Jacob Handl—
Opus Musicum III

This year’s May concert is again a polychoral, “surround-sound” affair created specifically for the acoustical space of Trinity Church. Audience members who came to last year’s Tallis feat will recognize the sound presentation that physically fills the body through the ears, while those who haven’t are in for an amazing experience.

Our program consists solely of works by the great Jacobus Gallus (Jacob Handl 1550–1591), a Catholic Slovenian composer and Cistercian monk who lived most of his life in Austria and Bohemia. His birth name was probably Petelin (“rooster”), which in German translates to Handl (“little rooster”) and which he eventually Latinized to Gallus. It is under the latter name that he was most commonly known.

According to various sources, Gallus was in Austria from the mid-1560s until 1575, and then spent a few years traveling around Bohemia and surrounding regions. We know from the dedications on his works that he spent much of this time living and working in monasteries. At 30, he landed his first important position as choirmaster to the Bishop of Olomouc, Stanislaus Pavlovsky, whose election to bishop Gallus celebrated with a famous seven-part hymn. Gallus didn't stay long in Olomouc, and by 1686 he was in Prague, serving as Kantor in St. Jan Church. He died in Prague at the early age of 41, leaving an astonishing series of over 500 works.

Most of Gallus’s works are settings of sacred Latin texts: four volumes of masses from four to eight parts published in Prague in 1580, plus four parody masses (for a total of 20 masses); hundreds of motets, some of which are in the four-volume series Opus musicum, published in Prague in 1586–90; and a few secular works. The secular output includes a set of three volumes called Harmoniae morales (Prague, 1589–90), a monumental collection of 100 works called Moralia (from the content of many works, didactic and moralizing), and a few other works in German and Latin.

The Opus musicum is perhaps Gallus’s greatest collection in its almost encyclopedic scope. The first three volumes include motets for the Proper of the Time. The Proper is the part of the liturgy that changes every day according to the particular church festivity, as opposed to the Ordinary, which does not change from day to day and includes the parts of the Mass many of us are familiar with: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. Writing polyphony for the Proper was something that composers did less often than writing a mass, and for good reason, since a mass had the potential of being performed any day, whereas a piece for one specific day had only one chance a year of performance. Nevertheless, this did not deter Gallus, who collected 374 works for the Proper in his Opus musicum. Volume Three of the collection includes works for the Resurrection & Ascension Cycle of the Proper and is the most represented in today’s concert. The fourth volume contains music for Marian feasts and for the Proper and Common (i.e., Ordinary) of Saints. The pieces range in texture from four to 24 voices.

Gallus’s style occasionally reminds us of the Netherlandish masters. His works often display a chromaticism that was unheard of, seemingly foreshadowing the passage from modal to tonal languages. Some passages are so chromatic and contain so much word painting in the madrigalesque style that they almost sound like a composition by Gesualdo da Venosa, the Italian prince-composer. Gallus’s polychoral works show a Venetian imprint, inspired by the style of Willaert and Lassus. Therefore, his music is as multifaceted as was possible at the time, with both innovative chromatic and Italianate gestures, as well as Netherlandish traits. His contemporaries generally held him in high esteem, though he felt some were uncomfortable enough with his polychoral idiom that he defended it in the third volume of Opus musicum.

The works on today’s program are chosen not only because they make coherent sense as a group, but also because they are enhanced by the particularly felicitous acoustics of this venue. Most have never been heard in modern times. Many are from Opus musicum III, but some are from the other volumes, and two of the pieces are four-part secular songs from the collection Harmonae morales.

Stetit Jesus in medio discipulorum is a four-part motet (Latin sacred piece) in the tradition of the Renaissance masters. It includes both imitative sections (with all parts entering at different times with similar melodies) and homophonic sections (chordal, hymn-like), especially for significant words such as “pax vobis” (peace to you) which is repeated thrice, in long notes. Each of the verses concludes with a rousing alleluia.

The six-part Christus surrexit is almost a compendium of available techniques. Gallus uses the six voices in imitative textures, as two three-part choirs, at times excluding two of the parts (as in the central section), and includes for good measure a cantus firmus—a prominent quotation of the “Christus surrexit” (Jesus Christ has risen) hymn tune, the ancient Latin hymn famously reworked by Luther as “Christ lag in Todesbanden.”

The Pater noster (SSAA TTBB) is certainly one of Gallus’s best-known pieces. Notice the beautifully woven final eight-part “amen” and the particular sound created by dividing the voices into a treble choir and lower choir. Exsultate justi has the same choir subdivision as “Pater noster.” The text deals in part with musical elements (singing and instruments), and Gallus portrays each individually. For example, at the word “cantate” (sing) each of the parts “sings” by embellishing the line.

Haec est dies (TTBB TTBB) is unusual in its low texture. Like most of the motets on this program, it is divided into sections, often switching from a duple meter to a lilting triple meter. The two choirs alternate in the Venetian style, trading groups of chords back and forth.

Quo mihi crude dolor (SATB SATB) is an echo piece. The echo was a typical topos (technique) for Baroque musicians, both literally (where the echo group sings the same music as the main group but offset by a certain number of beats) but much more often as a means of introducing another semantic layer. In this piece, the main choral group represents Mary Magdalene, lamenting her loss, while the echo group represents Jesus’s answers from the tomb. However, the echo group sings only a small part of the main group’s final phrase when responding to Mary (singing “amor”—love to Mary’s “clamor”—cry, noise, and singing “resiste”—stand still to “sed ubi tu Christe?”—but where are you Christ?). The most remarkable element is that Mary always responds to Jesus’ new suggested meaning, and thus it becomes a dialogue rather than a monologue.

The Alleluia: In resurrectione tua Christe (SATB SATB) is a shorter piece in the same style as “Haec est dies” but with some interesting twists. In the 16th century, there was an expression, musica reservata, which had a few different meanings. The most widely accepted meaning referred to an enhanced expression of the text in music. One such instance in this motet occurs on the words “in resurrectione tua Christe” (for your resurrection, Christ). The words (sung by the top choir) are set to a dramatically ascending line, going up an entire octave in SAT, and a twelfth in the B, thus sonically and visually representing the ascent. Adoramus te has the same texture and voicing as the previous piece, though it is a more conservative, ancient-sounding, intimate piece.

Three of the motets are for three standard four-part choirs (SATB SATB SATB). In Alleluia: Cantate Domino each verse receives a different treatment and is sandwiched between two “alleluia” statements. In this piece, you will hear alternating choirs responding to each other; sections of varying rhythms, moods, texture, and meter; and the rich 12-part sound. We also hear a favorite device of Gallus’s—displacing the downbeat (the strongest first note of each bar) to another place in the bar, so that even within one section with the same meter variety can be created. For example, at “et exsultate et psallite” the strong note is on beat four, or in the last alleluia the three choirs all sing in what we hear as triplets though the alternation of the choirs creates a duple meter. Impetum inimicorum is a more subdued and introspective piece, again using the choirs in alternation but without concluding alleluia. The first half of the piece is in duple meter, and the second half, which includes a beautifully rich 12-part double invocation, is in triple meter. Filiae Jerusalem is similar to “Alleluia: Cantate Domino” in the alternation of verses and alleluia, though each new statement “walks up the texture,” since it is first heard in choir 3, then choir 2, then choir 1, rather than the more usual reverse order.

Domine Deus, exaudi is a 16-part piece, but it is highly unusual in that each four-part choir, treated as a unit and pitted against the others, includes four homologous parts: SSSS AAAA TTTT BBBB. Gallus thus capitalizes on the homogeneity of sound but also writes stunning moments of 16-part harmony. Another example of textually motivated musical choices occurs in this piece, where the first time all voices sing together is at the word “Omnium” (all) and the second at “clamantes” (making noise, crying out). Otherwise, most of the words “trickle” their way through the four choirs, from the soprano choir to the bass choir. The other 16-part piece, one of the two Laudate Dominum on the program, is for two eight-part SSAATTBB choirs. Each of the rapid-fire exchanges (especially on “Laudate”) acquires great drama and impact. The piece starts in duple meter and then switches to the lilting and more “perfect” triple meter.

The 24-part Laudate Dominum pits four six-part choirs against each other. This is one of those true Venetian-style polychoral pieces, with unusually big (six-part) blocks of sound overlapping, colliding, collaborating, and otherwise interacting, with the occasional 24-part utterance. Again we find the alternation of duple and triple meter, and the attention to words. For example, the first time the entire ensemble is heard is at the words “secundum multitudinem” (according to the multitude or crowd). With this number of voice parts, the texture is necessarily chordal, and the beauty of the piece is found in the remarkable and ever-varying juxtaposition of chords and sounds. Variety is also given by the different color of the choirs. Even though there are six of each voice part, the choirs are necessarily different: SSAATB and SSAATB (both treble-heavy), and SAATBB and SATTBB (both bass-heavy but different). Thus, even when a similar phrase passes from one choir to the next the effect is different.

The two secular pieces on the program are of a very different order. First of all, they are for reduced forces; they are pieces of chamber music not intended to be sung in public places. Secondly, even though they are in Latin, they exhibit some of the characteristics of secular works in the vernacular, such as the French chanson or the Italian madrigal. In particular, they reveal a lighter tone and instances of word painting or onomatopoeic sounds, such as the hilarious clucking of the hen. This latter piece, Quam gallina, is a comic response of the author to his critics, who objected to the “heaviness” of his polychoral pieces. In the piece, the hen (“gallina”—a pun on Gallus) clucks happily before and after laying “a heavy burden.” Interestingly, the next piece is about a rooster (Gallus) crowing happily before and after “conducting business” with a hen!

Today’s program shows the great master’s various compositional facets, from the witty, if moralizing, secular pieces to the majestic 24-part motet; from the old-fashioned four-part imitative motets to the forward looking Venetian-style polychoral pieces; from the standard SATB texture (and its “multiples”) to choirs composed of the same voice part or to multiple six-part choirs. The result is a staggering variety of expressive possibilities and their correspondingly astonishing realizations.