On 10 March 1526 Charles
V, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Aragon,
Castile, Naples and Sicily and ruler
of the Burgundian territories in the
Low Countries and Franch-Comté,
married Isabella of Portugal, daughter
of Manuel I, King of Portugal. The marriage
took place in Seville; the groom was
aged 26, the bride 22. Though the marriage
was doubtless motivated primarily by
dynastic-political ambitions, there
appears to have been some very genuine
affection between the two. Certainly,
when Isabella died in Toledo on 1 May
1539, from a fever after giving birth,
Charles’ mourning gives the impression
of something much more than mere decorum.
For a while Charles retreated to a monastery.
Titian was later commissioned to paint
posthumous portraits of Isabella, a
number of which were among the small
number of paintings Charles retained
when he made his final withdrawal to
the monastery of Yuste in 1556; one
of the best of these portraits is now
in the Prado in Madrid. Some of Titian’s
finest late paintings were, interestingly,
painted for Philip II of Spain (b.1527),
son of Charles and Isabella. It was
to Thomas Crecquillon that the bereaved
Charles turned for music which might
articulate his grief at the loss of
Isabella.
This fascinating new
disc from Hyperion contains two chansons
setting the same text, once for five
voices and once for four. The text sounds
as if it might even have been written
by Charles; certainly it speaks for
him with an appearance of intimacy which
seems to go well beyond the merely conventional:
Mort m’a privé par sa cruelle
envye
D’ung medecin cognoissant ma nature;
Et m’a remis en si grand frenesye
Qu’en peu de temps j’ay bien change
pasture.
Riens me m’y vault ma grand progeniture:
Vertu me couvre armée de patience;
Divin voloir passé humaine science.
("Death has deprived
me by its cruel wish / Of a doctor knowing
my nature, / and has placed me in such
great frenzy / that in a short time
I have quite changed pasture. / My great
ancestry is worth nothing there; / Virtue
covers me, armed with patience; / Divine
will is beyond human knowledge").
The most powerful man
in Europe effectively acknowledges the
limitations both of his "grand
progeniture" and of "humane
science". Crecquillon’s settings
communicate the pain of this text, its
effortful faith, very poignantly. As
detailed in Martin Ham’s excellent notes,
the Mass setting is largely based on
the five-part chanson, but also contains
musical echoes of and links with other
works by Crecquillon in ways which set
up subtle intertextual connections.
This is courtly art of a high order,
sophisticated both verbally and musically,
but expressive of emotions far profounder
than those which were sometimes the
subject of such courtly sophistications.
The Mass, the central work on this CD,
is both beautiful and moving.
Hitherto my acquaintance
with the music of Crecquillon has been
through the presence of works by him
on more miscellaneous collections –
such as his "Andreas Christi
famulus" on the Chapel du Roi’s
Music for Charles V (Signum SIGCD019
review)
and the Tallis Scholars CD of Morales’
Missa Si bona suscepimus (Gimell
033 review
review);
there are CDs devoted solely to the
music of Crequillon – two volumes by
the Choir of the Church of the Advent,
Boston, Massachusetts on Arsis and a
collection of chansons sung by the Egidius
Kvartet on Etcetra – but sadly I haven’t
heard them. This is my first prolonged
exposure to his music, and I am very
favourably impressed. Inevitably, the
design of the CD makes for a certain
sobriety of mood, but it never becomes
merely limiting or repetitive and the
clouds are metaphorically scattered
in the joyous affirmation of the resurrection
in the final track ("Congratulamini
mihi") of the CD.
Based in Oxford, the
Brabant Ensemble was formed in 1998
to explore the scared music of the years
between 1520 and 1560 associated with
the territories (the Duchy of Brabant)
which give the ensemble its name, music
by such as Gombert, des Prés,
Lassus – and Crecquillon. A mixed choir
of 15 voices in the Mass setting and
of 5 in the chansons, they make a lovely,
well-integrated sound, expressive and
warm but never lacking in clarity. The
soprano voices are particularly fine,
but there are no weak links. The recording
captures the acoustic of Merton Chapel
very well, and the whole is an unqualified
delight.
Glyn Pursglove
for
details
The Brabant Ensemble/Stephen Rice 
