ndarno or, lasso, a me richiamo,

Volò subitamente in quel dolce oro,

E fe’ come augellin tra verde alloro,

Ch’a suo diletto va di ramo in ramo.

 

Quando ecco due man belle oltre misura,

Raccogliendo le treccie al collo sparse,

Strinservi dentro lui, che v’era involto.

 

Gridai ben io, ma le voci fe’ scarse

Il sangue, che gelò per la paura :

Intanto il cor mi fu legato e tolto.

 

 

 

                                                                            Of those fair tresses that ever I love more and more,

                                                                            (How much greater from them grows my pain!)

                                                                            The knot was loosed, which hid from me the part

                                                                            Of that fair treasure, which I desire more than sight;

 

                                                                            And my heart, which indeed in vain – alas – I recall

                                                                            Flew suddenly into that sweet gold

                                                                            And behaved like a little bird in a green bay-tree

                                                                            Which hops at its pleasure from branch to branch.

 

                                                                            Then, behold! Two hands, fair beyond measure,

                                                                            Gathering the braids scattered on her neck

                                                                            Bundled it up what was mine within them.

 

                                                                            I groaned indeed, but my voice was feeble –

                                                                            My blood, which froze in fear, made it so.

                                                                            Meanwhile, my heart was tied up and taken.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amours 1.207

Sœur de Pâris, la fille au Roy d’Asie,

A qui Phebus en doute fit avoir

Peu cautement l’aiguillon du sçavoir,

Dont sans profit ton ame fut saisie :

 

Tu variras vers moy de fantaisie,

Puis qu’il te plaist (bien que tard) de vouloir

Changer ton Loire au sejour de mon Loir,

Pour y fonder ta demeure choisie.

 

En ma faveur le Ciel te guide ici,

Pour te monstrer de plus pres le souci

Qui peint au vif de ses couleurs ma face.

 

Vien Nymphe vien, les rochers et les bois,

Qui de pitié s’enflamment sous ma voix,

Pleurant ma peine, eschaufferont ta glace.  

 

 

 

                                                                            Sister of Paris, daughter to the King of Asia,

                                                                            To whom Phoebus, doubting, gave

                                                                            Incautiously the goad of knowledge,

                                                                            By which your soul was without profit seized ;

 

                                                                            You will change your ideas towards me

                                                                            Since you choose (though late) to consider

                                                                            Exchanging your Loire to stay on my Loir

                                                                            And to found there your chosen home.

 

                                                                            For my benefit is Heaven guiding you here

                                                                            To show you more closely the pain

                                                                            Which paints my face so vividly with its colours.

 

                                                                            Come, Nymph, come : the rocks and woods

                                                                            Which blaze up in pity at my voice,

                                                                            Weeping for my pain, will warm up your ice.

 

 

 

 

Classical allusiion to the fore again, though here Ronsard’s use of a roundabout way to identify Cassandre is fairly obvious – he rapidly gives us as much information as possible (sister of Paris, daughter of Priam, prophetic mouthpiece of Apollo … ah yes, that would be Cassandra!) In line 3 the “aiguillon” (goad, or prick, or sting, or really anything sharp and painful) perhaps calls to mind a more Christian image, that of St Paul “kicking against the pricks” as the King James version so wonderfully puts it. (Have you ever noticed how many of Jesus’s turns of phrase and stories are the language of a farmer in the fields, not that of a carpenter? If he did follow his father’s trade, he can only have done so part-time!)  Whether an intended reference or not, it is clearly the same metaphor: just as cattle were goaded with sharp sticks to keep them from wandering in the wrong direction, so here prophetic knowledge is both painful and also leaves no choice – Cassandra must prophesy, no matter that it hurts.

 

But then, in the rest of the poem, we abandon that image and the pains (or otherwise) of knowledge – because it becomes clear that was all just an elaborate way to say “Cassandre”. There is no real suggestion in the first tercet that Heaven’s guiding is in any way painful to Cassandre, as it was to her Trojan namesake; nor that the need to understand lies behind any decision to move closer to his home. And that is probably why I find this sonnet a bit irritating. There are thematic links between the opening and the rest, but those links seem accidental and un-purposed, which is un-satisfactory in a poet of Ronsard’s quality.

 

The earlier version printed by Blanchemain does not offer any substantive changes. In lines 7-8 he becomes slightly less certain of her intentions:

 

Changer ton Loire au rives de mon Loir,

Voire y fonder ta demeure choisie.

 

                                                                            Exchanging your Loire for the banks of my Loir,

                                                                            Maybe even founding there your chosen home. 

 

and in the final line becomes “De leurs soupirs eschauferont ta glace” (‘the rocks and woods … With their sighs will warm up your ice’)

 

 

 

 

Certon – Je suis un demi-dieu

 

Title

Je suis un demi dieu

Composer

Pierre Certon

Source

Huitiesme Livre de Chansons, published by Le Roy & Ballard, 1557

 

(text on Lieder.net site here)
(blog entry not yet available)
(recording here – source: Mary’s Music: Songs & Dances from the time of Mary Queen of Scots, Scottish Early Music Consort)

 

It’s a bit of a shock moving back from Lassus to the very French style of Pierre Certon. It seems hardly possible that there are only 14 years, and a stylistic (French-Italian) boundary between them. Indeed, the middle section of this setting sounds like a (not very good) psalm setting suitable for church use, in completely homophonic style with each line moving inevitably to an ‘open’ cadence at its halfway point, then back to a ‘closed’ one. It doesn’t help that this section, with the succeeding more freely composed and attractive conclusion, is then repeated with some minor variations!

But that would be to ignore the attractively polyphonic opening, and the sections which succeed those very dully-homophonic ones, which make a much better impression. The recording (dating from the mid-80s) succeeds in making the music live and breathe appealingly, showing it very definitely in the best possible light!

 

 

Lassus – Amour Amour

 

Title

Amour Amour donne moy paix ou treve

Composer

Roland de Lassus

Source

Livre de chansons nouvelles … , 1571

 

(text on Lieder.net site here)
(blog entry here)
(recorded extract here – source: Lassus – Sibylline prophecies, chansons etc, Cantus Cölln)

 

There are moments in this setting which are achingly beautiful – the soprano line at “trouver ma delivrance” (in part 2) for instance – that this at times almost begins to sound like the melody-led songs of another century. But it is still firmly polyphonic, and much more so than the settings of his French contemporaries. It’s rather a jolly setting, very rhythmic though with plenty of variation in the tempo, and lots of melodic fragments being passed from voice to voice or overlapping in a riotous blend.

This is the last remaining Ronsard setting by Lassus to be added to the blog. We’ve also had Bertrand’s setting of this poem, though I’ve had to remove that until I can get a copyright-free version; and there are several more versions to come as this was one of the most frequently set Ronsard texts.

The recording by Cantus Cölln unfortunately doesn’t make as much as I’d like of the end of part 2, so I’ve selected the end of part 1 instead!

 

seconde partie

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lassus – Ores que je suis

 

Title

Ores que je suis dispos

Composer

Roland de Lassus

Source

Livre de chansons nouvelles … , 1571

 

(text on Lieder.net site here)
(blog entry not yet available)
(recorded extract here)

 

A lovely 5-part drinking song from Lassus. Lots of lively and bibulous repetition, overlapping voices, little melodic fragments jumping from voice to voice… All very nicely done.

The only recording I can find is rather an old one, but I’ve selected one of the livelier parts – approximately pages 3-4 of the score here.

 

Seconde partie

 

 

 

 

 

 

Regnard – Las je me plains

 

Title

Las je me plains de mille et mille

Composer

François Regnard

Source

Poésies de P. de Ronsard et autres Poëtes, 1579

 

(text on Lieder.net site here)
(blog entry here)
(recorded extract here:  source, Utrecht concert on YouTube by Nederlands Kammerkoor)

 

Another short-ish Regnard setting: though, to be fair, at a slow tempo (as it must be with this text) it reveals itself as a sensitive and substantial piece. The recording by the Netherlands Chamber Choir, under the leadership of the legendary (in early music circles) Paul van Nevel, brings out very effectively the unusually low low-F on which the bassus ends the third section of Regnard’s setting (middle of page 3, about 20 seconds into the recording)! It’s part of a very worthwhile concert from the Pieterskerk, Utrecht, available on YouTube which offers a couple of Regnard’s motets as well – and a substantial helping of earlier polyphony by the undervalued Firminus Caron & by Gaspar van Weerbecke, a distant cousin of the notorious Perkin Warbeck who tried to usurp Henry VII’s throne in a postlude to the Wars of the Roses. (There’s also a lovely radio commentary in Dutch, by a speaker whose voice I could listen to for ages!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amours 1.217

L’arc qui commande aux plus braves gendarmes,

Qui n’a soucy de plastron ny d’escu,

D’un si doux trait mon courage a veincu,

Que sus le champ je luy rendy les armes.

 

Comme inconstant je n’ay point fait d’alarmes

Depuis que serf sous Amour j’ay vescu,

N’y n’eusse peu : car pris je n’ay oncq eu

Pour tout secours, que l’ayde de mes larmes.

 

Et toutefois il me fasche beaucoup

D’estre defait, mesme du premier coup,

Sans resister plus long temps à la guerre :

 

Mais ma défaite est digne de grand pris,

Puis que le Roy, ains le Dieu, qui m’a pris,

Combat le Ciel, les Enfers, et la Terre.

 

 

 

                                                                            The bow which commands the bravest men at arms,

                                                                            Which cares not for breastplate or shield,

                                                                            Has overcome my courage with so sweet a wound

                                                                            That immediately, there on the field of battle, I surrendered my arms.

 

                                                                            Like a traitor I have raised no alarms

                                                                            Since I have lived as a servant of Love,

                                                                            Nor could I have; for once captured I have never had

                                                                            Any help but the aid of my tears.

 

                                                                            And yet it deeply frustrates me

                                                                            To have been defeated, and at the first blow,

                                                                            Without resisting longer in the war ;

 

                                                                            But my defeat is worthy of a great prize

                                                                            Since the King, and God too, who has captured me

                                                                            Matches himself against Heaven, Hell and the Earth.

 

 

 

A very neat construction – effectively A-B-A-B – covering defeat & life after twice in sequence, but also pairing & inverting positive-negative-negative-positive viewpoints. I could go on. Suffice it to say, another very neat little gem from our poet.

 

I also like the neat trick in line 4 – “sur le champ” is literally ‘on the field [of battle]’ but it’s also commonly used to mean ‘straight away’. I’ve included both meanings in the translation to try to reflect something of the linguistic trick.

 

His first version follows the same pattern, but the poetry itself (in lines 1 & 9, but also in the hiatus at the start of line 7) is a little clumsier:

 

 

L’arc contre qui des plus braves gendarmes,

Ne vaut l’armet, le plastron ny l’escu,

D’un si doux trait mon courage a vaincu,

Que sur le champ je luy rendy les armes.

 

Comme inconstant je n’ay point fait d’alarmes

Depuis que serf sous Amour j’ay vescu,

Ny eusse peu, car pris je n’ay oncq eu

Pour tout secours, que l’ayde de mes larmes.

 

Il est bien vrai qu’il me fasche beaucoup

D’estre defait, mesme du premier coup,

Sans resister plus long temps à la guerre :

 

Mais ma défaite est digne de grand pris,

Puis que le Roy, ains le Dieu, qui m’a pris,

Combat le Ciel, les Enfers, et la Terre.

 

 

                                                                            The bow against which the bravest men at arms’

                                                                            Weapons, breastplate or shield are no use,

                                                                            Has overcome my courage with so sweet a wound

                                                                            That immediately, there on the field of battle I surrendered my arms.

 

                                                                            Like a traitor I have raised no alarms

                                                                            Since I have lived as a servant of Love,

                                                                            Nor could I have; for once captured I have never had

                                                                            Any help but the aid of my tears.

 

                                                                            True it is that it deeply frustrates me

                                                                            To have been defeated, and at the first blow,

                                                                            Without resisting longer in the war ;

 

                                                                            But my defeat is worthy of a great prize

                                                                            Since the King, and God too, who has captured me

                                                                            Matches himself against Heaven, Hell and the Earth.

 

 

 

 

 

Amours 1.212

Lest it seem I’ve forgotten Ronsard in my enthusiasm for the music, let’s have another sonnet!

 

D’une vapeur enclose sous la terre

Ne s’est conceu un air si ventueux :

Ny de ses flôs le Loir impetueux

Perdant noz bleds, les campagnes n’enserre.

 

Le Prince Eole en ces mois ne deterre

L’esclave orgueil des vents tumultueux,

Ny l’Ocean des flots tempestueux

De sa grand clef les sources ne desserre.

 

Seuls mes souspirs ont ce vent enfanté,

Et de mes pleurs le Loir s’est augmenté

Pour le depart d’une beauté si fiere :

 

Et m’esbahis de tant continuer

Souspirs et pleurs, que je n’ay veu muer

Les uns en vent, les autres en riviere.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            From no vapour shut up beneath the earth

                                                                            Was such a tempestuous breeze conceived ;

                                                                            Nor with his waves does the impetuous Loir,

                                                                            Destroying our sheep, enclose our fields.

 

                                                                            Prince Aeolus in those months does not unearth

                                                                            The slavish pride of the tumultuous winds,

                                                                            Nor does Ocean unfasten the springs

                                                                            Of his tempestous waves with his great key.

 

                                                                            Only my sighs have given birth to this wind,

                                                                            And with my tears the Loir has overflowed

                                                                            At the departure of so proud a beauty ;

 

                                                                            And it amazes me, as so many sighs and tears

                                                                            Continue, that I have not seen them change

                                                                            The ones into wind, the others into a river.

 

 

 

Ronsard enjoys nature, and shows himself keenly interested in his images of the Loir in particular. I have to say I’m not so taken by the first tercet, which seems a bit weak, but the rest of the poem is less formulaic and far better than a cursory reading might suggest.

 

Aeolus ‘unearths’ the wnids because he keeps them trapped in his cave until releasing them.

 

Strangely, in view of my comments above, it’s the opening that got re-worked by Ronsard! And rather considerably improved, I think.

 

 

D’une vapeur enclose sous la terre

Ne s’est pas fait cet esprit ventueux,

Ny par les champs le Loir impetueux

De neige cheute à toutes brides n’erre ;

 

Le Prince Eole en ces mois ne deterre

L’esclave orgueil des vents tumultueux,

Ny l’Ocean des flots tempestueux

De sa grand’ clef les sources ne desserre.

 

Seuls mes souspirs ont ce vent enfanté,

Et de mes pleurs le Loir s’est augmenté

Pour le depart d’une beauté si fiere :

 

Et m’esbahis de tant continuer

Souspirs et pleurs, que je n’ay veu muer

Mon cœur en vent et mes yeux en riviere.

 

 

 

                                                                            From no vapour shut up beneath the earth

                                                                            Was made this tempestuous spirit ;

                                                                            Nor across the fields does the impetuous Loir

                                                                            Wander, his bridle loosed with the fallen snow;

 

                                                                            Prince Aeolus in those months does not unearth

                                                                            The slavish pride of the tumultuous winds,

                                                                            Nor does Ocean unfasten the springs

                                                                            Of his tempestous waves with his great key.

 

                                                                            Only my sighs havaae given birth to this wind,

                                                                            And with my tears the Loir has overflowed

                                                                            At the departure of so proud a beauty ;

 

                                                                            And it amazes me, as so many sighs and tears

                                                                            Continue, that I have not seen

                                                                            My heart change into wind and my eyes into a river.