In 2014 a late 15th-century manuscript surfaced during the sale of an estate by a small Brussels auction house. Not large, only 12 by 8.5 cm, but of immeasurable value for our musical heritage. The small booklet is now better known as the Leuven chansonnier. This manuscript contains no fewer than fifty polyphonic songs from the Franco-Flemish polyphony tradition. This musical treasure was purchased in 2016 by the Koning Boudewijnstichting and was entrusted on loan to the Alamire Foundation. The Sollazzo Ensemble brings this music back to life. On the occasion of their second volume, we explore the folia of this unique codex.
The discovery of the manuscript was world news. Finds of this kind have become extremely rare. The last comparable discovery dated from almost a century ago. The small songbook exceeded all expectations for several reasons. First, the existence of this chansonnier was a surprise. Its existence was not known because there are no references to it in the transmitted literature. Furthermore, this manuscript still had its original brocade-bound cover. There are few books of this age that did not receive a new binding throughout the centuries. Moreover, this codex has completely withstood the ravages of time. All parchment folia are still in perfect condition. The music and its text have thus been preserved in their entirety, without gaps. For some songs this was for the first time. Finally, this book contains music and song texts that had not been discovered before, making it all the more interesting for researchers.
The research was, after the purchase of this songbook by the Koning Boudewijnstichting with the Fonds Léon Courtin-Marcelle Bouché, entrusted to the international research center Alamire Foundation. Since 1991 this center has conducted research into the music and musical life in the Netherlands from the Middle Ages to 1800. The research focused on two major aspects: the origin of the manuscript and the attribution of the songs to composers since these were not mentioned.
The coat of arms refers to the dukes of Savoy-Nemours, suggesting that the codex comes from the Loire valley, but this has not been conclusively established. Based on the silk binding, this chansonnier was presumably owned by a wealthy, noble owner from the last quarter of the fifteenth century. The name of the original owner is still unknown.
Although no composer names were written with the songs, the Alamire Foundation was able to attribute 38 songs to Franco-Flemish masters after comparing them with other chansonniers, including Gilles Binchois (ca. 1400-1460, from Henegouwen), Johannes Ockeghem (ca. 1410-1497, from Henegouwen) and Antoine Busnois (ca. 1430-1492, from County of Flanders). The origin of the remaining 12 songs has not yet been traced.
In 2017 the Alamire Foundation published a facsimile (or replica of a manuscript), made a digital version available and, together with the Goldberg Stiftung, published a modern edition. But music only truly comes back to life when it is played. Two years after the facsimile, in 2019, a first CD from Sollazzo Ensemble followed with songs from the Leuven chansonnier (1470-75) and now in 2022 also a second CD with new works.
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The title of this second volume refers to the second track on the CD: Ou beau chastel (composer unknown). According to musicologist Adam Knight Gilbert, the opening of this song has a remarkable similarity to Fors seullement l'actente (track 4 on CD 1) by Ockeghem, which also appears in the Leuven chansonnier. Gilbert points out that this entire manuscript contains a remarkably large number of paraphrased songs. This is not an unusual technique — for example, it is the building block of the parody mass, which became very popular a century later — but remarkably many songs in this songbook paraphrase each other. Gilbert discovered a total of five pairs. During the two CD releases, the Sollazzo Ensemble chose not to include any of these pairs together on one CD. Whether this is for practical reasons, artistic reasons, or because they do not follow Gilbert's theory, is unclear.
Musical artificiality was tremendously popular among Franco-Flemish composers. These hidden techniques may not be audible or are difficult to hear, but they are interesting to mention nonetheless. For instance, Ou beau chastel (track 2 on cd 2) contains a short inversion dream in the cantus part that returns as a palindrome in the tenor part. Also in Henri Phlippet (track 10 on cd 1) various palindromes make their entrance. These small, hidden techniques are what make the music extra rich.
The songs in this chansonnier are, with one exception, three-voiced. Sollazzo Ensemble presents these songs as a vocal part while historical instruments take on the other voices. Musicological research comes into its own when it can be put into practice. The Sollazzo Ensemble proves this again with their second volume of the Leuven chansonnier.
4.8/5
WHO: Sollazzo Ensemble
WHAT: Leuven chansonnier Vol.2 — Ou beau chastel
LABEL: Passacaille PAS1109
