Vox Lucens

Program Notes

The selections on this recording are at the core of the Vox Lucens repertoire. These are pieces that speak to singer and listener alike: they touch the heart and soul in that quiet way of Renaissance singing. We have taken much joy returning to these pieces over the years.

The music on this recording is sacred, and would have been primarily intended for performance during church services. Both the Catholic and Protestant churches are represented here, so it may come as a surprise that the texts are all in Latin. Although the Protestant tradition of vernacular hymns started around this time (the mid- to late-1500's), decorum largely dictated that the major church compositions should remain in Latin.

A quick tour of our composers shows how widely the common Renaissance idiom of choral singing had spread throughout Europe. From the low countries (Clemens), through France (Goudimel), to Germany (Senfl, Handl), Italy (Palestrina), Spain (Geurrero, Victoria), and elsewhere. Most of these musicians traveled widely: Handl, who was also known as Gallus (the Frenchman), and especially the incomparable Lassus, who made all places home, from his birthplace in Flanders, to Rome, and finally to the German court.

What unites these composers is their common musical language, a language that has come down to us in manuscripts and printed part books. Nowhere is that language more clearly articulated than in the musical form known as the sacred motet. These pieces departed from the mainstay of church music, the Mass, in that their text and form were not dictated by the day-to-day liturgical needs of the Church. With the motet, composers had the freedom to choose the text of the piece and the musical means for expressing it. To write a motet thus became something of a composer's personal statement.

Many of these statements are especially heartfelt. Often they are drawn from the Psalms, as in our first selection, De profundis (Psalm 129), one of the so-called penitential Psalms, and one of Lassus' most compelling compositions. Many motets, including De profundis, can be thought as musical prayers. Among the more intimate of these are settings of the Ave Maria, the prayer for personal intercession to Mary; Guerrero's setting (track 4) is particularly touching.

In contrast, the Senfl Ave Maria (track 6) is conceived on a grand scale. It is unusually long for a motet, and represents a musical homage to Josquin des Prez, who is often taken to have been Senfl's teacher. The entire composition is based around a recurring theme quoted from Josquin's famous setting of this text: the theme is heard at the very beginning of the piece, and then throughout the composition in slow notes carried by the long-suffering tenors.

Motets were also written to celebrate particular seasons of the liturgical year. Justorum anime (track 12) was written for All Saints Day. The events leading up to Christmas are represented here in a series of motets (tracks 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, and 12). These feature, in particular, the music of Clemens non Papa, who wrote at the height of the Renaissance in music, and Jakob Handl, who wrote towards its very end.

Another common source of motet texts was the Song of Songs, represented here by Nigra sum, Ego flos campi, and Quam pulchra es (tracks 9, 11, and 13). The great love poem of the Old Testament seems to have held special meaning to Renaissance composers. Perhaps they were drawn to the juxtaposition of the text as iconic for the love of God and Man, and its imagery rich with the love of man and woman. As a whole, Renaissance motets from the Song are some of the most intimate compositions in an already intimate musical form.

Finally, we include here the Kyrie movement (track 2) from Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcellis (Pope Marcellus Mass). Legends have long circulated about this composition having, among others, been dictated by an angel. Palestrina must have had access to some very musically competent angels, as this movement is a motet-like gem; the rest of the Mass is in fact based on various re-arrangements of the Kyrie theme.

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