Bellinzona, S. Biagio Church
Guillaume Du Fay’s Missa Resvelliés vous, laude, hymns and motets from the manuscript
Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, MS It. IX. 145
The manuscript It. IX, 145, preserved at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice (I-Vnm, MS It. IX. 145), despite its very small size (100 × 166 mm), is a highly precious witness of fundamental importance for reconstructing the polyphonic forms used within a religious community in the first half of the fifteenth century. We are indebted to Giulio Cattin for his landmark study, carried out many years ago (Il manoscritto veneto marciano Ital. 9. 145, Biblioteca del Quadrivium, serie musicologica, 3, Bologna 1962), which brought this “little parchment codex” back to the attention of the scholarly community, providing a careful description and catalogue and advancing hypotheses regarding dating and context. Based on the current state of research, the presence of numerous Franciscan elements supports the hypothesis—advanced and substantiated by several scholars—that the manuscript as a whole was compiled for a Convent of Friars Minor, probably in Venice, for private use and for religious offices. It consists of two codicological units—clearly distinct in contents, form and presentation—which were at some point assembled into a single anthology.
The first unit, in my view the earlier one (ff. 1–85r), contains the first Ordinarium Missae composed by Guillaume Du Fay. This is the Missa sine nomine, later renamed Missa Resvelliés vous (on account of melodic and compositional features from the composer’s eponymous chanson). Compared with the versions transmitted by other witnesses (I-Ao, Cod 15; I-Bc, Q15; I-Bu, MS 2216), it shows interesting differences: the contratenor voice is missing in all movements except the first and second Kyrie; moreover, the three sections of the Kyrie are integrated with the tropes Salvator noster, Emmanuel nobiscum Deus, Adonay magne Deus which, besides adding a liturgical connotation linked to the celebration of Christmas Eve, clearly demonstrate the composer’s intention to enrich the original melismas with text. This aesthetic is also adopted in the other movements of the Mass, where the repetition of textual sections achieves the same result of masking long melismatic passages as they appear in the other sources. The first part of the codex then includes fragments of Masses, Latin hymns, motets and laude, generally for two voices and only rarely for three. The laude use a vernacular language that has undergone an evident process of Venetianisation. The notation is fine and ornate, in the French black-red style, although some typically Italian traits are present (e.g., semibrevis caudata inferior). At f. 41r the section devoted to musical settings ends and a long section begins, ending at f. 85v, which includes lauda texts (seven of which correspond to the musical settings in the preceding folios), sequences and hymns, with some prayers in Latin. A distinctive feature of this section is the presence of compositions with attributions (Guillaume Du Fay, Hymbert de Salinis, Gilles Binchois, Benoit, frater pauperculus).
The second codicological unit (ff. 86r–196r) was copied, in the second half of the fifteenth century, by several hands, alternating texts (laude, exercises and rules for learning chant, norms for determining the liturgical calendar, and a vernacular commentary on the Regula beatissimi patris nostri Francisci) with anonymous musical compositions notated rather roughly and unevenly, not always precise from a mensural point of view. It gathers Gregorian melodies (antiphons, psalms) alongside hymns, sequences, proses, conductus, two Benedicamus Domino, and above all vernacular laude, predominantly for two voices.
Quoting Cattin: “the scribe’s eye, in both sections, is more often attentive to the notes than to the poetic text; the true value of the manuscript is therefore to be sought more in its musical richness and peculiarities than in literary qualities—save, of course, the documentary interest of certain unica.”
The programme presented here includes a selection of repertoire drawn from the first part of the codex which has proved particularly interesting for the many interpretative cues it offers performers—and equally, if not more so, for the performance issues it raises, for which definitive answers are difficult. What you will hear is the result of a true laboratory of experimentation, within which many possible performance solutions were considered, tested and assessed, in order to address the manifold open questions. The most delicate issue remains the fitting of text to the individual voices. The use of instruments, though not easily demonstrable—since we do not currently know which Franciscan community the codex belonged to—is, conversely, documented in other analogous, coeval contexts; one example is the community of Poor Clares gathered around St Catherine of Bologna (1413–1463), whose small vielle (vielletta) is still preserved in the Monastery of Corpus Domini in Bologna.
Programme (selection)
Guillaume Du Fay (1397–1474)
Ave Regina cælorum — motet (I-Vm, ff. 29v–30)
[Missa Resvelliés vous]
Kyrie / Salvator noster (I-Vm, ff. 1v–3)
Gloria (I-Vm, ff. 1–5v)
Credo (I-Vm, ff. 22v–25)
Sanctus (I-Vm, ff. 9v–11)
Agnus Dei (I-Vm, ff. 11v–12)
Anonymous
Madre che festi colui che te fece — lauda on a text by Leonardo Giustinian (I-Vm, f. 30v)
O Francisce pater pie — motet (I-Vm, ff. 36v–37)
Vergene madre pia — lauda (I-Vm, ff. 27v–28)
Misericordia altissimo Dio — lauda on a text by Bianco da Siena (I-Vm, f. 34v)
Sancta Maria Regina celorum — lauda (I-Vm, ff. 25v–27)
Gilles Binchois (c. 1400–1460)
Ut queant laxis — hymn (I-Vm, ff. 37v–38)
Anonymous
Ave Mater o Maria — lauda (I-Vm, ff. 28v–29)
Source
I-Vm: Venice, Biblioteca Marciana, MS It. IX, 145
Ensemble Antichi musici
Daniela Beltraminelli — voice, vielle
Martina Bomben — voice
Livia Caffagni — voice, recorders
Virginia Del Bianco — voice, portative organ, percussion
Angelica Maggio — voice
Mitsuki Minagawa — voice, portative organ
Sofia Paoli — voice
Tommaso Petracchi — voice, recorders
Cecilia Tamplenizza — voice
Matteo Zenatti — voice, harp
Kate Moore — vielle
Claudia Caffagni — voice, lute, citole, director
About the Ensemble
The Medieval Music Ensemble of the Civica Scuola di Musica “Claudio Abbado” in Milan is the result of a long-standing educational project led by Claudia Caffagni. The Ensemble brings together young musicians from different musical backgrounds and countries, united by an interest in medieval repertoire—capable of narrating an important part of our history and musical tradition, and still rich in areas to explore. The group has performed on numerous occasions at the Fondazione Ugo e Olga Levi onlus (Venice), at the Festival Grandezze & Meraviglie (Modena), in concerts organised with the Civic Museum of Musical Instruments at the Castello Sforzesco, in Milan Cathedral within Il Mese della Musica (under the patronage of the Archdiocese of Milan, Regione Lombardia and the Municipality of Milan), in several editions of MITO Settembre Musica, for Musica Antica in San Satiro (Società del Quartetto di Milano), and Cantar di pietre in Canton Ticino.
Claudia Caffagni began studying the lute with her father at the age of thirteen. She continued with Jacob Lindberg—earning her diploma from the Royal College of Music, London in 1989—and with Hopkinson Smith at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. She studied vocal technique with Elisabetta Tandura. In 1986 she co-founded the medieval music ensemble laReverdie, with which she has pursued an intense concert and recording activity (Arcana), both as lutenist and singer. In 1994 she graduated cum laude in Architecture from IUAV Venice. She was the featured artist of Amadeus magazine (October 2017 issue). Since 1998 she has regularly taught seminars and masterclasses in Italy and abroad as a specialist in medieval repertoire. She taught medieval lute and Notationskunde at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Trossingen (2008–2015). She is currently Coordinator of the Institute of Early Music at the Civica Scuola di Musica “C. Abbado” in Milan, where she is the principal teacher of the two-year Master in Chamber Music with a Medieval focus (the only one of its kind in Italy). Among her publications, see “La vocalità medievale: monodia e polifonia tra XI e XIV secolo,” in Voci e vocalità nella cultura occidentale, ed. Valentina Cofuorto and Cristina Miatello, Armando Editore, 2024, pp. 17–44.
