gyri gyri gaga - Naxos Music Library

In its diversity and richness the Forster collection
represents a kind of legacy of the Tenorlied, so that
shortly after the last reprint of the second book in
1565 a new type of song became fashionable.
Under the influence of the French chanson and
the Italian madrigal a new structure for the song
opened up, and it no longer remained a continuous
melody line tied to one voice. Orlando di Lasso
took part in this development. He came from
Hainaut in modern Belgium, was educated in Italy
and ended up in the Munich court of Albrecht V.
In the tradition established by Senfl he also wrote
German songs, which often went back to texts
from the old song collections, without borrowing
any melodies. Particularly full of humour is the
song of a wife, who laments: Ich hab ein Mann
der gar nichts kann (I have a man who nothing
at all can). The four verses of this song are no
longer set in the same way, but through-composed
by Lassus. Another „Netherlander“, who had
a great influence on songs, was Ivo de Vento
(c. 1545-1575), who came from Antwerp. From
him the present recording includes the setting of
a folksong Die Brinnlein die da fliessen (The little
fountain which flows there) and the comical tale
of a country girl, who steps on a „thorn“ while
bathing. He also does without a central song
melody and the strophic lay-out prevalent in the
first half of the sixteenth century. At the same time,
characteristic of the new type of song are settings,
whose textual and musical structure have been
modelled on the villanella. Many of these songs
„in the Italian style“ come from Leonhard Lechner
(c. 1553-1606), the best known today being the
moving love-song Gott b‘hüte dich (God watches
over thee).
The youngest contribution to this CD, the May
song Herzlich tut mich erfreuen (A warm heart
delights me), is by Michael Praetorius (1572-
1621). Praetorius is known above all as the creator
of the Syntagma musicum, a theoretical music
treatise, which established the basis of music in
three books and contains invaluable advice on
instruments and performance practice from this
time. The question about how the song repertoire
should sound, however, is not clearly answered.
Presumably alongside the pure vocal performance
there is always the possibility as well of singing
with instrumental support or of pure instrumental
performance with voices. For this the lute was
a popular instrument, as indicated by the many
intabulations (transcribed in tablature) of songs.
As a melody or an accompanying instrument it
can take on both a single voice of the song as well
as the whole setting. In the present recording, for
instance, the song Ich armes Maidlein klag mich
sehr (I poor maiden grieve greatly) can be heard
first of all in a vocal performance in a setting by
Caspar Othmayr, to which the lute contributes
a setting of the same song by Ludwig Senfl. In
order to round off the impression of a global
sound picture in early modern times, the CD also
contains a selection of pure lute music from the
manuscript Mus.ms. 1512 in the Bayerischen
Staatsbibliothek in Munich. This tablature
probably originated in Munich court circles, and
all the movements are signed with „HD“, the
initials of an as yet unidentified intabulator. This
gives the intabulation an important rôle, which
does not as a rule assume the vocal part note by
note, but, depending on the ability of the lutenist,
allows it with variation and ornamentation to
adapt to the lute idiom and thus to develop a
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