Information booklet about the recording of Cantores Sancti Gregorii. This programme is built around the reconstruction of the early 16th century liturgical practice in the Heilige Stede Kapel in Amsterdam, namely, the votive Mass of the Blessed Sacrament celebrated weekly together with the procession with the Miraculous Host. The central piece of this concert is the famous Occo Codex, luxurious choirbook made for Heilige Stede Kapel by the workshop of Petrus Alamire, from which we chose Josquin's Missa Pange lingua and several motets connected to the devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. Plainchant and other liturgical elements also come from graduals and missals of local provenance.
Our programme is based on the votive Mass of the Blessed
Sacrament (i.e. Missa de Venerabili Sacramento) according
to the Missale for the use of Utrecht printed in 1511 in
Anwerpen. One of the features differentiating it from the standard
Roman use is that the sequence Lauda Sion of Corpus Christi,
which would normally be used only for the feast itself and not in a
votive Mass, does appear here in a shortened form of last four
stanzas. Plainchant tones for the ordinary parts of the Mass (such
as Preface, Pater noster, Ite missa est etc.) are also taken from this
source. Polyphonic responses (Amen, Et cum spiritu tuo etc.)
which seem to have been a common feature of the liturgical and
musical practice in the 16th century come from Codex Smijers,
choirbook of plainchant and polyphony used by the Brotherhood
of Our Illustrious Blessed Lady in ʹs‐Hertogenbosch.
P
lainchant propers (Graduale, Alleluia, Offertorium and
Communio) are taken from an early 16th century Graduale,
currently kept in Museum Catharijneconvent which most probably
originated in the Agnesklooster, Fransiscan friary in Hoorn. It
preserves a notational and melodic variant of Gregorian chant
characteristic for the northern Low Countries.
T
he setting of Cibavit eos which opens the programme is the
only one of the motets in the Occo Codex connected with
eucharistic devotions with a fixed liturgical function, sc. the introit
of Corpus Christi. Consistent with the form of plainchant introit, it
is written in two sections, the antiphon and the psalm verse. While
in the verse, the cantus firmus is mostly to be found in tenor, the
more contrapuntal setting of the antiphon paraphrases the chant in
different, usually at least two, voices. The melodic form of the
plainchant employed points to an origin in Germany or the Low
Countries (East Frankish chant dialect).
J
osquin’s Missa Pange lingua is one of his last Mass settings and
one of four Masses he wrote that are based on plainchant
models, which in this case is a hymn for Corpus Christi by Thomas
Aquinas. The Mass is transmitted in some 26 sources known to us
Change language