Review

Reviewed Work(s): Liber Primus Missarum, Vols. I & II by Frei Manuel Cardoso and Jos
Augusto Alegria
Review by: D. L.
Source: Music & Letters, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Jul., 1964), pp. 286-288
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/732495
Accessed: 24-08-2017 16:58 UTC

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 REVIEWS OF MUSIC
COLLECTED EDITIONS

Anthologie du Motet latin polyphonique en France (I6o9-

Launay. 'Publications de la Societe Franqaise de
serie, Tome XVII. (Heugel, Paris, 1963.)
This anthology is a most welcome and valuable
musical knowledge and experience of early seventeen
church music, presenting as it does some excellent m
hardly known even by name to many English mus
Mauduit, Bouzignac, du Mont and Moulinie, to name the
The title is not entirely accurate: besides motets the
nificats, a Te Deum and a Pater Noster-nor is all the
The music (34 pieces in all) varies in texture from four
pella, and there are some strikingly Italianate pieces for
to six-part chorus) and organ continuo, some with v
edition is beautifully presented, well edited and replete
introduction, discussion of sources and methods of
critical notes on each piece. It is altogether a mode
edition should be. One problem remains: how to pro
of any given motet for performance? There must be m
who, like myself, are keen to perform this music: the e
similar cases) prove prohibitive in a choir budget pe
loaded: is it too much to hope that one day soon pu
editions of every kind will be able and willing to supply
of specific works so that the music will not for eve
gather dust on library shelves? D. L.

Cardoso, Frei Manuel, Liber Primus Missarum, ed. byJose

Vols. I & II. 'Portugaliae Musica', Serie A. (Fund
Gulbenkian, Lisbon, I962.)
These two handsomely produced volumes form Volu
'Portugaliae Musica', the notable series of modern editi
Portuguese masters (or foreigners in the service of Portug
sixteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century" p
initiative of the Gulbenkian Foundation. The editor is
chapter of Evora Cathedral, where Cardoso was first c
student of theology. The music, first published in 162
antiphons (in four parts), seven Masses (two in six parts,
two in four parts), two motets (in six parts, not five a
p. xi) and a response (in four parts). In addition to the
short preface, a biographical profile of the composer and a
of the original edition and its contents, all thoughtfu
stodgily) translated into English, together with a few
original edition. The music is presented either at its
286

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REVIEWS OF MUSIC 287

transposed down a fourth (according to the original clefs) and with

original note-values: modern clefs are employed throughout. Prefatory
staves before each piece indicate exactly the original lay-out. Both volumes
are beautifully printed: those errors which have eluded the eagle eye of
proof-readers are few and easily rectified (e.g. Vol. I, p. 7, bar 6o: the
middle C in the alto part must surely be a D; a dot is missing on p. I I, bar
59, beat I in Tenor II).
Editorial information on corrections necessary in the text is minimal,
possibly accounted for by the unusually accurate original edition supervised
by Cardoso himself. Some of the ideas advanced in the introductory
section seem either partisan or superficial, especially when the Council of
Trent or the place of Portugal in musical history is under discussion. But
the biographical profile is interesting and useful. Born in 1566, Cardoso
trained as a musician and priest at Evora and eventually became master of
the choir at the Monastery of Mount Carmel in Lisbon, where he remained
for the rest of his long life (he died in I650), making at least one trip to
Madrid just before his third Mass was published, dedicated to Philip IV
of Spain (1634). Much of his other work seems to have been produced
with the encouragement of the Duke ofBraganza. 'Liber Primus Missarum'
is "a beautiful lectern tome which was brought out by the royally appointed
printer Pieter van Craesbeeck, in I625" (not 1652 as stated in Vol. I,
p. xxviii). There are two copies of the original edition extant at Evora, but
no manuscripts have survived.
The music itself is Palestrinian in style and feeling, and consequently
old-fashioned in its time (one cannot help thinking of Cardoso's contem-
porary Tomkins in this respect). Italian influence is particularly marked
in the flowing melodic lines, the easy rhythms and the simple, sonorous
harmonies. There is not, however, Palestrina's skill in achieving varieties
of texture and scoring. On the other hand, dissonance treatment is
sometimes freer, and chromaticism (though still rare) is used effectively in
places. There is none of the rhythmic impulse and vitality of Byrd, and at
first glance little of the inward glow of the Spanish school-but it must be
admitted frankly that this degree of sophistication in appraisal can be
honestly reached only after prolonged experience of the music as living
sound in its proper liturgical and architectural setting. Cardoso's con-
trapuntal skill is displayed in some ingenious canons, notably those in
Agnus Dei II of the Mass 'Tradent enim vos' (Vol. I, p. 8o), where only
four parts out of six are given but the clue 'Qui sequitur me via recta non
ambulat in tenebris' reveals eventually that the tenor is in canon at the
fourth below and in inversion with the superius I at one bar's distance,
while the altus I is in canon at the fifth below the superius I, beginning at
nine bars' distance.
The first Mass, 'Miserere mihi Domine' (a 6), is presented twice
first as in the original and secondly necessarily adapted for modern
liturgical performance; because it is written in cantus firmus rigidus (i.e.
with first superius I and later other voices singing the words and music of
the antiphon from Compline in breves throughout each movement of the
Mass), it would today be proscribed by the Church without the essentia
literary, and consequently rhythmic, alterations (see Vol. II, p. xi for
full discussion of the very sensible and musical approach to this adaptation

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288 MUSIC AND LETTERS

and
and the
the reasons
reasonsnecessitating
necessitatingit).it).
ToTo
sum
sum
up,up,
thisthis
is a is
very
a very
valuable
valuable
and and
musically
musically worthwhile
worthwhileventure
ventureand
and
all all
concerned
concerned
in its
in production
its production
are to
are
beto be
congratulated.
congratulated.May
MayI Ionce
onceagain
again
append
append
mymy
usual
usual
pleaplea
for for
publishing
publishing
off-prints
off-printsof
ofsome
someofofthis
this
music?
music?
Many
Manychoirs
choirs
would
would
wishwish
to perform
to perform
it, it,
but
but few
few could
couldafford
affordtotoequip
equip
themselves
themselves
with
with
a set
a set
of copies
of copies
of these
of these
two two
volumes. D. L.

Handel, Georg
Walther Sieg
Oratorios and
London, 1963
Even the mos
endorse the en
Choice of Herc
Alterswerke,
entzuckenden H
This is not to
borrowed from
that were fasc
merely charm
when it is prese
Pleasure, Virtu
by the scene f
only fair to say
the new words
that voice and
Handel himself
brisk sparkling
aria adapted fro
The editor seem
help with the
hardly be inte
continuo is ofte
B[ in bar 54 of
might do wors
did when it wa
'The Choice of
effectively p

Morago, Esteva
by Manuel J
Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, i96I.)
Estevao Lopes Morago, choirmaster at the cathedral of Viseu in
northern Portugal from I599 to I628, was one of the younger generation
of Portuguese polyphonists in the tradition of Manuel Mendes, Duarte
Lobo, Filipe de Magalhaes and Manuel Cardoso, a tradition fostered in
its later years by King John IV, himself a composer of no mean achieve-
ments. Little was known of Morago or his music until Manuel Joaquim
published the first fruits of his research in the I940's. This volume,

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