Untitled - Collegium Vocale, Bydgoszcz

ver since I became interested in Renaissance culture, I have beenwondering: What kind of music would have accompanied courtlypastimes?Of course, for official receptions there was a lot of instrumentaldance music: all these pavanes, galliardes, allemandes, basse danses, to therhythm of which the noble ladies and courtiers capered and swayed, stampedtheir feet, exchanged courteous, if a bit forced, bows, but ... under that maskof pompousness and artificiality of court etiquette, the ordinary, real peoplehad to be hidden; people with veins full of spirit in their red, not blue, blood. Didthey really—when feasting, drinking, sitting at the tables which groaned underthe weight of fat roast lamb, quail, capons, exotic fruit, and carafes of exquisiteburgundy, flirting with each other—listen only to “high music” — the sublime,polyphonic Franco-Flemish chansons, extolling the ideal love?Johan Huizinga in The Waning of the Middle Ages wrote:“Burgundo-French culture of the expiring Middle Ages tends to oust beauty by magnificence… The taste for unbridled luxury culminated in the court fetes. Every onehas read the descriptions of the Burgundian festivities at Lille in 1454, at which theguests took the oath to undertake the crusade, and at Bruges in 1468, on the occasionof the marriage of Charles the Bold with Margaret of York. It is hard to imaginea more absolute contrast than that of these barbarous manifestations of arrogantpomp and the pictures of the brothers Van Eyck, Dirk Bouts and Rogier van derWeyden, with their sweet and tranquil serenity. Nothing could be more insipid andugly than the entremets, consisting of gigantic pies enclosing complete orchestras,full-rigged vessels, castles, monkeys and whales, giants and dwarfs, and all the boringabsurdities of allegory. We find it difficult to regard these entertainments assomething more than exhibitions of almost incredible bad taste.”9(trans. Fritz Hopman, London, 1924)