gyri gyri gaga - Naxos Music Library

German Songs from the Renaissance
Was ist die Welt? (What is the World?) is the start
of a composition by Ludwig Senfl (c. 1490-1543).
A small glimpse into the world of music in the
sixteenth century, but it also conveys a colourful
picture of contemporary entertainment themes
and everyday cares in the many part-songs of the
time. In fact the substance of the song texts is only
difficult to us – sometimes stereotyped phrases
predominate, and only rarely is the name of the
author known – but they often seem to mention
human needs and cares, which are not alien even
to readers and listeners of today. The response to
the above-mentioned song of Senfl, with its image
of late medieval society, is that a pessimistic
philosophy of life in the twenty-first century is not
so very different; money alone dominates a world
characterised by greed and egoism; diligence and
piety are forgotten. Although this stock theme of
lamentation appears repeatedly, the song texts
of the Renaissance also reflect a completely
different world. The happy and boisterous world
of a banquet led Orlando di Lasso (1532?-1594)
in Audite Nova, which jokingly attracts attention
and significance with a formal Latin introduction,
to play afterwards with double entendre words
and syllables in a madrigalesque manner. So that
there sounds here the gyri gyri gaga, which gives
us the title of the present recording. On the other
hand, a further dimension of this world opens up
with the huge group of love-songs, which reveals
a rich emotional life. Mostly it is an impending
farewell or the parting of lovers, which, as in
Caspar Othmayr‘s, (1515-1553), Der Mon[d]
der steht am höchsten (The moon which is at its
highest), are clothed in poetic words and affecting
melodies.
In the musical world of the Renaissance the song
in German stands alongside the genres of the
Mass, the motet and, for example, the chansons
and madrigals imported from France and Italy.
This type of genre for several voices developed
towards the end of the fifteenth century. A known
or newly created melody formed the kernel of the
song; it was often in the tenor. To that two or more
voices were added, which each accompanied the
melody harmonically or polyphonically according
to the type of song. The genre can be divided into
two basic types according to the lay-out of the text
and the musical structure:
Love-songs with stereotyped phrases and complex
verse forms were mostly wrapped up in dense
polyphony. The organist Paul Hofhaimer (1459-
1537) wrote Meins Traurens ist (My sorrow is)
which is a particularly moving lover‘s lament of
this kind. The remarkable opening melody, with
downward and upward leaps of a fifth, matches
that of the psalm (from about 1524) Aus tiefer Not
schrei ich zu dir (Out of the deep have I called
unto thee), which is also in the Phrygian mode.
The end of the verse „and so abandoned thee“ (in
the meaning of „to fade“) is depicted musically
both in the final cadence which follows and in the
depth of the fading run in the bass voice. Another
remarkable piece is Innsbruck ich muss dich
lassen (Innsbruck I must leave thee) by Heinrich
Isaac (c. 1450-1517). He was Court Composer for
the Chapel of Emperor Maximilian I, and his love
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