Chapter 6: Strategies of Transference

This chapter offers a reflection on the third line work in the present research, focusing on the issue of knowledge transfer, and it is considered here as complementary approach to those of scientific and artistic research. There are certain challenges involved in presenting anonymous repertoire to concert programmers. A discographic production centred on Missa Inviolata might be even more elusive, given the resources necessary to produce a recording. The goal of this chapter is to find effective strategies for presenting a project centered on the Missa Inviolata to the relevant actors, so that it can reach audiences.

6.1 Presence of Missa Inviolata in concerts and recordings

Considering that the source that transmits Missa Inviolata (E-Bbc 1967⁷⁴) has been quite well known for more than 40 years, and that a considerable part of the repertoire it contains has often been presented in concert and even recorded, the limited presence of Missa Inviolata is quite striking, especially given that it is the most substantial piece in the source.

There are two recordings from the 1990s that draw on repertoire from E-Bbc 1967. The first one is directed Jordi Savall, focusing in particular on the figure of Bartolomé de Cárceres, and more in general on two typical 16^th-century Spanish genres: villancicos and ensaladas⁷⁵. The second one is directed by Carles Magraner and combines villancicos with some liturgical and paraliturgical repertoire⁷⁶. Although the relative impact of their respective musical projects is very different, they have some parallels, sharing similar repertories, strategies, and even performing styles, and have also fallen into similar limitations. In the case of their work on the music of E-Bbc 1967, it is very clear that both gave priority to pieces that can be ascribed to specific Spanish composers, as well as to repertoire belonging to paraliturgical and devotional genres that can be easily connected to popular, local traditions⁷⁷. On the one hand this is a typical pitfall of artists that strongly depend on projects financed by official institutions in charge of cultural matters, which often have a nationalistic agenda (even more when such institutions are of a smaller, regional scope). On the other hand, this type of repertoire lends itself better to the aesthetic tendencies and performing styles that both ensembles have also in common, and that have often been described with the, somewhat imprecise, term “Arabic style”⁷⁸. At any rate, when considering these tendencies, an “international”, anonymous polyphonic setting of the Ordinary of the Mass is likely to fall out of the focus and be left out of the repertoires selected for concert programs and recordings.

During the process of the present research it was possible to find notices about three performances of Missa Inviolata. The first of these performance was ca. 2000, by the ensemble A Capella Portuguesa under the direction of Owen Rees: it is referenced in the acknowledgements that appear in the introduction to Bernadette Nelson’s edition⁷⁹, which ascribed the mass tentatively to the composer Philippe Verdelot. The Flemish Ensemble of Houston, a choral group dedicated to Medieval and Renaissance music, performed Missa Inviolata in 2017⁸⁰, while Dionysos Now, a recently created ensemble which focuses on the music of Adrian Willaert has also released a live recording of Missa Inviolata in August 2022⁸¹: in both performances the mass is ascribed to Maistre Jhan without further comment, thus it seems plausible to assume that they have been working from the 2014 edition⁸². The fact that these performances have only surfaced after the ascription of the mass (to Verdelot in the first case, to Maistre Jhan in the other two) confirms the strength of the author-oriented mentality.

6.2 Missa Inviolata in connection with...

Successfully presenting concert programs centered on anonymous repertoire, such as Missa Inviolata, often depends on the possibility of linking the repertoire to a place, institution, or even an idea, in order to render it attractive to concert programmers, who are ultimately responsible for the content of festivals and concert seasons. In that sense, a part of the present research has consisted of exploring links that can facilitate the final objective of reaching the audience. Three proposals based on this idea are documented in this sections.

The first proposal was already presented and realized. It consisted in emphasizing the aspect of the piece as a tribute or homage, given that it is based on a motet by Josquin through the compositional technique of parody. This link connects the piece with a very well-known composer, whose 500^th anniversary was, moreover, celebrated in 2021, greatly facilitating the possibility of including the proposal in an actual festival program. The concert took place on Saturday 20^th November 2021, in the XXV Festival de Música Antigua de Úbeda y Baeza (Spain), and was performed by La Academia de los Nocturnos and Ensemble La Danserye. The program notes prepared for that concert are available in Annex 8.

The second proposal has been prepared during the process of this research and presented while the final version of this text was being redacted. It consists in linking Missa Inviolata to Ferrara: assuming its composer was Maistre Jhan, who worked for the Ferrarese court approximately between 1512 and 1538, the piece would have been almost surely composed and performed there. Just a few years earlier (1503-1504), Josquin had been also working for the duke of Ferrara, which provides a further connection for a piece based on a motet by the older master⁸³. Moreover, other pieces by Jacquet de Mantua and Maistre Jhan himself have been interpreted as tools for reaffirmation of Catholic beliefs against Protestantism⁸⁴: the connotations of Missa Inviolata, related to the mystery of the Immaculate Conception, could have played a similar role. This project is in negotiation to be presented in 2024 as part of several Early Music festivals in Italy.

A third proposal, still in preparation and not yet presented, would consist in the connection of Missa Inviolata with Valencia or Gandia, following the hypotheses about the origin of the source that transmits the piece⁸⁵. This proposal offers some variants⁸⁶: a program could be built around the idea of reconstructing certain events that happened in the 1540s in the viceregal court of Valencia: either the consecration of the Monastery of San Miguel de los Reyes, or the memorial services for Germana de Foix. This would amount to connecting the piece with a possible context for the source, considered as a compilation prepared for the viceroy Fernando de Aragón, duke of Calabria. In this case the piece would have arrived to Spain through the Italian connections of Fernando⁸⁷. Another option would be to reconstruct a Marian feast at the Collegiate Church of Santa Maria of Gandia: in this case the piece would be also connected with a probable historical context for the source, which would have been compiled slightly later (ca. 1550), and in which the mass could have arrived from Italy to Spain through the connections of the Borja family. In either case, some additional research would be needed to provide for the necessary liturgical items, most importantly the proprium missae relevant for each specific celebration. A recording of the program in this particular form is already planned for 2025.

Notes to chapter 6

74. See chapter 2 for a full discussion of this source and its context.

75. Bartomeu Càrceres – Anonymes XVIe siècle. Villancicos & Ensaladas. Montserrat Figueras, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Jordi Savall. Astrée Audivis – E 8723 (1990), re-released as Astrée Naïve - ES 9941 (2001).

76. Cançoner de Gandia. Capella de Ministrers, Carles Magraner. EGT 695 (1997), re-released as El Cant de la Sibil·la, Audivis Ibérica - AVI 8021 (2001).

77. Interestingly, Magraner’s recording of 1997 was reissued in 2001 as El Cant de la Sibil·la, which is the name of one of these local paraliturgical traditions.

78. This is a recurrent topic in discussions on performance practice of music of the Middle Ages. One of the key contributions, to which probably both Savall and Magraner are indebted, was that of the Studio der Frühen Musik in the 1960s and 1970s: see Haines 2001, Jones 2002, Shull 2006, Yri 2010 and Smith 2018. In the specific case of its application to Spanish music from the Renaissance, these tendencies are an extension of the myth of Al-Andalus: see Fernández-Morera 2016.

79. Verdelot? 2001.

80. Live recording available through the online service SoundCloud: <https://soundcloud.com/houstonflemish>.

81. Commercially available through several online services: <https://www.eprclassic.eu/items/Missa-Inviolata>.

82. Maistre Jhan 2014.

83. On the time that Josquin spent in Ferrara, see Merkley 2001.

84. On this topic, see Nugent 1990.

85. For a full discussion of the source and hypotheses on its origin, see chapter 2.

86. These variants are connected with the possible motivations for the mass outlined in section 2.6.

87. For example, his mother and younger siblings lived in Ferrara for ca. 25 years. See also Nugent 1988.