ELDER MUSIC: Classical Again – Part 2 of 3

You never know who you're going to meet on the internet and I came to know Peter Tibbles (bio here) via email over the past couple of years. His extensive knowledge of most genres of music and his excellent taste became apparent only gradually (Peter's not one to toot his horn) but once I understood, I knew he needed his own column at Time Goes By - or, better, that TGB needed his column - which appears here each Sunday. You can find previous Elder Music columns here.

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Josquin des Prez, often referred to simply as Josquin, was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. He is also known as Josquin Desprez, a French rendering of the Dutch "Josken van de Velde," diminutive of "Joseph van de Velde" and Latinized as Josquinus Pratensis, alternatively Jodocus Pratensis.

However, des Prez apparently was just a nickname. His real names was Lebloitte. With all those names he wouldn’t know who he was.

He was so admired in his time that many anonymous compositions were attributed to him by copyists. Hope he collected the royalties for those.

He composed music in various styles, including masses, motets and frottole. Yep, I wondered about that last one too. It seems that a frottola is a composition for three or four voices. There’s more to it than that but, as I won’t be including one of those, that will do.

This is called Pange Lingua, which old Jos thought of as a “fantasy on a plainsong.” It could be a frottola.

des Pres - Pange Lingua

Franz Schubert was 31 when he died, probably due to complications from syphilis. He wrote more than 800 scores in his lifetime and more are being discovered now and then, so check your attics, folks. He was Austrian as were quite a number of composers I’ve featured. Must be something in the water (or the cakes).

He is most renowned for his lieder, his songs, but I don’t like them. I really like his chamber music and his orchestral pieces, particularly the “Great” symphony D944 (often referred to as the 9th but there’s a bit of contention about the numbering of his symphonies).

I’d like to play it all but it’d take about an hour to load this blog so I won’t. Instead, the third movement from his Piano Trio No. 2, Op100, D929.

Schubert - Piano Trio No. 2 Op100 D929

I have included a bit about Jean-Baptiste Lully because of the bizarre way he died. He croaked after stabbing himself with his baton while conducting.

Now, you may wonder what sort of contortions he’d have to perform to achieve that, however, it wasn’t a baton as we know it today. It was more like a staff that he banged on the floor to keep time.  He hit himself in the foot causing an abscess and it turned gangrenous and he refused to have it amputated and - well, there you go.

He was known as a bit of a libertine and caused many a scandal during his life. He was a good friend of King Louis XIV (lucky it wasn’t XVI) and sucked up to him by writing music dedicated to him. This is the first movement of O Lachrymae, one of his “Grands Motets.”

Lully - O Lachrymae

Georg Philipp Telemann, one of my favorites, studied law at the University of Leipzig. He taught himself music in his spare time. He composed an opera at age 12 but his family didn’t approve of that sort of thing and, fearing he might fall in with other musicians, confiscated all his instruments and sent him away to school.

The head of the school recognized his talent and encouraged him. So that didn’t work out too well for mum and dad, but it did for us.

He was a lifelong friend of Handel and was considered Bach’s superior during their lifetime. I wouldn’t go that far but he’s pretty good. There are some claims that he was the most prolific composer in history. I couldn’t say; Haydn and Vivaldi could churn them out as well.

This is the second movement of his Quartet No. 6 (one of the “Paris Quartets”).

Telemann - Quartet No. 6

Comments

[Darlene]

Although I have two problems with music, I always download one of your selections to see if I can hear it. Problem #1 - it takes an eternity to download videos on my PC and no techie seems to be able to solve the problem. Problem #2 - As you know, music was lost to me after getting a cochlear implant and I am still working at training my brain to recognize it.

That said, your post is still great because of the research you do on the composers. You make the information so interesting and humorous. I have learned so much and I thank you for that..

[Mage B]

I really appreciate the little bios that you post along with the music. Stabbed in the foot....does this whole scenario say something about the cleanliness of the era. Thanks.

[Tarzana]

When the beautiful Eucharistic hymn, Pange Ligua, began, I was transported back in time a long, long way to my days in Catholic School when I sang this chant in the choir. Peter, your history got me digging for more. It seemed too simple a piece to fit your description of Josqin des Prez. Wikipedia helped with this account: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pange_Lingua_Gloriosi_Corporis_Mysterium If you browse the translation then come to the history, it tells of Josquin's Missa Pange Lingua, a mass on the theme of St. Thomas Aquinas' original simple hymn. Listen to the Kyrie here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj8GPdKttGw I imagine the whole mass is just as beautiful. Thanks for sending me on this journey into a long ago memory.