Galuppi and the funeral of Anne of Brittany

[doversoul1]

Saturday
Catherine Bott explores the life and music of the once celebrated but now forgotten 18th Century Venetian composer Baldassare Galuppi, with the help of writer, critic and self-confessed Galuppi enthusiast Jonathan Keates

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01m5jmz

Galuppi is probably one of those lines that link the bright dots in the history of classical music but the music was interesting enough to listen to. The best thing about the programme was the way in which Catherine Bott managed to keep rather over-enthusiastic Jonathan Keates on the track and, with no more than a few words, drew interesting and appropriate information from him.

Sunday
Catherine Bott explores the musical elements of the lavish 40-day 16th Century funeral of Anne of Brittany, twice Queen of France and the richest European woman of her time. It became the model for all French royal funerals for two hundred years, and included the combined efforts of the King and Queen's royal chapels, including composers such as Jean Mouton, Claudin de Sermisy, Pierre Moulu and Antoine Divitis

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01m5kls

The composers are all unfamiliar to me but wonderful music, affectionately presented by, again, Catherine Bott.

[Black Swan]

I really enjoyed the Sunday program featuring music from the funeral of Anne of Brittany. I was unfamiliar with many of the composers and works but enjoyed it immensely.

John

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

have always treasured this:

[jean]

The composers are all unfamiliar to me but wonderful music, affectionately presented by, again, Catherine Bott.

We do hear Mouton and de Sermisy sometimes, but I agree, French Renaissance music seems ripe for rediscovery.

Wonderful programme.

(I did eventually post my thoughts on the Striggio on the York Early Music festival thread - sorry I left it so long...)

[jean]

have always treasured this...

And I have always treasured this:

Oh Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!
I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;
But although I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mind!

Here you come with your old music, and here's all the good it brings.
What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings,
Where Saint Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?

Ay, because the sea's the street there; and 'tis arched by . . . what you call
. . . Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival:
I was never out of England — it's as if I saw it all.

Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?
Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day,
When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?

Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red, —
On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed,
O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might base his head?

Well, and it was graceful of them — they'd break talk off and afford
— She, to bite her mask's black velvet — he, to finger on his sword,
While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord?

What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh,
Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions — "Must we die?"
Those commiserating sevenths — "Life might last! we can but try!

"Were you happy?" — "Yes." — "And are you still as happy?" — "Yes. And you?"
— "Then, more kisses!" — "Did I stop them, when a million seemed so few?"
Hark, the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to!

So, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say!
"Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!
"I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!"

Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one by one,
Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone,
Death stepped tacitly and took them where they never see the sun.

But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve,
While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close reserve,
In you come with your cold music till I creep thro' every nerve.

Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned:
"Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned.
"The soul, doubtless, is immortal — where a soul can be discerned.

"Yours for instance: you know physics, something of geology,
"Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;
"Butterflies may dread extinction, — you'll not die, it cannot be!

"As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop,
"Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop:
"What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?

"Dust and ashes!" So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.
Dear dead women, with such hair, too — what's become of all the gold
Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.

.

[Catherine Bott]

Jonathan and I enjoyed a brief digressive commemoration of Browning's bicentenary during the recording of our Galuppi programme, with ensemble declamation of a few telling lines (read by me, recalled from memory by him) ending "While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord". A tremendous appreciator of early music, Browning - sadly he didn't make it into the final edit of the programme, but that's why my back-announcement of the keyboard piece mentioned the word "stately"....

[jean]

...A tremendous appreciator of early music, Browning - sadly he didn't make it into the final edit of the programme...

I'm relieved you said that - I'd hate to think he had been there and I hadn't noticed!

The whole poem is linked to above. I think I'll go back to my post and extract some more of it.

There, I've put it all in now.

(Would anyone have been likely to be performing in public on a clavichord, though?)

.

[Catherine Bott]

How public is public? Stanza VI could be just 3 people in a room....

[ardcarp]

With all these fascinating posts, I'm gagging to LA the programmes. Were there world enough and time......and I'm a frequenter of a little restaurant in Morlaix next to La Maison de la Duchesse Anne, a timbered building where she once held court.

[ardcarp]

Just heard the Reine Anne programme. Fascjnating historically and musically. It was not long ago that the central French government forbade the teaching of the Breton language in schools. I witnessed a manifestation in the 1990s at Quimper, with tear-gas, the CRS and all, where local people were peacefully marching for this cause.

On the subject of Sermisy, he had a good line in soulful music. I remember a secular piece of his, Mauldicte soit la mondaine richesse (Despised be all worldly wealth and riches; they have deprived me of my mistress fair.) It is truly beautiful. I wish I could track down my copy; it exists only in my head. Anyone know it?