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Polyphonic vespers for St. Michael’s and St. Martin’s days

In 1571, a widow called Anna Hannsen Schuman donated a highly valuable manuscript to the collegiate chapter of Pozsony (at the time the most important city in Hungary not under Turkish domination, now Bratislava in Slovakia), named after Saint Martin. The codex contains 239 polyphonic works, almost all for the enrichment of evening office of vespers. The composers of some works can be identified (Mouton, Isaac, Finck, Morales, Walther, etc.) but most of the pieces are anonymous. The manuscript was actually in daily use: the pieces, in the German-Flemish style of the time, and mostly short, could be interpolated between the movements of the Gregorian vespers on feastdays, clearly selecting them to match the abilities of the singing group available at the time. In most of the works, one or more parts quotes the Gregorian melody; the strict imitation techniques of the late sixteenth century do not feature, but fragments of imitation, both brief and lengthier, occur regularly in the pieces. Quite excellent compositions are found side by side with simpler arrangements, and sometimes there compositional (or perhaps just copyists’) errors. The annotations made later into the music show that the manuscript was actually used, and this is witness to the developed Renaissance musical life of the church.

This disc highlights two vespers from the collection: that for the feast of Saint Martin, patron saint of the church, and that for Saint Michael, which falls close to it in the calendar. As in the practice of the time, the prescribed Gregorian chant and their polyphonic arrangements were mixed as necessary in the liturgy, so this disc mixes the two, transcribing the Gregorian movements from the extant codexes from the same church.

The structure of vespers was as follows: The first five psalms were sung, before and after which a framing verse, an antiphona was sounded. While the psalm was simply recited, the antiphona was a brief, but melodic piece. A common custom was to intone only the first motive of the antiphona before the psalm, and afterwards to sing the entire piece. The space on this disc is naturally insufficient for us to recite entire psalms of ten or fifteen verses. In the St Michael vespers, we sing a few verses of one of the five psalms, while the antiphon is first shown in a polyphonic setting after the psalm with its Gregorian melody (track 1). The St Martin’s vespers: the five psalms (each of which one pair of verses is recited) are sung with five antiphons; before the psalm each antiphon is intoned, and afterwards it is sung in its entirety (12).

After the five psalms follows the recitation of a short piece of holy scripture (capitulum – 2, 13) which is answered by an ornamented melismatic movement, the responsorium (3, 14). The responsorium comprises a bipartite main section, followed by a verse sung by a small group; this in turn is answered by the second part of the main section (the repentenda) sung by the choir. The two responsories sung here are not part of the classic body of Gregorian chant, but come from the ‘Frankish era’ repertory (of the 9th and 10th centuries), designed to supplement it. This later material is characterised by broad melodies spanning a large range, an emotional style, and independent melismas located in the repetenda.

Then follows the only strophic item of the office, the hymn. If polyphonic music was used during vespers, the hymn was performed in the ‘alternatim’ custom: the odd verses were sung to the Gregorian melody, and the even ones in a polyphonic setting. The two pairs of verses on this disc (4, 15) should conceived with the two settings being repeated two or three times, each time with a different text. The hymn is linked to the following, longer movement by a short, recited pair of verses taken from the psalm, the versicle (5, 16), ornamented with a melisma on the last syllable.

The climax of the vespers is the ‘Magnificat’, the canticle of Mary, again with an antiphon. If this was polyphonic, the twelve verses again followed the alternatim custom, alternating Gregorian chant with the polyphonic setting. Many ‘Magnificats’ can be found in the Pozsony Codex, and also the polyphonic form of the antiphon for both vespers. In the St Michael vespers we sing four verses from the Magnificat to its Gregorian melody; in the St Martin vespers we sing a polyphonic setting of the entire Magnificat. The related antiphons are sung before the canticle, first in the Gregorian form, then in the polyphonic setting (6, 17).

The vespers concludes with the recitation of the prayer for the feast-day (7, 18). At the end of the disc we have added another antiphon, which links well into the programme both in topic and in respect of the calendar. Between the feasts of Michael and Martin (29th September and 10th November) falls All Saints’ Day, and the antiphon sung on that day includes Martin as one of those who “clothed with white robes […] follow the Lamb…” (19).

Polyphonic settings were naturally an exceptional ornamentation in the Church of St Martin in Pozsony. In the regular course of the liturgy, predominantly Gregorian chant was heard in the church. In order to give a sense of the proportions on this disc, between the two vespers we have placed four movements from the mass of St Martin, with the melodies as they were sung in Pozsony. The Graduale and Offertorium (8, 11) are part of the ancient repertory of the Gregorian chant, whereas the Alleluia and Sequentia (9, 10) are typical products of the Middle Ages.

László Dobszay
Translated by Richard Robinson   

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Sources:
Polyphonic settings: from the Pozsony Vesperal (Anna Hannsen Schuman Codex, Bratislava/Pozsony, Knauz 11).
Vespers, Gregorian settings: Pozsony Antiphonary (Bratislava/Pozsony, Knauz 3)
Gregorian mass movements: Missale Notatum Strigoniense, in use in Bratislava (Bratislava/Pozsony, chapter library, Knauz 18) For the sequence, cf. Rajeczky; B.: Melodiarium Hungariae Medii Aevi, Budapest, 1982, No. I, 31) I.