Let your ears be attentive

De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine;
Domine, exaudi vocem meam. Fiant aures tuæ intendentes
In vocem deprecationis meæ.
Si iniquitates observaveris, Domine, Domine, quis sustinebit?
Quia apud te propitiatio est; et propter legem tuam sustinui te, Domine.
Sustinuit anima mea in verbo ejus:

Speravit anima mea in Domino.
A custodia matutina usque ad noctem, speret Israël in Domino.
Quia apud Dominum misericordia, et copiosa apud eum redemptio.
Et ipse redimet Israël ex omnibus iniquitatibus ejus.

From the depths, I have cried out to you, O Lord;
Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplication.
If you, Lord, were to mark iniquities, who, O Lord, shall stand?
For with you is forgiveness; and because of your law, I stood by you, Lord.
My soul has stood by his word.
My soul has hoped in the Lord.
From the morning watch, even until night, let Israel hope in the Lord.
For with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. 

And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

The penitential words of Psalm 130 have struck a chord with many composers over the centuries. Over the coming days I will introduce you to some of the finest settings. This post will introduce some of the best Renaissance settings...

...beginning with two absolute beauties from Josquin des Prez. 

Josquin set the psalm twice. The De Profundis a 4 (above) is set on the medieval modal scale beginning on E known as the Phrygian, which can be played on the piano using only the white notes (E F G A B C D E). The unusual feature of this is that, unlike with our modern major and minor keys, there is a semitone at the start of the scale (a 'flattened second'). This gives it a more mysterious quality. No other mode (except for the unused Locrian mode beginning on B) has such an opening interval. The scale is also much closer to our modern E minor than it is to our modern E major, so it sounds like a darker version of E minor. The piece falls into two main sections, breaking between  "Domino" and "A custodia matutina" . Otherwise, as so much of the music of Josquin's phase of the Renaissance does, the piece generally flows seamlessly without breaks at cadences, one phrase flowing into the next. Texturally, the piece moves between having all four voices sounding together or having them pair off (the higher ones tending to stick together, and likewise the lower ones). 

Josquin's De Profundis a 5 is, I think, even more beautiful. Three of the five voices - the Superius (soprano), Primus Contratenor (first alto) and Tenor (tenor!) - are joined in canon. The Superius leads, the Tenor follows at the unison two bars later, and the Primus Contratenor joins in a fourth below. Can you hear this? Yes, but you will have to concentrate! The serenity of this setting makes it very special.

Moving on a century, the De Profundis by the Spanish-born master of Portuguese late Renaissance polyphony Estêvão Lopes Morago begins with the same melodic phrase which opened Josquin's first setting. However, as you will soon hear, his music conveys a much greater sense of anguish than Josquin's because of the composer's remarkable use of dissonance. There is a major-tinted tonal brightening at "exaudi vocem meam", reflecting the hope contained in the words.

Another masterpiece of Renaissance polyphony, written roughly half way between Josquin and Morago and worthy to stand alongside the two pieces by Josquin, is the beautiful De Profundis of Orlande de Lassus, one of his Penitential Psalms. (Go to 38.53 on the link). Unlike the Josquin pieces, Lassus's setting is easier to follow as he breaks up the seamless flow found in the older composer's polyphony and replaces it with music that takes each phrase of the text and treats it almost as a separate entity, with a clear cadence at the end of each sentence. The music regularly seems to pause for reflection. There is also less of the pervasive imitative writing found in the Josquin (though there are canons buried in the texture), with a greater sense of variety as regards style. 

Instruments began playing an increasing roll in late Renaissance choral music, readying themselves for the Baroque. Leading the way in this regard was Andrea Gabrieli (Giovanni's uncle). Gabrieli's 6-part De Profundis (above) was almost certainly meant for a mix of voices and instruments, all the better to ring out across the wide spaces of St. Mark's Cathedral, Venice. Please listen out for the upward leap of an octave in four of the six voices near the very beginning of the piece, painting the word "clamavi".

Gabrieli's Dutch contemporary, our old friend Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, wrote a particularly lovely 5-part setting of De Profundis, without instruments. The textures, however, are richly sonorous. The piece includes imitative and homophonic passages and is as sensitive to the meaning of the text as Lassus's. Its effect is direct.

As Sweelinck was seemingly a Protestant (probably a Calvinist), this might be the time to introduce Martin Luther's paraphrase of Psalm 130, Aus der Tiefe ruf ich, Herr, zu dir. There is an exceptionally fine setting of his words by the great Heinrich Schütz. His Aus der Tiefe, SWV25 comes from that early period of his music when the influence of his teacher, Giovanni Gabrieli, was making itself manifest. (You can follow the text here). Even more clearly than with Lassus, here each phrase of the setting is marked out as an individual event, making its sense ring directly in the ears and the imagination of each listener. As an example of word-painting, listen out for the way the word harre ("wait") is set at "Ich harre des Herren". As ever, Schütz's choral textures regularly change colour and the predominantly chordal music also admits touches of polyphony. It is a fabulous piece.

With Schütz we have entered the world of the Baroque. The Baroque Age saw a great surge in settings of the psalm...about which more in the not too distant future. 

Saying 'Hallo' to Mr. Sweelinck

After mentioning him quite a few times in passing it's time for that influential Dutchman Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621) to get a post of his own. I want to introduce him with one of his most far-reaching works - a work that took a late-Renaissance idea and sent it spinning across a century towards Bach: the Fantasia Chromatica.

The piece may have an improvisatory feel but is constructed along strongly contrapuntal lines.

It's a sign of the changing times, when Europe was crossing from the late Renaissance into the early Baroque, that Sweelinck's piece may be seen as being in the outgoing Dorian mode or in the incoming D minor. The chromatic nature of the piece comes from its pervasive theme, the essence of which is a fragment of a chromatic scale which falls through all the notes contained within the interval of a perfect fourth (falling from D to A) - D, C#, C, B, Bb & A. The theme's peculiar character can be heard as soon the piece begins and it is heard in all four voices. As a result of all these colourful notes meeting and greeting each other the piece contains a large number of pleasurable harmonic progressions. What stops the piece from becoming oppressive is the introduction of short non-chromatic passages (where the theme is briefly absent) and the sheer variety of Sweelinck's contrapuntal treatment of the theme, with the processes of augmentation (where the theme is presented in longer note-values than were previously used) and diminution (where the theme is presented in shorter note-values than were previously used) coming into play in the later stages of the Fantasia, culminating in a tumultuous passage of double-diminution. You will also feel the theme inverted (i.e. turned upside down).

The Fantasia Chromatica is Sweelinck's most famous piece. Maybe even Bach knew it.

Just a few other pieces to further whet your appetite for Sweelinck:

The contrapuntal richness of the Fantasia Chromatica is as nothing compared with the Ricercar in Aeolian mode which not only engages in augmentation and diminution but also has twelve subjects. The first subject, however, acts as a unifying feature of this long work, being woven into the texture (in various shapes and forms) throughout.

The other side of Sweelinck's keyboard style, however, can be heard in his delightful Echo Fantasy in A minor. Here the counterpoint, though hardly absent (as you can hear from the very start of the piece), takes more of a back sit and the improvisatory air feels even freer. The echo effects are charming but not blatantly achieved.

Another form the Dutchman excelled in was variations. One of his best-known sets is the masterly Mein junges Leben hat ein End'. The tune (a secular melody) sings out at the top of the texture, sometimes decorated, sometimes not, while fresh accompanying figuration pours in throughout the course of the six variations.

Subsequent posts will flesh out the achievement of Sweelinck in greater detail and introduce you to his vocal works, which are - I promise you! - just as splendid.