nunca fué pena mayor - Ensemble Gilles Binchois

« NUNCA FUÉ PENA MAYOR »
Francisco de Peñalosa : Mass and motets
Object of our Ensemble first recording , this mass « Nunca fué pena mayor »
has been our « companion » for now 30 years. It is here in the center of a new
programme, surrounded by motets of the same Peñalosa, sang or played on
instruments.
Anne-Marie LABLAUDE, soprano
David SAGASTUME, alto
David MUNDERLOH, tenor
Dominique VELLARD, tenor &
direction
Timothy WHITELEY, baritone
& LES SACQUEBOUTIERS
Jean-Pierre CANIHAC, cornet
Philippe CANGUILHEM, chalemie
Daniel LASALLE, sacqueboute
Laurent LECHENADEC, basson
Programme prepared by Marius Bernado
(Lleida University - Spain)
BUDGET : 9 800 ! + travels 2 hotel nights
FRANCISCO DE PEÑALOSA had an illustrious career in three of the most important musical
institutions of the period : the Aragonese royal chapel (1498), Seville Cathedral and the
papal chapel of Leo X (1517-1521). Peñalosa was clearly highly esteemed at court and in
Rome where he served in the papal choir, yet surprisingly little is known about his early
biography and training. The place of his birth – Talavela de la Reina – is documented, but
not the date, but is assumed to have occured around 1470. It would appear that the
young musician was raised in Seville, or at least spent a good part of his time there,
before he entered the service of the Aragonese royal chapel in May 1498.
Peñalosa was clearly among the more prolific of the composers of his time : his extant
work include six Masses, a few seperate Mass movements, six Magnificats, about two
dozen motets, five hymns, three Lamentations and eleven songs. In all these works he
displays his considerable skills as a composer, though he adopts different styles
according to genre : for example, the settings of liturgical texts use the relevant chant
as a cantus firmus which is embedded in counterpoint that is sometimes, but not always,
imitative.
Peñalosa was one of a number of composers to base a work on Juan de Urrede's Nunca
fue pena mayor, one of the most widely disseminated of all Castilian-texted songs from
the period. The song, with text almost certainly by Duke of Alba, Garcia Alvarez de
Toledo and music by his Flemish chapelmaster of the mid-1470s survives in various
versions in almost twenty sources, both literary and musical. Overall, this Mass shows
Peñalosa experimenting with the concept of the cyclic Mass based on polyphonic song,
borrowing its material and presenting it constantly changing and highly inventive ways.
Few of Peñalosa's motets make use of borrowed material or cantus firmus technique,
reflecting the nonliturgical, devotional nature of the texts he generally sets.
Peñalosa's compositional techniques are essentially those of Josquin and the
contemporaneous generation of Franco-Netherlandish composers, but used to create a
more succint and dramatic kind of Motet that draws the listener in through a subtle
musical and textual rhetoric.
In all his hymns, Peñalosa draws on the corresponding chant as cantus firmus. It's in
Peñalosa's chant-based work that the semi-improvised tradition of contrapunto, so
widely practised in the cathedrals and churches of the Iberian Peninsula, can be most
clearly appreciated and prized for the way in which the celebration of the liturgy was
thus enhanced and solemnified.
Tess Knighton
PROGRAMME
O BONE IESU
- motet [Instrumental]
MEMORARE PIISSIMA - motet
KYRIE de la messe « Nunca fué pena mayor »
GLORIA de la messe « Nunca fué pena mayor »
TIENTO XIX de Julius de Modena [Instrumental]
(livre d’orgue de Luys Venegas de Henestrosa – 1557)
CREDO de la messe « Nunca fué pena mayor »
TE LUCIS ANTE TERMINUM – hymne (Antonio de Cabezón)
[Instrumental]
(livre d’orgue de Luys Venegas de Henestrosa – 1557)
TRIBULARER – motet
SANCTUS de la messe « Nunca fué pena mayor »
AVE VERA CARO CHRISTI – motet
AGNUS DEI de la messe « Nunca fué pena mayor »
TRANSEUNTE DOMINO – motet
TRES II (anonyme) [Instrumental]
(livre d’orgue de Luys Venegas de Henestrosa – 1557)
IN PASSIONE POSITUS IESUS – motet
SACRIIS SOLEMNIS – hymne « in festo Corporis Christi »